The Guthrie Theater's Macbeth, A Review.

I saw the Guthrie Theater's production of Macbeth this weekend. It's a great play, and the production played it straight--no attempt to particularly modernize the play, although the costumes were strongly flavored from WWII. The play started fast, and kept going without an intermission for about two hours.

HOWEVER. (There is always a "however," isn't there?) I found myself thinking critically about the production itself, ejected from the story and into some choices about the play.

It starts with a bang. Literally. Warfare rolls across the stage as characters in battle fatigues rappel down from the ceiling and storm across the stage. There is handgun fire and hand to hand knife fights. Bodies fall and roll, lie for a time, then inobtrusively remove themselves from the stage. It could be distracting, but it's effective overall, as if the battle has moved to new ground, and the bodies were left behind. Macbeth is identifiable--even before he's been introduced by name--standing tall in the center of the fighting, his red beard marking him as Scots. Okay, technically, the witches came out first, but the sudden fury of the battle blots out their previous scene.

The problem is that the production never slows down again. Everything happens at breakneck speed, and at top volume. The wounded soldier stumbles on to tell King Duncan that Macbeth and Banquo have defeated both the Irish AND the Norwegians, but his speech about their bravery goes by in a blur, making them seem not like victorious generals, but like manic berserkers who have prevailed out of sheer love of bloody fighting. Which is precisely the image of Macbeth which is most undercutting to his role as a tragic hero. If he's a wildman who happens to be a useful weapon on the battlefield, then he's not a tragic hero--there is no arc to his story. If he likes to kill men on the battlefield, and then he starts killing men from his own side, then he a psychopath who goes mad, not a good man who struggles with bad choices and actions.

The witches are back, wearing grey raincoats and dreadlocks. Weird, sure, but not overtly supernatural. They predict Macbeth's future--thane of Cawdor and king hereafter, and the scene plays with so much skepticism from Macbeth and Banquo that they might as well have broken open some fortune cookies. "Ha ha," they poke each other, "what a bunch of crazy bitches these are. You're going to be king, what can they possibly say to me that would top that?" They don't seem to entertain even the flimsiest of notions that these witches might be telling the truth--because that would take time, soemthing this production doesn't have. A few seconds of doubt, or puzzlement would have made their belief in these predictions believable. But who takes fortune cookies seriously, or alters their behavior because of what they say.

So when messengers arrive seconds later to report that Macbeth is now thane of Cawdor, the audience is prepared for Macbeth to say something like "Wow. What a coincidence. I wonder if those witches had heard this messenger talking before he got here?" We are not prepared for him to gobble up Cawdor without chewing it and immediately look for the kingship. One of the enduring puzzles of the play is the question of the inevitability of the future. Would Macbeth be king even if he had never heard the witches' prediction? Or does the fact that they tell him he will be king change the way Macbeth acts? Is he a good man brought down by his susceptibility to ambition, or was he doomed by fate?

Hard to tell it's even a question in this production: Macbeth seems to take the witches' pronouncements as a To Do list and he has to check off all the items efficiently. Cawdor? Check. What's next on the list? King? Better write to my wife and get her on board.

Let's talk about Lady Macbeth, shall we? Mad shrew, frustarated SAHM, or violent sociopath? Rarely is she portrayed as a complicated human being, and why break that precedent here, right? Dressed in a white shirt and trousers, she's writhing on the couch with excitement at the idea of being queen, already her volume is turned up to 9. Where can she go from here?

I've seen the actress who plays Lady Macbeth in at least two other productions, and I've never warmed to her. She's incredibly good at sweeping onto and off of the stage, but doesn't really do much once she is there. She has a habit of emphasizing her words with a hand gesture: an upside down claw, as if she is gripping an orange underhanded. With her fingers splayed, she makes short, quick motions at waist height again and again. Her voice drips with contempt for Macbeth and even when he agrees to kill Duncan, her attitude doesn't change. At this point, Macbeth doesn't seem to feel he has any choice either: Killing Duncan is on his To Do list.

I could go on in tedious detail, but this is the problem that pervades the play. Macbeth never really acts as though he had any choice in the matter, so he just plans to go through the motions. Lady Macbeth starts out bloodthirsty, and even when she goes mad, there's no sense that she was ever anything but a monster, so why should be pity her?

The best example of what I am talking about is in Mulholland Drive, David Lynch's freaky detective movie. In a pair of scenes, Naomi Watts plays a character who is auditioning for a role in a movie. At home, she runs over her lines with her roommate, shrieking in cliched high-school-drama fashion "I hate you! I hate you!" A few scenes later, she's in the audition, and suddenly she is acting. The actor she is reading with is an old lech, using the scene to grab her ass. She grabs his arm, moves closer to him, and whispers in his face "I hate you." And man is it effective! Instead of a soap opera of shallow and inflated emotions, we see a woman poisoned by hate and self-loathing. It is a Master Class on how underplaying a role makes it incredibly powerful.

Macbeth could have used some of this underplaying. The most effective scene in the whole play was at the banquet, when Banquo's ghost appears. The actor playing Banquo appeared, his head and neck covered with stage blood, and he just looked at Macbeth. There was never a threatening gesture, never a moment of posturing. Instead, Banquo looked saddened that Macbeth should have killed him. And Macbeth loses it in a major way. In fact, the physical interaction between the two actors was so good, that Shakespeare's dialogue was unnecessary and unduly comic. Macbeth comes to himself and tries to apologize, claiming " I have a strange infirmity, which is nothing / To those that know me." One can only laugh, as this is soooo far from explaining Macbeth's weird behavior. . .and here it is that the scope of his madness is apparent, because he can't even behave normally or give anything like a credible explanation for his behavior. So he doesn't even try. And THAT is madness--when you give up attempting to explain yourself.

There were a few things that intruded on my enjoyment of the play, things that popped up into my mind like those goofy VH1 videos. Two of the characters, Ross and Lennox, were advisors to the king, and were the only two men who were never in military garb. They wore suits, and fedoras, and topcoats, and leather shoes, and one carried an attache case--because he was an attache, duh. But all I could see, as he hauled that briefcase around, was "the results of Oscar voting were tabulated by the accountants of Price Waterhouse."

Similarly, the actor who played Malcolm, King Duncan's son and the leader of the troops who finally defeat Macbeth, was played by an actor I had last seen in "The Importance of Being Earnest," which totally undercut the force of his lines. Duncan dead, Malcolm and his brother Donalbain realize that they are not safe either, so they plan to flee to England and Ireland respectively. However, I can't help but see this as an instance of "Bunburying"--Oscar Wilde's plot device where the character gets out of town by claiming he has a ailing friend in the country who wants to see him.

Similarly, when Macduff and Malcolm meet in England--the play signals their location by having them in leisure wear, drinking tea(!)--the scene just smacks of a set-up to a Wildean pun-off, and I had to keep reminding myself to "listen to the words, don't watch the body language!"

Oddly, this is the first time I have ever actually seen Macbeth performed, and I can't even claim I have read the entire play either. However, I'm not going to let a lack of academic grounding get in the way of my having very definite opinions about how this play SHOULD be staged. I'm glad I saw it, but I can't really recommend it.

Nagging Questions About James Cameron’s Avatar

I saw Avatar about two weeks ago, and I fully intended to blog a review. However, the damn computer ate my meticulously assembled and snarkily crafted masterpiece, and after that, it just had been Too Long to Bother reconstructing it. However—James Cameron just won TWO Golden Globes for the thing, and once again his tone-deafness to human social interaction was thrust upon my consciousness. The man makes terrible acceptance speeches, which shouldn't be a surprise, since he writes terrible scripts.

He also makes terrible faces--this one makes me just want to smack him. He also has terrible hair.

So, with a nod of acknowledgment to MovieLine's own wonderful article, here are my own Nagging Questions about Avatar.

1. Does the DNA really matter?

There is much technical babble in the movie about how the ten foot tall blue cat people bodies inhabited by the humans were created by mixing human and Na'vi DNA, which meant that when one of the scientists was no longer able to participate in the program (what happened to him, anyway?) they imported his identical twin brother to operate the avatar. This is why crippled Marine Jake Sully ends up on a planet he has no information about: his DNA is the key to keeping an expensive avatar available.

But is it really about the DNA? After all, in order to drive the avatar, Sully climbs into a modified tanning bed/sensory deprivation tank and closes the lid. From then on, it's pure virtual reality video game. There is no physical contact between the two bodies, and no reason to believe that consciousness is somehow free to move across space—but only if there are trace amounts of DNA on the other end. This is clunky plot cooking—Cameron thinks he needs a newbie on the planet in order to show us the world through the experiences of someone who hasn't seen it before. This is the same hamfisted storytelling that sent Billy Zane chasing Leo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet through all the decks of the sinking Titanic with a gun! Why tell a story that is simple, understandable, and affecting when
you can amp up the melodrama instead?

Would a blood transfusion have given a REAL scientist enough compatible DNA, maybe?

2. Why aren't the Pandora Helicopters Powered by Dyson fans?

It's 2010, and we have a fan with no blades—in the 22^nd century, a bladeless helicopter would be AWESOME.

3. How do alien predators get enought to eat to stay alive?

One of the persistent problems with Avatar is the piling on of movie clichés—Pandora might look like nothing you've ever seen before, but the rest of the movie is the equivalent of the turkey tetrazzini you are still eating a week after Thanksgiving. You've seen it before, and it was better before it was rewarmed. (Or, as Shakespeare would put it, we're tired of the baked funeral meets which coldly furnish the wedding feast.) One of the worst instances of this is the behavior of the giant predator that chases Sully on his first day in the field.

The predator sneaks up behind Sully as he's facing down a herd of large, meaty, dumb hammer-head dinosaurites. So, once he's got Sully, Sigourney Weaver, and a third scientist within reach, as well as a herd of large, meaty, slow moving dinosaurs, does the predator grab dinner and run? Of course not! That wouldn't be sufficiently clichéd, so it has to stand stock still and scream. Same evolutionarily successful behavior as the ice monster from JJ Abrams' Star Trek too—what are the odds? So, does it tenderize the meat? Is that why they do it?

Then, rather than go after the LARGE, MEATY, SLOW MOVING HERD of meat snacks, or grabbing the two IMMOBILE scientists—the monster takes off after the Marine—the one guy who has any hope of out running the monster. Not that Sully has a realistic chance of outrunning a giant predator, but movie predators all seem to be victims of Zeno's Paradox¸ unable to ever actually close the distance.

4. Why does Cameron think the Na'vi live in harmony with nature when they brainwash it?

Or as MovieLine so delightfully puts it—isn't it kind of rapey? I mean, how do you tame a Pandoran horse? Do you approach it with gentleness and kindness, teach it to trust you, work with it daily over weeks and months, until the two of you learn to respect each other? Or do you take your USB ponytail, plug it into the animal's brain and violently override its will with your own? Oh, yeah, kind of rapey.

Then—in the case of the banshees—the poor animal has only one rider its entire life. Offensively patriarchal and violent. Oh yeah, that's right. We're talking about James Cameron again.

5. Why spell Na'vi with the extraneous apostrophe anyway?

This also appears to be one of those stupid conventions to signal "non-English" and "alien." It's not like the Na'vi have a written language that we ever see, and it's not like the apostrophe stands in for a tongue click, or an inhalation, or some other verbal interruption. Just spell the damn word "Navi," or even "Nahvi." Or for laughs, make them a race of grocers and sign makers, who are famous for their liberal use of extraneous apostrophes. "Banana's $.69/lb"—I know you've seen those signs.

6. How terrible a Marine is Sully—did the guy get ANY training in tactics and strategy?

So Sully decides to take a stand against the humans and he gathers 2000 warriors, a number that ridiculously worries the humans inside the compound. All the Na'vi warriors have is body paint and spears. Meanwhile, the (presumably) outnumbered humans have battle helicopters, ambulatory armor, and automatic weapons—just for starters. So, when you are badly outgunned, out armored, and generally more vulnerable than your enemy, the logical thing to do is—FULL FRONTAL ATTACK! Of course! Because as you ride over the fallen bodies of the numerous dead, it gives you the advantage of. . .the leverage of. . .Oh. Wait. It gives you EXACTLY NOTHING. Dumbass.

Now I'm no Marine, and I've never studied military strategy, but even I'm thinking "why don't you round up a herd of those hammer-head things with the skin that is impervious to bullets. Those ones that can knock over giant trees with their skulls. Then drive them in front of you and let them trample down the walls, smash the armor, and then you can take on the puny humans mano a mano." I mean, say what you want about George Lucas, but even the frickin' EWOKS had more sophisticated military strategies than Cameron's alleged Marine.

7. Did Sully HAVE to be the guy to ride the dragon?

This one is just offensive. Only 5 Na'vi in the history of the planet have ever raped ridden the leonopteryx—why did Jake Sully have to be the sixth one? Wouldn't that have been a great opportunity for one of the other stock red shirt Na'vi to have a moment of heroism? Someone who knew the risks, but was willing to sacrifice himself to save his people? Oh, wait—my mistake. That would have been good storytelling, and we're talking about James Cameron.

8. Does Cameron think that just because they won this battle the mining companies won't be back?

In the end of the movie, the puny humans are sent packing off-planet, under the watchful eyes of ten foot tall blue cat people carrying automatic weapons. "Only a few were allowed to remain" exposits Jake Sully in voice-over. And then the Na'vi go off and celebrate under their fiber optic Grandmother Willow. But the Native Americans didn't get to keep their land or way of life after the Battle of Little Bighorn, and the Empire Struck Back, so don't go thinking that this is Happily Ever After.

Oh, wait—this is MY mistake. This is just the set up for Avatar Part Deux; The Electric Boogaloo, and an endless series of video game spin offs and paperback series novelizations. Cameron learned SOMETHING from George Lucas in addition to "Awkward Dialogue 101."

9. Is Colonel Quaritch really JJ Jameson?

Separated at birth?

10. Where did Sully get his lighter?

After Sully outruns the stupid (and very very hungry--see #3 above) predator, he's stuck in the jungle at night at the mercy of advancing leopard/wolf/dogs. We see him dunking a branch into a convenient tree hollow full of kerosene and lighting the resulting torch. The guy just ran through the jungle and lost his gun, his pack, all his equipment—where did he get a Bic lighter from? Let's not even talk about why anything is flammable on a planet that is entirely bio-luminscent and where the Na'vi never build fires.

Worse to my mind is the scene at the end where Neytiri manages to struggle free from a fallen animal that had pinned her legs and kept her from saving Jake from Colonel Quaritch until she is able to shoot him in the chest with a HUGE arrow. And he still won't die! So she shoots him a second time, and the second arrow is the one that finally does the Bad Guy in. But where did that second arrow come from? The Na'vi are usually mostly nude, and while they carry honking big bows, I never saw a quiver.

Where did Neytiri store that second arrow? From the same place Bugs Bunny is always able to pull lighted sticks of dynamite? (Cartoon Law Amendment E)

11. Why do the alien Na'vi have human fingernails?

We already know why the females have breasts, but fingernails are not accounted for.

12. Did James Cameron give proper credit to the screenwriters of Fern Gully?

FernGully: the 1992 movie in which a non-human female teaches a jarhead about the importance of environmentalism, and then the bulldozers come and knock down the trees.

13. Is the Ambulatory Armor really just Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots?

Separated at birth--again?

14. Where is the Air Bender?

I'm certain there are more nagging questions—feel free to post them below

The Young Victoria, A Review

The four of us went to see "The Young Victoria" tonight, because there is really rather a dearth of movies that all four of us want to (or can, even) see. And I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Honestly, I thought I knew all there was to know about Queen Victoria, and her times, just by osmosis. She was queen for practically ever, and what is there to learn about her romance with the man who became her husband, Prince Albert. Turns out, I was wrong--her early years were completely new to me.

George III was the longest reigning monarch before Victoria, and he lost the colonies, went mad, had his oldest son as his regent off and on until his death in 1820. His eldest son became George IV, and since he had no living legitimate heirs, the crown went to his brother William IV. Although William IV had 10 living children, they were all born out of wedlock with his longtime mistress and were not eligible to inherit. Victoria was the daughter of yet another of George III's sons, the Duke of Kent. Said duke died shortly before his father George III, and so Victoria was raised by her mother.

The Duchess of Kent was originally from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha and could easily have returned home to Germany after the death of her husband. However, it was apparent even then that Victoria stood a good chance of inheriting the throne. George IV had no heirs, was estranged from his wife and she was presumably too old to have children. William IV took the throne at age 64 and had no living heirs either. So it looked possible that not only would Victoria inherit, she might also inherit while still a minor, which would probably mean her mother would act as regent.

Victoria's mother was advised, controlled, and possibly sleeping with an Irish military man named Sir John Conroy, and between them they kept the young Victoria isolated and dependent. Their plan was to keep her weak so that they would control her through regency in her youth, and possibly continue to control her even afterwards. The plan backfired, however, because Victoria resented and hated both Conroy and her mother, and because William IV managed to live until after Victoria's 18th birthday and no regency was necessary.

There is a wonderful scene at William's birthday reception when the King (ably portrayed by Jim Broadbent--that man is a treasure! Is there any movie he doesn't improve?) stands up and denounces Victoria's mother and announces his intention of living long enough to avoid a regency. He is visibly ailing, and the drama of the moment is tense because Americans probably don't know if there was a regency for Victoria or not. I sure didn't.



Jim Broadbent as William IV denouncing Victoria's mother. Check the gorgeous scenery!

As fascinating as the history is, the movie is a joy for its sheer beauty. The fabrics in the clothing and furnishings are gorgeously dyed and embroidered, the actors are all lovely to look at, the palaces are stunning and the gardens and landscapes are to die for. Emily Blunt makes Victoria young, vulnerable, determined, and very very human. Paul Bettany as Lord Melbourne is much more pleasant to look at than as the albino Silas in The DaVinci Code--you can see how Victoria came to depend upon him and even fall a little in love with him. Rupert Friend makes the young Prince Albert look good, even in badly fitted plaid pants.



Would I recommend this film? Absolutely. Would I see it again? Without question! I'd watch it just to look at the costumes again and marvel at the gorgeous colors that get deeper and richer as the film progresses--I'd love to hear a commentary by the costume designer about the source and dramaturgy of Victoria's dresses alone.

Monsters vs. Aliens--in 3D!

Don't expect much from this movie, and you will be pleasantly surprised. The animation of the lead character, Susan, is as human as anything done by CGI. Which is to say, that she is delightfully rendered and one of the first human computer animated characters to be able to star. There is a reason the first most successful such movies were about toys and robots and cars. . .




















Stephen Colbert plays the President. As such, he steps forward to greet the alien robot, and is nearly crushed. I can think of quite a few actual presidents I would rather sacrifice to an alien in order to save Stephen Colbert. That man is quite literally a national treasure.






















Dilemma: one of our characters is a gelatinous blob with no brain. Who to cast, who to cast? Gelatinous. Brainless. Blob. Hmmmm. Brainless blob. I'm thinking. I'm thinking. . . .why is Seth Rogan standing in my office?






















When Susan gets hit by a meteor, and subsequently grows to 50 feet tall at the altar on her wedding day, why does her skirt tear off, and her garter snap, but the dress says in place? "BECAUSE IT'S A KID MOVIE. DUH."























Why is the Missing Link a fish-man?




















Hugh Laurie--still amazing even as a cockroach.






















Note to self: when lecturing daughters on Men To Avoid, include TV weathermen.

Movies have Secret Government Facilities all wrong. They would never be hundreds of stories underground, clad in steel with automatic doors and high tech hovercraft. They would be in boring concrete buildings, with walls painted industrial green, full of old cubicles with mismatched chairs and poor climate control. Trust me on this. The roof would also leak.

Is paddle ball the "secret handshake" of 3D movie makers, and that's why it's in every one?

Game of the Moment

What have I been doing this week? What everybody else seems to be doing as well--playing "Dangerous High School Girls In Trouble."


















Not only do you have to love a computer game with a name like this, but this is the most unusual game I have seen in ages. Beautifully designed to look like a board game, done in elegant watercolor, this game combines all the things a 1920s flapper can teach that girls of today need to know: How to play poker, expose secrets, successfully taunt others, and flirt with boys who will then sacrifice themselves for you.

But this isn't only about being bad--learning these skills allows your girls to outwit adults in order to solve a mystery and save the innocent, as well as successfully serve as matchmakers to at least three deserve-to-be-happy couples.

You start with selecting the girl who will be Queen of your gang--from a group of 12 possible, each of whom has different strengths.


















You then travel around the school looking to recruit other girls for your gang, occasionally attending classes as well.


















Once you have your gang complete, you begin to investigate why the school nurse is covering up accidents, while outmaneuvering the Liars, Bullies and Stoolies.

















Eventually, your investigations take you out into the tougher world of Downtown Brigiton, where the boys are harder to hook, and the adults are corrupt, venal, or pathetic, yet all are harder to outwit.

The game and the producing company Mousechief are garnering a lot of positive reviews and nominations. This is the most delightful and amusing game I've played in a very long time, and I highly recommend it. Check out a one hour free demo at Big Fish Games.

Fiorello!

Just came back from a "community theater" production of this 1959 play about the one-time mayor of New York City. I say "community theater" because the roles were played by equity actors/singers who sing with local opera companies, work at the dinner theater that spawned Oscar nominee Amy Adams. This is not like "Waiting for Guffman."

In 1960, Fiorello! tied with The Sound of Music for Best Musical. The pair of them beat out Gypsy. Yet how often does your high school stage Fiorello!? Never? That's how often I've seen it. Remember that great movie adaptation? Of course you don't, because there wasn't one. Because, really, who else besides New Yorkers could take this play to their hearts?

It's kind of an odd play in these times. The play spans years from 1915 to 1934, all before Fiorello LaGuardia became mayor of New York. There is a brief introduction from Mayor LaGuardia in 1945, but the play ends just as he starts his ultimately successful campaign for mayor in 1933. The bulk of the play builds up to his overwhelming defeat in 1929, where he crawls back to his law offices in a sulk. Only the clandestine efforts of his long-suffering office assistant convince him to run again in 1934. He finally asks her to marry him (she's been "secretly" in love with him for 15 years), and they start out full of hope.

Ostensibly, this is the period where LaGuardia broke up Tammany Hall, but we don't see how it happens. Sure, there is the only memorable song in the play "Little Tin Box," in which pretend Tammany extortion defendants attempt to explain how they saved up to buy their yachts and mansions, despite their low salaries. But how did they end up in court? What did LaGuardia have to do with it? Who knows?

As an exercise in storytelling, Fiorello! assumes the audience has an awful lot of background information about the man, the times, and the political players. Simultaneously, it expects the audience NOT to know that Fiorello was actually a US Congressman from 1922-1933, including during his "disasterous" defeat for Mayor. Based solely on the play, you would think that Fio barely got his toes wet in the Potomac before joining the army, and then returning to NYC, never to leave it again.

Yes, I understand that some things have to be left out when you are talking about a Broadway musical--it isn't really history they are presenting. Even so, the character arc of the play is really odd unless you are fully aware of the real history of the man. You have to know that he was Mayor from 1934-1945, is credited with restoring NYC during the Great Depression, took on major Mafia figures, and voluntarily chose not to run again in 1945. If you don't know that (which I didn't, and certainly have no emotional context for these facts) the play makes no sense.

Here is my summary of the main scenes of the play:

Scene 1--F.H. LaGuardia ("Fio") has a law office where he helps immigrants with legal troubles. He has a staff of 3, although he apparently never gets paid for his work. (This is 1915.)

Scene 2--Fio decides he's going to run for Congress, because of something about Tammany Hall. He helps striking shirtwaist factory workers win a better wage, and he wins the election.

Scene 3--In DC, he insists on the need for a draft and US entry into WWI, and enlists.

Scene 4--He comes home from war, marries one of the shirtwaist factory strikers and runs for Mayor. (Okay, he came home in 1918, ran for mayor in 1929. In the play, this looks like a couple of weeks). Tammany Hall hires ruffians to disrupt a speech, his wife dies, and he loses the election all in one night.

Scene 5--Faithful Marie approaches the Republican machine to help Fio with his new campaign for mayor. The Republicans gloat over the fall of Tammany. (Whaaa? When? How? Who?) Mentor agrees to forgive Fio for ignoring him for the last 3 years (Again--whaaa?) and a judge names Fio as the Republican nominee for mayor--all without Fio's knowledge. Fio decides to accept the nomination, proposes to Marie, the Republican machine smiles, curtain falls.

This raises some questions in a non-New Yorker. Why is the Republican machine any better than the Tammany/Democrat one? Why should we root for this Fiorello, when the only legislation we see him stand for is the draft? (That one certainly plays oddly in the post-Vietnam era, where the army is all volunteer.) He hates "the exploiters" and sides with striking workers, so he becomes a Republican. Again, not so clear in these times. His campaign speeches seem to cast him as the Sesame Street candidate: "The name is L-a-G-u-a-r-d-i-a. . ." Sure, he can spell, but what makes him worth a whole musical?

I think there is a reason you don't see this play mounted very often outside New York. If your previous exposure to LaGuardia was through heinous air travel through his airport. . .a play has to work a WHOLE LOT harder for your empathy.

Talladega Nights, A Review

I am old. I am cranky. I have long felt that Phil Hartman was overrated as a comic. I avoid Adam Sandler, Rob Schneider and Jimmy Fallon whenever possible. I remember when Bill Murray was "the new guy."

Will Ferrell?

Loved the cowbell. Didn't find anything funny in Roxbury. That's about my SNL experience of him. I'll catch his movies when they come on cable occasionally. Loved Zoolander--he was funny in that. Ron Burgundy was fine for watching while sorting socks. He was unexpectedly terrific as The Man In The Yellow Hat in Curious George.

Blades of Glory made me laugh. Sure, it was crude, crass, and stupid, but it was also very funny. Funny enough that I flicked it on and found myself watching the whole thing. Even the big chase scene on ice skates made me laugh. So I rented Talladega Nights, the Ballad of Ricky Bobby. I had heard it was very funny, and I have a goofy love for John C. Reilly.

Cut to the chase: oh my god was this lame.

You could tell Ferrell was coasting--the movie didn't call for him to do much. Some of the actors clearly poured all the energy they could into their roles: John C. Reilly as the best friend, Leslie Bibb as the enabling trophy wife, Amy Adams as Jenna Fischer from Blades of Glory.

They tried. They really tried, but what can a mere actor do when the whole movie is paced like an episode of Teletubbies? The only lively bits were the NASCAR computer graphics. For a movie about speed, it was downright somnolent. Honestly, I gave up after the first 40 minutes, though Captain Sweetie watched it all the way to the end.

I'd write more, but I have to go yell at some kids who are on my lawn.

HP5 Movie: A Review

Pottermania is here, and we saw the movie Thursday night. Spoilers ahead.

The things that stood out:

1. Believable relationship between Harry and Sirius. They seemed to spend more time together in the movie than in the book, and they truly seemed to have a real relationship. Plus, the movie Sirius was less of a whiny hothead than in the book, and so his death felt more momentous.
2. Nymphadora Tonks--perfectly cast, criminally underused.
3. Luna Lovegood--perfect. Absolutely perfect.
4. Ginny Weasley--still in the background, and few (possibly no) lines. But we get to see her being an amazingly talented witch.
5. Bellatrix Lestrange--again, perfectly cast, but a bit more 'eye-rolling' crazy than the woman we saw in Book 6.
6. Occlumency lessons. Incredibly shortened, but very effectively done: we see all the stuff we need to see, plus Snape gets to be the one to end the lessons.
7. James Potter looks like Harry, in the Mirror of Erised, even more in the photo of the original Order of the Phoenix, and especially as a Hogwarts student. Wonderful casting.
8. Grawp was beautifully done, huge, scary, but somehow loveable. Fitting for Hagrid's half-brother.
9. The betrayal of the DA was altered, but did all the work it needed to in a cleverly compact way. Harry's crush, Cho Chang, is the one who informs Umbridge, but only because of Veritaserum. Still, that ends the crush and clears her out of the way for Harry to find his true girlfriend in number 6.
10. Umbridge. Umbridge, Umbridge, Umbridge. She was even more insidious than in the book, because she kept the patronizing faux charm going until the very end.

This was a dark movie, the tone reinforced by the cinematography. Grimmauld Place was dark and grim and horrible. The Department of Mysteries was all black shiny ceramic tile and eerie gray light. The thestrals were suitably creepy looking and bony and leathery, yet somehow the thestral foal was still cute.

Sadly, the Ron/Hermione chemistry is just not there. Hermione and Harry have a visible and believable connection that is just missing between Ron and Hermione. Just as Harry hasn't said two words to Ginny, or even really noticed her--the pairings are just not gelling as they should. I don't miss the extended Quidditch scenes, but it was as teammates that Harry and Ginny had something in common, and we just aren't getting to see it.

This was a very efficient movie, and packed a whole lot of plot into two and a quarter hours. I'm already trying to decide when to see it again.

Pirates Of The Caribbean 3--A Review

What a big, glorious, beautiful mess this movie is! It's like everything that was done in the first two movies had to be done again, only this time BIGGER, with MORE EXPLOSIONS, and 30% MORE JOHNNY DEPP!

Don't even try to understand what is happening--the story careens from one set up to the next with little exposition or narrative logic. Captain Jack Sparrow has been swallowed by the Kraken, and everybody else wants to get him. Or to defeat the East India Company. Or something. It's not easy to tell. We see all our favorite characters, plus more of the Undead Monkey Jack, providing most of the comic relief.

This last chapter is darker than the first two, and I mean that literally. The first 30 minutes are so gloomy that it's hard to see all the stuff that has been stuffed into each frame. Everyone appears in half shadow all the time--all the better for the explosions I guess. And things do blow up. Lots of bodies go flying, structures fall down, but it's hard to know or care what is happening, but that's okay, because later we see all the characters have made it to the next bit, where they try to go rescue Captain Jack.

And here's where those of us who wanted more Johnny Depp get more Johnny Depp. Captain Jack has (don't ask how) been transported to a white sand desert with the Black Pearl. Both have survived being eaten by the Kraken (I told you not to ask) and Jack is hallucinating multiple versions of himself as his own crew. Mild hilarity ensues, and everyone ends up rescuing everyone else. And holding pistols on each other. And double-crossing each other. And then blowing up more stuff.

Really, it's amazing that any of these ships stay afloat, with all the shooting and crashing and running aground they do. Tia Dalma turns out to be 40 feet tall and made all of crabs, Davy Jones turns out to be a non-performing employee who must be replaced, and for some reason, the job description requires radical surgery. Sure, in Pirates 2, the reason Davy Jones put his heart in a chest was because he was disappointed in love and couldn't bear the pain--but now that appears to be a required qualification for commanding the Flying Dutchman. Go figure.

Frankly, there was just too much going on to get invested in any of it. [Spoilers ho! So, keep a weather eye on the horizon!] Elizabeth's father, the criminally underused Jonathan Pryce, turns up dead, without any reason why he was even in this episode. Elizabeth's would-be fiance, Commodore Norrington--who got to demonstrate his comic chops in the second movie--is back to wearing white wigs and making anti-pirate decisions, so he ends up dead too. Elizabeth and Will finally get married, but then Will gets stabbed with the sword he made back in the first movie, and has to cut his heart out and take over the Flying Dutchman.

Only after all the noisy and pointless fighting do we get the kind of moments that make us care about these characters: Will and his father have a quiet moment together; Will and Elizabeth have to separate for 10 years; and after 10 years, we see Will sailing back to meet his wife and their 9 year old child.

Pirates 4? Of course there will be one--this one has made a pile of loot, and the franchise isn't dead yet. Captain Jack Sparrow has lost his ship to Barbossa again, but he's stolen Barbossa's map and is off to find the Fountain of Youth. The whole Will/Elizabeth story has been wrapped up and now only Johnny Depp and Geoffry Rush have to be signed on for another installment. I hope only that any fourth movie goes back to having a smaller and less cluttered plot, with fewer explosions and more character interaction.

One can always dream.

Music and Lyrics--A Review

Mr. Sweetie and I took adavantage of the kidlets having an overnight, and had a movie date. With dinner too! Here is post Oscar land, there is kind of a dearth of movies I want to see, but we both thought Music and Lyrics would be a decent date movie.

And it was. I know! Usually I am so critical! (A word here meaning once who looks carefully and considers many aspects of the finished project, evaluating dispassionately and evenhandedly--right?) This movie, though, exists purely on charm, and it did charm me.

Briefly, Hugh Grant plays an 80s pop has-been--The Other Guy from the mythical band Pop. Think Wham!, and he's the one who isn't George Michael. He's managed to make a living reprising his old hits at class reunions and amusement parks, happy to be working at all. (This is where the charm has started, of course--"I'm a Has Been and proud of it.")

Plot intervenes, and he is challenged to write a new song for the world's reigning Pop Tart--Britney + Shakira, with an Eastern mystical flair. Or, as they say in the movie "Buddha with a thong." He needs a lyricist, and Drew Barrymore has already done the Meet Cute. Of course, they find a mutual attraction, write The Song, hit difficulties, make up for a Happy Ending. The plot really doesn't bear any kind of examination, but that's not the point.

The point is in the throw-away nature of the lines and the witty writing. Hugh Grant is not the Bumbling Cute Englishman his has trademarked, but is a man happy that he has accomplished something with his life, and realistic that his time has passed. He tosses off self-deprecating lines while going about the business of life, with a casual effortlessness that lets the jokes sink in a fraction of a second after he's already gone on with his next bit of business.

Drew Barrymore has matured quite a bit from Charlie's Angels, and credibly plays the Meg Ryan role with a bit more shadows and hidden heartache. She has moments of such goofy and loving chemistry, especially in a scene set at her sister's house, where she has managed to bring Hugh Grant for dinner. Kristen Johnson is the older sister, who is still madly crushing on her pop music idol, and the interaction when her little sister reveals she's slept with him is hilarious. Johnson is simultaneously excited that someone she knows is this close to a (former) superstar, and worried aobut her little sister getting hurt. Barrymore is also producing a fine mix of triumph and embarassment. It is on such moments that the film coasts over its rough spots and in the end makes me certain I will see it again.

The music is largely by Adam Schlesinger, of Fountains of Wayne, and the man who wrote "That Thing You Do" for the movie of the same name. (In fact, that movie's studio held a contest for songwriters to write the theme song, which Adam won. . .coincidence? I don't think so.) He gets the 80s sound pretty right, although none of the songs are are unforgettable as That Thing You Do. But as someone who remembers how new and exciting the 80s sound was after the bloated pretensiousness of much of the music of the 70s ("Nights In White Satin" anybody?) it hit its target. Yes, I am, sadly, one of those women of a certain age the film so gently ribs.

Although, in my own defense, it would take more than Andrew Ridgely (the "other guy" from Wham) shaking his booty to get me asking for an autograph, or even stopping between rides at the theme park.

Lagaan--A Movie Review

We have had a lot of events over the past several days, and as a result, we have had tired kidlets. So on Saturday we ordered in pizza and have Family Movie Night. The movie was Lagaan.

We had it because the kidlets had seen Bride and Prejudice, the Bollywood extravaganza version of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, in which our protagonists sing and dance their way into matrimony across three continents. It's sheer exuberant silliness captured their imagination, so I thought it would be fun to show them another one.

I had forgotten what a big mouthful of bran and oatmeal Lagaan could be. It's actually four hours long, and the plot revolves around land taxation and a three day long cricket match. Mostly in Hindi, with subtitles. I actually began to have second thoughts. And third and fourth thoughts as well. But, amazingly, we all got caught up in it. I'd even seen it before and knew how it came out, and I was biting my nails over the tension in the final act.

The kidlets were absolutely engrossed, except when the tension got too great, and the Bunny put her fingers in her ears and buried her head in the cushions chanting "I can't watch this, I can't watch this." We cheered on the good guys and booed the bad guys, and Bunny kept interjecting "I can't believe no one has slapped him yet. Someone should slap him. Maybe the elephant can step on him." My palms were itching too.

The plot concerns a bet: in 1893, the drought stricken village of Champener is behind in its taxes to be paid to the British forces, and they owe double taxes. The rains still haven't come and there is no way they can pay the taxes, much less double taxes, and they are already starving. While the villagers are asking for tax relief, the British officer issues a challenge--if the villagers can defeat the British at cricket, the tax will be cancelled for three years.

The impetuous (and deeply honorable) Bhuvan accepts the challenge, and now has to collect eleven players and learn the game. In the course of training the team, we see an allegorical unification of India: the squabbling neighbors unite, Muslims and Hindus play together, the village cripple is found to have a unique skill at bowling with spin, and even an Untouchable is accepted onto the team. In their desire to defeat the British and preserve their village, the traditional divisions of age, position, and cast are all overcome.

In the end (slight spoiler here) the British outpost is closed, and this small corner of India sees the withdrawal of British rule. After all, the Empire can't afford to have the entire country playing cricket to evade taxes--it's a dangerous precedent.

Simultaneously, there is a love story which parallels the story of Krishna and Radha. One of the village girls, Gauri, is in love with Bhuvan but he seems blind to her. An Englishwoman defies her countrymen and comes to help the villagers learn to play cricket, and finds herself falling in love with Bhuvan as well. Gauri sees this infatuation, and worries, but Bhuvan also seems blind to this. The parallel is not clear--which woman will Bhuvan/Krishna marry, and which will be his "Radha," the one who personifies pure and selfless love?

One of the beauties of Bollywood films is the singing and dancing, and even in Hindi the music is hummable and infectious. I went to scour iTunes for the soundtrack, but it's not available on the US version. It can be ordered from Amazon, however.

Now I'm looking for some more recommendations for more Bollywood. And we've put India on the list of places we need to visit.

The Departed--A Review

So, in preparation for Oscar Night tomorrow night, I saw The Departed last night. The buzz around this movie was pretty positive, and there is a chance that Martin Scorcese might finally win his Oscar for this movie. Best Picture? Possibly. Rotten Tomatoes gives it a 90+% freshness rating.

Do I agree? Well, in the interest of full disclosure, I don't think I've actually seen any other entire Scorsese movie. I've seen bits and pieces, and I know his gory rep, but I haven't seen one in its entirety before. So, I can't compare itdirectly, but based on this one alone, I wouldn't go out of my way to see more.

As you probably already know, The Departed is a remake of the Hong Kong movie Infernal Affairs, which I also haven't seen. But since the plot had already been worked out, I'd have liked to see this be more than just a clever crime romp, with some gratutitous violence and language worked in. There were hints of it, but the movie never slowed down enough to really give us effective personalities, and so it felt like a roller coaster ride, but it could have been more.

The plot can be summarized as follows: Matt Damon and Leo DiCaprio are Southies (Boston) who grew up to be state police. Matt Damon owes his allegience to Southie Irish crime lord Jack Nicholson, and keeps him tipped off to police efforts to intercept his deals. Leo is browbeaten into "dropping out" and infiltrating Nicholson's outfit so the police can catch him. Matt is on a career fast track, ending up with the choice job of tracking down the mole in the police force. Leo is horrified at what Nicholson does, and increasingly fears for his life. In the end, the two suspect each other, and there are a series of showdowns and a lot of gunfire.

This could have been a tenseand emotional story about the conflicts between a man's honor, his ethics, and his obligations. Matt Damon is on a career fast track--does he never wish to be free of Nicholson's leash? Hard to tell. Leo is forced to participate in worse and worse crimes, and he finds himself doing very bad things in order to do the "right" thing. He starts taking pills to ease his anxiety, but the way he pops them, it's hard to see that they aren't Rolaids or Tylenol. He certainly doesn't act any differently before or after taking them.

Jack Nicholson? He's is one crazy bastard, that's for sure, but why does Matt Damon stick with him? There should be some kind of appeal to this guy. In the first few scenes, we see a schizophrenic personality--he's violent, then crude, then genuinely kind (buying groceries for the young Matt Damon)--that sort of see-saw personality is hard to escape. As soon as you are convinced he's insane, he does something that draws you back in. I don't see how Damon profits from his connection emotionally. I'd like to see Leo being drawn in against his instincts--instead, these three characters are all just two dimensional. Someone bought him groceries, so Matt Damon never thinks twice about suborning his own life to Nicholson's. DiCaprio is just trapped and horrified, but wouldn't it be darker and twistier if he caught himself being a bit attracted by this new life?

Which is, I guess, why I wanted to stop the roller coaster ride and get to know these people better. Otherwise it's just--good guy does bad for good reasons to catch a bad guy; bad guy pretends to be good, and then everyone gets shot and dies the end. If we saw how these deceptions affected these guys, if we saw how DiCaprio's sacrifices were actually helping to build a real case against Nicholson, if we saw costs of keeping the police ignorant of the undercover guys' identities. . .that's a movie that actors could sink their chops into.

Instead, we get a series of speeches that convey the ideas but not the emotional meaning behind what is happening. DiCaprio goes berserk, demanding the police arrest Nicholson for all his felony murders so DiCaprio can get out alive. Martin Sheen says "we're building a case" so DiCaprio has to go back. A case for what? What info do they need to close the trap on this guy? Wouldn't you be more invested if you could see how this particular deal was going to make or break this case?

Apparently, Scorsese's version adds some class and ethnic conflict to the original story. Maybe--there is some minor turf battle between the Italian Mafia from Providence and Nicholson's Irish boys in Boston, but it's not nationalistic--it's business. You can't have the boys from RI collecting protection money from the patsies in your town, right? Who cares what their ethnic background is? Plus, except for a couple of outbursts from Mark Wahlberg about "lace curtain Irish," there's very little sense that these lives are very different from the more privileged lives lived by Leo's "uncle" or the police psychiatrist. No sense that Matt Damon doesn't fit in where he iss because of his Southie background.

If you are looking for some fast footwork and some tough guys turning on each other at breakneck speed, then this is a fine movie. I tend to think that the Academy rewards movies that are "A Big Night At The Theater" with the Best Picture Award. The Departed is a bigger picture than either Little Miss Sunshine or The Queen, but not really something I'd give that award to.

Commercials--The New Methodone? Grey's Anatomy

So. I watched the last two episodes of Grey's Anatomy in real time. That is, I watched them on TV, at the regular broadcast time. Complete. With commercials.

I know this isn't really news, but god! Commercials suck! I got GA on DVD and watched 2 season's worth in under a week. No commercials, skipped all the "previously on Grey'sAnatomy" recaps, went straight for the emotional kick of the stories themselves, and got physically addicted to the tone and pace and big emotions of the show.

Then, I saw it on TV. With commercials. (Which suck, BTW.) And I may be over my addiction.

Because, seriously? Switching back and forth between Blue Meredith getting CPR and ads for Chevy Trucks. Kind of ruins the mood, you know? It's much much harder to get into that space where the storytelling gains momentum, and the emotions build on the ones that came before. At least, that was my experience. Your mileage may vary.

So, what about the Very Special Three Part Sweeps Month episodes, you ask? Has the show in fact jumped the shark, as so many posters at TWoP claim? I'd have to say no. But. (That's a qualified "no.") Let's start with the bad:

The Bad:

1. What happened to all the patients and victims of this 1500 passenger ferryboat? Geez--Meredith turns blue and suddenly all these surgery hungry interns have nothing else to do but help in the free clinic? Surely someone has a compound fracture--and what happened to Izzy's guy who was crushed by the cars? Surely he needed some surgery.
2. Um--the Seattle Grace of Meredith's mind? Hottie McBomby could come and go because his life had a completed feel to it. Denny was trapped because he couldn't move on. What about the dog? Why is the dog unfinished? Or moving around the various dimensions? On the other hand--Meredith wakes up to the twin yumminess that are Dylan and Denny, and she totally disses them. "No offense, guys, but the one I'd really want to see is . . ." Cue dog here. HA!
3. Bonnie? Bonnie? She was a great story, heartbreaking for her bravery. Why does Meredith need to see her again? Why do we? I think it cheapened her story to show her dead and mad about it.
4. Ellis's scrub nurse? That's who Meredith wants to see?
5. Ellis shows up and makes it all better with a hug? Yeah, right.
   
6. For a three part episode (that's, um 2, carry the 1) that's 129 minutes of story. So why did the big emotional moments get so rushed?
   

The Good:

1. The point of the episode minimized the "Lead Character In Jeopardy (but you never actually kill the lead character)" cliches. Sure, there was the requisite hospital dramatics--"charge the paddles to 200. . .clear!" "Still no heart beat" you can't seem to avoid. BUT the point of the episode was to show Meredith acknowledging her own despair. "What's the point?" that lead to her drowning rather than still fighting.
   
2. ALSO the reaction of the people around her: Cristina's fear and inability to watch her friend die shows sensitivity we don't see from our gung ho surgeon. I loved that at her moment of crisis she went shopping--at the DOLLAR STORE.
   
3. Burke's response to Cristina--"If your person dies and you aren't there, I don't see you coming back from that." He doesn't really get their friendship, but he's trying. He does understand that she is more important to Cristina than her other friends, and he truly cares about her.
4. Izzie being served a strong dose of Shut The Fuck Up by GEORGE! Izzie: "I can't lie about how I feel." George: "Yes you can, and you should. If you're wrong, you'll just look like a jerk. If I'm making a mistake, I'm going to need you and you're taking that away from me." Way to stand up for your woman, George.
5. Derek going all judgmental on Ellis. "You broke her." Totally not Hippocratic Oath, dude. But finally some real fire to your mopey love.
6. Denny, the epitome of a woman's man, getting the thing about Mere and Dere. "If you don't come back from this, you are going to change him." She isn't going to choose to live for her own sake, but for the sake of the toll it will take on her friends and especially the man she loves.

So, I think I might stick with Grey's, but I won't make a point of watching it on Thursday nights. I'll wait for the DVD, or catch four episodes at once on the website instead.

Did I mention that I hate commercials? I think they did help me kick my addiction though.

I Need An IV Drip STAT!--Grey's Anatomy

I'm serious about that IV drip. I've been watching Grey's Anatomy on DVD (seasons 1 and 2), and I got to the end and it was like a hangover. Seriously? Physical withdrawal symptoms. Elevated BP, difficulty breathing, tendency to experience eye watering.

OK, so I was crying. Yes, I was. I'm a sucker for emotional crack, and Lord help us, Grey's Anatomy is that. We have the effortlessly charming and yummy Dr. McDreamy, spending the first season knocking on Meredith's door to see if she can come out and play. As a med school graduate, Our Mere is no dummy, and she can see what a disaster it would be to date her boss. Her boss's boss, actually. It has to not happen. But he is soooo yummy, she can't help herself. She's got a messed up personal life, she's starting an incredibly stressful internship, and here's this charming, funny, sexy man who likes her and wants to bring something positive into her life. OF COURSE she can't resist him. Yes, my heart started beating wildly as she kissed him in the elevator at the hospital--these are people who should be together. It took a bottle of tequila (which hits hard on a female who weighs about what the full bottle weighs) for her to give in, and with equally bad judgement, she gets caught with him by her boss. But he's so damn adorable, that's gotta be something we can all keep out of the work relationship, right?

R-i-i-i-i-ight.

Sadly, disc 2 of season 1 was missing from the video store, so I had to skip straight into season 2, and Denny and Izzy and the broken heart. Yes. I cried. A lot. Plus I had to wrap my head around Mrs. McDreamy. And Mc Steamy. And McVet. God, there are a whole lot of really good looking doctors in Seattle! I bet it helps with getting women to schedule regular check-ups, when the doctors are so. . .so. . .so edible.

But all good things come to an end, and so did season 2. And by this point, we are already 15 episodes into season 3. But, did I let this stop me? Hells to the no! Because due to the Amazingness of the Internet, I can read blow by blow recaps of all the episodes, and catch up with the story. Who was that masked recapper? I wanted to thank him/her. Thank you Television Without Pity!

But wait! There's more! And I'm not talking Ginsu knives either. No way. Because in the 13 years since I stopped following weekly television series (coinciding, not coincidentally, with the age of my oldest child), television has become more than the mere broadcast. More than online bulletin boards where fans can rave or rage over the latest episode. No! Now television talks back! The writers of Grey's Anatomy have a blog where they talk about what went into making each episode, how they viewed the writing process, what they tried to do with the story and the overall series arc.

And then? Then it turns out that ABC posts the last 4 episodes of the show (along with many other series) on its website, and you can watch it for free! Each episode is sponsored online by a single advertiser, and they get about e 30 second spots to run their ads between acts of the episode. Which is way less advertising than you get with watching it on TV. It's even less advertising than you have to see before a movie starts in the theater these days. This is da bomb! I'm too cheap and scared to buy TiVo, because I would either never use it, or use is far far too much. So, I can watch and re-watch episodes I missed when they were broadcast.

PLUS! Grey's has a helpful listing of the music they play during the episodes. And through the magic of YouTube and MySpace, you can even find a lot of that music already posted online to listen to. ALSO for free. I've discovered that I enjoy Psapp, who I found from the Grey's Anatomy theme song. Who I've now seen performing live through the magic of webcam in the KCRW studio. How cool is the internet?

But Grey's. I'm not certain why I'm so hooked. Sure, I have always loved watching pretty people do glamorous things. That's why I watch the Oscars every year. That's why I read People Magazine at the dentist's office. But I'm not addicted to those things. Not like to Grey's.

Maybe it's because it's hooked me on two levels. First, it's socked me in the gut a couple of times, and grabbed my heart right out of my chest and squeezed it while twisting my intestines for good measure. I mean, Dylan, the Mad Hot Bomb Squad Guy? Hell of a story that was! Pink mist! Christina Ricci totally owning the OR as Panicky Hannah the EMT! The way that story just got worse and worse. . .not only was the patient shot by his own bazooka, but then the ammo was unexploded! And Mad Hot Bomb Squad Guy couldn't defuse it until the doctors got it out of the patient's body! And Panicky Hannah ran away! And Our Mere stepped in on instinct before she realized what she was doing! And Mad Hot Kyle Chandler just looked at her, and you totally knew that if McDreamy was going to stick with his wife, then Our Mere was going to find something intense with Mad Hot Guy! But then! And then!

But this show also gets me on the intellectual level, which is not something all TV does for me. Because this show makes an effort to take a theme each episode, and illustrate it from different angles, in the lives of the different doctors and patients. A two part episode that starts with cheesy cliche of three girls in the shower together porny dream sequence- - -ends with the three girls actually in the shower, two of them supporting the third, helping to clean the blood off her, to take care of her. Because that's how women really do relate to each other, and if you pay attention, you can see that the show is carefully crafted to make those connections. If you don't see them, fine, but it's fun to see them for yourself.

I'm a little sorry that even though these interns are still in their first year of residency, they've gotten medically so competent that we don't see them pushed to their limits. One of the things that the first season did so well - - -and the old series "thirtysomething" also did- - -was to show the panic and fear of failing at this career you've set out on. Fear of job failure happens in every occupation: with doctors, it's not just you and your career, it's also somebody's life. So the stakes are higher, but the cold lump of dread in the gut when you think you're failing? That's universal.

So, the series is currently in Sweeps month, meaning it's show 2 episodes of a 3 episode arc, and Our Mere is in jeopardy. And I don't mean the game show. And on the boards and in the comments, people are fed up with sweeps stunts. After all, the frickin' show is named after her, how likely is it that Meredith Grey isn't going to be saved? But I still have some hope: hope that the final episode will not be "will she or won't she survive," but "how does this experience (extreme though it is) test Meredith's character?" How is this going to push her into territory where she is vulnerable and weak, and how will she pull herself through it?

I just found out yesterday that the creator of Grey's Anatomy, Shonda Rimes, wrote the screenplay for Princess Diaries 2, which was kind of a mess of a movie, but did have some clear structure underlying the mess. The movie was built around 3 major life passages: coming of age, getting married, and taking on adult responsibilities. Grey's Anatomy seems to have a similar "life stages" structure. Meredith starts her internship- -it's her coming of age. She's left the protection of school and entered the world as an adult.

Meredith meets McDreamy, the man she thinks she can spend her life with. She resists at first (because unrequited longing is soooo hott!) because he's her boss, and then they are kept apart because he's married and his wife is fighting for him. But that marriage is now over, and they can be together. This is the "getting married" part. However, even though engagements are busting out all over Seattle, Our Mere doesn't want to get married. Instead, she . . .she. . . what? What is going on for Our Mere? She's not talking about what is going on, but something is not Happily Ever After for her. She's too complicated and modern for that. Finding The Right One is not the end of the story. In the Princess Diaries, the princess nearly married the wrong man, and ended up stepping up to her adult responsibilities by herself. Only after finding herself could she truly be ready to love someone else.

I think Our Mere has something of the same problem. McDreamy, for all his swoony gorgeousness, can't make everything right. In fact, by the end of part 2 of this Sweeps story, Meredith is in trouble, and McDreamy is the one person who has to stand by and do nothing. It is graphically demonstrated--it is impossible for him to rescue her. She has to rescue herself, somehow, and I have hope that the resolution of this story will be powerful enough to hook me again.

And at that point, there will officially be no hope for me. I'll just have to load the whole damn series on my iPod, so I can administer my drug at will.

Little Miss Sunshine--A Review

So Mr. Sweetie and I rented Little Miss Sunshine, because we've got Oscar Fevah! Or, at least, when we decided to rent a movie, it was the only one of the Best Picture noms that was out on DVD.

So, I can totally understand why this was a hit at Sundance. It's incredibly well acted, it's about a dysfunctional family, it's got drama and humor, and you can feel superior to everybody up to and including the beauty pageant contestants. It's got a great cast, and a great back story. But.

There's always a "but," isn't there?

We saw it as a Best Picture Academy Award Nominee, and it just was too weird for me. I mean, I love Toni Collette, and I think she's one of the most underappreciated actresses in Hollywood. Steve Carell is wonderfully wry, and Abigail Breslin is truly winsome. However, I never found myself caring about these characters.

With the possible exception of Toni Collette. Her frazzled mom is clearly the bedrock of the family, and she tries to let each member of the family be who they are. She tolerates her son's vow of silence, she supports her husband's goofy self-help empire-in-the-making. She's accepted her foul mouthed, heroin taking father in law, and immediately takes on the care of her suicidal brother. When Olive suddenly qualifies for a beauty pageant in California, it's Mom who makes the trip happen. She's a real person, and her life is just barely under control, but she finds love and joy.

There is something to be said about how each of the other characters have had their dreams shattered. Perhaps they have all been scarred by their failure to live up to the American Dream of success, and each of them responds in different ways. Steve Carell tries to commit suicide. Greg Kinnear retreats deeper into denial. Alan Arkin turns to drugs. Paul Dano screams his pain to the skies. The thing that redeems all of them, though, is how they refuse to let the littlest of them, Abigail Breslin, have her dream crushed. At the end, as her dad and brother are trying to keep her from going onstage, it is because they don't want her dreams to die so young. The reason they get on stage is to protect the fragile hope that still exists in her.

But seriously? They lost me at the "kidnapping the dead grandpa and stowing him in the back of the van" scene. I never for one minute believed that Greg Kinnear's character would do such an obviously illegal, disrespectful, strange and unhygenic thing. Toni Collette managed to convince me that he was fud up with her husband, but was going to continue to enable his wishes--and I didn't think that she'd put up with that either. Frankly, I thought they might have just walked away and come back the next day after the pageant--abandoning him to the clinic for 24 hours might have been technically improper, but was WAY less stupid than stealing the body.

Plus, dead bodies in cars? Haven't been funny for decades. Didn't Weekend at Bernie's signal the end of any dead body humor? And the stripper dance at the end? How different was that from the dolled up dancers in sequins and make-up that were the other contestants, really? Sure, she wasn't as polished as they were, but she was also not fundamentally different from them either. That's the whole squicky thing about children's beauty pageants--little girls are inappropriately sexualized, and they don't really understand what they are doing. Olive didn't either.

If it hadn't been nominated for Best Picture, I wouldn't have bothered watching this movie. Not even for free on TV on a Saturday afternoon while I sorted socks.