Blade Runner

Movie, 1982, dir. Ridley Scott

Now, I'm all about some dystopia (loved Hunger Games! must review...), but to my lovely fiance's chagrin I don't always like "dark" movies.  This one may have crossed into that territory for me a little bit.  Let me explain.

First of all, I was sort of hoping that there would be, like, ice skates or at least roller blades involved in this movie.  Perhaps more like Rollerball, which I didn't see, but judging by its 2.8 stars on IMDb, looks to be just a fun romp.  Once I realized that the title Blade Runner was just a seemingly somewhat arbitrary name for the profession of the main character, Deckard, I got over the ice skates thing, but never ceased to be a little disenchanted.

Main idea: Deckard hunts down fancypants robots that look just like humans and have escaped from their slave colony or something.  This does lead to some cool scenes, like interviews where the blade runner people try to tell if they're interviewing people or robots (they call them "replicants"), and chase scenes through the thoroughly depressing-looking future LA.

It also leads to some ridiculous noir detective-type voiceovers and, as a product of its time, horrible synthesizer music to emphasize how dark and lonely the crowded future can be.  Those elements aside, I can see why a lot of people really think this movie is edgy and genre-defining and generally just cool sci-fi.  In the end, it's just too...dark for my taste.  Also, I did not care for Harrison Ford (Deckard) at all.  Guy seems like he is reading his lines off cue cards and hasn't decided what inflection to put in them yet.

The Gravedigger's Daughter

Novel, by Joyce Carol Oates, 2007

I am an Oates fan, although her prose can be meandering and dense.  Oates is big on characters, not so big on plot, which is something you just have to appreciate going in.  If you're not into that kind of book, just stop reading now and know it's not your thing.

For those interested in character studies, I thought this one was pretty excellent.  The opening scene is something of a chase scene, but the impeccable first person narration follows Rebecca's frantic thoughts to convey the urgency of the scene and take care of a great deal of exposition at the same time.  The story then backtracks, though, to Rebecca's youth.  I found this early section of the novel to be somewhat tedious, because I kept wanting to get back to the time the novel started with; I was interested to read in the "P.S." interview at the end of the book that these early scenes were Oates's personal favorites.  Perhaps this blinded her to the fact that they were kind of boring.  Anyway, we follow Rebecca's entire young adult life, adding incredibly vivid characters to her surroundings and ending with a strong enough sense of closure to appease those looking for some idea of plot.

The book is perhaps about the Holocaust, and perhaps about American in the 50's through 70's, and perhaps about upstate New York (as most of her books are, in some way or another), but mostly about creating a fully realized life for an excellent female character.  More, please.

The back of the book recommends other Oates novels--she has written approximately 1,000,000--among which I would most like to try: The Falls (2004), Blonde (2000), and Black Water (1992)