Charming documentary about crossword puzzles and the people who solve them.
The movie revolves around Will Shortz, who edits the New York Times crossword, hosts the weekly Sunday puzzle on National Public Radio, and organizes an annual crossword tournament in Stamford, Connecticut. He's a lifelong puzzle fanatic, having gone so far as to design his own major at Indiana University, making him the only person with an academic degree in Enigmatology.
We also watch Merl Reagle, one of the top crossword constructors, at work creating a puzzle. That's a fascinating process to observe, and you begin to understand that solving the puzzle is the easy part; creating it is the real challenge. Shortz talks about the fact that every puzzle is really a collaboration between the creator and the editor. As an editor, Shortz re-writes as many as half of the clues for each puzzle, to correct factual errors, to conform to Times style, and to make the clues match the needed level of difficulty for the day on which it will appear (puzzles get progressively difficult from Monday to Saturday, and re-writing the clues might be all it takes to turn a Monday puzzle into a Thursday puzzle).
Later, we sit in as several celebrity crossword fans solve Reagle's puzzle. What's amusing about those scenes is the way in which working the puzzle seems to concentrate the personality. Jon Stewart is funny and mock-angry, treating each puzzle as another battle in an undeclared war with Shortz; Bill Clinton is thoughtful and articulate, explaining what the crossword can teach us about diplomacy and human relationships. The Indigo Girls are earnest and a bit self-absorbed, reminiscing about the first time they saw themselves as a puzzle answer; documentarian Ken Burns crams so much smugness and pretension into his brief appearance that it's like being forced to sit through another one of his 12-hour monstrosities.
The second half of the movie focuses on Shortz's tournament, and the movie benefits immensely from Brian Oakes's animated graphics, which allow us to follow along as the contestants work on the puzzles. Oakes's work is very smartly conceived and executed, and contributes greatly to the tension that builds in the last half-hour of the film. Creadon also had the good luck to be present for a tournament in which the final round was particularly dramatic and hearbreaking.
Do you have to be a crossword fan yourself to enjoy Wordplay? I don't think so, not any more than you had to love spelling to enjoy Spellbound, or know how to tango to enjoy Mad Hot Ballroom. Keith's Rule to Live By #26 tells us that people talking about their passion are almost always interesting, even if their passion is something that would normally bore you to death. Wordplay has a lot of colorful personalities, a suspenseful ending, and some insights into the longevity of the crossword puzzle. It's a lot of fun.
June 25, 2006
June 18, 2006
BOOKS: Dark Tort, Diane Mott Davidson (2006)
13th in the series of mysteries featuring caterer Goldy Schulz.
Davidson's usual method is to give us two or three chapters of groundwork, introducing the new setting and characters who will be featured in that book before bumping off one of them and finding a way to involve Goldy in the crime. Not so this time, as Davidson dives right in from Goldy's first sentence: "I tripped over the body of my friend Dusty Routt at half past ten on the night of October 19."
Dusty was in training to be a paralegal, and works at her uncle's high-class law firm, where Goldy serves breakfast for lawyers and clients holding early-morning meetings. She was also Goldy's neighbor, and Dusty's mother, knowing of Goldy's frequent involvement in helping to solve murder cases, begs Goldy to help find Dusty's killer. There's no shortage of suspects, most of them the lawyers and secretaries at the law firm, and Goldy once again, against the usual protests of her policeman husband, begins investigating the murder.
As always, the book includes about a dozen or so recipes for goodies that Goldy serves to her catering clients during the course of events; there's a novel twist this time, as Davidson finds a way to make one of those recipes an integral part of Goldy's detective work.
The Goldy Schulz series isn't the place to go for groundbreaking, brilliant writing, but they're solid, reliable entertainment. The regular characters are a pleasant family; the suspects and red herring characters are a mix of colorful personalities; and the mystery itself is cleverly presented, with clues laid out fairly enough that the reader has a good shot at solving the puzzle himself.
Davidson's usual method is to give us two or three chapters of groundwork, introducing the new setting and characters who will be featured in that book before bumping off one of them and finding a way to involve Goldy in the crime. Not so this time, as Davidson dives right in from Goldy's first sentence: "I tripped over the body of my friend Dusty Routt at half past ten on the night of October 19."
Dusty was in training to be a paralegal, and works at her uncle's high-class law firm, where Goldy serves breakfast for lawyers and clients holding early-morning meetings. She was also Goldy's neighbor, and Dusty's mother, knowing of Goldy's frequent involvement in helping to solve murder cases, begs Goldy to help find Dusty's killer. There's no shortage of suspects, most of them the lawyers and secretaries at the law firm, and Goldy once again, against the usual protests of her policeman husband, begins investigating the murder.
As always, the book includes about a dozen or so recipes for goodies that Goldy serves to her catering clients during the course of events; there's a novel twist this time, as Davidson finds a way to make one of those recipes an integral part of Goldy's detective work.
The Goldy Schulz series isn't the place to go for groundbreaking, brilliant writing, but they're solid, reliable entertainment. The regular characters are a pleasant family; the suspects and red herring characters are a mix of colorful personalities; and the mystery itself is cleverly presented, with clues laid out fairly enough that the reader has a good shot at solving the puzzle himself.
MOVIES: Cars (John Lasseter & Joe Ranft, 2006)
Pixar has set such high standards for itself that it seems a disappointment that Cars is only a very good movie, and not a brilliant one.
The story is familiar: A young hotshot from the city is stranded in a small town that's seen better days. From him, the town learns to take pride in itself and takes the first steps towards a general sprucing up; from the town, he learns that old-fashioned values and friendship are more important than money and fame. It's a common movie plot -- Doc Hollywood and Sweet Home Alabama come to mind -- and Cars does it reasonably well.
The hotshot this time is Lightning McQueen (voiced by Owen Wilson), a rookie racecar on the Piston Cup circuit; he's on his way to California for the championship race when he gets stuck in Radiator Springs ("the cutest little town in Carburetor County"). There's a wise old mentor car, Doc Hudson (Paul Newman); a pretty girl to flirt with, Sally Carrera (Bonnie Hunt); and a local yokel to serve as best friend, Mater the tow truck (an extremely annoying Larry the Cable Guy).
And in Pixar tradition, there's an ensemble of supporting cars; there's Cheech Marin as the Latino lowrider who enters every scene with a different flashy paint job; George Carlin as the VW bus who's into Hendrix and organic fuel; Paul Dooley as Sarge, the jeep; Tony Shalhoub as Luigi, the Italian sportscar. They're a bunch of rather cliched types, but within the limits of those cliches, some of the performances are good; Shalhoub is the standout, stealing every scene he's in.
There are some nice touches in the animation; the use of windshield wipers as eyebrows is effective, and I love the way that the hippie van's license plate hangs from its front bumper like a goatee. The movie's biggest problem is that as hard as the animators have worked, cars just aren't capable of being very physically expressive. They've got no limbs and their front ends don't allow for much facial expression. So the voice performances have to provide even more energy and expression than usual for an animated film, and the principals here don't bring quite enough life to their characters.
Cars is the least of the Pixar films to date, but even with its unexpressive characters and familiar story, it's still a moderately entertaining movie, and better than most of the family films we get these days.
The story is familiar: A young hotshot from the city is stranded in a small town that's seen better days. From him, the town learns to take pride in itself and takes the first steps towards a general sprucing up; from the town, he learns that old-fashioned values and friendship are more important than money and fame. It's a common movie plot -- Doc Hollywood and Sweet Home Alabama come to mind -- and Cars does it reasonably well.
The hotshot this time is Lightning McQueen (voiced by Owen Wilson), a rookie racecar on the Piston Cup circuit; he's on his way to California for the championship race when he gets stuck in Radiator Springs ("the cutest little town in Carburetor County"). There's a wise old mentor car, Doc Hudson (Paul Newman); a pretty girl to flirt with, Sally Carrera (Bonnie Hunt); and a local yokel to serve as best friend, Mater the tow truck (an extremely annoying Larry the Cable Guy).
And in Pixar tradition, there's an ensemble of supporting cars; there's Cheech Marin as the Latino lowrider who enters every scene with a different flashy paint job; George Carlin as the VW bus who's into Hendrix and organic fuel; Paul Dooley as Sarge, the jeep; Tony Shalhoub as Luigi, the Italian sportscar. They're a bunch of rather cliched types, but within the limits of those cliches, some of the performances are good; Shalhoub is the standout, stealing every scene he's in.
There are some nice touches in the animation; the use of windshield wipers as eyebrows is effective, and I love the way that the hippie van's license plate hangs from its front bumper like a goatee. The movie's biggest problem is that as hard as the animators have worked, cars just aren't capable of being very physically expressive. They've got no limbs and their front ends don't allow for much facial expression. So the voice performances have to provide even more energy and expression than usual for an animated film, and the principals here don't bring quite enough life to their characters.
Cars is the least of the Pixar films to date, but even with its unexpressive characters and familiar story, it's still a moderately entertaining movie, and better than most of the family films we get these days.
BOOKS: My Latest Grievance, Elinor Lipman (2006)
Lipman is one of our best comic novelists, with a gift for creating vivid characters and planting them in awkward positions; it's great fun to watch her characters squirm their way out of the messes they've gotten into.
Her principal character this time is 16-year-old Frederica Hatch, who has grown up in a dormitory at a small women's college in Boston, where her parents are professors and house parents. She has been something of a campus mascot since birth, and is beginning to feel frustrated by the confines of the campus; Frederica longs for a little bit of excitement and turmoil. She certainly doesn't get that from her parents, who are kind and loving people, but occasionally too busy with campus politics -- they are chief organizers of the faculty union, which makes them the campus radicals in 1978 -- to pay as much attention to Frederica as she would like.
Excitement finally comes to Frederica's life in the form of Laura Lee French, the new housemother at the neighboring dorm. Laura Lee is glamorous, flamboyant, and free-spirited to a fault. She also turns out to be a distant cousin to the Hatches, with a connection to Frederica's parents that she never could have expected.
As always, Lipman's writing is elegant and entertaining, and her characters are lively and entirely believable. Her plotting falls a bit short this time, I think; the resolution is a bit of a deus ex machina, and the final chapter zips through thirty years -- bringing the characters to the present day -- rather hastily and artlessly.
Second-rate Lipman is better than a lot of what's out there, and My Latest Grievance is a pleasantly diverting book, but if you haven't read her before, there are better places to start; I'd suggest The Inn at Lake Devine or The Ladies' Man.
Her principal character this time is 16-year-old Frederica Hatch, who has grown up in a dormitory at a small women's college in Boston, where her parents are professors and house parents. She has been something of a campus mascot since birth, and is beginning to feel frustrated by the confines of the campus; Frederica longs for a little bit of excitement and turmoil. She certainly doesn't get that from her parents, who are kind and loving people, but occasionally too busy with campus politics -- they are chief organizers of the faculty union, which makes them the campus radicals in 1978 -- to pay as much attention to Frederica as she would like.
Excitement finally comes to Frederica's life in the form of Laura Lee French, the new housemother at the neighboring dorm. Laura Lee is glamorous, flamboyant, and free-spirited to a fault. She also turns out to be a distant cousin to the Hatches, with a connection to Frederica's parents that she never could have expected.
As always, Lipman's writing is elegant and entertaining, and her characters are lively and entirely believable. Her plotting falls a bit short this time, I think; the resolution is a bit of a deus ex machina, and the final chapter zips through thirty years -- bringing the characters to the present day -- rather hastily and artlessly.
Second-rate Lipman is better than a lot of what's out there, and My Latest Grievance is a pleasantly diverting book, but if you haven't read her before, there are better places to start; I'd suggest The Inn at Lake Devine or The Ladies' Man.
June 11, 2006
MOVIES: A Prairie Home Companion (Robert Altman, 2006)
I don't think that I've ever had such mixed feelings going into a movie as I did with this one.
On the plus side, it's an Altman movie, so it's likely to be good, and even if it's bad, you can count on Altman to be bad in more interesting ways than most directors. And there's that cast: Streep, Tomlin, Kline, Madsen, Harrelsen, Reilly.
But on the bad side, I despise Garrison Keillor. The radio version of A Prairie Home Companion has its moments -- much of the music is lovely, and some of the comedy sketches are amusing -- but Keillor's on-air personality is so smug and unlikable that I can't get through the show. Especially awful are his interminable monologues about Lake Wobegon, which are meant to be heartwarming pseudo-nostalgia for a small-town life that doesn't really exist anymore, but which are laced with an undercurrent of anger and cruelty toward the small towns that Keillor is claiming to love.
And when the movie was over, I came out with pretty much the same mixed feelings I had going in; much of the cast is superb, there's a lot of delightful music, and there's Keillor at the center of it all, so morose that you'd think he was deliberately trying to suck the joy from the movie.
The setting is the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul, from which the real Companion is broadcast. Keillor is playing a version of himself, usually referred to just as "GK," and Companion is similarly playing a version of itself; the movie's PHC really is the small-town, small-audience local radio show that the real PHC pretends to be.
In this fictional universe, the radio station's new owner is tearing down the theater and shutting down the show, and tonight will be the last broadcast. All of GK's guests and regular cast are saddened at the impending death of the show, and urge him to make some acknowledgement of the event on the air; he refuses. "Every show is the last show," he says, "that's my philosophy."
Some of the actors are playing characters who appear in sketches on the real radio show (but who are not played on that show by these actors); Kevin Kline plays Guy Noir, who appears in private eye sketches, but for the movie, is moved into the "real" world as the show's security chief (the role's not terribly well conceived, and Kline is stranded in a series of bad slapstick scenes); Woody Harrelson and John C. Reilly are charming as singing cowboys Dusty and Lefty, constantly pushing the boundaries of taste. There are also actors and musicians who appear on the real show, some as themselves (singers Robin and Linda Williams, and Jearlyn Steele; sound-effects wizard Tom Keith), some in fictional roles (Sue Scott as the show's makeup woman).
And there are actors who appear in new fictional roles, best of all Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin as Yolanda and Rhonda, the "Johnson Girls" who are all that's left of what used to be a quartet. If you saw Streep and Tomlin introducing Altman at the Oscars this year (he received an honorary Oscar), then you have some idea of their relationship in this movie; they're constantly interrupting each other, finishing each other's sentences, and telling long, drawn-out anecdotes about their childhood and life on the road. They are a magnificent comic duo (and Streep, in particular, is a fine singer), and some smart director should build an entire movie around them.
Keillor, on the other hand, isn't much of an actor; his scene with Virginia Madsen, who plays a mysterious presence credited only as "Dangerous Woman," is painful to sit through. He's got the saddest face I've ever seen, all heavy jowls and eyelids; even when he smiles (which isn't often), that only manages to elevate his mood from suicidal to glum. You understand after this movie why his career is in radio.
So the movie's a big sloppy mess. There's no real plot; it's more just a series of semi-random character interactions. If there's a theme, it's death and how we deal with it, though I wouldn't say there was any particular coherent statement being made. There's a lot of music, so much that the movie almost feels like a weird concert film; most of it is very well done, though if you don't have a taste for old-fashioned Americana, folk, and sentimental ballads sung entirely without irony, you're likely to be bored. Performances range from stellar to dismal, with Streep and Tomlin at the top of the peak and Kline and Keillor at the bottom.
If you're a fan of Keillor and the real Companion, by all means go to the movie, which you will love. If you're not, you'll have to decide whether it's worth putting up with him to get what good the movie has to offer.
On the plus side, it's an Altman movie, so it's likely to be good, and even if it's bad, you can count on Altman to be bad in more interesting ways than most directors. And there's that cast: Streep, Tomlin, Kline, Madsen, Harrelsen, Reilly.
But on the bad side, I despise Garrison Keillor. The radio version of A Prairie Home Companion has its moments -- much of the music is lovely, and some of the comedy sketches are amusing -- but Keillor's on-air personality is so smug and unlikable that I can't get through the show. Especially awful are his interminable monologues about Lake Wobegon, which are meant to be heartwarming pseudo-nostalgia for a small-town life that doesn't really exist anymore, but which are laced with an undercurrent of anger and cruelty toward the small towns that Keillor is claiming to love.
And when the movie was over, I came out with pretty much the same mixed feelings I had going in; much of the cast is superb, there's a lot of delightful music, and there's Keillor at the center of it all, so morose that you'd think he was deliberately trying to suck the joy from the movie.
The setting is the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul, from which the real Companion is broadcast. Keillor is playing a version of himself, usually referred to just as "GK," and Companion is similarly playing a version of itself; the movie's PHC really is the small-town, small-audience local radio show that the real PHC pretends to be.
In this fictional universe, the radio station's new owner is tearing down the theater and shutting down the show, and tonight will be the last broadcast. All of GK's guests and regular cast are saddened at the impending death of the show, and urge him to make some acknowledgement of the event on the air; he refuses. "Every show is the last show," he says, "that's my philosophy."
Some of the actors are playing characters who appear in sketches on the real radio show (but who are not played on that show by these actors); Kevin Kline plays Guy Noir, who appears in private eye sketches, but for the movie, is moved into the "real" world as the show's security chief (the role's not terribly well conceived, and Kline is stranded in a series of bad slapstick scenes); Woody Harrelson and John C. Reilly are charming as singing cowboys Dusty and Lefty, constantly pushing the boundaries of taste. There are also actors and musicians who appear on the real show, some as themselves (singers Robin and Linda Williams, and Jearlyn Steele; sound-effects wizard Tom Keith), some in fictional roles (Sue Scott as the show's makeup woman).
And there are actors who appear in new fictional roles, best of all Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin as Yolanda and Rhonda, the "Johnson Girls" who are all that's left of what used to be a quartet. If you saw Streep and Tomlin introducing Altman at the Oscars this year (he received an honorary Oscar), then you have some idea of their relationship in this movie; they're constantly interrupting each other, finishing each other's sentences, and telling long, drawn-out anecdotes about their childhood and life on the road. They are a magnificent comic duo (and Streep, in particular, is a fine singer), and some smart director should build an entire movie around them.
Keillor, on the other hand, isn't much of an actor; his scene with Virginia Madsen, who plays a mysterious presence credited only as "Dangerous Woman," is painful to sit through. He's got the saddest face I've ever seen, all heavy jowls and eyelids; even when he smiles (which isn't often), that only manages to elevate his mood from suicidal to glum. You understand after this movie why his career is in radio.
So the movie's a big sloppy mess. There's no real plot; it's more just a series of semi-random character interactions. If there's a theme, it's death and how we deal with it, though I wouldn't say there was any particular coherent statement being made. There's a lot of music, so much that the movie almost feels like a weird concert film; most of it is very well done, though if you don't have a taste for old-fashioned Americana, folk, and sentimental ballads sung entirely without irony, you're likely to be bored. Performances range from stellar to dismal, with Streep and Tomlin at the top of the peak and Kline and Keillor at the bottom.
If you're a fan of Keillor and the real Companion, by all means go to the movie, which you will love. If you're not, you'll have to decide whether it's worth putting up with him to get what good the movie has to offer.
June 06, 2006
A fine post on the same-sex marriage issue from John Scalzi at Whatever, making the point that with the legalization of same-sex marriage in Massachusetts two years ago, it is now the anti crowd that is fighting to change the very definition of marriage (since that definition in the US now includes same-sex marriage), and to destroy thousands of existing legal marriages.
June 04, 2006
BOOKS: The Girl in the Glass, Jeffrey Ford (2005)
This year's Edgar Award winner in the Best Paperback Original category.
That's a category that may be obsolete soon. Ten or fifteen years ago, when paperback always meant mass-market, and paperback originals were generally considered to be (and usually were) the dregs of the publishing world, the category made some sense as a way to single out for praise the relatively few good books published in the format.
But now, the trade paperback format doesn't carry nearly the stigma that mass-market does, and major authors are seeing their work published as paperback originals; the playing field is relatively level now, and the best paperbacks are being acknowledged when they're published. There's less need today for a special category to rescue good paperbacks from obscurity. Ford's Depression-era novel is certainly as good as any mystery I've read in the last year.
Our narrator is Diego, a 17-year-old illegal immigrant from Mexico who has lived since childhood with Thomas Schell. Schell is a con man, providing phony seances to the grieving wealthy of New York; Diego works as his assistant, "Ondoo," a turban-wearing mystic from India. (It is a running joke that none of Schell's clients are able to tell the difference between a Mexican and an Indian; brown faces are all the same to them.)
During one seance, Schell sees something that isn't part of his fakery, the image of a young girl in a pane of glass, silently beckoning for help. A few days later, the same face appears in the newspaper; the girl has disappeared and is presumed to have been kidnapped. Despite the fact that he has no actual psychic abilities at all, Schell volunteers his "services" to the girl's family.
Ford's prose is delightful to read. Diego's English has the precision that often comes when someone learns a second language, and the elegance of his era and milieu. The story is nicely plotted, with villains whose motives are historically apt and sufficiently evil to make the stakes high. I'm always fond of con-artist stories, and while Schell's con games aren't the principal focus of the story, there are some fascinating details of how he pulls off some of his effects. The final confrontation with the bad guys is a grand, exciting set piece with some very clever chicanery.
That's a category that may be obsolete soon. Ten or fifteen years ago, when paperback always meant mass-market, and paperback originals were generally considered to be (and usually were) the dregs of the publishing world, the category made some sense as a way to single out for praise the relatively few good books published in the format.
But now, the trade paperback format doesn't carry nearly the stigma that mass-market does, and major authors are seeing their work published as paperback originals; the playing field is relatively level now, and the best paperbacks are being acknowledged when they're published. There's less need today for a special category to rescue good paperbacks from obscurity. Ford's Depression-era novel is certainly as good as any mystery I've read in the last year.
Our narrator is Diego, a 17-year-old illegal immigrant from Mexico who has lived since childhood with Thomas Schell. Schell is a con man, providing phony seances to the grieving wealthy of New York; Diego works as his assistant, "Ondoo," a turban-wearing mystic from India. (It is a running joke that none of Schell's clients are able to tell the difference between a Mexican and an Indian; brown faces are all the same to them.)
During one seance, Schell sees something that isn't part of his fakery, the image of a young girl in a pane of glass, silently beckoning for help. A few days later, the same face appears in the newspaper; the girl has disappeared and is presumed to have been kidnapped. Despite the fact that he has no actual psychic abilities at all, Schell volunteers his "services" to the girl's family.
Ford's prose is delightful to read. Diego's English has the precision that often comes when someone learns a second language, and the elegance of his era and milieu. The story is nicely plotted, with villains whose motives are historically apt and sufficiently evil to make the stakes high. I'm always fond of con-artist stories, and while Schell's con games aren't the principal focus of the story, there are some fascinating details of how he pulls off some of his effects. The final confrontation with the bad guys is a grand, exciting set piece with some very clever chicanery.
MOVIES: The Break-Up (Peyton Reed, 2006)
OK, the movie's called The Break-Up, so it's not surprising that it's mainly about the break-up of its central couple, but that poses a structural problem that the movie doesn't solve. We see virtually nothing of Brooke and Gary (Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn) as a happy couple -- their 2-year relationship is compressed to a series of snapshots during the opening credits -- so when they start fighting, we don't like or care about either of them.
And since they're not just fighting, but deliberately going to great lengths to hurt one another, we're seeing them at their worst, which only makes it harder to give a crap. That can work, if the movie's willing to completely commit to a very dark sense of humor -- The War of the Roses, for instance, got away with it for the most part -- but The Break-Up wants to be loved as a sweet-natured romantic comedy, and wants us to love its characters. The result is a tone that yo-yos back and forth from slapstick to emotional brutality, and while each extreme works moderately well in its own right, the writing doesn't manage the transition between extremes very well.
But by the time the characters get to their moments of redemption -- each of them gets one, an attempt to salvage the relationship they've spent the entire movie trying to destroy -- I hated both of them so damned much that I was actively rooting for them to fail, and for both of them to spend the rest of their lives alone and miserable.
There are some funny performances scattered around the edges of the movie. Aniston and Vaughn each have a best-pal sidekick, played by Joey Lauren Adams and Jon Favreau, and they're both very charming; unfortunately, the chemistry between either of those pairs (Vaughn and Favreau especially) is stronger than the chemistry between Aniston and Vaughn. Justin Long, an actor who I've never much liked before, is funny as Aniston's flamboyant idiot co-worker; Judy Davis is all brittle edges and sharp clavicles as their boss, a self-absorbed gallery owner. John Michael Higgins gets the movie's best scene; he's an a cappella singer who drags an entire dinner party into joining him in a horribly embarassing performance.
That scene reminded me that director Peyton Reed has always had a knack for staging musical numbers; think of the marching-band opening from Bring It On, or the McGregor/Zellweger production number over the closing credits of Down With Love. I'd really love to see him go to town on a witty musical. I wonder what he'd do with Sondheim's Into the Woods, for instance.
And since they're not just fighting, but deliberately going to great lengths to hurt one another, we're seeing them at their worst, which only makes it harder to give a crap. That can work, if the movie's willing to completely commit to a very dark sense of humor -- The War of the Roses, for instance, got away with it for the most part -- but The Break-Up wants to be loved as a sweet-natured romantic comedy, and wants us to love its characters. The result is a tone that yo-yos back and forth from slapstick to emotional brutality, and while each extreme works moderately well in its own right, the writing doesn't manage the transition between extremes very well.
But by the time the characters get to their moments of redemption -- each of them gets one, an attempt to salvage the relationship they've spent the entire movie trying to destroy -- I hated both of them so damned much that I was actively rooting for them to fail, and for both of them to spend the rest of their lives alone and miserable.
There are some funny performances scattered around the edges of the movie. Aniston and Vaughn each have a best-pal sidekick, played by Joey Lauren Adams and Jon Favreau, and they're both very charming; unfortunately, the chemistry between either of those pairs (Vaughn and Favreau especially) is stronger than the chemistry between Aniston and Vaughn. Justin Long, an actor who I've never much liked before, is funny as Aniston's flamboyant idiot co-worker; Judy Davis is all brittle edges and sharp clavicles as their boss, a self-absorbed gallery owner. John Michael Higgins gets the movie's best scene; he's an a cappella singer who drags an entire dinner party into joining him in a horribly embarassing performance.
That scene reminded me that director Peyton Reed has always had a knack for staging musical numbers; think of the marching-band opening from Bring It On, or the McGregor/Zellweger production number over the closing credits of Down With Love. I'd really love to see him go to town on a witty musical. I wonder what he'd do with Sondheim's Into the Woods, for instance.
June 01, 2006
MUSIC: a virtual cathedral
This is fascinating. Computer technology has been applied to a new CD -- an organ recital -- to create a virtual cathedral, a simulation of what the organ might sound like if it were located in a different room with different acoustics.
May 29, 2006
MOVIES: A League of Ordinary Gentlemen (Christopher Browne, 2004)
In the 1970s and 1980s, professional bowling was a successful part of the ABC Sports lineup, but by the mid-1990s, the sport had fallen on hard times. Bowling was a low-key sport in an era that demanded excitement from its entertainment, and a blue-collar sport at a time when advertisers were increasingly interested in capturing upscale audiences. ABC cancelled its weekly broadcasts in 1997, after 35 years.
In 2000, the Professional Bowlers Association was sold to three former Microsoft executives, and they set about trying to revitalize the league. One of their principal strategies was to focus on their bowlers, hoping to capture some of the personality-driven excitement that had made televised wrestling so popular. In this fine documentary, Browne follows four bowlers through the 2002-03 PBA season, looking at how they are adapting (or not) to the new style of the league.
Three of the bowlers are veterans, members of bowling's Hall of Fame. Pete Weber is part of bowling's first family and has long struggled to live up to his father's reputation (Dick Weber was the most consistent winner on the tour when bowling first hit television in the early 1960s). In his early years on the tour, in the 1980s, Pete was often disciplined for his flamboyant antics; now his "bad boy of bowling" style is exactly what the PBA's new management is looking for. Unfortunately, he's having a bad season, finishing just short of the televised finals each week.
Having more success is Walter Ray Williams, Jr., but while he's doing well in tournaments, he doesn't find it so easy to adapt to the new PBA style. Williams is a low-key, polite bowler whose most confrontational gesture is a thumbs-up, and try as they might, management can't find a way to get more pizzazz from him.
Wayne Webb is the third Hall of Famer in the bunch, and despite his early career success, he's seen as something of a disappointment. He had the promise 20 years ago to be one of the game's all-time greats, but a hard-partying lifestyle and a gambling problem led to many bad years in the 1990s. Now, he's struggling to put his act back together after several divorces and at least two bankruptcies ("But that's OK," he says, "I bowl better when I'm broke.")
The relative novice in the movie is Chris Barnes, a rising star who makes it to the TV rounds with some consistency, but seems to fall apart under the pressure of the lights and cameras.
Weber and Williams get most of the movie's time, and their long-time rivalry makes an interesting story. But it's Webb's story that I'll remember the longest; his struggle to recapture his peak form is poignant and painful.
As a whole, the movie's a bit jumpy; the first half-hour seems to be leading up to a movie about the new PBA ownership and their marketing efforts; the last hour turns into a fairly standard year-in-the-life documentary, focusing on the athletes. I'd have liked more of the business story, which fascinated me, but the sports story is done well enough to keep the movie reasonably interesting.
In 2000, the Professional Bowlers Association was sold to three former Microsoft executives, and they set about trying to revitalize the league. One of their principal strategies was to focus on their bowlers, hoping to capture some of the personality-driven excitement that had made televised wrestling so popular. In this fine documentary, Browne follows four bowlers through the 2002-03 PBA season, looking at how they are adapting (or not) to the new style of the league.
Three of the bowlers are veterans, members of bowling's Hall of Fame. Pete Weber is part of bowling's first family and has long struggled to live up to his father's reputation (Dick Weber was the most consistent winner on the tour when bowling first hit television in the early 1960s). In his early years on the tour, in the 1980s, Pete was often disciplined for his flamboyant antics; now his "bad boy of bowling" style is exactly what the PBA's new management is looking for. Unfortunately, he's having a bad season, finishing just short of the televised finals each week.
Having more success is Walter Ray Williams, Jr., but while he's doing well in tournaments, he doesn't find it so easy to adapt to the new PBA style. Williams is a low-key, polite bowler whose most confrontational gesture is a thumbs-up, and try as they might, management can't find a way to get more pizzazz from him.
Wayne Webb is the third Hall of Famer in the bunch, and despite his early career success, he's seen as something of a disappointment. He had the promise 20 years ago to be one of the game's all-time greats, but a hard-partying lifestyle and a gambling problem led to many bad years in the 1990s. Now, he's struggling to put his act back together after several divorces and at least two bankruptcies ("But that's OK," he says, "I bowl better when I'm broke.")
The relative novice in the movie is Chris Barnes, a rising star who makes it to the TV rounds with some consistency, but seems to fall apart under the pressure of the lights and cameras.
Weber and Williams get most of the movie's time, and their long-time rivalry makes an interesting story. But it's Webb's story that I'll remember the longest; his struggle to recapture his peak form is poignant and painful.
As a whole, the movie's a bit jumpy; the first half-hour seems to be leading up to a movie about the new PBA ownership and their marketing efforts; the last hour turns into a fairly standard year-in-the-life documentary, focusing on the athletes. I'd have liked more of the business story, which fascinated me, but the sports story is done well enough to keep the movie reasonably interesting.
BOOKS: The Ethical Assasin, David Liss (2006)
David Liss's earlier novels have been historical mysteries, set in 18th-century London (A Conspiracy of Paper and A Spectacle of Corruption) and 17th-century Amsterdam (The Coffee Trader); this is his first novel in a contemporary setting.
It's not all the way to present-day; the setting is Florida in the mid-1980s, where 17-year-old Lem is selling encyclopedias door-to-door, hoping to make enough money to pay for college. He's surprising even himself by turning out to be a good salesman, which is making it even harder to cope with his incipient guilt about talking people who don't have much money into buying things they really don't need. He's in a tiny middle-of-nowhere trailer, having spent hours making his pitch to another couple; just as he close the sale, a man comes into the trailer and kills the couple.
The killer -- he refers to himself as an "assassin" -- is Melford Kean, and he's surprised to find Lem there. Melford offers Lem a simple deal: Stay quiet, and you'll be safe; go to the cops, and you'll take the fall for the killings. Things are never that simple, of course, and over the next several days, Lem finds himself caught up in Melford's world, trying to save his own skin. The relationship between them is more complicated than you'd expect, and Melford presents Lem with philosophical conundrums that he'd never contemplated before, involving (among other things) vegetarianism, pig farming, and the real purpose of prisons.
It's hard to read a crime novel set in Florida these days without thinking of Carl Hiaasen, and there is something of Hiaasen in this novel, especially in the large cast of vividly eccentric characters -- the not-quite-a-bimbo personal assistant who's haunted by the ghost of the conjoined twin who didn't survive their separation; Lem's potential love interest, a sexy vegetarian from India who sells encyclopedias with him; the head of a crystal meth ring who's managed (so far) to sublimate his pedophilic desires into the "mentoring" of young men. But where Hiaasen is bright and zany, Liss is darker and more disturbing; there's comedy here, but it's in the background, subordinate to the suspense and the tension.
Liss's historical mysteries are fine books, and it's a joy to see him do equally well with so different a story and setting. I can't wait to see what he gives us next.
It's not all the way to present-day; the setting is Florida in the mid-1980s, where 17-year-old Lem is selling encyclopedias door-to-door, hoping to make enough money to pay for college. He's surprising even himself by turning out to be a good salesman, which is making it even harder to cope with his incipient guilt about talking people who don't have much money into buying things they really don't need. He's in a tiny middle-of-nowhere trailer, having spent hours making his pitch to another couple; just as he close the sale, a man comes into the trailer and kills the couple.
The killer -- he refers to himself as an "assassin" -- is Melford Kean, and he's surprised to find Lem there. Melford offers Lem a simple deal: Stay quiet, and you'll be safe; go to the cops, and you'll take the fall for the killings. Things are never that simple, of course, and over the next several days, Lem finds himself caught up in Melford's world, trying to save his own skin. The relationship between them is more complicated than you'd expect, and Melford presents Lem with philosophical conundrums that he'd never contemplated before, involving (among other things) vegetarianism, pig farming, and the real purpose of prisons.
It's hard to read a crime novel set in Florida these days without thinking of Carl Hiaasen, and there is something of Hiaasen in this novel, especially in the large cast of vividly eccentric characters -- the not-quite-a-bimbo personal assistant who's haunted by the ghost of the conjoined twin who didn't survive their separation; Lem's potential love interest, a sexy vegetarian from India who sells encyclopedias with him; the head of a crystal meth ring who's managed (so far) to sublimate his pedophilic desires into the "mentoring" of young men. But where Hiaasen is bright and zany, Liss is darker and more disturbing; there's comedy here, but it's in the background, subordinate to the suspense and the tension.
Liss's historical mysteries are fine books, and it's a joy to see him do equally well with so different a story and setting. I can't wait to see what he gives us next.
MOVIES: Over the Hedge (Tim Johnson & Karey Kirkpatrick, 2006)
I was never terribly fond of the comic strip this movie is based on, so I didn't enter with great expectations. It was, therefore, a pleasant surprise that, despite a few significant flaws, the movie is lots of fun.
The story is about a group of animals who awake from hibernation to find that their forest has been cut in half by a giant hedge, on the other side of which is suburbia, in the form of a new housing development.
The leader of this family of animals is a turtle named Verne (voiced by Garry Shandling), who is by nature cautious; he would like to ignore this new development and continue life as it has always been, gathering nuts and bark to be stored in preparation for winter. The newest member of the group is RJ the raccoon (Bruce Willis), who convinces the animals that suburbia is a great blessing, the source of all the food they could ever want. What the animals don't know is that RJ has an ulterior motive: He has only a short time to replace all of the food that he's stole from Vincent the bear (a perfectly cast Nick Nolte), and plans to do so by taking advantage of the hard work of his new friends.
Like most animated movies these days, we get lots of high-powered star voice casting, and most of it works well. Thomas Haden Church is very funny in one of the two significant human roles; he's Dwayne, the exterminator who's brought in to get rid of the animals. Also good are Wanda Sykes as Stella the skunk; Eugene Levy and Catharine O'Hara as a pair of midwestern porcupines ("Oh, jeepers!" "Oh, yah, jeepers; that's the word, don'cha know."); and William Shatner, continuing his remarkable late career of brilliant self-parody as Ozzie the possum, whose faked-death scene is a magnificent takeoff of Shatner's signature dramatic vocal style ("I! can see! the light! Must! Go! Forward!" and so on).
Best of all is Steve Carell, cranking his voice into its highest register as Hammy, the hyperactive squirrel who zips from place to place, frantically trying to remember where his food is stored, and constantly begging for assistance ("Wanna help me find my nuts?").
Less successful is Garry Shandling as Verne. Shandling as a turtle sounds like a good idea, but voice acting, even for a quiet and tentative character, requires a level of vocal energy that Shandling fails to provide; he's a low-energy actor, and when Verne takes center stage, Shandling didn't hold my attention. He's not helped by the fact that Verne is drawn and animated in a less interesting way than most of the other characters.
The slapstick action sequences don't always reach the energy they need; Verne's first excursion into suburbia is paced just a hair too slow throughout. But the final sequence, in which the animals make one final raid through the exterminator's series of traps, is ingenious, and Hammy's role in that sequence is smartly conceived and beautifully prepared for.
Over the Hedge certainly isn't at the level of the Pixar movies, but kids will enjoy it, and there's enough intelligence in it to keep adults happy; the movie is ultimately a surprisingly pointed commentary on commercialism and the human "need" for more stuff.
The story is about a group of animals who awake from hibernation to find that their forest has been cut in half by a giant hedge, on the other side of which is suburbia, in the form of a new housing development.
The leader of this family of animals is a turtle named Verne (voiced by Garry Shandling), who is by nature cautious; he would like to ignore this new development and continue life as it has always been, gathering nuts and bark to be stored in preparation for winter. The newest member of the group is RJ the raccoon (Bruce Willis), who convinces the animals that suburbia is a great blessing, the source of all the food they could ever want. What the animals don't know is that RJ has an ulterior motive: He has only a short time to replace all of the food that he's stole from Vincent the bear (a perfectly cast Nick Nolte), and plans to do so by taking advantage of the hard work of his new friends.
Like most animated movies these days, we get lots of high-powered star voice casting, and most of it works well. Thomas Haden Church is very funny in one of the two significant human roles; he's Dwayne, the exterminator who's brought in to get rid of the animals. Also good are Wanda Sykes as Stella the skunk; Eugene Levy and Catharine O'Hara as a pair of midwestern porcupines ("Oh, jeepers!" "Oh, yah, jeepers; that's the word, don'cha know."); and William Shatner, continuing his remarkable late career of brilliant self-parody as Ozzie the possum, whose faked-death scene is a magnificent takeoff of Shatner's signature dramatic vocal style ("I! can see! the light! Must! Go! Forward!" and so on).
Best of all is Steve Carell, cranking his voice into its highest register as Hammy, the hyperactive squirrel who zips from place to place, frantically trying to remember where his food is stored, and constantly begging for assistance ("Wanna help me find my nuts?").
Less successful is Garry Shandling as Verne. Shandling as a turtle sounds like a good idea, but voice acting, even for a quiet and tentative character, requires a level of vocal energy that Shandling fails to provide; he's a low-energy actor, and when Verne takes center stage, Shandling didn't hold my attention. He's not helped by the fact that Verne is drawn and animated in a less interesting way than most of the other characters.
The slapstick action sequences don't always reach the energy they need; Verne's first excursion into suburbia is paced just a hair too slow throughout. But the final sequence, in which the animals make one final raid through the exterminator's series of traps, is ingenious, and Hammy's role in that sequence is smartly conceived and beautifully prepared for.
Over the Hedge certainly isn't at the level of the Pixar movies, but kids will enjoy it, and there's enough intelligence in it to keep adults happy; the movie is ultimately a surprisingly pointed commentary on commercialism and the human "need" for more stuff.
May 23, 2006
TV: American Idol (the finals)
It's the big show tonight, boys and girls, as Katharine and Taylor go head to head for the title.
Three songs each -- two "greatest hits" selections from the past season, and each singer's Official First Single; the singers have been given different OFS songs this year, making head-to-head comparison a little bit more difficult. (But is that going to stop me? Hell, no!)
Each singer, I thought, had one very good performance and one OK performance during the "greatest hits" rounds, so let's compare like with like. First, the very good:
Taylor, "Living for the City" (his first song) -- This is Taylor doing what he does best; he's a showman who knows how to work the crowd. The song suits his voice -- of this year's Idol contestants, Taylor has the best understanding of his own range and limitations -- and it's an energetic, entertaining performance. If there is a flaw, it's that it doesn't show us anything new; it is, in some ways, the default Taylor performance.
Katharine, "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" (her second song) -- As it was the first time she sang it, it's impeccably sung. I think this performance may be even better; the phrasing feels a little looser and more relaxed. And not once does she throw in one of the inappropriate broad smiles she's often criticized for; tonight, she's acting the song as well as she's singing it.
On to the OK performances:
Taylor, "Levon" (his second song) -- Again, the song suits his voice perfectly, and the verse is quite nicely sung. But when he gets to the chorus? Well, the chorus is a bit on the dull side, and Taylor seems a bit off here, not bringing quite enough energy to it to overcome the repetitive nature of the song. It's a perfectly adequate performance, but it's not much more than that.
Katharine, "Black Horse and Cherry Tree" (her first song) -- She's not sprawled on the stage as she was the first time she sang this (mainly because she'll be sprawled for "Rainbow"), but her movement on stage is more relaxed than she's been in the past. She's enjoying herself, and
her flirtation with those drummers is kinda sexy, which is a surprise; in the past, Katharine's tended to come across as the serious girl play-acting at sexy without quite understanding it. The singing is not quite at the level it was when she first did the song, but it's still pretty good, and she's having so much fun that she completely sells it.
And on to the new songs, the first singles. Both are the standard issue Inspirational Idol Pop Ballad, designed to talk about how thrilling it is to be here on the verge of winning the competition, but in a way that's lyrically vague enough that it'll sound like a generic love song in six months, when we've stopped caring about the competition.
Katharine opens with "My Destiny," which is not much of a song. It puts in her lowest register to start, which is one of her strengths; she's got a rich, husky quality down there. She's having pitch problems, though, especially at the ends of those short rising phrases in the verse ("I didn't stop;" "I did my best"). And when she gets to the bridge and the final chorus, she doesn't quite have the power that she needs to sell the climax of the song; it needs to be one volume level higher, and you can hear the strain in her voice as she tries to get there.
Taylor follows with "Do I Make You Proud?," which is a marginally better song than Katharine's, and is a better fit with his style than her song was for hers. More important, though, he sings it better. Oh, there are a few flat notes scattered here and there, and Taylor does this odd head-shaking thing right after the key change that makes his voice fade in and out -- not smart -- but on the whole, it's a solid performance. Not brilliant, not hugely memorable, but solid.
I'd give Katharine a solid lead on their "very good" songs and a slight edge on their "OK" songs; Taylor takes the First Single round. For the night -- and for the season -- I'd give it to Katharine by the narrowest of margins, but I expect Taylor to win.
And a few end-of-the-year awards:
Best performance: Mandisa, "I Don't Hurt Anymore"
Runner-up: Paris, "These Foolish Things"
Worst performance: Kevin, "Part Time Lover"
Runner-up: Kellie, "Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered" (though it was awfully tempting to give this spot to Kevin, too)
Voted off too soon: Mandisa
Runner-up: Chris
Honorable mention: Gedeon, who should have made the final 12
Lasted too long: Kevin, who won this award the instant he made the final 12
Runner-up: Elliott
Most disappointing: Lisa, who never figured out how to communicate with the audience
Most pleasant surprise: Chris, who actually could sing when forced out of his preferred rock-scream mode
Three songs each -- two "greatest hits" selections from the past season, and each singer's Official First Single; the singers have been given different OFS songs this year, making head-to-head comparison a little bit more difficult. (But is that going to stop me? Hell, no!)
Each singer, I thought, had one very good performance and one OK performance during the "greatest hits" rounds, so let's compare like with like. First, the very good:
Taylor, "Living for the City" (his first song) -- This is Taylor doing what he does best; he's a showman who knows how to work the crowd. The song suits his voice -- of this year's Idol contestants, Taylor has the best understanding of his own range and limitations -- and it's an energetic, entertaining performance. If there is a flaw, it's that it doesn't show us anything new; it is, in some ways, the default Taylor performance.
Katharine, "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" (her second song) -- As it was the first time she sang it, it's impeccably sung. I think this performance may be even better; the phrasing feels a little looser and more relaxed. And not once does she throw in one of the inappropriate broad smiles she's often criticized for; tonight, she's acting the song as well as she's singing it.
On to the OK performances:
Taylor, "Levon" (his second song) -- Again, the song suits his voice perfectly, and the verse is quite nicely sung. But when he gets to the chorus? Well, the chorus is a bit on the dull side, and Taylor seems a bit off here, not bringing quite enough energy to it to overcome the repetitive nature of the song. It's a perfectly adequate performance, but it's not much more than that.
Katharine, "Black Horse and Cherry Tree" (her first song) -- She's not sprawled on the stage as she was the first time she sang this (mainly because she'll be sprawled for "Rainbow"), but her movement on stage is more relaxed than she's been in the past. She's enjoying herself, and
her flirtation with those drummers is kinda sexy, which is a surprise; in the past, Katharine's tended to come across as the serious girl play-acting at sexy without quite understanding it. The singing is not quite at the level it was when she first did the song, but it's still pretty good, and she's having so much fun that she completely sells it.
And on to the new songs, the first singles. Both are the standard issue Inspirational Idol Pop Ballad, designed to talk about how thrilling it is to be here on the verge of winning the competition, but in a way that's lyrically vague enough that it'll sound like a generic love song in six months, when we've stopped caring about the competition.
Katharine opens with "My Destiny," which is not much of a song. It puts in her lowest register to start, which is one of her strengths; she's got a rich, husky quality down there. She's having pitch problems, though, especially at the ends of those short rising phrases in the verse ("I didn't stop;" "I did my best"). And when she gets to the bridge and the final chorus, she doesn't quite have the power that she needs to sell the climax of the song; it needs to be one volume level higher, and you can hear the strain in her voice as she tries to get there.
Taylor follows with "Do I Make You Proud?," which is a marginally better song than Katharine's, and is a better fit with his style than her song was for hers. More important, though, he sings it better. Oh, there are a few flat notes scattered here and there, and Taylor does this odd head-shaking thing right after the key change that makes his voice fade in and out -- not smart -- but on the whole, it's a solid performance. Not brilliant, not hugely memorable, but solid.
I'd give Katharine a solid lead on their "very good" songs and a slight edge on their "OK" songs; Taylor takes the First Single round. For the night -- and for the season -- I'd give it to Katharine by the narrowest of margins, but I expect Taylor to win.
And a few end-of-the-year awards:
Best performance: Mandisa, "I Don't Hurt Anymore"
Runner-up: Paris, "These Foolish Things"
Worst performance: Kevin, "Part Time Lover"
Runner-up: Kellie, "Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered" (though it was awfully tempting to give this spot to Kevin, too)
Voted off too soon: Mandisa
Runner-up: Chris
Honorable mention: Gedeon, who should have made the final 12
Lasted too long: Kevin, who won this award the instant he made the final 12
Runner-up: Elliott
Most disappointing: Lisa, who never figured out how to communicate with the audience
Most pleasant surprise: Chris, who actually could sing when forced out of his preferred rock-scream mode
May 21, 2006
MOVIES: Clean (Olivier Assayas, 2004 / US 2006)
As the movie opens, Emily Wang (Maggie Cheung) is on the road with her common-law husband, Lee; he is an aging rock musician who's come close to stardom a time or two, but never quite made it. Most of his friends would probably tell you that his most recent failures are Emily's fault, and it's true that even at her best, Emily's not a very likable person. She's cold, distant, and self-absorbed.
Lee and Emily are both hooked on heroin, and very early in the movie, Lee overdoses, leaving Emily to survive on her own (Lee's friends blame her for his death, and want nothing to do with her). The only family Emily has is Jay, her son from her relationship with Lee, who currently lives with Lee's parents in Vancouver. Emily wants a relationship with Jay, and she's self-aware enough to realize that she needs to get off drugs and put her life into some semblance of order before she'll be capable of caring for a child.
Jay's grandmother, Rosemary (Martha Henry), blames Emily for Lee's death, and isn't even willing to consider the possibility that Emily might one day be capable of raising Jay; grandfather Albrecht (Nick Nolte) is more willing to forgive, and that willingness becomes Emily's touchstone, the one thing she can cling to.
The performances by Cheung and Nolte are quite marvelous. Cheung manages to gain our sympathy for Emily, without ever avoiding or sugar-coating the character's obnoxious traits. (She won the Best Actress award at the 2004 Cannes festival for this performance.) Nolte is entirely convincing, giving full weight to both Albrecht's pain and his compassion. Don McKellar also does very good work in a small role as Lee's manager.
There's a subplot in which Emily is attempting to establish her own career as a singer, and it's not at all convincing, because Cheung can't sing. But aside from those few painful scenes, Clean is a strong piece of work, often bleak but ultimately delivering a powerful message about the importance of forgiveness, and of having someone who believes in you even when you find it difficult to believe in yourself.
Lee and Emily are both hooked on heroin, and very early in the movie, Lee overdoses, leaving Emily to survive on her own (Lee's friends blame her for his death, and want nothing to do with her). The only family Emily has is Jay, her son from her relationship with Lee, who currently lives with Lee's parents in Vancouver. Emily wants a relationship with Jay, and she's self-aware enough to realize that she needs to get off drugs and put her life into some semblance of order before she'll be capable of caring for a child.
Jay's grandmother, Rosemary (Martha Henry), blames Emily for Lee's death, and isn't even willing to consider the possibility that Emily might one day be capable of raising Jay; grandfather Albrecht (Nick Nolte) is more willing to forgive, and that willingness becomes Emily's touchstone, the one thing she can cling to.
The performances by Cheung and Nolte are quite marvelous. Cheung manages to gain our sympathy for Emily, without ever avoiding or sugar-coating the character's obnoxious traits. (She won the Best Actress award at the 2004 Cannes festival for this performance.) Nolte is entirely convincing, giving full weight to both Albrecht's pain and his compassion. Don McKellar also does very good work in a small role as Lee's manager.
There's a subplot in which Emily is attempting to establish her own career as a singer, and it's not at all convincing, because Cheung can't sing. But aside from those few painful scenes, Clean is a strong piece of work, often bleak but ultimately delivering a powerful message about the importance of forgiveness, and of having someone who believes in you even when you find it difficult to believe in yourself.
BOOKS: The Ghost Brigades, John Scalzi (2006)
Follow-up to Old Man's War, which I talked about here.
It's not exactly a sequel; the novels are set in the same fictional universe, and there is some overlap of characters, but the stories are independent of one another.
One of the challenges of SF series is that there's often a lot of background information that the reader needs to know about that writer's universe, and presenting that information in later novels can lead to clunky blocks of exposition; at its worst, this takes the form of "As you know, Bob..." dialogue, in which characters recite to one another things they already know in order to get the info to the reader. Scalzi does a terrific job of working that background information into the narrative without any of it ever feeling as if it's there solely for the purpose of exposition.
The story this time finds humanity on the verge of war, as three alien races have joined forces and are about to attack. These are races not known for cooperating with one another, so their alliance is rather unexpected, and it turns out to have been instigated by Charles Boutin, a human scientist whose motives for treason are a mystery.
The Colonial Defense Forces have a copy of Boutin's consciousness, and hope that loading it into one of their specially-grown Special Forces soldiers -- the so-called "Ghost Brigades" -- will give them access to Boutin's motives. But when that soldier, Jared Dirac, is awakened, the consciousness transfer appears not to have taken. The CDF assigns Jared to a standard tour of duty, despite the fact that none of his supervisors are entirely sure that he can be trusted, or that Boutin's treasonous mind won't awaken in him without warning.
Eventually, of course, Boutin's memories do begin to pop into Jared's mind, and as he tries to track down the scientist, some serious nature-nurture issues are raised. What happens when two minds share one skull? Can Jared's training as one of humanity's saviours override the traitorous desires that were buried in his mind when he was created?
This is a very smart novel, with lots of involving ideas; the action side of the story is just as good, marked by exciting battles and clever strategies.
It's not exactly a sequel; the novels are set in the same fictional universe, and there is some overlap of characters, but the stories are independent of one another.
One of the challenges of SF series is that there's often a lot of background information that the reader needs to know about that writer's universe, and presenting that information in later novels can lead to clunky blocks of exposition; at its worst, this takes the form of "As you know, Bob..." dialogue, in which characters recite to one another things they already know in order to get the info to the reader. Scalzi does a terrific job of working that background information into the narrative without any of it ever feeling as if it's there solely for the purpose of exposition.
The story this time finds humanity on the verge of war, as three alien races have joined forces and are about to attack. These are races not known for cooperating with one another, so their alliance is rather unexpected, and it turns out to have been instigated by Charles Boutin, a human scientist whose motives for treason are a mystery.
The Colonial Defense Forces have a copy of Boutin's consciousness, and hope that loading it into one of their specially-grown Special Forces soldiers -- the so-called "Ghost Brigades" -- will give them access to Boutin's motives. But when that soldier, Jared Dirac, is awakened, the consciousness transfer appears not to have taken. The CDF assigns Jared to a standard tour of duty, despite the fact that none of his supervisors are entirely sure that he can be trusted, or that Boutin's treasonous mind won't awaken in him without warning.
Eventually, of course, Boutin's memories do begin to pop into Jared's mind, and as he tries to track down the scientist, some serious nature-nurture issues are raised. What happens when two minds share one skull? Can Jared's training as one of humanity's saviours override the traitorous desires that were buried in his mind when he was created?
This is a very smart novel, with lots of involving ideas; the action side of the story is just as good, marked by exciting battles and clever strategies.
Today's Silly Consumer Product Award goes to the folks at Jelly Belly, who have come up with Sport Beans. A bag of roughly 15 beans sells for a buck, and they are, according to the package, "energizing jelly beans" loaded with "electrolytes and vitamins C & E." The athlete in need of a power boost is advised to "energize with one package before activity." That's right, it's candy for jocks.
May 16, 2006
TV: American Idol ("choice" night)
It's the annual "choice" night on Idol, and as always, Clive Davis is on hand, though he's been relegated to a cheap seat in the audience instead his usual ringside seat with Randy, Paula, and Simon. Clive picks the songs for Round One, which goes a little something like this:
Elliott, "Open Arms" -- Elliott's singing with much less vibrato than usual, and it makes a huge difference; his voice is actually pleasant to listen to. The performance is on the tepid side, pleasant enough but not very memorable.
Katharine, "I Believe I Can Fly" -- Clive, Clive, Clive, what were you thinking? Have you not seen Katharine's sad attempts to play Pop Diva, horrifying moments like "The Voice Within" and "Against All Odds"? This was even worse than those, all runs and frills and filigrees, and it's just too much. Yes, the voice is lovely, but her attempts at style are getting in the way of her technique. It isn't pretty.
Taylor, "Dancing in the Dark" -- Clive wanted this song so badly that we are told he called Bruce personally to get permission for the first ever Idol use of a Springsteen song. And it's a good choice for Taylor's voice and style, though he doesn't do anything particularly interesting with it. Small deduction for the silly gun-pointing gesture on "this gun's for hire."
Round Two belongs to our beloved trio of judges, each of whom have chosen a song for one contestant:
Elliott, "What You Won't Do for Love" (chosen by Paula) -- Elliott looks more relaxed than usual, which helps to make this a reasonably entertaining performance. The song's not very interesting, though, and that vibrato is back in a big, unpleasant way.
Katharine, "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" (chosen by Simon) -- Two big surprises at the beginning: She sings the verse -- no one ever sings the verse -- and she sings it a cappella; when the band comes in as the chorus begins, she is dead perfect on pitch. She's spectacular, and I'm holding my breath waiting for the moment when she's going to swoop or hurl some melisma or do something gratuitous, but it never comes. This really was her finest performance, and something quite marvelous to see.
Taylor, "You Are So Beautiful" (chosen by Randy) -- So if you've got a contestant against whom the chief criticism is that he's nothing but a bad Joe Cocker/Michael McDonald impersonator, do you really want to ask him to sing a Joe Cocker song? Taylor looks pained throughout, and he can't sustain the long, quiet notes ("...to meeeeeee"), which fade in and out. Even so, the opening isn't bad -- I like Taylor more when he's still than when he's spastic -- but he completely shatters the mood he's created with a manic "woo hoo hoo" midway through.
And for the final round, the singers get to choose their own material:
Elliott, "I Believe to My Soul" -- His voice is particularly heavy and throaty on this one, which is working against the agility he needs to make those R&B riffs really soar; as is so often the case with Elliott, you can see how hard he's working. There's an especially ugly high note near the very end, and he's fighting throughout to be heard above the band.
Katharine, "I Ain't Got Nothin' But the Blues" -- awful song choice, in a style that will completely bore most of this show's audience. And the performance isn't especially good, either, as Katharine returns to the ruffles and flourishes that marred her first number (though admittedly, they weren't as excessive here).
Taylor, "Try a Little Tenderness" -- It starts off OK, with the slow intro, but the band picks up the tempo and suddenly we're watching the most spectacular act of self-parody in Idol history. I have to pinch myself to be sure I'm still watching Taylor and not a Saturday Night Live Taylor impersonator. The ending is amazingly, unbelievably ghastly.
For the night: Katharine only had one really good performance, but that was one more than anybody else had, so she wins the night; Taylor beats Elliott for second, but it's not much of an honor.
For the season: It's the least interesting group of finalists Idol has ever produced, and I'm not sure any of them really deserves to win. Elliott is still the most undeserving, though, and should be sent home.
Elliott, "Open Arms" -- Elliott's singing with much less vibrato than usual, and it makes a huge difference; his voice is actually pleasant to listen to. The performance is on the tepid side, pleasant enough but not very memorable.
Katharine, "I Believe I Can Fly" -- Clive, Clive, Clive, what were you thinking? Have you not seen Katharine's sad attempts to play Pop Diva, horrifying moments like "The Voice Within" and "Against All Odds"? This was even worse than those, all runs and frills and filigrees, and it's just too much. Yes, the voice is lovely, but her attempts at style are getting in the way of her technique. It isn't pretty.
Taylor, "Dancing in the Dark" -- Clive wanted this song so badly that we are told he called Bruce personally to get permission for the first ever Idol use of a Springsteen song. And it's a good choice for Taylor's voice and style, though he doesn't do anything particularly interesting with it. Small deduction for the silly gun-pointing gesture on "this gun's for hire."
Round Two belongs to our beloved trio of judges, each of whom have chosen a song for one contestant:
Elliott, "What You Won't Do for Love" (chosen by Paula) -- Elliott looks more relaxed than usual, which helps to make this a reasonably entertaining performance. The song's not very interesting, though, and that vibrato is back in a big, unpleasant way.
Katharine, "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" (chosen by Simon) -- Two big surprises at the beginning: She sings the verse -- no one ever sings the verse -- and she sings it a cappella; when the band comes in as the chorus begins, she is dead perfect on pitch. She's spectacular, and I'm holding my breath waiting for the moment when she's going to swoop or hurl some melisma or do something gratuitous, but it never comes. This really was her finest performance, and something quite marvelous to see.
Taylor, "You Are So Beautiful" (chosen by Randy) -- So if you've got a contestant against whom the chief criticism is that he's nothing but a bad Joe Cocker/Michael McDonald impersonator, do you really want to ask him to sing a Joe Cocker song? Taylor looks pained throughout, and he can't sustain the long, quiet notes ("...to meeeeeee"), which fade in and out. Even so, the opening isn't bad -- I like Taylor more when he's still than when he's spastic -- but he completely shatters the mood he's created with a manic "woo hoo hoo" midway through.
And for the final round, the singers get to choose their own material:
Elliott, "I Believe to My Soul" -- His voice is particularly heavy and throaty on this one, which is working against the agility he needs to make those R&B riffs really soar; as is so often the case with Elliott, you can see how hard he's working. There's an especially ugly high note near the very end, and he's fighting throughout to be heard above the band.
Katharine, "I Ain't Got Nothin' But the Blues" -- awful song choice, in a style that will completely bore most of this show's audience. And the performance isn't especially good, either, as Katharine returns to the ruffles and flourishes that marred her first number (though admittedly, they weren't as excessive here).
Taylor, "Try a Little Tenderness" -- It starts off OK, with the slow intro, but the band picks up the tempo and suddenly we're watching the most spectacular act of self-parody in Idol history. I have to pinch myself to be sure I'm still watching Taylor and not a Saturday Night Live Taylor impersonator. The ending is amazingly, unbelievably ghastly.
For the night: Katharine only had one really good performance, but that was one more than anybody else had, so she wins the night; Taylor beats Elliott for second, but it's not much of an honor.
For the season: It's the least interesting group of finalists Idol has ever produced, and I'm not sure any of them really deserves to win. Elliott is still the most undeserving, though, and should be sent home.
May 14, 2006
MOVIES: Mission: Impossible III (2006, J.J. Abrams)
This is Abrams' first film, after a few successful years in TV (he's the creator of Alias and Lost), and it is reportedly the most expensive first film any director has ever made.
TV's Mission: Impossible was a large influence on Alias -- at least one episode was a direct homage to the earlier show -- so it's a fine fit for Abrams, who gets to indulge a lot of his favorite narrative devices. There's the in medias res beginning with the hero in peril that jumps back to the start of the story; there's the fascination with masks and doubling; there's a nerdy, stammering computer geek; and there's the odd notion that the way for a female spy to go undercover is to wear a stunning gown that makes her the most attention-grabbing thing in the room.
Tom Cruise has always been an actor who works up to the level of his best co-stars; he'll never be the worst thing in a movie, but if you don't surround him with talent, he's not going to be very impressive himself. So the presence of Philip Seymour Hoffman as the villain and Michelle Monaghan as the love interest, which might seem like overkill, pushes Cruise to a performance of surprising emotional intensity; the dialogue scenes among those three characters are just as tense and exciting as the action scenes. (And the supporting characters aren't exactly talentless slouches themselves; Ving Rhames, Laurence Fishburne, and Jonathan Rhys-Meyers are all on hand.)
And those action scenes are terrific. A helicopter chase through a field of wind turbines, a break-in and kidnapping from the Vatican, a mad dash along the banks of a Shanghai river -- they're all top-notch thrills, and Cruise does this type of material better than anyone.
There was one thing that distracted me; there are lots of scenes -- the opening scene with Hoffman, in particular -- in which Cruise bears a striking facial resemblance to Adam Sandler. I'd never noticed that before, but it would be interesting to see the two cast as brothers.
TV's Mission: Impossible was a large influence on Alias -- at least one episode was a direct homage to the earlier show -- so it's a fine fit for Abrams, who gets to indulge a lot of his favorite narrative devices. There's the in medias res beginning with the hero in peril that jumps back to the start of the story; there's the fascination with masks and doubling; there's a nerdy, stammering computer geek; and there's the odd notion that the way for a female spy to go undercover is to wear a stunning gown that makes her the most attention-grabbing thing in the room.
Tom Cruise has always been an actor who works up to the level of his best co-stars; he'll never be the worst thing in a movie, but if you don't surround him with talent, he's not going to be very impressive himself. So the presence of Philip Seymour Hoffman as the villain and Michelle Monaghan as the love interest, which might seem like overkill, pushes Cruise to a performance of surprising emotional intensity; the dialogue scenes among those three characters are just as tense and exciting as the action scenes. (And the supporting characters aren't exactly talentless slouches themselves; Ving Rhames, Laurence Fishburne, and Jonathan Rhys-Meyers are all on hand.)
And those action scenes are terrific. A helicopter chase through a field of wind turbines, a break-in and kidnapping from the Vatican, a mad dash along the banks of a Shanghai river -- they're all top-notch thrills, and Cruise does this type of material better than anyone.
There was one thing that distracted me; there are lots of scenes -- the opening scene with Hoffman, in particular -- in which Cruise bears a striking facial resemblance to Adam Sandler. I'd never noticed that before, but it would be interesting to see the two cast as brothers.
May 09, 2006
TV: American Idol (songs of Elvis)
It was the worst of times, it was the best of times, in tonight's Tale of Two Rounds. Well, OK, maybe not the worst of times -- no one tonight was truly awful -- but again, no one was able to put together two terrific performances. We did, however, get one terrific performance from some of our singers tonight.
The rundown:
Round One was, for the most part, a round of bland competence.
Taylor, "Jailhouse Rock" -- It is rather an obvious choice for him, and it was a perfectly pleasant performance. But there's nothing surprising or original about it, and Taylor himself has probably forgotten it already.
Chris, "Suspicious Minds" -- Something of a surprise choice. With no rock screamers available to him, Chris's track record led me to expect one of the sappy ballads, so it was nice to hear him choose something uptempo. Like Taylor before him, it was a competent performance, but not an interesting one, and Chris is hurt by the fact that the song doesn't condense well; all of its drama is in the build.
Elliott, "If I Can Dream" -- Very Vegas lounge act. Not that this is necessarily inappropriate for late Elvis, and if you like that sort of thing, it was reasonably well done, but he's not going to win this competition by turning himself into Wayne Newton.
Katharine, "Hound Dog/All Shook Up" -- There's a dropped lyric midway through, which she covers fairly well, and she throws in some vocal runs at the end that are neither necessary or appropriate to the style. But on the whole, this is lots of fun, and Katharine pulls off the rock'n'roll chick better than I'd have expected. Best of a weak round.
Things start to look a lot better in Round Two:
Taylor, "In the Ghetto" -- Absolutely the right song for him. Beautifully sung, and he's physically more restrained than usual without looking paralyzed by fear as he did during "Something" last week. There's a lovely falsetto note in the middle that I don't think we've heard from him before.
Elliott, "Trouble" -- Holy crap, where has this guy been hiding? This is exciting, passionate, and riveting. He even pulls off the "I'm evil" line without inducing too many giggles (unlike Carrie a year ago).
Chris, "A Little Less Conversation" -- I like the lower register of his voice, which we don't get to hear very often, and the transition to the higher octave at the end is really effective. Those last few notes of rocker shouting at the end don't work at all, though, and he looks silly carrying the entire mike stand into the audience with him.
Katharine, "Can't Help Falling In Love" -- I love her voice; I hate her instincts. This is so overly melodramatic and theatrical -- the same words that keep coming up when I talk about Katharine -- and on the heels of three very good performances, it may be the final nail in her coffin.
For the night, it's Elliott (!?!), Taylor, Chris, and Katharine.
For the season, it's Chris, Taylor, Katharine, and Elliott.
I still think Elliott is the most deserving of being booted, but I think Katharine has probably sung her last.
The rundown:
Round One was, for the most part, a round of bland competence.
Taylor, "Jailhouse Rock" -- It is rather an obvious choice for him, and it was a perfectly pleasant performance. But there's nothing surprising or original about it, and Taylor himself has probably forgotten it already.
Chris, "Suspicious Minds" -- Something of a surprise choice. With no rock screamers available to him, Chris's track record led me to expect one of the sappy ballads, so it was nice to hear him choose something uptempo. Like Taylor before him, it was a competent performance, but not an interesting one, and Chris is hurt by the fact that the song doesn't condense well; all of its drama is in the build.
Elliott, "If I Can Dream" -- Very Vegas lounge act. Not that this is necessarily inappropriate for late Elvis, and if you like that sort of thing, it was reasonably well done, but he's not going to win this competition by turning himself into Wayne Newton.
Katharine, "Hound Dog/All Shook Up" -- There's a dropped lyric midway through, which she covers fairly well, and she throws in some vocal runs at the end that are neither necessary or appropriate to the style. But on the whole, this is lots of fun, and Katharine pulls off the rock'n'roll chick better than I'd have expected. Best of a weak round.
Things start to look a lot better in Round Two:
Taylor, "In the Ghetto" -- Absolutely the right song for him. Beautifully sung, and he's physically more restrained than usual without looking paralyzed by fear as he did during "Something" last week. There's a lovely falsetto note in the middle that I don't think we've heard from him before.
Elliott, "Trouble" -- Holy crap, where has this guy been hiding? This is exciting, passionate, and riveting. He even pulls off the "I'm evil" line without inducing too many giggles (unlike Carrie a year ago).
Chris, "A Little Less Conversation" -- I like the lower register of his voice, which we don't get to hear very often, and the transition to the higher octave at the end is really effective. Those last few notes of rocker shouting at the end don't work at all, though, and he looks silly carrying the entire mike stand into the audience with him.
Katharine, "Can't Help Falling In Love" -- I love her voice; I hate her instincts. This is so overly melodramatic and theatrical -- the same words that keep coming up when I talk about Katharine -- and on the heels of three very good performances, it may be the final nail in her coffin.
For the night, it's Elliott (!?!), Taylor, Chris, and Katharine.
For the season, it's Chris, Taylor, Katharine, and Elliott.
I still think Elliott is the most deserving of being booted, but I think Katharine has probably sung her last.
BOOKS: Intuition, Allegra Goodman (2006)
I feel like I've been on a tremendous roll of good novels lately, and this one is marvelous.
The setting is a cancer research lab in Boston, where none of the current experiments have produced much, and the most recent round of grant funding is about to run out; lab directors Sandy Glass and Marion Mendelssohn are beginning to worry that they may have to shut down.
Suddenly, though, hope arrives as one of their young scientists suddenly reports exciting results; it's a surprise, as Cliff had been working for months on this line of research with nothing to show for it, and as Sandy and Marion begin pulling people off other projects to assist Cliff, there is a certain amount of resentment in the lab.
Among the most resentful is Robin, who has research of her own she'd rather be working on, and doesn't appreciate being assigned to Cliff's project; the fact that Robin and Cliff are a couple only complicates matters.
Everyone's motives are complex and subject to second-guessing in Intuition, and Goodman refuses to make any of her characters simple heroes or villains. These are complicated, real people, and even the minor players have more depth than many novelists' protagonists. There are no easy answers at the end, and we're left with a great deal of room to make our own judgments about what's really happened.
Very fine.
The setting is a cancer research lab in Boston, where none of the current experiments have produced much, and the most recent round of grant funding is about to run out; lab directors Sandy Glass and Marion Mendelssohn are beginning to worry that they may have to shut down.
Suddenly, though, hope arrives as one of their young scientists suddenly reports exciting results; it's a surprise, as Cliff had been working for months on this line of research with nothing to show for it, and as Sandy and Marion begin pulling people off other projects to assist Cliff, there is a certain amount of resentment in the lab.
Among the most resentful is Robin, who has research of her own she'd rather be working on, and doesn't appreciate being assigned to Cliff's project; the fact that Robin and Cliff are a couple only complicates matters.
Everyone's motives are complex and subject to second-guessing in Intuition, and Goodman refuses to make any of her characters simple heroes or villains. These are complicated, real people, and even the minor players have more depth than many novelists' protagonists. There are no easy answers at the end, and we're left with a great deal of room to make our own judgments about what's really happened.
Very fine.
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