The Aerie
We went to see "Fahrenheit 9/11" on Saturday night, and had to visit a couple of theaters before we found one which was not sold out.
I'm amused by the media furor about the movie. Watching hardened conservative institutions bark about Moore's film being "imbalanced" would be funny if it weren't so hypocritical. The Right has for so long monopolized the conversation that we now think that conservative views are centrist. On the Internet I watched both Matt Lauer and Katie Couric interview Moore, and they both copped this astonishingly self-righteous attitude: basically asking him "How could you DO something like this?" This as if producing a documentary was tantamount to treason -- which the Administration seems to believe.
Is Moore perfect? No. But am I glad that he's over there on the Left shouting at the top of his lungs? You betcha.
My main complaint with the movie was that the editing seemed to break down towards the end. The beginning was very tight and well written, tying together the various interest groups which are involved in the post-9/11 world and the war in Iraq. It made a very compelling case that the world ruling elite care not at all about the 99% of us who work for a living, and only serve their own interests.
But the second part of the movie was less tightly constructed. Certainly it was powerful seeing the raw effects of war upon the citizens of Baghdad and the soldiers in Iraq. And watching Moore pin down vile Minnesota Republican Senator Mark Kennedy, who returned a blank stare when asked to have his own kids enlist, was worth every penny of the admission.
But I became confused about the identity of some of the people who Moore interviewed, and also whether he had a particular direction in the latter part. At the very end Moore almost sewed it up for me, but not quite: what he needed to do at the end, IMO, was to tie the whole movie together and say
| "So Iraqi civilians and American soldiers are dying in Iraq for several reasons: to reinforce a permanent Mideast tactical presence (over a dozen permanent military bases are presently under construction in Iraq); to secure the world's second largest oil reserves in the control of the United States; but, in large part also for this reason -- because by redirecting blame for 9/11 onto Iraq, this administration successfully distracts the world's attention from noting that George Bush and Osama Bin Laden share a number of close personal friends." |
Okay, so that having been said, I think it's a movie that is critically important for everyone to see.
A point Moore didn't make in the movie but which is relevant. Informed that America was under attack by foreign enemies, President Bush not only displayed absolutely no leadership, but as a likely target of such attacks remained in a school full of children for 20 minutes even as jets were plowing into buildings. For the children's safety if not his own, he should have never left his limo and entered the school after learning of the first plane hitting the South Tower.
I have never before read Tom Swift novels. I don't think I ever found them at the library. As a child I stumbled across Danny Dunn, and he fulfilled the "gosh-gee technology" niche in my reading experiences. I was particularly taken with "Danny Dunn and the Homework Machine," in which Danny schemes to build a computer to do his homework for him. When his scheme is uncovered his teacher is not upset, pointing out that by attempting to cheat, he ended up doing more work and learning more about his homework than he would have just doing the homework himself. Having since spent a decade as a compute programmer, I learned the truth of that situation.
In the years since, that promised future has and has-not come to pass. We do indeed have miniature home computers upon which we have learned to depend (in fact, I think I have one around here myself, if I can remember where it is). But we have also been disappointed: our cars do not fly, and we have learned that technology is no panacea for the world's ills.
I recently stumbled across a Tom Swift novel on my shelves (and I'm sure it's important that I don't know how it got there, but I can't think of why) and started reading it. It is NOT adult fare. The plot and characters are secondary to the completely fanciful technological devices imagined by the authors. Tom Swift is a wealthy, 18 year old genius son of a genius entrepreneur, and has a series of improbable devices, many powered by a "nuclear pile". He mostly guesses his way through the story, and all of his guesses turn out to be correct, no matter how unsupported they may have been. When his uncle's boat sinks and his uncle goes missing, Tom immediately guesses that pirates using airplanes and submarines have captured his uncle. Logic suggests that his uncle simply drowned, but Tom's unlikely guesses turn out to be true.
But however thin the plot of this empowerment fantasy, it helped paint a 1950's picture of how the world would be today. Personal aircraft, nuclear subs in every garage, and a world made shiny and inviting through the miracle of science.
The result of course is a much more mixed bag of good and bad, as with all things. And our space program has devolved from the ultimate expression of the Mechanical Age to a moribund political bureaucracy whose successes seem like notable exceptions rather than planned accomplishments.
So it warmed my heart today to read of the success of SpaceShipOne, the first privately-funded venture to the edge of space. It's a little behind schedule, but this tiny sliver of Tom Swift's future shows that space remains vulnerable to intelligence and engineering, when those skills are not shrouded beneath the wet blanket of political bureaucracy.
Pilot Michael Melville soared up to the edge of space, and there released a cloud of M&Ms in what one hopes was a spontaneous display of curiosity rather than a Mars Company product placement. On the way back to Earth, he encountered and overcame a serious threat to the success of the mission, lending drama to what otherwise might have seemed almost too easy.
Tom Swift has his own personal space plane. And Danny Dunn's candies are coated with anti-gravity shells that melt in your mouth, not in your hand. Living in the future is a more mixed bag than the press it got would have you to believe. It's nice to see some of those promises working out.
Now where the heck is that moon colony?
So Al Qaeda has crudely sawn through the neck of Paul Johnson, Jr.
Allah must indeed be infinitely merciful, because they have called out His name while they did this, and yet they continue to live and breathe.
What can be said? What can a person say to such behavior? Words like "brutality", "madness", and "barbarism" just fail to encompass the horror and the wrongness of what these people are doing. They've pushed a helpless man onto the floor, and used a dull machete to gouge their way through the man's neck.
There are no circumstances around this. Even the suggestion that it could be rationalized, explained, or justified is an insult to this man's pain and his family's mortifying horror. It doesn't matter what came before, and nothing positive can come hereafter. The people who've done this have placed themselves into a category of mankind for which the concept of a hell was first created.
Nick Berg, Paul Johnson. Berg was apparently trying to be a humanitarian. Johnson was apparently just trying to earn a living. Were these men wise? Had they thought through their choices? It doesn't matter. Whether they were wise or reckless, it doesn't matter. Because you can't justify this act.
Imagine if these, what word suits? Monsters? Barbarians? Thugs? Whatever - Imagine if the Al Qaeda terrorists had actually had some connection, however tenuous, to Allah and Islam. Imagine if they'd had, in essence, even the merest shred of humanity and common sense.
They could have let him go.
They could have made noises. They could have threatened future horrors. They could have taken Abu Ghraib-style humiliating photos of him, or painted him blue, or forced him to read a confession.
But they could have let him go.
They could have shown mercy. They could have claimed compassion. They could have, in the end, actually ACTED LIKE MUSLIMS. Angry, pissed-off Muslims on a warpath, but Muslims.
But. No.
Allah was shouting at them, but they plugged their ears. They could have elicited something other than raw digust from the world, but they decided the high road was not satisfying enough for their hatred and titillation. (Because you know that they do this because they enjoy it, you know they don't face this murder as a grim duty but as an exercise of their throbbing idea of machismo.)
No they shook with anticipation as they agreed who would hold the man down, who would point the camera, and who would take the machete and start sawing at his neck while he screamed in helpless agony. Afterwards they thrilled with the memory of their twisted "power," while further cretinous peers edited the video and prepared to put it on the Internet. And still others greedily loaded and watched this horror, and wondered how to turn it to their advantage.
What can you say in the face of such monstrosity? Yes there are other bad things happening in the world. I don't attempt to explain, explore or address them. When we contemplate how these brutal events are connected, we start justifying the unjustifiable. Events like this, like 9/11, like the murder of Nick Berg or any of the travesties and nightmares visited by this or any other nation upon the innocents of the world, these events need to be considered alone, and out of context, even as they need to be understood in a broader context as a means of preventing their repeat.
Whatever the history of these terrorists, whatever their backgrounds, whatever their hopes and dreams or lack thereof, they each were faced today with a choice: whether to commit an irrevocably foul and heinous act, or whether to live by the tenets of their faith and act as actual men of honor towards another man.
They chose. They each decided to do this most loathesome thing. However they rationalized it and justified it, they each know in their hearts that they are damned for their choice, however deeply they shove that knowledge down.
What can anyone say to that? What can anyone do?
We caught Harry Potter last night... I found it VERY weird! Good, but weird.
Cuaron made a lot of daring directoral choices, not all of which worked. One big change is that EVERYTHING is tilted! The movie is filmed on hillsides and through rolling forestland, and the only flat surface seems to be the loch (for it looks much more like a Scottish Loch than a lake). Instead of being on a flat lawn in front of Hogwart's castle, Hagrid's hut is down a steep hill out a side passage. Harry and Lupin talk about Harry's parents while paused on a long covered causeway bridging a steep valley. And Hogwarts itself seems to have barely a single straight hallway.
Another change is the omnipresence of Time as a symbol. Hogwarts' main tower has somehow become giant clock-tower, with its pendulum swinging ponderously and improbably through the Great Hall. Harry stares out through the windowed face of the clock, and the camera enjoys swooping through the gears into and out of the castle.
Cuaron also had a lot of fun with this movie. His own invention of talking shrunken heads practically shouts "Cuaron was here!" A repeating theme includes hapless sparrows who try to nest in the Whomping Willow, which is also used to mark the passage of seasons in comical fashion. And despite the frantic pace of the film, he managed to take a moment here and there out of the breathless pace. In one scene we follow a leaf as it settles to the autumn lawn; in another Buckbeak the hippogriff idly trails a talon in the water while soaring above the surface of the lake. Very nice scenes that allowed the audience to catch its breath before the rollercoaster descended the next slope.
Mostly Cuaron's practically drug-induced adaptations work, (such as the choir singing "Something Wicked This Way Comes" to open the school year) others do not. The scenes at the Dursley's house look like a nightmare that Mr. Dursley is having, just enough off-kilter and dark to be fairly disturbing. The Leaky Cauldron is equally disturbing, chaotic and crowded, with several throwaway jokes (like "Housekeeping!") that don't add much even in the way of atmosphere.
I think Cuaron was right to completely ignore the notion that anyone needed any explanation for what was happening. There are ascetic Tibetan monks and yurt-dwelling Mongol tribespeople who know about Harry Potter. So quiddich was not explained, the Weasleys were not explained, no explanation was attempted for anything: you were in the movie, you were assumed to have done your homework. Good call, with a movie already racing desperately to get through a lengthy, dark, and complex novel.
The growth of the three friends was well-handled, although Rupert Grint gets short shrift as Ron. And why not? Let's let Hermione shine for a while: she certainly steals the show in this movie as a strong, intelligent and dynamic protagonist with whom Harry can barely keep pace. The growing attraction between Ron and Hermione was well done, too, although it manifested as more and more bickering (as in the books), but the hand-holding scene was very nice (although overplayed in the previews).
After two movies spent bouncing like a pinball through the machinations of others, Harry finally seems to be growing a spine and a will of his own. Radcliffe suffers a little from overacting in this movie - there's nothing about the Patronous Charm that REQUIRES one bellow at the top of one's lungs - but it's to be expected that a young man growing up in his position would try stretching his acting wings at some point. We all learn more from our mistakes.
I missed Richard Harris as Dumbledore: his replacement Michael Gambon does a creditable job, but he just doesn't (yet?) have the commanding presence that Harris brought, and Dumbledore requires.
In the scene where the Fat Lady's portrait is slashed, Gambon's Dumbledore seems like just another man in the crowd: it was easy to watch the scene and realize that Harris's Dumbledore would have immediately seized control of the situation, calmed everyone's nerves, and commanded all to gather safely in the main hall while he assessed the situation.
And what can I say about Buckbeak? Computer animation has come so very far, it's mindboggling. There was never a moment that I thought "That's a computer animation." A very convincing, solid CGI creature, excellently done. I can't say the same about the werewolf, in part because it looked so weirdly hairless and spindly that it was hard to take seriously as a monster. It looked more like one of those hairless poodles, grown large.
Finally, I really liked where Cuaron chose to end the movie, with Harry riding his new broomstick into the sky, laughing. The books uniformly end with Harry trudging glumly back to stay with the Dursleys: this was a very nice up-note on which to end the movie.
Overall, a very well done picture, a lot weirder and more "magical" than those by Chris Columbus. The score was excellent and will be fun to listen to separately. Costuming and sets were over-the-top extravagant and very captivating, and it was very interesting seeing the Hogwarts students wearing significantly more casual clothing than in previous films. Hagrid's wardrobe was extended by several very appropriate outfits. The movie was well worth watching, and will be worth watching again, I'm already looking forward to the extended-edition DVD.
A very good film, very exciting.
Now THERE'S something you don't see every day.
I was strolling back from lunch today and I saw a woman who was seven feet tall.
Literally. Actually. Really.
She and her friend were evidently basketball players: both were wearing cotton gym shirts and baggy athletic shorts. As far as I could tell they were out of town visitors - they seemed to be speaking something other than English, but I couldn't tell you what. Both were blond.
When I deliberately focused upon her, I realized that the "shorter" woman was at least six-foot-one. Normally THAT would be mildly noticeable. But Miss 6'1" did not top the shoulder of Seven Footer. The top of her head was well below the other woman's shoulder.
The woman caused my brain to generate optical illusions: she was actually "mind-boggling." Spotting this giant moving through Marshall Fields, my brain attempted to correct the image. For a moment she was a normal sized woman, surrounded by Munchkins, and moving among tiny, squashed display tables. When I glanced upwards my brain recompensated again: now she was a normal sized woman standing on a chair, surrounded by other normal sized people. When I couldn't see her legs, my brain refused to believe that they reached the ground.
I rarely ever wish I had a camera-phone, but this was definitely one of those moments. Just as well that I didn't though: such an act would be terribly rude, and the resulting photograph just wouldn't be able to communicate the reality.
Yeah sure it's June. I believe that. It's 60 degrees and gray and raining and has been for a week, but no, right, it's June sure...
Tell me another one.
Of course, I'm so happy about the rain, too. Because it's gone and flooded the basement again! Argh!
After getting a new sump pump last year I had HOPED I was done with this nonsense. To quote a younger, more obnoxious Steve Martin, "BUT NOooooOOOooo". The stupid sump pump managed to vibrate its way up against the side of the sump hole, jamming the float against the wall. Then it didn't run. Then two inches of water built up in the new room.
So now it's going to be another couple of weeks of fans blowing air around the room and out the window in an effort to prevent mold and mildew. The only silver lining to this debacle is that we are slowly disposing of all the junk that we store in there, one flood at a time.
And I still have to figure out a way to prevent the sump pump from migrating around the sump, a process that will involve lying jammed into the corner between the washing machine and the basement sink, with my arms thrust down into clammy, bug-infested darkness.
What a lovely month it's starting out to be.