Charlie Wilson's War

At first I didn't believe the post on the slightly irreverent local blog that I read first thing this morning. Benazir Bhutto dead? Surely this is some ironic commentary on the part of the editorial staff. A quick link to the BBC left me with a angry, scared pit in my stomach. I have no particular connection to Bhutto, nor really any detailed knowledge of her. Yet what I experienced--albeit briefly--felt like real grief. Surely, I was not really grieving for a woman I knew nothing about?

To sum up, the world is going to shit, and The United States in particular. In fact, everything that America touches turns to shit. There is a very real possibility in my mind that, unless several brave, honest people get elected very soon, that my country will turn into a police state, or at least our Americanized version of it. I'm not by any means patriotic, but I refuse to live in a country that looks like every historical cautionary tale written. I would act.

Which makes it provident that I saw this movie today. "Zia did not kill Bhutto" is an actual line in the movie, referring to Benazir's father, killed in a military coup. What plays out on the screen is not only a well filmed and engaging piece of cinema, but also a morality play that dodges the deadly dagger of didacticism. I never saw "Lions for Lambs", but I heard it was a preachy little turd. "Charlie Wilson's War", I wager, does what "Lions for Lambs" meant to, namely make the audience think about what exactly is going on in this country.

It makes only one misstep, summed up nicely in the last line of the movie: [something along the lines of] "What happened was glorious . . . and we fucked up the ending." While meant to refer to the war in Afghanistan--the one in the eighties, mind you; don't get confused--it could also be used to refer to the film itself. The last few scenes were unecessary. We didn't need to see all the steps of the fucking up. A hint or two would have been sufficient. The choice to frame the movie with Wilson receiving an award from the "Clandestine Services", tries to refocus the film on the character of Wilson and remind the audience that, although he was an asshole, he did a good thing. This blunted the far more moving message of the movie: "Get off your ass now. Don't wait for this country to become a police state--either fascist or communist, because the lessons of history have about a year to be learned before we repeat all of the worst ones.

Sweeney Todd

Movie musicals, recent movie musicals at least, are of two types. The first type basically shoots the stage version on fancier sets and with more closeups. This is a mistake. The directors of these musicals, the most striking recent example of which is Rent, seem to have forgotten all the wonderful possibilities to create meaning that are now open to them in film. Instead of letting us into the characters' minds in a way that the stage could never manage, they basically shoot a music video and laugh as the loyal but deluded fags line up for tickets. What these directors do has been done.

The second type of musical takes advantage of all that film has to offer. Chicago is the best example of this. It's brilliant and makes the stage version look rickety and bare by comparison. The daring visuals and inventive concept took the show beyond itself, and a masterpiece was born.

Which brings us to the subject at hand. I don't have anything serious against the movie and am grateful that Tim Burton has managed to bring the best American songwriter on the century and my personal idol the the movie screen. Sadly, Sweeney Todd stops just short of the second category. It doesn't quite descend into retread territory; At times, Burton uses film to its potential: "By The Sea" and Sweeney's soliloquy are both conceptually bold, with comedic and unnerving effects, respectively. But cinema's big advantage over live theatre is subtlety, and Burton doesn't fully capitalize on it. He feels that Sweeney has to gaze longingly and lengthily at his razors several times for the audience to get the point [sic], and we can only take so many reprises of slightly overearnest Jamie Campbell Bower chirping "buried sweetly in your yellow hair". So much of the subtlety is lost with wide, set-encompassing shots that reduce the mostly capable actors to figures on a stage. I may as well have seen those scenes in live theatre.

And when I say mostly capable, I chiefly have Johnny Depp in mind as the exception. I expected better. His Sweeney is consistent and clear enough, but he lacks honesty, reality. Except when he's in a murderous rage, it is always clear that we are watching Johnny Depp playing Sweeney. It's what Tom Lindblade would call "Shmacting". It doesn't help that he belts the high notes a la Nick Lachey. Helena Bonham-Carter, Timothy Spall, Alan Rickman, and Even Sacha Baron Cohen (who is hot, but I digress) on the other hand create clear, believable characters and do the difficult music justice. In scenes with Depp, however, they all seem to be searching for something to play off of, with no success.

In the final analysis, I suppose I can't be too upset. The movie was what it set out to be: A Sondheim musical with no limits.--at least not on the budget for bright, arterial blood. While I'm at it, the previews/advertisements are an entrenched part of the medium of movies, and it is worth noting that this is 3 Doors Down's "jump the shark" moment. A music video advertisement for the National Guard? As though our national guard is really the heir of the revolutionary militia? That is the sound of a band's soul flying into the purple, buzzing light.

Applewhite Minyard (Ed.): Decades of Science Fiction

This book is the chief reason that my Books To Date tally has become a bit meaningless. I started off by posting a bit on each short story in the book, but that shortly proved ridiculous. So I stopped somewhere in the Twenties, and here's the boiled version of the rest of it.

The Sixties, interestingly, were the richest decade in the book. Of course Philip K. Dick is always visionary, but the selection in the book was pretty accessible for him. the other two stories, by second-tier visionaries Anne McCaffrey and Harlan Ellison, were also delightful. A pity that it was so impossible to teach all three.

I did manage to teach all three stories in the Forties section. The themes of the three tied together nicely with each other, and all were well written.

In the truly terrible section, I have filed "The Exiles" by Ray Bradbury. Odd, since the other two Bradbury stories I have taught were pretty good.

And the Miss Congeniality prize goes to "At the Rialto" by Connie Willis. those students that understood it loved it. Both of them. It's not science fiction at all; it's more like meta-science? Quite clever, but subtly.