Lunatic Writer's Blog

How to Stop Time by Matt Haig

6/7/2019

I first became a fan of Matt Haig after reading his novel, The Humans, a favourite of mine.

How to Stop Time is not a sequel to his earlier book but a most worthy successor. Here Haig continues in his quest to explore the human condition in his uniquely sweet and delicate way, once again through the eyes of a vulnerable character who is thrust into extraordinary circumstances.

The protagonist of How to Stop Time is named Tom but his name hardly matters for he has had to change it frequently over the centuries—that’s right, centuries, because Tom is over four hundred years old.

Very early on Tom urges the reader not to think of him as a vampire or something so ridiculous. Instead he “suffers” from anageria, a condition where the aging rate is dramatically slowed. There are others like him, though probably not many and, for the most part, they have decided to keep their identities (and especially their condition) secret. After a while, people start to notice when you don’t seem to age. You may get branded as a witch if you live in Elizabethan times (which Tom did) or you make be regarded as a valuable asset for bio-engineering companies in the 21st century (which Tom is).

To avoid attracting too much attention, people like Tom (called albas in the book), general move to new a location every eight years or so and adopt new identities. They can never really settle down and establish roots. Their strangeness, by association, becomes a danger to those who are close to them.

Well! What a premise! As old as he is, Tom has personally known William Shakespeare, Captain Cook and F. Scott Fitzgerald. He has seen history make all its banal mistakes over and over across the centuries. At the same time, like any human, Tom longs for love and human connection, but is it really possible for someone like him? For someone who will not seem to age while his friends, colleagues and lovers do?

If you want to survive, a fellow alba says to him, “The first rule is don’t fall in love.” This is a strategy Tom has reluctantly chosen to follow.

In this book, Haig gives himself full license to comment on the foolishness of human behaviour over time, but he also writes about the parts of human behaviour where the universe can be contained in grain of sand, where a person can, in the only meaningful way possible, “stop time”.

How to Stop Time starts with a premise that might make you think you are reading a piece of science fiction or fantasy. In fact, it is mostly a story about courage, love, and celebrating the present moment.

In his acknowledgements at the end of the book, Haig writes, “I have never had as much fun writing a book.” It shows, and the reader is a great beneficiary of this fact.

Excellent read! Thank you, Mr. Haig!

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Movie Review: First Man

10/30/2018

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As a self-professed Apollo program aficionado, I feel more qualified than usual to comment on the movie First Man. In short, I would say it was a good movie, and a welcome companion to Apollo 13. The latter movie did a splendid job featuring the teamwork aspect of the Apollo missions. It celebrated the extraordinary feats humans are capable of when they work together towards a single goal.

In stark contrast to Apollo 13, First Man focuses deliberately on the story of one man, the “first” man, Neil Armstrong. Few astronauts were as taciturn as Armstrong, few so anxious to avoid the limelight and yet, somehow it was he who chosen to be the first human to step foot on another world. How did this come to be?

The movie opens with a bone-rattling view from the cockpit of the X-15 rocket plane which seems out of control. For a few brief moments the rattling stops, the tension abates and Armstrong is staring into the black on the edge of outer space. But the euphoria is short lived. Soon he is plummeting back into the atmosphere desperately trying to keep his aircraft in one piece.

So, almost at once, we see Armstrong as a man accustomed to living on the edge. He is a test pilot and a first rate engineer. Many of his colleagues have died doing what he does for a living. High stress is part of his life and he seems to cope with it well; he is a disciplined problem-solver and this goes a long way in explaining how he has survived so many perilous situations. But none of these talents help him with his personal life, in particular with his dying daughter. There is nothing he can do to save her, and though he never speaks about it, her death haunts him for the rest of his life.
Not long after his daughter’s death, Armstrong joins the astronaut corps. He is not among the top tier of candidates, but circumstances change—the death of two fellow astronauts in a flying accident and the incineration of the three slated to fly the first Apollo mission bump Armstrong up the tier.

In a desperate effort to catch up to the exploits of the Soviet space program, NASA announces its intention to land a man on the moon. The Gemini program is the first step in reaching that goal. For the most part, the Gemini missions are wildly successful—until Gemini VIII. Ground control is overjoyed as Armstrong performs mankind’s first successful space docking but, soon after, the spacecraft begins to tumble wildly. Armstrong manages to regain control only seconds before the two Gemini astronauts would have fallen unconscious due to the accelerating spin. The public is not privy to how close this mission came to disaster but NASA officials are fully aware of how much they owe to Armstrong’s steady hand. Later Armstrong does it again, by ejecting from an out-of-control Lunar Lander trainer, just before it crashes to the ground, again saving NASA from a public relations nightmare.

Clearly Armstrong is a gifted pilot and as cool under pressure as they come, but none of this helps with his family relations. He never really seems to share his feelings with his wife and, only at her unwavering insistence, does he say a proper goodbye to his two young sons before heading off for the launch of Apollo XI. I am left wondering if it’s unavoidable tradeoff: to be a great test pilot, do you have to be a mediocre father?

Regrettably, the Command Module Pilot of Apollo XI, Michael Collins, gets very little to say or do in this movie which is a shame because he was a very interesting personality. He wrote a very engaging book about his role in the moon landing called Carrying the Fire—I highly recommend it. The movie gives us a nice—though brief—portrayal of Buzz Aldrin, the second man to land on the moon. Buzz comes off as the odd man out—politically incorrect, almost pompous— repeatedly ruffling the feathers of his fellow astronauts, but, as I said, this movie focuses on the story of one man, the “first” man, which is very defensible since we knew so little about him to start with.

The attention to technical and historical detail is quite good in this movie. I recall one scene in the Armstrong living room where we can see the TV in the background; a newscast shows a Vietnamese mother sobbing—there is no sound. This a reminder of the raging war in southeast Asia at this time—subtle, nicely done. To a man, the NASA astronauts at this time were so focused on their training and missions that that’s what the Vietnamese War must have seemed to them—a silent picture in the background which they did their best to ignore.

Perhaps the most beautiful moments of the movie are the silent ones: Armstrong and Aldrin’s first closeup look at the backside of the moon and its stark and threatening craters. Later, those first seconds when they look out the window after landing on the moon’s surface. No words are needed. It’s miraculous—they made it!

It would be a mistake to think, however--as the movie is danger of suggesting--that Apollo astronauts had much time for reflection. Their activities were scripted from second to second and Mission Control was continually checking on their progress. Only when they were orbiting behind the moon did they have any relief.

Also there were moments when the movie makers felt compelled to give us the sound of rocket engines when no sound would be heard in the vacuum of space (my biggest beef with the Star Wars franchise!) There would be plenty of vibration inside the spacecraft but no engine sounds.

Also the landscape just before landing looked much rougher than was actually the case for Apollo XI where they made every effort to find the smoothest landing area possible. There is also a scene, late in the movie, where Armstrong is standing at the edge of a crater which is much bigger and deeper than anything he actually saw during his lunar excursion.

But these are minor quibbles. I left the movie with a much deeper understanding of the man Neil Armstrong, and why he was almost uniquely qualified to be the “first man”. I was also left with a sense of the tragedy of his personal life and the sadness that always seemed to hang over him as he recalled the death of his own young daughter and his many flying companions.

The quirks of history and circumstance made Armstrong mankind’s representative as he took his first step on the moon: “one giant leap for mankind.” But, in his heart, he fully knew that it was also no more than “one small step for an [imperfect] man.”

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October 02nd, 2018

10/2/2018

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Book Review: BIG LEDGE by Brian d'Eon

10/2/2018

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Nascent Poet or Hotheaded Murderer?
by Sean Arthur Joyce

Big Ledge by Brian D’Eon is that rarity in historical fiction—a story that combines historical veracity with narrative fluency and a deep poetic sensibility. D’Eon starts the tale from its endpoint, with its protagonist Robert Sproule sitting in a jail cell telling his story to a priest on the eve of his execution in 1886. Sproule is well-known to readers of Kootenay history for having been convicted of the murder of Thomas Hamill, with whom he had a dispute over ownership of the Bluebell mining claim on the east shore of Kootenay Lake.

The author captures well the colloquialisms of late 19th century speech, adding to the tale’s believability. As any skilled writer knows, dialogue is a prime vehicle for storytelling, not just for revealing plot points but quirks of speech and character. D’Eon effortlessly masters the technique, easily drawing us into the tale. He also appreciates the value of including other sensory information in the narrative. Sproule’s confession to the priest is laced with his memories of the “pristine” Kootenay country—not just its visual grandeur but its smells: “…the firs and cedar, the black earth, the wild strawberries, even the smell of the lake—each has its own smell you know—that’s how salmon know where they’re going.”

The poetic dimension enters with a secondary set of characters, the Archangel Michael and Hindu goddess Parvati, heavenly eavesdroppers whose wry asides add a funny, philosophical dimension. Poetic quotes from Blake, Shakespeare, the Bible and others are woven seamlessly throughout Sproule’s narrative, though it’s uncertain what level of education he possessed, or whether he would have had quite the broad vocabulary D’Eon imagines. The dialogue between Archangel Michael and Parvati is often laced with humour, as when Michael wonders what it is that attracts mortals to tobacco. “Ah,” Parvati answered, happy to explain: “A native custom, and a most clever means of revenge against European invaders.” The celestial pair function as a kind of Greek chorus, commenting from the wings as they debate whether Sproule is an unjustly accused prospector with a poetic nature or simply a hotheaded murderer. In so doing, D’Eon skillfully engages one of Canadian history’s great mysteries, one that—given the contradictory historical accounts—may never be solved.

Adding to this narrative of multiple perspectives is C.J. Woodbury, a reporter who wrote several accounts of the Sproule-Hamill trial. Speaking to his fiancée Kate Buchanan, Woodbury makes an observation that could serve as the book’s basic premise: “It was striking the way people could so quickly judge these things. As if there could be no doubt about the matter. Label someone and you no longer had to think about him as a person.” With explorations of Woodbury as well as William Baillie-Grohman, D’Eon sidesteps the trap of investing too heavily in his protagonist’s point of view.

D’Eon successfully applies the techniques of the novelist to flesh out what would otherwise be—at best, given what we know of Sproule and Hamill—a very short story. One of the writer’s primary tools is a sense of empathy for a story’s characters, even those with an unsavoury nature. D’Eon clearly identifies strongly with the version of Sproule he has created, and his characterization is highly appealing. For many readers, it will raise serious questions about Sproule’s guilt and the “justice” meted out to him.
You can almost smell the smoke of a miner’s campfire, curling up into a night sky not yet crowded with satellites and air pollution, lake waters lapping meditatively as the tale unwinds. D’Eon has written a historical novel that ranks with the best of them.

One of the story's principal narrators, the Hindu Goddess, Parvati

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BOOK REVIEW: Mountain Blues by Sean Arthur Joyce

4/17/2018

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In Mountain Blues, author Sean Arthur Joyce, takes the reader on an intimate journey through the fictional Glacier Valley, and the tiny mountain towns which hug the shores of Sapphire and Sturgeon Lake.

While the Kootenay scenery is remarkable and lovingly depicted, what makes Mountain Blues so memorable are the many colourful characters which inhabit the book. There are the loggers, the new-agers, the aging hippies, and Roy Breen himself (the novel’s narrator, an escapee journalist from Vancouver). The interpersonal relationships between these groups is highly dynamic, and emotions frequently run high when characters meet face-to-face.

Prominent among the cast of eccentrics is Moss, the rastafarian Jamaican expat, Moonglow, the flower child, Marie-Louise, the heavy-smoking Metis and Bill Radford, the “local contrarian”.

Those who are not obviously eccentric tend to be highly political and often the border between these two states is blurred.

Most of the action in the novel takes place in and around the tiny town of El Dorado (population 796). But, as Roy Breen says, this is no “proto-Appalachian village.” Its citizens are well-versed in the tactics of protest and peaceful disobedience. When their hospital is threatened with reduced hours, they mobilize quickly and creatively and become a major headache for the bureaucrats back in Victoria.

Joyce is not afraid to tackle serious issues such as truth and fiction in the media, the perils of materialism, the efficacy of political protest, and the mistreatment of First Nations. Yet, even while dealing with these serious topics, Joyce cannot hide the love he has for his characters. He loves not just their strengths but their flaws, their best intentions, their sweet humanity. Almost as much, he loves the place where they live, and truly it is a special place. El Dorado lives up to its name if one thinks of gold in a metaphorical sense. The lifestyle of the valley is golden. It is a hidden Shangri-la among the mountains. It echoes strongly of the town of Cicely from the television series Northern Exposure whose eloquent and earthy characters inhabited a special place in the imaginations of many throughout the Nineties.

But here’s the kicker: El Dorado has one great advantage over Cicely; it’s a real place. Read Joyce’s book first, then go find it. It's published by NuWest Press.

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BOOK REVIEW: The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy & The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce

3/20/2018

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Rachel Joyce’s The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy is a beautiful book and a companion piece to the The Unlikely Pilgrimmage of Harold Fry. Joyce writes with an impressive economy of words, yet surprises the reader regularly with bursts of poetry as sweet as the best of impressionist paintings. However, what I most admire about Joyce’s writing is the connection she makes with the human heart.

Click Book Reviews for the complete review

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A Taste of Jamaica

3/14/2018

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Last month I visited a lesser known corner of Jamaica with my wife, daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter. We flew into Montego Bay on Jamaica’s northwest coast and from there rode in a van two-and-a-half hours south to the small community of Treasure Beach. It’s a town which really has no centre, more a collection of small villages spread along the shore.

It quickly became clear this was to be no resort holiday and that was all for the best. Treasure Beach has some small guest houses, cottages, B&B’s, but nothing resembling an all-inclusive resort. Instead we rented the lower suite of a home owned by an American couple Jeff & Evelyn who were wonderfully hospitable.

Our daily routine consisted of waking up with the sun (thanks to our 15-month-old granddaughter), having coffee and fruit (the bananas and pineapple were in season and wonderful) and then walking twenty minutes down to the beach. Below is the view from our deck.

First we would pass by a dozen or so goats grazing on the hill, then pass by a pond thick with egrets, ibises and ducks, straddle along the edge of a cricket field, pet a donkey tied to a tree with a hemp rope and, five minutes later, finally join a paved road which followed close along the shore.

There is a choice of beaches. Frenchmen’s Cove (A) is the most northerly and from there one can hire a boat to take one as far as Black River or Pelican Bar. Here the beach is wide and mostly sandy and quite good for swimming.

Just south of this beach is what we took to calling Jack Spratt Beach (B) but one could easily see it as simply an extension of Frenchmen’s Cove. Here the beach extends right up to the Jack Spratt’s restaurant which is a very popular spot. The food is good, reasonably priced and there is dependable Wifi and an ATM. You would have to work very hard not to relax and unwind at Jack Spratt’s

The beach here is quite narrow in width but picturesque. The swimming is quite safe and the area marked by buoys. Not far out you encounter rocks and quite weathered coral formations. The snorkelling is surprisingly good, particularly at the north end just before Frenchmen’s Cove.

Going further south and a little more distant is Old Wharf Beach (D). There are warnings here of a strong current but again a safe area is marked off by buoys. This beach does not seem much visited by tourists and provides a little more of a private bathing experience. Walking to its most southerly end you meet some impressive sand dunes and, rounding the corner, there is a great view of the coast looking all the way Pedro Bluffs.

The last beach we visited was at Great Bay (E). It took us nearly an hour to walk there but it was worth it. It is the longest, widest and least used of the ones we visited. In many respects it is probably the best. At the far south end are fishing boats and a few small restaurants. Walking to its northern extreme you come upon many lovely coral formations and tidal pools which can serve as your personal little jacuzzi. What fun to let the ocean water stream over the lip of a coral bank and into the chest-high pool of water you’re standing in.

The best thing about our stay in Treasure Beach was simply the laid back ambience. People were friendly. Almost always locals returned our smiles and greetings. There was no evidence of the “crime scare” which the media had made so much of recently. At no time did we feel threatened or even stressed. Mind you, we were far away from Montego Bay which was said to be the centre of the troubles.

I remember speaking to a man who was the local cricket coach for the under-17 team. He spoke proudly of what he and his boys had accomplished. He emphasized the importance of the community having activities to keep young men occupied and away from the temptations of crime. He was in the business, he said, of creating community leaders.

My wife and I also attended a local church service. Here too we heard references to the crime problem in Jamaica. Even in remote Treasure Beach it is a concern, on people’s minds, a source, perhaps, of some shame.

Even so, at least in this one tiny corner of Jamaica, I sensed there was a pride among the people and the culture. I had to admire how so many had found contentment without the need for extensive material possessions. Fresh fish, lobster, and fruit were widely available. Families tended to be large and close. The climate was gorgeous. The pace of life was sane, human and life-affirming. I could easily imagine falling in love with such a place.

If you are looking for a Caribbean experience that is not resort-centred, where you can feel part of a community (admittedly only briefly and superficially), Treasure Beach might be worth exploring. It is not easy to get to which may explain how it has avoided the perils of over-development. It is a sleepy little town compared to many with a limited night life. For me, however, the“treasure” part of its name is not misplaced. From the deck of our suite I could see hummingbirds (including the amazing "doctor bird"), banana quits and anis. Here I was able to befriend all manner of goats and donkeys. The oceans waters were warm and the fish (including schools of thousands of sardines swirling around me) were a delight to the eye.

the amazing male "Doctor Bird", Jamaica's national bird

And at night—what stars! The sky here is as dark and clear as any I have known back in Canada. This was a surprise. Most tropical places I have visited suffer from very humid and murky night skies—not so in the semi-arid climate of Treasure Bay where cacti are regular sights.

Gazing at sparkling Orion straight overhead on a February night was a sight I shall indeed “treasure” for a long time.

Follow this link for my favourite Jamaica photos

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Looking Behind the Curtain: Stranger Things

2/9/2018

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The closest I have ever come to binge-watching is with the The Netflix series, Stranger Things. Over the last couple of weeks I have watched at least one episode per day, sometimes two—which, for me, is pretty radical behaviour.

I was not even aware of the show’s existence till I heard an interview on CBC radio with one of its principal stars, David Harbour, and my curiosity was piqued.

From this interview I learned that the show’s creators were concerned that the 80’s feel of the series might appeal only to a limited audience, but ratings have proven this not to be true. For many of us who do remember the 80’s (the movie ET, video arcades, VCRs, the whole pop-culture vibe of this decade), the series is particularly appealing.

This was a time when I was raising my own children, when we first brought an Apple IIe computer into the home, and when I was teaching young kids in an elementary school. All the details of these experiences are brought back vividly and faithfully in this series.

The ensemble acting is truly remarkable. The young middle school three muskateer characters (Mike, Dustin and Lucas) are marvellous to watch. I cannot recall a show where children of this age have been more authentically portrayed. Each individual is fully formed and complex as are the relationships between them. It mesmerizing to watch how they handle each new challenge thrown their way.

Most impressive of all, however, is the acting of David Harbour as police chief, Jim Hopper. My goodness! How completely he inhabits this role. I would recommend watching this series just to watch his performance. He’s gruff, wounded, capable, vulnerable and absolutely tenacious when spurred to action. He is as completely three-dimensional as one could ever expect a screen actor to be.

The show’s actors, across the board, are very good, some outstanding, but none of this would matter much if the writing and direction did not match the performances and it is most certainly does. I was quite taken in a recent episode when the characters Jonathan and Nancy approached a conspiracy theorist, Murray Bauman, who was trying to figure out just what was going on in the community of Hawkins, Indiana. Nancy and Jonathan delivered the goods which were both incredible and horrible. Bauman had to put on some music to calm him. He took several shots of vodka to “help him think”. Then he made this remarkable pronouncement, in answer to Nancy’s appeal that they just should tell everyone the truth and then everything could be fixed:

“They [the world at large] don’t spend their lives trying to get a look at what’s behind the curtain. They like the curtain. It provides stability, comfort, definition. This [the truth] would open the curtain and open the curtain behind that curtain, okay? So the minute someone with an ounce of authority calls bullshit, everyone will nod their heads and say, ‘See? Ha! I knew it! It was all bullshit!’ That is, if you even get their attention at all.”

This analysis about the difficulty of people accepting the truth is relevant to situations far beyond the plot of Stranger Things . . . .

What surprises me most about my sudden and unexpected affection for this show is that horror is definitely not my genre. I am, at best, ambivalent to dramas which make the paranormal central to the plot line. Stranger Things, however, has so much going for it, that I am totally willing to suspend my disbelief, in anticipation of the excellent acting and writing which are consistent throughout the episodes

Good grief, I think it’s about time to watch the next one!

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Why Photography?

1/20/2018

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I have taken many thousands of photographs in my lifetime and today they fill up the majority of space on my computer hard drive. My first photos were taken with a simple box camera used on family holidays.

By the time I was twenty, I was using a Kodak Instamatic in my first trip abroad to Europe.

Finally, a few years later, I bought my first SLR camera and began exploring the ravines of Toronto where I discovered the fascinating world of wildflowers.

The world of digital photography was still some years away then. Every photographic sojourn was accompanied by anxiety over whether or not I would run out of film and even, more pressing, the worry about whether I could afford to print all the exposures. Time and time again, I would ask myself, should I buy a roll of 36 exposures or just 24?

In the era of digital photography, these concerns have largely evaporated, yet old habits linger. I do not take pictures of everything—far from it. I do not try to document an experience or worst yet a life. I look for visual moments that are somehow unique or iconic or just heart-breakingly beautiful. I have taken photos of the same tree, or same mountain, or same river over and over again, trying to capture just a little more precisely the magic of the place or moment. It is an ongoing project. Moreover, I am fully aware that almost everything I photograph has been photographed already by a professional and generally more successfully. So why do I bother? Why must I take the photo? Why must I re-invent the wheel, so to speak?

It’s a good question; the best answer I can give is that, for me, photography has always been an act of adoration. It is my intimate way of responding to the universe. To quote from one of my favourite movies, Avatar, when I take a good photo, I am saying to the object of my attention; I see you . . . .

Over the past few months I have been reviewing my collection of digitized photos (I still have some quite ancient black and whites to add to the collection!) with the aim of sharing some of my favourite “moments of adoration”. I have tried to limit myself to fifty photos in each category which has been a great challenge in many cases. I’m starting with “Winter Photos”. I’ll keep them posted for the rest of January and post from a different category the following month.

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Movie Review: Blade Runner 2049

10/14/2017

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Waiting in line at our local community-owned cinema, there was a great buzz in the air. Like me many spectators had seen the original Blade Runner when it was first released in 1982. The popcorn was popping and expectations were high. Too high as it turns out.
To be fair, Blade Runner 2049 has big shoes to fill.

It tries very hard to be faithful to the overwhelming atmosphere of gloom and hopelessness in the original and its opening scenes are memorable and haunting, starting with the flight over a massive solar farm, yet I am left wondering how such a farm could be viable in a world which seldom sees the sun and knows no trees.
Perhaps the solar farm is a relic, long un-used, but some clarity would be helpful. Also, in what must pass for a future Los Angeles, sometimes it rains and sometimes it snows, yet away from the big city, the land is barren, showing little sign of precipitation at all—again, a little explanation wouldn’t be amiss.

The movie’s depiction of future technology is interesting, but not ground-breaking. Drones are heavily featured which makes perfect sense, as does the prevalent use of holograms, including personal holograms which may serve as household companions (a step up from inflatable dolls to be sure). In fact the relationship between our hero (Joe) and his pretty hologram, Joi, was for me the most engaging part of the movie.

An emotional relationship with a holographic character does push to another level the question of what it means to be human. Can one love a person who has no physical reality at all? Apparently. Though a replicant you can actually wrap your arms around seems a better option. Of course this question was addressed a long time ago with the doctor on Star Trek Voyager.

I think what troubles me most about this movie are several fuzzy points in the plot line. The big “reveal” is the knowledge that somehow (via a “miracle” as described by one character) one of the replicants has given birth. So now it will be possible for the replicants to reproduce themselves without the aid of a human engineer. I might swallow this premise if it were part of the Star Wars franchise where there is no pretence about sticking to scientific principles, but the first Blade Runner movie is very self-consistent in this regard and doesn't depend on “miracles” to advance its plot. And even if one replicant has managed to give birth, is this any guarantee that its offspring will be similarly fertile? What about the male replicant’s contribution? None of these questions are addressed.

Also it is never clear to me why there are two groups of replicants with quite different aims: one group, freedom-fighters, I suppose, and the other led by an evil character, Niander Wallace, who seems intent on creating an army of slave robots for his own self-gratification. This villainous character belongs in a Bond film, not here.

I admit that I may be confused about the dynamics between these two groups, but that is no great testimony to the overall impact of the movie. Maybe what I need to do is watch Blade Runner 2047 a second time, 45 years later, to get a proper perspective. Good luck with that.

Perhaps the moral lesson to be drawn from the two Blade Runner movies is that--human or replicant--take any self-aware creatures, and some will be good and some will be bad.

It’s also worth noting that there is a lot shooting and stabbing the Blade Runner 2049—quite a bit more than in the 1982 movie. Is this one of the a priori elements of American Cinema? More guns, more explosions, more gratuitous violence? Where will it all end? There is one scene where Niander Wallace stabs another replicant for no apparent reason that I can see except to show that he is evil. Hmm. Surprised this scene didn’t get
cut. . . .

The 2017 version of Blade Runner has its strengths: The special effects are very good. The movie is more than respectful to the original. The acting is adequate though not spectacular, though Harrison Ford stands a little above the rest in my eyes. Certainly he makes a more interesting blade runner than the dour Ryan Gosling who spends way too much time wondering if he can ever become a “real boy”.

Overall rating: Nice try, but not quite . . . 7/10

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How to Stop Time by Matt Haig

Movie Review: First Man

October 02nd, 2018

Book Review: BIG LEDGE by Brian d'Eon

Nascent Poet or Hotheaded Murderer?
by Sean Arthur Joyce

One of the story's principal narrators, the Hindu Goddess, Parvati

BOOK REVIEW: Mountain Blues by Sean Arthur Joyce

BOOK REVIEW: The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy & The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce

A Taste of Jamaica

the amazing male "Doctor Bird", Jamaica's national bird

Follow this link for my favourite Jamaica photos

Looking Behind the Curtain: Stranger Things

Why Photography?

Movie Review: Blade Runner 2049

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Nascent Poet or Hotheaded Murderer?by Sean Arthur Joyce

One of the story's principal narrators, the Hindu Goddess, Parvati

the amazing male "Doctor Bird", Jamaica's national bird

Follow this link for my favourite Jamaica photos

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Nascent Poet or Hotheaded Murderer?
by Sean Arthur Joyce

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