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300 Spartans VS The Modern Media-cracy

300, based on the graphic novel by Frank Miller, which was inspired by Gates of Fire by Stephen Pressfield, tells the tale of Leonidas, King of Sparta, who led 300 Spartan soldiers against the theretofore undefeated Persian army. At great cost the Persians won the battle, but ultimately lost the war, creating a turning point in world history. The movie has received mixed reviews both from people who wish to dismiss it as a video game brought to life and those who would like to wrest from it a modern political allegory.

Blah, blah, history, politics, blah! This movie kicks ass! It is entertainment of the highest order. By the time the first battle scene started, I was grinning ear to ear. I have not been as genuinely and joyfully entertained by an action flick since they shot up the marble lobby in The Matrix. When the movie ended, it is only because I am a grown mature adult that I did not bounce up and down in my chair and cry Again! Again!

“So how do you explain all the crappy reviews?” my brother asked me, based on my breathless adulation of the film. “I really have no idea,” was the best I could come up with.

The number of sources who are trying hard to drag modern politics into the film of a 2500 years past battle is growing. When it was screened at the Berlin Film Festival, Germans booed the film and walked out. The New York Times and Newsweek have both come out decrying the racist and politically insensitive subject matter. Now the President of Iran has joined in, declaring the film an American act of war on Iranian Culture.

Since 18 of the top 25 grossing films in Germany last year were from the Beast known as Hollywood, it’s hard to take German disdain seriously. Maybe they were late for a Leni Riefenstahl retrospective. As for the President of Iran, taking him seriously presumes that he is actually speaking to us. He’s not talking to us. He’s talking to the same group of people they got to riot over drawings of Mohammed in a Norwegian newspaper six months after they were originally published. They never saw those drawings. They’re never going to see 300. I doubt Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has seen it.

To the U.S. media-cracy, I can only offer this one thought: How arrogant are you? Seriously, how arrogant and self centered do you have to be to see American history reflected in every story? There’s a whole lot of human history, most of which has taken place totally without influence of the United States. In fact, it’s only been about sixty or seventy years that the rest of the world felt it was necessary to even invite us to the table.

Cinematographically speaking, the film is an artful combination of live action and computer animation, using the same techniques as critically lauded Sin City. Color is layered upon black and white images, creating something vibrant and unearthly, like something transmitted from Hades itself.

Adding to this effect is the main character, King Leonidas, played by Gerard Butler. Leonidas looks like a relief of the ideal Greek man rendered on an ancient Grecian urn, but then his handsome face will transformed into a mask of glaring eyes and gnashing teeth. The effect is unsettling and great for reminding us that Spartan culture was hardly a utopian one. Boys were taken from home at the age of 7 and beaten into soldiers. As we all learned in the story of Oedipus, weak infants were left on a mountainside to die. Spartans may be the heroes of this film, but that does not make them excellent role models, and the film does not whitewash this fact.

Butler is definitely an actor to watch. By that I mean he is definitely an actor I like to watch. I’d like to watch him chew gum, or tie his shoes. I first became aware of him in a sweet movie called Dear Frankie, which could not be more different than 300. He is, unfortunately, best known for playing the Phantom in Phantom of the Opera, a movie I tried, unsuccessfully, to watch just because it had him in it. My opinion of Phantom was really expressed best by SNL: “Phantom of the Opera is the best musical ever about a burn victim who rapes an opera singer.”  

Leonidas leads an army of 300 soldiers who are, among other things, r-r-r-r-r-r-ripped like Jesus. That’s 600 pecs and at least 1800 ab muscles for those of you who are counting, of whom I am not one, of course. That would be objectification, and wrong. The soldiers wear leather BVDs, red capes and gladiator sandals; an outfit that is totally practical for fighting and not even remotely gay.

The film has taken flack for being homophobic, in part because the Persian God King Xerxes is portrayed as being aggressively androgynous. While hardly historically accurate, the decision to portray him that way is a legitimate artistic choice. Ancient gods often had androgynous or hermaphroditic qualities, and the character definitely amps up the fantastical quality of the story.

Along with some really amazing action scenes, there is a secondary plot dealing with the politics going on back in Sparta. Leonidas and his wife, the unfortunately (yet historically accurate) named Queen Gorgo have a surprisingly complex relationship for a battle movie. I actually found myself wondering if they were overdoing the Grrrrrl Power bit while watching the movie, but then I looked it up when I got home. Apparently women in Sparta were unusually powerful compared to their contemporaries elsewhere. When the men are away at war all the time, someone has to keep things running.

Oh dear, there I go again with the history. For a wild action movie, they did include a remarkable amount of historically accurate detail, but it would be silly to call this history. In fact, one element of the story is the idea of storytellers sitting around a campfire, spinning a yarn that is intended to inform, inspire, and entertain, with emphasis on the latter two.  The story of King Leonidas and his band of Spartan soldiers has been told and retold untold thousands of times since the battle occurred, because it’s a great story. It makes me sad to imagine we've become unable to just appreciate a good yarn.  300 certainly creates a fantastic vision which does the tale justice.  I encourage you to leave your politics in the car, buy an extra large bag of popcorn and enjoy it.      

The Higher Power of Scrotums-Book Drives Librarians Nuts!!

As a music and film librarian, kids books are not my area of expertise. Lately, however, controversy has gripped the Library World over a kids book, and like the wreck of a clown car, it’s been impossible to look away. This particular controversy is about the use of a word. A word which, in the opinion of some, utterly negates any value of the story. Although the book, The Higher Power of Lucky, impressed the Newbery Award Committee enough to honor it, this word is making it impossible for some librarians to read the book aloud, to recommend it to children, even to carry it in their collections.

The word is “scrotum”.

The first I heard of this was a column in Publisher’s Weekly discussing the fact that certain library listservs were aflame with this nightmare. I had to re-read the article several times to confirm that the controversy is, in fact, about the actual word “scrotum”, and not the use of some other euphemism for the word scrotum more often found on made-for-cable series about cowboys or gangsters. Alas, the controversy really is about the word “scrotum”.

“Because of that one word,” said a school librarian, “I would not be able to read that book aloud.” Some complained that the use of the word was totally unnecessary. Some implied that there were many other choices the author could have used instead.

I like contemplating this plethora of words the author could have used instead of scrotum, which is the anatomically accurate name for a specific body part. None come to mind that are not on that aforementioned list of premium cable euphemisms guaranteed to get your average ten year old mouth washed out with soap.

Armchair editing like this drives me bonkers. “The author ought to have used this word instead of that word.” “The author used a word that was “unnecessary””, as if the selection of words, specific words in a specific order, is not the very definition of what it means to be an author. It’s like saying it was unnecessary for Picasso to use so much blue paint. It’s ridiculous to argue that an author used a word, any word, “unnecessarily”. They used the words that they used.

Under normal circumstances, it might have been years, possibly never, before I got around to reading this year’s Newbery Award winner, but fortunately controversy made reading it a vital necessity. One does not have to go far into The Higher Power of Lucky to find the word. It’s right there, on page one. Our heroine overhears a dramatic story about a man whose dog was bit on the scrotum by a rattlesnake.

If I’d thought the controversy was silly before, reading the context elevated it to positively asinine. We’re not even talking about a human scrotum, but a canine one, similar to any one of the millions presently on display in living rooms, yards and parks across the country. I had assumed based on the level of hysteria that the scrotum was perhaps doing something vaguely offensive or scatological, instead of valiantly withstanding the attack of a rattler. Considering the average dog’s propensity for doing embarrassing things to their privates, usually in public, this particular scrotum is positively heroic.

If the “controversy” had stopped with the Publisher’s Weekly bit, it would have been easily shrugged off. Unfortunately, what with all the concern over troop surges and military hospital failures and where oh God where on Your Green Earth shall Anna Nicole be buried, it was apparently a slow news week, and the scrotum controversy went national. The New York Times and Newsweek both picked up the story, leading to an explosion in scrotal related newspaper stories.

Many of the articles, like the original PW one, failed to mention the fact that the scrotum in question belonged to a dog. The New York Times article did have one woman insisting that this was yet another example of the “Howard Stern” effect on our country, where people just use nasty words for no reason but to upset good decent people. Comments like this always reveal more about the commenter than the commentated (like maybe they haven't read the book) , but what bothered me more was the thought that the people who actually wrote the articles had not read the book. How else to explain the inclusion of quotes like “you won't find men's genitalia in quality literature” without any kind of fact based alternative perspective? Either the reporters hadn’t read the book (which isn’t that long people) or else the reporters were more interested in la scandale than the truth, and we know that never happens.

For most librarians I know, this sort of thing is just embarrassing, like having a family argument broadcast on America’s Funniest Home Videos. Most librarians are not horrified by the word scrotum. Most librarians have had to clean much worse graffiti off of walls, books and furniture. Most librarians have larger concerns, like the threat of local, state and federal legislators conspiring to keep us from offering any kind of useful computer services to our patrons, but that’s a rant for another day.

In the midst of this controversy, a children’s book catalog was accidentally delivered to my inbox. The back cover promoted several cheerful looking kids books, including one which instantly grabbed my attention. I hurried over to the librarian in charge of buying children’s materials and begged her to add it to the collection. It's called Let’s Look at Animal Bottoms, and features a full color display of several elephant behinds on the cover.

Times like these I realize it’s probably for the best that I never became a Children’s Librarian. I feel I’m lacking some inherent diplomacy necessary to navigate the rocky shoals of children’s lit. My impulse to a scandal like the one over The Higher Power of Lucky is to organize an All Animal Bottoms story time, featuring classic stories like The Truth About Poop and Walter the Farting Dog. No doubt the Library would have some cranky parents on their hands, but I tell you what, if it were up to the kids, it would be a smash hit.

Academy Awards LXXIV: The Wrap Up

The 79th Academy Awards was a pleasant evening of safe comedy, tasteful gowns and almost no surprises. There were no shocking upsets; no shameful Academy shut outs; no war protesters streaking in the background. No winners used their 47 seconds to petition for the release of Leonard Peltier, or for anything more scandalous than an end to global warming. No starlet forgot her slip or committed unfortunate hair.

That said, even the world’s most boring Super Bowl gets an hour post game show, so welcome to the Academy Awards LXXIV Post Game Wrap Up.

First, a note to red carpet coverage producers: The only thing we are interested in on the red carpet is seeing the gowns. That is all. These are the only acceptable red carpet questions: “How are you feeling tonight?” “Who are you wearing?” Here are questions that are not acceptable: “Have you ever met Brad Pitt?” “What’s Brad Pitt like?” "If you ever meet Brad Pitt, can you give him this script for me?" “Since there’s no chance that you’re going to win, why have you bothered coming this evening?”…or its corollary “Everyone thinks you’re going to win. What do you plan to say when you do?” And the most annoying unacceptable question, (Ryan Seacrest, I’m talking to you) “When are you two getting married?”

E! distinguished itself early with some spectacularly bad red carpet coverage. While Ryan Seacrest babbled about his small red carpet work space and the hostess chicks with the interchangeable heads congratulated each other their outfits, actual movie actors drifted by unnoticed in the background. When they actually managed to get a star in a gown to stop to talk to them, the cameras would suddenly cut away to show George Takei wandering the red carpet aimlessly in a kimono.

ABC offered E! some stiff challenge in the stupid department, particularly when the two hosts on the red carpet could not get anyone to stop to speak to them. It was really pathetic watching these two self important poseurs in tuxes yelling “Mr O’Toole!” “Nicole!” “Mr. Takei!” to an unflagging train of stardom passing by. Occasionally they would cut away to their fashion “experts”, a plastic man and woman being catty in a sky box, and a strange looking automaton of a man, theoretically from Vogue, who would lunge at people with his microphone and robot questions to them in a loud monotone.

A nadir was reached when the “style expert” in the sky box sniffed that Jodi Foster simply was not looking sexy enough to pull off the gown she was wearing. (Jodi looked conservatively stylish as usual). It sounded shallow and catty when he said it, but the true depth of his callowness was revealed later in the evening when Foster appeared to present the “In Memoriam” segment, in part to pay tribute to her best friend who had died two weeks earlier. Yeah, sorry the classy actress in mourning failed to bring her sexy back, you twit.

Next year ABC would do well to make whatever trade is necessary to get Tim Gun to do their red carpet coverage. Lost…Ugly Betty…whatever sacrifices it takes to get Uncle Tim on the red carpet.

Most of my Oscar disappointments occurred when the nominees were announced. You can see my take on who oughta been there instead here, but it meant that for the most part, there were no glorious high or crushing low moments to be had during the ceremony itself.

The only one that really surprised me was the Best Foreign Language Award to The Lives of Others over Pan’s Labyrinth. With all the hoopla over the Mexican cinema renaissance and the new “Three Amigos”, Guillermo Del Toro, Alejandro Inarritu and Alfonso Cuaron, I was shocked and disappointed that none of them walked away with a major prize. Any mystery over The Lives of Others’ victory was instantly banished during the director’s acceptance speech, however. In accent-less English Von Donnersmarck cheerfully thanked Arnold Schwarzenegger for all his wonderful advice.

Wow, so no politics involved in the Academy’s decision there. Let’s see, should we vote for the cheeky Mexican or Arnie’s buddy? Arnie’s buddy or the cheeky Mexican? Gosh and golly. Let me ponder that over a few rounds of golf at the club.

The ceremony itself opened with a nice moment when Ellen DeGeneres asked all the nominees to stand.  Will Smith gave Kate Winslet a big hug. Helen Mirren crossed the aisle to shake Martin Scorscese’s hand. Mark Wahlberg stood there applauding himself with a smug look on his face. Hell, why shouldn’t he be smug? He clearly used some incriminating evidence against the entire Hollywood acting community to get himself nominated. Then he managed to score the Academy’s cat bird seat, right behind Martin Scorcese, so he managed to get himself in approximately 74% of the evening’s audience shots.

(I’ve always thought Wahlberg was a great artist. Here’s some of my favorite early work.  Why yes, Mark, I do feel it baby.  Thanks for asking!)

From the pleasant opening introduction, it was all downhill from there. There was a sort of but not really funny song from Will Farrell and Jack Black. There were some ill conceived tumblers making movie logo shapes which went from sort of clever to really tedious as the evening wore on. (At least it wasn’t interpretive dance from Cirque du Soleil). There were some film clip montages which, again, went from clever to tedious as the program marched towards hour four.

Sherry Lansing won the Academy’s Humanitarian prize. Apparently at least one of the scientific causes she supports involves cryogenic freezing of the face. I can’t remember any of her speech as I was too distracted comparing the difference between her Jessica Tandy arms and her forehead tight enough to bounce a quarter. It was a little scary when Ennio Morricone began his lengthy Lifetime Achievement Award acceptance speech in Italian, until it became clear that he was using his five minutes to give a grand and gracious Fuck You to the Academy for ignoring his work for forty years.

Ellen’s hosting was as safe and bland as an American cheese sandwich on white bread with the crust removed. Her edgiest joke was “If it weren’t for blacks, Jews and gays there would be no Hollywood,” and even that was delivered with enough solemnity one questioned if it were, in fact, intended to be funny. WOW! Way to speak truth to power Ellen! Can you imagine Johnny Carson being given four hours of podium duty without dropping a single solitary President joke, or an Iran joke, or a global warming joke? When the real Al Gore is funnier than the jokes, you’re doing something wrong.

Of course, we all wanted to see Marty win. Any doubt over that outcome was erased when Francis Ford Copolla, Steven Spielberg and George Lucas came out to present the Best Director award. Jack Nicholson looking on from the sidelines completed this intimidating Gang of Four, making it clear that, should a name other than Scorcese’s appear in the envelope, it might be best for that person to head for the exit rather than the stage. There was naught to worry. Marty got his prize, gave a fabulous speech (including the great direction to his seven year old “Stay up for ten more minutes, then jump on the bed and make a lot of noise,” a fabulous response to everyone who has ever used their Oscar Moment to tell their kids to go to bed.) and drifted off the stage in a haze of joy and glory.

It would be nice to say that final moment made it all worth while, but who are we kidding?

In summation, Hollywood, Academy, Oscar telecast producers, please note the following: Pre-show producers: Tim Gun needs to host the Red Carpet.

Starlets: there’s too much pretty and safe going on out there. Next year I want to see forgotten slips, unfortunate necklines and at least one profoundly bad hairstyle. Isn’t it about time someone re-discovered the Princess Leia side buns?

Academy: sometimes you give the impression of being bunch of old farts that occasionally do the right thing by accident. I just thought you should know, in case your friends won’t tell you.

Wahlberg: somewhere I think I just heard a timer pass 12 minutes.

Ellen: love your daytime show. Hope you keep that up.

Producers: seriously, no more tumblers, acrobats, shadow puppets, choirs or anything that is not directly involved in propelling the evening forward. A lack of Celine Dion would not harm anything either.  Also, consider a host who is not afraid of making people laugh. Perhaps if you book now, Stephen Colbert might be available.

Certain as Death and Taxes

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, it's getting harder for me to feign interest in the Academy Awards every year. The Oscars feel increasingly irrelevant to me. Every awards show and its cousin are being televised and new ones are invented every year. Sundance has played out and buzz about the movies we will theoretically be lauding this time next year has already started.

Particularly aggravating is the studio practice of releasing Oscar fodder in two theaters on December 31 so that they will qualify. When half the films on reviewers' "best of" lists and on the Academy nominee roster are titles the Average American has had no opportunity to see, the Average American can be forgiven for losing interest in the outcome.

I used to get righteously indignant when films I loved were neglected by the Academy, but vote Democrat long enough and you learn to separate the concepts of "winning" and "quality". Besides, this is the organization that awarded Kramer vs Kramer over Apocalypse Now; and, starting a 20-year-old tradition which may finally play itself out this year, Ordinary People over Raging Bull. It's enough to make you nervous when something you do like wins.

Now that I've gotten that all off my chest, I confess I am not immune from the urge to handicap the race. An Academy Award win accurately reflects greatness about as accurately as a Presidential win reflects competence. However, there is something interesting about what the nominees and eventual winners say about culture and the politics of artistry. Kramer vs Kramer is so vastly inferior a film to Apocalypse Now it might as well be a different art form. But a look at that win tells you an awful lot about where America's head was at in 1979; a year in which, interestingly enough, my own parents divorced, and people were still crossing the street to avoid talking to Vietnam vets.

The Academy has covered all its bases in the nominees for Best Actor this year. You have the powerful role in a small indie film nominee — Ryan Gosling in Half Nelson. You have the amazing actor channeling a significant historical figure nominee — Forest Whitaker in The Last King of Scotland. You have the popular actor in the triumphing over extreme adversity whilst tugging upon the heartstrings like a jazz bass nominee — Will Smith in The Pursuit of Happyness. You have the Leonardo DiCaprio in a Leonardo DiCaprio role nominee — Leonardo Dicaprio in The Departed, or wait, no, it's for Blood Diamond. In that case, it's the Leonardo DiCaprio in a funny accent role, otherwise known as the Meryl Streep nomination. Finally, you have the nomination for the old guy who's probably going to die soon so they better hurry up and do something so history doesn't remember them as the people who never gave a real award to legend (otherwise known as the Henry Fonda Award) — Peter O'Toole in Venus.

Who Should Win: Either Ryan Gosling or Forest Whitaker would not be embarrassing choices. Whitaker has the edge for finding something human in one of history's most fearsome Evil Doers, a feat which makes his character that much more terrifying. Actually giving the award to Peter O'Toole, as opposed to just nominating him for it, would only emphasize how ludicrous it is that he's never received anything but an honorary Oscar. Not only is Blood Diamond not Leonardo DiCaprio's best role, it's not even his best role this year. And why did he get nominated instead of Djimon Hounsou? As for Will Smith, I don't even know what to say. If the story had been about a single mom instead of a single dad, it would have been right at home on Lifetime. On the other hand, it's the kind of story that Hollywood loves, the pull 'em up by your bootstraps triumph over adversity as God is my witness I will never go hungry again tale.

Who Else Should Have Been Nominated: Clive Owen in Children of Men, a film and a performance that were criminally overlooked in my opinion. Will Ferrell in Stranger than Fiction. Matt Damon in either The Good Shepherd or The Departed. Christian Bale in The Prestige. Edward Norton in The Illusionist.

Who Will Win: I can't guess. For all its pretense, Hollywood is an oddly conservative place. I could see Whitaker and Smith somehow splitting the affirmative action voting bloc. This would be a grave disservice to Whitaker, but it might create an opening for either a Gosling dark horse win or an O'Toole AARP win. Most people aren't even sure what DiCaprio has been nominated for. This isn't his first time to the dance and it's clearly not going to be his last. I think his chances are pretty low.

It's an interesting group of women in the Best Actress category this year, not quite as simple to categorize as the male nominees. Except for Penelope Cruz, every one of them has been nominated for Academy Awards previously. Cruz has struggled to find her niche in American films, and most of her performances in them have been underwhelming. I always had a sense of some greater talent struggling to burst forth from her, which is why it's gratifying to see her nominated for Volver. That the film is in her native language and was directed by Pedro Almodóvar is clearly not a coincidence.

Who Should Win: Meryl Streep's nomination for The Devil Wears Prada is pretty much a lark, much as the role itself was. Otherwise, any of the nominees would be acceptable. It would be nice if Cruz won if only to encourage her to do more roles like Volver, but I don't think that win is likely. I'm not sure enough people saw Little Children to give Winslet much of a shot. Judi Dench has been nominated for playing a bitch on wheels, which is awesome for her, but a bit of a stretch for the Academy who like their Judi Dench to be charming and non-threatening.

Who Else Should Have Been Nominated: I have to tell you, I can't think of any really great female roles this year that got passed over. There were other fine performances, like Natalie Portman's in V for Vendetta or Gretchen Mol's in The Notorious Bettie Page, but was anyone unjustly overlooked? Meh. Not really.

Who Will Win: I'm trying very hard not to fall into knee jerk Helen Mirren resentment caused by Oscar buzz overload, especially since I loved The Queen and I loved Helen Mirren in it. She's won almost every single award possible this year, including an Emmy which she got for playing the other Queen Liz. The prize is hers for the taking, and there's nothing wrong with that.

Now here's the Djimon Hounsou nomination, in the Best Supporting Actor category. I shouldn't get started on the political vicissitudes which nominate a main character for Supporting Actor and a supporting character for Best Actor. I'll just say straight up that I would NEVER imply that it was because of either the race or the box office clout of the respective nominees. The most puzzling nomination in this category is Mark Wahlberg for The Departed. It's not that Wahlberg wasn't fine in The Departed, but was he better than Alec Baldwin or Martin Sheen in The Departed? Was he better than Jack Nicholson? It's a puzzlement. Clearly Wahlberg's publicist needs a raise.

Who Should Win: I admit, I'm rooting for Eddie Murphy. His nomination is such a welcome surprise for those of us who have watched the comic genius who gave us Raw descend into wretched family friendly fart humor. He takes a stock "cautionary tale" role and infuses it with heart, soul, and pathos.

Who Else Should Have Been Nominated: I'd say many performances were more memorable than Wahlberg in The Departed. Michael Caine for either Children of Men or The Prestige, but particularly for Children of Men. Paul Giamatti or Rufus Sewell in The Illusionist. Ben Affleck in Hollywoodland. Alec Baldwin for anything he was in. And of course the trippiest, most mind-blowing best supporting actor role of the year was Robert Downey Jr as a character called "James Barris", but otherwise known as "himself before rehab", in A Scanner Darkly. I'm hoping one of these days the Academy will give Downey Jr an award just for still being here. They missed an opportunity with this one.

Who Will Win: It's possible that Alan Arkin will get the nod for Little Miss Sunshine, but I'm betting on Eddie. There's no certainty that he will ever pull off this kind of powerhouse dramatic role again (can you say Norbit?) so I can't see the Academy passing up the opportunity to give him this pat on the back.

In a complete reversal from the Best Actress category, every nominee for Best Supporting Actress is a newcomer except Cate Blanchett. There's Abigail Breslin, the winsome cutie patootie from Little Miss Sunshine, Adriana Barraza and Rinko Kikuchi, both from Babel, and, of course Jennifer Hudson from Dreamgirls. Hudson may be the only thing the show American Idol will ever have to be proud of. Hudson should win, Hudson will win and except possibly Princess Diana as herself in The Queen, I can't think of any obvious performances the Academy may have missed in this category.

Like Democrats before an election day, cineaestes throughout the world are lighting candles and muttering to themselves about this year's Best Director category. This will be the year Scorsese wins, they chant. It will! It will! It's hard to imagine that he wouldn't win this year. Clint Eastwood got his (mulitple) awards already, and no one has seen Letters From Iwo Jima anyway. (Note to studios... I told you to stop dumping these pictures in theaters at the last minute every year. It aggravates people.)

Arguments could be made that Paul Greengrass deserves it more for United 93 but, again, how many people actually gutted it out and watched the movie? My work stocking library shelves has taught me that right, wrong, or in denial, the American people are not watching or reading 9/11 stories. (Out of curiosity, I checked our catalog. Right now, 12 people are waiting to see United 93. 240 are waiting for Little Miss Sunshine.) You can ponder whether or not "it's time" for them to do so, but they ain't. Not to diminish a great accomplishment, but that is what Paul Greengrass is fighting, and I can't see him overcoming it. What people love about The Queen is Helen Mirren. Most would be surprised to learn that some dude named Stephen Frears had anything to do with it.

The problem, of course, is that The Departed, as fine as it is, is no Goodfellas. Do you remember what film/director won instead of Goodfellas? The Academy is so often on record as having preferred cinematic piffle over greatness but nowhere is that shame more deserved than in the awarding of Dances with Wolves over Goodfellas. The Academy can finally make up for their deficiencies in honoring Scorsese this year without too much guilt. The Departed was one of the best films of the year. The Academy may never fully erase the shame of honoring Kevin Costner instead of Martin Scorsese that year, but sucking it up and giving Marty the award this year is a start.

Best Picture is a crapshoot. Traditionally the film that received the Best Director award always won the Best Picture award, but in recent years the Academy has begun splitting the two. Give Spielberg the best director prize and Shakespeare in Love the best picture and everyone goes home happy. I'm surprised, like everyone, that Dreamgirls was not nominated for Best Picture. If it had been, I would pick it as the most likely winner. It's the feel good choice. Little Miss Sunshine is another one of those feel good flicks, like Shakespeare in Love, that could edge out The Departed. Neither Babel nor Letters From Iwo Jima feel like they're picking up that Oscar buzz momentum, the way Crash did last year, but they're both powerful message films, and Hollywood does love those. Hollywood's Helen Mirren love, and their lingering affection for Princess Di could push The Queen ahead. Ultimately, it all depends on the Academy's mood.

Other Films That Should Have Been Nominated: Have I mentioned Children of Men enough? It's on every critic's "best" list. It has some insanely high Metacritic rating like 98. I believe that Alfonso Curaron is the next Spielberg. He does everything well. If he'd been nominated, he's the only director that could reasonably give Marty a run for his money this year. Either of the magician films, The Illusionist or The Prestige, could also have fit nicely here, as well as Stranger Than Fiction.

For someone who claims disinterest in the Academy Awards, clearly I have too many opinions about the outcome. I'm not a sports fan, but I think it's similar to people's facination with the Super Bowl. It's not really a contest between the best two teams in the country, and winning is no predictor of quality or future success, but damned if we don't all show up every year.

Seriously

Normally the court marshal of Lt. Ehren Watada is not the sort of thing I'd reflect upon in a venue like "Populucious". But if popular culture is, as Wikipedia defines it, the daily interactions, needs and desires and cultural 'moments' that make up the everyday lives of the mainstream, Ehren Watada’s story is undoubtedly a cultural moment which speaks volumes about where we are as a country, and has created some interesting ‘daily interactions’ for Americans, or at least for me.


In some respects, Watada’s story is nothing new. With every war there come people in opposition, and soldiers who decline to fight.  As Americans, our hazy collective memory is filled with residue from Vietnam: draft dodgers, conscientious objectors, running to Canada and amnesty. But just as Ford’s pardon of Nixon didn’t salve the anger over Watergate in our national conscience, Ford’s amnesty for draft dodgers didn’t erase the anger on either side of the Vietnam issue.

Vietnam remains an unhealed scar on the American body. There is an enduring image of a culture unable to separate disapproval of the war from the soldiers sent to fight it. The image of a draft dodger being praised while a veteran is jeered is a boogieman in the American memory. Even if it never happened, we still smart somehow at the embarrassment. Just the shame of the whole darn thing. We lost. We treated returning vets poorly.

Our unofficial "Heroes of the World" prize, earned in the trenches of World War II became tarnished with napalm and images of death. Society divided itself into those that felt the patriotic response was to question our government and military, and those that felt that questioning was the very antithesis of patriotism, a division which only seems to have increased over time.  Although the war had been over nearly 30 years, in 2004 a decorated and honored Vietnam vet was hounded and pilloried into losing a Presidential race, not because he refused to serve, but because at the end of his service, he publicly criticized the war.  It is no wonder Americans flounder with conflicted feelings about Iraq. We still haven’t resolved our issues over Vietnam.

I had two experiences relating to the Watada trail within 24 hours of each other which have led me to this rumination about our country’s struggle over what it means to be a patriot. It happens that just this week, I’ve been serving on jury duty. Despite assurances from many that I’d spend a week watching bad movies and doing crossword puzzles, on my first day I was assigned to a preliminary jury pool, passed the voir dire stage and was empanelled on a jury.

Waiting in the jury room to be called for opening arguments, the group made small talk and brief introductions. One woman said that she has five children, four of whom are serving in Iraq. The fifth one is still in high school. If she weren’t serving on jury duty, she said, she’d be down at that trail of that…that….traitor. A few, though not remotely all, other voices chimed in…terrible…awful…treason…coward.

I knew I had problems with what they were saying, but I had no idea how to articulate it. The best I could come up with, in my mind, was something about how lucky were all are to live in a society where we can speak our opinions without fear of death. Unfortunately, my eloquent sentiments were also mixed with some decidedly uncharitable thoughts. I mean, there’s no draft Mrs. Ryan. Under present circumstances, to have one child in the military may be considered a source of pride, but four seems like carelessness.

The next day I saw a local midday news report on the trial and the growing circus around it. There were interviews with Sean Penn, who came to town to show his support. Tacoma isn’t really used to celebrity visitation, and this was undoubtedly more exciting then the time Carrot Top was spotted working out at the local Y. Regardless of how one leans politically you do learn things when you spend 10 years living next to an Army base which is probably why, when I saw Mr. Penn, all I could think was, well shit. That’s not going to help Watada’s case one bit.

I quickly forgot Mr. Penn when the reporter switched to interviewing the other side: the people who were there to protest Watada, not the war. One of them said with great glee that he was looking forward to the end of the week when “that weasel” would be “put away for life”.

I couldn’t get that word out of my head. Weasel. It’s such an ugly word, and it was delivered with such relish. I understand someone saying “I don’t approve of what he’s doing.” I get the argument that when you enlist in the military, you are forfeiting the right to debate orders or politics. You are no longer a political animal but a tool. I might not agree, but I get it.

But calling someone a “weasel”, or even a traitor, isn’t an attempt at political discussion. To be honest, neither is standing there waving a sign that the Iraq war sucks. The people who are loudly supporting Watada because all war is bad, man, are just as guilty of overlooking the true meaning of Watada’s action.

Maybe all of this would have just swirled around in my head for a while until I forgot it. But something else happened this week which suddenly clicked the whole Watada case into sharper focus for me. This week the trail date was set for the only officer charged with crimes in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. So far nine soldiers have been convicted and they all have been enlisted personnel, not commissioned officers.

I don’t think that any American, regardless of where they stand politically, believes that the actions at Abu Ghraib were the result of some high spirited high jinx of bored Privates while all the commanding officers were in meetings. Armies don’t run from the bottom up. Top down is what it’s all about. Top down is why the Watada case is getting so much attention. It’s not just that he didn’t want to go, it’s that he’s an officer who didn’t want to go.

Truth is, we know that the torture and abuse at Abu Ghraib was a top down affair because our leaders, our Commander in Chief, promised us that torture would happen. From the minute we marched into Iraq, the Attorney General and Pentagon lawyers started murmuring about “enemy combatants”. The Geneva Conventions, the Gold Standard by which a country's behavior in wartime is judged, were suddenly being dismissed like a frivolous, annoying Kyoto Treaty.  But strangely now that evidence they fulfilled their promise has come to light, suddenly it seems none but the lowly are responsible.

Repeatedly in the Watada case the issue of morale has been brought up, how damaging to morale it is to have an officer refuse to carry out their commission. I’m trying to imagine what could be more damaging to morale than the knowledge that your leaders are ready to hang you out to dry for carrying out their orders. If we are going to burden certain members of our society with the responsibility for waging war, for shooting their guns and killing an enemy, the least we can promise them is that we wont jail them for doing what they were told.

Vietnam and now Iraq are wounds that have been inflicted on America by our leaders; people driven by political or personal ideologies which had little in common with what was actually best for our country or the world. Now some of them tell us that our lack of success in Iraq is not because they never set a clear goal or strategy, not because they failed to send enough troops or equipment but it is in fact our fault. We have caused the present situation because we questioned our leaders’ judgment. We asked for explanations. Mothers requested reasons for their children’s deaths. We demanded our leaders to be accountable, to take responsibility for the actions they took, and in return they have tried to guilt trip upon us. It is not their fault things have turned out this way, but ours. The saddest part is when, instead of calling them on their BS, we turn on each other, accusing each other of being weasels and war mongers.


In the long view it is our fault. Unlike the military, democracies do work from the bottom up. We elected these people. We gave them the power. Our guilt stems not from questioning our leaders, but not questioning them enough. I’d like to hope that our future history remembers Ehren Watada, and others like him, as people who questioned, who risked questioning too much, because the cost of not doing so was too high. And next time you hear of a soldier being punished for acts like Abu Ghraib, ask yourself where their commanding officer is. Where all of us might be if enough of those in charge had asked the hard questions before ordering things that cannot be undone.

Aaron Sorkin and the St Valentine's Day Massacre

Aaron Sorkin is capable of writing an intelligent, fast paced, timely, witty and compelling comedy about the behind-the-scenes machinations of a television show.  We know, because we have evidence.  Sports Night was and still is one of the best shows ever aired.  Its abrupt cancellation left a hole which even the fine West Wing was never completely able to fill. 

When Sorkin is writing well, it’s everything good that television has to offer.  Intelligent, funny, warm and really entertaining.  When he sucks, however, it’s like listening to a four year old tell a joke.  You see the punch line coming before it enters the building, but you still have to sit through its pained delivery and a ten minute explanation as to why, exactly, it’s really funny. 

I’ve actually started to write about Studio 60 multiple times, but always managed to be convinced, either by listening to Sorkin fans talk up the show or catching a new episode which didn’t suck, that I was judging it too harshly.  That I needed to give the show time to find its groove.  Never mind that most TV series get two episodes to find their grooves before they’re relegated to the cancel bin.  Appreciation of true genius requires patient investment. 

So I ignored the facile nonsensical “she’s a Christian, but she’s actually not a retard” storylines.  The stuck in fly over country two-parter in which John Goodman proved that them thar people who ain’t living in NYC or LA do SO understand fancy pants in-tie-lek-choo-all humor, they’ms just don’t like it. 

Then I saw last weeks’ episode.  I'd offer a spoiler alert here, but "spoiler" implies the discussion of an original story. 

After behaving like a deranged, threatening stalker last week Danny pulls Jordan aside to apologize and, oh my god, the wackiness…They accidentally get locked on the roof!!!!  Wouldn’t it be totally wild if their enforced confinement actually led Jordan to fall for Danny?  And after behaving like another deranged stalker, Matt wins the charity dinner date with Harriet which blows up in his face when she discovers he’s still jealous of that other guy she’s not dating.  Even though she and Matt are not dating, she dumps him, again, and this time, she’s totally serious.  Wouldn’t it be totally wild if her ultimatum caused Matt to do something completely outrageous like propose?

Then, because we have apparently not stayed too long at the romantic farce buffet, Jack requires Tom to take the Macau business partners sexpot daughter to the Catholics in Media dinner, forcing Tom to reschedule his date with the sweet Lucy.  Do you think that perhaps Tom could just explain to Lucy that Jack is requiring him to squire this young lady, a task which he would rather poke his eyes with hot pokers than do, but Jack is the president of the network and will crush Tom’s little head if he refuses?  Because women are actually reasonable people who can understand the complexities of office politics?  Gosh, that sounds risky.  Perhaps he better make up a total bullshit lie.  I sure hope Lucy doesn’t run into him at that dinner with the drunk sexpot, cuz that would be awkward. 

I suppose that one could argue that by stuffing a single episode with every single romantic cliché ever dramatized since man began drawing on cave walls, Sorkin is making a clever statement about Love in the Aughts.  They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but it can also be true that imitation is laziness.

The problem doesn’t stop with the remedial romantic follies.  Meanwhile you have Simon starting a full out war with Darius because he had the gall to decline working on his militant African Fruit of the Loom sketch.  Of course, there could have been any number of reasons why.  Maybe Darius prefers boxers over briefs.  Maybe he has a fruit allergy.  Maybe he feels so strongly about the civil rights movement he can’t bear the thought of pillorying it on a shitty comedy show.  Maybe Darius doesn’t like Simon.  Maybe he thinks the sketch is bad. 

But no.  You forget, we’re in Aaron Sorkin land, so now we must endure the lecture about being true to your race, man, and not forgetting your roots, man, and the error of not dancing with the one what brung ya.  Never mind that it was Matt that discovered and hired Darius, after Simon drug him to see a different "I Like Big Butts" African American humorist.  No, we have to get lectured by Simon on the dangers of “becoming a pool boy in Uncle Tom’s big white house.” 

Really Simon?  Are you really making us go there Simon?  A few hundred years and the discussion of race in America has not evolved further than Uncle Tom accusations?  Gosh Simon.  If you’re really going to make us go there, Simon, I wonder if you happen to recall, Simon, the name of the evil villain in Uncle Tom’s Cabin?  See Simon, I can make faux intellectual but completely irrelevant non-sequitors too.  That’s right, I said it: FAUX INTELLECTUAL IRRELEVENT NON-SEQUITORS.  Don’t bring it if you don’t plan to use it, my brother.

Just to put a cherry on this tired sundae of meaningless meaningfulness, our comic relief is provided by the escape of a sedated but poison viper into a vent.  They send a ferret in after the viper, but the ferret not only doesn’t get the viper, but he refuses to return, so, of course, the only obvious solution is to send a coyote in after the ferret.  Gosh, wouldn’t it be wacky if all the lost animals suddenly appeared somewhere really inconvenient, like the office of someone with an irrational fear of snakes.  Wonder if there’s anyone working there who meets that description?  Why don’t you check on the roof?           

Crack is Whack, but Crank is Lethal

I am capable of indulging Jason Statham a great deal.  I saw both Transporter films…in the theater, mind you.  I can even explain to you why, despite the surprise factor of the original, Transporter 2 is, in fact the better movie.  (The tough guy/cute kid dynamic is always more interesting than tough guy/whimpering chick.  Plus, Transporter 2 has far superior evil henchmen, offering a Brigette Neilsen clone gone Blade Runner, as opposed to generic Asian gangsters.) 

He’s dreamy, ok?  Yes, I know he has more hair on his chest than on his head.  He’s probably shorter in person.  He’s not likely to win an Academy Award anytime soon.  My affection for him irritates many of my male friends who whine things like “He was an Olympic athlete, you know” and “Normal guys don’t come that way” and “I could totally fight like that if I quit my job and took up martial arts training.”  To all of them I say “Miss December?  Real chicks don’t come that way.” 

All of this is a long way of explaining how I came to watch the movie Crank in the first place, and why I was predisposed to enjoy it, even if it sucked.   Wow.  Did this movie suck.  I gave it the old obsessive fan attempt to enjoy it.  I failed. 

I can’t complain about the flimsy plot, because I knew what it was before I watched the movie.  We have a hit man, Jeremy, who has been injected with a “lethal synthetic poison”.  Much is made of the fact that the poison, otherwise known as a “Beijing Cocktail”, in addition to being “synthetic” is “Chinese”.  You’d think that, as descriptors go, the word “lethal” would be the one most distressing, but in this world “Chinese” is the game over sign.  He discovers the only way to keep himself alive, at least long enough to kill the bastard who did this to him, and maybe fuck his girlfriend one last time, is to keep his adrenaline pumping.  It’s like Speed, except with a person instead of a bus.    

What follows is a very very very long chase scene during which our hero snorts coke, starts a gang riot, steals an endless number of vehicles, leads a cop car chase through a shopping mall, steals his girl some flowers but then loses them, provides continuous product placement for Red Bull, gets a friend killed, then uses his corpse as a shield, kills a lot of people, some on purpose, deliberately cooks his hand in a waffle iron and forces his girlfriend to have sex with him in public.  (She said no at first, but then totally got into it, the way chicks do you know.) 

Our hero, whose character’s name is so ridiculous I can’t even repeat it, calls his doctor, played, somewhat distractingly, by Dwight Yoakum.  Using diagnosing skills that would amaze even Bill Frist, (Is your vision blurry? Does your chest hurt?) he is instantly able to diagnose irreversible lethal synthetic Chinese poison for which there is no antidote.  There is a temporary fix though, a powerful drug which will keep him going long enough to kill the bastard that done did this to him.  Our hero then goes on an incredible destructive rampage through a hospital to get hold of this powerful, mysterious drug, otherwise known as “epinephrine”. 

I am not one of those killjoys who whines over minor lapses in cinema accuracy.  The logic of a film does not need to sustain indefinitely.  It merely has to last the length of the film itself.  Our hero is a hit man who has worked for drug cartels.  He is no stranger to illegal drugs.  He snorts coke like a pro.  You’re asking me to believe the guy has never heard of an epi-pen before?  I don’t do drugs myself, but I saw Pulp Fiction. 

And the rampage through the hospital to get his hands on one?  They’re not rare.  I have one in my medicine cabinet for crissake.  My doctor prescribed it for me before I went to China, on the off chance my MSG allergy caught up with me while I was there.  Obviously I should have been more concerned about encountering a lethal synthetic Chinese poison.

All the guy would have to do to get an epi-pen would be to stagger into the ER looking like death, which he already does, having been injected with a lethal synthetic Chinese poison, and mumble something about bee stings or bad clams or synthetic Chinese poison for which epinephrine is the only cure.  It’s not like the guy is looking for methadone, or antibiotics.  It’s like going on a hospital rampage to get Claritin.  Excessive and probably unnecessary. 

There’s more.  There’s an ending.  Explosions.  Helicopters.  There’s an egregious use of Loverboy’s "Turn Me Loose" on the soundtrack.  It’s not bad enough to be funny.  It’s not entertaining enough to be adequate, never mind good.

True fandom requires sacrifices, it’s true, but I’m afraid Crank is one lethal synthetic Chinese poison too far. 

Make Your Own Holiday Movie

Having trouble getting into the Christmas spirit? Was the one two punch of Deck the Halls and Santa Clause 3 somehow not enough to warm your chestnuts this year? Is the Hallmark Channel’s “One Thousand Nights of Christmas” not enough to lift you from your Holiday Ennui? Well never fear. Through extensive work in the test kitchens, I have come up with a fool proof recipe to create your very own Christmas Movie!

Measure out the following:

1)A family member, often though not necessarily the father
a.Is unable to find child’s most desired toy
b.Is caught in Christmas Parade traffic jam, causing them to miss the last flight home to Chicago
c.Still replete with mourning over loss of spouse in tragic Christmas tree cutting incident
d.Is fired by cruel Dickensian Boss
e.Some combination of a-d

2) Due to the events of step 1, said family member
a. Refuses to celebrate Christmas
b. Determines to spend Christmas in Boca Raton, even though everyone knows you can’t have Christmas without snow.
c. Curses the heavens screaming “I wish I’d never been born”
d. Goes on a drinking binge
e. Some combination of a-d

3) Meanwhile another member of the family
a. Is determined to win the neighborhood Christmas decorating contest
b. Is responsible for directing the community Christmas pageant
c. Is starring in community Christmas pageant
d. Is struggling with Santa Claus “belief issues”
e. Some combination of a-d

4) To make matters worse, the family’s neighbor
a. Has won neighborhood Christmas decorating contest five years in a row
b. Is cruel Dickensian landlord determined to evict family, even if it is Christmas
c. Is determined own child should star in community Christmas pageant
d. Is nosy, mean spirited Child Protective Services agent
e. Some combination of a-d

5) However, the neighbor on the other side of the street
a. Is a kindly old man with an odd resemblance to Santa Claus
b. Is a kindly school teacher who happens to be quite attractive and harboring longstanding if hidden affection for family member in Steps 1 & 2.
c. Olympic figure skater Dorothy Hamill and/or an angel.
d. Has secret hidden talent which, if discovered in time, will make this year’s pageant the best ever
e. Some combination of a-d.

Fold ingredients in steps 1 – 5 well. Then add the following:

Must haves:
A blizzard.
A pond with a precariously thin layer of ice.
A large amount of snow slides off a roof and onto someone’s (often the villain) head
Christmas lights cause a town wide power outage.
An out of control sled. A busy highway.
Meaning of Christmas found!

Optional (garnish liberally to taste):
Cross country journey utilizing various forms of uncomfortable transportation
Emergency baby delivery in back seat of car.
Pets. Christmas Trees. Electricity. Wackiness Ensues.
Someone races to only store in town only to discover it’s closed, alas. But wait? Is that someone in the back willing to open the door?
A not so subtle plot adaptation of A Christmas Carol
A not so subtle plot adaptation of It’s a Wonderful Life
Estranged family and friends coincidentally meet in front of giant decorated tree in town square just in time for the holiday sing along with notable country western star.
Cruel Dickensian boss/landlord/CPS agent caught stealing candy from babies.
Hey, that’s not a goat! It’s a reindeer!
Confidence discovered. Pageant is saved!
Shout out to the Hanukkah fans.
Sick child saved by the power of love.
You really are Santa Claus!

Bake lightly. It should still be gooey in the middle! Serve with generous amounts of spiked eggnog. Enjoy!

Pirates of the Caribbean II: Dead Man's Chest DVD arrrghives

Whether or not you enjoy Pirates of the Caribbean II: Dead Man’s Chest really depends on what exactly you demand from a pirate movie. Given the spotty success record Hollywood has had with pirate films in the recent past, and the mediocre reviews Pirates II received when it was initially released in theaters, it seems that many American film reviewers have very particular demands from a film about rogues upon the sea. I was inspired to peruse pirate movie reviews of yore and came up with an interesting representation:

Pirates (1986 Dir: Roman Polanski)

The movie bogs down in a hopeless quagmire of too much talk, too many characters and ineptly staged confrontations in which everyone stands around wondering what to do next. – ROGER EBERT

Hook (1991 Dir: Steven Spielberg)

Poignancy. Lessons to be learned. Speeches to be made. Lost marbles to be rediscovered. Tears to be shed. The conclusion of "Hook" would be embarrassingly excessive even for a movie in which something of substance had gone before. - ROGER EBERT

"Hook" is overwhelmed by a screenplay heavy with complicated exposition. - VINCENT CANBY

Cutthroat Island (1995 DIR: Renny Harlin)

It doesn't transcend its genre, and it's not surprising or astonishing. I saw it because that was my job and, having seen it, I grant its skill…But unless you're really into pirate movies, it's not a necessary film. – ROGER EBERT

The most punishing aspect of ``Cutthroat Island'' is that it just wears down the viewer with a helter-skelter, needlessly overblown quality. No wonder those old pirates didn't survive -- they were too tired from so much hyperactivity. - PETER STACK

Pirates of the Caribbean-Dead Man’s Chest (2006 DIR: Gore Verbinski)

Too long, unnecessarily complicated and often silly – JACK MATTHEWS

There's nothing so tedious as nonstop excitement. STEPHANIE ZACHEREK

Is that now perfectly clear? A pirate movie needs to be fast moving and exciting, without tedious and complicated exposition, although it should transcend its genre and refrain from tedious nonstop excitement and needless overblown hyperactivity. Clearly, it should surprise and astonish but avoid silliness, because piracy is a damn serious business, and honestly none of it really matters unless you’re really into pirate movies.

With these clearly delineated standards to follow it's amazing Disney green lighted (green lit?) the first Pirates of the Caribbean film. Obviously the film criticism community hadn’t reviewed these standards when they were reviewing the first one, since it received near universal acclaim. I believe a good deal of that approbation came out of the surprise factor. Before it was released, Pirates had that kind of worried buzz that surrounded Titanic before it swamped us all. It was an expensive special effects laden action movie starring Johnny Depp who had spent most of his career demolishing his non-indie film cred. Clearly studio heads were nervous about his performance and there were lots of worried articles about arguments over Depp’s dental work to make his teeth look pirate-y, a clear sign of a studio desperate to diminish expectations. The movie was based on a Disneyland ride for chrissake.

In fact it was part of a master plan by Disney to launch film series based on three of their amusement park rides. The other two were The Country Bears and The Haunted Mansion. Unless you have kids (and even if you do) you have no reason to remember either of these films. Haunted Mansion was one of those Eddie Murphy vehicles the reviews of which mostly centered on the theme “remember when Eddie Murphy was funny?” The Country Bears, based on Disney’s animatronic banjo playing bears stage show, got such universally wretched reviews that I actually seriously considered not buying it for the Library system, unprecedented for a Disney film.

The result was that most reviewers were completely stunned to find the first Pirates to be utterly entertaining. Johnny Depp was epic as Jack Sparrow, a booze soaked scallywag with his brains scrambled from too much rum, sun and the lash (as opposed to the classic British Naval recruitment promise of “rum, buggery and the lash”, this being Disney and all). Was there a plot? Can you remember it? Come on. Be honest. No, you can’t. You remember being entertained. You remember something about a pearl (but only because it was in the the title), or a boat, or a chest of gold, and half dead ghosts, and Keira Knightly’s bosom and Orlando Bloom’s swashbuckle, a talking parrot and a cheeky monkey.

(Ooh! Sudden inspiration for updating the Scientology wedding vows..."girls need tender swashbuckle, a talking parrot, perhaps a cheeky monkey." Oh yeah. Sign me up!)

But I digress. Pirates of the Caribbean II has all of these things. It has a boat, a chest, a bosom, lots of swashbuckle, a talking parrot, a cheeky monkey and an intrepid dog. It also has a compass, a key, cannibals, a voodoo queen and the evil kraken. It has even more awesomely evil bad guys than the first one. In human form the British Navy is replaced by The British East India Company, which hasn’t had a good starring evil role in simply centuries and more’s the pity. Forget Enron and Halliburton. The British East India Company invented uber-national corporate malfeasance. In supernatural form it’s Davy Jones and his minions who are a special effects masterpiece: living, walking, talking growing coral reefs in human form. Utterly gross, scary and fun.

Orlando Bloom. What a name. Now that the days of sexy bad boy poets have gone, what else could the poor boy do but become an actor? Orlando does a masterful job at whatever it is he’s supposed to do. Keira Knightly wields her sexy so fiercely I worried someone might lose an eye, although clearly the teenage boys in the audience did not mind. Spoiler alert! There’s a cliffhanger ending, which means you’re going to have to come back next year to discover how it all turns out. I’m going to go out on a limb and guess it’s not with them all dead by suicide pact at the bottom of the sea. After all, this is Disney and Disney knows that the ride is crap unless you exit panting to stand in line to ride it again.

Pirates of the Caribbean II: Dead Man's Chest is now available on DVD

From the vault

Professionally I’m a film and music librarian, but generally I write about films or television or pop culture in general. Music reviews are not usually my thing. Truth is, I have a problem with music reviews in general. I read them in my professional life to get a handle on what is coming round the bend, but I rarely rely on them as guides to what I’m going to personally like. I think that writing about music is like writing about sex. Very few people do it well. Even when someone does it well enough that it’s interesting to read, they are writing about what turns them on. It’s only luck if it happens to be something that blows your skirt up too.

That’s why I was pleasantly surprised to discover Nick Hornby’s collection of essays called Songbook. Songbook collects Hornby’s writings and musings about music, some of which have been published before. Hornby, of course, is no stranger to writing about music, at least in a fictional forum. His work High Fidelity is a paean to music, relationships and the mix tape. Even his more recent About a Boy uses music as a major supporting character.

One of things I like about Songbook is that Hornby writes about music as a regular Joe who loves music. He has as much use for music critics as I do, which is to say not much. He appreciates that the value one gets from a song is entirely individual. Maybe it reminds you of a great moment in time, or a bad one, or maybe it helps you forget. Maybe it inspires you. Maybe it just makes you happy. Good, bad or indifferent is, ultimately, entirely within the ear of the beholder.

People get quite passionate about music. Certainly I do. When you L-O-V-E something it’s impossible to believe that love should not be shared by everyone. I once curtailed a potentially promising friendship because this person complained about a Tori Amos concert, which they had used FREE tickets to go see. They clearly had not been impressed, complaining that she swore too much, and then compared her, negatively and dismissively, to Madonna. I mean…..ARRRUUGGGHHH! I can’t even articulate how…I mean…ARRRRUGGGHHHH!

Conversely when you HATE something, it is impossible to imagine there are people who could get great joy from it. My music ‘hates’ tend to come from any musical category for which the word “smooth” can be a descriptor. Genres that involve lanky haired men playing instrumental solo concerts in the Parthenon also disturb me as do teenage opera singers and albums involving a numerical group of tenors greater than one. (Seriously, I just had to purchase The Ten Tenors for the library. Ten Tenors! I mean, why? Why is this necessary?) And yet, there are people who I love and admire who find this music pleasing, even inspirational.

Hornby tries to downplay the role of memory in his discussions of music, wanting to focus instead on “what it was in these songs that made me love them, not what I brought to the songs.” I appreciate his point, and even agree with it on some level. Great music transcends memories. But the impact of memory on music appreciation can’t be dismissed, although perhaps more for songs I don’t like than those I do.

I really dislike the song Free Bird by Lynyrd Sknyrd. I like Lynyrd Skynyrd. Gimme Three Steps…Sweet Home Alabama…these are kick ass tunes. But Free Bird, along with Zep's Stairway to Heaven, were the bane of my adolescent wallflower existence. If you too were a wallflower during the late 70s and 80s, you know exactly what I’m talking about. Do you know how many trips to the bathroom and refreshment table can be made during a thirteen minute song? Not nearly enough. We may never know how many young teens got hooked on smokes just to give themselves something to sneak out back and do while all the cool kids slumped against each other moving in molasses slow circles to this music.

Lord knows I can’t change how I feel about that song. And yet, maybe for you Free Bird inspired you to tell your parents to hell with med school, you were going to be an artist. Or to marry your first wife/husband, or leave them, or both. I get it. I’m not going to tell you that you have poor taste in music because I was a teenage spaz. Music is personal. It taps the deep well, not the surface.

Hornby gets this stuff. These silly but really not so very silly responses that music can evoke. His book takes the form of 31 songs. Not 31 of the best songs of all time, or ever written, or that you should know or else you’re a twat. Just 31 songs that Hornby loves and would like to tell you why. Hornby knows that nothing can annihilate music appreciation faster than a music snob. When you love it so much, it can be hard not to go there, but as Hornby says firmly: “…if there’s a piece of music out there that has the ability to move me, then I want to hear it, no matter who’s made it. You’re either for music or against it, and being for it means embracing anyone who is good.”

Inspired by Hornby, I’ve found myself compiling my own list of songs I love. These are the songs that always stop me when I’m scrolling through the radio channels. They’ve stuck with me over time, most of them, and are all too precious to be featured on a mix tape.

Here, in no particular order, are some of the songs that help make my world go around.  As Hornby says: "All I have to say about these songs is that I love them, and want to sing along to them, and force other people to listen to them, and get cross when these other people don't like them as much as I do"

Dixie Chicken – Little Feat
Who among us has not longed to be another’s Dixie Chicken and/or Tennessee Lamb at one time or another? This song is great musically, with the rag piano lilting away in the background; it begs a person to two-step their way to Dixieland. The lyrics are of the “met a mysterious hot sexy woman” variety. However unlike Gimme Two Steps or Last Night or much of the Rolling Stone oeuvre, the end result of Dixie Chicken is not a beating, a robbery, or a euphemism for heroin addiction. Instead the narrator gets to make friends with a bar full of fellow travelers with a common interest. It’s like a very special musical episode of Cheers.

Life’s Been Good to Me – Joe Walsh
Once upon a time, some time before heroin became the chic rocker drug of choice I believe, there was a sense that becoming a world famous rock star could actually be entertaining. Gen X rockers like Kurt Cobain, Billy “McWhiney” Corgin and Pearl Jam worked hard to set us straight on that score. Being a world famous rock star is Hard Work. People just, like, totally misundestimate you all the time, and they force you to take drugs you don’t want to, and they act like they know you just cuz they like your songs and the record companies pay you, like, billions of dollars except they put all sorts of catches on it, like they want you to actually produce records, and stuff. It’s hard man. It’s a hard knock life.

But fortunately, we have this record from the past. This stone tablet if you will, reminding us of a happier time. A coke fueled time, when being a rock star meant, well, it meant you had a Mazarati that went 185, and a limo to drive you around after you lost your license, and you got to go to parties, sometimes until four, and you had accountants who paid for it all. Dang, it almost sounds like fun. Someone should tell Eddie Vedder.

One Tree Hill – U2
I’m a big U2 fan. I’m stupidly fanatic about them, actually. I bought the U2 IPod. I paid full price at Christmas time for it. I could have waited 2 months and gotten one of the new fancy IPODs that show movies for about half what I paid for the U2 one, but I didn’t. I got their entire music catalog too, of course, which made the mix function on my IPOD decidedly unbalanced for a while.

With this sort of goofy devotion, you might expect that I’d have difficulty picking a favorite U2 song. I’ve got fifteen hours of their music to choose from, including B-sides and outtakes. But I do in fact have a favorite U2 song which stands, in my heart, head and shoulders above the rest. One Tree Hill is, in one song, everything I love about U2. Onomatopoeia is a word that sounds like what it’s describing. I don’t know if music can be considered onomatopoetic, but if it can One Tree Hill is. The song runs like a river runs to the sea.

The key to this song is The Edge and his guitar. Forgive me for waxing stupid, but the melodies and harmonies that Edge produces are the sort one usually equates with pianos, orchestras or thousand voice choirs, not electric guitars. Bono is unmistakably a rock star, and he does what the face of a super group should, but The Edge is the heart of U2, and of this song.

Sun Is Shining – Bob Marley
I had a difficult relationship with Bob Marley for a long while. Some of it can be traced to attending college in the early 90s when every frat house had his music blasting from boom boxes in their windows and Marley seemed to become the patron saint of poseurs. Most of my Marley aversion, however, can be specifically traced to a Thanksgiving trip I took with my family when I was a Junior in college.

The trip was a Disneyworld/Bahaman Cruise extravaganza. I was a very young 21 year old stuck on a boat with my parents, my younger siblings, lots of senior citizens, honeymooning couples and other young families. The weather was bad so swimming and tanning were out. I was old enough to drink, but not old enough to drink in front of my parents with any kind of elan. I was too cool to enjoy bowling or bingo. I was soooo bored.

The boat had closed circuit radio stations which, apparently, no one had preprogrammed before this trip as every single one played Bob Marley’s Legend on a continuous loop for three days. Not only was this the only music option available within one’s cabin, it was the only music which played in all the common areas over the loudspeakers in a continuous loop for three days. By the end of the trip, I wanted to wall the three little birds into a coal mine. I no longer cared about the plight of the Buffalo soldier, and I wanted the sheriff to shoot back. Cry woman! Cry!

It took a long time for my Marley aversion to wear off. I was, admittedly, first drawn to the dance remix of Sun is Shining, but it captured my imagination enough that I sought out the original. As my brother, who was similarly scarred by our three day music torture cruise, told me with wonder in regards to Sun is Shining, “There’s more to Marley than just Legend!”

Tougher than the Rest – Bruce Springsteen
The Tunnel of Love album came out my freshman year in college, and it was in constant rotation that year. There’s a lot on that album for a young romantic head in the clouds sort of girl to glean to like All That Heaven Will Allow and Tunnel of Love.  In library land, we often discuss the fact that children will “read over” what they don’t understand. They don’t spend a lot of time mulling something that’s confusing, they just skip to the next part. Although I listened to that album repeatedly that year, I “listened over” quite a lot of it.

Tougher than the Rest was not my favorite song when I first fell for the album. The line “Round here baby you get what you can get” sounded too much like settling to my young ears. A few miles down the road now, I hear the voice of a man who knows what it means to let something good slip from your fingers, because you were too busy counting on the tide to wash in something better.

Linus & Lucy – Vince Guaraldi
Childhood. Spinning around til you get dizzy. Laughing til you’re fit to bust. Years later, pull out the album and play it as background noise at a cocktail party. People smile. You pretend like you’re appreciating the smooth jazz styling of Vince Guaraldi, but really, inside, you are doing the Snoopy dance.

I Feel Love – Donna Summer
I believe that rock music, despite it’s moniker as “popular” is inherently elitist. The people who appreciate a particular artist or kind of music are, to their way of thinking, inherently better than those who don’t. The people that perform the music are, obviously, inherently better than those who listen to it. This dynamic is understood and accepted by the audience and the performers.

Then disco came along and fucked with the paradigm. Lots of people hated disco, some violently, and I think it can all be traced back to disco fucking with the paradigm. For, if a disco song is played in an empty room with no one to shake their booty to it, does it make a sound? Disco demands audience participation. Disco is the great democratizer and voting is done with your feet, baby. A loner standing frozen at the edge of the crowd at a rock concert is “cool”. At a disco, they’re a “creep”.

I Feel Love is as good an example as any for a great disco rump shaker. It is the blessing and the curse of disco that the songs are more or less interchangeable with one another. I could have picked Love to Love You or MacArthur Park or Lady Marmalade or Funkytown to fill the same void, but I choose thee, I Feel Love, to provide the strobe lit disco ball ending to my list.

A Hex on You

I confess I was excited the first time I saw ads for BBC America’s HEX. Truth is I’m in perpetual mourning for Buffy the Vampire Slayer and may be ‘til the day I die, or Josh Whedon finally directs Wonder Woman. I confess I had some small hope that this trendy demony looking show might be a temporary balm.

It started off semi promising. Cassie is a pretty blonde teenager struggling to fit in at an exclusive boarding school of the sort that only seems to exist in Great Britain. It’s set on impossibly lovely and remote grounds. The school resembles an ancient castle, of course. The students appear to be able to leave the grounds with impunity in order to visit the local uber-hip pub and the urbane headmaster dismisses them with bon mots like: “Be free and try not to multiply”.

Cassie’s roommate is Thelma who is, of course, a Lesbian who dresses in some BBC wardrobe mistress’s idea of “lesbian goth chick” chic. Thelma loves Cassie. Cassie loves boys and yearns to be popular. There’s the cool in-crowd headed by a cruel bitch named (I’m not making this up) Roxanne. Through a series of wacky misadventures Cassie discovers that she is descended from a long line of witches and is being stalked by a sexy fallen angel named Azazeal. Azazeal wants Cassie to have his baby who will, as is so often the case in these instances, unleash unpleasantness on earth.

Azazeal has been wandering the earth trying, unsuccessfully, to impregnate many generations of blonde waifs since being drummed out of heaven some thousand years ago, apparently for his penchant for trying to knock up blonde waifs. (Note to fundamentalists: Even God wants his angels practicing "safe sex"!) Azazeal is tall dark and handsome, with dreamy eyes and cheekbones that could cut diamonds. One would think he’d not have much problem pulling tail. However, his means of seduction involve driving Cassie’s mother insane, revealing himself in monstrous demonic form, possessing a boy Cassie is dating, stealing her unborn baby and murdering her roommate.

Maybe next time he could try buying a girl a drink. Seriously, it’s worked for millions.

So far, a pale imitation of Buffy, yet somehow even with magic and complicated mythology and stone gargoyles turning into real ones Hex is in fact excruciatingly dull. Part of the problem is Cassie. She drifts around trying to get boys to like her when she ought to be, I dunno, figuring out how to stop Armageddon. She discovers magic powers but never seems to use them when they might be useful. When given explicitly clear guidelines for her safety, such as “He can’t harm you if you wear this pendant” and “Whatever you do, don’t leave the safety of the pentagram”, she’s the sort of girl who’ll promptly lose the pendant and run out of the pentagram to chase after a loud crashing noise in the dark while yelling “Hello?” While plenty of 98 minute horror films are based on this particular type of lass, an 8 week TV series is an entirely different matter. One begins to root for Azazeal to just sacrifice her already, and on to the next generation please.

Any entertainment to be had comes from Thelma who, after being offed by Az, returns as a ghost. A goth chic Lesbian ghost. The thing I really love about the BBC is that much of their television seems so quaint. Sitcoms often star characters in the most ridiculous guises with no attempt to hide bad wigs or fake padding. The network motto ought to be “Hey gang, lets put on a show!” Thelma is eventually joined in her struggle by a demon hunter who dresses like Barbarella on her way to a Prince concert. No one in the school seems the least perturbed by this new 30-ish student wearing a purple lace trimmed black leather cat suit and duster jacket. British boarding school is so awesome!

Worst Opening Line

It's amazing how small the world is becoming. A friend of a friend sends you an email to which you respond on a lark, and suddenly you've won 2nd prize in the Shuswap Association of Writer's Worst Opening Line competition. The wha???? You might well ask. The Shuswap Writer's Association is dedicated to enriching the cultural life of the interior BC (or British Columbia for those not in the know). They sponsor the Shuswap Lake Writer's Festival and, my personal fave, the Winter Reading Series in Salmon Arm, BC. It's my favorite because it's in a place called Salmon Arm.

First prize winner of the worst opening line contest wins free trip to the Shuswap Lake Writer's Festival. There's a bad joke here about 2nd prize winning 2 free trips to Shuswap Lake (or a trip to Salmon Arm perhaps?), but alas, as 2nd prize winner I win only a book and the thanks of a grateful nation. I did warn them when I entered that I was not Canadian, but apparently that was not a requsite. The contest rules asked for a wretched opening line for a novel which included the words: salmon, longjohns and shovel.

Without further ado, my entry:

"I know you just got home from the salmon packing factory, Zebediah," remarked Pearline, "but what are you doing outside in your long-johns with Marcel's shovel, and where is Marcel?"

If you'd like to read more, including the sentence that was wretched enough to beat this entry, go to the Shuswap association website.

Nostaligia Trip

Main Entry: nos•tal•gia
Pronunciation: nä-'stal-j&, n&- also no-, nO-; n&-'stäl-
Function: noun
Etymology: New Latin, from Greek nostos return home + New Latin -algia; akin to Greek neisthai to return, Old English genesan to survive, Sanskrit nasate he approaches
1 : the state of being homesick : HOMESICKNESS
2 : a wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for return to or of some past period or irrecoverable condition; also : something that evokes nostalgia
- nos•tal•gic /-jik/ adjective or noun
- nos•tal•gi•cal•ly /-ji-k(&-)lE/ adverb
- nos•tal•gist /-jist/ noun
Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary

 

WARNING: HERE BE SPOILERS


Currently I find myself in wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for return to or of some past period or irrecoverable condition, namely October 2, 2006. That was the day I published In Defense of the Best Show on Television, about my favorite show Battlestar Galactica.

Four episodes in to season 3 I find myself shrieking to the writer’s of Battlestar Galactica like George Jetson trapped upon the perpetual sidewalk from Hell to please, for the love of the Lords of Kobol, would you stop this crazy thing? It’s still my favorite show, and I believe the bones of the best show on television are still there, but, keee-rike guys. Every hour of the show this season has managed to end like a bad magic trick. The magician grabs the table cloth, yanks, and all the dishes go flying everywhere. You think, Holy Zues, how will they fix that unholy mess, and then the next hour begins at a brand new table, dishes and candelabras magically restored to wholeness.

Don’t worry. I’ll be using lots of wretched metaphors in this article today. One thing I’m perpetually reminded of watching BG this season is what I like to call Aaron Sorkin Syndrome, or ASS. This is the practice of casually discarding seemingly vital plot or character points in the service of the next seemingly vital plot or character point. The country is thrown into turmoil and Bartlett hands the reigns of the government over to Walter Sobchak because Zoe Bartlett has been kidnapped by unidentified but probably shifty and foreign A-Rab terrorists? Oops, here she is in this abandoned trailer park off the Leesville Highway. A-rab terrorists or sorority hazing gone awry? Will we ever learn? Why NO, because it’s on to the next season.

The BG writers have been showing us an awful lot of ASS this season, so much that I barely know where to begin. If the Cylon skin jobs are trying to create a utopian human-ville, why don’t they plant some flowers, give them all stackable washer/dryer units, or, you know, something? Conversely, if they’re not trying to create hu-topia, why don’t they just kill them all? Yeah, I get that they’re arguing amongst themselves, but there’s a really quick solution to the argument. An anti-human skin job can just nuke the lot of them…end argument.

200 people dragged off to be executed Russian pogrom style…here comes an army of tin cans over the horizon, an army which can apparently be easily taken out by two sharpshooters on a ridge? If the detainees have that kind of firepower at their disposal, why don’t they use it? Tin cans drag Laura Roslin off, but then apparently don’t notice that she’s come back into the city. That’s Kara’s baby? How old is she? Three? Is that right? Adama’s going to create a distraction while the people are evacuated to the same spaceship impound lot…that’s not going to be a traffic jam…and where the hell are the tin cans with guns trying to stop them? Gaius is trying to stop Xena from setting off a nuke. Why? All the people are gone. What does it matter if she nukes the place? I’m just so FRAKKING CONFUSED.

They managed to answer one of these puzzlements on Friday’s episode, the question about Kara’s child, and quite cleverly too. But this is the problem with ASS. You don’t know which puzzling things to invest yourself in answering, and which are going to be magically erased by next episode. Admittedly, they gave us one hell of a season ender last year, and they certainly cannot be accused of giving us a boring season this year.  The action is gripping.  The acting is fine.  The drama is delightfully melo.  (Kara eats steak covered in the blood of the skin job she just murdered...SNAP I love this show.  Ty poisons his treasonous tramp of a wife...SNAP again I say...with tears and everthing...DAMN you guys are good.) 

I’m just asking, please guys, now that everyone is back on their ships could we please have a little more of those tight wonderful suspenseful storylines of yore, and a little less ASS?

The Queen

In every story with a beautiful princess there is almost always an evil queen of some sort or another, poisoning apples, filling shoes with hot coals, imprisoning innocent maids in towers, and generally making it difficult for any good princess to realize her full potential. What occurred to me as I watched The Queen is that in the heart of every queen is a princess defending her castle. Wicked is in the eye of the beholder.

Directed by Stephen Frears from a script by Peter Morgan, The Queen takes a peek into the life of Queen Elizabeth II during an abnormally interesting week in August 1997, the week that her former daughter-in-law Diana was killed in a car accident. Adding a fascinating counterweight to the story is the character of Tony Blair (Michael Sheen) who had literally just been elected the new Prime Minister in a sweeping victory for the Labor party, signaling the death knell of Thatcher-ite Britain.

The monarchical crisis triggered by Diana’s death was not necessarily obvious to those of us who observed the tragedy from a distance. But, as The Queen neatly shows, there was great outrage among British citizens at the House of Windsor’s refusal to comment or make any public display regarding Diana’s death. The fascinating thing about the story related in The Queen is that with which Elizabeth and the royals struggle - the difference between public duty and private life - is the very thing that brought them such problems with Diana in the first place.

The silence from the royal family in the wake of Diana’s death, the royal dignified distance from something for which there was no ‘official’ royal obligation, seemed to a mourning public an echo of the cruel treatment which drove Diana out of the family to begin with. As The Queen makes clear, it was not cruelty as much as a complete failure of royal standards and protocol in dealing with an unprecedented tragedy.

Tony Blair and his staff serve as the audience’s eyes and ears, watching dumbfounded as the royals make one stumble after another. The Queen insists there will be no public funeral. She is squeamish when Charles suggests he take the royal jet to Paris to retrieve Diana’s body. This is just the sort of waste the public is always bashing them for, she quails. After a bitterly acrimonious divorce, the queen observes matter-of-factly that Diana is no longer a part of the royal family. Officially, her death is not a state matter. Interestingly, since her death, the official position has changed to state that, as the mother of the future King of England, Diana always will be a member of the royal family. Unfortunately they hadn’t revised that section of the rule book upon her death.

Slowly the pressure of Tony Blair, and of the public response, forces Queen Elizabeth’s hand. Helen Mirren is amazing as Queen Elizabeth. You can see clearly on her face what the loss of every battle costs her. Acquiescing to a public funeral, to flying the royal standard at half mast, these are more than just niceties she’s agreeing to. You can see her agony at, in her mind, dismantling thousands of years of British tradition.

So much of the story is conveyed by Mirren’s facial expressions. The Queen is not one for superfluous chatter, but on her face we see everything. We see the grim determination to weather yet one more crisis triggered by this woman. We see the worried grandmother desperately trying to shelter her grandchildren from grief. We see the bafflement at the public’s outsized response. We see the guilt of a woman who allowed this hurricane of a woman into her family in the first place.

One of the charming things about Lady Diana Spencer, when she was plucked from noble obscurity, was that she too seemed to be overwhelmed by this fairy tale. She obviously believed it. She believed that she had found her Prince Charming. A shy, lonely child of divorced parents was suddenly a princess.

Of course, she had found nothing, but rather had been found. She had been vetted, selected, and placed in the path of Prince Charles. In this quiet young schoolteacher, the powers that be believed they’d found the perfect bride to bear Charles his heir and a spare. She obviously doted on children, and was photogenic enough that she could be trotted out for ribbon cuttings a few times a year. What nobody warned her was that Charles was never actually her prince. He was Britain’s prince. While she would certainly belong to them, he would never actually belong to her.

What they didn’t count on was that Diana would become the very antithesis of what it means to be a royal. She became a celebrity. And whether she courted it at the beginning or was overwhelmed by it, she became a master at wielding it when she discovered the royal bait and switch. At one point Prince Charles, played with just the right combination of dignity, intelligence, and spinelessness by Alex Jennings, says about his parents, “Now they can see what it’s like. They never understood there’s a difference between the private Diana we know and the public Diana the world loves.”

To most Americans the concept of the British stiff upper lip is the plot of a Monty Python skit. It’s one of those things about Brits, like their penchant for boiling vegetables, which is good for a few laughs. What The Queen makes clear is that to the royal family, “quiet British dignity” is the very core of their identity. The British monarchy survived for thousands of years when others fell. They achieved this not by being photographed on gilded yachts or building Versailles-like palaces, but by establishing themselves a useful role in government and public life. For hundreds of years this stiff upper lip served them well. It was, as the Queen says “what the rest of the world admires us for”.

The movie shows, and it is often argued, that it was Elizabeth’s experiences in World War II which inform her staid, no nonsense, emotionless mien. But I wonder if perhaps more significant, at least in terms of understanding the royal response to Diana, was good old Uncle Edward, aka King Edward VIII. Edward, whose reign lasted less than a year, abdicated the throne in order to marry his true love, Wallis Simpson, an American divorcee.

From an outsider’s point of view, this was perhaps a terribly romantic story. From the point of view of a young girl, however, it was a mortifying family crisis. Her uncle chose to abdicate the job for which he had been prepared and schooled all his life in order to be with a woman who could not be less suitable. Without concern for his country, limping towards another war with Germany, he skipped off to the continent to summer in Biarritz with Nazi bankers. Without concern for his family, he passed the burden of kingship onto his younger brother, and then Edward and Wallis tormented the family for years over issues having to do with titles and royal allowances.

When the situation with Diana came to a full boil, Elizabeth must have been reminded of the pain and mortification caused by Edward so many years ago, as well as the criticisms her father endured over being too kind and generous (and therefore wasteful) in a settlement for Edward. Royalty is a job and a duty which is done for love of country, not love of wealth and trappings. Royal families who spend the country’s coffers on supporting a retinue of distaff family and consorts do not remain royal very long.

The Queen is a fascinating picture, even if you have no interest in the British monarchy or glamorous deceased princesses. The addition of the Tony Blair plot establishes that this is, in fact, a political picture above all else. Britain constantly struggles with the question of the relevancy of the royal family. What is the point of a monarchy in a democratic republic? The Queen shows a woman determined to remain relevant, someone who takes her role as advisor to the Prime Minister seriously, even when no one else does.