Tuesday, March 22, 2016
Thoughts on Bernie Sanders' Candidacy
2 Reasons I Could Never Vote for BernieThey have nothing to do with ideology
Without even looking at ideology, I have two huge problems with the idea of voting for Bernie Sanders. I certainly see some good and some bad with the man’s ideology, with his platform; however, none of that comes into play for me. At a fundamental level, I cannot even begin to consider casting a vote for the man.
One thing I think most people get wrong about American politics is the rhetoric used to tell people how to vote. From the time we are children first learning the concepts of voting and choosing our candidates, we are told some variation of “vote for the candidate who most represents your beliefs and values.” That’s nonsensical. Political elections are not the same as those for homecoming king and queen—there is actual work for the politicians to do once they are elected.
At its most basic level, a political campaign is a job interview. They are trying to convince us of how well they perform in office. We should be voting based on how well we believe they will perform. My vote does not go to the candidate who most represents my values. No, it goes to the one whom I believe will perform and product in the way I believe will most represent my values. Those two things are not the same. Not even close. Effectiveness is important.
How effective can Bernie Sanders hope to be as President of the United States from 2017 to 2021 or 2025? How much help can he or his supporters hope to get from Congress? The Republican side obviously won’t be eager to assist, but why would the Democrat side help him?
Here’s an important thing about being a “non-establishment” candidate: once elected to the highest office of the executive branch, you can’t get anything done unless your non-establishment becomes the new establishment. It’s the unspoken, unwritten check & balance. Bernie Sanders as President is much like Avery Johnson running a half-court offence—on permanent self-check. How/Why would anyone vote for that?
The other, and larger, issue I have with Sanders’ candidacy is his running as a Democrat. I do not understand how anyone, no matter his/her political affiliations and leanings, can vote for him while he runs as a Democrat. He is not a Democrat. He’s never been a Democrat, at least not during his political career, which began during the Nixon Administration. Sanders only became a Democrat last year for the sole purpose of running for President as member of a party whose size could allow him to actually win.
I view Sanders running as a Democrat no differently than I do people who claim their great-great-grandmother was half Shawnee in order to get a scholarship or move to California before the senior year of high school so as to go to Berkeley as an in-state student. It’s fraudulent. Say whatever you want about American politics, but I refuse to vote for a candidate who knowingly and admittedly seeks party backing on fraudulent terms.
Bernie Sanders? GTFOHWTBS
Sunday, March 25, 2012
The Hunger Games (Movie Review)
As just a movie, The Hunger Games is OK. Not great, but good. Highly entertaining at some points, but not nearly as gritty or as epic as it could have been. Knowing that Suzanne Collins was involved in the screenwriting, I knew that many punches would be pulled. Collins does not seem to embrace the violence that fills the Panem she created. Too much of it happened off page in the novels, and now off screen in the first movie.
Watching the movie yesterday confirmed what I believed after reading the series: Collins was not a big fan of who Katniss was in The Hunger Games novel. Collins transformed Katniss throughout the novels, and the Katniss of the movie was more reminiscent of the Katniss of Book 3 (Mockingjay) than the one of Book 1 (The Hunger Games). That’s a negative, but the story was still good enough to earn the film 3 solid stars from me.
If David Fincher’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is at one end of the scale in what do you keep/what do you drop/what do you modify between a book and its movie and Oprah Winfrey’s Beloved is at the other end, The Hunger Games resides closer to Oprah than it does to Fincher.
I don’t understand some of the decisions that were made. I’m not one of those “the text is sacred” people. What I am is someone who actually liked Katniss as she existed in The Hunger Games novel. The character is a different person in the movie, and I did not like her. Thing is…I’m not sure if she’s supposed to be a different character. I’m not sure if they changed the character of Katniss or if they neglected to show enough of the peripheral stuff in the movie that we can’t tell if she is the same character or not.
The first noticeable thing to me was that Katniss of the film is not hardcore, and Katniss of The Hunger Games is—and needs to be—hardcore. Although only a teenager and still in school, Katniss is her family’s primary source of food and income. Her only concern is that she survives—which requires winning the Games—so that her sister and mother do not starve without her. The film shows her hunting, but I don’t think it comes across clearly that her hunting is what keeps them from starving. I know the beginning goes so quickly that people don’t understand that Gale is her only friend in the world. Novel Katniss is a socially awkward, introverted person. She does not play well with others. There are times during the movie when she says she is not good at making people like her, but the audience is given no evidence of that. Novel Katniss has a terribly short temper. She is standoffish and quick to respond to the minutest of perceived slights. She is someone who drives people away from her. The only glimpse of this we see in the film is her pinning Peeta against the wall after he publicly admitted his crush on her. She is not a nice person. This is, I feel, an important omission.
Along those lines, Novel Katniss has had neither the time nor inclination to think about any sort of romance or love life beyond the declaration that she will never have kids. At the time we meet Katniss in the book, she has never had a romantic moment with a boy. The film treats Gale as if he was her boyfriend, though he’s not. Her first kiss onscreen is the first kiss of Katniss’ life, but the audience has no way of knowing this. If they are going to change this, if they are going to make movie-Gale movie-Katniss’ boyfriend, they should have been more explicit about it. The ambiguity is not good. The particulars of the Katniss-Peeta and Katniss-Gale relationships shapes most of Katniss’ plans and goals in Catching Fire, the second installment of the trilogy. The ambiguity also keeps us from getting a clear picture of what, exactly, are Katniss’ motivations for what she does throughout The Hunger Games, especially when her interactions with Peeta. Does she care about him? Or does she just realize that her survival is dependent upon convincing people that she does? In the book, we know; in the movie, we do not.
Those things only feed into my three biggest issues with the movie: Katniss’ relationships with Peeta, Rue, and the Capitol. Movie-Katniss was too personable. Katniss is a cold, calculating young woman. As portrayed by Jennifer Lawrence, her moments with Peeta come across as emotional ones, but in the book, she’s playing for the cameras, trying to get sponsors, gaming the viewers. I doubt many people who saw the movie without reading the book realized Katniss was faking it. Feelings for Peeta are not something Katniss contemplates at this time. She’s never contemplated these types of feelings for anyone before. The film does not make this clear. Again, we are left with ambiguity. One thing that should have been omitted from the film, but wasn’t, was Peeta’s alliance with the tributes from Districts 1 and 2. It would have been difficult to explain that without text, and they never addressed it later. As is, that alliance makes no sense and leaves viewers wondering what they missed.
Rue. I love Rue. How can you not? Last night, my Twitter timeline was flooded with tweets by people who were emotional about Rue. It really bothered me how much Rue’s importance was downplayed in the movie. She was so much more important that we got to see on screen. Remember how I said Katniss had no friends? Rue was able to penetrate that. To Katniss, Rue was Prim in the arena. Katniss saw her as a sister. Her time with Rue represents the first moments of tenderness Katniss ever displayed toward someone who did not live in her house.
When Rue was killed, I expected to see her glare into the television cameras or yell some words of condemnation toward the Capitol. We didn’t get that. And because they never showed the Capitol ships flying in to remove the corpses, we did not know the cold, disrespectful way the dead tributes were treated. The flower bed Katniss made for Rue was in response to that, not just who Rue was. It was a calculated move by Katniss done specifically to show up the Capitol. That was followed by Rue’s people sending Katniss a loaf of bread as a gift. Katniss and Rue had been starving, and Katniss would have had a tough time lasting longer without that bread. This is the most important scene of the entire trilogy, and they left it out of the movie. Instead, they showed Rue’s district begin to riot. The bread marked the first time in Hunger Games history that a district had provided a gift for a tribute from another district. It was a gift of appreciation for what Katniss had done for Rue, which was to show respect and tenderness and love in a place where those things were all but forbidden. That moment galvanized the districts—not just in violence, but in cooperation with each other. Leaving out that loaf of bread is analogous to telling the tale of the American Revolution while not mentioning the Boston Tea Party. Sure, you can do it, but the story won’t be nearly as rich or complete as it could and should be. It really bothered me that Rue, what she did for Katniss, and her role in the revolution, were underplayed.
And then finally, they messed up the end. They turned Katniss' defiance, Katniss calculatedly turning the game against the gamers into some Romeo & Juliet nonsense. What we see on screen is a Katniss who doesn’t want to go home without Peeta. What we read in the book is a Katniss is pissed at the Capitol for reneging on a deal. We also see a Katniss who is still ready to kill Peeta if necessary. It was, in my mind, the second-most important moment in the book, yet it’s completely rewritten in the film. That was the second moment that truly sparked the revolution. Katniss was openly and defiantly going against the Capitol. Peeta was irrelevant. That moment was Katniss versus President Snow, and it set off a blood feud vendetta. Instead, it was rushed in the movie, a mere afterthought.
Overall, the biggest difference was that the film took the calculating mind away from Katniss. It took away her vengeful personality. It took away her intimidation. It made her, rather inappropriately, docile, which is the last thing you want, when you're starting a world-changing revolution.
Watching the movie yesterday confirmed what I believed after reading the series: Collins was not a big fan of who Katniss was in The Hunger Games novel. Collins transformed Katniss throughout the novels, and the Katniss of the movie was more reminiscent of the Katniss of Book 3 (Mockingjay) than the one of Book 1 (The Hunger Games). That’s a negative, but the story was still good enough to earn the film 3 solid stars from me.
If David Fincher’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is at one end of the scale in what do you keep/what do you drop/what do you modify between a book and its movie and Oprah Winfrey’s Beloved is at the other end, The Hunger Games resides closer to Oprah than it does to Fincher.
I don’t understand some of the decisions that were made. I’m not one of those “the text is sacred” people. What I am is someone who actually liked Katniss as she existed in The Hunger Games novel. The character is a different person in the movie, and I did not like her. Thing is…I’m not sure if she’s supposed to be a different character. I’m not sure if they changed the character of Katniss or if they neglected to show enough of the peripheral stuff in the movie that we can’t tell if she is the same character or not.
The first noticeable thing to me was that Katniss of the film is not hardcore, and Katniss of The Hunger Games is—and needs to be—hardcore. Although only a teenager and still in school, Katniss is her family’s primary source of food and income. Her only concern is that she survives—which requires winning the Games—so that her sister and mother do not starve without her. The film shows her hunting, but I don’t think it comes across clearly that her hunting is what keeps them from starving. I know the beginning goes so quickly that people don’t understand that Gale is her only friend in the world. Novel Katniss is a socially awkward, introverted person. She does not play well with others. There are times during the movie when she says she is not good at making people like her, but the audience is given no evidence of that. Novel Katniss has a terribly short temper. She is standoffish and quick to respond to the minutest of perceived slights. She is someone who drives people away from her. The only glimpse of this we see in the film is her pinning Peeta against the wall after he publicly admitted his crush on her. She is not a nice person. This is, I feel, an important omission.
Along those lines, Novel Katniss has had neither the time nor inclination to think about any sort of romance or love life beyond the declaration that she will never have kids. At the time we meet Katniss in the book, she has never had a romantic moment with a boy. The film treats Gale as if he was her boyfriend, though he’s not. Her first kiss onscreen is the first kiss of Katniss’ life, but the audience has no way of knowing this. If they are going to change this, if they are going to make movie-Gale movie-Katniss’ boyfriend, they should have been more explicit about it. The ambiguity is not good. The particulars of the Katniss-Peeta and Katniss-Gale relationships shapes most of Katniss’ plans and goals in Catching Fire, the second installment of the trilogy. The ambiguity also keeps us from getting a clear picture of what, exactly, are Katniss’ motivations for what she does throughout The Hunger Games, especially when her interactions with Peeta. Does she care about him? Or does she just realize that her survival is dependent upon convincing people that she does? In the book, we know; in the movie, we do not.
Those things only feed into my three biggest issues with the movie: Katniss’ relationships with Peeta, Rue, and the Capitol. Movie-Katniss was too personable. Katniss is a cold, calculating young woman. As portrayed by Jennifer Lawrence, her moments with Peeta come across as emotional ones, but in the book, she’s playing for the cameras, trying to get sponsors, gaming the viewers. I doubt many people who saw the movie without reading the book realized Katniss was faking it. Feelings for Peeta are not something Katniss contemplates at this time. She’s never contemplated these types of feelings for anyone before. The film does not make this clear. Again, we are left with ambiguity. One thing that should have been omitted from the film, but wasn’t, was Peeta’s alliance with the tributes from Districts 1 and 2. It would have been difficult to explain that without text, and they never addressed it later. As is, that alliance makes no sense and leaves viewers wondering what they missed.
Rue. I love Rue. How can you not? Last night, my Twitter timeline was flooded with tweets by people who were emotional about Rue. It really bothered me how much Rue’s importance was downplayed in the movie. She was so much more important that we got to see on screen. Remember how I said Katniss had no friends? Rue was able to penetrate that. To Katniss, Rue was Prim in the arena. Katniss saw her as a sister. Her time with Rue represents the first moments of tenderness Katniss ever displayed toward someone who did not live in her house.
When Rue was killed, I expected to see her glare into the television cameras or yell some words of condemnation toward the Capitol. We didn’t get that. And because they never showed the Capitol ships flying in to remove the corpses, we did not know the cold, disrespectful way the dead tributes were treated. The flower bed Katniss made for Rue was in response to that, not just who Rue was. It was a calculated move by Katniss done specifically to show up the Capitol. That was followed by Rue’s people sending Katniss a loaf of bread as a gift. Katniss and Rue had been starving, and Katniss would have had a tough time lasting longer without that bread. This is the most important scene of the entire trilogy, and they left it out of the movie. Instead, they showed Rue’s district begin to riot. The bread marked the first time in Hunger Games history that a district had provided a gift for a tribute from another district. It was a gift of appreciation for what Katniss had done for Rue, which was to show respect and tenderness and love in a place where those things were all but forbidden. That moment galvanized the districts—not just in violence, but in cooperation with each other. Leaving out that loaf of bread is analogous to telling the tale of the American Revolution while not mentioning the Boston Tea Party. Sure, you can do it, but the story won’t be nearly as rich or complete as it could and should be. It really bothered me that Rue, what she did for Katniss, and her role in the revolution, were underplayed.
And then finally, they messed up the end. They turned Katniss' defiance, Katniss calculatedly turning the game against the gamers into some Romeo & Juliet nonsense. What we see on screen is a Katniss who doesn’t want to go home without Peeta. What we read in the book is a Katniss is pissed at the Capitol for reneging on a deal. We also see a Katniss who is still ready to kill Peeta if necessary. It was, in my mind, the second-most important moment in the book, yet it’s completely rewritten in the film. That was the second moment that truly sparked the revolution. Katniss was openly and defiantly going against the Capitol. Peeta was irrelevant. That moment was Katniss versus President Snow, and it set off a blood feud vendetta. Instead, it was rushed in the movie, a mere afterthought.
Overall, the biggest difference was that the film took the calculating mind away from Katniss. It took away her vengeful personality. It took away her intimidation. It made her, rather inappropriately, docile, which is the last thing you want, when you're starting a world-changing revolution.
Saturday, January 14, 2012
Support System
This morning I read this article this article about a paper regarding a study of Duke University students who matriculated in 2001 and 2002. This study found that Black students who entered the university intending to major in engineering, economic, or one of the natural sciences switched majors to the social sciences at a much higher rate than did White students. The study also found that White women made such changes much more often than White men. The paper’s authors came to the following conclusions:
The second conclusion ignores the largely unrecognized challenge to Black and Latino science students—unfounded expectation. I’ve been through this. Many of my friends have been through this. I know for a fact that this challenge exists for thousands of students at campuses all across this country. The brown-skinned engineering or science student is viewed skeptically from the first day of class freshman year. Professors assume he/she lacks the intelligence and work ethic to make it through the curriculum. Classmates assume he/she is lacks the qualifications to be in the same classes and major. Advisors steer students into the humanities. It happens every year.
When I was in college, I learned that it was tradition for Black and Latino freshmen to post their SAT scores on their dorm room doors so that their White dorm mates would accept them. I’m sure this particular tradition is not a nationwide thing, but it speaks to the mindset of students at the so-called elite universities. And it provides a glimpse at the preexisting assumptions these kids bring with them to college.
One thing about engineering and the natural sciences that those who did not study in those fields often overlook is that successful students in those majors rarely work alone. Peer assistance is encouraged and often necessary. For this to happen, peers must be willing to work with each other. Black and Latino students often have trouble finding White and Asian students willing to work with them. A close friend of mine was a chemical engineering student. As a junior, he took a class that had only eleven students; the other ten were all White or Asian. They would not let him participate in their weekly study group because “Black people never have anything to contribute.” Another friend at a different university was told he wasn’t welcome at a study group because the professor would think the group was cheating if my friend had earned a good grade. Another friend at yet another university was accused by her professor of cheating after he discovered she had earned the highest grade on a midterm exam.
Most administrators, faculty, and students have no idea these things go on. They are subtle and seemingly small. And each particular instance appears to be isolated. Seeing the big picture, it seems, requires living through the experience day by day, year by year. And our friends in the humanities apparently never experience similar circumstances. Those of us who live through it often think we are the only ones. It’s one of those things that few realize is an epidemic.
The administrators of that study, I am certain, have no idea this is a problem. Teachers want the best for their students. College kids aren’t racist. The university wants everyone to succeed. These are universally believed untruths. But perception shapes reality. And the reality is that very few Black and Latino science and engineering students at America’s so-called elite universities have an academic support system. We’re out there alone even though nobody thinks we are.
- Black students switching to easier majors is the reason why Black undergraduate GPAs and White undergraduate GPAs are similar.
- “Attempts to increase representation [of minorities] at elite universities through the use of affirmative action may come at a cost of perpetuating underrepresentation of blacks in the natural sciences and engineering.”
The second conclusion ignores the largely unrecognized challenge to Black and Latino science students—unfounded expectation. I’ve been through this. Many of my friends have been through this. I know for a fact that this challenge exists for thousands of students at campuses all across this country. The brown-skinned engineering or science student is viewed skeptically from the first day of class freshman year. Professors assume he/she lacks the intelligence and work ethic to make it through the curriculum. Classmates assume he/she is lacks the qualifications to be in the same classes and major. Advisors steer students into the humanities. It happens every year.
When I was in college, I learned that it was tradition for Black and Latino freshmen to post their SAT scores on their dorm room doors so that their White dorm mates would accept them. I’m sure this particular tradition is not a nationwide thing, but it speaks to the mindset of students at the so-called elite universities. And it provides a glimpse at the preexisting assumptions these kids bring with them to college.
One thing about engineering and the natural sciences that those who did not study in those fields often overlook is that successful students in those majors rarely work alone. Peer assistance is encouraged and often necessary. For this to happen, peers must be willing to work with each other. Black and Latino students often have trouble finding White and Asian students willing to work with them. A close friend of mine was a chemical engineering student. As a junior, he took a class that had only eleven students; the other ten were all White or Asian. They would not let him participate in their weekly study group because “Black people never have anything to contribute.” Another friend at a different university was told he wasn’t welcome at a study group because the professor would think the group was cheating if my friend had earned a good grade. Another friend at yet another university was accused by her professor of cheating after he discovered she had earned the highest grade on a midterm exam.
Most administrators, faculty, and students have no idea these things go on. They are subtle and seemingly small. And each particular instance appears to be isolated. Seeing the big picture, it seems, requires living through the experience day by day, year by year. And our friends in the humanities apparently never experience similar circumstances. Those of us who live through it often think we are the only ones. It’s one of those things that few realize is an epidemic.
The administrators of that study, I am certain, have no idea this is a problem. Teachers want the best for their students. College kids aren’t racist. The university wants everyone to succeed. These are universally believed untruths. But perception shapes reality. And the reality is that very few Black and Latino science and engineering students at America’s so-called elite universities have an academic support system. We’re out there alone even though nobody thinks we are.
Monday, September 5, 2011
Shark Night
Shark Night
My wife and I went to see Shark Night 3D yesterday—we washed the awful taste out of our mouths by going to see The Debt immediately afterward, but that’s for another post at another time…maybe—and we both went in with close to zero expectations. And before I proceed, let me say that I am a guy who’s usually irritated when people say things like, “I can’t believe what I just saw! It’s 2011! Haven’t we moved past this?” Those people really get on my nerves because racism, sexism, and all other forms of discrimination (sexual preference, handicapped, financial, etc.) are all in abundance today. Only the naïve and stupid see it otherwise. So when i say, as I did last night on Twitter, that Shark Night 3D was the most racist and misogynistic movie I’ve seen in at least ten years, please know that I am not shocked by it. I knew what I was getting myself into; I just wanted to see sharks eating people. Too bad I didn’t really get to see that. There was only one real shot of sharks eating people.
Before I begin this review, let me say that the only reason I said “in at least ten years” is because I don’t think the point warrants the research/brain power necessary to think back over all the movies I’ve seen to figure out if it is the most racist and misogynistic movie I have ever seen. It might be, though.
OK. This movie was awful. Another point I made on Twitter is that it made Apollo 18 seem like Inception by comparison, and I thought Apollo 18 made The Blair Witch Project seem like Apocalypse Now. No hyperbole there. But there’s no way to discuss it without massive spoilers—if that matters to you for a movie like this. I don’t think people should see this movie anyway.
The plot of Shark Night 3D revolves around 7 Tulane students who are taking a trip to spend a weekend at Sara’s house, which is on a lake. Sara, you can tell from her first moment on screen, will survive—she’s pretty, thin, and blonde. She has a little pipsqueak voice (I told my wife that the only reason I knew she wasn’t Alexis Bledel with a dye job was that I would have noticed her name in the credits). Secondly, she has a dog. And she and the nerd boy, Nick, are in love with each other but afraid to actually talk to each other about it. So, yeah, from the jump you have to assume that Sara and Nick are the survivors.
The other 5 friends are Beth, the promiscuous tattoo addict; Blake, Beth’s dude-bro boyfriend; Gordon, the gamer who acts like he knows everything about women, but is the only person in this group without a pairing; Malik, the Negro student-athlete; and Maya, Malik’s Latina girlfriend.
A nameless blonde serves as the first shark victim as the opening credits close. Otherwise, yes, Malik and Maya are the first named shark victims in the movie. Before we get there, though, I have to tell you how we are introduced to Malik. In the first real scene of the film, we see Malik walking across the Tulane campus and into the dorm room that Nick and Gordon share. Malik gets into Nick’s face, looks menacing and confrontational, and explodes into a tirade about how Nick was supposed to be the best tutor on campus, how he can’t play if his grades don’t get better, and if his grades don’t get better and he can’t play, he’ll lose his scholarship and “You know what that means? It means back to the 4-1-0! Back to the 4-1-0!” It’s all joking, of course, because Malik actually got a B+, and this is cause for celebration, which includes going to Sara’s house for the weekend and Nick not studying for his MCAT’s. But, Malik is planning on proposing to Maya. When Gordon questions Malik about why a guy who’s “about to be a top 10 draft pick” is going to get married, Malik tells him, “Maya was down with me when I was poor, so she deserves to be with me when I’m ballin’.” I need someone to tell me why he’s concerned about keeping his scholarship when he’s about to be a top ten draft pick.
Even though these people go to school in New Orleans and Sara’s house is on Crosby Lake, Louisiana, the 7 students left Tulane in the daytime, drove through the night, and arrived at the house around dawn the next morning. OK, whatever…it’s just another thing, but it reaffirms how stupid this movie is. They pull into the local bait shop to get some snacks and liquor. Here, Maya serves her other purpose. She and Malik are outside by the car when a couple of locals, Dennis and Red, show up. “Must be nice,” Red says. “What?” she asks. “That they let the help sit up front.” Lovely guys, Dennis and Red. Of course Malik gets in their faces, and Dennis calls him “Boy,” but all is diffused with the beautiful and serene Sara shows up and recognizes the local guys.
When the young people arrive at the house, of course they hit the beach. Because he can’t ask the woman about herself, Nick asks Malik about Sara. “I’ve known her 3 years, and I’ve never seen here with a guy,” Malik tells him. “Just her and her dog.” Sara, our virginal queen. We learn later what had been bothering Sara for 3 years, why she hadn’t been with a guy and hadn’t been back to the lake in that time. She was Dennis’ diving student and girlfriend—yes, that Dennis—and she was caught underwater and couldn’t breathe. She panicked, and saw him treading still and not helping her. He was watching her drown to death and did nothing to help her. She called out to him for help, and he did not move. She managed to save herself, and when trying to get out of the water, accidentally cut his face with a rotor blade (I’m not sure how exactly that happened, but I take the story at face value). This causes Dennis to hate her, causes her years of guilt, and leads her to apologize to him. What in the misogynistic White male privilege hell? How in the world is Sara the bad guy in that scenario? And why did the filmmakers portray her guilt as reality and not just Dennis’ psychotic misperception. He tried to kill her!
Anyway, back to Malik. He goes water skiing and loses his arm to a shark. Only he knew it was a shark, but he’s in too much shock to speak. Everyone thought he just fell and was run over by the boat. They are stranded at the house with no cell reception—and no landline?—so Nick swims into the lake, finds the severed arm (don’t ask me how he found the arm or why it wasn’t eaten), sees a shark, swims back by outracing it to the shore, applies a tourniquet to Malik’s stump, then drives a boat with Sara and Maya to take Malik to the hospital. Unfortunately, Malik’s blood dripped into the water and attracted a shark that knocked Maya into the water, ate her, and eventually destroyed the boat.
Amazingly, our old friends Dennis and Red arrived and volunteered to go somewhere to call a helicopter to come pick Malik up. Beth wanted off the island and volunteered to go with them. Gordon wanted to be Beth’s big, strong man, so he volunteered to tag along and keep her safe. While they’re gone, Malik woke up, found out Maya was gone, found a spear somewhere in the house, and swam out into the lake. “This is how West Baltimore does it!” was his battle cry. (Quick aside: so this guy is clearly in college to play sports, left West Baltimore for New Orleans, and all his friends are White? As they say on Twitter, wheredeydodatat?) Malik actually finds and kills a shark, but a different species than the one Nick had seen.
Meanwhile, Dennis and Red reveal to Gordon and Beth that they are responsible for bringing sharks into the lake. And then they kill Gordon and Beth. Blake straps Malik to a jet-ski and tries to make it to a hospital. Malik sees a shark and sacrifices himself to save Blake. But he dies too. In the end, only the virginal king and queen survive, and the whole ordeal took place because Dennis, Red, and the sheriff were upset with Sara for leaving Dennis, leaving home, and going to college where they do all that learning and enlightenment crap.
This movie’s gotta go.
Don’t worry…the dog lives.
My wife and I went to see Shark Night 3D yesterday—we washed the awful taste out of our mouths by going to see The Debt immediately afterward, but that’s for another post at another time…maybe—and we both went in with close to zero expectations. And before I proceed, let me say that I am a guy who’s usually irritated when people say things like, “I can’t believe what I just saw! It’s 2011! Haven’t we moved past this?” Those people really get on my nerves because racism, sexism, and all other forms of discrimination (sexual preference, handicapped, financial, etc.) are all in abundance today. Only the naïve and stupid see it otherwise. So when i say, as I did last night on Twitter, that Shark Night 3D was the most racist and misogynistic movie I’ve seen in at least ten years, please know that I am not shocked by it. I knew what I was getting myself into; I just wanted to see sharks eating people. Too bad I didn’t really get to see that. There was only one real shot of sharks eating people.
Before I begin this review, let me say that the only reason I said “in at least ten years” is because I don’t think the point warrants the research/brain power necessary to think back over all the movies I’ve seen to figure out if it is the most racist and misogynistic movie I have ever seen. It might be, though.
OK. This movie was awful. Another point I made on Twitter is that it made Apollo 18 seem like Inception by comparison, and I thought Apollo 18 made The Blair Witch Project seem like Apocalypse Now. No hyperbole there. But there’s no way to discuss it without massive spoilers—if that matters to you for a movie like this. I don’t think people should see this movie anyway.
The plot of Shark Night 3D revolves around 7 Tulane students who are taking a trip to spend a weekend at Sara’s house, which is on a lake. Sara, you can tell from her first moment on screen, will survive—she’s pretty, thin, and blonde. She has a little pipsqueak voice (I told my wife that the only reason I knew she wasn’t Alexis Bledel with a dye job was that I would have noticed her name in the credits). Secondly, she has a dog. And she and the nerd boy, Nick, are in love with each other but afraid to actually talk to each other about it. So, yeah, from the jump you have to assume that Sara and Nick are the survivors.
The other 5 friends are Beth, the promiscuous tattoo addict; Blake, Beth’s dude-bro boyfriend; Gordon, the gamer who acts like he knows everything about women, but is the only person in this group without a pairing; Malik, the Negro student-athlete; and Maya, Malik’s Latina girlfriend.
A nameless blonde serves as the first shark victim as the opening credits close. Otherwise, yes, Malik and Maya are the first named shark victims in the movie. Before we get there, though, I have to tell you how we are introduced to Malik. In the first real scene of the film, we see Malik walking across the Tulane campus and into the dorm room that Nick and Gordon share. Malik gets into Nick’s face, looks menacing and confrontational, and explodes into a tirade about how Nick was supposed to be the best tutor on campus, how he can’t play if his grades don’t get better, and if his grades don’t get better and he can’t play, he’ll lose his scholarship and “You know what that means? It means back to the 4-1-0! Back to the 4-1-0!” It’s all joking, of course, because Malik actually got a B+, and this is cause for celebration, which includes going to Sara’s house for the weekend and Nick not studying for his MCAT’s. But, Malik is planning on proposing to Maya. When Gordon questions Malik about why a guy who’s “about to be a top 10 draft pick” is going to get married, Malik tells him, “Maya was down with me when I was poor, so she deserves to be with me when I’m ballin’.” I need someone to tell me why he’s concerned about keeping his scholarship when he’s about to be a top ten draft pick.
Even though these people go to school in New Orleans and Sara’s house is on Crosby Lake, Louisiana, the 7 students left Tulane in the daytime, drove through the night, and arrived at the house around dawn the next morning. OK, whatever…it’s just another thing, but it reaffirms how stupid this movie is. They pull into the local bait shop to get some snacks and liquor. Here, Maya serves her other purpose. She and Malik are outside by the car when a couple of locals, Dennis and Red, show up. “Must be nice,” Red says. “What?” she asks. “That they let the help sit up front.” Lovely guys, Dennis and Red. Of course Malik gets in their faces, and Dennis calls him “Boy,” but all is diffused with the beautiful and serene Sara shows up and recognizes the local guys.
When the young people arrive at the house, of course they hit the beach. Because he can’t ask the woman about herself, Nick asks Malik about Sara. “I’ve known her 3 years, and I’ve never seen here with a guy,” Malik tells him. “Just her and her dog.” Sara, our virginal queen. We learn later what had been bothering Sara for 3 years, why she hadn’t been with a guy and hadn’t been back to the lake in that time. She was Dennis’ diving student and girlfriend—yes, that Dennis—and she was caught underwater and couldn’t breathe. She panicked, and saw him treading still and not helping her. He was watching her drown to death and did nothing to help her. She called out to him for help, and he did not move. She managed to save herself, and when trying to get out of the water, accidentally cut his face with a rotor blade (I’m not sure how exactly that happened, but I take the story at face value). This causes Dennis to hate her, causes her years of guilt, and leads her to apologize to him. What in the misogynistic White male privilege hell? How in the world is Sara the bad guy in that scenario? And why did the filmmakers portray her guilt as reality and not just Dennis’ psychotic misperception. He tried to kill her!
Anyway, back to Malik. He goes water skiing and loses his arm to a shark. Only he knew it was a shark, but he’s in too much shock to speak. Everyone thought he just fell and was run over by the boat. They are stranded at the house with no cell reception—and no landline?—so Nick swims into the lake, finds the severed arm (don’t ask me how he found the arm or why it wasn’t eaten), sees a shark, swims back by outracing it to the shore, applies a tourniquet to Malik’s stump, then drives a boat with Sara and Maya to take Malik to the hospital. Unfortunately, Malik’s blood dripped into the water and attracted a shark that knocked Maya into the water, ate her, and eventually destroyed the boat.
Amazingly, our old friends Dennis and Red arrived and volunteered to go somewhere to call a helicopter to come pick Malik up. Beth wanted off the island and volunteered to go with them. Gordon wanted to be Beth’s big, strong man, so he volunteered to tag along and keep her safe. While they’re gone, Malik woke up, found out Maya was gone, found a spear somewhere in the house, and swam out into the lake. “This is how West Baltimore does it!” was his battle cry. (Quick aside: so this guy is clearly in college to play sports, left West Baltimore for New Orleans, and all his friends are White? As they say on Twitter, wheredeydodatat?) Malik actually finds and kills a shark, but a different species than the one Nick had seen.
Meanwhile, Dennis and Red reveal to Gordon and Beth that they are responsible for bringing sharks into the lake. And then they kill Gordon and Beth. Blake straps Malik to a jet-ski and tries to make it to a hospital. Malik sees a shark and sacrifices himself to save Blake. But he dies too. In the end, only the virginal king and queen survive, and the whole ordeal took place because Dennis, Red, and the sheriff were upset with Sara for leaving Dennis, leaving home, and going to college where they do all that learning and enlightenment crap.
This movie’s gotta go.
Don’t worry…the dog lives.
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Tea of Life
Early Saturday afternoon, my wife and I drove down to Bethesda to see The Tree of Life. I have to say, with the exception of the worst CGI dinosaurs in cinematic history, it was a visually beautiful film. That is the only positive thing I have to say about the movie.
Throughout the entirety of the 138 minutes I sat in the theater, I thought of Michelle Bachmann. While not being political, The Tree of Life was an unintentional ode to the Tea Party’s vision of America. When it was over, I sat and thought about it for a minute. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a movie with fewer lines spoken by women. There was a funeral scene during which Jessica Chastain’s character had brief conversations with her mother and a friend. There was also a scene of her teaching a young son how to say kangaroo. Other than that, I don’t think she—or any other woman—spoke a word to another person. Granted, most of the spoken words were spoken to God or self.
What I do know is that I’ve never seen a movie in which women had less agency than they did in The Tree of Life. Brad Pitt’s Mr. O’Brien was the stereotypical domineering head-of-household father of that time. His word was the law; he was the disciplinarian. Jessica Chastain’s role as the mother was to be the children’s friend. She did not discipline. She did not stand up to her husband. She did absolutely nothing but hug & kiss her children, teach them how to ride the swings, and smile at them. I’ve seen more motherly behavior from older sisters.
The only women outside of the family that we see are the mother and daughter next door. Neither speaks. We see Pitt and Chastain’s son stalk the daughter and we see the mother berated by her husband.
OK, I can deal with that. Just like I can deal with the lack of any minority representation in the film. It is 1950s Waco, Texas after all. But in order for me to deal with it, the story has to acknowledge or steer toward certain things. The Tree of Life, however, had no plot. No real one, anyway. What Terrence Malick did with this film was create a dream. This was not a movie that was designed to draw the audience in and tell a story. Instead, it was to create a setting and allow the audience to daydream, reminisce, and become immersed in nostalgia. As Roger Ebert wrote (emphasis mine):
There you have it. Without plot, heavily reliant upon the viewers’ own experiences, The Tree of Life is not for people who did not grow up like the O’Briens. This is a movie for people whose hearts harken back to the “good old days” when White men ruled, women were invisible, and life was “innocent”. It was the film version of A Tale of Three Cities, and I found that very disgusting. The Tree of Life looked like the world Michelle Bachmann wants.
Throughout the entirety of the 138 minutes I sat in the theater, I thought of Michelle Bachmann. While not being political, The Tree of Life was an unintentional ode to the Tea Party’s vision of America. When it was over, I sat and thought about it for a minute. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a movie with fewer lines spoken by women. There was a funeral scene during which Jessica Chastain’s character had brief conversations with her mother and a friend. There was also a scene of her teaching a young son how to say kangaroo. Other than that, I don’t think she—or any other woman—spoke a word to another person. Granted, most of the spoken words were spoken to God or self.
What I do know is that I’ve never seen a movie in which women had less agency than they did in The Tree of Life. Brad Pitt’s Mr. O’Brien was the stereotypical domineering head-of-household father of that time. His word was the law; he was the disciplinarian. Jessica Chastain’s role as the mother was to be the children’s friend. She did not discipline. She did not stand up to her husband. She did absolutely nothing but hug & kiss her children, teach them how to ride the swings, and smile at them. I’ve seen more motherly behavior from older sisters.
The only women outside of the family that we see are the mother and daughter next door. Neither speaks. We see Pitt and Chastain’s son stalk the daughter and we see the mother berated by her husband.
OK, I can deal with that. Just like I can deal with the lack of any minority representation in the film. It is 1950s Waco, Texas after all. But in order for me to deal with it, the story has to acknowledge or steer toward certain things. The Tree of Life, however, had no plot. No real one, anyway. What Terrence Malick did with this film was create a dream. This was not a movie that was designed to draw the audience in and tell a story. Instead, it was to create a setting and allow the audience to daydream, reminisce, and become immersed in nostalgia. As Roger Ebert wrote (emphasis mine):
I don’t know when a film has connected more immediately with my own personal experience. In uncanny ways, the central events of The Tree of Life reflect a time and place I lived in, and the boys in it are me. If I set out to make an autobiographical film, and if I had Malick’s gift, it would look so much like this. His scenes portray a childhood in a town in the American midlands, where life flows in and out through open windows. There is a father who maintains discipline and a mother who exudes forgiveness, and long summer days of play and idleness and urgent unsaid questions about the meaning of things.That is the setting that Malick created. For those of us who cannot relate to that—and that is a whole lot of people—this type of movie cannot work without plot and story. However, as Ebert also wrote, “What’s uncanny is that Malick creates the O’Brien parents and their three boys without an obvious plot: The movie captures the unplanned unfolding of summer days, and the overheard words of people almost talking to themselves.”
…
I wrote earlier about the many ways this film evoked my own memories of such time and place. About wide lawns. About a town that somehow, in memory, is always seen with a wide-angle lens. About houses that are never locked. About mothers looking out windows to check on their children. About the summer heat and ennui of church services, and the unpredictable theater of the dinner table, and troubling sounds of an argument between parents, half-heard through an open window.
Watching the film, I remembered Ray Bradbury’s memory of a boy waking up to the sound of a Green Machine outside his window—a hand-pushed lawnmower. Perhaps you grew up in a big city, with the doors locked and everything air-conditioned. It doesn’t matter. Most of us, unless we are unlucky, have something of the same childhood, because we are protected by innocence and naivete.
There you have it. Without plot, heavily reliant upon the viewers’ own experiences, The Tree of Life is not for people who did not grow up like the O’Briens. This is a movie for people whose hearts harken back to the “good old days” when White men ruled, women were invisible, and life was “innocent”. It was the film version of A Tale of Three Cities, and I found that very disgusting. The Tree of Life looked like the world Michelle Bachmann wants.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
The Motherf**ker with the Hat
A few weeks ago I learned that Chris Rock is performing on Broadway, so wife and I drove into Manhattan on Saturday so we could go see Bobby Cannavale, Chris Rock, Elizabeth Rodriguez, Annabella Sciorra, and Yul Vasquez in Stephen Adly Guirgis’ The Motherf**ker with the Hat. The first thing we noticed while walking to our seats was the size of the set. It was so small. It was very reminiscent of the Sydney Theatre Company’s production of A Streetcar Named Desire that toured the United States in 2009 in that less than a quarter of the visual space was actually utilized by the set. Like Streetcar, the tiny spaces occupied by the cast create a sense of tight, cramped, confined spaces with no room to breathe. Knowing that Hat is set in modern day New York City, I went into the play believing that we were about to see the characters under some immense pressure. Oh, how right I was.
Sticking with the set, I was very impressed by the thought and detail put into it. As you sit, you are presented with a tiny, cramped one-bedroom apartment with low ceilings and no sense of comfort. To the left of the apartment’s front door rises a stairwell. Unlike the stairs in Streetcar, though, these were broken, leaving no escape. Above the apartment, to the right of the broken staircase, is a large expanse of empty blackness. On the far right of the set stands an empty billboard. Emptiness. Nothingness. We know going in that these people’s lives are not good. We all know that New York is a beast. Being poor—as evidenced by the apartment we see—and stressed in New York is torturous. Adding to that feeling is a tiny sliver of light in the middle of the blackness. In that light, we see a tiny glimpse of the Empire State Building. It’s just enough light shining on these people to let them know what they do not have.
Once The Motherf**ker with the Hat starts, we see the technical brilliance of the set. We’ve all seen walls, panels, and floors move, but only in The Lion King have I ever seen a set whose moving parts are so intricate and seamless. This play takes place in three different apartments, and none of them look anything alike. And the transitions between the apartments were flawless. Also, size and space were used very well throughout the production.
The Motherf**ker with the Hat is a tale about relationships, overcoming addiction, and more than anything, in my opinion, the self-righteousness of the recently enlightened. People in the midst of their 12 steps, the recently religiously converted, and those who have just discovered the great new thing all fall victim to this type of self-righteousness. Along with it comes an attitude of “I’m just doing what I have to do to protect myself, so you can’t really criticize me.” It’s a load of crap, but people are often too self-absorbed to see that. Hat gets to the heart of this.
Although there are bigger names in the cast, Cannavale’s Jackie and Rodriguez’s Veronica are the lead characters. Both actors are up to the task. My wife and I often talk about going to a play and waiting for the moment when you forget you’re actually watching a stage production. That did not take long this time. I grew up on the East Coast, and these two created a very real New York Puerto Rican couple. It did not take long to understand the depth, struggle, and pain of their relationship.
It is the struggle and pain of Jackie and Veronica’s relationship that drives much of Hat’s plot, but Jackie’s relationships with the other three characters that give the play its depth and meaning. I won’t say more because I don’t want to give too much away and I want you all to go out and see it. The Motherf**ker with the Hat is an emotional tale that will draw you in and give you something you don’t quite expect.
4 stars out of 5
Sticking with the set, I was very impressed by the thought and detail put into it. As you sit, you are presented with a tiny, cramped one-bedroom apartment with low ceilings and no sense of comfort. To the left of the apartment’s front door rises a stairwell. Unlike the stairs in Streetcar, though, these were broken, leaving no escape. Above the apartment, to the right of the broken staircase, is a large expanse of empty blackness. On the far right of the set stands an empty billboard. Emptiness. Nothingness. We know going in that these people’s lives are not good. We all know that New York is a beast. Being poor—as evidenced by the apartment we see—and stressed in New York is torturous. Adding to that feeling is a tiny sliver of light in the middle of the blackness. In that light, we see a tiny glimpse of the Empire State Building. It’s just enough light shining on these people to let them know what they do not have.
Once The Motherf**ker with the Hat starts, we see the technical brilliance of the set. We’ve all seen walls, panels, and floors move, but only in The Lion King have I ever seen a set whose moving parts are so intricate and seamless. This play takes place in three different apartments, and none of them look anything alike. And the transitions between the apartments were flawless. Also, size and space were used very well throughout the production.
The Motherf**ker with the Hat is a tale about relationships, overcoming addiction, and more than anything, in my opinion, the self-righteousness of the recently enlightened. People in the midst of their 12 steps, the recently religiously converted, and those who have just discovered the great new thing all fall victim to this type of self-righteousness. Along with it comes an attitude of “I’m just doing what I have to do to protect myself, so you can’t really criticize me.” It’s a load of crap, but people are often too self-absorbed to see that. Hat gets to the heart of this.
Although there are bigger names in the cast, Cannavale’s Jackie and Rodriguez’s Veronica are the lead characters. Both actors are up to the task. My wife and I often talk about going to a play and waiting for the moment when you forget you’re actually watching a stage production. That did not take long this time. I grew up on the East Coast, and these two created a very real New York Puerto Rican couple. It did not take long to understand the depth, struggle, and pain of their relationship.
It is the struggle and pain of Jackie and Veronica’s relationship that drives much of Hat’s plot, but Jackie’s relationships with the other three characters that give the play its depth and meaning. I won’t say more because I don’t want to give too much away and I want you all to go out and see it. The Motherf**ker with the Hat is an emotional tale that will draw you in and give you something you don’t quite expect.
4 stars out of 5
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Stop Clapping
As I approached my local Wawa this morning, there was a guy ahead of me. He reached the door first and held it open for someone coming out. The person leaving the Wawa was a soldier. “Thank you,” the soldier said as he walked through the held open door.
“Thank you,” the man replied with an exaggerated game show host voice.
This needs to stop. Now. This overindulgent fawning of men and women in uniform that has overcome this country since 2001 is ridiculous. Moreover, it is an embarrassment.
I am not in the military. If I was, I would go out of my way to not appear in public while wearing my uniform because sometimes, I want to just be left alone. America has made it pretty clear that our uniformed men and women have lost that freedom.
After a cross-country flight, my mind is focused on getting out of the airport and to my destination. Every soldier I’ve seen on my flights had to stand, smile, and wave to acknowledge the standing ovation they received as they walk from the gate and through the terminal. This faux patriotism has turned American citizens into paparazzi.
Please, can we let these people breathe? They’re just like you and me. Like us, they don’t want to always be reminded of work. And like us, sometimes they want to just be left alone. They can’t tell you that, though, because then it will show up on the news and the internet and pretty soon will be a big deal.
If you want to thank them, let them have moments of peace. Help make sure they’ll have jobs, incomes, and healthcare when they leave the military. Don’t stand and clap; it’s just annoying.
“Thank you,” the man replied with an exaggerated game show host voice.
This needs to stop. Now. This overindulgent fawning of men and women in uniform that has overcome this country since 2001 is ridiculous. Moreover, it is an embarrassment.
I am not in the military. If I was, I would go out of my way to not appear in public while wearing my uniform because sometimes, I want to just be left alone. America has made it pretty clear that our uniformed men and women have lost that freedom.
After a cross-country flight, my mind is focused on getting out of the airport and to my destination. Every soldier I’ve seen on my flights had to stand, smile, and wave to acknowledge the standing ovation they received as they walk from the gate and through the terminal. This faux patriotism has turned American citizens into paparazzi.
Please, can we let these people breathe? They’re just like you and me. Like us, they don’t want to always be reminded of work. And like us, sometimes they want to just be left alone. They can’t tell you that, though, because then it will show up on the news and the internet and pretty soon will be a big deal.
If you want to thank them, let them have moments of peace. Help make sure they’ll have jobs, incomes, and healthcare when they leave the military. Don’t stand and clap; it’s just annoying.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)