Blade Runner

Do the rows and rows of new CD-ROM games have you completely flabbergasted? Maybe the sight of a familiar movie character would put you at ease when plunking down your hard-earned cash. Though film studios and game companies have rarely churned out much more than shallow shovelware, this holiday season shows a renewed effort to make movie-based games that include plot, acting and some decent gameplay.

Just as it has for decades since the first For Sale sign went up on a tiny front lawn, the San Fernando Valley in the 21st century will continue to be a way station for the middle class. But it may be a dwindling middle class that lacks sufficient skills and education for high paying jobs, and a middle class dominated by recent immigrants as upwardly mobile families of all races move out.

This year's edition of the Tour of World Figure Skating Champions, which comes Friday to the Pond of Anaheim, will feature the same elements as previous presentations: state-of-the-art lighting and sound systems and about 30 of the sport's most illustrious soloists, pair teams and dance duos.

"The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" and "Blade Runner" are among the top double features at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Standards Screening Series this month. They will be shown tonight at 7:30 p.m. in the Samuel Goldwyn Theater. Tickets are $5 for general admission and $3 for academy members. Doors will open at 6:30 p.m. The Academy Gallery will be opened from 5-7:30 p.m. and after screenings. Normal viewing hours for the academy's current exhibition are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Los Angeles, 2021. The atmosphere is scoured raw by the merciless Santa Ana winds. Fires flare as subterranean gases rise from the city streets and ignite. Relief comes in the occasional monsoons, which temporarily shield inhabitants from the blistering sun. At night, multilingual neon glares senselessly from both vertical and horizontal buildings. Earthquakes are less of a concern now that the taller buildings lie in crooked angles on their sides, casualties of past seismic activity.

Tuesday that it has obtained the rights to publish a video game based on the cyber-classic film, "Blade Runner." The CD-ROM game due out next year will allow players to battle killer androids just as Harrison Ford does in the 1982 Warner Bros. film, in which he plays a lone bounty hunter pitted against a rogue band of killer androids in a world tyrannized by high-tech corporations.

The launch of a Sunday Film Series at the Ventura Theatre this week marks the return of Hollywood feature films there for the first time in 15 years. "We (have had) movies here," said Betty Elder, publicist for the theater. "Ski movies and surf movies, but as far as feature films, it's been some time." The series starts with Ridley Scott's "Blade Runner." And it's not just any "Blade Runner," either.