Take Me To Your Reader

TMTYR Episode #22: No Penalties, No Time Limit, No Award (Rollerball)

Play Episode Pause Episode

Mute/Unmute Episode Rewind 10 Seconds 1x Fast Forward 30 seconds

00:00 / 1:00:18

RSS Feed

Share

Link

Embed

In Episode #22, the Pavement Pounders take up Michael Simshauser’s suggestion of the 1975 dystopian sports movie Rollerball, based on the William Harrison short story “Rollerball Murder,” and also give some due condemnation to the 2002 abomination of a remake. 

It’s two hours of movie from 70 minutes of material!  With bonus amazing classical music thrown in!  Weird night vision panned!  Extra violence requested!

Pounder Rankings!: 

Seth/James:

• Rollerball (1975)
• “Rollerball Murder”
• Rollerball (2002), a distant third

Colin:

• No penalties, no time limit, and no award.  Colin has abstained from the vote.

Notes:

• Thanks again to Michael (@remotesimmie) for the suggestion!
• ISFDB entry for Rollerball Murder: http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?97590
• Audio drama of the story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fd4cqK9Y2uo
• PDF of the story: http://instruct.uwo.ca/kinesiology/378/files/essays/roller.pdf
• Tribute to William Harrison: http://www.avclub.com/article/rip-william-harrison-writer-of-emrollerballem-104651
• Rules of RBM: http://japenet.net/the_rules_of_rbm.html
• Evolution of Rollerball: http://japenet.net/evolution_of_rollerball.html
• Reviews and podcasts about the story:
  • http://thescififilmschool.blogspot.com/2012/01/sci-fi-film-school-19-rollerball.html
  • http://thiskevin.blogspot.com/2011/02/kevin-geeks-out-about-rollerball.html
  • https://stillfinditsohard.wordpress.com/2012/04/23/murdering-the-classics-a-look-back-in-anger-at-rollerball/
• Evil Overlord Rules:  http://www.eviloverlord.com/lists/overlord.html
• Rotten Tomatoes Worst of 2000-2009: http://www.listal.com/list/rotten-tomatoes-worst-worst
• The Sports Guy review of the remake: http://proxy.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/020214
• Cracked article about bad remakes: http://www.cracked.com/article_17141_6-movie-remakes-that-missed-point.html
• Albinoni’s Adagio in G Minor:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuh3WyfVL2M