The Olympics are over now. Sigh. I watched way way way more TV than is good for me, learned a lot about sports I'd frankly never heard of before, which I am now hooked on--rhythmic gymnastics rules--got caught up in story-lines and personalities previously unimagined. It was awesome. It's always awesome.
What's really remarkable about the London Olympics, I think, has to be the performances of women. Countries that had never before allowed women to compete (lookin' at you, Saudi Arabia) suddenly had women in their delegations. Most moving of all, the story of Woydan Shaherkani a sixteen-year old judoka who competed despite ferocious attacks via Saudi social media. She lost her only match in 82 seconds, and advanced the cause of Saudi women by fifty years.
But I'm an American, and as usual, found myself reverting to a certain ironic jingoism, rooting for Americans. Which pretty quickly, meant rooting for American women. Yes, Michael Phelps is remarkable, and Ashton Eaton is the unofficial 'greatest athlete in the world' by winning the decathlon. And I was proud of the US men's basketball team. This team invited a lot of comparisons to the 'Dream Team,' the '92 team that featured Michael Jordan and Larry Bird and Magic Johnson and Charles Barkley. But that '92 team was there to play basketball. I think it was Kobe Bryant who pushed the guys this year to have a real Olympics. You kept seeing them, watching swimming, beach volleyball, track and field, gymnastics; there'd be LaBron and Kobe and Kevin Durrant. Good for them. And Spain, who they played for gold, was tough. That was not an easy win.
But the American women really dazzled. Americans love team sports, and we fielded both men's and women's teams in a lot of Olympic sports. Look at the record: the women's soccer team won gold; the men's team didn't even qualify for the Olympics. Indoor volleyball: the men lost, women won gold. Water polo; likewise. Gymnastics: oh, yeah. Beach volleyball: two US women's team played for gold, neither men's team qualified for a metal.
It's not just that US women won. The women's soccer team won one of the greatest soccer games I've ever seen in my life. They then played Japan for gold, in a game just about as good. The level of play was exciting, amazing, incredible. Abby Wambaugh, Hope Solo, Alex Morgan should become massive sports stars in America. The women's volleyball team, led by Logan Tom and Lindsay Berg was favored to win gold, but the woman who kept wowing me was Destinee Hooker, a regal 6'4" powerhouse who seemed to rescue the team whenever things looked scary. The women's water polo team won gold for the first time in history, led by a 19-year old, Maggie Steffens, and completely hooked me on their quietly ferocious sport. (The underwater camera shots only lacked sharks to be completely terrifying). It's not possible to overstate the magnificence of the US beach volleyball partnership of Kerri Walsh-Jennings and Misty May-Treanor, who won gold for the third straight Olympics. I'll never forget one play in particular, when Misty dove for a volley, batted it to Kerri, who just got a hand on it back to Misty, who barely got it over the net for the point. I yelped. Honest, I yelped.
Other women also dazzled. They all seemed so. . . nice. Missy Franklin, a powerhouse who just kept winning race after race, came across as this perfectly normal, giggly, sweet seventeen year old. Allison Schmitt, slightly hearing impaired, kept winning the close ones, and the medley relay, adding Rebecca Soni and Dana Vollmer, set a world record. One of my indelible memories of this Olympics will be Katie Ledecky, a fifteen-year old swimmer, who swam in the 800 freestyle, a distance event. She jumped out to this huge lead, and the announcers were all, "you can see her inexperience, she can't possibly maintain this pace, the older swimmers will let her burn herself out and blow past her, huge tactical mistake." That kind of thing. And then she kept it up, just kept going, won gold by four seconds, which in swimming is, like, a mile.
It was all about the women, and I'm not the only one to call this the Title IX Olympics. So, yes, this Olympics shows the power of a successful federal law.
So, Title IX requires colleges to offer the same opportunities to women offered to men. In sports, that means athletic scholarships, which meant American colleges had to support women's programs in, well, volleyball and swimming and diving and water polo and gymnastics and track. Men's sports, however, start at a 90 scholarship deficit, because of college football. So women's sports offer 90 scholarships just to get even with football, and then scholarship opportunities are handed out fifty-fifty. Which means, in practice, so-called minor sports like wrestling and men's swimming and men's volleyball take it on the chin.
Football fans, or guys who played, or coaches, will all tell you that playing football teaches invaluable lessons on teamwork and sacrifice and pushing yourself to the max. I don't doubt for a second that that's true. I think wrestling, or diving, or men's gymnastics all teach exactly the same lessons, and are inherently every bit as valuable. I think it's great for women to have all these athletic opportunities. I think it would be just as great for men to have similar opportunities.
So maybe it's time for football to go away.
I've been a football fan my whole life. Some of my greatest memories as a sports fan have come from football. Montana to Dwight Clark. Steve Young to Jerry Rice. I think at its best, football is a sport of extraordinary power and appeal and skill and athleticism.
But we're learning so much more about it, about the corrosive effects of repeated head traumas, of chronic traumatic encephalopathy. We've seen the suicides of young men driven to end the pain, Dave Duerson. Junior Seau. We've seen the blown knees and shattered shoulders. And parents of high school age boys have started asking themselves and each other a different question than the one they asked twenty years ago. It was "do you think he can make the team?" Now, it's "are you going to let him play football?"
The answer, for me, would be no. My sons aren't in high school anymore, but I had a son who played high school basketball, and quit, a decision I supported. I would not have signed a football permission slip, though. My parents did, for my brother, when he was in high school. I think they wouldn't today.
Football has never been more popular in this country, and the idea that it's a sport on its way out seems preposterous. But this Olympics shows how wonderful lots of sports are, how worthy lots of different sports are of our support. I think in time, the cost of insurance premiums will prove prohibitive for budget-conscious high schools.
When football goes (and I think it's when, not if), our viewing calendar will fill right up. Meanwhile, the US women showed us how wonderful lots of sports can be. And how equally wonderful it is to see women, as well as men, play ball.
Monday, August 13, 2012
Saturday, August 11, 2012
Paul Ryan
I have insisted all along that this Presidential election is between two decent, competent guys who happen to differ on matters of policy. So far, the approach taken by both camps would not support that conclusion. Both sides have engaged in ugly smears and distortions of their opponents' positions; both sides have engaged in the politics of personal destruction. It's a shame; I wish elections could involve a national conversation on policy. But that's not likely to happen. We're never going to see a Dennis Kucinich/Ron Paul election.
With the selection of Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan as his running mate, however, Mitt Romney made a bold and interesting choice. He picked a policy guy, a conservative wonk. Ryan has done what Romney has resolutely refused to do--laid out very specific budget proposals. My initial reaction is that this could elevate the debate. I doubt that will happen. What I actually sort of wish could happen is that the fall debates could match Romney with Biden, and Obama with Ryan. That is, the two boring old gaffe-prone guys have their own debate, while the younger policy experts wrangle on economics. That really won't happen. And this selection shouldn't actually be much of a game-changer, since Romney has already embraced the Ryan budget. But this gives Obama a chance to respond with specifics of his own. We'll see how it plays.
One interesting personal component of this selection has to do with Ayn Rand and Ryan's professed admiration for her works. He gave his staff copies of Atlas Shrugged, for example, insisting that they read it. I've read three of Rand's books: the novels Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead, and the philosophical work The Virtue of Selfishness. I read them all because I was researching a play. Nearly twenty years ago, I wrote Gadianton, a play applying Book of Mormon themes to modern business practices. I thought I might write a sequel, and the obvious title for one was Korihor. For those of you who are not Mormons, Gadianton is a famous Book of Mormon villain, while Korihor is the philosopher whose ideas are at the root of Gadianton's depredations. I thought the ideas Korihor preaches tracked with uncanny precision the ideas Ayn Rand expresses in her novels and other works. Above all, Korihor is referred to as 'anti-Christ'; he rejects the charity Jesus preached, because he regards it as coddling weakness. This is, of course, quintessentially Randian.
Well, in 2012, Paul Ryan repudiated Ayn Rand, saying it was an 'atheistic' philosophy, and that earlier reports that he was a Randian objectivist were 'an urban legend.' I suppose it's possible that he, like a lot of people, read her novels, liked them, liked some of her ideas, but as he matured, decided she wasn't really for him. I think it's also possible that Ryan, as he became more prominent in Republican power circles, and given the Republican evangelical base, decided to distance himself from objectivism. I have no window into Ryan's mind--I do find his new stance, uh, convenient. I was amused by Paul Krugman's quick response to the selection: the ticket is Galt/Gekko, he said. Not Gekko/Galt. (In other words, Romney is Gordon Gekko--the rapacious Wall Street guy played by Michael Douglas, and Ryan is John Galt, enigmatic hero of Atlas Shrugged.)
But then, I'm a liberal.
I think we need to look carefully over the Ryan budget, and see exactly what it means and assess, if we can, what merits it possesses. I do want to say one thing about it, one immediate response. I don't think criticizing the Ryan budget requires implying that he personally is an uncompassionate man. I'll let the US Catholic bishops say that, if it needs to be said. His budget would unquestionably cut funds for programs intended to aid the poor. He'd cut 'em a lot; eliminate some. As a liberal Democrat, I oppose that set of priorities. But that doesn't mean that he doesn't care about poor people. It means that he thinks government programs intended to help the poor actually maintain them in a cycle of dependency--that cutting funds for programs like food stamps is doing poor folks a favor; forcing them into an ultimately more sustainable lifestyle.
I think that's wrong. I don't think that's what would happen. I think his budgetary numbers don't add up. I think his budget cuts wouldn't actually stimulate economic growth. I think they'd thwart it. I think they wouldn't even balance the budget, solve the deficit, pay down debt. I think his economic program would grow the debt, throw more people out of work.
I don't think, in other words, that he's a bad person. I think he's wrong. I think he's mistaken. I think his economics are wrong-headed. Let's start by crunching numbers. Let's see where that leads us.
With the selection of Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan as his running mate, however, Mitt Romney made a bold and interesting choice. He picked a policy guy, a conservative wonk. Ryan has done what Romney has resolutely refused to do--laid out very specific budget proposals. My initial reaction is that this could elevate the debate. I doubt that will happen. What I actually sort of wish could happen is that the fall debates could match Romney with Biden, and Obama with Ryan. That is, the two boring old gaffe-prone guys have their own debate, while the younger policy experts wrangle on economics. That really won't happen. And this selection shouldn't actually be much of a game-changer, since Romney has already embraced the Ryan budget. But this gives Obama a chance to respond with specifics of his own. We'll see how it plays.
One interesting personal component of this selection has to do with Ayn Rand and Ryan's professed admiration for her works. He gave his staff copies of Atlas Shrugged, for example, insisting that they read it. I've read three of Rand's books: the novels Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead, and the philosophical work The Virtue of Selfishness. I read them all because I was researching a play. Nearly twenty years ago, I wrote Gadianton, a play applying Book of Mormon themes to modern business practices. I thought I might write a sequel, and the obvious title for one was Korihor. For those of you who are not Mormons, Gadianton is a famous Book of Mormon villain, while Korihor is the philosopher whose ideas are at the root of Gadianton's depredations. I thought the ideas Korihor preaches tracked with uncanny precision the ideas Ayn Rand expresses in her novels and other works. Above all, Korihor is referred to as 'anti-Christ'; he rejects the charity Jesus preached, because he regards it as coddling weakness. This is, of course, quintessentially Randian.
Well, in 2012, Paul Ryan repudiated Ayn Rand, saying it was an 'atheistic' philosophy, and that earlier reports that he was a Randian objectivist were 'an urban legend.' I suppose it's possible that he, like a lot of people, read her novels, liked them, liked some of her ideas, but as he matured, decided she wasn't really for him. I think it's also possible that Ryan, as he became more prominent in Republican power circles, and given the Republican evangelical base, decided to distance himself from objectivism. I have no window into Ryan's mind--I do find his new stance, uh, convenient. I was amused by Paul Krugman's quick response to the selection: the ticket is Galt/Gekko, he said. Not Gekko/Galt. (In other words, Romney is Gordon Gekko--the rapacious Wall Street guy played by Michael Douglas, and Ryan is John Galt, enigmatic hero of Atlas Shrugged.)
But then, I'm a liberal.
I think we need to look carefully over the Ryan budget, and see exactly what it means and assess, if we can, what merits it possesses. I do want to say one thing about it, one immediate response. I don't think criticizing the Ryan budget requires implying that he personally is an uncompassionate man. I'll let the US Catholic bishops say that, if it needs to be said. His budget would unquestionably cut funds for programs intended to aid the poor. He'd cut 'em a lot; eliminate some. As a liberal Democrat, I oppose that set of priorities. But that doesn't mean that he doesn't care about poor people. It means that he thinks government programs intended to help the poor actually maintain them in a cycle of dependency--that cutting funds for programs like food stamps is doing poor folks a favor; forcing them into an ultimately more sustainable lifestyle.
I think that's wrong. I don't think that's what would happen. I think his budgetary numbers don't add up. I think his budget cuts wouldn't actually stimulate economic growth. I think they'd thwart it. I think they wouldn't even balance the budget, solve the deficit, pay down debt. I think his economic program would grow the debt, throw more people out of work.
I don't think, in other words, that he's a bad person. I think he's wrong. I think he's mistaken. I think his economics are wrong-headed. Let's start by crunching numbers. Let's see where that leads us.
Friday, August 10, 2012
Joanna Brooks on The Daily Show
When I got up this morning, knowing what was on my DVR, I was almost giddy with anticipation. Two of my favorite people on earth (neither of whom I've ever met, or am ever likely to meet), were going to be on television together! Yay! Joanna Brooks, author of The Book of Mormon Girl, on the Daily Show, being interviewed by Jon Stewart. Couldn't wait.
Okay, The Book of Mormon Girl is Brooks' account of growing up Mormon in Orange County California, her education at BYU, her coming-of-age as an intellectual and liberal, her dismay over problematic issues in Mormon history and over the Church's involvement with, among other conservative causes, the Prop 8 campaign in California, and the way she eventually found a balance, found a way she could be herself, committed to progressivism and social justice, but also at home, spiritually, as a Mormon. It's a lovely book, funny and smart and achingly honest. Sad and profound and simple and real. It's one of my favorite memoirs ever. And it's made Joanna Brooks something of a spokeswoman for Mormonism.
I don't know of you're aware of this, but a Mormon is running for President. I mean, who knew? Right now, apparently, even as we speak. And, you know, official spokespeople, for the Church or for any other large public entity, that carefully modulated institutional voice of officialdom, that's not so much what anyone wants anymore. Offical statements are seen as inauthentic, are seen as spin. It's interesting to me how a conservative Mormon is running for President, and the people the media want to talk to about him are liberal Mormons. It was so interesting on The Daily Show when Brooks said, about gay Mormons, something frankly innocuous ('there are gay Mormons and we don't to lose them') the audience cheered.
And The Daily Show. I adore The Daily Show. Jon Stewart's only real allegiance is to the Church of Funny, but within the world of politics and media and the media's coverage of politics, he finds a rich rich vein of Funny. He's our Aristophanes. And I know Jon's interviews are oft-criticized, but they're often my favorite parts of the show. He finds great books to read and talk about, and when he talks to the authors of those books, he's clearly read the book, he's clearly interested in engaging its author in conversation, somethings challenging, sometimes laudatory. I respect and admire that about him.
Jon Stewart stands for something. In part, what he stands for is the satiric tradition, that essential requirement of any free society, that we get to mock those in power, that we get to laugh at human pretention, that laughter and sunshine are the best combined disinfectant. He's Jonathan Swift, he's Mark Twain. But he's also an intelligent and decent man, with a genuine interest in public policy, informed by a strong moral sense.
And Joanna Brooks stands for something to, in Mormon culture. In part, she stands for the Eugene England strain in our culture, the deeply committed faithful intellectual. But she's a satirist in her own right--nowhere is her book more brilliant than in the passages about the Marie Osmond beauty secrets book she received as a Christmas present one year. And she's an ardent and committed feminist. She stands for equality, in the best sense of that word.
So the fact that Joanna Brooks was on The Daily Show was sort of more important than anything either of them said. And Jon seemed genuinely respectful of both her book and her position in Mormon culture. I think there was more to it, though, than respect. Jon seemed to spend a lot of time comparing Mormonism and Judaism, as though he was comparing her childhood to the resources he has as a Jewish father, for his own children. At times, he seemed almost wistful, especially when she talked about LDS dance festivals.
It might have sounded a little condescending to some. Jon seemed at times to be saying 'you're a young religion, and as a representative of a very old religion, here's where you are, here's how you need to evolve.' I don't know when I've heard Jon talk about himself as a Jew quite so much. But I thought he was actually trying to get a different, better sense of Mormonism as a faith.
Jon Stewart has certainly mocked Mormons from time to time. Well, he's mocked some Mormons, Mitt Romney, Harry Reid in particular. They're his favorite targets, politicians and especially politicians as wooden as Romney. (Earlier on the show, for example, he made fun of the Romney campaign, a frequent target). Did his conversation with Joanna Brooks serve as a kind of mea culpa, an apology? Maybe. But what I saw was a smart and thoughtful conversation between two great people. Made for a great night of television.
Okay, The Book of Mormon Girl is Brooks' account of growing up Mormon in Orange County California, her education at BYU, her coming-of-age as an intellectual and liberal, her dismay over problematic issues in Mormon history and over the Church's involvement with, among other conservative causes, the Prop 8 campaign in California, and the way she eventually found a balance, found a way she could be herself, committed to progressivism and social justice, but also at home, spiritually, as a Mormon. It's a lovely book, funny and smart and achingly honest. Sad and profound and simple and real. It's one of my favorite memoirs ever. And it's made Joanna Brooks something of a spokeswoman for Mormonism.
I don't know of you're aware of this, but a Mormon is running for President. I mean, who knew? Right now, apparently, even as we speak. And, you know, official spokespeople, for the Church or for any other large public entity, that carefully modulated institutional voice of officialdom, that's not so much what anyone wants anymore. Offical statements are seen as inauthentic, are seen as spin. It's interesting to me how a conservative Mormon is running for President, and the people the media want to talk to about him are liberal Mormons. It was so interesting on The Daily Show when Brooks said, about gay Mormons, something frankly innocuous ('there are gay Mormons and we don't to lose them') the audience cheered.
And The Daily Show. I adore The Daily Show. Jon Stewart's only real allegiance is to the Church of Funny, but within the world of politics and media and the media's coverage of politics, he finds a rich rich vein of Funny. He's our Aristophanes. And I know Jon's interviews are oft-criticized, but they're often my favorite parts of the show. He finds great books to read and talk about, and when he talks to the authors of those books, he's clearly read the book, he's clearly interested in engaging its author in conversation, somethings challenging, sometimes laudatory. I respect and admire that about him.
Jon Stewart stands for something. In part, what he stands for is the satiric tradition, that essential requirement of any free society, that we get to mock those in power, that we get to laugh at human pretention, that laughter and sunshine are the best combined disinfectant. He's Jonathan Swift, he's Mark Twain. But he's also an intelligent and decent man, with a genuine interest in public policy, informed by a strong moral sense.
And Joanna Brooks stands for something to, in Mormon culture. In part, she stands for the Eugene England strain in our culture, the deeply committed faithful intellectual. But she's a satirist in her own right--nowhere is her book more brilliant than in the passages about the Marie Osmond beauty secrets book she received as a Christmas present one year. And she's an ardent and committed feminist. She stands for equality, in the best sense of that word.
So the fact that Joanna Brooks was on The Daily Show was sort of more important than anything either of them said. And Jon seemed genuinely respectful of both her book and her position in Mormon culture. I think there was more to it, though, than respect. Jon seemed to spend a lot of time comparing Mormonism and Judaism, as though he was comparing her childhood to the resources he has as a Jewish father, for his own children. At times, he seemed almost wistful, especially when she talked about LDS dance festivals.
It might have sounded a little condescending to some. Jon seemed at times to be saying 'you're a young religion, and as a representative of a very old religion, here's where you are, here's how you need to evolve.' I don't know when I've heard Jon talk about himself as a Jew quite so much. But I thought he was actually trying to get a different, better sense of Mormonism as a faith.
Jon Stewart has certainly mocked Mormons from time to time. Well, he's mocked some Mormons, Mitt Romney, Harry Reid in particular. They're his favorite targets, politicians and especially politicians as wooden as Romney. (Earlier on the show, for example, he made fun of the Romney campaign, a frequent target). Did his conversation with Joanna Brooks serve as a kind of mea culpa, an apology? Maybe. But what I saw was a smart and thoughtful conversation between two great people. Made for a great night of television.
Thursday, August 9, 2012
Sherlock, Sherlock, and Sherlock
Last night, our industrious little Netflix friends dropped off Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows, big budget blockbuster sequel to the 2009 big budget blockbuster Sherlock Holmes movie. You know the ones: Robert Downey and Jude Law as Holmes and Watson. I know, Game of Shadows was so last year, why write about it now? 'Cause it's my blog and I feel like it, okay?
Holmes is big right now, actually. I blame Kindle. When I got my Kindle, it was loaded with a few free books to start off with, and one of them was a complete collection of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories. I'd read them all many times before, of course--I was a Holmes nut in high school--but getting the Kindle gave me an excuse to read them all over again. And of course, there have been lots and lots of Sherlock Holmes adaptations over the years, including comic books and stage plays and, I'm not kidding, board games. Sherlock Holmes adaptations have included many many films, and not a few TV series.
If you think about it, Holmes should actually work better on TV than on film. Doyle wrote 56 short stories, and only four novels--Holmes just works better in shorter forms, I think. And of the novels, you really can't make a film of A Study in Scarlet, I don't think. It's just so insanely anti-Mormon, what with all the Danite nonsense, which is, like, central to the plot.
That's why I'm so nuts about the BBC Sherlock TV series. It's set in modern London--Holmes is as good with computers as you imagine he'd be, and Watson chronicles his adventures in a blog. Benedict Cumberbatch is superb as Holmes, plus, he's named Benedict Cumberbatch, the greatest name ever for a British actor. Martin Freeman (otherwise known as Bilbo Baggins) is a tremendous Watson. In fact, Watson is such a compelling character, he's every bit Holmes' match. Of course, the cops don't really want to work with Holmes, leading to this exchange: "why should we work with this psychopath?" "High functioning sociopath, do your research."
Okay, obvious point, but Holmes is brilliant; that's the appeal, that's why we read or watch him (or, I guess, play the board game). And you'd think we wouldn't need a modern Holmes, what with all the CSI guys with their fancy DNA tests and spectrometers and electron microscopes and hadron supercolliders. At the heart of Holmes is just . . . observation. He notices things. And then puts the pieces together. Just smart people thinking clearly; heck, that's still dramatically compelling.
And that's why the Downey Holmes movies are so dispiriting. Yes, they do show Holmes thinking problems through. They do this thing where they'll show Holmes looking around a room, and they jump cut from close-up to close-up of things in the room, and we see him putting it all together. Those moments are great, if too infrequent. And I'll also grant you that Doyle's Holmes could defend himself--Watson says he would have been a boxing champion if he'd set his mind to it.
But both Downey movies have also been big and noisy and frenetic like all American action movies, all fight scenes and 'splosions. Downey's Holmes isn't just a brilliant detective, he's Jason Bourne. When Holmes fights off an entire assassination team that's cornered Watson on a train, it's preposterous in the way all big American action films are preposterous. It's un-Holmsian. And a turn-off. I put up with the first Downey Holmes, rather liked it, in fact. The second one was a chore to watch. It had a few fun moments, and I liked the actor who plays Lane Price (Mad Men) as Moriarty. But it's essentially and basically an action movie, and the Sherlock Holmes stories are not essentially and basically action-adventure fiction. They're just. . . not as good. As good as what? Most other Holmes movies and most other Holmes TV series.
Yes, Holmes can fight, and yes the movies do show him thinking. But the balance is all off. And the fact that the BBC series is set in the 21st century, and that the Downey films are late Victorian ends up mattering a lot less than the fact that the Downey films have turned Sherlock Holmes into a superhero. I like Downey as Iron Man. I don't like him as Sherlock Man.
This fall, there's another Sherlock Holmes TV series coming to CBS. Jonny Lee Miller as Holmes, Lucy Liu as Dr. Joan Watson. I admit to being skeptical. I'm a Holmes snob, I admit it. But I absolutely will watch it. It's Holmes.
Holmes is big right now, actually. I blame Kindle. When I got my Kindle, it was loaded with a few free books to start off with, and one of them was a complete collection of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories. I'd read them all many times before, of course--I was a Holmes nut in high school--but getting the Kindle gave me an excuse to read them all over again. And of course, there have been lots and lots of Sherlock Holmes adaptations over the years, including comic books and stage plays and, I'm not kidding, board games. Sherlock Holmes adaptations have included many many films, and not a few TV series.
If you think about it, Holmes should actually work better on TV than on film. Doyle wrote 56 short stories, and only four novels--Holmes just works better in shorter forms, I think. And of the novels, you really can't make a film of A Study in Scarlet, I don't think. It's just so insanely anti-Mormon, what with all the Danite nonsense, which is, like, central to the plot.
That's why I'm so nuts about the BBC Sherlock TV series. It's set in modern London--Holmes is as good with computers as you imagine he'd be, and Watson chronicles his adventures in a blog. Benedict Cumberbatch is superb as Holmes, plus, he's named Benedict Cumberbatch, the greatest name ever for a British actor. Martin Freeman (otherwise known as Bilbo Baggins) is a tremendous Watson. In fact, Watson is such a compelling character, he's every bit Holmes' match. Of course, the cops don't really want to work with Holmes, leading to this exchange: "why should we work with this psychopath?" "High functioning sociopath, do your research."
Okay, obvious point, but Holmes is brilliant; that's the appeal, that's why we read or watch him (or, I guess, play the board game). And you'd think we wouldn't need a modern Holmes, what with all the CSI guys with their fancy DNA tests and spectrometers and electron microscopes and hadron supercolliders. At the heart of Holmes is just . . . observation. He notices things. And then puts the pieces together. Just smart people thinking clearly; heck, that's still dramatically compelling.
And that's why the Downey Holmes movies are so dispiriting. Yes, they do show Holmes thinking problems through. They do this thing where they'll show Holmes looking around a room, and they jump cut from close-up to close-up of things in the room, and we see him putting it all together. Those moments are great, if too infrequent. And I'll also grant you that Doyle's Holmes could defend himself--Watson says he would have been a boxing champion if he'd set his mind to it.
But both Downey movies have also been big and noisy and frenetic like all American action movies, all fight scenes and 'splosions. Downey's Holmes isn't just a brilliant detective, he's Jason Bourne. When Holmes fights off an entire assassination team that's cornered Watson on a train, it's preposterous in the way all big American action films are preposterous. It's un-Holmsian. And a turn-off. I put up with the first Downey Holmes, rather liked it, in fact. The second one was a chore to watch. It had a few fun moments, and I liked the actor who plays Lane Price (Mad Men) as Moriarty. But it's essentially and basically an action movie, and the Sherlock Holmes stories are not essentially and basically action-adventure fiction. They're just. . . not as good. As good as what? Most other Holmes movies and most other Holmes TV series.
Yes, Holmes can fight, and yes the movies do show him thinking. But the balance is all off. And the fact that the BBC series is set in the 21st century, and that the Downey films are late Victorian ends up mattering a lot less than the fact that the Downey films have turned Sherlock Holmes into a superhero. I like Downey as Iron Man. I don't like him as Sherlock Man.
This fall, there's another Sherlock Holmes TV series coming to CBS. Jonny Lee Miller as Holmes, Lucy Liu as Dr. Joan Watson. I admit to being skeptical. I'm a Holmes snob, I admit it. But I absolutely will watch it. It's Holmes.
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
Jaro and Jet
Jaro died a few weeks ago. I'd meant to write about him at the time; today it's time to actually do it. So let me tell you about Jaro, and also about his younger brother, Jet.
A few years ago, my wife and I were at home, and our daughter, then ten years old, came to us and mentioned that her back was hurting a little. She'd told us this before and we'd said the usual things; 'gosh, that's too bad, honey, let's get you an aspirin.' She seemed like her normal, healthy, active self; we weren't all that concerned. But she'd been mentioning a sore back for long enough that I thought we should take her to see our doctor. And he thought, just as a precaution, that an X-ray might be in order. And we're sitting there in the examining room, and he looks at the X-ray and does the frowny-face thing docs do when they don't want you to worry too much, but do want you to worry some. And his nurse arranged for us to see a specialist. More frowny-faces, more furrowed brows, an appointment to see another specialist. Next thing you know, we're up at Primary Children's Hospital in Salt Lake, and yet another specialist is introducing us to a medical term with which we'd previously been unacquainted. Spondelolisthesis. A displacement of the vertebrae. She needed surgery, and how's next week look for you folks. One of those.
Scared us to death. I've had back problems--I fell off our porch and broke it a few years ago--and I liked my back doctor. We got a second opinion, which was identical to the first opinion. So a few days later, we're in the waiting room at Primary Children's, freaked out our minds, worried and scared. But we trusted our doctor--Dr. John Smith, wonderful guy, kind and caring, I'd recommend him to anyone--and sure enough, he came out several hours later and reassured us that it could not have gone better. (Guess what movie they showed in the PCH waiting room, BTW? The Princess Bride. Perfect choice, I think.)
But recovery was awful for her. She was completely miserable, in pain, cranky. I mean, she was ten, and her back went from a little hurty to complete miserable agony. And hospitals are not fun. Nor are they restful. Two days in, she was a weepy mess. Not that I blame her, poor thing.
Enter Jaro.
Jaro, and his brother Jet, are friends of ours. We actually know Jaro better. Jaro and Jet are Newfoundlands, trained as therapy dogs. Newfoundlands are huge dogs, immense. They look like small bears. And they're the most loving, patient animals on earth.
We have a wonderful home teacher. I don't want to embarrass him, but he's fantastic. For those of you who aren't Mormons, a home teacher is a guy from our local congregation (or ward) who is assigned to stop by your home occasionally and see how you're doing. We have a lay clergy in Mormonism, and since we don't have a paid pastor who takes care of his flock, home teachers serve that purpose instead. I am a home teacher to three families, and we have a home teacher too. And he's great. Well, Jaro was a member of his family. (And that really is how they look at it.)
Newfoundlands are perfect for children's therapy dogs. They're endlessly patient and gentle and kind. I asked my home teacher one time what would happen if a burglar broke into their home, with these two huge dogs there. He said that burglar would be in very serious risk of being licked to death. They're just not aggressive at all. Plus, they're huge. Kids see this massive dog come into their hospital room, and their faces just light up.
So Jaro showed up at Primary Children's Hospital, and our daughter was transformed, transfixed, thrilled beyond words to describe it. He pulled her wheelchair (which she hadn't wanted to use) all around the hospital, down to the lobby, back up to her room. She petted him, and hugged him--he licked her face. Her recovery from surgery, her return to her usual cheerful self, began with Jaro's visit.
And then Jaro went to the other rooms in her hospital ward, and visited the other kids too. One kid had been crying for days. We'd hear him, just sobbing without let-up. I can't imagine what kind of pain he must have been in, poor kid, but Jaro cured him in about ten seconds flat.
A few years later, our older daughter got married. We invited Jaro to her wedding, and with permission from our bishop (it was in our church building), Jaro was allowed to come. You know Mormon wedding receptions--they can get pretty frantic, what with all the little kids underfoot. Ha. Problem solved. Jaro entertained all the young'uns and looked to be in seventh heaven all the time.
A few years ago, Jaro's younger brother, Jet arrived. My home teacher's wife is not a large woman, and it's fun to watch her walking them when my home teachers gone on business. They look big enough to eat a Volkswagon. But she keeps 'em on leash, and they placidly plod along. Jet's also a therapy dog. Personally, I think Jet's a little prettier than Jaro, but not quite as sweet-tempered.
Unfortunately, Jaro passed away a few months ago. His life was celebrated by us all, with tears of gratitude for a good life well-spent. And I had a dream, after our home teacher told us of Jaro's peaceful passing, and in my dream, Jaro went to visit his King, and the King said to him "you saw me in the hospital, and you comforted me, you visited me when I was frightened and in pain, and you cheered me up, you came to me when I was sobbing, and you wiped away my tears with your tongue." And Jaro said, in his gentle Newfoundland voice, "when did I comfort you, when did I cheer you up?" And the King said to him, "Inasmuch as you did it unto the least of these, my children, you did it unto me."
So, to Jaro, our gentle friend, and to Jet, his brother: Thank you. Thank you for your love, given unconditionally. We'll never forget how you helped us.
A few years ago, my wife and I were at home, and our daughter, then ten years old, came to us and mentioned that her back was hurting a little. She'd told us this before and we'd said the usual things; 'gosh, that's too bad, honey, let's get you an aspirin.' She seemed like her normal, healthy, active self; we weren't all that concerned. But she'd been mentioning a sore back for long enough that I thought we should take her to see our doctor. And he thought, just as a precaution, that an X-ray might be in order. And we're sitting there in the examining room, and he looks at the X-ray and does the frowny-face thing docs do when they don't want you to worry too much, but do want you to worry some. And his nurse arranged for us to see a specialist. More frowny-faces, more furrowed brows, an appointment to see another specialist. Next thing you know, we're up at Primary Children's Hospital in Salt Lake, and yet another specialist is introducing us to a medical term with which we'd previously been unacquainted. Spondelolisthesis. A displacement of the vertebrae. She needed surgery, and how's next week look for you folks. One of those.
Scared us to death. I've had back problems--I fell off our porch and broke it a few years ago--and I liked my back doctor. We got a second opinion, which was identical to the first opinion. So a few days later, we're in the waiting room at Primary Children's, freaked out our minds, worried and scared. But we trusted our doctor--Dr. John Smith, wonderful guy, kind and caring, I'd recommend him to anyone--and sure enough, he came out several hours later and reassured us that it could not have gone better. (Guess what movie they showed in the PCH waiting room, BTW? The Princess Bride. Perfect choice, I think.)
But recovery was awful for her. She was completely miserable, in pain, cranky. I mean, she was ten, and her back went from a little hurty to complete miserable agony. And hospitals are not fun. Nor are they restful. Two days in, she was a weepy mess. Not that I blame her, poor thing.
Enter Jaro.
Jaro, and his brother Jet, are friends of ours. We actually know Jaro better. Jaro and Jet are Newfoundlands, trained as therapy dogs. Newfoundlands are huge dogs, immense. They look like small bears. And they're the most loving, patient animals on earth.
We have a wonderful home teacher. I don't want to embarrass him, but he's fantastic. For those of you who aren't Mormons, a home teacher is a guy from our local congregation (or ward) who is assigned to stop by your home occasionally and see how you're doing. We have a lay clergy in Mormonism, and since we don't have a paid pastor who takes care of his flock, home teachers serve that purpose instead. I am a home teacher to three families, and we have a home teacher too. And he's great. Well, Jaro was a member of his family. (And that really is how they look at it.)
Newfoundlands are perfect for children's therapy dogs. They're endlessly patient and gentle and kind. I asked my home teacher one time what would happen if a burglar broke into their home, with these two huge dogs there. He said that burglar would be in very serious risk of being licked to death. They're just not aggressive at all. Plus, they're huge. Kids see this massive dog come into their hospital room, and their faces just light up.
So Jaro showed up at Primary Children's Hospital, and our daughter was transformed, transfixed, thrilled beyond words to describe it. He pulled her wheelchair (which she hadn't wanted to use) all around the hospital, down to the lobby, back up to her room. She petted him, and hugged him--he licked her face. Her recovery from surgery, her return to her usual cheerful self, began with Jaro's visit.
And then Jaro went to the other rooms in her hospital ward, and visited the other kids too. One kid had been crying for days. We'd hear him, just sobbing without let-up. I can't imagine what kind of pain he must have been in, poor kid, but Jaro cured him in about ten seconds flat.
A few years later, our older daughter got married. We invited Jaro to her wedding, and with permission from our bishop (it was in our church building), Jaro was allowed to come. You know Mormon wedding receptions--they can get pretty frantic, what with all the little kids underfoot. Ha. Problem solved. Jaro entertained all the young'uns and looked to be in seventh heaven all the time.
A few years ago, Jaro's younger brother, Jet arrived. My home teacher's wife is not a large woman, and it's fun to watch her walking them when my home teachers gone on business. They look big enough to eat a Volkswagon. But she keeps 'em on leash, and they placidly plod along. Jet's also a therapy dog. Personally, I think Jet's a little prettier than Jaro, but not quite as sweet-tempered.
Unfortunately, Jaro passed away a few months ago. His life was celebrated by us all, with tears of gratitude for a good life well-spent. And I had a dream, after our home teacher told us of Jaro's peaceful passing, and in my dream, Jaro went to visit his King, and the King said to him "you saw me in the hospital, and you comforted me, you visited me when I was frightened and in pain, and you cheered me up, you came to me when I was sobbing, and you wiped away my tears with your tongue." And Jaro said, in his gentle Newfoundland voice, "when did I comfort you, when did I cheer you up?" And the King said to him, "Inasmuch as you did it unto the least of these, my children, you did it unto me."
So, to Jaro, our gentle friend, and to Jet, his brother: Thank you. Thank you for your love, given unconditionally. We'll never forget how you helped us.
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
The stupidest activity known to man
Arguing with people on the internet. Also, quite possibly the most addictive.
I know there are some websites that really only exist for that purpose; where the point is to argue with people. I don't know which ones, and wouldn't visit them if I did, but certainly Facebook is home to some real doozies, Reddit hosts some donnybrooks. I mean, that's one of the things the internet's good at. Providing slum playgrounds good for fighting with people.
There have always been some subjects about which it's completely pointless to argue with folks. My favorite example is: who wrote Shakespeare's plays. The completely unremarkable answer is: Shakespeare wrote 'em. But there are folks out there who will go to their graves insisting it was Marlowe, or Bacon, or the Earl of Oxford. And you can't argue with them. There's no evidence they will ever find persuasive, at all. And we're not talking dumb people--Derek Jacobi is an Oxfordian, former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens is one. And there's no evidence whatever that the plays were written by anyone but William Shakespeare, glover's son from Stratford-on-Avon. None, zippo, bupkus. And I read Charlton Ogburn's whole entire book, a thousand pages easy, The Mysterious William Shakespeare. Wasted three weeks one summer, acting summer stock, reading this endless idiotic book. Guess what? Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare!
Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare and Neil Armstrong really did land on the moon and Jesus really existed, and the Twin Towers were destroyed by planes hitting them and not explosives set there by Bush and Cheney and Obama was born in Hawaii. Also, Da Vince didn't code secret stuff about the Knights Templar and the Merovingian kings being born from Jesus' bloodline into his paintings. Nor is there a treasure map on the back of the Declaration of Independence.
And you can't persuade people who believe in any of the theories listed above that they're wrong. Cannot. Be. Done.
But that's not all. You also can't persuade Libertarians that their economic theories don't and won't work. They don't and they won't, but there's no evidence out there they'll so much as listen to. You can't convince folks on the Right that President Obama's not a communist. If you say to them, "he's not even terribly liberal. I'm a liberal, and my problem with him is that he's too conservative," that's not convincing, apparently.
Italicizing doesn't help either. Or using CAPS FOR EVERYTHING.
One place I argue with people is on the Deseret News website. I love going to the letters to the editor page and arguing with people there. I really do enjoy that, much more than is healthy for me. There are a bunch of people there who I argue with all the time (shout out to my peeps: Mike Richards, Mountanman, Lost in DC and procuradorfiscal!) One thing they like to do is say "President Obama believes" before saying some absurd thing the President couldn't possibly believe. "President Obama believes that money grows on trees, while we know hard-working Americans. . . ."
(BTW: why is it always 'hard-working Americans?' I personally know lazy-butt Americans by the score. They never get talked about on these pages, unless it's someone talking about the worthless people Obama, that socialist, wants to give their hard-earned money to.)
Argue politics and you hear the most absurd nonsense. The 'truthers' are an example. Come on, people, I didn't like 'em either, but you have to know Bush and Cheney didn't blow up the Twin Towers. Bush was a President I often disagreed with, not a homicidal monster. And Obama really was born in Hawaii. You know why the Right wants to see his school records? To see if he ever applied for foreign student financial aid. ('Cause if he did, it proves, proves, he was born in Kenya!) Guess what? He never did. How do I know that, (having no more access to his records than you do)? He was born in Hawaii!
One favorite meme is that the Senate had defeated Obama's budget 99-0. You'll hear that all the time: Obama is so unpopular with his own party he couldn't get a single vote for his budget. Seriously, you hear that. I mean, come on. If that had actually happened, it would be completely historic. It'd be the biggest news story in years. Turns out there was a 99-0 vote: election year shenanigans. Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama sent up a bill he called 'President Obama's budget,' a right wing bill modeled on Paul Ryan's House bill. He then got all the Republicans to vote against it, knowing no Demos could possibly support it. So the truth is, a Senator played this silly political stunt. Not the entire Democratic caucus shot down a Democratic President (and one they really do like.)
But explain that to people? Ha. Fat chance.
It's a waste of time. It really is. People who want to argue on the internet don't want to learn anything, don't want to really listen to an opposing point of view, don't want to hear, respectfully, an opposing view. They just want to argue on the internet. It's a waste of time and emotional energy. It's stupid.
I do it anyway.
I know there are some websites that really only exist for that purpose; where the point is to argue with people. I don't know which ones, and wouldn't visit them if I did, but certainly Facebook is home to some real doozies, Reddit hosts some donnybrooks. I mean, that's one of the things the internet's good at. Providing slum playgrounds good for fighting with people.
There have always been some subjects about which it's completely pointless to argue with folks. My favorite example is: who wrote Shakespeare's plays. The completely unremarkable answer is: Shakespeare wrote 'em. But there are folks out there who will go to their graves insisting it was Marlowe, or Bacon, or the Earl of Oxford. And you can't argue with them. There's no evidence they will ever find persuasive, at all. And we're not talking dumb people--Derek Jacobi is an Oxfordian, former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens is one. And there's no evidence whatever that the plays were written by anyone but William Shakespeare, glover's son from Stratford-on-Avon. None, zippo, bupkus. And I read Charlton Ogburn's whole entire book, a thousand pages easy, The Mysterious William Shakespeare. Wasted three weeks one summer, acting summer stock, reading this endless idiotic book. Guess what? Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare!
Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare and Neil Armstrong really did land on the moon and Jesus really existed, and the Twin Towers were destroyed by planes hitting them and not explosives set there by Bush and Cheney and Obama was born in Hawaii. Also, Da Vince didn't code secret stuff about the Knights Templar and the Merovingian kings being born from Jesus' bloodline into his paintings. Nor is there a treasure map on the back of the Declaration of Independence.
And you can't persuade people who believe in any of the theories listed above that they're wrong. Cannot. Be. Done.
But that's not all. You also can't persuade Libertarians that their economic theories don't and won't work. They don't and they won't, but there's no evidence out there they'll so much as listen to. You can't convince folks on the Right that President Obama's not a communist. If you say to them, "he's not even terribly liberal. I'm a liberal, and my problem with him is that he's too conservative," that's not convincing, apparently.
Italicizing doesn't help either. Or using CAPS FOR EVERYTHING.
One place I argue with people is on the Deseret News website. I love going to the letters to the editor page and arguing with people there. I really do enjoy that, much more than is healthy for me. There are a bunch of people there who I argue with all the time (shout out to my peeps: Mike Richards, Mountanman, Lost in DC and procuradorfiscal!) One thing they like to do is say "President Obama believes" before saying some absurd thing the President couldn't possibly believe. "President Obama believes that money grows on trees, while we know hard-working Americans. . . ."
(BTW: why is it always 'hard-working Americans?' I personally know lazy-butt Americans by the score. They never get talked about on these pages, unless it's someone talking about the worthless people Obama, that socialist, wants to give their hard-earned money to.)
Argue politics and you hear the most absurd nonsense. The 'truthers' are an example. Come on, people, I didn't like 'em either, but you have to know Bush and Cheney didn't blow up the Twin Towers. Bush was a President I often disagreed with, not a homicidal monster. And Obama really was born in Hawaii. You know why the Right wants to see his school records? To see if he ever applied for foreign student financial aid. ('Cause if he did, it proves, proves, he was born in Kenya!) Guess what? He never did. How do I know that, (having no more access to his records than you do)? He was born in Hawaii!
One favorite meme is that the Senate had defeated Obama's budget 99-0. You'll hear that all the time: Obama is so unpopular with his own party he couldn't get a single vote for his budget. Seriously, you hear that. I mean, come on. If that had actually happened, it would be completely historic. It'd be the biggest news story in years. Turns out there was a 99-0 vote: election year shenanigans. Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama sent up a bill he called 'President Obama's budget,' a right wing bill modeled on Paul Ryan's House bill. He then got all the Republicans to vote against it, knowing no Demos could possibly support it. So the truth is, a Senator played this silly political stunt. Not the entire Democratic caucus shot down a Democratic President (and one they really do like.)
But explain that to people? Ha. Fat chance.
It's a waste of time. It really is. People who want to argue on the internet don't want to learn anything, don't want to really listen to an opposing point of view, don't want to hear, respectfully, an opposing view. They just want to argue on the internet. It's a waste of time and emotional energy. It's stupid.
I do it anyway.
Monday, August 6, 2012
Dark Knight Rises: Just a really good action movie
The headline of Salon.com's review of The Dark Knight Rises called it "Christopher Nolan's evil masterpiece." I disagree on both counts. It's not a masterpiece, and it's not evil. It's just a really good action movie.
The Dark Knight Rises is the final film in Nolan's Batman trilogy. (Or it could be--the ending holds open the possibility of another sequel). One immediate difficulty, of course, is that The Dark Knight, the second film in the series, featured Heath Ledger's iconic performance as the Joker, a performance so remarkable, it kind of overshadowed the rest of the movie. With Ledger's tragic death, Nolan had to create an equally powerful super-villain. He had to raise the stakes for the characters and story. Paradoxically, he also had to anchor the film with a stronger focus on an much more interesting Batman. He accomplishes all these tasks . . . up to a point. But he also gives the film a political dimension that frankly ended up being more confusing than germane.
I'm trying to think of a way into this film and series, and one possibility is through D&D. I've never really played D&D, but my son has, and I'm a fan. In D&D, characters have an alignment, with nine possibilities. They're either good, neutral or evil, and either lawful, neutral, or chaotic. A character might be, for example, lawful evil--rule-bound and orderly, but evil. Adolph Eichmann, perhaps. Or chaotic evil; random, arbitrary, but oriented to do wrong. Ledger's Joker essentially defines chaotic evil.
At first, Bane, (memorably played by Tom Hardy, most of the characterization a matter of stance and movement--he's masked), seems like a terrific super-villain, but aligned lawful evil. He's huge and deadly, but he's also organized. In Gotham, a cult of personality has formed around Harvey Dent, the Aaron Eckhardt character from The Dark Knight. Police honor his legacy by suspending civil liberties, which has driven organized crime underground. Literally so; a community of criminals thrives in the Gotham sewers, while thousands of arrestees languish in Gotham prisons--and without, apparently, much in the way of due process. Bane organizes this underground, bend it to his will, and prepares to wreak havoc on Gotham (which, more obviously than ever, is New York City).
Okay, so there's definitely a political element to all this. Bruce Wayne is a rich guy. He's asked his head of R & D, Fox (Morgan Freeman), to work on developing a fusion reactor, which will provide energy for free for all of Gotham. The downside: such an energy supply could be weaponized. So his financial backer, Miranda (Marion Cotillard), is given control of the no-longer-profitable Wayne Enterprises, with instructions to never let the reactor fall into enemy hands. This turns out to be a very very bad idea. Rich guys, in this film, aren't much good, and poor guys, like Bane, are pissed off about it. That's about as deep as it goes.
Oops. Uh, also, spoiler back there. Sorry.
Wayne Enterprises unprofitable, you say? Indeed. Because Bruce Wayne is so depressed after the death of Maggie Gynllenhaal, his True Love, that he's become Howard Hughes level reclusive. He's a mess. A doctor tells him his knees are shot. And Batman, widely blamed for Dent's death, is anathema in the city, and in mothballs. Christian Bale's fabulous in this film, as is Michael Caine as Alfred--their scenes together give the film its emotional punch. But Bruce has started to pull out of his funk, and Batman eventually goes back to war.
Andrew O'Hehir is Salon's film critic, and he's good. I get where his complaint about the film being 'fascistic' are coming from. Bane 'frees' the city, 'liberates' it. The resulting anarchy leads to mock trials, with Cillian Murphy as a kind of yuppie Robespierre, sentencing the accused, without due process, to death or exile. Exile, in this case, meaning a chance to walk across an inadequately frozen East River to 'freedom'. But where does that anarchy come from?
In the film, one might argue that it comes from Occupy Wall Street. In one of the film's great scenes, Bane and his minions take over a pro football stadium (The Meadowlands? New York doesn't have a midtown stadium--the Giants play in Jersey). In a big game, we see Hines Ward run a kickoff back for a touchdown, while the field explodes behind him, bombs planted by Bane's guys. Cut to models of New York, as all the bridges into the city also detonate. Bane then 'liberates' the city, and uses Occupy rhetoric, all about a 'class struggle, and the poor guys held back by the rich.'
The problem is, none of that adds up to anything. It's as though Nolan, hearing all this rhetoric about a 'class war' thought, "you wanna see a class war, okay!" But we're never meant to take any of it seriously. The only 'liberated' souls are Bane's men, and he's got a ticking time bomb in his possession, which will kill everyone soon enough. Nobody can leave, and everyone's going to die. It's not like he reorganizes society meaningfully, or, you know, imposes sharia law. In fact, we're never quite sure just what Bane wants. And that seemingly central question really never does get answered.
I never actually thought Bane could be the mastermind of this 'plot,' whatever it was, and turns out, I was right. Won't give away who the real super-villain of the piece is, except it's not Catwoman. And what, exactly, does this super-villain want? We're finally actually, sort of, told, but it really doesn't make a lick of sense.
The argument could be made that Nolan is actually saying something like this: Occupy protestors are puppets of larger, evil forces, their rhetoric conduces only to anarchy and misery. An evil opportunist will exploit them all soon enough. But none of that is central to the film's concerns, which are much more about whether Batman will get out of that pit, and will Fox be able to prevent that bomb from going off.
The pit: yeah, well, Bane was raised in this massive pit in the Middle East somewhere, where the only way out was to climb this wall, which nobody's been able to do except one person. Presumably Bane. And he throws Batman down the same pit, with a badly injured back. Somehow, Bruce Wayne has to fix his back and climb out of the pit in time to, as Batman, save the day. Which, of course, he does. And it's great, very exciting, very compelling. That's really what the film's about.
The political stuff is really just, well, choose your metaphor, window-dressing or a smokescreen.
Okay, in The Dark Knight, there was the ferries scene. Two ferries; one full of prison inmates, the other full of civilian passengers, plus National Guardsmen. The passengers in each can blow up the other; if neither explodes before midnight, the Joker will detonate bombs in both. Nice bit of game theory, a sort of first cousin to The Prisoner's Dilemma. It's a tremendous scene, very tense, very powerful. We can see the people on both boats, we can hear their deliberations. That's what's at stake in the movie; the people in those two boats.
In Dark Knight Rises, the 'stakes' are higher--a bomb big enough to destroy Manhattan. Way more lives at stake, way higher casualties if Batman can't save the day. But it doesn't feel as serious. It's an abstract danger--the numbers at risk are too enormous to register. Plus, we've been there--how many action movies are about atomic bombs about to explode? Heck, how many episodes of 24? We know that Batman will figure out how to save the day. No way Batman fails to save an entire city. But those ferries? We'd buy it if Batman failed that one. Watching the ferries scene, I genuinely wondered if Nolan would let one of those boats blow up the other one. I thought he might. It was more immediate, more human, more relate-able.
There is, however, one political issue that the three Batman movies together deal with, and it's an important issue, and a powerful one. I don't think Nolan cared about the class warfare rhetoric of Bane's, except to help round out Bane's character. But I think he cares a lot about due process. I think he cares a lot about vigilantism. I think he cares a lot about what happens to a civil society when it uses a war against terror (or evil or criminals or whatever) to violate basic rule of law.
The Dark Knight came out in 2008, which means it was written and made during Bush's war on terror. There's a guy who writes for Salon, Glenn Greenwald, who is pretty obsessive about the violations of civil liberties that the Bush administration committed as part of the war on terror. Greenwald hasn't let up in the four years since. The Obama administration has been, if anything, evern more cavalier in their violations of international and constitutional law. Three US citizens abroad, accused of links to Al-Queda, have been killed by drones, ordered by Obama, without due process.
What Nolan has never been afraid of is making Batman movies that question the very rationale for Batman's existence. In all three films, he shows why we'd very much like a Batman-type vigilante, why that fantasy is so compelling, but also why it's probably not a great idea, and may well cause more problems than it solves. Batman sort of retires at the end of The Dark Knight Rises (after, yes, saving the world; it's really just another action movie), not because he hasn't been effective, but because having a Batman (or a cult of personality built around Harvey Dent's violations of civil liberties) can only spawn, well, something like Bane.
A lot of things don't work in the film. Anne Hathaway's Catwoman is terrific, but Joseph Gordon Leavitt, great in the film, doesn't get much to do (while Batman's saving the world, he's driving a bus full of orphans around). I also loved Gary Oldman's Commissioner Gordon, the film's most equivocal hero. I liked the film a lot. As an action film. Which, ultimately, is all it really is.
The Dark Knight Rises is the final film in Nolan's Batman trilogy. (Or it could be--the ending holds open the possibility of another sequel). One immediate difficulty, of course, is that The Dark Knight, the second film in the series, featured Heath Ledger's iconic performance as the Joker, a performance so remarkable, it kind of overshadowed the rest of the movie. With Ledger's tragic death, Nolan had to create an equally powerful super-villain. He had to raise the stakes for the characters and story. Paradoxically, he also had to anchor the film with a stronger focus on an much more interesting Batman. He accomplishes all these tasks . . . up to a point. But he also gives the film a political dimension that frankly ended up being more confusing than germane.
I'm trying to think of a way into this film and series, and one possibility is through D&D. I've never really played D&D, but my son has, and I'm a fan. In D&D, characters have an alignment, with nine possibilities. They're either good, neutral or evil, and either lawful, neutral, or chaotic. A character might be, for example, lawful evil--rule-bound and orderly, but evil. Adolph Eichmann, perhaps. Or chaotic evil; random, arbitrary, but oriented to do wrong. Ledger's Joker essentially defines chaotic evil.
At first, Bane, (memorably played by Tom Hardy, most of the characterization a matter of stance and movement--he's masked), seems like a terrific super-villain, but aligned lawful evil. He's huge and deadly, but he's also organized. In Gotham, a cult of personality has formed around Harvey Dent, the Aaron Eckhardt character from The Dark Knight. Police honor his legacy by suspending civil liberties, which has driven organized crime underground. Literally so; a community of criminals thrives in the Gotham sewers, while thousands of arrestees languish in Gotham prisons--and without, apparently, much in the way of due process. Bane organizes this underground, bend it to his will, and prepares to wreak havoc on Gotham (which, more obviously than ever, is New York City).
Okay, so there's definitely a political element to all this. Bruce Wayne is a rich guy. He's asked his head of R & D, Fox (Morgan Freeman), to work on developing a fusion reactor, which will provide energy for free for all of Gotham. The downside: such an energy supply could be weaponized. So his financial backer, Miranda (Marion Cotillard), is given control of the no-longer-profitable Wayne Enterprises, with instructions to never let the reactor fall into enemy hands. This turns out to be a very very bad idea. Rich guys, in this film, aren't much good, and poor guys, like Bane, are pissed off about it. That's about as deep as it goes.
Oops. Uh, also, spoiler back there. Sorry.
Wayne Enterprises unprofitable, you say? Indeed. Because Bruce Wayne is so depressed after the death of Maggie Gynllenhaal, his True Love, that he's become Howard Hughes level reclusive. He's a mess. A doctor tells him his knees are shot. And Batman, widely blamed for Dent's death, is anathema in the city, and in mothballs. Christian Bale's fabulous in this film, as is Michael Caine as Alfred--their scenes together give the film its emotional punch. But Bruce has started to pull out of his funk, and Batman eventually goes back to war.
Andrew O'Hehir is Salon's film critic, and he's good. I get where his complaint about the film being 'fascistic' are coming from. Bane 'frees' the city, 'liberates' it. The resulting anarchy leads to mock trials, with Cillian Murphy as a kind of yuppie Robespierre, sentencing the accused, without due process, to death or exile. Exile, in this case, meaning a chance to walk across an inadequately frozen East River to 'freedom'. But where does that anarchy come from?
In the film, one might argue that it comes from Occupy Wall Street. In one of the film's great scenes, Bane and his minions take over a pro football stadium (The Meadowlands? New York doesn't have a midtown stadium--the Giants play in Jersey). In a big game, we see Hines Ward run a kickoff back for a touchdown, while the field explodes behind him, bombs planted by Bane's guys. Cut to models of New York, as all the bridges into the city also detonate. Bane then 'liberates' the city, and uses Occupy rhetoric, all about a 'class struggle, and the poor guys held back by the rich.'
The problem is, none of that adds up to anything. It's as though Nolan, hearing all this rhetoric about a 'class war' thought, "you wanna see a class war, okay!" But we're never meant to take any of it seriously. The only 'liberated' souls are Bane's men, and he's got a ticking time bomb in his possession, which will kill everyone soon enough. Nobody can leave, and everyone's going to die. It's not like he reorganizes society meaningfully, or, you know, imposes sharia law. In fact, we're never quite sure just what Bane wants. And that seemingly central question really never does get answered.
I never actually thought Bane could be the mastermind of this 'plot,' whatever it was, and turns out, I was right. Won't give away who the real super-villain of the piece is, except it's not Catwoman. And what, exactly, does this super-villain want? We're finally actually, sort of, told, but it really doesn't make a lick of sense.
The argument could be made that Nolan is actually saying something like this: Occupy protestors are puppets of larger, evil forces, their rhetoric conduces only to anarchy and misery. An evil opportunist will exploit them all soon enough. But none of that is central to the film's concerns, which are much more about whether Batman will get out of that pit, and will Fox be able to prevent that bomb from going off.
The pit: yeah, well, Bane was raised in this massive pit in the Middle East somewhere, where the only way out was to climb this wall, which nobody's been able to do except one person. Presumably Bane. And he throws Batman down the same pit, with a badly injured back. Somehow, Bruce Wayne has to fix his back and climb out of the pit in time to, as Batman, save the day. Which, of course, he does. And it's great, very exciting, very compelling. That's really what the film's about.
The political stuff is really just, well, choose your metaphor, window-dressing or a smokescreen.
Okay, in The Dark Knight, there was the ferries scene. Two ferries; one full of prison inmates, the other full of civilian passengers, plus National Guardsmen. The passengers in each can blow up the other; if neither explodes before midnight, the Joker will detonate bombs in both. Nice bit of game theory, a sort of first cousin to The Prisoner's Dilemma. It's a tremendous scene, very tense, very powerful. We can see the people on both boats, we can hear their deliberations. That's what's at stake in the movie; the people in those two boats.
In Dark Knight Rises, the 'stakes' are higher--a bomb big enough to destroy Manhattan. Way more lives at stake, way higher casualties if Batman can't save the day. But it doesn't feel as serious. It's an abstract danger--the numbers at risk are too enormous to register. Plus, we've been there--how many action movies are about atomic bombs about to explode? Heck, how many episodes of 24? We know that Batman will figure out how to save the day. No way Batman fails to save an entire city. But those ferries? We'd buy it if Batman failed that one. Watching the ferries scene, I genuinely wondered if Nolan would let one of those boats blow up the other one. I thought he might. It was more immediate, more human, more relate-able.
There is, however, one political issue that the three Batman movies together deal with, and it's an important issue, and a powerful one. I don't think Nolan cared about the class warfare rhetoric of Bane's, except to help round out Bane's character. But I think he cares a lot about due process. I think he cares a lot about vigilantism. I think he cares a lot about what happens to a civil society when it uses a war against terror (or evil or criminals or whatever) to violate basic rule of law.
The Dark Knight came out in 2008, which means it was written and made during Bush's war on terror. There's a guy who writes for Salon, Glenn Greenwald, who is pretty obsessive about the violations of civil liberties that the Bush administration committed as part of the war on terror. Greenwald hasn't let up in the four years since. The Obama administration has been, if anything, evern more cavalier in their violations of international and constitutional law. Three US citizens abroad, accused of links to Al-Queda, have been killed by drones, ordered by Obama, without due process.
What Nolan has never been afraid of is making Batman movies that question the very rationale for Batman's existence. In all three films, he shows why we'd very much like a Batman-type vigilante, why that fantasy is so compelling, but also why it's probably not a great idea, and may well cause more problems than it solves. Batman sort of retires at the end of The Dark Knight Rises (after, yes, saving the world; it's really just another action movie), not because he hasn't been effective, but because having a Batman (or a cult of personality built around Harvey Dent's violations of civil liberties) can only spawn, well, something like Bane.
A lot of things don't work in the film. Anne Hathaway's Catwoman is terrific, but Joseph Gordon Leavitt, great in the film, doesn't get much to do (while Batman's saving the world, he's driving a bus full of orphans around). I also loved Gary Oldman's Commissioner Gordon, the film's most equivocal hero. I liked the film a lot. As an action film. Which, ultimately, is all it really is.
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