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last week i revisited my youth
Oct. 16th, 2017 10:42 ami watched Blade Runner many, many times on home video when i was inappropriately young. i'm the sort of person who is charmed when a newspaper gives politicians the Voight-Kampff test.* every time a walk sign makes an assistive noise, i internally chant "walk now walk now walk now".
the film led me to Phillip K. Dick's writing and a lifelong interest in a certain sort of fiction. it was my first introduction to climate change, to street noodles, to the idea of English-speaking white people as a minority culture, to flying cars, to mass extinction. i don't know if it blew my mind (because i wasn't formed enough) but it certainly made a lasting impression. i have lost count of the number of times i've seen it. my mental model of the film has the narration purely due to repetition, though i've seen the recuts most recently.
i was afraid of the new movie, but my woobies at Empire gave it five stars, and it was at the Bay, so on Monday i watched Blade Runner 2049.
it was good, really good. i don't want to say too much because i am so proud of the marketing avoiding spoilers, even though they would have attracted my attention.
bits of advice:
Wednesday was the SIFF members' meeting (AKA cheapest pass day) and a showing of I, Tonya. the Winter Olympics, and figure skating in particular, was something i followed avidly at the time (still do, but i don't watch as much television as i used to). it's interesting to have lived long enough to have movies made about events that i remember clearly. i have flashbulb memories of watching the 94 Olympics because i was in tour choir that year, so i was spending my February weekends doing run-outs to churches in the Mid-Atlantic and staying in host family homes watching on their television with other chorus kids.
the movie is good. it's a bit surreal at times, with occasional 4th wall breaks, and is darkly funny. what makes it all work is that the real story is so ridiculous. i do recommend seeing it, and then following up with the The Price of Gold, which includes the footage that is the source for much of the content of the film.
Margot Robbie disappears nicely into the role of Tonya. Sebastian Stan is nearly unrecognizable** as Jeff Gillooly. and Alison Janney is deliciously awful as Harding's mother. it was disconcerting for me, seeing these things i remember being recreated - the homemade costumes, Kerrigan screaming in pain, the restart at the Olympics.
*it's also a joke in the stage version of 21 Dog Years and my loud reaction embarrassed my seatmate to no end. in retrospect, that should have told me something i needed to know.
**Stan as Gillooly looks a lot like an ex. awk-ward.
the film led me to Phillip K. Dick's writing and a lifelong interest in a certain sort of fiction. it was my first introduction to climate change, to street noodles, to the idea of English-speaking white people as a minority culture, to flying cars, to mass extinction. i don't know if it blew my mind (because i wasn't formed enough) but it certainly made a lasting impression. i have lost count of the number of times i've seen it. my mental model of the film has the narration purely due to repetition, though i've seen the recuts most recently.
i was afraid of the new movie, but my woobies at Empire gave it five stars, and it was at the Bay, so on Monday i watched Blade Runner 2049.
it was good, really good. i don't want to say too much because i am so proud of the marketing avoiding spoilers, even though they would have attracted my attention.
bits of advice:
- listen to the dialogue. there isn't much of it and a lot of it is significant.
- there is violence against women. be prepared. i found some of it hard to take.
- it's just as slow and arty as the first movie.
Wednesday was the SIFF members' meeting (AKA cheapest pass day) and a showing of I, Tonya. the Winter Olympics, and figure skating in particular, was something i followed avidly at the time (still do, but i don't watch as much television as i used to). it's interesting to have lived long enough to have movies made about events that i remember clearly. i have flashbulb memories of watching the 94 Olympics because i was in tour choir that year, so i was spending my February weekends doing run-outs to churches in the Mid-Atlantic and staying in host family homes watching on their television with other chorus kids.
the movie is good. it's a bit surreal at times, with occasional 4th wall breaks, and is darkly funny. what makes it all work is that the real story is so ridiculous. i do recommend seeing it, and then following up with the The Price of Gold, which includes the footage that is the source for much of the content of the film.
Margot Robbie disappears nicely into the role of Tonya. Sebastian Stan is nearly unrecognizable** as Jeff Gillooly. and Alison Janney is deliciously awful as Harding's mother. it was disconcerting for me, seeing these things i remember being recreated - the homemade costumes, Kerrigan screaming in pain, the restart at the Olympics.
*it's also a joke in the stage version of 21 Dog Years and my loud reaction embarrassed my seatmate to no end. in retrospect, that should have told me something i needed to know.
**Stan as Gillooly looks a lot like an ex. awk-ward.
