Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Happy President's Day

a) I promised I would post some pictures of my room. A long time ago. I kept waiting till it was cleaned up and all sunlit, but that happens like once every two months. So. Messy. Dark. Kind of yellow because my light fixture is a little yellow too. So cute.


Bed, unmade.



Vaulted ceiling, or whatever (so light and airy).



The style nook.



Closet (color-coded) and curtains.



My wall of books. Heart.



b) I have a challenge for you, dear readers: defend Bladerunner. I saw it this weekend and was under the impression that it was some sort of classic. Like in a good way. What I saw: too-ambitious (disorienting) special effects. Lots of unaccountable weirdness. Lots of unaccountable references to Christ. An entirely unaccountable dove. What? Campy, yes. I can imagine a sort of "that's soo crazy" love for this film, but so far, its place in the canon seems entirely unjustified.




c) Sometimes Valentine's Day is fun.


4 comments:

Kelsy said...

I didn't even get through Bladerunner, so I have no idea what it's dead is.

Kjerstin Evans Ballard said...

Bother. I was hoping you could weigh in on this one Kelsy. Crazy, right?

Jen said...

Oh, ke, we should talk. Hoping you at least saw the director's cut and not the theatrical release version... Notes, in no particular order:

At the time (and I'm highly cognizant right now of the fact that this probably came out the year you were *born*), special effects were cutting edge – Shawscope, etc – for most Americans, first introduction to the groundbreaking work being done in Hong Kong cinema – influence on later films and filmmakers is HUGE

Juxtaposition – film noir/futuristic sci-fi… godhood/death… real/false (memories)… strength/weakness…

Consequences of attaining godhood – feared by those who created them; they experience things their creators could never dream of, but are left lonely and craving the fullness and richness of a “normal” human life

Nature of memories and the past – ownership of same? Are memories any less valid if they’re inspired by someone else’s experiences, especially if you don’t know they’re not really “yours”? How “real” are memories, anyway? Can we ever really trust that our memories are telling us the “truth” of what “really” happened?

David Grover said...

Just wait a few days (or, if impatient, listen to Pink Floyd's A Momentary Lapse of Reason, which is a better soundtrack to the movie than Vangelis'). All of a sudden you'll want to see Blade Runner again, though you won't know why. Something about the world it creates, something akin to the way it takes a few days to extricate yourself from Hogwarts. Something about how it doesn't really make much sense, about how you can't really remember.