Sleep Dealer

My first introduction to science fiction, real science fiction, came by way of a two-volume collection of Hugo Award – winning short stories.  The stories; by luminaries of the Golden Age of Science Fiction such as Asimov, Heinlein, Anderson, and Dick; used science fiction as a way to get at social and psychological ideas.  They explored the flaws in our civilization and thought of ways we as a people could solve them or we as people could endure them.  The explored the relationship of man and machine, asking what it means to be human and how, in some possible futures, we could lose that humanity.  Most importantly, they were good yarns.  They involved, entertained, and stimulated.  They were the good stuff.

SLEEP DEALER is the good stuff.  Set in a future perhaps fifty years off, it tells the story of Memo, a young man from dry, dusty Oaxaca.  He has come to Tijuana to seek a better life and finds work in a “sleep dealer,” a factory that works its employees so hard, they often collapse on the job.  Standard stuff so far, but here comes the science fiction part: sleep dealers hook their employees’ nervous systems, via nodes implanted in their bodies, into the global information network.  Once plugged in, the workers remotely operate robots that do the menial and dangerous tasks illegal aliens perform today:  high-rise construction, fruit picking, domestic labor.  To paraphrase one character, “We give the first world what it wants: work without workers.”  And away we go.

Sure, there’s a love interest and a revenge plot and all the things we expect in narrative storytelling, but they don’t make SLEEP DEALER interesting.  SLEEP DEALER captures the imagination because it uses its milieu and the tools of narrative to explore the nature of immigration, the dehumanizing effects of global political and financial inequity, and the implications of the virtual life.  In other words, it explores the flaws in our civilization and thinks of ways we as a people could solve them or we as people endure them.  It explores the relationship of man and machine, asking what it means to be human and how, in one possible future, we could lost that humanity.  All that, and it’s a good yarn that involves, entertains, and stimulates.  This is the good stuff.

Which leads me back to those Hugo Award – winning stories of yesteryear and the Golden Age of Science Fiction.  With films like MOON and TIMECRIMES and, now, SLEEP DEALER making it into theaters and onto DVD shelves, I suspect a second Golden Age may have arrived.  Once again, science fiction is doing what it’s supposed to do: challenge and probe and think and thrill and entertain.  I can’t wait to see what’s next.

PS  Special thanks to Devin Faraci at CHUD.com.  Without his well-written review of SLEEP DEALER, I'd never have known this film existed.

What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?

Bette Davis owns every minute of WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE?

She’s crazy. She’s creepy. She’s Ms. Davis in a brave, crushing, terrifying performance as a woman going from plain old mean to absolutely unhinged. She’s Ms. Davis never putting a foot wrong, scaring the hell out of us as we wonder what she’s going to do next. She’s Ms. Davis convincing us that she is capable of utterly cowing Joan Crawford, putting Ms. Crawford under her thumb and keeping her there until the bitter end.

Here’s the deal: Baby Jane Hudson was a child star on the vaudeville circuit. She always outshone her sister Blanche, the “plain one” who’d vowed to get her revenge one day. Things don’t always work out for child stars, of course, and Blanche got her revenge by growing up to become a movie star. Until one night, when a mysterious accident renders Blanche a cripple, leaving her trapped in a big old Hollywood home and subject to the tender mercies of dear old Jane. But that was years ago. Blanche and Jane have settled into a routine as invalid and caregiver. But Jane has a plan.

WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? lives and dies with the performances of Bette Davis as Jane and Joan Crawford as Blanche. In an industry that values youth, both women (55 and 58, respectively) bravely allow themselves to be photographed in the most unflattering makeup, the worst lighting, the least glamorous angles. Crawford sells us on Blanche, a once-strong woman so tired of fighting that she’s on the verge of finally giving in. Davis steals the film as a woman who’s evil and insanity grows within her like a cancer. And the film itself, well, it’s a slow burn, a film that enjoys taking its time as it ratchets up tension and fear. This film knows that anticipation of fright is more delicious than fright itself, and it revels in it.

Yes, there’s a cheap twist, but don’t let that spoil things for you. See this film for Davis. Let her creep you out. Let her try to win you over, which will creep you out even more. But try not to think too hard about her. You might not get to sleep tonight.