I'm very curious to see Casey Affleck's Joaquin Phoenix documentary, which I think raises a couple of interesting questions:
First, I think Phoenix's behavior during the time this movie was made has been viewed with some suspicion because it wasn't clear whether he'd really experienced a sudden personality change, or if his behavior was some kind of Dadaistic stunt, specifically for the movie. Given that he was essentially born into a religious cult, was a child street performer to help support his family, and had to experience his brother's death and the 911 call he made that failed to save him played out publicly, it's not inconceivable to me that Phoenix would have some serious issues, but there has always been that doubt there. Second, I think there's a gender disparity when it comes to public interest in people going crazy in Hollywood. When someone like Lindsay Lohan or Britney Spears has serious mental problems, they tend to show up underdressed, to seem more sexually available, to be vulnerable and a mess in a way that invites rescuing and sexualized, salacious judgement. When someone like Phoenix goes off the rails by gaining weight and forgetting to wash his hair, that's not something that people want to get close to and understand. But the means of expressing depression or despair, and the gender of the person experiencing it doesn't actually add up to a hierarchy of seriousness or legitimacy.
Selling Yourself
I find something unbelievably sad about the fact that Bristol Palin is going to be on Dancing With the Stars. Whatever my differences of opinion with her mother and concerns about whether an abstinence message is appropriate or effective for teenagers, she seems like a decent kid who got herself in a situation she didn't particularly want to be in, and has been used in unfortunate ways by her mother and her on-again, off-again boyfriend ever since. She also seems to have worked hard to take care of her son, and that's admirable. But I find the idea of parents who turn to reality television, or write tell-alls, or whatever, as a significant means of supporting their children truly depressing.
It's got to be a shock to end up with eight children, but is putting them on television, after which your marriage breaks up and you're investigated for violation of child labor laws really the best way to provide for them? If you're committed to raising your kid in a stable environment, and the place you've chosen to make your home is Alaska, is it a great idea to uproot yourself for the salary you'll make from a competition reality show? Is the financial gain actually worth it if you have to expose yourself and your child or children in ways they can't actually consent to or fully understand? I tend to think adults have the right to expose themselves, or to sell as much of themselves, as they want and at whatever price the market will pay for. But I don't think money is the only thing children need. Kate Gosselin will probably set a better model for her kids and provide them with a healthier environment by going back to work and busting ass to raise additional money she needs to care for them than she will by continuing to put them in television specials. Given his father's unattractive predilection for celebrity, Bristol Palin's son will probably be better off the further his mother stays from Hollywood. Easy money's attractive. But it's not a village, or even a single stable home environment.
It's got to be a shock to end up with eight children, but is putting them on television, after which your marriage breaks up and you're investigated for violation of child labor laws really the best way to provide for them? If you're committed to raising your kid in a stable environment, and the place you've chosen to make your home is Alaska, is it a great idea to uproot yourself for the salary you'll make from a competition reality show? Is the financial gain actually worth it if you have to expose yourself and your child or children in ways they can't actually consent to or fully understand? I tend to think adults have the right to expose themselves, or to sell as much of themselves, as they want and at whatever price the market will pay for. But I don't think money is the only thing children need. Kate Gosselin will probably set a better model for her kids and provide them with a healthier environment by going back to work and busting ass to raise additional money she needs to care for them than she will by continuing to put them in television specials. Given his father's unattractive predilection for celebrity, Bristol Palin's son will probably be better off the further his mother stays from Hollywood. Easy money's attractive. But it's not a village, or even a single stable home environment.
Wasteland
Goodness, am I excited for The Walking Dead, AMC's upcoming tale of zombies and the humans who survive their depopulation of much of the United States. First off, Andrew Lincoln was really quite appealing as one of just a few people in Love, Actually who didn't get a happy ending, and who struggled with a love that wasn't going to be realized. Laura Linney overshadowed him, because her character's role was sadder, but Lincoln added some life and pathos to a much more common story. Now, he gets to strap up and be a hero:
But the project's also part of a trend I'm seeing that I think is serious and significant, and that deserves further thought: American pop culture is increasingly giving us stories of depopulating cataclysms that leave only a few survivors alive. I think part of that tendency comes from the need for an American frontier. With the country filled up, the only way to explore ideas of manifest destiny, exploration, and the unsettled wild in an American context is to destroy the country's population and to force characters to survive, and start over. I think there's also a strain of thinking that our present course of life is unsustainable, and that disaster is inevitable. I tend to believe that alien invasion movies are a manifestation of this strain of dread, rather than a separate category of it, except that alien invasions have the possibility of being repelled, while cataclysm movies and shows rely on the worst coming to pass. More to come on this. And if you've got examples, send 'em along.
But the project's also part of a trend I'm seeing that I think is serious and significant, and that deserves further thought: American pop culture is increasingly giving us stories of depopulating cataclysms that leave only a few survivors alive. I think part of that tendency comes from the need for an American frontier. With the country filled up, the only way to explore ideas of manifest destiny, exploration, and the unsettled wild in an American context is to destroy the country's population and to force characters to survive, and start over. I think there's also a strain of thinking that our present course of life is unsustainable, and that disaster is inevitable. I tend to believe that alien invasion movies are a manifestation of this strain of dread, rather than a separate category of it, except that alien invasions have the possibility of being repelled, while cataclysm movies and shows rely on the worst coming to pass. More to come on this. And if you've got examples, send 'em along.
Yesterday, At The Atlantic
I wrote more about how Hackers predicted social networking and online self-creation.
Expecting More From Kids
While I was home this weekend, I did one of my regular dives into the bookshelves of my youth and surfaced with Madeline L'Engle's A Ring of Endless Light. Vicky Austin seems very young to me now, and the book short-shrifts teenage sexual desire, I think. But it's still remarkable how much L'Engle expects of her target readers: the book is full of complex discussions of science, theology, and morality, hinges significantly on challenging poetry, and is full of references to different poetic forms. Some of these are details that young readers could gloss over, of course—it's not actually significantly important to the novel that readers fully understand the kinds of poems Vicky considers when she sits down to right. But the book feels richer if you do.
I think it's striking to me, because some of the megaseries aimed at young people of recent years have asked quite a bit less. The Harry Potter universe contains all kinds of delightful in-jokes and references for people in the know, but it hinges on rather simple understandings of good, evil, and familial love, both sealed by blood and by choice. There's a sense in which it operates like most animated movies do today, keeping audiences engaged and entertained on different levels. I think one of the reasons the Twilight books, apart from the thing that vexed me about them, didn't feel very interesting is that while Bella's supposed to be super-smart, she's not actually reading anything particularly sophisticated, or performing at a particularly high level in her school. The books would have been better if they'd surrounded Bella with more complex ideas and had her engage with more complex literature, because she would have seemed more plausibly special and sophisticated.
In a way, A Ring of Endless Light is kind of the book I wish Twilight had been. Vicky thinks she's less pretty than her sister, but she still ends up with three men competing for her affections. She's got dolphin-triggered ESP, which is a lot more useful than super-tasty-smelling blood. She's got an attachment to her family that isn't easily discarded in favor of something more glamorous, and gives back as much to everyone in her life at least as much as she receives. In other words, she's a worthy object of that competition in her own right, grappling with the world instead of being desperate to escape it, or transcend it.
I think it's striking to me, because some of the megaseries aimed at young people of recent years have asked quite a bit less. The Harry Potter universe contains all kinds of delightful in-jokes and references for people in the know, but it hinges on rather simple understandings of good, evil, and familial love, both sealed by blood and by choice. There's a sense in which it operates like most animated movies do today, keeping audiences engaged and entertained on different levels. I think one of the reasons the Twilight books, apart from the thing that vexed me about them, didn't feel very interesting is that while Bella's supposed to be super-smart, she's not actually reading anything particularly sophisticated, or performing at a particularly high level in her school. The books would have been better if they'd surrounded Bella with more complex ideas and had her engage with more complex literature, because she would have seemed more plausibly special and sophisticated.
In a way, A Ring of Endless Light is kind of the book I wish Twilight had been. Vicky thinks she's less pretty than her sister, but she still ends up with three men competing for her affections. She's got dolphin-triggered ESP, which is a lot more useful than super-tasty-smelling blood. She's got an attachment to her family that isn't easily discarded in favor of something more glamorous, and gives back as much to everyone in her life at least as much as she receives. In other words, she's a worthy object of that competition in her own right, grappling with the world instead of being desperate to escape it, or transcend it.
A Thought on the Emmys
I didn't watch the show, since I was out at dinner with friends, but I am completely thrilled that Claire Danes won an Emmy for her performance as Temple Grandin. The role is in some ways a conventional biopic: character overcomes struggles, emerges triumphant. But it's a strikingly original movie about a strikingly original woman. Visually, the movie works hard to show us the world through Grandin's eyes, and to make clear how differently she sees and experiences things, and that we're not merely being asked to sympathize with a loner, or someone who is misunderstood—we're being asked to surrender the way we see and feel the universe around us. That's a significant demand for a piece of art. And for all of Grandin's triumphs, the movie is absent the kind of personal developmental signposts that we've been trained to look for. There is not a love story here, and the triumph involves something most of us will not experience directly, the improvement of industrial agriculture. Temple Grandin is without question one of the movies I've enjoyed most this year, and I'm glad to see Danes' excellent work it in recognized on a night when Emmy voters made so many other deeply conventional choices.
Book Club: How It'll Go Down
So, half of y'all want me to read Perdido Street Station, and the rest of you split between other books on the list, so Perdido Street Station it is. I need to get a feel for how long it takes me to read a chapter or section, but I'll start today, and by Wednesday, give everyone a sense of pacing. We'll start discussion a week from this Friday to give everyone to get copies in whatever format you choose (I'll be reading it on my Kindle, so I won't be referring to page numbers). And I'll do a long post every Friday (like the ones I did every day during A Week of Ice and Fire) until we finish that will serve as a conversation starter and open thread for the section we've read. I'll ask folks who have read the novel, or who are reading at a faster pace to avoid spoilers, but if you'd like, I'll put up a separate spoilers thread for folks who want a place to discuss, just let me know. Sound good? Questions? Complaints? Just let me know in comments. I'm looking forward to this.
Friday, At The Atlantic
I wrote about an aspect of Sookie Stackhouse that I think Charlaine Harris handles particularly well, the fact that the character is self-educated, a rarity in popular fiction.
A Question
Why doesn't the notion that vampires are really kind of horrifying and scary stick? We're in a period where vampires are cuddlier than ever; I was at drinks with someone this week who literally started banging on the table in vexation over the cuetification of bloodsuckers in Twilight. We've got chaste hunks in that series, decidedly unchaste vampire hunks in True Blood. We had redeemable individual vamps in Buffy and Angel. And yet what I think is notable is that during the time all of these interpretations have become so popular, we've had plenty of depictions of vampires that make them seem creepy as all hell. The Blade movies, anyone, where the vampires looked good and behaved badly? 30 Days of Night and Daybreakers, which erred on the zombie-vamp hybrid interpretation side of things? And we've got the remake Let Me In and the film adaptation of The Passage coming up, both of which are popular interpretations of the vampire myth that stay on the ugly-and-terrifying side of the debate, too—The Passage in particular presents vampires as zombie-like entities that operate in some ways like a hive mind.
And yet I feel those individual works will be successful, compelling, and still totally unsuccessful in ending our romantic fascination with vampires. I understand the popularity of the idea of some entity that is glamorous, and exceedingly dangerous, but makes an exception for a character that's an avatar of us. And I get the death wish thing, too. But I also wonder if we like to believe that dangerousness can be beautiful because we like the idea that death, if it has to come for us in a violent and unexpected way, might come in a glamorous and sexual package so at least we feel good on the way out. I think it's possible that vampirism is less an expression of suicidal ideation, and more of a compromise with our fears about things that go bump in the night. We love beautiful vampires, because the ugly ones are a bit too true to life.
And yet I feel those individual works will be successful, compelling, and still totally unsuccessful in ending our romantic fascination with vampires. I understand the popularity of the idea of some entity that is glamorous, and exceedingly dangerous, but makes an exception for a character that's an avatar of us. And I get the death wish thing, too. But I also wonder if we like to believe that dangerousness can be beautiful because we like the idea that death, if it has to come for us in a violent and unexpected way, might come in a glamorous and sexual package so at least we feel good on the way out. I think it's possible that vampirism is less an expression of suicidal ideation, and more of a compromise with our fears about things that go bump in the night. We love beautiful vampires, because the ugly ones are a bit too true to life.
God and Gummi Bears
Reading this profile of Katy Perry, I had a moment of regret that her faith doesn't actually play a more prominent role in her public presentation and music. One of the things I find vexing about coverage of evangelical Christianity is that it consistently expresses shock that individual observant Christians can also be thoughtful and witty about sex and sexual presentation in ways that don't involve extreme moralism about sexual expression and sexual contact outside of marriage. It's a silly, and not exceptionally thoughtful stereotype to assume that evangelical Christians are inherently, and necessarily, prudes.
I think one of the reasons Perry's presentation has been so commercially successful is that she gets at the fact that trying to come across as a bombshell is an inherently slightly silly enterprise. Unlike Dita Von Teese, who is an actual, honest-to-God pinup, Katy Perry is playing one, pretending just as much as the Vanity Fair Vanities Girls are. As annoying and as disrespectful to gay people as "I Kissed A Girl" is, the sentiment "just wanna try you on" in one of the lyrics speaks to some genuine, and I think not necessarily condemnable, sexual curiosity. There's no reason that being an evangelical Christian, which Perry seems to be, precludes you from that kind of curiosity or play, and though I think most thinking, reasonable people both inside that faith and outside it understand that, I think it's easy to forget. I'd like to see Perry drawing out the contradictions she lives in more, because they're interesting, and useful to talk about, and I think it would be useful for people, whether they come from any faith or none at all, to recognize that the beliefs of people who adhere to any one set of practices come in a spectrum, and one that's consistently expanding and contracting.
I think one of the reasons Perry's presentation has been so commercially successful is that she gets at the fact that trying to come across as a bombshell is an inherently slightly silly enterprise. Unlike Dita Von Teese, who is an actual, honest-to-God pinup, Katy Perry is playing one, pretending just as much as the Vanity Fair Vanities Girls are. As annoying and as disrespectful to gay people as "I Kissed A Girl" is, the sentiment "just wanna try you on" in one of the lyrics speaks to some genuine, and I think not necessarily condemnable, sexual curiosity. There's no reason that being an evangelical Christian, which Perry seems to be, precludes you from that kind of curiosity or play, and though I think most thinking, reasonable people both inside that faith and outside it understand that, I think it's easy to forget. I'd like to see Perry drawing out the contradictions she lives in more, because they're interesting, and useful to talk about, and I think it would be useful for people, whether they come from any faith or none at all, to recognize that the beliefs of people who adhere to any one set of practices come in a spectrum, and one that's consistently expanding and contracting.
Sarcasm v. Snark
So, I was rewatching Star Trek over the weekend, and it struck me for the first time what an incredibly sarcastic movie it is. In an era dominated by snark, a style of commentary that involves the same kinds of take-downs as sarcasm, but with much less emotional investment, it's actually a bit odd to see a movie so full of biting sarcasm, drawn from a well of deep engagement. From the angry "live long and prosper," the young Spock bites off at the Vulcan Science Academy admissions panel that's just dismissed his human heritage, to the "enlighten me," Kirk spits at Spock during his academy trial the movie's full of angry, funny people. I think it's a characterization tool that works remarkably well for the group of ambitious, insecure characters the movie throws together.
It's possible that sarcasm is just a less successful means of emotional distance and disguise than snark is, but it's also more interesting to watch on screen. Making fun of things for the sake of making fun of things is fun in conversation, particularly if said conversation revolves around light one-upsmanship, or say, writing on the internet. But sarcasm's far more engaging to watch on screen, because it's an underused way of signaling character emotion and rawness. Not everything has to be tears, or anger, or passionate declaration. Misdirection, failed or successful, and caginess are just as effective, and often more revealing.
It's possible that sarcasm is just a less successful means of emotional distance and disguise than snark is, but it's also more interesting to watch on screen. Making fun of things for the sake of making fun of things is fun in conversation, particularly if said conversation revolves around light one-upsmanship, or say, writing on the internet. But sarcasm's far more engaging to watch on screen, because it's an underused way of signaling character emotion and rawness. Not everything has to be tears, or anger, or passionate declaration. Misdirection, failed or successful, and caginess are just as effective, and often more revealing.
A Follow-Up On The Facebook Movie
I've written in the past about how frustrating I find the fact that The Social Network purports to tell us something revealing and important about Facebook's founders, despite the fact that it's based on fictionalized source material. Unsurprisingly, the founders turn out to find that frustrating as well. The actual events that they're arguing over including in the movie—including a "mostly made up" scene involving bare breasts and strippers—aren't that germane to understanding Facebook's nature and development, but the fact that they're arguing over them is.
The internal logic the Facebook founders guide their personal lives and their business by is fascinating, and contradictory. To some extent, there's a free-market element to this all. Facebook users are given the tools to humiliate themselves, but there's certainly no requirement that they do so. At the same time, even discretion isn't enough to ensure that your privacy will be protected, given the company's internal controls, or lack thereof. The founders seem to largely operate on principals of self-protection; they abide by their own internal rules. But they also seem to dislike it when other people force them to live by the second part of the functional rules that govern their product: there's only so far you can lock up information. The debate might be different if the movie was based on credible source material, instead of a book so speculative that it gives Zuckerberg & Co. an excuse to cast doubt on true events as well as falsified or misemphasized ones. But it's still an intriguing one. If you build a big chunk of the world, you tend to get stuck living in it.
The internal logic the Facebook founders guide their personal lives and their business by is fascinating, and contradictory. To some extent, there's a free-market element to this all. Facebook users are given the tools to humiliate themselves, but there's certainly no requirement that they do so. At the same time, even discretion isn't enough to ensure that your privacy will be protected, given the company's internal controls, or lack thereof. The founders seem to largely operate on principals of self-protection; they abide by their own internal rules. But they also seem to dislike it when other people force them to live by the second part of the functional rules that govern their product: there's only so far you can lock up information. The debate might be different if the movie was based on credible source material, instead of a book so speculative that it gives Zuckerberg & Co. an excuse to cast doubt on true events as well as falsified or misemphasized ones. But it's still an intriguing one. If you build a big chunk of the world, you tend to get stuck living in it.
Is It Me?
Or must Vegas residencies be good financially for artists, but less than awesome quality of life-wise? If you're going to be rich and famous and on tour, one of the benefits has to be the variety. And if one place is going to be your home base, anywhere near the strip on Vegas has to be awfully unpleasant. (That may just be my bias speaking, I didn't particularly like Vegas when I went there for the first and only time last June, although seeing a Cirque show was rather fun and Mario Batali and Tom Colicchio sure run them a pair of fine dining establishments). And most importantly, perhaps, you're committing to years with a shifting audience that only wants the most familiar of you, rather than stuff you liked but that didn't take off, or new material you're working on; if they've come there, and paid as much as Vegas shows cost, they want only your greatest hits. I can't imagine Madonna ever taking one, or really any other artist who is still recording and promoting new material.
Gender Roles
I feel like The Next Three Days would be a much more interesting movie if a) Elizabeth Banks' character was guilty of the murder for which she'd been incarcerated or b) she was breaking Russell Crowe's innocent character out of jail:
This just feels like a variation on a damsel in distress story, otherwise. And not a very interesting one at that, particularly since Crowe's character doesn't appear to feel a lot of concern or doubt about his wife's innocence.
This just feels like a variation on a damsel in distress story, otherwise. And not a very interesting one at that, particularly since Crowe's character doesn't appear to feel a lot of concern or doubt about his wife's innocence.
Things I Quite Like
Add this electro-metal cover of "Eleanor Rigby" to the list:
I am always super-curious about the perspectives on the universe that lead someone to think, for example, "Hey, this song might sound a lot better with a howled chorus, and a context that makes the 'wearing a face that she keeps in a jar by the door' line sound a hell of a lot scarier." It's all of a piece with the fact that every artifact of culture has so many possible interpretations. Getting to the question of whether something is good or bad is personally useful, for sure. But it's equally interesting to figure out how things can be effectively reinterpreted, remixed, and even heard differently on the first go-round. What I hear, and what I see is radically personally, and I find that both kind of isolating and extremely intriguing.
I am always super-curious about the perspectives on the universe that lead someone to think, for example, "Hey, this song might sound a lot better with a howled chorus, and a context that makes the 'wearing a face that she keeps in a jar by the door' line sound a hell of a lot scarier." It's all of a piece with the fact that every artifact of culture has so many possible interpretations. Getting to the question of whether something is good or bad is personally useful, for sure. But it's equally interesting to figure out how things can be effectively reinterpreted, remixed, and even heard differently on the first go-round. What I hear, and what I see is radically personally, and I find that both kind of isolating and extremely intriguing.
Jodi Picoult's Complaint
I may read romance novels and I'm not ashamed of it, but I'm also not particularly sympathetic to Jodi Picoult's complaint that the New York Times in its book reviews "loves its literary darlings, who tend to be dudes w/MFAs ... In summation: NYT sexist, unfair, loves Gary Shteyngart, hates chick lit, ignores romance."
I think there's a narrow line to walk here. Obviously, domestic spheres are as important as the public sphere, and matters of the heart affect many of us as deeply and as frequently as matters of public policy. But I do think there is a difference in literary merit between a novel that, say, provides a reader with an avatar of themselves, be that avatar a chubby actuary or a plain, shy girl, or a misunderstood computer nerd, or whatever, and thus makes them feel less alone, and a novel that asks the reader to consider larger societal questions, and to attempt to understand the world around him or her. I understand the desire to escape into the former kind of fiction and regularly do it myself, but I also understand that the latter kind of fiction is more rigorous, and that it requires me to do more work not simply because it uses big words. I also think that all sorts of novels can fall into both categories. White dudes from Brooklyn can create Mary Sues, and genre fiction nerds can force us to reconsider the world we live in.
Is it possible that white dudes from Brooklyn, or whatever other enclave, may have more financial resources and societal encouragement to write big, outward-looking books? Sure. But prove it. And it's much more important who gets the opportunity to write what, than what the times says about it in the end.
I think there's a narrow line to walk here. Obviously, domestic spheres are as important as the public sphere, and matters of the heart affect many of us as deeply and as frequently as matters of public policy. But I do think there is a difference in literary merit between a novel that, say, provides a reader with an avatar of themselves, be that avatar a chubby actuary or a plain, shy girl, or a misunderstood computer nerd, or whatever, and thus makes them feel less alone, and a novel that asks the reader to consider larger societal questions, and to attempt to understand the world around him or her. I understand the desire to escape into the former kind of fiction and regularly do it myself, but I also understand that the latter kind of fiction is more rigorous, and that it requires me to do more work not simply because it uses big words. I also think that all sorts of novels can fall into both categories. White dudes from Brooklyn can create Mary Sues, and genre fiction nerds can force us to reconsider the world we live in.
Is it possible that white dudes from Brooklyn, or whatever other enclave, may have more financial resources and societal encouragement to write big, outward-looking books? Sure. But prove it. And it's much more important who gets the opportunity to write what, than what the times says about it in the end.
Yesterday, At The Atlantic
I speculated about whether Cody Rhodes will be the next pro wrestling fan to cross over to mainstream acting. And given his performance on Warehouse 13 last night, I think that is a definite possibility.
Dear Kari Matchett,
Where have you been all my life? I realize, dear readers, that as a bureaucracy nerd and as someone who keeps a careful cultural eye on Washington, that I am a tad in the tank for Covert Affairs, even recognizing that it's not more than smart, fizzy fun. But one element of the show I think deserves for credit above and beyond the call of a USA Network summer series is Kari Matchett, the wonderful actress who plays the main character's boss, and the wife of a competing CIA directorate.
Part of it is it's just a very good role. Joan struggles between competing with her husband because she wants to beat him and because she's interested in the fate of her directorate. She is a failure at being "a good CIA wife," who accepts that she simply must trust her husband precisely because she's a good CIA employee, conditioned to distrust. Her desire for a good marriage and a good life conflict, leading her to waste resources, and occasionally to put her sympathy for other betrayed women above organizational imperatives. Despite her failures, she's competent and tough, and she's a good role model for Annie, her newest employee. The setup is a novel twist on the professional woman's balance between marriage and career, tackling the dilemma by making both elements inextricably linked. I like that Joan's errors don't make her a bad person, but the show doesn't hesitate to outline the gravity of them. Tying up NSA spying capability to keep tabs on your husband's communications is both a bad idea because it's a waste, and because it speaks to an embarrassing, but sympathetic, neediness.
Her husband (played by the inestimable Peter Gallagher) is, in many ways, a less decent person than Joan is, but like Joan, his decency is tied up in his role at work. He is probably cheating on his wife, but we don't quite know, because the line between personal and professional use of tradecraft is so thin. He leaks to the press, mostly because he feels it's his responsibility to try to control the agency's media coverage. And he fights with Joan over control of Annie's time and mission because he sees a valuable asset in her.
On both sides, it's a deft portrait of a marriage. And I'm particularly pleased for Matchett because it's one of only a few regular roles she's had. She's done stints on ER, Studio 60 and 24, but I'm turning into Covert Affairs increasingly for her. More folks should make use of her.
Part of it is it's just a very good role. Joan struggles between competing with her husband because she wants to beat him and because she's interested in the fate of her directorate. She is a failure at being "a good CIA wife," who accepts that she simply must trust her husband precisely because she's a good CIA employee, conditioned to distrust. Her desire for a good marriage and a good life conflict, leading her to waste resources, and occasionally to put her sympathy for other betrayed women above organizational imperatives. Despite her failures, she's competent and tough, and she's a good role model for Annie, her newest employee. The setup is a novel twist on the professional woman's balance between marriage and career, tackling the dilemma by making both elements inextricably linked. I like that Joan's errors don't make her a bad person, but the show doesn't hesitate to outline the gravity of them. Tying up NSA spying capability to keep tabs on your husband's communications is both a bad idea because it's a waste, and because it speaks to an embarrassing, but sympathetic, neediness.
Her husband (played by the inestimable Peter Gallagher) is, in many ways, a less decent person than Joan is, but like Joan, his decency is tied up in his role at work. He is probably cheating on his wife, but we don't quite know, because the line between personal and professional use of tradecraft is so thin. He leaks to the press, mostly because he feels it's his responsibility to try to control the agency's media coverage. And he fights with Joan over control of Annie's time and mission because he sees a valuable asset in her.
On both sides, it's a deft portrait of a marriage. And I'm particularly pleased for Matchett because it's one of only a few regular roles she's had. She's done stints on ER, Studio 60 and 24, but I'm turning into Covert Affairs increasingly for her. More folks should make use of her.
A Message From Robyn
ALL YOUR EMOTIONS ARE BELONG TO US:
One thing I'm genuinely curious about: why hasn't some smart American female star picked her up for a collaboration? Not that working with Snoop Dogg, or Royksopp, or I Blame Coco isn't awesome, but you'd think someone with a taste for indie cred and emotional sincerity would enlist her? I feel like she and Lady Gaga could do incredibly heartfelt covers of standards and hang out and Robyn could be Gaga's older sisters who's graduated from her acting-out-via-fashion stage, or something.
One thing I'm genuinely curious about: why hasn't some smart American female star picked her up for a collaboration? Not that working with Snoop Dogg, or Royksopp, or I Blame Coco isn't awesome, but you'd think someone with a taste for indie cred and emotional sincerity would enlist her? I feel like she and Lady Gaga could do incredibly heartfelt covers of standards and hang out and Robyn could be Gaga's older sisters who's graduated from her acting-out-via-fashion stage, or something.
Overcrowding
So, January Jones is going to be Emma Frost, adding yet another Big Name to the massiver-by-the-minute X-Men: First Class roster. I'm not opposed to this in principal, I think Jones could make a totally reasonable Emma Frost, particularly if they were filming the Dark Phoenix Saga in a way that was reasonably true to the source material (I think the fact that First Class is going to be set in the future is promising, though of precisely what, I'm not sure). Can't y'all just see Betty Draper wilting under the psychic power of Phoenix in a testy mood?
Given the success folks like Anna Paquin and Hugh Jackman had after X-Men, I think it's easy to forget that the first movie in that trilogy had two really legitimate stars in Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan and a ton of other people on the cusp. Halle Berry wasn't even really Halle Berry yet, Monster's Ball was still a year away. Rebecca Romjin and Famke Janssen were supermodels, and weren't really expected to be that good, though in the end, Romjin's performance in The Last Stand is perhaps the most affecting thing in it. I wonder if internet culture and movie websites today just make it seem like First Class is full of reasonably big names, though Kevin Bacon and James McAvoy are probably the most established actors attached to the project. It'll be interesting to see, if the movie is actually substantially good and significantly fun, who breaks out from it to go on to greater things. These movies are good potential proving ground, a place where minor stars can make a mark with only moderately-known characters. I'll be curious to see who makes the leap.
Given the success folks like Anna Paquin and Hugh Jackman had after X-Men, I think it's easy to forget that the first movie in that trilogy had two really legitimate stars in Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan and a ton of other people on the cusp. Halle Berry wasn't even really Halle Berry yet, Monster's Ball was still a year away. Rebecca Romjin and Famke Janssen were supermodels, and weren't really expected to be that good, though in the end, Romjin's performance in The Last Stand is perhaps the most affecting thing in it. I wonder if internet culture and movie websites today just make it seem like First Class is full of reasonably big names, though Kevin Bacon and James McAvoy are probably the most established actors attached to the project. It'll be interesting to see, if the movie is actually substantially good and significantly fun, who breaks out from it to go on to greater things. These movies are good potential proving ground, a place where minor stars can make a mark with only moderately-known characters. I'll be curious to see who makes the leap.
Yesterday, At The Atlantic
I sounded off about a serious pet peeve in an otherwise awesome-looking trailer.
By Association
Is there an actress whose reputation has been more affected by who she's dated in recent years than Evan Rachel Wood? She's an undeniably talented young women, but her relationship with and engagement to Marilyn Manson, recently ended, were an enormous distraction. I suspect this has more to do with Manson than with Wood—Dita Von Teese became instantly more likable in mass culture, I think, when she divorced him, if only because he seems simultaneously tacky and creepy (although the covers of "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" and "Tainted Love" are both undeniably awesome). All of which is a way of getting around to saying that I think the fact that I like this Frank Miller-directed perfume-commercial trailer (whew, that's a narrow field to describe) has to do mostly with a resurgence of goodwill I feel towards Wood:
That said, I could kind of see her and Chris Evans making it work in a romance with a sense of humor. Both are on upswings in their overall likability (Evans should break down exactly went into his performance and role as Lucas Lee in Scott Pilgrim and do more of precisely that), they're young, they're charming, and they're arguably underexposed. It's a premise worth exploring by someone other than a dude who is dabbling in cinema.
That said, I could kind of see her and Chris Evans making it work in a romance with a sense of humor. Both are on upswings in their overall likability (Evans should break down exactly went into his performance and role as Lucas Lee in Scott Pilgrim and do more of precisely that), they're young, they're charming, and they're arguably underexposed. It's a premise worth exploring by someone other than a dude who is dabbling in cinema.
Revelations
But I'm left exceedingly cold by the trailer for Fair Game:
The thing is, Joe Wilson's speaking up against the administration's claims in the lead-up to the Iraq war is news. The government's retaliation against Valerie Plame is news. But so much of the manner of the story is about exceedingly petty Washington infighting that's been rehashed so many times that even I, who edit a website about Washington, am thoroughly sick of it. The movie's behind the times, and while it may be true that Plame was running a relevant operation that was disrupted by her outing, the action sequences feel like Hollywood gloss, rather than an honest exploration of the political drama involved. It's as if they couldn't sex up or make intelligent and piercing the political material they had, so they defaulted to intel cliches.
Cee-Lo's New Song
(Which, by the way, you really should not listen to sans headphones if you happen to be at work or around people who are sensitive to profanities) really makes me wonder what Motown might have sounded like if Diana Ross was allowed to cuss out someone who really did her wrong:
Less of the mournful, I think, however awesome she made it sound:
Less of the mournful, I think, however awesome she made it sound:
Book Club
Alright, folks seem game. Put in your votes for the following suggestions:
-From Hell, Alan Moore
-The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Haruki Murakami
-The Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco
-Perdido Street Station, China Mieville
I'll close voting at the end of the week, and we'll get started the week after.
-From Hell, Alan Moore
-The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Haruki Murakami
-The Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco
-Perdido Street Station, China Mieville
I'll close voting at the end of the week, and we'll get started the week after.
Last Week, At The Atlantic
I wrote about why Mystery, Alaska is such a useful template for sports movies. This doesn't mean I'm abandoning my long-standing fealty to Bull Durham, which is excellent for many (though not all) of the same reasons. But Mystery, Alaska is not a movie that I would have thought about watching in a million years, and yet proved to be highly worth it.
Book Club?
In comments on some of the Song of Ice and Fire posts, folks suggested having a book club over here. I'd read something at a reasonable pace, write a series of substantive posts about it, and open up discussion. Are people interested? I had a huge amount of fun with that series, and would happily taken on another series or book that y'all either thought I should read, or would enjoy having a discussion space for. If you'd want in, chime in with recommendations in comments, and I'll set up a poll next week to determine what we should start with. If you guys want to do this, that is.
Adventurism
So, while I was in Alaska, I basically read nothing but Dudely Adventure Stories: The Passage (kind of), Into The Wild, Into Thin Air, Eiger Dreams, Endurance (which is a completely and utterly amazing work of narrative history, highly, highly recommended even if you have no interest in polar exploration or survivalism), and Underground. It was an interesting mental diversion. I like hiking and camping, though they're not necessarily my first leisure activities of choice, but I have absolutely no desire to undertake risky mountain climbing or need to credential myself, either internally or externally, about surviving in the wild. I think geographic exploration is interesting, but I understand it in my generation to be largely over, there is no West I can set out for, no gold in them thar hills. I have a hard time understanding anyone who needs to prove themselves through those kinds of risks.
The house I was staying in, though, is owned by a serious mountain climber, and so as I got through some of the other climbing literature, I ended up reading some of Above the Clouds, a book published posthumously by Anatoli Boukreev, one of the climbing guides on one of the teams that met with disaster in 1996. His account is actually relatively consistent with Krakauer's, I think, with the exception of explanations of how he felt climbing without supplemental oxygen, which I'm inclined to believe because, after all, they were his lungs. And I like Boukreev's explanation of why he climbed: "Mountains are not Stadiums where I satisfy my ambition to achieve, they are the cathedrals where I practice my religion...I go to them as humans go to worship. From their lofty summits I view my past, dream of the future and, with an unusual acuity, am allowed to experience the present moment...my vision cleared, my strength renewed. In the mountains I celebrate creation. On each journey I am reborn." I'm glad I get my own version of that clarity closer to the ground, but it made me think of serious climbing as less something you're trying to prove or achieve and more something that people get something truly profound out of.
The house I was staying in, though, is owned by a serious mountain climber, and so as I got through some of the other climbing literature, I ended up reading some of Above the Clouds, a book published posthumously by Anatoli Boukreev, one of the climbing guides on one of the teams that met with disaster in 1996. His account is actually relatively consistent with Krakauer's, I think, with the exception of explanations of how he felt climbing without supplemental oxygen, which I'm inclined to believe because, after all, they were his lungs. And I like Boukreev's explanation of why he climbed: "Mountains are not Stadiums where I satisfy my ambition to achieve, they are the cathedrals where I practice my religion...I go to them as humans go to worship. From their lofty summits I view my past, dream of the future and, with an unusual acuity, am allowed to experience the present moment...my vision cleared, my strength renewed. In the mountains I celebrate creation. On each journey I am reborn." I'm glad I get my own version of that clarity closer to the ground, but it made me think of serious climbing as less something you're trying to prove or achieve and more something that people get something truly profound out of.
Thwarted Love
So, I finished up the second series of Doctor Who over the weekend, and had a good cry at the end of "Doomsday," which SPOILER ALERT, got me thinking a bit about what's artistically sadder: love that's lost or that's never realized?
I think part of what hurts so much about Rose's separation from the Doctor is that they do both deeply love each other, but they only realize that love in a limited way. They're physically comfortable around each other for much of the time they're together, and they enjoy each others' companionship, but they don't actually kiss, except for once that we see, they don't get to make love, even though they have what seems to be a strong physical attraction, and they never have the emotional comfort of the mutual acknowledgement of their affection for each other. They're denied all of those things, even though they would have come at comparatively low risk: Rose and the Doctor hurt each other, sometimes, but they probably could have been happy together for as long as Rose's "forever" lasted.
Would it have been more emotionally wrenching for them to experience some of those additional joys, before they were separated or Rose died? I can't decide, either in this instance, or as a general rule, if the heartbreak of loss is worse. Does the pain of being denied happiness once you've experienced it outweigh the good of that experience? I'm just not sure. Certainly unacknowledged love causes a certain amount of discomfort for invested viewers that gives us a small stake in the frustration the characters themselves experience, where we can't experience their heartbreak in the same way. So perhaps thwarted romances are more artistically effective for a certain kind of long-running audience.
A side note: having started the third series, but only just, I'm not sure I want to watch the show without Rose. Maybe that's the wrong reaction. I understand that the show's about the Doctor, the companions are supposed to be our way in. But I love her, and how far she's come. I wish Rose Tyler: Earth Defence had gotten a shot.
I think part of what hurts so much about Rose's separation from the Doctor is that they do both deeply love each other, but they only realize that love in a limited way. They're physically comfortable around each other for much of the time they're together, and they enjoy each others' companionship, but they don't actually kiss, except for once that we see, they don't get to make love, even though they have what seems to be a strong physical attraction, and they never have the emotional comfort of the mutual acknowledgement of their affection for each other. They're denied all of those things, even though they would have come at comparatively low risk: Rose and the Doctor hurt each other, sometimes, but they probably could have been happy together for as long as Rose's "forever" lasted.
Would it have been more emotionally wrenching for them to experience some of those additional joys, before they were separated or Rose died? I can't decide, either in this instance, or as a general rule, if the heartbreak of loss is worse. Does the pain of being denied happiness once you've experienced it outweigh the good of that experience? I'm just not sure. Certainly unacknowledged love causes a certain amount of discomfort for invested viewers that gives us a small stake in the frustration the characters themselves experience, where we can't experience their heartbreak in the same way. So perhaps thwarted romances are more artistically effective for a certain kind of long-running audience.
A side note: having started the third series, but only just, I'm not sure I want to watch the show without Rose. Maybe that's the wrong reaction. I understand that the show's about the Doctor, the companions are supposed to be our way in. But I love her, and how far she's come. I wish Rose Tyler: Earth Defence had gotten a shot.
Another Thing I Liked About Scott Pilgrim
Is that it reinforced a feeling I've had for a while that Brandon Routh should go the James Marsden route, and seek out fun, meaty, slightly wacky supporting roles. He was totally fine in Superman Returns (where Marsden has a nice supporting turn), but he's much more memorable as a shy gay porn star in Zack and Miri Make a Porno, and playing a nice foil to a rather outre Justin Long:
And he's really quite, quite good as Todd, Ramona's empty-headed vegan ex-boyfriend in Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (see around 1:30 for the shiny levitation):
Guys that good-looking often don't have to be funny. But just like someone like Anna Faris would probably never work if she was just another blonde, I can imagine that a dude like Routh might want a skill set that lets him play off his stunning physical assets, rather than getting trapped by them. In acting, as in life, the idea of being Jon Hamm's 30 Rock character is actually pretty terrifying.
And he's really quite, quite good as Todd, Ramona's empty-headed vegan ex-boyfriend in Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (see around 1:30 for the shiny levitation):
Guys that good-looking often don't have to be funny. But just like someone like Anna Faris would probably never work if she was just another blonde, I can imagine that a dude like Routh might want a skill set that lets him play off his stunning physical assets, rather than getting trapped by them. In acting, as in life, the idea of being Jon Hamm's 30 Rock character is actually pretty terrifying.
Competence
One of the things that I think is very interesting about Jason Bateman's career (and I will stipulate that I haven't seen Arrested Development) is that the characters he plays are frequently only slightly above average. He's the head of a company in Up In the Air, but not a particularly famous or important company. He's the head of a small business in Extract. He's an agent, but a hustling one, in Hancock. He's doing fine, but isn't much of a person in the State of Play remake. He's professionally successful, but unsatisfied in Juno. I note this because in this day and age of moviemaking, it's rare that an actor will get this much work without playing someone exceptional at some point, be he CEO, or professional athlete, or famous lawyer, or some sort of fictional actor, or badass-about-town. I think the fact that Bateman's picked characters who aren't consumed by their exceptionalness actually means that he takes roles where there's more to want, and more to achieve. Or where jobs don't matter at all, as they don't seem to for him in The Switch:
It's unusual, and actually kind of nice to have a movie where the dude is solely focused on the relationship, or in this case, relationships. I don't think this'll be anything extraordinary, but it certainly looks like it might be reasonably pleasant. And it exists in the realm of adults who have made compromises, where Bateman's done fine work before. At least in this one, he won't be trying to have an affair with a teenaged surrogate, so I find his character more likable and relatable already, and I already feel a certain basic warmth towards the guy even when he's in sleaze mode!
It's unusual, and actually kind of nice to have a movie where the dude is solely focused on the relationship, or in this case, relationships. I don't think this'll be anything extraordinary, but it certainly looks like it might be reasonably pleasant. And it exists in the realm of adults who have made compromises, where Bateman's done fine work before. At least in this one, he won't be trying to have an affair with a teenaged surrogate, so I find his character more likable and relatable already, and I already feel a certain basic warmth towards the guy even when he's in sleaze mode!
It's Possible That My Favorite Thing...
About the trailer for How Do You Know is finding out that Herc got out of the security business and made it into the major leagues down the road in Washington, DC:
That said, this looks reasonably charming, but I'm somewhat annoyed that this is a movie that purports to be about a woman who questions the whole Girl Life Plan of finding a dude and popping out some kids, but that is actually about the way that she ends up doing the first half of that equation. I'll also be curious to see if the fact that Witherspoon's character is a pro softball player actually matters in the movie, perhaps in drawing her closer to Owen Wilson's character or something, instead of simply being the quirky profession she is assigned to because they didn't want to make her a journalist or a lawyer or something generic that indicates that she's sharp. I don't necessarily love movies that try so hard to be unique that they tip over into a murk of quirk, but I don't like movies that try to be unique and are deeply, depressingly, obviously conventional anyway either.
That said, this looks reasonably charming, but I'm somewhat annoyed that this is a movie that purports to be about a woman who questions the whole Girl Life Plan of finding a dude and popping out some kids, but that is actually about the way that she ends up doing the first half of that equation. I'll also be curious to see if the fact that Witherspoon's character is a pro softball player actually matters in the movie, perhaps in drawing her closer to Owen Wilson's character or something, instead of simply being the quirky profession she is assigned to because they didn't want to make her a journalist or a lawyer or something generic that indicates that she's sharp. I don't necessarily love movies that try so hard to be unique that they tip over into a murk of quirk, but I don't like movies that try to be unique and are deeply, depressingly, obviously conventional anyway either.
Yesterday, At The Atlantic
I mused on why the juxtaposition trend in the current generation of parody movies causes them to trend towards the ridiculous.
Putting On the Corset
A number of commentators have characterized Brave New World, a forthcoming comedy about professional reenactors, as another salvo in the wacky-workplace-comedy wars. I actually think it sounds kind of terrific. One of my favorite non-fiction books of recent years, Confederates in the Attic, uses Civil War reenactors as a major frame device for the author's exploration of how Civil War memory is lived out today, and he can do that because reenacting is an extremely fast-growing hobby. I also grew up in a town where guys dressed as Redcoats periodically meander by Starbucks on their way to practice. If the show does anything to engage with the pull folks feel to live, or escape into, the historical past, it could be something more than a "look at these goofy jerks" show, which is what it ought to be in any case.
Last week, some of y'all took exception to Dylan's argument about the true nature of The Office. I think some of you are correct, but I wanted to seize on a point that Col Bat Guano made: "You could have Jim and Pam achieve their dreams and find new jobs as a sportswriter and an artist, but that would entail writing two of the most popular characters off the show." I actually think that's precisely what should happen, and that the show should end on that note, with Jim and Pam established in their personal lives such that they have a base of support to mutually seek professional fulfillment, or at least a non-sadistic workplace that brings out their worst tendencies. And while workplace comedies will, and should continue, I think they would be wise not to use the American Office as their model. A show dies slowly, and painfully, once it's exhausted all potential for growth and locked a bunch of malfunctioning people in a small set of rooms together, proving that hell is other people, particularly in Scranton, PA.
Romantic Comedy Manipulation
Okay, I'm sorry, but I'm someone who had a teaching gynecologist for a while, and even I would never, ever forgive, much less date, a person who snuck their way into a doctor's appointment I'd made to figure out if I had a serious disease (the trailer implies it's breast cancer, but apparently, Parkinsons):
This movie actually looks kind of fun, but it really brushes up against the threshold of behavior that just shouldn't be remotely acceptable, much less the start of a life-changingly meaningful romantic and sexual relationship. It's bizarre what studios and scriptwriters think we should be prepared to set aside if it's committed by a sufficiently tall drink of water with a sufficiently good haircut. Not all women want to be some sleaze's means of redemption.
This movie actually looks kind of fun, but it really brushes up against the threshold of behavior that just shouldn't be remotely acceptable, much less the start of a life-changingly meaningful romantic and sexual relationship. It's bizarre what studios and scriptwriters think we should be prepared to set aside if it's committed by a sufficiently tall drink of water with a sufficiently good haircut. Not all women want to be some sleaze's means of redemption.
What Would Happen If Edgar Wright Made A (Semi-)Straight Action Movie?
I've been thinking about this a lot since seeing Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (and I apologize for the volume of spin-off posts about the movie, for those of you who haven't seen it yet, or aren't interested, or whatever). Because if one thing is clear across Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz and Scott Pilgrim, it's that Mr. Wright can direct the hell out of an action sequence. Take the great pub fight scene from Shaun of the Dead:
Yeah, the Queen soundtrack is ludicrous, and really funny, but as they're beating the hell out of the zombie, you've also got this nice focus on the victim that also gives you a look at all the people whaling on him. Same thing when Shaun's grappling with him later in the scene, you get the sense of struggle, while also getting the unhelpful help on the periphery. There are all these references to classic action maneuvers, whether in tossed shotguns and pool queues, or a twirl of the legs as someone gets up, but you also see much more of what's going on than you do in busier, less effective action scenes.
Then there's the epic gunfight in Hot Fuzz:
It's much more complicated and frenetic than the previous scene, and involves many more people. But the fight also works and is completely comprehensible because we've been well-introduced to the principles, the geography, and the functions of the town (like the shop alarm bell), so we can follow the action without needing to get re-situated. The whole movie leads up to it and prepares you for it.
There are more fight scenes in Scott Pilgrim, and they're much more effects-dependent, and working in a very different visual language than either of the previous two movies (or hell, anything else, ever), so it's not really a comparable experience. But they have a similar visual intelligence to them, a similar snap, and energy and sense of humor. You can follow the action and the dynamic of a fight clearly.
Given all of this, it would be fun to see what Wright would do with a leading man who's in actual, believable fighting trim (not that I don't love Simon Pegg, but his shtick is as a regular dude). Get him and Jason Statham, a hunk of rock who has a sense of humor about himself and his fighting, together, and let's see what happens.
Yeah, the Queen soundtrack is ludicrous, and really funny, but as they're beating the hell out of the zombie, you've also got this nice focus on the victim that also gives you a look at all the people whaling on him. Same thing when Shaun's grappling with him later in the scene, you get the sense of struggle, while also getting the unhelpful help on the periphery. There are all these references to classic action maneuvers, whether in tossed shotguns and pool queues, or a twirl of the legs as someone gets up, but you also see much more of what's going on than you do in busier, less effective action scenes.
Then there's the epic gunfight in Hot Fuzz:
It's much more complicated and frenetic than the previous scene, and involves many more people. But the fight also works and is completely comprehensible because we've been well-introduced to the principles, the geography, and the functions of the town (like the shop alarm bell), so we can follow the action without needing to get re-situated. The whole movie leads up to it and prepares you for it.
There are more fight scenes in Scott Pilgrim, and they're much more effects-dependent, and working in a very different visual language than either of the previous two movies (or hell, anything else, ever), so it's not really a comparable experience. But they have a similar visual intelligence to them, a similar snap, and energy and sense of humor. You can follow the action and the dynamic of a fight clearly.
Given all of this, it would be fun to see what Wright would do with a leading man who's in actual, believable fighting trim (not that I don't love Simon Pegg, but his shtick is as a regular dude). Get him and Jason Statham, a hunk of rock who has a sense of humor about himself and his fighting, together, and let's see what happens.
Yesterday, At The Atlantic
Keeping with my thinking about world-building, I wrote about why the Lord of the Rings movies work so well, but the Narnia movies feel flat.
I Don't Want to Be Friends
In this movie, Katie Holmes has a group of friends that goes by The Romantics. It really seems like they ought to go by The Assholes instead:
Seriously, if I was this old, and my closest friends were a group of people who behaved this unattractively, I think my worst problem would not be who my ex-boyfriend was marrying. Sure it would be annoying if it were Anna Paquin, but it's actively damaging to have friends who are this underminey and pretentious. Maybe I'm just being an unsympathetic whippersnapper, but I hope that were I in this position, I would turn down the invitation to the wedding, and take my newer, and better friends to another beach with a case of champagne instead. Ugh. It rarely is the case that I feel viscerally turned off by the characters in a movie that's not a torture porn flick, but I want no part of this.
Seriously, if I was this old, and my closest friends were a group of people who behaved this unattractively, I think my worst problem would not be who my ex-boyfriend was marrying. Sure it would be annoying if it were Anna Paquin, but it's actively damaging to have friends who are this underminey and pretentious. Maybe I'm just being an unsympathetic whippersnapper, but I hope that were I in this position, I would turn down the invitation to the wedding, and take my newer, and better friends to another beach with a case of champagne instead. Ugh. It rarely is the case that I feel viscerally turned off by the characters in a movie that's not a torture porn flick, but I want no part of this.
Up In The Air
I finally caught Up In The Air on my Dulles-to-Dallas flight on the way to Anchorage, and while it's not a bad little film, it seems to me like the buzz around it during Oscar season must mostly have been because it gave some attention to the emotional impact of the economic downturn. George Clooney is quite good, though he doesn't have to show much range. Ditto with Vera Farmiga. Anna Kendrick is good, though here character spends so much time in the realm of deep annoyingness that it was difficult to connect with her, even while I thought the performance was generally strong. I appreciated the variety of an unhappy ending. The light blues of the palette are a good, consistent aesthetic, if not a daring or transporting one. But I don't think the movie is nearly as good, or as interesting, for example, as Michael Clayton, another Sad Clooney movie, where the writing is transcendent, and not in a "the economy sucks and you're evil!" kind of way, but in a way that touches the true strangeness of life. I feel like I ought to have more to say about the movie, but that's the nature of solid but unremarkable movies. It was here, and now it's gone. Much like Ryan Bingham.
Spontaneity
I actually feel like there are a lot of false notes in the trailer for The Big C, which I will see as soon as it comes out on DVD or I take a deep breath and sign up for premium cable:
But that one line, where Laura Linney says "I want to be the one to spill the fruit punch" (in reference to punch Oliver Platt spilled, while Riverdancing, on their couch) really got to me. I know that feeling, that intense desire to be a spontaneous person with the full knowledge that you're not, not remotely, and the sadness that comes with it. I don't actually really believe that a cancer diagnosis is the way you liberate yourself from that tension, that inability to jump, or that the cost to your family of finding spontaneity in this particular way can possibly be worth it. But in a week when I'm feeling intensely attuned to the things in art that ring true, or that feel terribly false, that line gets at an emotion I think is often unexpressed but deeply felt, the wish to be be more authentically, joyfully free in your behavior.
But that one line, where Laura Linney says "I want to be the one to spill the fruit punch" (in reference to punch Oliver Platt spilled, while Riverdancing, on their couch) really got to me. I know that feeling, that intense desire to be a spontaneous person with the full knowledge that you're not, not remotely, and the sadness that comes with it. I don't actually really believe that a cancer diagnosis is the way you liberate yourself from that tension, that inability to jump, or that the cost to your family of finding spontaneity in this particular way can possibly be worth it. But in a week when I'm feeling intensely attuned to the things in art that ring true, or that feel terribly false, that line gets at an emotion I think is often unexpressed but deeply felt, the wish to be be more authentically, joyfully free in your behavior.
So, I Saw Scott Pilgrim on Friday
And I liked it quite a bit. It's all the good things critics say: visually innovative, full of some very good acting (Kieran Culkin is a major, major standout), and deeply felt. That said, it hit upon a couple of threads I've been considering for a while about superhero romance. I write at The Atlantic:
If conventional superhero movies say something compelling, true, and even beautiful our powerlessness against love, less conventional ones like Kick-Ass and Scott Pilgrim have a more depressing message. Dave invents a secret, super-heroic identity because he can't find his way through the morass of social interaction on his own. Scott needs to be threatened by utter destruction and to win a series of escalating, supernatural battles in order to find the basic decency to apologize for cheating on two girls who love him. Are our heroes really so deficient of basic human values and social skills that they need to be wrenched into functionality by the extraordinary? And if it's this hard for Dave and Scott, what does it mean for the rest of us, trying to figure out the difficult passage between adolescence and decent adulthood without the aid of miraculous events or talents?
A Confession
I think I have a growing affection for Nicole Scherzinger. I feel very conflicted about this. I find the Pussycat Dolls insufferably irritating and tacky. I wish she would do something better with her career. It's rare that I feel any sort of need to defend my affections for participants in our mass culture, or that I feel any real sour distaste for those I don't like, but Scherzinger's always been an exception because I felt like so much of what she was doing was such a waste. But then, perhaps she's on the way to improvement. First, I thought she was completely, completely adorable on Dancing With the Stars, both in her level of commitment and execution:
And she's really not a bad Maureen in the live production of Rent:
More could have been done with the choreography here, but that inner-thigh-reach-and-slide is nicely executed, and she sounds good. I hope folks keep her working. I don't really know how one makes the step up from manufactured-band mediocrity to the real thing, but maybe they could get her a job on Glee, or something?
And she's really not a bad Maureen in the live production of Rent:
More could have been done with the choreography here, but that inner-thigh-reach-and-slide is nicely executed, and she sounds good. I hope folks keep her working. I don't really know how one makes the step up from manufactured-band mediocrity to the real thing, but maybe they could get her a job on Glee, or something?
I Like Kat Dennings Quite A Bit...
But I'm not going to lie. Daydream Nation looks awfully pretentious:
I think it's got a couple of triggers for me. The moving stick figure reminds me a little bit too strongly of the unrealized musical notation figures from Idlewild. The soft-focus and music and angst remind me a lot of The Adventures of Sebastian Cole, though I'm guessing that no one undergoes gender reassignment surgery in this movie. And the hot-for-teacher plot bothers me. Movies like this generally default into extremely cliche psychology about why people like that get together, and in this case, it looks like she has a messy, immature breakup with him anyway and ends up with someone much more age-appropriate, which is of course supposed to be the response that proves she's matured and just isn't some hard-to-control little harlot. And is still really, really predictable. I understand that relationships like this are useful shorthand: he's the teacher, she's the student, he's the boss, she's the ambitious underling, she's the tough, sour career girl, he's the player who finds himself attracted. But that shorthand can also function as a straightjacket. Why does the student-teacher relationship have to be a volatile benchmark on the road to maturity for one and ruin for the other?
I think it's got a couple of triggers for me. The moving stick figure reminds me a little bit too strongly of the unrealized musical notation figures from Idlewild. The soft-focus and music and angst remind me a lot of The Adventures of Sebastian Cole, though I'm guessing that no one undergoes gender reassignment surgery in this movie. And the hot-for-teacher plot bothers me. Movies like this generally default into extremely cliche psychology about why people like that get together, and in this case, it looks like she has a messy, immature breakup with him anyway and ends up with someone much more age-appropriate, which is of course supposed to be the response that proves she's matured and just isn't some hard-to-control little harlot. And is still really, really predictable. I understand that relationships like this are useful shorthand: he's the teacher, she's the student, he's the boss, she's the ambitious underling, she's the tough, sour career girl, he's the player who finds himself attracted. But that shorthand can also function as a straightjacket. Why does the student-teacher relationship have to be a volatile benchmark on the road to maturity for one and ruin for the other?
Suspending Disbelief
So, earlier in the summer, my boss handed me a copy of Justin Cronin's The Passage. I was racing through A Song of Ice and Fire, and it's a rather heavy book to schlep around in my purse in the August heat, so I put it off until I got on the plane to Anchorage. And then I read the whole thing in a single day. Obviously, spoilers to come.
It's not a perfect book. In fact, it's substantially far from a perfect book. There's an extent to which it's a hard science-fiction novel: the process by which scientists working for the military identify and then replicate a virus, experimenting on death-row inmates with it, is explicable, if advanced. But it's also a book that relies, at least in what we know so far, on magic. That isn't always a combination that works. Magic throws doubt on the validity, capabilities, and limitations of hard science, and it's difficult to make the transition from scientific thinking to magical thinking. I do hope that Cronin manages to reconcile magic and science in the subsequent books in the series.
But if the writing and character development are as strong as they were in the first novel, I'm willing to live with the contradiction, even if he doesn't achieve a conceptual reconciliation. My worry is that with the conclusion of the beautifully developed father-daughter relationship that acts as the frame device for the first novel, Cronin won't be able to keep it up. The Passage was much better as a road book, and as a collection of A Canticle for Leibowitz-like fragments, than as a portrait of a post-apocalyptic society. The setup and conception of the society was just fine, but the book got crowded and a bit baggy in the middle, and got much better once the cast slimmed back down and started moving again. If Cronin can build a relationship between Peter and Amy that equals the relationship between Amy and Wolgast (though it will, by necessity, be different), then I think the sequels will work.
The book's at its best when it's about the mysteriousness of love. Amy's most often the object of that love, but she's not a void onto which men like Wolgast and Peter project what they want to see. She's a complete person, one who sees the sadness in A Christmas Carol, who experiences her greatest empathy in relationship to people who can't communicate with others: a rape victim, polar bears in a zoo, people turned into shells. She is not theirs to decode, or make legible, rather they have to venture into her strangeness and accept it. I like that. It feels true.
It's not a perfect book. In fact, it's substantially far from a perfect book. There's an extent to which it's a hard science-fiction novel: the process by which scientists working for the military identify and then replicate a virus, experimenting on death-row inmates with it, is explicable, if advanced. But it's also a book that relies, at least in what we know so far, on magic. That isn't always a combination that works. Magic throws doubt on the validity, capabilities, and limitations of hard science, and it's difficult to make the transition from scientific thinking to magical thinking. I do hope that Cronin manages to reconcile magic and science in the subsequent books in the series.
But if the writing and character development are as strong as they were in the first novel, I'm willing to live with the contradiction, even if he doesn't achieve a conceptual reconciliation. My worry is that with the conclusion of the beautifully developed father-daughter relationship that acts as the frame device for the first novel, Cronin won't be able to keep it up. The Passage was much better as a road book, and as a collection of A Canticle for Leibowitz-like fragments, than as a portrait of a post-apocalyptic society. The setup and conception of the society was just fine, but the book got crowded and a bit baggy in the middle, and got much better once the cast slimmed back down and started moving again. If Cronin can build a relationship between Peter and Amy that equals the relationship between Amy and Wolgast (though it will, by necessity, be different), then I think the sequels will work.
The book's at its best when it's about the mysteriousness of love. Amy's most often the object of that love, but she's not a void onto which men like Wolgast and Peter project what they want to see. She's a complete person, one who sees the sadness in A Christmas Carol, who experiences her greatest empathy in relationship to people who can't communicate with others: a rape victim, polar bears in a zoo, people turned into shells. She is not theirs to decode, or make legible, rather they have to venture into her strangeness and accept it. I like that. It feels true.
Let's Get It On
First, thanks so much to Katie, BabylonSista, Kay and Dylan for keeping house while I was gone. I was mostly, seriously off the grid while I was in Alaska, but when I checked in, it was clear they were kicking ass in my absence. It's such a treat to read them, much less to read them here.
So, I am not the biggest fan of Katy Perry's "Teenage Dream," mostly because I think the lyrics are weirdly goofy and condescending. And I think most of the video is, as New York says, eerily like an advertisement. But I think there's one thing in particular about this that works. The sex scene, or really, the lead-up to the sex scene, since that's all we get, has a nice awkwardness to it. New York notes the realistic-but-not-video-worthy white cotton panties. But the struggle with the jeans buttons, and the way they move around the room, captures the gawkiness of desire well. Points for that, Katy.
So, I am not the biggest fan of Katy Perry's "Teenage Dream," mostly because I think the lyrics are weirdly goofy and condescending. And I think most of the video is, as New York says, eerily like an advertisement. But I think there's one thing in particular about this that works. The sex scene, or really, the lead-up to the sex scene, since that's all we get, has a nice awkwardness to it. New York notes the realistic-but-not-video-worthy white cotton panties. But the struggle with the jeans buttons, and the way they move around the room, captures the gawkiness of desire well. Points for that, Katy.
Next Time, Can Ramona Flowers and Scott Pilgrim Defeat Exes Together?
As reviews of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World come in, inevitable hating has begun. Paste magazine called it like a video game adaptation in that it was "more akin to watching a videogame than actually playing one." So far, though, the film is ranking around 80 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, and having read the first in the comic book series, I'm feeling cautiously optimistic about the film. It promises to be an over-the-top, not-too-deep late summer blockbuster.
But the premise of the film: that Scott (Michael Cera) must defeat Ramona Flowers' seven evil ex-boyfriends before he can date her. Greg Rozan on Facebook ponders the premise:
Why should Scott have to defeat Ramona's evil exes but not have to fight his own? Ultimately in relationships we're each fighting our own demons and our own pasts even if our current partners must also deal with that baggage along the way. If anything I would have loved to see Ramona and Scott take on the exes together.
But the premise of the film: that Scott (Michael Cera) must defeat Ramona Flowers' seven evil ex-boyfriends before he can date her. Greg Rozan on Facebook ponders the premise:
From book one alone, he is a hapless, lovable loser whose primary interest in life is... get the girl. So what, right? What else in life could possibly be worth pursuing? I mean if you think about it, it's a miracle we've been able to construct all this technology and social artifice when us guys are so consumed with the desire to f*ck and be f*cked. Why do we even bother with education and literacy and all that garbage? We have all the tools we need to propagate the species by the time we hit puberty! Scott Pilgrim is just another manifestation of an apparently ubiquitous male obsession.To be honest, when I first heard about the Scott Pilgrim series, I resisted reading it for a long time precisely for that reason. Even expanding on the male obsession theme, Scott's quest to defeat evil exes sounded a little too close to chivalry (something feminists have often decried as sexist). Furthermore, the plot suggests that Ramona has baggage that must be dealt with and Scott does not.
Why should Scott have to defeat Ramona's evil exes but not have to fight his own? Ultimately in relationships we're each fighting our own demons and our own pasts even if our current partners must also deal with that baggage along the way. If anything I would have loved to see Ramona and Scott take on the exes together.
The Office is a Tragedy
The AV Club's discussion of TV couples who will probably end up making it work hits a lot of the usual suspects (Nick & Norah, Henry and Casey from Party Down, Eric and Tami Taylor on Friday Night Lights) but I think this section, from Kyle Ryan on Pam and Jim from The Office, gets it a bit wrong:
I don't disagree with this, but it seems to define "success" as "not breaking up" -- which is obviously part of it, and the specific question being discussed, but I think the more interesting question is whether the couples in question will last and be good for each other. Henry and Casey on Party Down, who owe a lot of their characterization to Jim and Pam (and Dawn and Tim from the British Office), clearly believe in each other's goals, and actively, at times selflessly, try to help them along. They start ready to give up. Henry's ditched acting, and Casey's debating moving to Vermont with her husband and giving up on stand-up comedy. But the show ends (spoiler, I guess, though it's not a show that's easily spoiled) with Henry in a waiting room for an audition, not just for himself, but to prove to Casey he thinks she can make it too. They pull each other off the brink, and keep each other pushing.
Jim and Pam, however, concede defeat. Jim's whole appeal for Pam is that, unlike her fiancé Roy, he believes she can escape. He wants her to go to art school, and not just be stuck as a receptionist her whole life. And yet now, they're both still at Dunder Mifflin, and with a baby and a house, they're not going anywhere. The saddest moments of the show are the ones that drive home how they've given up things that once meant the world to them in order to be together. For Jim, the most notable scene was in "Local Ad", when Pam discovers his Second Life account, wherein he's a guitar-playing sports writer in Philadelphia. For Pam, it was in "Business Trip", after she dropped out of art school, drove back to the Dunder Mifflin parking lot, and tried, half-heartedly, to convince Jim that she didn't even like graphic design:
Now, maybe this isn't just a problem with the two of them. Maybe nothing would have gotten Jim writing a column on the Phillies for the Inquirer, or Pam working as an artist. But the end result is fairly tragic, and their love for each other, by this point in the series, is the only thing they have left. It's something, but it's hard for me to view that as those crazy kids having made it.
P.S. Just to clarify, obviously not getting everything you want professionally is not tragic, nor is making sacrifices for the people you love. But the show is premised on Jim and Pam hating their jobs, and bonding largely over that hatred and their desire to escape, and now they're more entrenched than ever. Particularly for a sitcom, that's a pretty bleak ending.
Anyone who watches the show knows the characters were made for each other in the writers’ room, and every episode made it clear that they belonged together, even when it looked like it wasn’t going to happen. Their personalities, their senses of humor, their interests, their values, etc., all aligned, to the point where it was goddamn frustrating when they didn’t just hook up—and beyond that, get married already. When they finally did, it felt more rewarding to me than other will-they-or-won’t-they couples on TV, because Jim and Pam felt more relatable and realistic than, say, your Ross and Rachel.
I don't disagree with this, but it seems to define "success" as "not breaking up" -- which is obviously part of it, and the specific question being discussed, but I think the more interesting question is whether the couples in question will last and be good for each other. Henry and Casey on Party Down, who owe a lot of their characterization to Jim and Pam (and Dawn and Tim from the British Office), clearly believe in each other's goals, and actively, at times selflessly, try to help them along. They start ready to give up. Henry's ditched acting, and Casey's debating moving to Vermont with her husband and giving up on stand-up comedy. But the show ends (spoiler, I guess, though it's not a show that's easily spoiled) with Henry in a waiting room for an audition, not just for himself, but to prove to Casey he thinks she can make it too. They pull each other off the brink, and keep each other pushing.
Jim and Pam, however, concede defeat. Jim's whole appeal for Pam is that, unlike her fiancé Roy, he believes she can escape. He wants her to go to art school, and not just be stuck as a receptionist her whole life. And yet now, they're both still at Dunder Mifflin, and with a baby and a house, they're not going anywhere. The saddest moments of the show are the ones that drive home how they've given up things that once meant the world to them in order to be together. For Jim, the most notable scene was in "Local Ad", when Pam discovers his Second Life account, wherein he's a guitar-playing sports writer in Philadelphia. For Pam, it was in "Business Trip", after she dropped out of art school, drove back to the Dunder Mifflin parking lot, and tried, half-heartedly, to convince Jim that she didn't even like graphic design:
Now, maybe this isn't just a problem with the two of them. Maybe nothing would have gotten Jim writing a column on the Phillies for the Inquirer, or Pam working as an artist. But the end result is fairly tragic, and their love for each other, by this point in the series, is the only thing they have left. It's something, but it's hard for me to view that as those crazy kids having made it.
P.S. Just to clarify, obviously not getting everything you want professionally is not tragic, nor is making sacrifices for the people you love. But the show is premised on Jim and Pam hating their jobs, and bonding largely over that hatred and their desire to escape, and now they're more entrenched than ever. Particularly for a sitcom, that's a pretty bleak ending.
Five Fall Shows to Check Out
There are plenty of new shows starting in September, and the list can get overwhelming. Here are five that might be worth a look. (Note: I would have included The Event, but BabylonSista already wrote about it.)
1. Lone Star (FOX, Mondays at 9)
This Texas-set soapy drama is about big oil and a con man living with a double life - until he decides that he's in love with both of his "fake" families. It looks ambitious and stylish, and bonus: Adrianne Palicki from Friday Night Lights stars.
2. Hawaii Five-0 (CBS, Mondays at 10)
I'll admit that I've never seen the original, and I don't think the world necessarily needs more cop shows. But the cast here looks great - Scott Caan, Alex O'Loughlin, Grace Park, Daniel Dae Kim. And James Marsters is in the first episode!
3. Undercovers (NBC, Wednesdays at 8)
Who doesn't love a nice spy show? But what particularly interests me about this one is that the main characters are married when the show starts. It should be a refreshing change from the "Will they or won't they?" that's standard on so many shows. (They could get rid of the word "sexpionage" any time now, though.)
4. Blue Bloods (CBS, Fridays at 10)
I love me some Donnie-Wahlberg-as-cop (see also: Rizzoli & Isles), and Tom Selleck and Bridget Moynahan don't hurt either. This is supposed to be less of a procedural and more of a family drama about people who happen to be cops, so I'm looking forward to seeing what they do with that. The only drawback: because of Wahlberg, I keep thinking it's set in Boston, but it's actually New York.
5. Outlaw (NBC, Fridays at 10)
Supreme Court Justice Jimmy Smits resigns to go back into practicing law on behalf of the little guy. Or to change the way the Court works. Or something. I'm not entirely sold on the premise, but I love Jimmy Smits, and the supporting cast seems to have good chemistry, so I'll give it a try.
1. Lone Star (FOX, Mondays at 9)
This Texas-set soapy drama is about big oil and a con man living with a double life - until he decides that he's in love with both of his "fake" families. It looks ambitious and stylish, and bonus: Adrianne Palicki from Friday Night Lights stars.
2. Hawaii Five-0 (CBS, Mondays at 10)
I'll admit that I've never seen the original, and I don't think the world necessarily needs more cop shows. But the cast here looks great - Scott Caan, Alex O'Loughlin, Grace Park, Daniel Dae Kim. And James Marsters is in the first episode!
3. Undercovers (NBC, Wednesdays at 8)
Who doesn't love a nice spy show? But what particularly interests me about this one is that the main characters are married when the show starts. It should be a refreshing change from the "Will they or won't they?" that's standard on so many shows. (They could get rid of the word "sexpionage" any time now, though.)
4. Blue Bloods (CBS, Fridays at 10)
I love me some Donnie-Wahlberg-as-cop (see also: Rizzoli & Isles), and Tom Selleck and Bridget Moynahan don't hurt either. This is supposed to be less of a procedural and more of a family drama about people who happen to be cops, so I'm looking forward to seeing what they do with that. The only drawback: because of Wahlberg, I keep thinking it's set in Boston, but it's actually New York.
5. Outlaw (NBC, Fridays at 10)
Supreme Court Justice Jimmy Smits resigns to go back into practicing law on behalf of the little guy. Or to change the way the Court works. Or something. I'm not entirely sold on the premise, but I love Jimmy Smits, and the supporting cast seems to have good chemistry, so I'll give it a try.
Rubicon: The long hello
I'm finally getting around to watching the first episode of Rubicon. From what I can understand, super duper secret agency analyst Will Travers is a dedicated but conflicted widower who lost his wife and daughter during the 9/11 attacks. His boss--also his father-in-law--David, urges Will to leave the agency just before being killed in a train crash. And also, some billionaire kills himself, and it might have something to do with a crossword that shows up in several newspapers...
...That's a lot of plot for a pilot. And it might work if the first ten minutes didn't move so slowly. We're introduced to the characters--but instead of neat exposition, we get long scenes of Will, thinking hard and being forlorn. Once the pace finally does pick up, the clues tangle with each other instead of weaving a story. I'll watch the next episodes on DVR--but only to see if those tangles smooth out or turn into impossible knots.
For a show with such an ambitious scope, timing will be everything. Rubicon needs some adjustments if it's going to attract and keep viewers.
...That's a lot of plot for a pilot. And it might work if the first ten minutes didn't move so slowly. We're introduced to the characters--but instead of neat exposition, we get long scenes of Will, thinking hard and being forlorn. Once the pace finally does pick up, the clues tangle with each other instead of weaving a story. I'll watch the next episodes on DVR--but only to see if those tangles smooth out or turn into impossible knots.
For a show with such an ambitious scope, timing will be everything. Rubicon needs some adjustments if it's going to attract and keep viewers.
Literary Inheritance
I just started reading the mystery novel The Inheritance by Simon Tolkien. Yes, Tolkien, as in J.R.R. This is a grandson, and his second middle name is Reuel too. He's the son of Christopher, who edited the original Tolkien's posthumous work, and is reportedly estranged from his father because of his (Simon's) support for the Lord of the Rings films. And now he's writing novels.
Publishing under the same name as a famous parent or grandparent may be easier in some ways - having a name like Tolkien can presumably open some doors - but also takes a certain amount of courage, as literary talent is not necessarily inherited, but the pressure and expectations are there regardless. Stephen King's son Joe publishes as Joe Hill, which takes some of the pressure off, but his son Owen wrote a book under Owen King. Both of mystery writer Jesse Kellerman's parents (Faye and Jonathan) write in his genre, but that hasn't seemed to faze him. And then there's Mary Higgins Clark: her daughter Carol Higgins Clark is a successful mystery novelist, and so is her former daughter-in-law Mary Jane Clark, whose books are often designed to look eerily like Higgins Clark's own. (Gossip in the bookselling world says that this is not a coincidence.)
I'm not far enough into The Inheritance yet to know what the title means in the context of the plot, but I can't imagine that Tolkien and his publishers didn't realize that the title could also be read as a tongue-in-cheek reference to the author's ambiguous literary inheritance of name and reputation. And I must admit that I picked the book up at the library partially to find out if he was related to the Tolkien. Fair enough. If you're going to be held up to the standards set by your famous grandfather, you might as well use his name to get me to read your book.
Publishing under the same name as a famous parent or grandparent may be easier in some ways - having a name like Tolkien can presumably open some doors - but also takes a certain amount of courage, as literary talent is not necessarily inherited, but the pressure and expectations are there regardless. Stephen King's son Joe publishes as Joe Hill, which takes some of the pressure off, but his son Owen wrote a book under Owen King. Both of mystery writer Jesse Kellerman's parents (Faye and Jonathan) write in his genre, but that hasn't seemed to faze him. And then there's Mary Higgins Clark: her daughter Carol Higgins Clark is a successful mystery novelist, and so is her former daughter-in-law Mary Jane Clark, whose books are often designed to look eerily like Higgins Clark's own. (Gossip in the bookselling world says that this is not a coincidence.)
I'm not far enough into The Inheritance yet to know what the title means in the context of the plot, but I can't imagine that Tolkien and his publishers didn't realize that the title could also be read as a tongue-in-cheek reference to the author's ambiguous literary inheritance of name and reputation. And I must admit that I picked the book up at the library partially to find out if he was related to the Tolkien. Fair enough. If you're going to be held up to the standards set by your famous grandfather, you might as well use his name to get me to read your book.
'Work of Art' Finale Kinda Blew
So remember when I wrote a long defense of Work of Art? Heh, yeah, sorry about that. It turns out that the finale last night wasn't very good. (Spoiler on who won here.) The producers, in a departure from the previous episodes, seemed to want us to take the contestants very seriously as artists. As I said before, what worked for me about Work of Art had more to do with the fact that it was great television than it did with the quality of the art produced on the show. Since I took it that way, I found the finale disappointing. Also is it just me or was that painting of the taxidermied dead twin deer fetuses creepy or what?
Song Structure Has Its Uses
I was listening to The Avalanches' Since I Left You last night, and was struck by just how far all-sample music has deviated stylistically from them in 2000 to, say, The Hood Internet, Super Mash Bros., or even Girl Talk now. Obviously, current mashup artists don't have much to do with the first fully sample-based album, DJ Shadow's Endtroducing....., but then again they probably shouldn't. Endtroducing..... isn't a dance album; apart from "The Number Song" and "Organ Donor", it's all brooding atmospherics, so it should bear little relation to mashups meant for dancefloors. But Since I Left You, while ending up as so much more, is meant first and foremost as party music. Yet the way it approaches song structure is far more traditional than current mashups. Check out the title track (whose video, incidentally, is probably my favorite for any song):
Compare that to Super Mash Bros.' "Meet Me at Fantasy Island":
The Avalanches' style isn't exactly verse-chorus-verse, especially not on more four-to-the-floor stuff like "A Different Feeling", but there is definitely a structure; there's even, arguably, a bridge in "Since I Left You". Super Mash Bros., of course, just take their favorite parts from the songs being sampled and throw them together.
That works to a certain extent, and when a mashup artist is really good at selecting killer snippets, the results can be devastating. This is why Feed the Animals hit so hard when it came out -- Girl Talk knew exactly what to pull out and exactly where to place it. But there's a reason I listen to Since I Left You straight through more than I do Feed the Animals. Layering one catchy bit after another forces you to keep up, which takes the fun out of successive listens. Listening to Girl Talk, after a while, is exhausting; you get hit by one hook after another without being able to breath. The Avalanches welcome you to paradise, but they also let you relax once you get there.
Compare that to Super Mash Bros.' "Meet Me at Fantasy Island":
The Avalanches' style isn't exactly verse-chorus-verse, especially not on more four-to-the-floor stuff like "A Different Feeling", but there is definitely a structure; there's even, arguably, a bridge in "Since I Left You". Super Mash Bros., of course, just take their favorite parts from the songs being sampled and throw them together.
That works to a certain extent, and when a mashup artist is really good at selecting killer snippets, the results can be devastating. This is why Feed the Animals hit so hard when it came out -- Girl Talk knew exactly what to pull out and exactly where to place it. But there's a reason I listen to Since I Left You straight through more than I do Feed the Animals. Layering one catchy bit after another forces you to keep up, which takes the fun out of successive listens. Listening to Girl Talk, after a while, is exhausting; you get hit by one hook after another without being able to breath. The Avalanches welcome you to paradise, but they also let you relax once you get there.
NBC's Big "Event"
Banking on the success of TV shows like Lost, NBC is debuting The Event on September 20. The premise is a little fuzzy: network execs haven't revealed much about the show since debuting it at Comic-Con earlier this summer. Here's what we do know: during an investigation of his fiancee's disappearance, a man discovers what could be a massive cover-up. Not a lot to go on, but that short description leaves a lot of room to explore different plot devices.
Still, I can't help but thinking The Event looks like another big budget conspiracy series that will start strong and fizzle halfway through the season. Where shows like Lost succeeded in offering answers along with more and larger questions, shows like Flashfoward and Heroes got off on its on mysteries without satisfying the audience. The cast (including Blair Underwood and Jason Ritter) promises potential--but "Flashforward" and "Heroes" had great casts, too. And NBC doesn't have a very strong lineup this fall--so if "The Event" crashes, their season could end up looking mighty shaky.
But I'll watch--if only to find out if the first episode lives up to the hype. Sometimes a simple premise can be developed into an intricate puzzle...and sometimes, it flops. I'm hoping for the former.
Still, I can't help but thinking The Event looks like another big budget conspiracy series that will start strong and fizzle halfway through the season. Where shows like Lost succeeded in offering answers along with more and larger questions, shows like Flashfoward and Heroes got off on its on mysteries without satisfying the audience. The cast (including Blair Underwood and Jason Ritter) promises potential--but "Flashforward" and "Heroes" had great casts, too. And NBC doesn't have a very strong lineup this fall--so if "The Event" crashes, their season could end up looking mighty shaky.
But I'll watch--if only to find out if the first episode lives up to the hype. Sometimes a simple premise can be developed into an intricate puzzle...and sometimes, it flops. I'm hoping for the former.
Ready to move on from Larsson? Try Henning Mankell.
Stieg Larsson's Millenium trilogy, starting with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, in the form of the books as well as the Swedish movie versions and the not-yet-made-but-much-discussed American movie versions, has been everywhere recently. (Alyssa wrote about it here and here.) If you're done with the Larsson books, or were deterred by their length or the amount of violence, I'd recommend taking a look at Larsson's countryman Henning Mankell.
Mankell's Inspector Wallander crime novels have the same bleak but appealing Swedish flavor as Larsson's books, but Mankell is a better writer, and his books are even more compulsively readable. Wallander is an admirable but flawed hero, and a nice antidote to the too-perfect and too-desired Mikael Blomkvist. He's an exceptional police detective, but he has problems with his ex-wife and teen daughter and aging father, so he drinks and listens to opera and contemplates the fate of Swedish society. There's a lot of anxiety about society in these books, and the characters are trying to sort out how issues like immigration actually affect their daily lives. Despite this underlying tension, though, the mysteries themselves are superbly plotted and thoroughly satisfying. So brew yourself a cup of coffee and curl up with Faceless Killers, the first in the series. (The coffee is important. People drink coffee ALL THE TIME in these books. If you like coffee at all, you're going to end up craving it as you read.) An added bonus: All the snow provides a nice escape from the current heat wave.
(If you'd rather watch your mysteries - or you want to both read and watch - never fear! The BBC has made six of the novels, so far, into adaptations starring Kenneth Branagh. They play on PBS's Masterpiece: Mystery!, or you can get them from Netflix.)
Mankell's Inspector Wallander crime novels have the same bleak but appealing Swedish flavor as Larsson's books, but Mankell is a better writer, and his books are even more compulsively readable. Wallander is an admirable but flawed hero, and a nice antidote to the too-perfect and too-desired Mikael Blomkvist. He's an exceptional police detective, but he has problems with his ex-wife and teen daughter and aging father, so he drinks and listens to opera and contemplates the fate of Swedish society. There's a lot of anxiety about society in these books, and the characters are trying to sort out how issues like immigration actually affect their daily lives. Despite this underlying tension, though, the mysteries themselves are superbly plotted and thoroughly satisfying. So brew yourself a cup of coffee and curl up with Faceless Killers, the first in the series. (The coffee is important. People drink coffee ALL THE TIME in these books. If you like coffee at all, you're going to end up craving it as you read.) An added bonus: All the snow provides a nice escape from the current heat wave.
(If you'd rather watch your mysteries - or you want to both read and watch - never fear! The BBC has made six of the novels, so far, into adaptations starring Kenneth Branagh. They play on PBS's Masterpiece: Mystery!, or you can get them from Netflix.)
Mad Men Needs a Black Character
Michael Ross makes a good point on The Root today about Mad Men. Now that the fourth season of the series is well into the 1960s, writers can no longer use the excuse of historical accuracy not to include black people in its cast of characters. Ross highlights at least one prominent black man who worked in advertising:
I'd argue that the same point could be made about dealing with the women's liberation movement. Though Peggy is an admirable character as she works to be thought of as equal to her male copywriter peers and Betty Draper's frustration with housewifedom is interesting, the show's writers often touch too briefly on such issues. They'd rather have a character tote a topical book than feature a conversation between female characters about sexism in the office -- something I'm sure wasn't as much as an anomaly as the writers would make you think. They prefer to be subtle.
I'm ultimately still a Mad Men fan and will keep tuning in (even though I'm beginning to agree with Tracie Egan Morrissey that this season is getting a tad dull), but I do wish they'd introduce a substantive African American character or attempt to deal with controversial 1960s issues in a more central way.
It's true that Mad Men, as much as I love the show, often skirts the actual racial, gender, andd socioeconomic conflict of the 1960s in the interest of focusing more on the individual characters. Its dealings with racial issues -- Pete Campbell's idea of moving into the "Negro" market and Paul Kinsey's black girlfriend and brief exploration into Civil Rights issues -- often seem stunted and forced. It's almost as if the writers realized they had to work Civil Rights and changing demographics into the show somehow and thought these brief mentions and storylines would do.Jason Chambers' 2008 book, Madison Avenue and the Color Line: African Americans in the Advertising Industry, recounts [...] the career of Georg Olden, an African-American trailblazer in advertising. After the United States entered World War II, Olden, the Alabama-born son of a Baptist preacher, left college and got a job as an artist for the Office of Strategic Services, a precursor to the Central Intelligence Agency. He later went to work at CBS and left there in 1960, at the age of 40, to pursue a new career in advertising. He signed on as the television art group director with BBDO.
In 1963, much in demand, Olden accepted an offer to move to the influential agency McCann Erickson to become vice president and senior art director. That same year, he became the first African-American designer of a postage stamp, a stylized depiction of a broken chain that marked the 100th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation. Olden went on to win seven Clios (the advertising industry's equivalent of the Oscars) for his work throughout the 1960s. (Icing on the cake: Olden himself designed the actual Clio statuette, inspired by a Brancusi sculpture.)
Throughout that decade, federal and state governments did what they could to make Olden less of an advertising anomaly.
"The New York City Commission on Human Rights and the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission both focused significant attention on the advertising industry during the 1960s, and their efforts reinforced and extended those introduced by civil rights activists," Chambers writes. "The Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed racial discrimination in employment, broke down many of the visible and invisible barriers to blacks in the advertising industry. As a result, many agencies began to lure black professionals from other industries and to recruit at black colleges."
I'd argue that the same point could be made about dealing with the women's liberation movement. Though Peggy is an admirable character as she works to be thought of as equal to her male copywriter peers and Betty Draper's frustration with housewifedom is interesting, the show's writers often touch too briefly on such issues. They'd rather have a character tote a topical book than feature a conversation between female characters about sexism in the office -- something I'm sure wasn't as much as an anomaly as the writers would make you think. They prefer to be subtle.
I'm ultimately still a Mad Men fan and will keep tuning in (even though I'm beginning to agree with Tracie Egan Morrissey that this season is getting a tad dull), but I do wish they'd introduce a substantive African American character or attempt to deal with controversial 1960s issues in a more central way.
The History of the Decline and Fall of Surf Wax America
My personal theory of Weezer is that some time around 2004, some hipster who spent high school moping to Pinkerton killed Rivers Cuomo's dog, and Make Believe, the Red Album, Raditude, and now Hurley are all part of an Ahab-esque quest for vengeance. Alternately, we can embrace the Matt Sharp theory.
The correlation is pretty compelling. Weezer releases two of the best rock albums of the '90s. Then it breaks up. It gets back together without Sharp as bassist, and soon enough "We Are All on Drugs" happens. But what this ignores is that the Green Album and Maladroit, while certainly not up to par with the first two records, are still very fun. I'm not going to say that "Photograph" is as good as "Why Bother?" or something similarly ridiculous, but it, "Hash Pipe", and "Island in the Sun" are legitimately good singles. "Dope Nose" holds up well, and "Keep Fishin'", if a little saccharine, is as catchy as anything the band ever wrote:
I'm willing to accept a limited Matt Sharp theory, which posits that the band's decline from all-time great status to being merely quite good was due to his departure. But the band only became a true horror show after two albums without him, which suggests some other causal mechanism is needed to explain the full scale of its downward spiral.
The correlation is pretty compelling. Weezer releases two of the best rock albums of the '90s. Then it breaks up. It gets back together without Sharp as bassist, and soon enough "We Are All on Drugs" happens. But what this ignores is that the Green Album and Maladroit, while certainly not up to par with the first two records, are still very fun. I'm not going to say that "Photograph" is as good as "Why Bother?" or something similarly ridiculous, but it, "Hash Pipe", and "Island in the Sun" are legitimately good singles. "Dope Nose" holds up well, and "Keep Fishin'", if a little saccharine, is as catchy as anything the band ever wrote:
I'm willing to accept a limited Matt Sharp theory, which posits that the band's decline from all-time great status to being merely quite good was due to his departure. But the band only became a true horror show after two albums without him, which suggests some other causal mechanism is needed to explain the full scale of its downward spiral.
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