[log in to unmask] writes: >please send opinion about Total Recall. Any comments -positives and negatives >about that film will be welcome. I've taught _Total Recall_ in a course on Gothic and Cyberpunk -- in which context I think it worked well. Purists may complain that it is unfaithful to the original short story, and it _does_ have its moments of truly mindless violence (Arnie using dead bodies as shields against machine-gun fire as he ascends an escalator, for example). I also am very critical of the casting of an African- American actor as the cabbie who turns out to be a traitor -- it's a but of semi-conscious racism unworthy of the balance of the film. All this said, as a story which tries to take seriously the idea of a virtual experience, and the difficulty (impossibility?) of dis- tinguishing between very good "virtual" reality and "reality" reality, it is a great film, far more intriguing than efforts such as _Lawnmower Man_. We saw the film as we read Gibson's _Neuromancer_, and the interplay between the two was excellent, and led to good seminar discussion [if you're interested, I could zap you the syllabus, which includes critical essays, fiction, and films]. --Russell A. Potter --English Department --Colby College