We just finished our third week of the exercise challenge this last weekend, and here is the score:
Week 1: Tie
Week 2: Bryan wins
Week 3: Tie
I have a 2-1 advantage so far on Week 4 -- we'll see if it lasts. At the risk of sounding like a sore loser, I have to share a discovery I have made. Bryan has a distinct advantage that makes it easier for him to win: he's male. Allow me to explain. The time required for Bryan to get a 30-minute workout, shower, get ready, and be ready to face the world is about 35 minutes. The time required for Chelsey to do the same thing is significantly longer. It's not that I require an unusually large chunk of time to get ready, it's just a fact of life when you're female, you have long hair, and you wear a bit of makeup. Bryan's Week 2 winning exercise session came in the middle of the day on a Saturday, when I had already gotten ready for the day. Tricky. Very, very tricky. I've learned a thing or two -- this past Saturday, I exercised as soon as I got out of bed. Bryan will have to learn a new trick now.
But I digress. For his Week 2 victory, Bryan chose to make me watch Blade Runner. Bryan has been raving about this movie since before we were married. When I told him I hadn't seen it, he was incredulous. "It's a classic of Americana, Chelsey," he said. Especially knowing that my parents are sci-fi fans, he couldn't believe I had made it to this point in my life without seeing it.
Made in 1982, Blade Runner is one of the first major films (according to Bryan) to portray the future as dark and somewhat hopeless rather than happy and wonderful and...better. Harrison Ford plays Deckard, a blade runner who is tasked with tracking down and killing four replicants who have escaped from a work colony on a different planet, hijacked a spaceship, and have come back to earth. Replicants are human clones that are manufactured to serve as slave labor on other planets. The catch is that they only live a few years. The four replicants that Deckard is hunting are looking for the brilliant geneticist who created them, in the hope that he will be able to tell them how to live longer.
Thus the stage is set for the strange moral quandary: The replicants' only wish is to live, and how can that be wrong? Isn't that what we all want? Fountain of Youth, all of that? Throughout the film, you find yourelf feeling uncomfortable. You know the replicants can't live, that would be wrong, right? But why would that be wrong?
I find it interesting that this film was made long before Dolly the cloned sheep made headlines and created an ethical dilemma by putting human cloning in the realm of the possible. I appreciated the fact that the film made me think, though there was a little bit too much Christ symbolism toward the end.
But overall, I have to say, I didn't love it. It's not that don't like sci-fi (or young Harrison Ford, for that matter), but I was distracted by the cheesiness. Whether it was Sean Young's shoulder pads, Harrison Ford's tie, or Daryl Hannah's giant hair, anytime I found myself getting into the story, some element that should have been in the background came charging to the foreground.
I know Bryan rates movies in stars, but I'm going to give this one a B-.
Week 1: Tie
Week 2: Bryan wins
Week 3: Tie
I have a 2-1 advantage so far on Week 4 -- we'll see if it lasts. At the risk of sounding like a sore loser, I have to share a discovery I have made. Bryan has a distinct advantage that makes it easier for him to win: he's male. Allow me to explain. The time required for Bryan to get a 30-minute workout, shower, get ready, and be ready to face the world is about 35 minutes. The time required for Chelsey to do the same thing is significantly longer. It's not that I require an unusually large chunk of time to get ready, it's just a fact of life when you're female, you have long hair, and you wear a bit of makeup. Bryan's Week 2 winning exercise session came in the middle of the day on a Saturday, when I had already gotten ready for the day. Tricky. Very, very tricky. I've learned a thing or two -- this past Saturday, I exercised as soon as I got out of bed. Bryan will have to learn a new trick now.
But I digress. For his Week 2 victory, Bryan chose to make me watch Blade Runner. Bryan has been raving about this movie since before we were married. When I told him I hadn't seen it, he was incredulous. "It's a classic of Americana, Chelsey," he said. Especially knowing that my parents are sci-fi fans, he couldn't believe I had made it to this point in my life without seeing it.
Made in 1982, Blade Runner is one of the first major films (according to Bryan) to portray the future as dark and somewhat hopeless rather than happy and wonderful and...better. Harrison Ford plays Deckard, a blade runner who is tasked with tracking down and killing four replicants who have escaped from a work colony on a different planet, hijacked a spaceship, and have come back to earth. Replicants are human clones that are manufactured to serve as slave labor on other planets. The catch is that they only live a few years. The four replicants that Deckard is hunting are looking for the brilliant geneticist who created them, in the hope that he will be able to tell them how to live longer.
Thus the stage is set for the strange moral quandary: The replicants' only wish is to live, and how can that be wrong? Isn't that what we all want? Fountain of Youth, all of that? Throughout the film, you find yourelf feeling uncomfortable. You know the replicants can't live, that would be wrong, right? But why would that be wrong?
I find it interesting that this film was made long before Dolly the cloned sheep made headlines and created an ethical dilemma by putting human cloning in the realm of the possible. I appreciated the fact that the film made me think, though there was a little bit too much Christ symbolism toward the end.
But overall, I have to say, I didn't love it. It's not that don't like sci-fi (or young Harrison Ford, for that matter), but I was distracted by the cheesiness. Whether it was Sean Young's shoulder pads, Harrison Ford's tie, or Daryl Hannah's giant hair, anytime I found myself getting into the story, some element that should have been in the background came charging to the foreground.
I know Bryan rates movies in stars, but I'm going to give this one a B-.
2 comments:
B-? Chelsey, you lost some serious cinephile cred with that grade. ;)
I can see the cheesiness. But that's part of the charm of it. Especially the Vangelis score.
Honestly, though, some of the effects, the visuals of the city and the buildings, look about as good as any CGI city would today.
I am something of a sci-fi nerd, but I think Bladerunner is boring too. Not as boring as 2001, of course ... but something I've learned is that a movie can be IMPORTANT without necessarily being ENTERTAINING.
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