Words of Wisdom from C-3PO

Surfing channels can lead to the most curious finds. The other day I stumbled across a series entitled, When (blank) Ruled the World, that was reviewing the popularity of Star Wars as a cultural phenomenon. All of the original cast members (still living) and a number of fans were interviewed. The three performers most central to the original run, Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, and Harrison Ford, were understandably practiced, even jaded, after decades of discussing what was, ultimately, just a phase of their younger days. There was a definite bit of cynicism in the midst of an informed appreciation of the effects of their early work on both their later careers and on society at large. A sense of resentment and/or resignation is inevitable amidst the almost requisite awe that comes with what media hoopla has inspired. The fact that time has only heightened the mania, rather than decreasing it, is likewise impressive. What I liked best about the whole show, however, was a comment by Anthony Daniels, the British actor who has informed the etiquette droid, C-3PO, through all six films. He quipped, "Now that I'm a Pez and a Lego, I can die happy." That really does have to sum things up beautifully, encompassing the heights and depths of the effects of this juggernaut that has so completely insinuated itself into every aspect of modern society, from crass commerce to the halls of academia to techno inspiration and all the nooks and crannies in between.

Sound Fest End

Just got through listening to the first six Harry Potter audiobooks and I have to say that doing so has been a bit of a preview for reading the soon to be released seventh volume. There's a sense of loss and displacement as it all comes to an end. Now, the author has promised that there will still be much to ponder and discuss once the final volume is published. I have to assume that she hopes to join the ranks of authors acclaimed for literary merit as well as commercial viability, a group too often mutually exclusive. Whether or not her hopes are fulfilled will, in the long run, be determined by how well her intended thematic threads come together and stand up under the scrutiny of time and scholarship. Thus far she has demonstrated excellent skill with pacing, dialogue, and seeding her works with scavenger hunt-style clues. She is wrestling with weighty themes, but whether or not she works them out with sufficient ingenuity remains to be seen. She sound satisfied, however, so I am hopeful. I only wish I could go back and start listening all over again, but life has been neglected long enough and going back right now would be despairingly tedious. Ah well...

Pharm Ad

Been seeing an ostensibly anti-drug abuse ad lately that features four teens in a car cruising for free pharmaceuticals in their parents' medicine cabinets. When I first saw it, I thought the kids looked dweebie. The more I see it, however, the more it looks like they're having a really good time and like what they're doing might be a fun thing to try, besides being extremely cost effective for a budget-conscious teen. Somehow, that seems antithetical to the purported intent of the ad. Now why do you suppose pharmaceutical companies would provide funding to a nonprofit organization to run ads condemning the misuse of pharmaceuticals by teens? The ad even touts pharms as having surpassed meth in popularity for abuse in recent years. Mixed message, indeed!

A Devilish Good Time

I was determined not to watch The Devil Wears Prada. The title was a total turnoff, the subject matter anathema to me. When, however, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for domestic felicity to compromise or dwell in splendid isolation, one caves, or at least, I do . . . and now I'm glad I did.

The end is inevitable in the setup, yet the vehicle is beautifully carried by an amazing cast. There is little that Meryl Streep cannot do well, which makes her perfect for the tyrannical Miranda Priestly, high priestess living in splendid isolation amidst the chaos of frenetic subordinates that swirls around her. Anne Hathaway serves as the viewers' eyes peering into the mysterious world of high fashion and the publishing industry that provides the lenses through which the majority are given to perceive and to understand the subject, be it ever so dimly. Stanley Tucci walks a very thin line between caricature and class as a functioning male cog in this matriarchal community. Emily Blunt is impressive in her ability to continue to convey her character's emotions despite the decreasing of lines as her character's career spirals downward in response to Andy's rise.

Okay, I'm drooling. Let me wipe up my spittle a bit...

Truth to tell, Streep keeps startling laughter out of me with her deadpan deliveries in scene after scene. Sometimes it's just her reaction without even recourse to dialogue. There are times when I just want Hathaway to get out of the way so that we can get back to Streep, who steals scenes without trying, without malice, without intent. She simply is - - no direct object required.

My awareness of Tucci's restraint only came upon reflection, a tribute, I suspect, more to the director than to the actor, who has chewed more than one piece of scenery in his career. Reflections on the other performers and performances are likewise hindsight thoughts. It's not that they can't keep up with Streep so much as that she just outclasses everyone, which is exactly what her character is supposed to do. She's just so impressive when she goes full tilt at top of the line stuff. She is the personification of an irresistible force, much as some male actors specialize in being immovable objects, though to their detriment and pigeonholing.

Okay, guess I've found another rental I'm gonna want to buy eventually... what a waste of money!

I Feel a Blog Coming On

(To the tune of "Before the Parade Passes By")
contributed by LK

I feel a blog coming on
I need to write some alliterative cynicism,
I feel that blog coming on
I sure hope I find some wonderful witticisms
It's all there, down up top
Where there'll be nothing stopped by a little criticism

When the ideas grow and the laptop glows
That's when I'll go and blog it all
I'm gonna hack it through
Because that's what I wanna do
Coz I feel a blog coming on!

More Movie Viewing

A random rental crossed my vision last night: Equilibrium, a 2002 science fiction film starring Christian Bale, a lad currently popular though woefully challenged, talent-wise. More's the pity...

Equilibrium is, fundamentally, a knockoff of Ray Bradbury's classic Fahrenheit 451, a book adapted to film, then recently remade. Equilibrium simply expands the notion of books to all art in the name of eradicating feelings, though that only seems to apply to positive ones. The idea is to prevent a fourth world war from occurring by enacting it on a civil level... Fine. I get it. Too bad Sean Bean gets killed off so quickly, leaving Christian Bale, who doesn't actually need the emotion-supressing drug in real life, to carry the film.

Okay, I was gonna go long with this, but that pretty much sums it up.

In the immortal words of Thing, 'Nuff said.

Another Movie Review

The other day I had a chance to acquire Little Miss Sunshine but, not having heard or read anything about it, I declined. Then it arrived in the mail, courtesy of Netflix, on the same day that a longtime Filmfun friend happened to mention it. That night I resigned myself to sitting through what promised to be an irritating movie. I was never so glad to be so wrong.

The title promises something along the lines of those irritating JonBenet-style contests, but this road trip film is actually a wonderful skewering of that reprehensible genre and competition. The casting of Alan Arkin, Greg Kinnear, and Toni Collette would have tipped me off, had I paid initial attention. Their presence perked me up as the opening scenes unfolded.

What I found particularly interesting was Collette's (relatively) unusual turn as the emotional anchor around which three flailing males revolve, a nice change from the drowning female I have more frequently seen her portray. I spent the whole movie waiting for her character to fall apart; I was ultimately pleasantly disappointed.

Greg Kinnear is an actor I have enjoyed for a very long time. I consider him to be intelligent and talented in many ways, a rarity in these days of mere celebrity. To see him playing shallow and substance-free was, again, an interesting turn. I found his epiphany believable.

Alan Arkin I have enjoyed since I first saw him in Freebie and the Bean. He has a way of delivering outrageous lines that tickles me immensely. While some may find his character's demise both unexpected and implausible, I see it as very much in keeping with the narrative's persistent skewering of Kinnear's character's "9 Steps" nonsense. Life is, after all, unpredictable, not something absolutely controllable. Despite a person's best efforts, loss does occur, but it doesn't necessarily make a person a Loser. Along those lines, losing can be a source of subsequent humorous situations, especially if one has a proper appreciation of irony.

Steve Carell, who I have primarily seen playing an idiot, takes a beautifully subdued and understated turn as a gay Proust scholar on the comeback trail from a broken heart and a failed suicide attempt - nothing like a double failure to fuel a character's background... I particularly appreciate that his chin doesn't drag (no pun intended) through the whole film.

Paul Dano doesn't have many lines, but he holds up well enough in some pretty heady company in this cast. Sure, he gets away with pouting a bit much, but as Carell's character says, he's not as unintelligent as he looks...

Abigail Breslin didn't make much of an impression on me as she trotted down the Golden Globes Red Carpet, but then, who does? Her performance in the film is another matter. Behind those coke bottle glasses lurks a young girl able to exude confidence and vulnerability well enough for this role. One can only hope that she gets the message of the film and not the industry as she continues to mature.

Of course, one can question just what the film intends in her case, but still...

A fun, thoroughly delightful film that I found continually causing me to catch myself in startled amusement - I highly recommend it, though I wouldn't necessarily call it the absolute best of the year. Suffice it to say, this is a film worth seeing. (Look past the obvious gags.)

Whither the Weather

What a lame title! Oh well...

This morning's temperatures broke records around the Bay Area. Then the news told of a fructose spill on the 880 that resulted in a seven-mile backup and multiple hours delays in the morning commute. This follows a massive refinery fire yesterday and precedes the possibility of "black ice" tomorrow. Of course, all this is mild compared with what is going on in other parts of the country. Remember when writing about the weather was deemed one of the most boring things a person could do in a letter? In hindsight, I think that was just Southern California's way of bragging that they didn't have the same meteorological concerns and constraints that the rest of the country routinely endures. Truth of the matter is that while the densely populated portions of California do not generally experience the extremes of weather that the Midwest does, they are not totally immune to the vicissitudes of nature either. This is a harsh season, weather because of global warming or because of some freak of circumstances.

Now let's get back to that fructose spill; what's up with that? Juice caused a jam. Huh... We are more accustomed to the idea of an oil spill or some toxic waste overturning and terrorizing everyone within breathing distance of the fumes, but the truth of the matter is that something as simple and natural as fructose (found on many food labels) can create one hellishly sticky mess. An ironic note came over the news two hours after the initial spill: the truck carrying necessary equipment for cleaning up the truck and spillage was stuck in traffic. What a sticky wicket!

Weather: whether or not one is accustomed to wild swings in the weather, one cannot help but be aware of its reporting on the news these days. All those earnest meteorologists determined to prove that they are not just decorative "weather girls" bombard us with all the information some of us tried so desperately to ignore in high school. The more politically correct attempt to conceal their personal feelings as they monitor their adjectives in describing the changing patterns, but clearly there are innate biases towards certain systems. Do we fear or long for rain, sun, wind, snow? Do we seek or seek to flee from high surf? Does the Great UnderToad impress or depress us? (Garp)

I can't imagine why I ever bought into the notion that discussing the weather might be boring, except perhaps that I grew up in pre-concrete jungle Paradise. Yeah, I'm bragging.

Female Misogynism

A recent discussion about the recent remake of Stepford Wives noted that this version dilutes the motivation of male fantasy fulfillment by replacing it with a perversion of female desire for romance. The use of Glenn Close as the mastermind of this twisted plot is particularly effective in light of her previous turn in the groundbreakingly chilling Fatal Attraction. Personally, I consider this to be a particularly disturbing example of female misogyny. Clearly the Close character is sufficiently contemptuous of her own sex to qualify as such. Why else would she glorify a useless if decorative male who has abandoned her and whose robotic substitute is primarily useful as facade, lure, and decoy? Is this really an improvement in the narrative or just another way of highlighting a truly cynical perspective on females in and out of the workplace?

Insecurities

Working with clothes is not my thing
Advising on accessorizing and bling
Give me a gizmo or a book or a sport
Give me fun things of some other sort
But don't ask my advice about decorations
Unless you've a sense of humor or a lot of patience
Gotta go gotta zip gotta head on out the door
Just as well since today I feel like a serious boor