Rollerball (1975)

“Stop me if this seems familiar: The year is 2018 (from a 1970s perspective, of course) and corporations have replaced governments on a global scale. Rollerball is a global spectator sport, part roller derby, part basketball or hockey, and all mayhem. In the movie, stereotypes abound. Houston, the reigning champion, represents "energy" (Enron, anyone?) and their team is populated with bare-fisted, Texas manly-men. The team (and supporters) from Tokyo, display a single-minded, unified front so typical of the Japanese society at-large. And so on. At the center of all of this is Jonathan E - hero and global star of the Houston team. But, as John Houseman's character Bartholomew coldly states, the game is designed to weed out the individual and promote existence for the good of the corporations” read more

Movies I Watched in May 2021 (33 movies items)

" Date: 5/26/2021 Viewed: Blu-Ray Re-Watch Note: It's been a while since I have seen the original Rollerball movie and I just picked up the Blu-Ray from Scorpion Releasing on Rolin Flix last week. The original Rollerball movie is still a solid film in my opinion. I always love the futurism in many older sci-fi movies because there's a cool aesthetic to it. Rollerball is set in the year 2018 and you get cool surrealistic imagery to it. It's fun to see what people thought the 21st century was go"

Rollerball

“The nation state as we know it has fallen and there is only the mega-corporation that controls everything from entertainment to the political sphere. No, I’m not providing a generalized summary of Ned Beatty’s blistering monologue in Network, although the 70s had an eerily prescient vision of where America was heading even if it was often through a parodic filter. I’m talking about Norman Jewison’s entry into the jaundiced, dystopic 70s sci-fi, Rollerball.   Less of a well plotted narrative than a film that is largely premise and tone, Rollerball envisions an America in the grips of corporate takeover and lulled by a bloodthirsty sport. Rollerball, the sport, is somewhere between American football, roller-derby, and hockey, and James Caan (it doesn’t matter what his character�” read more

RS: 50 Best Sci-Fi Movies of the 1970s (50 movies items)

"Norman Jewison’s extreme-sports future shock bundles together a paranoid political thriller, a McLuhan-drunk media satire, ultraviolent exploitation, reverent respect for faddish athletic pursuits and enough zoom shots to make Robert Altman blush. You also get James Caan as the greatest competitor in the history of rollerball — a wildly popular bloodsport that combines roller derby, motorcross, football and boxing. In this fucked-up future, corporate rule has toppled the nation state, leadin"

Movies Watched in 2020 (310 movies items)

"January 16th Directed by: Norman Jewison Criterion Channel."

What to know about ROLLERBALL (10 movies items)

"What is : Rollerball is a planetarian league, where corporate cities own a team, the team cities depicted are Tokyo, Madrid, Rome, Paris, New York and obviously Houston, where Janathan E., the greatest player of ever still lead the team to another Championship. We know that Pittsburgh also has a team...imagine ! But I don't think they are about steel... Weird...London NO team...Berlin NO team... Roma...probably the Corporation of FOOD... And another town 300km south of Boston... Th"

Watched in 2019 (112 movies items)

" Watched: 07/10/2019 Rating: 6.5 Format: Hulu "