Five Slices of Happiness

Parting shots (or, is it, thoughts) for 2011...

Deadman: The spirit of murdered circus aerialist Boston Brand, also known as Deadman, has been knocking around the DC Universe for over 40 years. Though he's long since found his killer, Brand is still called upon to place a finger on the scales of justice by the mysterious cosmic entity Rama Kushna. Though he's typically been presented as more of a supporting character, the past year has been something of a renaissance for him. I didn't really enjoy the series Brightest Day, in which he played a major role, but his storyline in the new anthology series DC Universe Presents (part of the "new 52") is very compelling. Also, DC has started reprinting the characters early stories in trade paperback this year, and a second volume is coming out early in 2012.

Hugo: I've heard some people say that Martin Scorsese made a lot more of the film history elements of the story than were originally in the book The Invention of Hugo Cabret. Not having read the book yet, I can't say, but even if that's the case it seems like it's as it should be. Emphasizing certain aspects over others is often an essential part of making a good adaptation (as opposed to transcription) of a story from one medium to another, and it's hard to argue with the results. Under Scorsese's direction, Hugo works not just as an adventure story and window into another world but also a beautiful love letter to the director's preeminent passion.



The Ladykiller (by Cee Lo Green): I was a few months late to this party, as the album came out in 2010. Maybe I didn't think there was more to it than "F--- You", but whatever my reason was I was wrong. This was the best soul record I've heard in a long while. Putting this on shuffle with my Philly Soul collection and Al Green's album Let's Stay Together us a recipe for musical happiness.

Operation Mincemeat (by Ben Macintyre): The story behind Britain's unusual World War Two plot (aka "the man who never was") to deliver faked secret documents into the hands of German leaders prior to the allied invasion of Sicily using a corpse as the courier has as many plot twists and colorful characters as a Dickens novel. The fact that it all really happened is further proof of the old saying about truth being stranger than fiction.


Thor: This was a good year for comic-book heroes jumping into the movies, even if some of the results were mixed. Green Lantern has always been a favorite of mine, but the film version was a bit lacking in some areas. Thor, on the other hand, was satisfying not just as an adaptation of the comics but also as a story in its own right. Kenneth Branagh got strong performances out of the whole cast and managed to hit the right balance between quiet character-focused moments and rousing spectacle. By the bittersweet ending, I was ready for the next chapter. It's a shame Branagh won't be directing Thor's next solo story, but I have faith that next year's film version of The Avengers won't disappoint thanks to Joss Whedon.

In Praise of Sir Bob

Earlier today, I saw a "news" story which purported to be about a group of African musicians who decided to record a response to the charity song "Do They Know It's Christmas?" by Band-Aid. The African musicians apparently said they hoped that their somewhat belated response to the 1984 single, entitled "Yes We Do", would free up Band-Aid's leading figure Bob Geldof to concentrate on a variety of more current concerns such as the following...

“Like Do they know about climate change in America? Or did Kim Jong-il have time to write down the abort codes for the nukes before he died? Or perhaps he can revert to the time-honoured classic – ‘Tell me why I don’t like Mondays.”

While the item was most likely a joke, it ties into an ongoing - and rather under-informed - strain of discussion about the song and the relief efforts related to it. While I personally like "Do They Know It's Christmas?" and see it as a continuing reminder of how fortunate we are in America and Europe, I appreciate why some people don't like it. What I don't like, however, are cheap shots which try to portray Geldof as some kind of clueless dilettante who did the song to soothe his conscience and walked away. To put it mildly, that view betrays a remarkable ignorance of the facts.

More than 25 years after the Live-Aid concert, the Band-Aid Trust continues to do significant relief work in Africa. More to the point, Geldof always recognized that the money generated by the song was no more than a "band-aid" on a larger problem and thus has taken the time to understand the impact of broader issues like debt-relief on the prospects for long-term prosperity and self-sufficiency among African nations. In recent years, Geldof has been among the most vocal non-politicians lobbying world governments to address these problems.

Some might observe here that people are entitled to their own opinions but not their own facts. Others may prefer to comment on the relative merits of walking the walk as opposed to merely talking the talk. Either way, most individuals have a ways to go before they can say they've done as much as Geldof has to help people in Africa.

When Moore Is Less

A few weeks ago, Michael Moore made a speaking appearance at the Michigan Theater in Ann Arbor across the street from what used to be Borders' flagship store, aka Store #001 for old Borders folk. As anyone who's seen Moore's film The Big One knows, Moore has a complicated history with Borders and that certainly came through in his remarks.

I wish I could say I was surprised that Moore trotted out the same old nonsense about how Borders sought to "eliminate the independent bookstore." That canard was tired back in the mid-90s when I worked for Borders and hasn't improved with age. At its peak, Borders sought to be the best bookstore in America in terms of selection and service. If that service involved calling the local bookstore down the street to see if they had what a customer wanted, that was part of the deal.

Like many people, Moore confuses coincidence and correlation. In Moore's view, the fact that independent book and music stores went out of business in markets where Borders opened automatically means that Borders somehow willed their demise.

This reductive view ignores that in many places those stores thrived and sometimes even expanded - at least until the rise of Amazon (but that's another store). More significantly, it fails to recognize that the stores that succeeded did so because they evolved to meet their customers' needs, while those that didn't do so are the ones that failed. This should be totally obvious, even to someone with an agenda like Moore, because it's ultimately the same principle that defined Borders' collapse.

I've enjoyed some of Moore's films and agree with him on many things. As a filmmaker and social commentator, though, he's a one-trick pony, foregoing any attempt at a nuanced debate in favor of bludgeoning. Unfortunately, that particular trick isn't getting any better with age.

Godwin's Law Revisited

Let it never be said that the views of the Republican party don't evolve. Judging by recent comments from Florida Congressman Allen West, the GOP has realized that it's wrong to compare their political opponents to Adolf Hitler. Certainly, the fact that West still compared democrats to Nazis (and not just any Nazi, Joseph Goebbels no less) shows that "the party of Lincoln" still has a way to go, but we should applaud their effort and use this as a teaching moment. Remember, regardless of your political affiliation, the only people you should compare to Adolf Hitler are Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin. It's the same principle that dictates that the only artists who've proved remotely worthy of being labeled the "new Dylan" are Elvis Costello and Bruce Springsteen. Comparison can be a useful tool for making sense of the world around us, but in the wrong hands things can get ugly.

So It Goes

It always amuses me when a book or other media event that's supposed to be revelatory turns out to be completely unsurprising. This is the case with the new biography of Kurt Vonnegut So It Goes. I'm simply puzzled by the way numerous reviewers seem to be treating writer Charles J. Shields' account of some darker corners of Vonnegut's life as if it will somehow redefine the world's opinion of the man and his work.

This is just ridiculous, because no one who's actually read one of Vonnegut's novels should be shocked by the idea that the author wasn't a particularly nice person. That he passionately expressed deeply humanistic values in his work is beside the point. He may have hoped for the best, but this was a man who had directly experienced some of the worst history had to offer. Taken in context, the only shocking thing is that he had enough faith in humanity, however compromised it was, to even care about such things.

In any case, whether the stories in this new book are true or not (at least some of them are in dispute), it doesn't change one word of the books that made the author famous. With that in mind, my general reaction to the discussion surrounding this book is that it calls to mind one of Vonnegut's most famous quotes. In the introduction to Mother Night, while discussing the moral of the story, Vonnegut writes, "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be." So it goes.

A Very Special Christmas

In general, I enjoy the Christmas specials that work their way into TV schedules between Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve. Even though some of them display attitudes that are a bit outdated, for the most part their charm shines through. There is, however, one very odious exception - Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer.

Some would have you believe that Rudolph is a story of outsiders triumphing over adversity. They would be missing the point. The heroes of Rudolph, both the titular character and his orthodontia-obsessed friend, don't triumph so much as they find themselves grudgingly accepted once the majority realizes that they can benefit from them in some way.

Most of the characters in the program are disparaging of Rudolph and his nose, but the majority of my contempt is reserved for Santa. Rather than being accepting of Rudolph's difference, Saint Nick is so focused on notions of conformity and racial purity that he more or less encourages others to make fun of Rudolph driving him away into the harsh wilderness. Despite all that the young reindeer goes through, Santa only accepts him into his inner circle when he realizes that Rudolph's mutation can be exploited to his advantage. For this reason, not to mention a generally weak repertoire of songs, Rudolph is the one Christmas special for which I make no effort to hide my disgust for the way it emphasizes all the wrong values.

Star Wars: The Hidden History (Episode +/-BBY)

Let me preface this by saying that it's hard to refute the idea that anyone who writes and directs something like the Star Wars movie Attack of the Clones deserves all the flak they get. That said, there is something off-putting about the way over-zealous Star Wars fans, stinging from a perceived betrayal on the part of George Lucas, seem intent on denying him any credit for the parts of the film series that are almost universally enjoyed.A recent piece from Cracked.com about pop culture visionaries who get too much credit is just one fairly public example. This is especially pronounced when it comes to The Empire Strikes Back, where everyone tries to present the film as being good in spite of Lucas rather than because of anything he did. What makes this so comical (and asinine, really) is that the two elements that people most often cite are absolutely down to Lucas.

The first thing people point to is the screenplay, without a doubt the best script of of all the films, where all credit is given to Lawrence Kasdan. Kasdan wrote some of the best screenplays of the 1980s, but he wasn't the only person with a hand in that script. The first draft was written by Hollywood veteran Leigh Brackett, and though it's unclear just how much of her work is reflected in the final version, she shares credit with Kasdan. And though Lucas does not receive screenplay credit, it's documented that he was involved in writing at least some of the drafts and, as the story credit indicates, the credited script-writers were working from his framework.

The other one is the directing. The late Irvin Kershner was one of Lucas' professors at film school and had a good reputation for working with actors. That point is key to why Lucas hired him for what he clearly intended to be a more character-driven chapter in the saga. When people talk about the performances in Empire being much better than they would have been had Lucas been directing, they're somewhat missing the point. The performances were better because Lucas hired the right man for the job and let them do that job.

There's no question that the prequel trilogy was a disappointment or that much of that disappointment derives from Lucas decision to write and direct those movies himself rather than work with collaborators of the quality he had on the earlier trilogy. What doesn't hold up to scrutiny, though, is the idea that the failings of the more recent productions somehow invalidate the quality of Lucas contributions to the earlier ones. There's lots worth criticizing, but there's no need to make things up because you feel that Lucas' later work somehow tainted your childhood.

Raising Cain

I agree with Herman Cain. Talking about a politician's sex life is a distraction from discussions of the serious issues Americans are facing. How that pertains to Cain, however, is a mixed bag. Even measured against the low standards of discourse among the GOP presidential field, it was unclear that he had much to contribute to that discussion, with or without distractions, on either international or domestic issues. The other key point, to which Cain himself seems oblivious, is that he could have avoided these distractions if he'd been a bit more careful about what he was doing with certain parts of his anatomy (or asked to have done as the case may be). In short, he has no one to blame but himself.

Authority Always Wins

It doesn't matter how good your spam filtering is, there's always going to be some bit of nonsense that slips through to your inbox. A case in point can be found below, reprinted exactly as written.

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As I perused the FM radio dial this morning, my ears were assaulted by an attack on the social order masquerading as popular song. This puerile screed perpetrated by an unkempt ruffian who I believe to be called John Lion or some such nonsense bemoaned the fact that his efforts to fight authority ended in failure. I vaguely recall the song from decades ago, though, neither the song nor its misguided message have aged particularly well. Though this "song" is as unworthy of serious analysis as it is to be played on publicly owned airwaves, I will pose one simple question. Has the singer, who I gather also has the dubious distinction of having written this trash, ever considered that the reason "authority always wins" is because he's clearly some sort of filthy hippie draining America's life-blood with each feeble attempt at social commentary? I rather doubt that his sort is capable of that sort of insight, which is clearly the purview of the unjustly maligned 1%. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some insider trading to arrange.

Bat$hit Crazy

Michele Bachmann may have slipped from the top tier of Republican Presidential candidates, but there's no doubt she serves a valuable purpose. More so than any lower tier candidate, she makes the people polling ahead of her seem coherent and sane (dare I say it, presidential) in comparison. Her issues with factual accuracy are pretty well documented, and more recently she's raised her game with her latest comments about gay marriage while campaigning in Iowa.

Upon first reading that Bachmann told the president of an Iowa high-school's Gay-Straight Alliance organization that gay people can get married, I assumed that her train of thought had simply derailed again. Reading the report of the event by the Des Moines Register, however, makes it clear that she's moved beyond simple errors of fact into a reality of her own.

After declaring that all Americans have the same civil rights and that the government's role is to protect those rights, she then addressed a question about gay people getting married. "They can marry a man if they're a woman," she explained succinctly. "Or they can marry a woman if they're a man."

Perhaps Bachmann truly sees no contradiction in the idea that a group of people who supposedly have the same rights and privileges as all Americans have to submerge their identities to enjoy those rights. Alternatively, she wouldn't be the first politician to say something simply because they think it will help them get elected. Either way, it's a vision of America that leaves a lot to be desired.