{"id":80815,"date":"2015-10-26T01:00:18","date_gmt":"2015-10-26T01:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/?p=80815"},"modified":"2015-10-26T08:23:58","modified_gmt":"2015-10-26T08:23:58","slug":"seconds-blu-ray-review-still-the-classic-it-was","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/reviews\/seconds-blu-ray-review-still-the-classic-it-was\/","title":{"rendered":"Seconds Blu-ray review: still a classic?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Approaching old age <\/span><span class=\"s2\">and feeling disillusioned with his life, a man is given the chance to start afresh again \u2013 just as long as he severs all ties with his past life.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s2\">Sound familiar? It should, as a lot of films have clearly drawn a lot of inspiration from it. From <em><strong>Face\/Off<\/strong><\/em> to <em><strong>Self\/Less<\/strong><\/em>, <em><strong>Seconds<\/strong><\/em>\u2019 fingerprints are everywhere, yet it doesn\u2019t always get the credit it deserves. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s2\">While other <\/span><span class=\"s2\">films focus almost entirely on the hedonistic possibilities that eternal life entails, <em><strong>Seconds<\/strong><\/em> never forgets its origins.\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"line-height: 1.5;\">From the get-go, it is a horror movie, detailing science\u2019s worst excesses when it focuses on whether it can do something over whether it should do something, to the detriment of everything else.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s2\">The film\u2019s protagonist, Arthur Hamilton (John Randolph)\u2019s journey comes full circle \u2013 he thinks he\u2019s prolonging his life, only to realise he\u2019s swapping one frying pan from the other. His life in the body of a younger man (Rock Hudson) starts off in truly horrifying fashion: unable to speak, strapped up in a chair and covered in bandages in true Cronenberg fashion. By the end of the film, he\u2019s in almost the same situation, the gut-punching ending having lost none of its power 50 years on.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s2\">Director John Frankenheimer is best known for character-driven tales of intrigue like <em><strong>The Manchurian Candidate<\/strong><\/em> and <em><strong>Birdman Of Alcatraz<\/strong><\/em>, and <em><strong>Seconds<\/strong><\/em> proves to be the perfect fit for him, and Hudson the perfect actor. The director never stints in showing the ripple effect of Hamilton\u2019s actions, all evocatively captured in an expressionistic, dream-like style that calls into question even the most straightforward of exchanges. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s2\">Similarly, Hudson is perfect, utterly convincing as a man revelling in his newfound youth while similarly at odds with what it all means, not coming to his senses until it\u2019s too late.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s2\">It\u2019s likely that when <em><strong>Seconds<\/strong><\/em> was made, the future they envisioned was one they had expected us to have reached by now. We\u2019re not quite there yet, but it doesn\u2019t seem all that unfeasible in an age where the few own the majority. When a film has such timeless relevance, you\u2019d do well to listen.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rock Hudson stars in John Frankenheimer&#8217;s sci-fi chiller Seconds<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":80817,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"quote","meta":{"MSN_Categories":"Uncategorized","MSN_Publish_Option":false,"MSN_Is_Local_News":false,"MSN_Is_AIAC_Included":"Empty","MSN_Location":"[]","MSN_Add_Feature_Img_On_Top_Of_Post":false,"MSN_Has_Custom_Author":false,"MSN_Custom_Author":"","MSN_Has_Custom_Canonical_Url":false,"MSN_Custom_Canonical_Url":""},"categories":[2617,8],"tags":[4800],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/Seconds-Rock-Hudson.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80815"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80815"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80815\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}