Opinion
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The M om of No: L ooking younger ever y day By JENNI FER L I NDE The Mom of No momofno@LewisvilleTexan.com
Last week was not the best week for the Mom of No. It could have been worse, of course, but it was not a sparkling diamond in the crown of 2017. For the first four days of the week, I was home sick with some nasty respiratory crud which resulted in a horrible cough that could probably be heard for miles around my abode. Finally, last Thursday, I felt well enough to venture from home and go to work. As I sat at the kitchen table, eating my usual toasted raisin and cinnamon English muffin for breakfast, I felt something crunchy moving around in my mouth. "That's odd," I thought.
"These muffins are usually rather soft. Maybe part of the crust was a little extratoasted." My brain still wasn't functioning at its optimal speed, so it took a few seconds for the message to get from my tongue to my brain: that crunchy bit wasn't English muffin. That was part of a lower front tooth. "Awww, crap," I thought. "Just what I need." I was informed by the dentist's office that they had an available appointment at 3 PM, which I gladly took. My brain was working rapidly on producing extreme dental scenarios in which the rest of the tooth broke off at some point before dental rescue could take place, initiating much uncomfortable and expensive dental work. As far as I was concerned ? and I am no fan of going to the dentist ? 3 p.m. couldn't come fast enough.
Finally, after a day of obsessing over the hole in my tooth, I was in the dental chair being prepped by the assistant. While we were talking, a young man walked in, greeted me, said he'd be back in a minute and walked out. "Who's that?" I asked the dental assistant, thinking to myself that whoever that young man is, he looks like he's in high school. "That's the new dentist," she said. "He's going to come back in a minute and look at your tooth." I was taught as a kid that it is rude to ask about how old people are, but I really had to know, and the Grandma of No wasn't around to give me a Mom Look. I turned around and looked at the assistant and asked her. "I think he's 28," she said. He really does look young. Yes. I am old enough to
be my dentist's mother. Even more than having a daughter about to graduate from high school or a son who is six inches taller than I am, that makes me feel like I am getting old. The entire time he was working on my poor busted front tooth, my brain abandoned the "worst case dental scenario" thought process and started working on "This guy is a dentist and he is young enough to be your son and this is really giving me some angst." I probably need to start getting used to it, because sometimes the new employees at work look really young to me, and then I find out that they were born two years after I graduated from college and I'll think, "hey, young whippersnapper, I've been working longer than you've been alive." Or I'll say something about the Soviet Union, or that a certain 80's song was the theme of
my high school class, or that I had to type college papers on a typewriter, and I start suspecting that the other person, who was probably born after I got my first e-mail address, is thinking, wow, this woman is practically ancient history. The Son of Never Stops Eating, who is currently obsessed with The Simpsons, asked me several months ago if I had ever seen The Simpsons. "Sure," I told him. "I used to watch that show when I was in college." "Wow, Mom," he said, sounding impressed and awed. "You're older than Homer Simpson!" Yes. I'm older than Homer Simpson, I remember life before the Internet, and I'm old enough to be my dentist's mother, but hopefully I still got a lot of good years left in me. Read more musings and memoirs from the Mom of No at themomofno.blogspot.com.
Review: 'Blade Runner 2049' is per fect 10/10 Ana Stelline (Carla Juri) makes the best memory implants in the business. The classic 1982 film ?Blade Runner,? which is set in 2019, hinges on the implementation of implants into replicants, synthetic humans designed for military and slave labor. Artificial memories allow replicants to better mimic human behavior but led to them developing emotions and working toward their own rights. After an uprising in 2022, their production was banned, and the Tyrell Corporation, which made its fortune building replicants, went out of business. Since then, business mogul Niander Wallace (Jared Leto) adapted the synthesis technology for agriculture, which more or less saved the world. In 2036, he bullies lawmakers into allowing the production and sale of replicants once more, some of whom still use memory implants. In ?Blade Runner 2049,? Stelline tells Officer K (Ryan Gosling) that people think details are what makes a memory powerful, but that's not how the mind works.
What makes a memory powerful is how it makes you feel when you remember it. How true of film, as well. ?Blade Runner 2049? is difficult to stay awake through. It's 163 minutes long, quiet as the grave for long stretches, visually dark and potentially difficult to access without having seen ? not just seen, but really understood ? the first film. How is it perfect, then? It just is. The creative team has put a lot of thought into how much information viewers should have going in. If you've seen the original and the shorts and still don't know exactly what ?2049? is about, you're in exactly the right place. Despite ?Blade Runner? being rigidly closed to a sequel, writers Michael Green and Hampton Francher, the latter of whom wrote the original, found a way to not only continue its story but expand on its themes. In this era of nostalgia- driven "reboots" that are part sequel and part remake, ?2049? should be a beacon of how to do this right. It expertly recreates moments from the first movie in completely new contexts, making something unique and nostalgic at the same time.
(Poster courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures)
Even the weakest films from director Denis Villeneuve (?Sicario,? ?Arrival?) put shame to other directors' greatest triumphs, and frequent collaborator
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Roger Deakins (?No Country for Old Men,? ?The Shawshank Redemption?) is probably the greatest cinematographer who ever lived. Together, they create a visual
masterpiece of backlit silhouettes. There are plenty of reasons to dislike ?Blade Runner 2049.? It's slow and not flashy at all. I'd actually prefer this movie with an intermission, because of both the length and the amount of attention it demands throughout. Go see it anyway. Go see it in the biggest, loudest format you have access to, and bring an open mind. Villeneuve is a genius at expressing different, complementary themes through his visuals and his plots, respectively, though it sometimes takes some abstract thinking to follow. Much of the focus in ?2049? is on recreating the unique sci- fi noir atmosphere that made the first movie so famous. There?s a burning anticipation baked into most of the shots, which is enhanced by their duration. Even two and a half hours in, the eternal shots keep you on the edge of your seat, wondering what will happen next. In a lot of ways, it's a purer form of filmmaking because it's not about the details. It's about how it makes you feel when you watch it. For more, check out Leopold Knopp?s movie blog at reelentropy.com.
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