With a post title like that, you must be here for the sappy sentimentality. Well, here you go, as promised.
Today was the final assembly of Elder Daughter's high school career, and it was awards day. Did you know that some high schools actually still give out academic recognition awards? I thought it was something they only did in English all-boy public schools and Monty Python sketches.
But such things still exist at my kids' school, and today was the day. And it was a day of some anxiety, because she is a very smart kid and a very responsible and committed kid, who has struggled with depression and other issues, and still managed to show up every day and be reliable and thoughtful and deeply engaged with learning.
Over the four years of high school, she has been a solid and reliable member of the school orchestra, anchoring the second violin section for four years; one of the few, the proud, the egregiously outnumbered altos in the extra-curricular choir and chamber choir; as the second (or third) level character in the plays. She's rarely been given solos, she hasn't been asked to conduct, she hasn't had showy lead roles, and she's never quite had the opportunity to burst into full color on stage in a way I see her doing at home regularly. She's been solid, reliable, she's always stepped up and performed beautifully, in a supporting role kind of way.
Yesterday, she was anticipating the awards and who would win them, preparing herself to not be recognized with a theater award because other seniors had done slightly more performances, had slightly more hours invested in the program. I saw her struggling to set her own expectations, to rank herself with the other seniors so as to not be disappointed or emotional during this assembly, and my heart broke for her a little bit. Because she is wonderful, but also quiet, unassuming, never self-aggrandizing, and so easy to overlook--as she had been, a little bit.
(I am aware that I am her mother and so of course I think this--everybody's mother feels this way, that their own precious darling specially gifted prodigies are not well served by the education establishment blah blah blah. Sure--that's true. But you try watching your kid preemptively manage disappointment and not get verklempt.)
The drama awards went to all the usual suspects exactly as she had suspected, not to her. Then the orchestra leader stood up and recognized the concert-mistress, and there was an award for a girl who had also accompanied the spring musical. Then there was another award. One that recognized that "You have played in the orchestra since middle school and also played in the chamber orchestra. You sang with the choir and the chamber choir. You have performed characters from tragedy to comedy. I am pleased to present the Somebody V. Something award to--" and it was my girl.
She had no idea this was coming, and I had no idea that it was coming and it felt so right. It was not about her being a diva, it was not about her snagging all the solos, or her starring in all the plays. It captured who she has been--supportive, reliable, talented, dedicated, there. Not only that, but it was awarded by three of the major faculty figures in her life: the choir director, the orchestra director, and the theater director. It was the only award that spanned all three fields.
Back when we
were looking at kindergarten programs, we tried to be clear-eyed about her
strengths and her weaknesses, and at the time we said "No matter what
school she ends up in, she will be fine. But she will always be the kid
who does well and doesn't cause problems, and in a large public school
classroom, she will be invisible. At this school, she will be seen."
Today, she was seen. And my broken heart broke again a little bit, for the gift that she had of teachers who saw her and loved her for who she is.
[In an anti-climactic coda here, I will also report that she won the highest honor for her Chinese studies as well--the other major academic love of her life. After some serious hard times over the last few years, she got some important validation and she deserved it.]
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Thursday, May 24, 2012
Some Things I Like
Okay, in contrast to the last post, I am going to make a list of a few things that I have come across in the last month that I have actively liked and tried to get others into:
So maybe my heart isn't entirely cold and dead--maybe it's just too small. Like the Grinch.
- Sherlock on PBS--the British production created by Stephen Moffat and Mark Gatiss, starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman
- The Drowsy Chaperone--a Broadway musical pastiche, presented as a contemporary man playing a record of a (fictional) musical from 1928
- Tumblr
- Menchie's frozen yogurt shop
- Blunderbuss--the new album by Jack White
- Running on an elliptical
- Prime rib and Lillet at Salut
- Lunch with my girlfriends
So maybe my heart isn't entirely cold and dead--maybe it's just too small. Like the Grinch.
Checking the Heart--Still Cold and Dead
It has come to my attention that I hate everything.
Yes, that is kind of a sweeping statement, but not untrue.
Over the last month, I have read at least four books and seen three Major Movies, and as I sat down to write my reviews and impressions, I realized that I hated them all.
"Hate" might be too harsh of a word for how I actually felt, but "negative" is accurate. Dark Shadows--can't recommend it, because it has no idea what it wants to be. The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel--great cast, shoddy script that the best talents of British acting can't save. The Avengers--a lot of sound and fury, but to very little point. Yet if asked, I would say "I love to go to movies."
Books are worse, in part because now I have read so many of them that I see their problems more than I see their strengths. Weird Sisters, by Eleanor Brown--fails to create any real conflict, fails to create characters I care about, fails to master the small innovations that Brown attempts. Bring Up The Bodies, by Hilary Mantel--extends the brand she established in Wolf Hall but fails to achieve anything with it. Boring. Fifty Shades of Grey--do I even need to say anything? Okay--in brief, it makes Stephanie Meyer look like a master of suspense and plotting, and is boring porn on top of it. There is better stuff out there, even for free.
Wait! you say. You said there were four books, and that's only three. What is the fourth?
That's the exception that proves the rule. The book I am currently reading is Jenny Lawson's Let's Pretend This Never Happened and I am really loving it. She is funny, while recounting a childhood that could make you cry. (I believe Jeanette Walls took that approach in her own book, The Glass Castle.) A (young! still so young!) woman who was raised in poverty, has battled anorexia, crippling anxiety disorder, multiple miscarriages, and rheumatoid arthritis still manages to make me laugh out loud. I may be able to represent her life and her writing in two sentences about the first time she brought her (now) husband home to meet her parents:
Not only does her father--for no discernible reason--decide to throw a wild animal at an unsuspecting young man, but this animal is only one of several wild animals he could have chosen for the task.Is there any need to go on and explain that Lawson's father keeps the bobcats in the yard in order to collect the urine? No, I didn't think so.
But this is where I think I have perhaps gone over the line into privileged, spoiled, unpleasant bitch territory. Jenny Lawson grew up with tap water from a well poisoned with radon, subject to the humor of a father who makes hand puppets out of squirrel road kill, wearing bread wrappers stuffed with newspapers in the winter. Meanwhile, I sit back watching movies and reading books that hundreds of people have spent thousands of hours and millions of dollars to create, and all I can do is say "meh--it wasn't very good. It could have been better."
Could it have been better? How? Okay, you over-privileged jerk--why don't you try to make something one tenth as good. Once you really experience the difficulty of actually creating something that is as good as you expect it to be--then you can come back here and bitch about other people's failures. Until then--shut up!
Is it too late for me? Has my heart really turned into a lump of singed carbon in my chest? Can I possibly raise my cultural response to something more than a tepid "Well--it wasn't a complete waste of time." I think I can, because there are so many things out there I don't know about. I could read novels from other countries, about lives wildly different from my own. I could read non-fiction. I could engage in other art forms that are not so familiar as to be boring--painting, dance, classical music, sculpture, photography. I could learn to read foreign languages and pursue their literature. I could read drama, poetry, experimental fiction. I could study business, economics, politics, rhetoric, history, theater arts. I could start a theater company, learn to program computers, write my own damn books.
But will I?
Yes, that is kind of a sweeping statement, but not untrue.
Over the last month, I have read at least four books and seen three Major Movies, and as I sat down to write my reviews and impressions, I realized that I hated them all.
"Hate" might be too harsh of a word for how I actually felt, but "negative" is accurate. Dark Shadows--can't recommend it, because it has no idea what it wants to be. The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel--great cast, shoddy script that the best talents of British acting can't save. The Avengers--a lot of sound and fury, but to very little point. Yet if asked, I would say "I love to go to movies."
Books are worse, in part because now I have read so many of them that I see their problems more than I see their strengths. Weird Sisters, by Eleanor Brown--fails to create any real conflict, fails to create characters I care about, fails to master the small innovations that Brown attempts. Bring Up The Bodies, by Hilary Mantel--extends the brand she established in Wolf Hall but fails to achieve anything with it. Boring. Fifty Shades of Grey--do I even need to say anything? Okay--in brief, it makes Stephanie Meyer look like a master of suspense and plotting, and is boring porn on top of it. There is better stuff out there, even for free.
Wait! you say. You said there were four books, and that's only three. What is the fourth?
That's the exception that proves the rule. The book I am currently reading is Jenny Lawson's Let's Pretend This Never Happened and I am really loving it. She is funny, while recounting a childhood that could make you cry. (I believe Jeanette Walls took that approach in her own book, The Glass Castle.) A (young! still so young!) woman who was raised in poverty, has battled anorexia, crippling anxiety disorder, multiple miscarriages, and rheumatoid arthritis still manages to make me laugh out loud. I may be able to represent her life and her writing in two sentences about the first time she brought her (now) husband home to meet her parents:
(1) This probably would have been my exact worst nightmare of brining a boy home to meet my parents, if I'd ever had enough creativity to imagine my father throwing a live bobcat on the boy I was trying to impress.
(2) In my father's defense, it was a smallish sort of bobcat that my dad was nursing back to health so he could release it back into the wild, rather than one of the full-grown ones from the backyard.(pp. 88-89)
Not only does her father--for no discernible reason--decide to throw a wild animal at an unsuspecting young man, but this animal is only one of several wild animals he could have chosen for the task.Is there any need to go on and explain that Lawson's father keeps the bobcats in the yard in order to collect the urine? No, I didn't think so.
But this is where I think I have perhaps gone over the line into privileged, spoiled, unpleasant bitch territory. Jenny Lawson grew up with tap water from a well poisoned with radon, subject to the humor of a father who makes hand puppets out of squirrel road kill, wearing bread wrappers stuffed with newspapers in the winter. Meanwhile, I sit back watching movies and reading books that hundreds of people have spent thousands of hours and millions of dollars to create, and all I can do is say "meh--it wasn't very good. It could have been better."
Could it have been better? How? Okay, you over-privileged jerk--why don't you try to make something one tenth as good. Once you really experience the difficulty of actually creating something that is as good as you expect it to be--then you can come back here and bitch about other people's failures. Until then--shut up!
Is it too late for me? Has my heart really turned into a lump of singed carbon in my chest? Can I possibly raise my cultural response to something more than a tepid "Well--it wasn't a complete waste of time." I think I can, because there are so many things out there I don't know about. I could read novels from other countries, about lives wildly different from my own. I could read non-fiction. I could engage in other art forms that are not so familiar as to be boring--painting, dance, classical music, sculpture, photography. I could learn to read foreign languages and pursue their literature. I could read drama, poetry, experimental fiction. I could study business, economics, politics, rhetoric, history, theater arts. I could start a theater company, learn to program computers, write my own damn books.
But will I?
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Dark Shadows, a Review
Cut to the chase--is it worth seeing? Well, all the jokes are already in the trailer, so save yourself 110 minutes and watch that instead.
Or, go see more of it, but it's not any different, or any better--it's the same as the trailer, just longer.
While it's fashionable to blame Burton for needlessly prolonging a creative partnership with Depp that has gone stale, the real problem here is the script. It's clear that Burton wanted to do "Dark Shadows" without the glacial pacing and chintzy production budget of 1960s television soaps--but he needed a story, and he didn't really get one. Instead, he got a script from Seth Grahame-Smith, the instigator of the current fad of mashing up classic (public domain!) literature and monsters. So the man who gave us "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" is the writer of what passes for a story in this movie.
[Just a comment on "PP&Z"--the idea is very funny; the execution is tedious in the extreme. Appreciate the concept, but don't bother trying to read it, since it doesn't go anywhere from the premise. Just like the movie!]
The problems are many--the movie fails to be scary at any level, fails to be funny most of the time, fails to offer any insight into why the Collins family believes that family is important--they just keep saying it, but is there any reason to believe them? After all, fully half the remaining family can hardly stand to be around the place at all. The snotty teen played by Chloe Moretz and the loathsome brother played by Johnny Lee Miller don't believe in the family. That leaves Michelle Pfeiffer (looking DAMN FINE) as the impoverished remaining Collins, the little boy who sees ghosts, and Johnny Depp.
And really, the only reason you are going to see a Johnny Depp/Tim Burton movie is to see Johnny Depp. And he delivers a variation on the many foppish, mannered, fish-out-of-water characters he has played in all the Tim Burton movies. His Barnabas Collins has creepy long fingernails, lacy sleeves, a walking cane, and a grudging acceptance of his need for blood. He does pull off looking like a callow teen in the early moments of the film, when he first rejects Eva Greene's affections--is that acting or post-production that gives him that dewy-skinned look? He manages to look both repellent and attractive as a pasty vampire, which is kind of a sweet spot occupied only by Jack Black in my personal pantheon. Differently, of course.
The plot is stupid, and only sketched in as necessary to allow for Burton's patented artistic design. The docks at Collinsport are suitably nautical, the decaying Collins plant is creepy and then fixed up just in time to be gloriously burned down. The Collinses put on a "ball" or a "happening" which is an excuse to get Alice Cooper to perform. He's about as creepy as the rest of "Dark Shadows"--the man may be in his mid-sixties, but he doesn't look bad in the make-up. The Collins mansion, despite having ostensibly been built in 1775 is full on Edgar Allen Poe Victorian gothic, full of hidden panels and subterranian vaults. Not sure how this was done in pre-American Revolution Maine on the proceeds of a fishing business, but it's best not to ask.
Also, don't ask how the Revolutionary era Collinses amassed a treasure hoard of gold and large gems either. Fish must have been a better business back in those days, back when Maine was still part of Massachusetts.
But with the treasure hoard and vampire hypnosis, Barnabas manages to rebuilt the Collins fish cannery and supposedly re-establish the family as the premiere social force in this incredibly tiny town. But his old spurned lover Eva Green (okay, her character is Angelique) is still around and still immortal, and still holds a grudge. She tries to seduce him, tries to re-bury him, and finally tries to kill him and destroy everything he loves. There is the obligatory final battle scene, most impressive for the way Eva Greene's skin cracks like the shell of a hard boiled egg as they fight. There is the completely superfluous element of Chloe Moritz's character also being a werewolf, which--wha? Why, and who cares, and don't even bother.
There is a governess with wide eyes and a Christina Ricci-ness look to her who is the double of the woman Johnny Depp loved back in 1775 and Eva Greene killed back then--so of course she is going to get killed again, except that Depp manages to bite her in time to turn her into a vampire so she survives the fall that her predecessor didn't. Helena Bonham Carter does some fun stuff with a character that is as superfluous as the werewolf thing. In fact, she seems to be around mostly because she is in every Burton film, and because there was a psychologist in the original soap. Other than that, she pulls off a few funny bits as a drunk who wants to use Depp's blood to stop her own aging.
Mostly pointless, only for people willing to overlook the lack of point, or die-hard fans of the original series. The entire project smacks of being an American version of the Doctor Who reboot--a director with a deep love of a neglected original, wanting to give the property the kind of attention possible with a decent budget and the advances in CGI. However, Russell T. Davies got some good storytelling into his reboot--Burton didn't.
Or, go see more of it, but it's not any different, or any better--it's the same as the trailer, just longer.
While it's fashionable to blame Burton for needlessly prolonging a creative partnership with Depp that has gone stale, the real problem here is the script. It's clear that Burton wanted to do "Dark Shadows" without the glacial pacing and chintzy production budget of 1960s television soaps--but he needed a story, and he didn't really get one. Instead, he got a script from Seth Grahame-Smith, the instigator of the current fad of mashing up classic (public domain!) literature and monsters. So the man who gave us "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" is the writer of what passes for a story in this movie.
[Just a comment on "PP&Z"--the idea is very funny; the execution is tedious in the extreme. Appreciate the concept, but don't bother trying to read it, since it doesn't go anywhere from the premise. Just like the movie!]
The problems are many--the movie fails to be scary at any level, fails to be funny most of the time, fails to offer any insight into why the Collins family believes that family is important--they just keep saying it, but is there any reason to believe them? After all, fully half the remaining family can hardly stand to be around the place at all. The snotty teen played by Chloe Moretz and the loathsome brother played by Johnny Lee Miller don't believe in the family. That leaves Michelle Pfeiffer (looking DAMN FINE) as the impoverished remaining Collins, the little boy who sees ghosts, and Johnny Depp.
And really, the only reason you are going to see a Johnny Depp/Tim Burton movie is to see Johnny Depp. And he delivers a variation on the many foppish, mannered, fish-out-of-water characters he has played in all the Tim Burton movies. His Barnabas Collins has creepy long fingernails, lacy sleeves, a walking cane, and a grudging acceptance of his need for blood. He does pull off looking like a callow teen in the early moments of the film, when he first rejects Eva Greene's affections--is that acting or post-production that gives him that dewy-skinned look? He manages to look both repellent and attractive as a pasty vampire, which is kind of a sweet spot occupied only by Jack Black in my personal pantheon. Differently, of course.
The plot is stupid, and only sketched in as necessary to allow for Burton's patented artistic design. The docks at Collinsport are suitably nautical, the decaying Collins plant is creepy and then fixed up just in time to be gloriously burned down. The Collinses put on a "ball" or a "happening" which is an excuse to get Alice Cooper to perform. He's about as creepy as the rest of "Dark Shadows"--the man may be in his mid-sixties, but he doesn't look bad in the make-up. The Collins mansion, despite having ostensibly been built in 1775 is full on Edgar Allen Poe Victorian gothic, full of hidden panels and subterranian vaults. Not sure how this was done in pre-American Revolution Maine on the proceeds of a fishing business, but it's best not to ask.
Also, don't ask how the Revolutionary era Collinses amassed a treasure hoard of gold and large gems either. Fish must have been a better business back in those days, back when Maine was still part of Massachusetts.
But with the treasure hoard and vampire hypnosis, Barnabas manages to rebuilt the Collins fish cannery and supposedly re-establish the family as the premiere social force in this incredibly tiny town. But his old spurned lover Eva Green (okay, her character is Angelique) is still around and still immortal, and still holds a grudge. She tries to seduce him, tries to re-bury him, and finally tries to kill him and destroy everything he loves. There is the obligatory final battle scene, most impressive for the way Eva Greene's skin cracks like the shell of a hard boiled egg as they fight. There is the completely superfluous element of Chloe Moritz's character also being a werewolf, which--wha? Why, and who cares, and don't even bother.
There is a governess with wide eyes and a Christina Ricci-ness look to her who is the double of the woman Johnny Depp loved back in 1775 and Eva Greene killed back then--so of course she is going to get killed again, except that Depp manages to bite her in time to turn her into a vampire so she survives the fall that her predecessor didn't. Helena Bonham Carter does some fun stuff with a character that is as superfluous as the werewolf thing. In fact, she seems to be around mostly because she is in every Burton film, and because there was a psychologist in the original soap. Other than that, she pulls off a few funny bits as a drunk who wants to use Depp's blood to stop her own aging.
Mostly pointless, only for people willing to overlook the lack of point, or die-hard fans of the original series. The entire project smacks of being an American version of the Doctor Who reboot--a director with a deep love of a neglected original, wanting to give the property the kind of attention possible with a decent budget and the advances in CGI. However, Russell T. Davies got some good storytelling into his reboot--Burton didn't.
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, a Review
The pedigree on this movie is amazing--directed by John Madden, the man who directed Shakespeare in Love, which is fashionable to hate but I still really love. The cast list is full of lovable English actors: Dame Maggie Smith, Dame Judith Dench, Bill Nighy, Tom Wilkinson, Penelope Wilton, and Celia Imre. The trailer is gorgeous, full of the color and life of Jaipur, India. Take a look--how could this movie fail?
All the elements were there--except the script. Predictable, cliched, manipulative, boring. Honestly, these actors deserved something much better than they had, and they are good enough that they managed to make it seem like more than it was. It's not offensive, exactly, but it's not inoffensive either. More damningly, it hasn't got much to say, and it doesn't say that particularly well.
It's television grade writing at best, edging along the perimeters of racism and mocking the elderly for being old. It's Enchanted April with less charm and more death.
Even the set up is mostly predictable. We start in England, with the sad stories of our elderly heroes. Tom Wilkinson is a judge (with the red robe and wig on a stand in his chambers) who attends someone's retirement party and realizes it's time to take care of some old business in India. Judy Dench is a new widow, who spent 40 years trusting her husband only to find that she has to sell her home to pay off his debts. Bill Nighy and Penelope Wilton are married and have lost their life's savings when they invested in their daughter's internet business. Maggie Smith is an obnoxious racist who needs a hip replacement and can get one more quickly/cheaply in India. Celia Imre wants to stop babysitting her grandchildren every night and find some action of her own. There is a seventh old coot who wants to go to India to get laid, played by Ronald Pickup who looks like someone I should recognize, but I don't. They all independently decide to go to India and nobody approves.
Really, there is not a single person in the UK who approves of anybody going to India for any reason. Family members, co-workers, real estate brokers all can't understand why anybody would leave London. Only Maggie Smith's doctors approve of her travel to India, but they don't count because 1) they are Indian themselves; and 2) she doesn't want to go.
So--India=Bad Idea. Did you catch that, because that's the plot, such as it is. Old people will leave England, be horrified at India. Would be you be surprised to find out that most of them learn to love it? Of course not, because you are sophisticated enough to realize that nobody would finance a movie about old people who go to India to find out that England is Better but Unaffordable for Old People who have to go to India to die so they don't clutter up London. That would be a terrible movie and not uplifting in any way.
Back to the "plot." Everyone comes upon the internet ad for the eponymous Best Exotic Marigold Hotel for the Elderly and Beautiful. The idea is that the hotel is looking for paying guests, and will pay for the airfare in return for cheap rates? The idea is that it will be an elegant retirement community that is less expensive and more gracious than these characters can afford at home.
[Oddly, the trailer has Bill Nighy's golf partner comparing India with "the coast of Florida?" To which Nighy replies "Yes, but with more elephants." In the movie, the line is "like the Costa Brava?" Not sure what assumptions trailer makers have about Americans' intelligence.]
After some not at all comical scenes involving airports, canceled flights, and overcrowded Indian buses, our Magnificent Seven arrive at the hotel. But Oh Noes! The hotel doesn't look the brochure, which was misleadingly Photoshopped! Penelope Wilton is irate and demands a refund which hotel owner/manager Dev Patel promises to give right away in three months. So now we have 7 people stuck in India in the Bad Idea Hotel. What will happen now?
To start with, Penelope Wilton proceeds to be a pill in every possible way; she hates the food, hates the crowds, mocks the smells, and refuses to leave the hotel, even though she hates it, because she hates India even more. (She spends her time reading "Tulip Fever," a book by Deborah Moggach, who wrote the novel this movie is based on.] To further make her a complete jerk, she throws herself at Tom Wilkinson in a cringe-inducing display of status climbing, and despite already being married to the charming and self-effacing Bill Nighy. Wilkinson rebuffs her, not because she's married (or because she is a pill), but because he is gay. Embarrassed, Penelope tries to pack her bags to return to England, but can't afford the plane fare and breaks down as her ineffectual husband stands ineffectually by offering ineffectual bromides like "we just have to make the best of it."
In contrast, Judi Dench manages to find her way to a call center company which seems to exist to make cold calls to sell something--not clear to me what it is. Their goal seems to be to get people on the phone and keep them on as long as possible. Dame Dench seems to be there to get a job? (According to a web site about the novel, the character is supposed to think it is a place where she can call home to England. Not sure this is what the movie is trying to do, but it could be. You tell me.)
Once there, Dame Judi tells some stupid anecdote about dipping biscuits into something called "builder's tea" and the head of the company hires her to be a "cultural consultant" or something. Which is great for her, since she needs the money (her dead husband's debt problem, after all), but what the hell does she know about how to close a sales call? Why does one tedious anecdote about dunking biscuits and one bad experience with an Indian call center make her an expert? Don't worry so much! It just does--take the movie's word for it. Besides, you can tell Dame Judi is a good guy, because she starts to adopt Indian-ish clothing, long tunics over light pants and a decorative scarf/shawl around the shoulders. You see--in India, Judy becomes the person she never was back at home! India turns out to have been good for her! Not a Bad Idea at all!! Surprised?
Of course, it was obvious that she was going to thrive in India--because she was already Dame Judi Fucking Dench, to start with. Also, she was no fragile hot-house flower of a sheltered housewife, suddenly thrown into the cold hard world by her husband's death. She found out about his financial mismanagement, and stood up against her children's plans for her with steely determination and packed herself off to India against their disapproval. So of course she was going to come out all right. There was never any doubt.
In a major bit of what-the-fuckery, Dame Judi has a silly C plot about wanting to call home, but the telephones at the Marigold Hotel don't work! Ha ha ha, nothing in India works! Isn't it funny how erratic these developing nations and their technology can be! As unfunny and backwards as that "humor" is, the WTFery is that Dame Judi is keeping a blog. She has a laptop and a wireless internet connection--why the hell doesn't she Skype? Dev Patel makes booty calls to his girlfriend on a cell phone. Who flies off to India without an international cell phone--or doesn't find one? Who waits around for two months waiting for a land line? What is this--1950? (Can't blame the age of the novel--it was published in 2004.)
Tom Wilkinson has a Deep Dark Secret that he has kept hidden for over 40 years--when he was a teen, he fell in love with one of the servant boys who worked in his parents' home in Jaipur. The feeling was mutual, and they spent a perfect night together, and watched the sun rise over a river (somewhere a day's trip from Jaipur?). Wilkinson thought he would never be as happy again, and was right because they fell asleep, were discovered, and the Shameful Secret revealed. The servant boy (Minaj) and his family were sent away, Tom was sent back to England for university, and now he is back. "What could I have done?" He asks, confessing his four decade old secret to Dame Judy after knowing her for about 2 days. "It should have been something more than nothing." So he spends his days trying to find his old lover, which involves playing street cricket with the youngsters.
Of course, this is showing the Large Point of how India is his True Home--because nothing says India like cricket? It also raises the question of "how the hell did such an idiot get to be a high court judge?" He gets delivered via motor scooter taxi to an address that was presumably his old address? The address of his old teen-aged lover? And not only is there nothing there, but the remaining nothing is covered with wild plants and graffiti. So he asks the 10 year old street cricket boys "What happened to the buildings? And the people who used to live here?" Like they are going to know. So he goes to the public records office and just keeps asking them to search for somebody--Minaj, I assume. But see, he's conflicted. What if Minaj doesn't want to see him?
But this isn't really a problem, because Minaj is a Magical Native Person, who has long ago told his wife that he was gay, and has a life long One True Love with Wilkinson, so that when Wilkinson shows up at his house, the wife knows all about it and Minaj can deliver the Magical Bro Hug of Forgiveness. See! There were no hard feelings, nor overtones of colonialism, or power inequities, or even any other meaningful relationships for Minaj the Magical Native--he just remained in suspended animation for forty years in order to provide absolution to the Tortured White Man. Then, in a surprising twist (not really)--Wilkinson dies peacefully, assured of his forgiveness! Because we don't want to have to deal with gay elderly sex--that is just too much. So martyr the gay and make it a happy ending!
But don't think we won't make fun of straight elderly sex--because that stuff is comedy gold! (No it isn't.) Poor Celia Imre joins a colonial country club, and tries to pass herself off as a member of the royal family, but picks the one who's been dead for nine years! Ha ha ha not funny. She tries to bribe the maitre d' to seat her with some rich royal bachelor, and guess who it is! It's Ronald Pickup from the Marigold Hotel also trying to work the same scam, but smart enough to pick a living royal to impersonate! In about the only plot element that isn't entirely predictable, these two do not end up together. Instead, lovely Celia helps obnoxious Ronald hit on a lady at the bar who certainly deserves better. But after a couple of completely fake and unsuccessful moves, Ronald admits that he's lonely, and the two hit it off. There is a scene where he goes to get Viagra, and a scene where he dances in the shower. The "humor" is apparently in seeing his skinny old body being naked and visible from afar! And we know he's getting ready to have sex--old people sex!
Frankly, with the way he was jumping around on the wet tiles, I was expecting to see him go down with a broken hip. But he gets laid, and gets to brag about it to Gay Martyr Wilkinson, who reveals that he spent the night with this old gay lover--just talking mind you!--so they are totally bonding and then Wilkinson kicks the bucket.
Who's left? Bill Nighy learns how to take something to be repaired, thus teaching him how to be less ineffectual. He also saves Dame Judi from being run over by a motor scooter, thus igniting their True Passion. But they are both Honorable Sahibs, so they don't do anything but behave perfectly correctly. However at some point, Judi gets overwhelmed by the imtimations of mortality caused by Wilkinson's Happy Martyrdom, and she cries and Bill Nighy comforts her. Penelope Wilton gets all obnoxious about it--conveniently forgetting her attempts to do rub herself all over Wilkinson's upper crust. They have a few cross words, and Penelope reveals that their daughter has paid back the money they loaned her and they can go home to England. Bill doesn't really want to go, but he's decent and loyal, and he packs up but there's a traffic jam! The only way to get to the airport is for Penelope and her suitcases to take a bicycle cab, and Bill can't come too!
In a set piece that Wilton is almost able to sell (but can't quite due to the total lack of script support for her character as anything other than a complete pill before this point), she faces the reality that she and Bill both deserve better and their marriage has been dead for a long time, and he would be doing her a favor if he stayed in India and fell in love with Dame Judi. She leaves, and he goes and smokes some kind of drug, and comes back to make a passionate declaration of love to Judi. And by "passionate declaration" I mean "how do you like your tea?"
Maggie Smith has been mostly forgotten by this movie, and that is probably because her story actually dates from before the invention of movies. It seems she was a housekeeper/governess for an aristocratic family with a stately home, but got pushed out once she was old. I know for a fact that Anne Bronte used this very same plot! She got her hip replaced successfully, but remained stubbornly racist except when trying to tell the untouchable servant girl how to clean. This was misinterpreted as kindness, and servant girl invites Maggie home to meet the 27 members of her family who live in a single room. Maggie has to confront her racism, which she overcomes by being ashamed of being rude to their faces. So now she's become a better person in India too!
Finally, there is the Dev Patel plot--he is in love with a girl who he is willing to sleep with, but won't say he loves her. Nevertheless, she crawls into his bed naked one night, only to find that it's not Dev, but Celia Imre! Because Celia insisted on a room with a door, so they switched rooms and Dev never mentioned it during his booty phone calls. Also, Dev's mother has arrived to squelch his dreams! He is to sell the hotel and marry the girl in Delhi his mother has arranged for him. Fortunately, Maggie's housekeeper job included running the family accounts, so she is able to find financing and save the hotel hurray! And Dame Judi gives Dev a 7 second pep talk that gives him the courage to stand up to his mother! In the final seconds, we see the hotel all spiffed up and running successfully, and boys and girls and old people couples on scooters! Only poor Celia Imre doesn't get her happy ending, which is fine, because women who want sex (especially old women) aren't actually allowed to have that happen, so it's fine. Oh, and Ronald's girlfriend switched his viagra with baby aspirin and he was totally fine--so India is good for male virility too!
Honestly, if Madden hadn't gotten such a great cast (and wasn't so adept at lovely scenes) this would have been a Mystery Science Theater 3000 contender. Poor Maggie Smith is actually forced to utter the line "I can't wait that long. I don't even buy green bananas at my age"--a joke that was stale when the velociraptors told it. And I predicted it two lines before she got to it. (Her UK surgeon tells her that a brown person will perform her surgery, but she's on a waiting list and it will be about six months. Yep--everybody saw it coming.) The first day in India is played for stereotype in an oddly semi-comedic way. Meaning that seeing English old people confronted with scooter taxis isn't actually funny unless you are a racist, so you aren't actually required to laugh at it--but you are kind of expected to. And the dozen other people at the screening did laugh, which made me supremely uncomfortable, because there was nothing actually funny about the scene. The pacing and the scene composition made it look like there was a joke--it was definitely a joke set up--but no punchline other than "Things are different here!"
Final summation--a great cast sold short by a terrible script. Scenery and masterful acting not enough to create substance. Dumb movie made significantly less dumb by the talent involved.
All the elements were there--except the script. Predictable, cliched, manipulative, boring. Honestly, these actors deserved something much better than they had, and they are good enough that they managed to make it seem like more than it was. It's not offensive, exactly, but it's not inoffensive either. More damningly, it hasn't got much to say, and it doesn't say that particularly well.
It's television grade writing at best, edging along the perimeters of racism and mocking the elderly for being old. It's Enchanted April with less charm and more death.
Even the set up is mostly predictable. We start in England, with the sad stories of our elderly heroes. Tom Wilkinson is a judge (with the red robe and wig on a stand in his chambers) who attends someone's retirement party and realizes it's time to take care of some old business in India. Judy Dench is a new widow, who spent 40 years trusting her husband only to find that she has to sell her home to pay off his debts. Bill Nighy and Penelope Wilton are married and have lost their life's savings when they invested in their daughter's internet business. Maggie Smith is an obnoxious racist who needs a hip replacement and can get one more quickly/cheaply in India. Celia Imre wants to stop babysitting her grandchildren every night and find some action of her own. There is a seventh old coot who wants to go to India to get laid, played by Ronald Pickup who looks like someone I should recognize, but I don't. They all independently decide to go to India and nobody approves.
Really, there is not a single person in the UK who approves of anybody going to India for any reason. Family members, co-workers, real estate brokers all can't understand why anybody would leave London. Only Maggie Smith's doctors approve of her travel to India, but they don't count because 1) they are Indian themselves; and 2) she doesn't want to go.
So--India=Bad Idea. Did you catch that, because that's the plot, such as it is. Old people will leave England, be horrified at India. Would be you be surprised to find out that most of them learn to love it? Of course not, because you are sophisticated enough to realize that nobody would finance a movie about old people who go to India to find out that England is Better but Unaffordable for Old People who have to go to India to die so they don't clutter up London. That would be a terrible movie and not uplifting in any way.
Back to the "plot." Everyone comes upon the internet ad for the eponymous Best Exotic Marigold Hotel for the Elderly and Beautiful. The idea is that the hotel is looking for paying guests, and will pay for the airfare in return for cheap rates? The idea is that it will be an elegant retirement community that is less expensive and more gracious than these characters can afford at home.
[Oddly, the trailer has Bill Nighy's golf partner comparing India with "the coast of Florida?" To which Nighy replies "Yes, but with more elephants." In the movie, the line is "like the Costa Brava?" Not sure what assumptions trailer makers have about Americans' intelligence.]
After some not at all comical scenes involving airports, canceled flights, and overcrowded Indian buses, our Magnificent Seven arrive at the hotel. But Oh Noes! The hotel doesn't look the brochure, which was misleadingly Photoshopped! Penelope Wilton is irate and demands a refund which hotel owner/manager Dev Patel promises to give right away in three months. So now we have 7 people stuck in India in the Bad Idea Hotel. What will happen now?
To start with, Penelope Wilton proceeds to be a pill in every possible way; she hates the food, hates the crowds, mocks the smells, and refuses to leave the hotel, even though she hates it, because she hates India even more. (She spends her time reading "Tulip Fever," a book by Deborah Moggach, who wrote the novel this movie is based on.] To further make her a complete jerk, she throws herself at Tom Wilkinson in a cringe-inducing display of status climbing, and despite already being married to the charming and self-effacing Bill Nighy. Wilkinson rebuffs her, not because she's married (or because she is a pill), but because he is gay. Embarrassed, Penelope tries to pack her bags to return to England, but can't afford the plane fare and breaks down as her ineffectual husband stands ineffectually by offering ineffectual bromides like "we just have to make the best of it."
In contrast, Judi Dench manages to find her way to a call center company which seems to exist to make cold calls to sell something--not clear to me what it is. Their goal seems to be to get people on the phone and keep them on as long as possible. Dame Dench seems to be there to get a job? (According to a web site about the novel, the character is supposed to think it is a place where she can call home to England. Not sure this is what the movie is trying to do, but it could be. You tell me.)
Once there, Dame Judi tells some stupid anecdote about dipping biscuits into something called "builder's tea" and the head of the company hires her to be a "cultural consultant" or something. Which is great for her, since she needs the money (her dead husband's debt problem, after all), but what the hell does she know about how to close a sales call? Why does one tedious anecdote about dunking biscuits and one bad experience with an Indian call center make her an expert? Don't worry so much! It just does--take the movie's word for it. Besides, you can tell Dame Judi is a good guy, because she starts to adopt Indian-ish clothing, long tunics over light pants and a decorative scarf/shawl around the shoulders. You see--in India, Judy becomes the person she never was back at home! India turns out to have been good for her! Not a Bad Idea at all!! Surprised?
Of course, it was obvious that she was going to thrive in India--because she was already Dame Judi Fucking Dench, to start with. Also, she was no fragile hot-house flower of a sheltered housewife, suddenly thrown into the cold hard world by her husband's death. She found out about his financial mismanagement, and stood up against her children's plans for her with steely determination and packed herself off to India against their disapproval. So of course she was going to come out all right. There was never any doubt.
In a major bit of what-the-fuckery, Dame Judi has a silly C plot about wanting to call home, but the telephones at the Marigold Hotel don't work! Ha ha ha, nothing in India works! Isn't it funny how erratic these developing nations and their technology can be! As unfunny and backwards as that "humor" is, the WTFery is that Dame Judi is keeping a blog. She has a laptop and a wireless internet connection--why the hell doesn't she Skype? Dev Patel makes booty calls to his girlfriend on a cell phone. Who flies off to India without an international cell phone--or doesn't find one? Who waits around for two months waiting for a land line? What is this--1950? (Can't blame the age of the novel--it was published in 2004.)
Tom Wilkinson has a Deep Dark Secret that he has kept hidden for over 40 years--when he was a teen, he fell in love with one of the servant boys who worked in his parents' home in Jaipur. The feeling was mutual, and they spent a perfect night together, and watched the sun rise over a river (somewhere a day's trip from Jaipur?). Wilkinson thought he would never be as happy again, and was right because they fell asleep, were discovered, and the Shameful Secret revealed. The servant boy (Minaj) and his family were sent away, Tom was sent back to England for university, and now he is back. "What could I have done?" He asks, confessing his four decade old secret to Dame Judy after knowing her for about 2 days. "It should have been something more than nothing." So he spends his days trying to find his old lover, which involves playing street cricket with the youngsters.
Of course, this is showing the Large Point of how India is his True Home--because nothing says India like cricket? It also raises the question of "how the hell did such an idiot get to be a high court judge?" He gets delivered via motor scooter taxi to an address that was presumably his old address? The address of his old teen-aged lover? And not only is there nothing there, but the remaining nothing is covered with wild plants and graffiti. So he asks the 10 year old street cricket boys "What happened to the buildings? And the people who used to live here?" Like they are going to know. So he goes to the public records office and just keeps asking them to search for somebody--Minaj, I assume. But see, he's conflicted. What if Minaj doesn't want to see him?
But this isn't really a problem, because Minaj is a Magical Native Person, who has long ago told his wife that he was gay, and has a life long One True Love with Wilkinson, so that when Wilkinson shows up at his house, the wife knows all about it and Minaj can deliver the Magical Bro Hug of Forgiveness. See! There were no hard feelings, nor overtones of colonialism, or power inequities, or even any other meaningful relationships for Minaj the Magical Native--he just remained in suspended animation for forty years in order to provide absolution to the Tortured White Man. Then, in a surprising twist (not really)--Wilkinson dies peacefully, assured of his forgiveness! Because we don't want to have to deal with gay elderly sex--that is just too much. So martyr the gay and make it a happy ending!
But don't think we won't make fun of straight elderly sex--because that stuff is comedy gold! (No it isn't.) Poor Celia Imre joins a colonial country club, and tries to pass herself off as a member of the royal family, but picks the one who's been dead for nine years! Ha ha ha not funny. She tries to bribe the maitre d' to seat her with some rich royal bachelor, and guess who it is! It's Ronald Pickup from the Marigold Hotel also trying to work the same scam, but smart enough to pick a living royal to impersonate! In about the only plot element that isn't entirely predictable, these two do not end up together. Instead, lovely Celia helps obnoxious Ronald hit on a lady at the bar who certainly deserves better. But after a couple of completely fake and unsuccessful moves, Ronald admits that he's lonely, and the two hit it off. There is a scene where he goes to get Viagra, and a scene where he dances in the shower. The "humor" is apparently in seeing his skinny old body being naked and visible from afar! And we know he's getting ready to have sex--old people sex!
Frankly, with the way he was jumping around on the wet tiles, I was expecting to see him go down with a broken hip. But he gets laid, and gets to brag about it to Gay Martyr Wilkinson, who reveals that he spent the night with this old gay lover--just talking mind you!--so they are totally bonding and then Wilkinson kicks the bucket.
Who's left? Bill Nighy learns how to take something to be repaired, thus teaching him how to be less ineffectual. He also saves Dame Judi from being run over by a motor scooter, thus igniting their True Passion. But they are both Honorable Sahibs, so they don't do anything but behave perfectly correctly. However at some point, Judi gets overwhelmed by the imtimations of mortality caused by Wilkinson's Happy Martyrdom, and she cries and Bill Nighy comforts her. Penelope Wilton gets all obnoxious about it--conveniently forgetting her attempts to do rub herself all over Wilkinson's upper crust. They have a few cross words, and Penelope reveals that their daughter has paid back the money they loaned her and they can go home to England. Bill doesn't really want to go, but he's decent and loyal, and he packs up but there's a traffic jam! The only way to get to the airport is for Penelope and her suitcases to take a bicycle cab, and Bill can't come too!
In a set piece that Wilton is almost able to sell (but can't quite due to the total lack of script support for her character as anything other than a complete pill before this point), she faces the reality that she and Bill both deserve better and their marriage has been dead for a long time, and he would be doing her a favor if he stayed in India and fell in love with Dame Judi. She leaves, and he goes and smokes some kind of drug, and comes back to make a passionate declaration of love to Judi. And by "passionate declaration" I mean "how do you like your tea?"
Maggie Smith has been mostly forgotten by this movie, and that is probably because her story actually dates from before the invention of movies. It seems she was a housekeeper/governess for an aristocratic family with a stately home, but got pushed out once she was old. I know for a fact that Anne Bronte used this very same plot! She got her hip replaced successfully, but remained stubbornly racist except when trying to tell the untouchable servant girl how to clean. This was misinterpreted as kindness, and servant girl invites Maggie home to meet the 27 members of her family who live in a single room. Maggie has to confront her racism, which she overcomes by being ashamed of being rude to their faces. So now she's become a better person in India too!
Finally, there is the Dev Patel plot--he is in love with a girl who he is willing to sleep with, but won't say he loves her. Nevertheless, she crawls into his bed naked one night, only to find that it's not Dev, but Celia Imre! Because Celia insisted on a room with a door, so they switched rooms and Dev never mentioned it during his booty phone calls. Also, Dev's mother has arrived to squelch his dreams! He is to sell the hotel and marry the girl in Delhi his mother has arranged for him. Fortunately, Maggie's housekeeper job included running the family accounts, so she is able to find financing and save the hotel hurray! And Dame Judi gives Dev a 7 second pep talk that gives him the courage to stand up to his mother! In the final seconds, we see the hotel all spiffed up and running successfully, and boys and girls and old people couples on scooters! Only poor Celia Imre doesn't get her happy ending, which is fine, because women who want sex (especially old women) aren't actually allowed to have that happen, so it's fine. Oh, and Ronald's girlfriend switched his viagra with baby aspirin and he was totally fine--so India is good for male virility too!
Honestly, if Madden hadn't gotten such a great cast (and wasn't so adept at lovely scenes) this would have been a Mystery Science Theater 3000 contender. Poor Maggie Smith is actually forced to utter the line "I can't wait that long. I don't even buy green bananas at my age"--a joke that was stale when the velociraptors told it. And I predicted it two lines before she got to it. (Her UK surgeon tells her that a brown person will perform her surgery, but she's on a waiting list and it will be about six months. Yep--everybody saw it coming.) The first day in India is played for stereotype in an oddly semi-comedic way. Meaning that seeing English old people confronted with scooter taxis isn't actually funny unless you are a racist, so you aren't actually required to laugh at it--but you are kind of expected to. And the dozen other people at the screening did laugh, which made me supremely uncomfortable, because there was nothing actually funny about the scene. The pacing and the scene composition made it look like there was a joke--it was definitely a joke set up--but no punchline other than "Things are different here!"
Final summation--a great cast sold short by a terrible script. Scenery and masterful acting not enough to create substance. Dumb movie made significantly less dumb by the talent involved.
Wednesday, February 08, 2012
Lord Grantham on the Roof
After I posted the last bit about Downton Abbey, I realized that I hadn't made my prediction about Lady Sybil. Will she marry Branson, the IRA-sympathizing chauffeur?
Well--who else is there for her? How many men can these women even meet? And then it hit me--Julian Fellowes is mining Fiddler on the Roof for his plot points! Think about it--a man who has no sons, but too many unruly daughters.
Daughters of Downton
Fiddler's Daughters
In Fiddler, Tevye arranges a very lucrative and socially desirable marriage to the somewhat unattractive butcher for his oldest daughter Tzeitl. However, Tzeitl is in love with another man, and so doesn't want to marry the butcher. Lady Mary isn't actually going to marry Sir Richard, not while she is really in love with Matthew. It's just not going to happen, and I'll put money down on it.
Tevye's second daughter falls in love with a revolutionary, and when he is captured and sent to Siberia, she goes to him, leaving behind the comforts of her family. Lady Sybil isn't the second daughter, but she is totally going to commit to Branson, and they will be work to create the modern world.
Poor Lady Edith--Tevye's third daughter elopes with a non-Jew, and Tevye cannot accept the marriage outside the faith. He loves her, but treats her as if she has died. I can't quite make this one fit the template, since the Granthams aren't the least little bit religious, and I can't see what Edith could rebel against that had similar impact on the family. Maybe she'll fall for "Peter Gordon" and emigrate to Canada?
We'll meet back here at the end of the series--or even series 3--to check on how well my predictions turned out.
Well--who else is there for her? How many men can these women even meet? And then it hit me--Julian Fellowes is mining Fiddler on the Roof for his plot points! Think about it--a man who has no sons, but too many unruly daughters.
In Fiddler, Tevye arranges a very lucrative and socially desirable marriage to the somewhat unattractive butcher for his oldest daughter Tzeitl. However, Tzeitl is in love with another man, and so doesn't want to marry the butcher. Lady Mary isn't actually going to marry Sir Richard, not while she is really in love with Matthew. It's just not going to happen, and I'll put money down on it.
Tevye's second daughter falls in love with a revolutionary, and when he is captured and sent to Siberia, she goes to him, leaving behind the comforts of her family. Lady Sybil isn't the second daughter, but she is totally going to commit to Branson, and they will be work to create the modern world.
Poor Lady Edith--Tevye's third daughter elopes with a non-Jew, and Tevye cannot accept the marriage outside the faith. He loves her, but treats her as if she has died. I can't quite make this one fit the template, since the Granthams aren't the least little bit religious, and I can't see what Edith could rebel against that had similar impact on the family. Maybe she'll fall for "Peter Gordon" and emigrate to Canada?
We'll meet back here at the end of the series--or even series 3--to check on how well my predictions turned out.
Downton Abbey, Now You Are Just Being Silly
Back in the 1980s, the heyday of American nighttime soaps, an entertainment writer made a cogent operation. You could instantly convert trashy television melodrama into respectable cultural fare simply by pronouncing it with a British accent. The most effect example was to take the campy histrionics of Dynasty and turn it into BBC-quality material by pronouncing it "DIN-a-sty."
Try it--it works!
(And Krystl in a Henry VIII costume! Of course it's classy!)
But the trick is not infallible. Exhibit A: Downtown Abbey, season 2. Okay, the first season was perhaps a bit to heavily salted with uncomfortable silences and suggestive glances. So much so that the Red Nose Day parody hit best with close ups of eyes shifting around.
This week--this week we got too much all at once, and all of it of equal import. The worst offender is, of course, The Return of the Lost Heir. Amid all the handsome and dapper officers convalescing at Downton--perhaps their mustaches were suffering from exhaustion?--comes a single man whose grotequely bandaged burns are matched only by the ugliness of his "Canadian" accent. With 60% of his face obscured by gauze, a deformed ear, oddly lashless and bulging eyes--and yet a full head of unsinged hair!--this grotesquerie claims to be Peter Crawley. You don't recognize him? Well, why should we--he never actually appeared in the show. He was just the heir, engaged to Lady Mary (who did not love him) and lost on the Titanic.The first we heard of him was the report that the Titanic sank.
Of course, "Peter Crawley" of season one was just a plot device to introduce the missing demongraphic--middle class Matthew Crawley came in to bridge the social classes of aristocracy and servant contained inside Downton itself, and Peter Crawley disappeared from the narrative. Until this week's episode, where he was ghoulishly resurrected, shamelessly manipulated poor Edith, and then disappeared. Meanwhile, Matthew's paralysis might be less than permanent, Bates' wife has complicated the divorce plot (reported by reading a letter) and then gotten herself killed. Edith--the ruined maid and single mother--learned her baby-daddy also died in the war, again by a report from a letter. And Lord Grantham gathered all the Downton residents: family, servants, convalescent officers--into the hall to mark the end of the war. He called for a recognition of the sacrifices made by the soldiers, and the moment of silence lasted the length of the clock striking 11. A longer pause was taken to mark the decision by the butler, Carson, to leave Downton and serve Lady Mary in her new home. Because war? and butler? Same dramatic impact.
Will I continue watching it? Possibly. Depends on my schedule and whether reading recaps is faster and as satisfying. I will make a few predictions.
Daisy will continue to refuse her widow's benefits from the deathbed marriage to William. Edith will claim it instead.
Thomas (who for some reason is always hanging around in the servants quarters, even though he's employed by the army) will find some way to stay at Downton, and will continue to not be gay. (This was the source of his evilness in Season 1--now it just seems that his scheming is caused by smoking too many cigarettes.)
Bates will be accused of his wife's murder, and Anna will stand by him. Neither of them will be allowed to be happy.
Mary and Matthew will lose their inconvenient fiance(e)s, but will not marry until at least the end of Season 3.
Edith will continue to be ritualistically humiliated for her unloveability and will never find a suitable husband.
"Peter Crawley" will never show up again.
Try it--it works!
(And Krystl in a Henry VIII costume! Of course it's classy!)
But the trick is not infallible. Exhibit A: Downtown Abbey, season 2. Okay, the first season was perhaps a bit to heavily salted with uncomfortable silences and suggestive glances. So much so that the Red Nose Day parody hit best with close ups of eyes shifting around.
This week--this week we got too much all at once, and all of it of equal import. The worst offender is, of course, The Return of the Lost Heir. Amid all the handsome and dapper officers convalescing at Downton--perhaps their mustaches were suffering from exhaustion?--comes a single man whose grotequely bandaged burns are matched only by the ugliness of his "Canadian" accent. With 60% of his face obscured by gauze, a deformed ear, oddly lashless and bulging eyes--and yet a full head of unsinged hair!--this grotesquerie claims to be Peter Crawley. You don't recognize him? Well, why should we--he never actually appeared in the show. He was just the heir, engaged to Lady Mary (who did not love him) and lost on the Titanic.The first we heard of him was the report that the Titanic sank.
Of course, "Peter Crawley" of season one was just a plot device to introduce the missing demongraphic--middle class Matthew Crawley came in to bridge the social classes of aristocracy and servant contained inside Downton itself, and Peter Crawley disappeared from the narrative. Until this week's episode, where he was ghoulishly resurrected, shamelessly manipulated poor Edith, and then disappeared. Meanwhile, Matthew's paralysis might be less than permanent, Bates' wife has complicated the divorce plot (reported by reading a letter) and then gotten herself killed. Edith--the ruined maid and single mother--learned her baby-daddy also died in the war, again by a report from a letter. And Lord Grantham gathered all the Downton residents: family, servants, convalescent officers--into the hall to mark the end of the war. He called for a recognition of the sacrifices made by the soldiers, and the moment of silence lasted the length of the clock striking 11. A longer pause was taken to mark the decision by the butler, Carson, to leave Downton and serve Lady Mary in her new home. Because war? and butler? Same dramatic impact.
Will I continue watching it? Possibly. Depends on my schedule and whether reading recaps is faster and as satisfying. I will make a few predictions.
Daisy will continue to refuse her widow's benefits from the deathbed marriage to William. Edith will claim it instead.
Thomas (who for some reason is always hanging around in the servants quarters, even though he's employed by the army) will find some way to stay at Downton, and will continue to not be gay. (This was the source of his evilness in Season 1--now it just seems that his scheming is caused by smoking too many cigarettes.)
Bates will be accused of his wife's murder, and Anna will stand by him. Neither of them will be allowed to be happy.
Mary and Matthew will lose their inconvenient fiance(e)s, but will not marry until at least the end of Season 3.
Edith will continue to be ritualistically humiliated for her unloveability and will never find a suitable husband.
"Peter Crawley" will never show up again.
Sunday, February 05, 2012
The Ice Cream Koan
The other day, Sursels offered me the following:
If you have no ice cream, I will take your ice cream.
If you have ice cream, I will give you ice cream.
This is an ice cream koan.
Delivered with her bright blue eyes sparkling and wide open, the rest of her face completely dead pan--which it never is, except when she's doing stuff like this--it totally cracked me up. The secret of comedy is in the timing, and timing is very difficult to deliver in print.
I was thinking of this as I made tea for myself this morning. I have a nasty cold coming on, and although I am drugged to the gills, symptoms are sneaking through and making me both grumpy and a bit loopy. I put a large white mug of water in the microwave to heat, and when the timer beeped, I noticed for the first time that the display doesn't just show numbers at that point, but converts to a scrolling message. I noticed this as I already had my hand on the door handle and pulled it open, this preventing all the text from scrolling across the small screen. The message that did make it across was:
FOOD IS
Sometimes, having a cold makes the world seem a little surreal. It's nice to have that kind of reassurance on a day like today.
If you have no ice cream, I will take your ice cream.
If you have ice cream, I will give you ice cream.
This is an ice cream koan.
Delivered with her bright blue eyes sparkling and wide open, the rest of her face completely dead pan--which it never is, except when she's doing stuff like this--it totally cracked me up. The secret of comedy is in the timing, and timing is very difficult to deliver in print.
I was thinking of this as I made tea for myself this morning. I have a nasty cold coming on, and although I am drugged to the gills, symptoms are sneaking through and making me both grumpy and a bit loopy. I put a large white mug of water in the microwave to heat, and when the timer beeped, I noticed for the first time that the display doesn't just show numbers at that point, but converts to a scrolling message. I noticed this as I already had my hand on the door handle and pulled it open, this preventing all the text from scrolling across the small screen. The message that did make it across was:
FOOD IS
Sometimes, having a cold makes the world seem a little surreal. It's nice to have that kind of reassurance on a day like today.
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Coda and Spoilers: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
I guess it must be a great movie, because I am still thinking about it. And the point I want to make--if I didn't make it before, or make it clearly enough--is that the story of the mole is not the real story of the film. "Who is the mole?" is the plot, and it engages the mind and pulls the viewer through, but the real story is located in the few moments that edge that plot.
The real story, the story underneath the mechanics of who the suspects are, how to locate them, what has been compromised, is that political ideology has no reality. Humans work to uphold political ideals, but those ideals don't make anyone's life any better. It's the dispiriting realization that all the members of the Circus work to keep Britain safe from the Soviets, but that their lives as lived are no better for it.
The emotional cosh comes in some off-hand moments, especially at the end. [SPOILERS!!]
Gary Oldman, as George Smiley, goes to "The Cottage," a small cabin in a wood, fenced in and topped with barbed wire, where the captured mole is being held until he can be returned to the Russians in some unexplained diplomatic exchange. The mole here is Colin Firth, standing a bit awkwardly in this rustic location--he was "Tailor" and his urbanity is at odds with the natural surroundings. This is a man for cities, not trees and falling leaves. As he smokes casually, he unburdens himself to Smiley. I don't even remember if Smiley asks him any questions, even, but it is obvious what he wants to ask--Why?
"It was as much an aesthetic choice as anything," Firth says, blowing out cigarette smoke. "Britain had become so ugly." And that was the revelation, at least for me.
My experience of the Cold War was most vivid during the Reagan years, when those Bad Soviets drove so much of Reagan's world view and foreign policy. And at that time, we were deep into the 1980s aesthetic, where big hair and asymmetric clothes and neon colors signaled an era of excess. Greed was good, fortunes were being made in mergers and acquisitions, luxury goods were trickling down into department stores and within the reach of more and more people.
Oh, sure, it looks silly now, but at the time it was such a breath of fresh air after the drab Earth-shoe earnestness and ugliness of the 1970s. The Soviet Union, in contrast, remained stuck in the aesthetic of concrete construction and bland clothing. The popular image was of ugly people in drab clothing waiting in long lines to just buy bread.
Well, isn't it obvious how much better Western freedoms are? Sure it is! That's why the Soviet Union collapsed--Mikhail Gorbachev let his lovely wife Raisa go shopping in America, and it was all over!
What is apparent in every detail of the production design of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is that life in Britain of the 1970s wasn't much different than life in the Soviet Bloc. The work done by the Circus was no more noble or enriching than the machinations of their opposites of the USSR. That Colin Firth could stand on English soil and believe that Russian life was more aesthetically pleasing felt accurate after the two hours of living in the recreated world of the movie. Britain was ugly, and was about to get uglier as Thatcher policies inflamed class resentments. The thing about this mole--he was a traitor to the country, but he wasn't wrong.
The movie ends with brief vignettes of the lives of the characters we have been seeing, including Smiley walking into his home and approaching his faithless wife. She betrayed him with Bill Haydon (Colin Firth), herself a victim of Haydon's deliberate campaign to seduce her. He was under orders to do so, because the Soviet Spy (Karla) believed that this would exploit Smiley's weakness and make it harder for Smiley to see Haydon accurately and allow him to continue operating as a mole. And it worked--to a point.
So the future relationship between Smiley and his wife is now compromised--she was unfaithful, but she was targeted because of Smiley. How much is he to blame? And equally important, what else does he have to keep him tethered to life without her? She is far from perfect--is she better than nothing? What other options does he have, given who he is and what he does?
So much of this movie is told through the production design--the changing world signaled by the passing of the Old Guard and their short hair; the rise of the New Generation with their longer hair and casual shoes; the spare ugliness of the buildings and materials that surround the Circus; the ugly cars and grubby streets. Even the use of color is so restrained--some of the only bright spots are Benedict Cumberbatch's matching tie and handkerchief, which are themselves coded to convey his character's homosexuality.
Finally, the reality of the British spy game is so demoralizing because the whole point of Karla's putting a mole into The Circus was not because he had any interest in British intelligence--Britain was virtually useless and marginalized, a tiny island of no value. Karla was trying to hook the Americans, and using The Circus as bait for the big fish. All this human cost, all this pain, all these lives sacrificed and destroyed, and they were only the pawns of a larger game.
Smiley is no James Bond, and spy work is not glamorous, rewarding, or even useful, and the more clearly you see the work of espionage, the less you can see the difference between one side and the other. That's the real story LeCarre was telling, and that's the real story of the movie.
Wonderful.
The real story, the story underneath the mechanics of who the suspects are, how to locate them, what has been compromised, is that political ideology has no reality. Humans work to uphold political ideals, but those ideals don't make anyone's life any better. It's the dispiriting realization that all the members of the Circus work to keep Britain safe from the Soviets, but that their lives as lived are no better for it.
The emotional cosh comes in some off-hand moments, especially at the end. [SPOILERS!!]
Gary Oldman, as George Smiley, goes to "The Cottage," a small cabin in a wood, fenced in and topped with barbed wire, where the captured mole is being held until he can be returned to the Russians in some unexplained diplomatic exchange. The mole here is Colin Firth, standing a bit awkwardly in this rustic location--he was "Tailor" and his urbanity is at odds with the natural surroundings. This is a man for cities, not trees and falling leaves. As he smokes casually, he unburdens himself to Smiley. I don't even remember if Smiley asks him any questions, even, but it is obvious what he wants to ask--Why?
"It was as much an aesthetic choice as anything," Firth says, blowing out cigarette smoke. "Britain had become so ugly." And that was the revelation, at least for me.
My experience of the Cold War was most vivid during the Reagan years, when those Bad Soviets drove so much of Reagan's world view and foreign policy. And at that time, we were deep into the 1980s aesthetic, where big hair and asymmetric clothes and neon colors signaled an era of excess. Greed was good, fortunes were being made in mergers and acquisitions, luxury goods were trickling down into department stores and within the reach of more and more people.
Oh, sure, it looks silly now, but at the time it was such a breath of fresh air after the drab Earth-shoe earnestness and ugliness of the 1970s. The Soviet Union, in contrast, remained stuck in the aesthetic of concrete construction and bland clothing. The popular image was of ugly people in drab clothing waiting in long lines to just buy bread.
Well, isn't it obvious how much better Western freedoms are? Sure it is! That's why the Soviet Union collapsed--Mikhail Gorbachev let his lovely wife Raisa go shopping in America, and it was all over!
What is apparent in every detail of the production design of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is that life in Britain of the 1970s wasn't much different than life in the Soviet Bloc. The work done by the Circus was no more noble or enriching than the machinations of their opposites of the USSR. That Colin Firth could stand on English soil and believe that Russian life was more aesthetically pleasing felt accurate after the two hours of living in the recreated world of the movie. Britain was ugly, and was about to get uglier as Thatcher policies inflamed class resentments. The thing about this mole--he was a traitor to the country, but he wasn't wrong.
The movie ends with brief vignettes of the lives of the characters we have been seeing, including Smiley walking into his home and approaching his faithless wife. She betrayed him with Bill Haydon (Colin Firth), herself a victim of Haydon's deliberate campaign to seduce her. He was under orders to do so, because the Soviet Spy (Karla) believed that this would exploit Smiley's weakness and make it harder for Smiley to see Haydon accurately and allow him to continue operating as a mole. And it worked--to a point.
So the future relationship between Smiley and his wife is now compromised--she was unfaithful, but she was targeted because of Smiley. How much is he to blame? And equally important, what else does he have to keep him tethered to life without her? She is far from perfect--is she better than nothing? What other options does he have, given who he is and what he does?
So much of this movie is told through the production design--the changing world signaled by the passing of the Old Guard and their short hair; the rise of the New Generation with their longer hair and casual shoes; the spare ugliness of the buildings and materials that surround the Circus; the ugly cars and grubby streets. Even the use of color is so restrained--some of the only bright spots are Benedict Cumberbatch's matching tie and handkerchief, which are themselves coded to convey his character's homosexuality.
Finally, the reality of the British spy game is so demoralizing because the whole point of Karla's putting a mole into The Circus was not because he had any interest in British intelligence--Britain was virtually useless and marginalized, a tiny island of no value. Karla was trying to hook the Americans, and using The Circus as bait for the big fish. All this human cost, all this pain, all these lives sacrificed and destroyed, and they were only the pawns of a larger game.
Smiley is no James Bond, and spy work is not glamorous, rewarding, or even useful, and the more clearly you see the work of espionage, the less you can see the difference between one side and the other. That's the real story LeCarre was telling, and that's the real story of the movie.
Wonderful.
Monday, January 09, 2012
Young Adult--A Review
It is apprarently fashionable to hate Diablo Cody--especially to hate her breakout movie Juno. I am not going to get on that band wagon, since I thought Juno did exactly what it had to do--it had to announce that Diablo Cody knew what she was doing. Plus it was enjoyable as hell while telling a story that could otherwise have fallen into the hole of A Very Special Episode of The Facts of Life. Teen pregnancy, blended families, divorce, inappropriate relations between a high school teacher and student, the strains on a marriage of infertility and then parenthood--all were encompassed in the story which still managed to be funny, hopeful and open-hearted.
Young Adult is not another Juno, and I have no idea if Juno-haters will like this one better. I liked it, and the evidence of this blog is that I hate everything, so make of that what you will. Charlize Theron plays Mavis Gary, living alone in a high rise apartment overlooking the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, struggling to write the last installment of a high school novel series call "Waverly High." Despite her glamorous job title, docile purse dog and big city life, Mavis's life isn't what she thought it would be. Her apartment, for example--the view is great, the furniture is crap. She is a published author of a crap serial that is being remaindered even as she writes the last title. She's Charlize Theron for crap's sake, but much of her beauty is revealed to be a show as we watch her elaborate preparations for a date.
The movie shows us all of this, without feeling the need to spell it out explicitly for us. The dog, for example. It's a Pomeranian and she's bought a special travel case to cart him around in, but she does only the minimum of daily care for him. She never walks him, instead shoving him onto the tiny balcony of her apartment where she's placed a tiny square of artificial grass and (IIRC) a plastic fire hydrant. When she goes back to her small town hometown, she leaves him in the hotel room with a pee pad. This is a woman who gives the barest minimum effort and seems to resent even that much. She is a toxic mess on a mission of disaster.
What plot there is involves her receiving an email from her old high school boyfriend, announcing the birth of his first daughter. Mavis decides this is a cry for help, and she packs up and drives home in order to rescue Buddy from his marriage and baby. In a sharply observed juxtaposition, Mavis calls him from a bar, where she is downing drinks while dressed for serious clubbing. He answers the phone and we never even see his face, just his hands as he empties the milk from a pair of breast pumps into sealable bags which he labels and freezes. Of course, Mavis doesn't see this either--it is a phone call after all--but even if she were in the room with him, she wouldn't see what this means to him. She would only see it as disgusting evidence of his trapped status.
The movie proceeds to show us Mavis doing all she can to recapture the glory days of high school while avoiding the mess of her life. Out withe her dog, she is obviously being followed by a car--which turns out to be her mother, who she has obviously been avoiding. Back in her parents' house, she finds a large framed wedding photo still on the wall. When she asks her mother to take it down, Mom doesn't have any sympathy or understanding why it might be objectionable. "We are divorced, Mom." "Well, I thought it was a happy memory." "Of my failed marriage?" "The wedding wasn't a failure--remember the tirimisu?"
Added to the mix is Matt Freehauf, played by Patton Oswalt. Their lockers were next to each other all through high school, but she doesn't recognize him at all until she makes the connection to him as "the hate crime guy." He had been beaten savagely by some high school athletes who thought he was gay. It caused some attention until it turned out that he wasn't even gay and then even that attention dried up. Mavis uses him as a drinking buddy and a sounding board for her plans to escape with Buddy. Matt sees this as the delusional plan that it is, but he is obviously lonely and again--this attention is better than none. So he drinks with Mavis, listens to her reminiscences and tries to make her see what reality looks like.
The film cycles through her various attempts to fascinate and connect with Buddy, and his gentle Minnesota refusal to engage or to call her on her bullshit. The climax comes at a baby naming ceremony and reception at Buddy's house. Mavis embarrasses herself in front of the entire population of people she knows, and she runs from the scene to Matt, who offers her some sympathy and (more importantly) alcohol and sex to soothe the blow to her self-esteem. Even so, she is beginning to question herself when she meets Matt's younger sister the morning after. Sandra obviously idolized Mavis in high school and has continued to do so even now. As Mavis voices her self-doubt, Sandra quickly reassures her. "You are so much better than the people here" she says, and Mavis swallows this KoolAid. The "learning moment" was presented, and she resolutely refused it. More damning, Mavis so thoroughly returns to her self-centered ways that she destroys whatever relationships she might have built with Matt and Sandra--she slips out of town before Matt wakes up, and when Sandra asks "take me with you to Minneapolis" Mavis refuses. "You are good here" she says, which is brutal after Sandra has just explained how pathetic the people of Mercury actually are. It's like she not only bites the hand that feeds her, but she rubs salt in the wound as well.
The movie ends with a sly parody of the young adult genre. As Mavis drives back to Minneapolis, we hear her voice-over reading the last paragraph of her "Waverly High" book, intoning platitudes about how she was ready to leave the past (and high school) behind and face the real world. Which would be a cliche, except it is painfully clear that Mavis Gary has not made that leap herself.
Definitely worth the two hours of time to watch, and likely to be a regular repeat on a number of cable channels in the near future. Check it out.
Young Adult is not another Juno, and I have no idea if Juno-haters will like this one better. I liked it, and the evidence of this blog is that I hate everything, so make of that what you will. Charlize Theron plays Mavis Gary, living alone in a high rise apartment overlooking the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, struggling to write the last installment of a high school novel series call "Waverly High." Despite her glamorous job title, docile purse dog and big city life, Mavis's life isn't what she thought it would be. Her apartment, for example--the view is great, the furniture is crap. She is a published author of a crap serial that is being remaindered even as she writes the last title. She's Charlize Theron for crap's sake, but much of her beauty is revealed to be a show as we watch her elaborate preparations for a date.
The movie shows us all of this, without feeling the need to spell it out explicitly for us. The dog, for example. It's a Pomeranian and she's bought a special travel case to cart him around in, but she does only the minimum of daily care for him. She never walks him, instead shoving him onto the tiny balcony of her apartment where she's placed a tiny square of artificial grass and (IIRC) a plastic fire hydrant. When she goes back to her small town hometown, she leaves him in the hotel room with a pee pad. This is a woman who gives the barest minimum effort and seems to resent even that much. She is a toxic mess on a mission of disaster.
What plot there is involves her receiving an email from her old high school boyfriend, announcing the birth of his first daughter. Mavis decides this is a cry for help, and she packs up and drives home in order to rescue Buddy from his marriage and baby. In a sharply observed juxtaposition, Mavis calls him from a bar, where she is downing drinks while dressed for serious clubbing. He answers the phone and we never even see his face, just his hands as he empties the milk from a pair of breast pumps into sealable bags which he labels and freezes. Of course, Mavis doesn't see this either--it is a phone call after all--but even if she were in the room with him, she wouldn't see what this means to him. She would only see it as disgusting evidence of his trapped status.
The movie proceeds to show us Mavis doing all she can to recapture the glory days of high school while avoiding the mess of her life. Out withe her dog, she is obviously being followed by a car--which turns out to be her mother, who she has obviously been avoiding. Back in her parents' house, she finds a large framed wedding photo still on the wall. When she asks her mother to take it down, Mom doesn't have any sympathy or understanding why it might be objectionable. "We are divorced, Mom." "Well, I thought it was a happy memory." "Of my failed marriage?" "The wedding wasn't a failure--remember the tirimisu?"
Added to the mix is Matt Freehauf, played by Patton Oswalt. Their lockers were next to each other all through high school, but she doesn't recognize him at all until she makes the connection to him as "the hate crime guy." He had been beaten savagely by some high school athletes who thought he was gay. It caused some attention until it turned out that he wasn't even gay and then even that attention dried up. Mavis uses him as a drinking buddy and a sounding board for her plans to escape with Buddy. Matt sees this as the delusional plan that it is, but he is obviously lonely and again--this attention is better than none. So he drinks with Mavis, listens to her reminiscences and tries to make her see what reality looks like.
The film cycles through her various attempts to fascinate and connect with Buddy, and his gentle Minnesota refusal to engage or to call her on her bullshit. The climax comes at a baby naming ceremony and reception at Buddy's house. Mavis embarrasses herself in front of the entire population of people she knows, and she runs from the scene to Matt, who offers her some sympathy and (more importantly) alcohol and sex to soothe the blow to her self-esteem. Even so, she is beginning to question herself when she meets Matt's younger sister the morning after. Sandra obviously idolized Mavis in high school and has continued to do so even now. As Mavis voices her self-doubt, Sandra quickly reassures her. "You are so much better than the people here" she says, and Mavis swallows this KoolAid. The "learning moment" was presented, and she resolutely refused it. More damning, Mavis so thoroughly returns to her self-centered ways that she destroys whatever relationships she might have built with Matt and Sandra--she slips out of town before Matt wakes up, and when Sandra asks "take me with you to Minneapolis" Mavis refuses. "You are good here" she says, which is brutal after Sandra has just explained how pathetic the people of Mercury actually are. It's like she not only bites the hand that feeds her, but she rubs salt in the wound as well.
The movie ends with a sly parody of the young adult genre. As Mavis drives back to Minneapolis, we hear her voice-over reading the last paragraph of her "Waverly High" book, intoning platitudes about how she was ready to leave the past (and high school) behind and face the real world. Which would be a cliche, except it is painfully clear that Mavis Gary has not made that leap herself.
Definitely worth the two hours of time to watch, and likely to be a regular repeat on a number of cable channels in the near future. Check it out.
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy--A Review
No, I haven't read the John LeCarre novel and I never saw the miniseries starring Alec Guinness. I don't even usually see spy movies or read spy novels. But how can you resist the cast list?
Gary Oldman
Colin Firth
John Hurt
Toby Jones
Mark Strong
And two of the 2011 Edition Pretty Boys: Tom Hardy and Benedict Cumberbatch.
With a cast like that, and a strong story (I mean! The book was written almost 40 years ago and it's still famous!) you know that there was going to be some Major Acting going on. And yes--these boys acted the hell out of this story.
If you've seen the trailer, you know the basics of the plot. At the height of the Cold War (this is 1973 after all) British Intelligence has a mole at the highest levels. John Hurt wants to find out who it is, but his suspicions threaten an intelligence source, and he and Gary Oldman get forced into retirement. Then John Hurt is killed, and Gary Oldman is persuaded that the mole is real and he's the right guy to figure out who it is. It's one of the top four men in the service, given code names Tinker, Tailor, Soldier and Poorman.
Now, if you are Britain and you believe your entire intelligence operation has been compromised, would you turn to this guy to keep you safe?
Um--NO. He's even a Russian Terrorist--this guy would be the mole and would simply mow down everyone who got in his way while demanding the Crown Jewels. At least!
Okay, what about this guy?
I don't think you even have to answer that one. Do you suppose he wears the plastic head thing to cover brain surgery and ECT scars?
No. Just---no.
Wow. Britain really is in trouble. A little heroin, and Russia has a new patsy.
And I see the gleam of psychotic break in his eyes.
No, if this is the man who is going to be the last defense against Soviet infiltrations, we should just start learning how to drink vodka and write in Cyrillic. This guy is going to kill everyone and then turn double agent himself and. . .
And. . .
And wait a second. What about THIS guy?
That level gaze! That firm set of the mouth! That almost but not quite beige hair and skin and raincoat that amounts to near total self-effacement! This is the kind of guy who is smart, who is going to play his hand close to his vest, who is never going to be corrupted in any way! Yes! We'll take him and England will be saved!
Which is to say that Gary Oldman does an amazing job as George Smiley. He is so restrained and so uncharismatic, and yet he is implacable and you just know that once he has been set to solve the problem, shit is going to get solved!
Which it does, but there is no triumph in it. The damage has been done and the human toll is paid. The movie ends with a series of glimpses of the people left after the mole is discovered and all of them carry visible emotional scars. George Smiley and his wife are distant from each other; Mark Strong has lost his closest emotional connection and his belief in the value of what he does; people who were forced out of their jobs remain marginalized and useless despite their talents and devotion; the heads of The Circus (what LeCarre calls the intelligence service) have all been broken, exposed, and destroyed; and yet the Cold War grinds on and the work continues regardless of the human lives eaten up because to stop would be even worse.
The look of the film is exquisite--muted sepia-flavored light, not quite nostalgia-inducing, but clearly signaling a time in the past. The cars are ugly 1970s freaks of British automaking, and George Smiley is driven around in something that looks remarkably like a cockroach. The Circus works in barely converted warehouse space, with ugly desks and walls, clearly stock scavanged and possibly dating back to WWII salvage. The generations are signaled quietly, with the Old Guard (most clearly lead by John Hurt) sporting crisp hair cut close to the neck, while the New Generation (notably Mark Strong and Colin Firth) letting their hair grow down to their collars.
The underlings are played by Benedict Cumberbatch and Tom Hardy, each sporting a weird blonde dye job that marks their connection despite the differences in their roles signaled by every other thing about them--Hardy is a mess in denims and tennis shoes, often unshaven, smoking compulsively and completely emotionally rattled. Cumberbatch is smooth-faced, tightly controlled, deferential and cool, invariably in a buttoned up three piece suit with matching tie and handkerchief and hard soled Oxford shoes. Not preternatually Sherlock-style cool, but when put in obvious fear for his life he remains collected and his panic is obvious in his widened eyes and slightly faster walk. And somebody couldn't resist the temptation--his suits are tailored just a hair too wonderfully for his character's position. As a movie-goer, I appreciated the visual treat.
It's a great movie, but the plot is a little too Byzantine for the two-hour running time. I think I followed it (LeCarre virgin that I am) but the emotional moments didn't have the impact they probably should have. The identity of the mole made no emotional impression on me--I didn't care about who the suspects were, so I didn't care if they were (or weren't) guilty. The effect on our hero Smiley was non-existent as well, since he had already been thoroughly betrayed by The Circus at the beginning of the story. Nor had the relationships between the characters been well enough established for us to experience any of their pain--in fact, the whole cast were kind of like scorpions sealed in a bottle, and they were busy stinging each other to death for one reason or another, many of them petty. In some lights, being a Russian mole was arguably a more noble motive for betrayal than mere career advancement.
Having said that, the pure intellectualism of the story-telling is satisfying. You couldn't do this work and feel unalloyed patriotism--it's clear that Smiley at least does the work because he believes it has to be done, and he intellectually accepts the price he has to pay to do so. It's an elegant and intellectual film and definitely worth seeing. It's a crisp, tart contrast to the wallowing Oscar-bait movies swamping the theaters.
Gary Oldman
Colin Firth
John Hurt
Toby Jones
Mark Strong
And two of the 2011 Edition Pretty Boys: Tom Hardy and Benedict Cumberbatch.
With a cast like that, and a strong story (I mean! The book was written almost 40 years ago and it's still famous!) you know that there was going to be some Major Acting going on. And yes--these boys acted the hell out of this story.
If you've seen the trailer, you know the basics of the plot. At the height of the Cold War (this is 1973 after all) British Intelligence has a mole at the highest levels. John Hurt wants to find out who it is, but his suspicions threaten an intelligence source, and he and Gary Oldman get forced into retirement. Then John Hurt is killed, and Gary Oldman is persuaded that the mole is real and he's the right guy to figure out who it is. It's one of the top four men in the service, given code names Tinker, Tailor, Soldier and Poorman.
Now, if you are Britain and you believe your entire intelligence operation has been compromised, would you turn to this guy to keep you safe?
Um--NO. He's even a Russian Terrorist--this guy would be the mole and would simply mow down everyone who got in his way while demanding the Crown Jewels. At least!
Okay, what about this guy?
I don't think you even have to answer that one. Do you suppose he wears the plastic head thing to cover brain surgery and ECT scars?
No. Just---no.
Wow. Britain really is in trouble. A little heroin, and Russia has a new patsy.
And I see the gleam of psychotic break in his eyes.
No, if this is the man who is going to be the last defense against Soviet infiltrations, we should just start learning how to drink vodka and write in Cyrillic. This guy is going to kill everyone and then turn double agent himself and. . .
And. . .
And wait a second. What about THIS guy?
Which is to say that Gary Oldman does an amazing job as George Smiley. He is so restrained and so uncharismatic, and yet he is implacable and you just know that once he has been set to solve the problem, shit is going to get solved!
Which it does, but there is no triumph in it. The damage has been done and the human toll is paid. The movie ends with a series of glimpses of the people left after the mole is discovered and all of them carry visible emotional scars. George Smiley and his wife are distant from each other; Mark Strong has lost his closest emotional connection and his belief in the value of what he does; people who were forced out of their jobs remain marginalized and useless despite their talents and devotion; the heads of The Circus (what LeCarre calls the intelligence service) have all been broken, exposed, and destroyed; and yet the Cold War grinds on and the work continues regardless of the human lives eaten up because to stop would be even worse.
The look of the film is exquisite--muted sepia-flavored light, not quite nostalgia-inducing, but clearly signaling a time in the past. The cars are ugly 1970s freaks of British automaking, and George Smiley is driven around in something that looks remarkably like a cockroach. The Circus works in barely converted warehouse space, with ugly desks and walls, clearly stock scavanged and possibly dating back to WWII salvage. The generations are signaled quietly, with the Old Guard (most clearly lead by John Hurt) sporting crisp hair cut close to the neck, while the New Generation (notably Mark Strong and Colin Firth) letting their hair grow down to their collars.
The underlings are played by Benedict Cumberbatch and Tom Hardy, each sporting a weird blonde dye job that marks their connection despite the differences in their roles signaled by every other thing about them--Hardy is a mess in denims and tennis shoes, often unshaven, smoking compulsively and completely emotionally rattled. Cumberbatch is smooth-faced, tightly controlled, deferential and cool, invariably in a buttoned up three piece suit with matching tie and handkerchief and hard soled Oxford shoes. Not preternatually Sherlock-style cool, but when put in obvious fear for his life he remains collected and his panic is obvious in his widened eyes and slightly faster walk. And somebody couldn't resist the temptation--his suits are tailored just a hair too wonderfully for his character's position. As a movie-goer, I appreciated the visual treat.
It's a great movie, but the plot is a little too Byzantine for the two-hour running time. I think I followed it (LeCarre virgin that I am) but the emotional moments didn't have the impact they probably should have. The identity of the mole made no emotional impression on me--I didn't care about who the suspects were, so I didn't care if they were (or weren't) guilty. The effect on our hero Smiley was non-existent as well, since he had already been thoroughly betrayed by The Circus at the beginning of the story. Nor had the relationships between the characters been well enough established for us to experience any of their pain--in fact, the whole cast were kind of like scorpions sealed in a bottle, and they were busy stinging each other to death for one reason or another, many of them petty. In some lights, being a Russian mole was arguably a more noble motive for betrayal than mere career advancement.
Having said that, the pure intellectualism of the story-telling is satisfying. You couldn't do this work and feel unalloyed patriotism--it's clear that Smiley at least does the work because he believes it has to be done, and he intellectually accepts the price he has to pay to do so. It's an elegant and intellectual film and definitely worth seeing. It's a crisp, tart contrast to the wallowing Oscar-bait movies swamping the theaters.
Sunday, January 08, 2012
We Saw ALL the Movies!
The past month has been Movie Madness Chez Evil, and I saw more movies in four weeks than I have seen in the preceding twelve months. At least, if my math is right. I need to make a quick list of them all, or I will forget.
Even more amazing is how many of them were actually movies that I saw in actual movie theaters, not just rentals on my laptop. In order to remember which ones I should review, I will make a quick list here and then post actual reviews separately.
Thus, in no particular order except of how I remember them, the movies of December and January:
The Muppet Movie
Hugo
Young Adult
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
The Artist
Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows
We Bought A Zoo
Extra Bonus Movies (not seen in theaters)
The House of Flying Daggers
Citizen Kane
St. Trinian's
X-Men:First Class
Not a bad collection, and I didn't hate any of them--this is quite an endorsement, coming from me!
I will attempt to post one review per day of the theatrically viewed movies--the other ones, well, we'll see.
Even more amazing is how many of them were actually movies that I saw in actual movie theaters, not just rentals on my laptop. In order to remember which ones I should review, I will make a quick list here and then post actual reviews separately.
Thus, in no particular order except of how I remember them, the movies of December and January:
The Muppet Movie
Hugo
Young Adult
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
The Artist
Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows
We Bought A Zoo
Extra Bonus Movies (not seen in theaters)
The House of Flying Daggers
Citizen Kane
St. Trinian's
X-Men:First Class
Not a bad collection, and I didn't hate any of them--this is quite an endorsement, coming from me!
I will attempt to post one review per day of the theatrically viewed movies--the other ones, well, we'll see.
Wednesday, January 04, 2012
Confusion in College Football.
Back in the day when I was an undergraduate, I lived in a dorm that housed and fed the football team. So I was privy to the utter ridiculousness of Big 10 football and the oxymoron that was the "student-athlete." A neighbor of mine was seduced by the supposed glamor of these man-boys, and she did their homework in return for the scraps of attention they gave her in dropping off and picking up the papers she wrote for them.
It is necessary in this transaction for all the parties to be not terribly bright--she was (willfully?) oblivious of the degree to which she was being crassly taken advantage of, and they weren't getting very good papers in return because she wasn't that great of a scholar herself. At least one regular customer of hers showed up after a game in which he was removed from the field due to a concussion--and there was really no way to see any difference in him.
So, I am rather jaded about collegiate football generally, and am not a fan of the game anyway. So I never kept up with the changes
So, this year, I heard that the "Doritos Fiesta Bowl" takes place in the "University of Phoenix Stadium."
Dudes--the University of Phoenix is an on-line university. The questions arise:
Does even a non-existent university need to have a football stadium? Has collegiate athletics gotten THAT corrupt?
Why would a college football championship be played in an imaginary university's stadium? More to the point, since "University of Phoenix" is a for-profit institution, does that just make the hypocrisy of college athletics obvious?
Yeah--send your hate mail to me, and feel free to explain what I have failed to understand, but football just does not make any sense to me. I am willing to be educated, but I can hold out little hope of your success.
It is necessary in this transaction for all the parties to be not terribly bright--she was (willfully?) oblivious of the degree to which she was being crassly taken advantage of, and they weren't getting very good papers in return because she wasn't that great of a scholar herself. At least one regular customer of hers showed up after a game in which he was removed from the field due to a concussion--and there was really no way to see any difference in him.
So, I am rather jaded about collegiate football generally, and am not a fan of the game anyway. So I never kept up with the changes
So, this year, I heard that the "Doritos Fiesta Bowl" takes place in the "University of Phoenix Stadium."
Dudes--the University of Phoenix is an on-line university. The questions arise:
Does even a non-existent university need to have a football stadium? Has collegiate athletics gotten THAT corrupt?
Why would a college football championship be played in an imaginary university's stadium? More to the point, since "University of Phoenix" is a for-profit institution, does that just make the hypocrisy of college athletics obvious?
Yeah--send your hate mail to me, and feel free to explain what I have failed to understand, but football just does not make any sense to me. I am willing to be educated, but I can hold out little hope of your success.
Saturday, June 25, 2011
The God of Carnage, a review
Saw the play "The God of Carnage" at the Guthrie last night, and I'm still thinking about it. It's a chamber piece that is very much like "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" but with less acid. Two couples, a living room, 90 minutes--it's short, it's interesting, but ultimately is it meaningful?
The set-up is that Veronica and Michael Novak have invited Annette and Alan Raleigh to discuss the fact that the Raleighs' son Benjamin has hit Henry Novak in the face with a stick at a neighborhood park. We never see or hear from the boys--this is all about the parents. At first, it is deeply cringe inducing--it is all to easy to imagine the parents of my acquaintance getting into exactly this sort of nurturing community disciplinary action. Two boys got into an altercation on a playground, and the parents have to convene and establish a joint response. That's right--the parents get together and have this weird discussion about what happened and how it happened, and it was deliberate and does Benjamin understand that he has disfigured his playmate. And at some point, the veneer of cooperation comes off.
Which it should, because, really? Veronica Novak is furious that this eleven-year old hooligan has hit her son, and she wants to know that he's going to be punished to her satisfaction. She wants him to be disciplined, she wants to know he feels guilty and miserable, and she wants retribution. But she's such a civilized New Yorker, that she can only come at that vengeance obliquely. She asks if Benjamin feels guilty, if he understands the violence he has perpetrated, and she's very disappointed to hear that Benjamin--as a fairly typical 11 year old--knows he's in trouble, but isn't particularly upset about it. So, Veronica insists that Benjamin be brought over to apologize to Henry, but only if he fully understands the seriousness of his behavior, and Veronica wants both the Raleighs to be present as well. And she does it in the guise of "teaching Benjamin" and "helping him so it doesn't happen again." She skates between being a hostess--it is her living room where the play takes place--and being a protector of her children. She doesn't scale to the heights of Greek or Jacobean revenge plays, but not because she doesn't feel the emotional impetus to it. She just tries to keep it on the level of NYC social niceties.
The Raleighs start the evening trying to be conciliatory and businesslike. Yes, our son hit your son, and we do not approve of his actions. What must we do to rectify the situation? They are tentative, rather abashed--it is clear that both sets of parents deeply identify with their children, and Benjamin's action has shamed his parents. They are willing to do what the Novaks ask to resolve the situation. But those relationships don't stay static.
Alan declares his son a "savage!" A way to distance himself and his own self-image from his boy. Then Veronica slips in one too many comments about her disapproval of Benjamin, and Alan is roused to his son's defense. The evening wears on, alcohol is introduced, and hints appear that perhaps Henry wasn't particularly innocent. There are intimations that Henry may have taunted Benjamin past that boy's ability to stand it. "But that's not the point here!" Veronica says, because she doesn't want to hear anything to disturb her conception of Henry as an innocent victim, which the Raleighs are willing to indulge up to a point, in the hopes of smoothing over the event.
Then as the discussion continues and (inevitably wanders), we see a divide along gender lines. The men understand that boys define their masculinity through strength and fighting, and they both have fond memories of their own boyhood that involved shows of dominance and successful fights. The mothers are appalled--as a fundamental difference over the proper level of "civilization" begins to show. The men begin to rebel against the smothering "niceness" of the women's world views, and begin to bond with each other over rum and cigars. But marital loyalties can't be entirely transgressed, and soon the men find themselves having to back up their wives.
But the rum loosens the lips, dissuades the Raleighs from leaving, and each of the characters begins to show their anger and disappointment at the world and their lives. At least two characters declare this as the "worst day of my life." Which is in stark contrast to the larger world which is referred to--Veronica has written a book on Darfur, and Alan is an attorney who has a case at the International Criminal Court at the Hague. This "worst" is far from the worst these characters know about--and yet they fully believe their claims.
Throughout the play, Alan's cell phone goes off: one of his clients is a pharmaceutical company and a new report has just come out about serious side effects of one of its drugs. Alan is counselling his client to go on th offensive--accuse the report of being an attempt to manipulate stock prices in advance of a shareholders' meeting, don't recall the drug, refuse to acknowledge any responsibility. This is the opposite of his role as a penitent in the Novak living room, and you see how he came to this meeting solely to pacify his wife. She is obviously engaged in a battle for attention from her husband--the cell goes off one too many times, after one too many glasses of rum, and she grabs it from his hand and dunks it into a vase of tulips, ruining it. Alan ends up on the floor in a tantrum of anger and frustration, his own ability to control his emotions reducing him to a toddler. Is it any wonder that the children of these "adults" misbehave themselves?
This is a play that is well-crafted, but not outstanding. The Guthrie actors were quite good, and the characters were distinct, but the production didn't really say anything new about human nature, parenting, or why it's not a good idea to drink a lot of rum on an empty stomach. It is possible to imagine how some truly great actors might elevate this play, and it turns out that Roman Polanski is making a movie version with what might just be a dream cast. Jodie Foster as Veronica, John C. Reilly as her husband Michael, Kate Winslet and Christoph Walz as Annette and Alan. Just imagining those four sitting stiffly in an elegant living room is to see the inherent tension of the situation, and it is easy to see how the various alliance could shift and coalesce.
The set-up is that Veronica and Michael Novak have invited Annette and Alan Raleigh to discuss the fact that the Raleighs' son Benjamin has hit Henry Novak in the face with a stick at a neighborhood park. We never see or hear from the boys--this is all about the parents. At first, it is deeply cringe inducing--it is all to easy to imagine the parents of my acquaintance getting into exactly this sort of nurturing community disciplinary action. Two boys got into an altercation on a playground, and the parents have to convene and establish a joint response. That's right--the parents get together and have this weird discussion about what happened and how it happened, and it was deliberate and does Benjamin understand that he has disfigured his playmate. And at some point, the veneer of cooperation comes off.
Which it should, because, really? Veronica Novak is furious that this eleven-year old hooligan has hit her son, and she wants to know that he's going to be punished to her satisfaction. She wants him to be disciplined, she wants to know he feels guilty and miserable, and she wants retribution. But she's such a civilized New Yorker, that she can only come at that vengeance obliquely. She asks if Benjamin feels guilty, if he understands the violence he has perpetrated, and she's very disappointed to hear that Benjamin--as a fairly typical 11 year old--knows he's in trouble, but isn't particularly upset about it. So, Veronica insists that Benjamin be brought over to apologize to Henry, but only if he fully understands the seriousness of his behavior, and Veronica wants both the Raleighs to be present as well. And she does it in the guise of "teaching Benjamin" and "helping him so it doesn't happen again." She skates between being a hostess--it is her living room where the play takes place--and being a protector of her children. She doesn't scale to the heights of Greek or Jacobean revenge plays, but not because she doesn't feel the emotional impetus to it. She just tries to keep it on the level of NYC social niceties.
The Raleighs start the evening trying to be conciliatory and businesslike. Yes, our son hit your son, and we do not approve of his actions. What must we do to rectify the situation? They are tentative, rather abashed--it is clear that both sets of parents deeply identify with their children, and Benjamin's action has shamed his parents. They are willing to do what the Novaks ask to resolve the situation. But those relationships don't stay static.
Alan declares his son a "savage!" A way to distance himself and his own self-image from his boy. Then Veronica slips in one too many comments about her disapproval of Benjamin, and Alan is roused to his son's defense. The evening wears on, alcohol is introduced, and hints appear that perhaps Henry wasn't particularly innocent. There are intimations that Henry may have taunted Benjamin past that boy's ability to stand it. "But that's not the point here!" Veronica says, because she doesn't want to hear anything to disturb her conception of Henry as an innocent victim, which the Raleighs are willing to indulge up to a point, in the hopes of smoothing over the event.
Then as the discussion continues and (inevitably wanders), we see a divide along gender lines. The men understand that boys define their masculinity through strength and fighting, and they both have fond memories of their own boyhood that involved shows of dominance and successful fights. The mothers are appalled--as a fundamental difference over the proper level of "civilization" begins to show. The men begin to rebel against the smothering "niceness" of the women's world views, and begin to bond with each other over rum and cigars. But marital loyalties can't be entirely transgressed, and soon the men find themselves having to back up their wives.
But the rum loosens the lips, dissuades the Raleighs from leaving, and each of the characters begins to show their anger and disappointment at the world and their lives. At least two characters declare this as the "worst day of my life." Which is in stark contrast to the larger world which is referred to--Veronica has written a book on Darfur, and Alan is an attorney who has a case at the International Criminal Court at the Hague. This "worst" is far from the worst these characters know about--and yet they fully believe their claims.
Throughout the play, Alan's cell phone goes off: one of his clients is a pharmaceutical company and a new report has just come out about serious side effects of one of its drugs. Alan is counselling his client to go on th offensive--accuse the report of being an attempt to manipulate stock prices in advance of a shareholders' meeting, don't recall the drug, refuse to acknowledge any responsibility. This is the opposite of his role as a penitent in the Novak living room, and you see how he came to this meeting solely to pacify his wife. She is obviously engaged in a battle for attention from her husband--the cell goes off one too many times, after one too many glasses of rum, and she grabs it from his hand and dunks it into a vase of tulips, ruining it. Alan ends up on the floor in a tantrum of anger and frustration, his own ability to control his emotions reducing him to a toddler. Is it any wonder that the children of these "adults" misbehave themselves?
This is a play that is well-crafted, but not outstanding. The Guthrie actors were quite good, and the characters were distinct, but the production didn't really say anything new about human nature, parenting, or why it's not a good idea to drink a lot of rum on an empty stomach. It is possible to imagine how some truly great actors might elevate this play, and it turns out that Roman Polanski is making a movie version with what might just be a dream cast. Jodie Foster as Veronica, John C. Reilly as her husband Michael, Kate Winslet and Christoph Walz as Annette and Alan. Just imagining those four sitting stiffly in an elegant living room is to see the inherent tension of the situation, and it is easy to see how the various alliance could shift and coalesce.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Sanibel Sunset
I am sitting in a time-share condo on Sanibel Island watching the sun set. Well, since the building actually faces sort of South South-East, I am watching the effects of the sunset, as the sky goes from blue with brilliant white clouds to pink and purple, and now to a sort of steely blue with some oyster-colored spots. The Gulf went from a muted blue-green through silvery-gray, to now a pearly blue that is close to the color of the sky. Earlier, just before the sun set, there was an enormous cumulus cloud that was directly in the sun's rays, and the reflection of that light on the water left a shining white path as white as it gets at night, when the lack of light leeches all the color from the landscape and the full moon turns the black water bright.
I've been painting the last couple of days, sitting on the porch and looking at the view and painting. It's a little bit tricky, as there is a Building-Code-Required railing that runs right across my eye-level. It's a trade-off: it obscures the view, but then I don't fall to my death.
The last time I was here on Sanibel was some 13 years ago, when my kids were babies and travelling anywahere just ment doing the same jobs in a different location with slightly fewer things to keep the kids safe and occupied. In that time, Sanibel has hardly changed. A few restaurants have changed hands or closed, there are a few more people on the beaches, but the biggest change has to be the disappearance of the Australian Pines.
Australian Pines are a a feathery sort of evergreen, that were originally planted as windbreaks. They gave the island a sort of familiar, homey look to those of us from the Frozen Northland, where we are used to lots of piney woods. There were quite a few planted along the main road that runs up the length of the island, and they gave the road the feeling of a cathedral, as they arched high overhead. I remember one night riding in the back seat of an open convertible, laying my head back against the seat and watching the pines go by. My brother and husband were in the front seat, and because of the acoustics of a convertible, I could hear that they were talking, but nothing they were saying. It was just another noise, like the sound of the waves on the beach, and I let the wind whip my hair into my eyes as I say the night float overhead.
The trouble with Australian pines on an island on the Gulf of Mexico, however, is that sometimes there are hurricanes. And Australian pines have what was described to me as a "pancake" root system. Flat, thin, close to the surface. Far from being an effective windbreak, they tended to just topple over--especially the large ones that were 100 feet tall or more. Most of the damage done on Sanibel (as opposed to on Captiva or elsewhere) was not from the hurricane winds themselves, but from the Australian pines flying around.
So, sure, I miss them--they were introduced in the late 1800s and certainly have better claim to being here than most of the people, but with them gone, the island actually looks more tropical and exotic. I can live with the change.
And now the sun is completely gone. If I turn around just so, I can see the light of the Sanibel Lighthouse flashing about the building and trees. Lovely. Just lovely.
I've been painting the last couple of days, sitting on the porch and looking at the view and painting. It's a little bit tricky, as there is a Building-Code-Required railing that runs right across my eye-level. It's a trade-off: it obscures the view, but then I don't fall to my death.
The last time I was here on Sanibel was some 13 years ago, when my kids were babies and travelling anywahere just ment doing the same jobs in a different location with slightly fewer things to keep the kids safe and occupied. In that time, Sanibel has hardly changed. A few restaurants have changed hands or closed, there are a few more people on the beaches, but the biggest change has to be the disappearance of the Australian Pines.
Australian Pines are a a feathery sort of evergreen, that were originally planted as windbreaks. They gave the island a sort of familiar, homey look to those of us from the Frozen Northland, where we are used to lots of piney woods. There were quite a few planted along the main road that runs up the length of the island, and they gave the road the feeling of a cathedral, as they arched high overhead. I remember one night riding in the back seat of an open convertible, laying my head back against the seat and watching the pines go by. My brother and husband were in the front seat, and because of the acoustics of a convertible, I could hear that they were talking, but nothing they were saying. It was just another noise, like the sound of the waves on the beach, and I let the wind whip my hair into my eyes as I say the night float overhead.
The trouble with Australian pines on an island on the Gulf of Mexico, however, is that sometimes there are hurricanes. And Australian pines have what was described to me as a "pancake" root system. Flat, thin, close to the surface. Far from being an effective windbreak, they tended to just topple over--especially the large ones that were 100 feet tall or more. Most of the damage done on Sanibel (as opposed to on Captiva or elsewhere) was not from the hurricane winds themselves, but from the Australian pines flying around.
So, sure, I miss them--they were introduced in the late 1800s and certainly have better claim to being here than most of the people, but with them gone, the island actually looks more tropical and exotic. I can live with the change.
And now the sun is completely gone. If I turn around just so, I can see the light of the Sanibel Lighthouse flashing about the building and trees. Lovely. Just lovely.
High Tops Are Back?
Men with chainsaws arrived this morning at the place I am staying on Sanibel Island. Their mission? To take off the dead branches off the palm trees. The result? Instead of gracefully drooping fronds that wave and rattle in the breezes off the Gulf, they all look like this:
No lie.
No lie.
Farewell, True and Faithful Companion
Those of us who are fans of Doctor Who received sad news yesterday--Elisabeth Sladen, best known to us as "Sarah Jane Smith" passed away yesterday.
Sarah Jane Smith was my first companion, as far as I can recall. Back in the dark days of 1981-82, when the only way to get "Who" was through oddly timed reruns on PBS, I was introduced to the series by my college boyfriend. I had huge secondhand black-and-white TV in my dorm room, and there we watched Tom Baker and his 90 foot long scarf run from scary monsters and even scarier wobbly sets. There was such a wonderful theatricality to it all--the show seemed to be barely more than filmed theater. There were hardly any of the special effects or film tricks that had been developed even by then. Monsters were extras in costumes--some of them were good costumes, many of them weren't, but they were all evidently people in costumes and it was up to the actors and the audience to conspire in the imaginative act that this was somehow believable.
Sarah Jane was the Doctor's companion way back then, a lovely, kind, and smart presence who was absolutely fundamental in making the series work. After all, if someone as smart and brave as she was could be overwhelmed by what was happening, then it really was scary. If she got fooled by the Monster of the Week, what chance did I have against such a thing?
Due to things like, oh, class schedules and the whole being in college thing, my viewing was erratic and possibly the local station stopped carrying it. I did notice that she was replaced by a different actress who I didn't like as well, and the whole thing was wonderful, but kind of in the deep cultural background.
I came late to Russell T. Davies reboot of the Doctor Who franchise, which meant that I could line up the entirety of Davies reign on Netflix and watch the hell out of some fantastic television. Loved Christopher Eccleston from the first minute, where his first line was "Run." It was clear Davies knew what he was doing, and I was along for the ride.
And then he brought Sarah Jane back! And not just "Sarah Jane," but the real, actual Sarah Jane--Elisabeth Sladen's Sarah Jane! And she was spunky, and wise, and brave, and everything she had been back in the old series. But David Tennant wasn't Tom Baker, even though they were both The Doctor.
And in a lovely ans emotionally believable arc, Sarah Jane wrestled with her disappointment that she had been left behind, worked through her jealousy of Rose, recognized that she had a life of her own that was worth living, and said goodbye.
She also saved the world from Krillitanes and was given back her dog--the frankly pathetic attempt at robotics that Sladen convinced us she could love.
She made a couple of other appearances on the show, notably in the glorious party that was the finale of Season 4, flying the TARDIS home with all the beloved companions of the new series.
She also got her own series, a series which has been hovering just below the top of my Netflix queue for months and months. We saw some of it in that finale--her computer, her son, and K9. She even got a visit on her own show from Matt Smith, the 11th Doctor, in a two-parter called "Death of the Doctor."
I had no idea she was ill. The tributes coming from the creative team running Who have been deeply moving. But I can't help thinking there is a tribute that we will never see. A bit of background: John Barrowman, who plays Captain Jack Harkness in both "Doctor Who" and "Torchwood" was one of the Companions on that giddy flight at the end of "Journey's End." And Barrowman, being Barrowman, has a "thing" he (reported) likes to do.
He likes to unzip, and display his "meat and two veg" to unsuspecting actors. Apparently this is something that the "Torchwood" team is all too familiar with. And he's managed to do it to everyone, and the emphasis is on everyone. Except Lis Sladen. I don't know why. Maybe she was just too much of a lady for him to pull that sort of nonsense with, or maybe she was smart enough to recognize the warning signs and be absent from the unveilings. I'll never know. But I suspect, somewhere, John Barrowman will take a moment and bow his head in her honor.
And then drop trou.
Sarah Jane Smith was my first companion, as far as I can recall. Back in the dark days of 1981-82, when the only way to get "Who" was through oddly timed reruns on PBS, I was introduced to the series by my college boyfriend. I had huge secondhand black-and-white TV in my dorm room, and there we watched Tom Baker and his 90 foot long scarf run from scary monsters and even scarier wobbly sets. There was such a wonderful theatricality to it all--the show seemed to be barely more than filmed theater. There were hardly any of the special effects or film tricks that had been developed even by then. Monsters were extras in costumes--some of them were good costumes, many of them weren't, but they were all evidently people in costumes and it was up to the actors and the audience to conspire in the imaginative act that this was somehow believable.
Sarah Jane was the Doctor's companion way back then, a lovely, kind, and smart presence who was absolutely fundamental in making the series work. After all, if someone as smart and brave as she was could be overwhelmed by what was happening, then it really was scary. If she got fooled by the Monster of the Week, what chance did I have against such a thing?
Due to things like, oh, class schedules and the whole being in college thing, my viewing was erratic and possibly the local station stopped carrying it. I did notice that she was replaced by a different actress who I didn't like as well, and the whole thing was wonderful, but kind of in the deep cultural background.
I came late to Russell T. Davies reboot of the Doctor Who franchise, which meant that I could line up the entirety of Davies reign on Netflix and watch the hell out of some fantastic television. Loved Christopher Eccleston from the first minute, where his first line was "Run." It was clear Davies knew what he was doing, and I was along for the ride.
And then he brought Sarah Jane back! And not just "Sarah Jane," but the real, actual Sarah Jane--Elisabeth Sladen's Sarah Jane! And she was spunky, and wise, and brave, and everything she had been back in the old series. But David Tennant wasn't Tom Baker, even though they were both The Doctor.
And in a lovely ans emotionally believable arc, Sarah Jane wrestled with her disappointment that she had been left behind, worked through her jealousy of Rose, recognized that she had a life of her own that was worth living, and said goodbye.
She also saved the world from Krillitanes and was given back her dog--the frankly pathetic attempt at robotics that Sladen convinced us she could love.
She made a couple of other appearances on the show, notably in the glorious party that was the finale of Season 4, flying the TARDIS home with all the beloved companions of the new series.
She also got her own series, a series which has been hovering just below the top of my Netflix queue for months and months. We saw some of it in that finale--her computer, her son, and K9. She even got a visit on her own show from Matt Smith, the 11th Doctor, in a two-parter called "Death of the Doctor."
I had no idea she was ill. The tributes coming from the creative team running Who have been deeply moving. But I can't help thinking there is a tribute that we will never see. A bit of background: John Barrowman, who plays Captain Jack Harkness in both "Doctor Who" and "Torchwood" was one of the Companions on that giddy flight at the end of "Journey's End." And Barrowman, being Barrowman, has a "thing" he (reported) likes to do.
He likes to unzip, and display his "meat and two veg" to unsuspecting actors. Apparently this is something that the "Torchwood" team is all too familiar with. And he's managed to do it to everyone, and the emphasis is on everyone. Except Lis Sladen. I don't know why. Maybe she was just too much of a lady for him to pull that sort of nonsense with, or maybe she was smart enough to recognize the warning signs and be absent from the unveilings. I'll never know. But I suspect, somewhere, John Barrowman will take a moment and bow his head in her honor.
And then drop trou.
Monday, February 28, 2011
Random Thoughts on Oscars 2011
This is not my fashion commentary. This is what would have been a live blog, except that it's already the next morning. So sue me--I was enjoying watching it.
Anne Hathaway walked the red carpet in a Serious Red Dress. Awww--she looks happy, relaxed, and ready for anything. Isn't it amazing that she's an American actress? She's beautiful in such a "you have a funny looking face" kind of way that American movies so rarely allow on-screen.
James Franco, however, has totally failed a softball interview in the "green room," which looks like a bar to me. This may ultimately be the explanation for why he spent the majority of the telecast holding his head verrrrrry still. Oh yeah, I just implied that Franco was drunk and/or hungover. It was like he was emitting anti-charisma particles most of the night.
Kirk Douglas! OMG--I was sure he was dead! Interesting fact from PulledItOutOfMyAss.com--earlobes continue growing even after the rest of the body stops. But isn't he being charming? He's milking this appearance like the biggest ham ever, and I start to worry that the orchestra is going to be ordered to drive him off-stage with the Official Oscar "Your Time Is Up" music before he even gets the envelope open. But no, it's good. I love the rapport he sets up with Hathaway and how she responds. And then the good looking Cane Caddy! Is he KD's personal assistant, or was he provided by the show? Either way, the hand over hand battle was well done. Oh, and then Melissa Leo and KD--give these two kids a show!
Then the ceremonial appearance of the Lifetime Achievement award winners--kind of sucky, Oscar telecast, to be sooo committed to sucking up to the "Younger Demographic" that the people you feel are sufficiently talented to deserve awards for a lifetime of acting directing and producing don't even get a second at the mic. But then I am unable to guess who is older--Kirk Douglas or Eli Wallach? IMDB to the rescue--it's Wallach, by almost exactly 1 year.
Lots of costume changes for Anne Hathaway--love the beaded number, and then she twists in it! She is now officially my favorite Oscar(TM) host ever.
In contrast, a surprising number of presenters are wearing the same thing they wore to walk the red carpet. I have come to expect multiple costume changes from everybody. Okay, Dion and Paltrow and Welch all changed, so the dressing rooms have been reserved for performers perhaps? Or maybe Anne "A Different Look For Every Category" Hathaway has used up all the closet space.
Cate Blanchett: her generation's Helen Mirren? Discuss.
Why is Russell Brand? My brain has such a hard time with him, because one part is screaming "LOOK AWAY FROM THE SKEEVE!" while a different part is saying "he's funny! He makes me laugh!" Tonight a new part of the brain weighs in with "Oh honey, no--clean-shaven is not the right look for you." And then I have to think about something else, lest the three-way brain battle causes my head to explode. Oh look! Helen Mirren speaks French and I can understand it! She's so cool.
ABC is proud to host the OscarsTM until 2020. You say that, ABC Lady, but somebody literally just screwed up your telecast. Local maybe? I got part of the OscarTM buffer--camera pans across statuettes with the envelopes leaning against them, then I got 2.5 seconds of what looks like young couple buying their first home ad, then a couple more seconds of OscarTM panning buffer, then the last half of the young couple ad--which turns out to be an ad for cat food, but cute as it involves young man giving young woman a kitten which is wearing a tag that says "will you marry us"--and THEN I got the first half of the cat food/new home buying ad, which ran up to the part where the second half had already aired, and then suddenly we were in the middle of one of your sentences where you were bragging about what a great job ABC does with the telecast. I call "Shenanigans!"
Obama has a favorite OscarTM song and it isn't "It's Hard Out Here For A Pimp?" Color me disappointed.
Kevin Spacey has a nice voice. Does he still make movies anymore? He's also kind of creepy looking in a way inconsistent with movie musicals.
My kids are already scouring the interwebs for "Autotune the Oscars" in order to download "Tiny Ball of Light." I kind of love "He Doesn't Own A Shirt" myself, mostly for the blatant pandering of it. Here you go kids!
Oprah, wearing a dress from the Dollly Parton Couture Collection. Honestly--do boobs like being pushed around like that? I'm thinking she's going to have some strange marks about her chestal area by the end of the night.
Billy Crystal is kind of unrecognizable in a weird way. Like a "lots of bad plastic surgery unless it's steroid therapy for lupus" kind of way. He's still funny, but it's like his expressions don't recognize his face--there's a weird disconnect when he mugs, where I have to mentally assemble what the different parts of his face are doing to get the emotion he's conveying. I hope things are ok in Chrystal World.
RDJ and Jude "I Used To Be Sooo Handsome" Law are bantering. The banter is awkward because it seems like RDJ is talking about tech issues from his Other Franchise, Not The One Jude Law Is In. RDJ is my third favorite Sherlock Holmes, behind Benedict Cumberbatch and Jeremy Brett. Which I guess means that the RDJ Sherlock Franchise is no longer necessary. Jude Law is not on my list of favorite Watsons at all--or if he has to be on a Watson list, he's down below the Jeopardy-playing computer and my aunt's Maltese.
Bob Hope Hologram--boy, do I see where Johnny Carson got his delivery. How many more awards seasons until the Bob Hope Clone is perfected to take over hosting duties?
Something about Celine Dion's face is so annoying that I close my eyes so I don't have to see her, and miss the first however many seconds of the I See Dead People Montage. Some of those faces just jump off the screen, don't they? Jill Clayburgh, Tony Curtis, Leslie Nielsen.
Halle Berry is having such a sad life right now--I wonder if the fact that she is gorgeous is any consolation to her.
Tom Hooper and James Cameron: Separated at Birth? I know I couldn't figure out why James "Smurfs in Fern Gully" Cameron would be at the OscarsTM this year. Let's go to the replay:
Nope--the age difference is too great for Separated at Birth. I'm going with "unacknowledged love child."
Portman wins Best Actress. After watching the clips, I was kind of hoping for an upset. God knows I'm more interested in seeing "Blue Valentine" and "Winter's Bone" than "Black Swan." The sad thing--Portman's life has nowhere to go but downhill from this moment. Trust me--pregnant is much more fun than newly post-partum, even without diaper changing and sleep deprivation. Pregnant, cute, dolled-up and Oscar-winning--nothing in the real world will live up to this moment. Ever again.
Sandra Bullock ragging Jeff Bridges--"ya think ya might wanna stagger these out a bit?" Give that woman a reality show or something. I don't want to watch her act, I want to watch her be Sandy. She too has had a terrible year. Does being gorgeous, funny, and universally beloved offer her some consolation?
Colin Firth wins! Of course he's charming--I think they must have charming lessons in school in England. Except Christian Bale skipped out of his. Maybe they're elective.
I like the speech somebody wrote for Steven Spielberg--the winner of the Best Picture will join such movies as [undeniably great films here]. The other nine (losing) nominees will join [undeniably great and unjustifiably OscarTM-less movies here]. That's a great way to say what everybody says--the honor is being nominated. The winning kind of misses the point sometimes (often). (But I still love "Shakespeare in Love" and you cannot take that away from me!)
And The King's Speech wins, everybody comes up to celebrate, and the orchestra plays over the third guy's chance at the mic, but He! Will! Not! Be! Denied! So he cleverly thanks the Academy and they let him talk. Ya know, HBC was so dang charming in that movie, that I might just have to go see it again.
What's the deal with this P.S.22 school choir? Damn! There's some cultural allusion I've completely missed--because you KNOW the OscarsTM wouldn't just pick some kids' choir--however good they are--and put them on the telecast unless they had already been a YouTube sensation of some sort.
And the show is over in less than 3.5 hours. Franco can go back to school--he did himself no favors tonight. But Anne Hathaway can come back next year. Please?
Anne Hathaway walked the red carpet in a Serious Red Dress. Awww--she looks happy, relaxed, and ready for anything. Isn't it amazing that she's an American actress? She's beautiful in such a "you have a funny looking face" kind of way that American movies so rarely allow on-screen.
James Franco, however, has totally failed a softball interview in the "green room," which looks like a bar to me. This may ultimately be the explanation for why he spent the majority of the telecast holding his head verrrrrry still. Oh yeah, I just implied that Franco was drunk and/or hungover. It was like he was emitting anti-charisma particles most of the night.
Kirk Douglas! OMG--I was sure he was dead! Interesting fact from PulledItOutOfMyAss.com--earlobes continue growing even after the rest of the body stops. But isn't he being charming? He's milking this appearance like the biggest ham ever, and I start to worry that the orchestra is going to be ordered to drive him off-stage with the Official Oscar "Your Time Is Up" music before he even gets the envelope open. But no, it's good. I love the rapport he sets up with Hathaway and how she responds. And then the good looking Cane Caddy! Is he KD's personal assistant, or was he provided by the show? Either way, the hand over hand battle was well done. Oh, and then Melissa Leo and KD--give these two kids a show!
Then the ceremonial appearance of the Lifetime Achievement award winners--kind of sucky, Oscar telecast, to be sooo committed to sucking up to the "Younger Demographic" that the people you feel are sufficiently talented to deserve awards for a lifetime of acting directing and producing don't even get a second at the mic. But then I am unable to guess who is older--Kirk Douglas or Eli Wallach? IMDB to the rescue--it's Wallach, by almost exactly 1 year.
Lots of costume changes for Anne Hathaway--love the beaded number, and then she twists in it! She is now officially my favorite Oscar(TM) host ever.
In contrast, a surprising number of presenters are wearing the same thing they wore to walk the red carpet. I have come to expect multiple costume changes from everybody. Okay, Dion and Paltrow and Welch all changed, so the dressing rooms have been reserved for performers perhaps? Or maybe Anne "A Different Look For Every Category" Hathaway has used up all the closet space.
Cate Blanchett: her generation's Helen Mirren? Discuss.
Why is Russell Brand? My brain has such a hard time with him, because one part is screaming "LOOK AWAY FROM THE SKEEVE!" while a different part is saying "he's funny! He makes me laugh!" Tonight a new part of the brain weighs in with "Oh honey, no--clean-shaven is not the right look for you." And then I have to think about something else, lest the three-way brain battle causes my head to explode. Oh look! Helen Mirren speaks French and I can understand it! She's so cool.
ABC is proud to host the OscarsTM until 2020. You say that, ABC Lady, but somebody literally just screwed up your telecast. Local maybe? I got part of the OscarTM buffer--camera pans across statuettes with the envelopes leaning against them, then I got 2.5 seconds of what looks like young couple buying their first home ad, then a couple more seconds of OscarTM panning buffer, then the last half of the young couple ad--which turns out to be an ad for cat food, but cute as it involves young man giving young woman a kitten which is wearing a tag that says "will you marry us"--and THEN I got the first half of the cat food/new home buying ad, which ran up to the part where the second half had already aired, and then suddenly we were in the middle of one of your sentences where you were bragging about what a great job ABC does with the telecast. I call "Shenanigans!"
Obama has a favorite OscarTM song and it isn't "It's Hard Out Here For A Pimp?" Color me disappointed.
Kevin Spacey has a nice voice. Does he still make movies anymore? He's also kind of creepy looking in a way inconsistent with movie musicals.
My kids are already scouring the interwebs for "Autotune the Oscars" in order to download "Tiny Ball of Light." I kind of love "He Doesn't Own A Shirt" myself, mostly for the blatant pandering of it. Here you go kids!
Oprah, wearing a dress from the Dollly Parton Couture Collection. Honestly--do boobs like being pushed around like that? I'm thinking she's going to have some strange marks about her chestal area by the end of the night.
Billy Crystal is kind of unrecognizable in a weird way. Like a "lots of bad plastic surgery unless it's steroid therapy for lupus" kind of way. He's still funny, but it's like his expressions don't recognize his face--there's a weird disconnect when he mugs, where I have to mentally assemble what the different parts of his face are doing to get the emotion he's conveying. I hope things are ok in Chrystal World.
RDJ and Jude "I Used To Be Sooo Handsome" Law are bantering. The banter is awkward because it seems like RDJ is talking about tech issues from his Other Franchise, Not The One Jude Law Is In. RDJ is my third favorite Sherlock Holmes, behind Benedict Cumberbatch and Jeremy Brett. Which I guess means that the RDJ Sherlock Franchise is no longer necessary. Jude Law is not on my list of favorite Watsons at all--or if he has to be on a Watson list, he's down below the Jeopardy-playing computer and my aunt's Maltese.
Bob Hope Hologram--boy, do I see where Johnny Carson got his delivery. How many more awards seasons until the Bob Hope Clone is perfected to take over hosting duties?
Something about Celine Dion's face is so annoying that I close my eyes so I don't have to see her, and miss the first however many seconds of the I See Dead People Montage. Some of those faces just jump off the screen, don't they? Jill Clayburgh, Tony Curtis, Leslie Nielsen.
Halle Berry is having such a sad life right now--I wonder if the fact that she is gorgeous is any consolation to her.
Tom Hooper and James Cameron: Separated at Birth? I know I couldn't figure out why James "Smurfs in Fern Gully" Cameron would be at the OscarsTM this year. Let's go to the replay:
 |
| James Cameron |
 | ||||
| Tom Hooper |
Nope--the age difference is too great for Separated at Birth. I'm going with "unacknowledged love child."
Portman wins Best Actress. After watching the clips, I was kind of hoping for an upset. God knows I'm more interested in seeing "Blue Valentine" and "Winter's Bone" than "Black Swan." The sad thing--Portman's life has nowhere to go but downhill from this moment. Trust me--pregnant is much more fun than newly post-partum, even without diaper changing and sleep deprivation. Pregnant, cute, dolled-up and Oscar-winning--nothing in the real world will live up to this moment. Ever again.
Sandra Bullock ragging Jeff Bridges--"ya think ya might wanna stagger these out a bit?" Give that woman a reality show or something. I don't want to watch her act, I want to watch her be Sandy. She too has had a terrible year. Does being gorgeous, funny, and universally beloved offer her some consolation?
Colin Firth wins! Of course he's charming--I think they must have charming lessons in school in England. Except Christian Bale skipped out of his. Maybe they're elective.
I like the speech somebody wrote for Steven Spielberg--the winner of the Best Picture will join such movies as [undeniably great films here]. The other nine (losing) nominees will join [undeniably great and unjustifiably OscarTM-less movies here]. That's a great way to say what everybody says--the honor is being nominated. The winning kind of misses the point sometimes (often). (But I still love "Shakespeare in Love" and you cannot take that away from me!)
And The King's Speech wins, everybody comes up to celebrate, and the orchestra plays over the third guy's chance at the mic, but He! Will! Not! Be! Denied! So he cleverly thanks the Academy and they let him talk. Ya know, HBC was so dang charming in that movie, that I might just have to go see it again.
What's the deal with this P.S.22 school choir? Damn! There's some cultural allusion I've completely missed--because you KNOW the OscarsTM wouldn't just pick some kids' choir--however good they are--and put them on the telecast unless they had already been a YouTube sensation of some sort.
And the show is over in less than 3.5 hours. Franco can go back to school--he did himself no favors tonight. But Anne Hathaway can come back next year. Please?
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