"That's all your life amounts to in the end: the aggregate of all the good luck and the bad luck you experience. Everything is explained by that simple formula. Tot it up – look at the respective piles. There's nothing you can do about it: nobody shares it out, allocates it to this one or that, it just happens. We must quietly suffer the laws of man's condition, as Montaigne says."
--- Logan Mountstuart, in "Any Human Heart" by William Boyd

Oscar Best Picture Reviews, Part II

I promised to review all the 2011 Academy Awards Best Picture nominees, and I aim to make good on that over the course of this week.

● I wasn't expecting much from "127 Hours," as I've learned from many previous efforts that were "based on a true story." The real-world event was a much-publicized story a few years ago when Aron Ralston (James Franco, pictured at left), a backpack thrill-seeker, cut off his forearm after he was trapped by a falling boulder in a Utah canyon network. As such, we already know the ending, which puts a lot of onus on the narrative structure and acting to carry audience interest. In the first shots I was a little worried at the tri-split screen showing unrelated pictures and video news footage, thinking the cinematography was going to be of the "24" variety. That was a fleeting concern.

Having worked with stone a lot over the last 7 years, I knew right off when he was trying to chip away at the boulder from the bottom that anything he was doing there --- and with a dull multi-tool, it wasn't much --- would just make the boulder jam even tighter. But I guess we'll try anything when there is a possible alternative to what Aron eventually has to do to get free.

The camcorder messages that Aron records, knowing that he is probably going to die in the canyon is very touching and I wonder if they used the actual words from that tape, or whether it was written up to a great extent. I suspect that Hollywood put its touches in, but the fact that I'm asking this question means that the dialogue was very believable. Otherwise, the narrative spins around some of the relationship choices Aron has made, mostly regarding a nameless love interest and his family from which he keeps a certain distance. The poetic bits are not lost, then, that it took Aron cutting off his arm to stop cutting himself off from others and keeping his loved ones at arms' length.

This film invites a comparison to another based-on-real-life story, "Into the Wild," which features Emile Hirsh as a young man who rejects much of society and his family, going through a sort of breakdown after learning that his father had another family (or rather, that his own family was the "other" family). In isolation, the characters each come to realize the mistakes they've made in their approach to family relationships. I really thought Hirsh deserved more recognition than he got for hid acting range and the physical devotion he had to put into that role. There have been several basically one-actor movies in the past several years (which seemed to start with "Cast Away" exploring the theme of alienation even as our society becomes ever more electronically connected) and Franco holds his own with any of them. With a setting and storyline that could easily have started to drag on a viewer, Franco kept it moving. 

One question I had: when Aron was rewinding the camcorder to the part where he's canyon-diving with the two girls, and he paused on Kate Mara's chest.... What was that exactly? It was debatable to me whether he was shivering or engaging in some... shall we say, extracurricular activity.

All told, the most important thing to take from this film is the last line. Always leave a note or make sure someone knows where you're going, especially if you're doing something with the potential of danger.

● "Toy Story 3" is ostensibly a last goodbye in this series about a group of toys and their owner's path to maturity. Andy is headed to college, and the toys are facing an unknown future. Will they be relegated to the attic, the garbage or donation? As the previous animations showed, toys can be an obsessive lot --- always worrying about being damaged, misplaced, unloved or outgrown by their owners. Again, we're treated to the gang's adventures while figuring out their loyalties to Andy and to each other. My only gripe, and a small one at that, was in the furnace scene late in the movie. It lost a lot of its potential poignancy with the up-tempo music choice. It took a few moments before I got that they were all resigned to burning and after all the arguing, decided to go out holding their friends' hands. A slower Michael Giacchino-type score would have worked much better there. The ending was a great way to send out this franchise.

● I've been a fan of Arron Sorkin's script-writing since "The American President" and "The West Wing," even though I don't agree with very much of his political ideology. In "The Social Network" Sorkin and director David Fincher portray a fictionalized account of the beginnings of Facebook.com, the social networking Web site that has changed everything from retail marketing, to the course of human relationships, and across the Middle East in the past months, political revolutions.

The script borrowed heavily from details of the legal proceedings in lawsuits over the business side of the origins of Facebook. The film is necessarily bogged down with scenes of sworn testimony to flesh out the Winklevoss twins' portion for having the bud of the idea for the site, and how the buddy relationship between Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) and Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield) turned sour after they became business partners and outside elements started to exert their influence. I cannot say that "The Social Network" was very entertaining, so much as it simply tried to tell the story of a service that a lot of people use. Much of time, it was like reading a long, though well-written, Wall Street Journal column. As much as Zuckerberg facilitated virtual friendships around the globe, the film's basic intimation is that he is not at all good at facilitating his own friendships in the real world --- highlighting the closing shot where he is pathetically clicking the refresh button on his ex-girlfriend's Facebook page over and over. Eisenberg plays his part with a quiet, terse, social awkwardness that really invites a viewer to place Zuckerberg somewhere on the autism spectrum. A lot of people have him pegged as their favorite for Best Actor. I remain unconvinced that playing a pretentious, arguably back-stabbing prick is that hard of an acting job.

● "Winter's Bone" caught me very off guard with its brutal treatment of a girl forced to keep her family afloat amid the scourge of methamphetamine and its consequences in America's heartland. It was relatively shorter than most of the other films in contention, but nevertheless I'm still ruminating on it. The ending was left wide open as to who killed Ree's father --- her uncle, played by John Hawkes, says at the end that he knows who did it --- but as a simple vignette piece, it has the richness of a Joyce Carol Oates or Stephen Crane short story. Jennifer Lawrence was nominated for Best Actress and I can't disagree on that score. The downward spiral of meth is an all-too-real life for way too many people in this country.

● I went into "The King's Speech" wondering what it has that wasn't in Masterpiece Theatre's treatment of the same subject with "Bertie and Elizabeth" (2002). Besides all the therapy swearing, and the star power of Colin Firth, Helena Bonham-Carter and Geoffrey Rush.

It was a fairly good showing and I think Rush as the formally-untrained speech therapist will remain the most memorable part, especially that scene where he does the opening lines of "Richard III" for his children. I have an inclination to not like Ms. Carter --- I can't really explain it, but there it is. Colin Firth was very good, just as he's been in many roles (he is the best Mr. Darcy ever captured on celluloid in the 1995 version of "Pride & Prejudice"). Certainly two thumbs up, but it loses points with me over how reductive it was with the story, and how it put Rush's speech therapist at the heart of the political intrigue of the time. It conjoined those elements for the sake of time, but it did a great disservice to the reality of what happened. It also wrongly attributes the cause of and cure to stuttering as a purely psychological trauma.

As I wrote above, I'm not sure it broke much new ground from "Bertie and Elizabeth." And that film was able to go a little deeper into the succession crisis. "The King's Speech" placed a lot of the narrative on Rush's character to both egg on and shoot down the notion of any "vaulting ambition" on Bertie's part. And the politics of Edward VIII's abdication was much more complex than what they papered over in this new treatment, while also showing the progression through the war until George VI's death and Elizabeth II's coronation. James Wilby really personalized Bertie much more than I got the sense of from Firth. There is something to casting a lesser-known actor in a biographical film, as a viewer can stay behind a thicker veil of ignorance and isn't distracted by a well-known actor's face. All I saw here was Firth and Bonham-Carter. I'm sorry, I just don't need star power to be wowed.

All right, that's five of the Best Picture nominees reviewed right there. That's half of them! Add in the ones I wrote about in my last post... [carry the two, add four, divide by one]... and I only have "The Kids Are All Right," "Inception" and "The Fighter" left to recap. I'll try to get to them before Sunday's award broadcast.

(Images are © of their respective films. I have used official movie posters or publicity stills used elsewhere in the mass media)

Catching Up on Some Movies & Oscar Best Picture Reviews, Part I

In the past several weeks I've been doing a lot of catching up on movies I've missed in the past 15 years or so. While in university and after, I hadn't the time or inclination to sit down in front of the teevee* and spend a couple of hours watching a story be told. All of the snow here in the northeast, as well as one of the worst big-four network line-ups in a long time (the greatest void coming with the conclusion of ABC's "LOST" last May) conspired into the design to finally see what some of these films had going for them.

At its most egregious, my movie ignorance included the Star Wars prequels released from 2001 to 2005. Admittedly, I had seen "Episode I: The Phantom Menace" once a few years after it came out. I remember dozing through it at a cousin's home shortly after a 6-hour drive out to WNY one summer. I had grown up with Star Wars. Like an old friend one hasn't seen in a while, the changes wrought in the Special Edition by George Lucas were a little jolting at first. Like a lot of people, I'm not sure Lucas can ever be forgiven for giving the world Jar Jar Binks, Hayden Christensen, or the 5th-grade dialogue of the screenplay. But then, I relaxed back into the story and to be honest, I was always more tuned to the series' visual qualities. At the end of "Episode III: Revenge of the Sith" my Star Wars journey was essentially complete, the story known, the mystery solved. The prequels generally instilled an overarching sadness that hadn't been there for the original movies. The breakdown of Padmé's spirit by Anakin's vaulting ambition was something hinted at in the originals but portrayed with a larger degree of pathos by Natalie Portman. Visually, it was weird going from the modern look and CGI to the '70s hairstyles of Han, Lei and Luke (I'm not sure if Chewbacca can be described as having '70s hair). The series is finally scheduled to be released in the fall of this year on Blu-ray. Unlike all of Lucas' previous incremental releases designed to draw as much money from the franchise as he could from its devotees, I may be tempted to pick it up for Christmas.

● On its heels, I started watching many of the films mentioned in the Oscar discussion. "Black Swan" again featured Ms. Portman in an equally saddening meltdown, this time of her own accord. It's artistically dreary. The mise-en-scene throughout tattoos black and white into your soul --- especially the decor of stage director Thomas' (Vincent Cassel) apartment --- in the opposite way of how "Amelie" revived the screen immediately post-9/11 with super-enhanced reds, greens and blues. In director Darren Aronofsky's world, everything takes on a shade of black or white.  The world is a polarity of perfection in which the perfect black swan seductress also must be the perfect white swan innocent, raising the specter of the academic Madonna/whore feminist argument. We live in a world that prizes beauty and purity, but also paradoxically craves trashiness and unbridled lust. These things are mutually exclusive, and yet, our culture simultaneously demands them both from women. In Aronofsky's conceit, this demand to be two opposites in one body throws Nina into schizophrenic episodes of real and imagined self-destruction.

Another "Black Swan" theme is that anything that is not 100 percent must be thrown away. For instance, the cake that Barbara Hershey's character brings home is beautiful and huge (really, they make smaller cakes!), but when her ballerina daughter says she can't have any because of her upcoming role, the mother threatens to throw this beautiful creation in the garbage. Also, the older dancer, Beth (Winona Ryder), is no longer young and innocent, and is retired by Thomas, then apparently throws herself in front of a car. This is a thoughtful criticism of our times, when people have become less complex creatures the more society seems to demand that its inhabitants be totally engrossed in this or that world. Anything less than total dedication to that purpose is failure. Gold medal or bust! I suppose this has arisen out of the need for identify with something as a way to stand out from 6 billion other souls. But as a cost of this decrease in complexity and well-roundedness, people have become more shallow as their descriptors and interests are honed like a piece of broken mirror on a dressing room floor.

● At almost the opposite spectrum in character complexity, though, the Coen brothers' "True Grit" remake won me over. The only way Jeff Bridges does not win the Oscar for Best Actor is if the Academy is loathe to present it to him two years in a row. The Coens' movies are characteristically dark, but take on a Shakespearean Olde English kind of quality from their precise scripts and demand for careful annunciation (think George Clooney's turn in "O Brother Where Art Thou"). I am not denigrating this tactic, where the characters can seem somewhat wooden. Many of the Bard of Avon's characters have this same wooden quality yet are among the best in all literature. And yet, Bridges, as Reuben "Rooster" Cogburn, delivers these clunky lines with a natural ease in a hardened western accent. I am less convinced that Hailey Steinfeld's performance as a girl seeking revenge for her father's murder was of her own ability than it derived from the Coen machinations, but I greatly admire the gusto she puts into the film and the energetic and wise-beyond-her-years spirit she imbues Mattie with. I'm not normally a fan of Matt Damon, but he turned in a great character piece as a by-the-book Texas Ranger LaBoeuf (which they pronounce as "LaBeef"). I didn't pay much attention during the opening credits and it took me several minutes to realize it was indeed Ben Affleck's other half.

One note that I wanted to include was the theme of snakes. I've never read the book this was adapted from, which was written by Charles Portis, but they represent a bit of propriety. In many works, after an audience-friendly character kills someone unlawfully, even someone who we feel deserves it, there's a moralistic reaction --- whether it's the character throwing up, facing charges and being cleared, or by some other method where peril must be faced and judgment rendered. In "True Grit," after Mattie kills Tom Chaney (played by Coen-favorite Josh Brolin), she falls down a pit, where she is bitten by a snake and faces death. Through the movie, we see Rooster Cogburn lay down a circle of rope around himself when he sleeps by a campfire that ostensibly keeps snakes from coming close. Rooster is immune to the moral reckoning of the snakes because his actions --- as we're told, he has a history of killing his quarry in questionable circumstances of self-defense --- are done behind the star of a U.S. Marshal. 

In the concluding section of the movie, we find out that Mattie lost the snake-bitten arm. Mattie was only saved by Rooster's quick treatment and breaking the limits of a horse Mattie had impulsively bought when she was negotiating a refund of her father's original dealing with the broker. One sees that Rooster has come to admire this girl's own true grit. That is why he didn't ever collect the $50 remainder owed to him.

I've watched quite a few more titles but, again, I don't have the time or inclination to write about them at the moment. I will try to get in reviews of all 10 Best Pictures nominees before the Oscars air on 27 February.

* I know it's not AP Style or anything, but in private writing, I spell it like this in homage to "Willy Wonka..." 

(Images are © of their respective films. I have used official movie posters or publicity stills used elsewhere in the mass media)

State of the Union 2011 - Top Ten List

State of the Union 2011 - FACT CHECK: Obama and his imbalanced ledger

1) I want to "redouble" what the stimulus did... but simultaneously freeze spending.
2) I'm now totally *against* earmarks, after I was totally *for* earmarks.
3) Let me be clear. I'm willing to enact tort reform during my speeches, but unwilling to enact tort reform when it comes to actually enacting tort reform.
4) We must do what the Fiscal Commission proposed to reduce the deficit...... by not doing anything like what the Fiscal Commission proposed to reduce the deficit. Thank you to the members of this valuable group for sharing this plan --- that nobody read, no one wants to hear about, and which only potentially-suicidal politicians would want to follow --- at a few million dollars of taxpayer cost.
5) Social Security: 'Reduce benefits? No. Increase retirement age? No. Well... I'm sh-- out of ideas!'
6) Iran hasn't responded to sanctions, but my peeps in the White House told the NYT they sure as heck responded to the Stuxnet virus. Oh... wait, did I say that!? *AHEM* Let me be clear, that totally wasn't us! But still, I apologize on behalf of the American people. I don't know why I'm apologizing, but it usually makes me feel better. Quick... someone cue McCain for a cover version of "Bomb-bomb-bomb, bomb-bomb Iran (2008)."
‎7) Don't fear India and China --- they're partners for American innovation! When they steal our designs, infringe on our patents or reverse engineer our products and make them cheaper, people around the world will *still* buy American... because... it's... wait.... Are you sure about this, TelePrompTer? OK... if you say so!
8) Let me be clear. Jobs *will* come back to Main Street. When companies can't buy any more machines that do the work of five people --- without payroll tax, no Social Security tax, no HR costs, no health care coverage mandate.... Scratch that. Let me be clear. Jobs will *not* be coming back to Main Street, at least as long as I'm president around here!
9) Everybody gets a car! Everybody gets a car! Everybody gets a car!
10) I'm not recommending for every future president that they take a shellacking like I'm going to in 2012.

(photo © Ricky Carioti / The Washington Post)

The Snowstorm That Wasn't There

Woke up to a phone call at 4:00 this morning from a woman who reported that her road had not been plowed, and she couldn't get out of her driveway to get to work. As the de facto assistant road chairman for our lake association, this is upsetting. Until we look out the door and see... one inch of snow. (Just to make a due reference, more western parts of Connecticut got from 5 inches to a foot of snow.)

The snowplow contract calls for plowing when there is "in excess of 2 inches of accumulated snow in a single storm event." That's the same wording as it's been for time out of mind since this the lake association was formed about 60 years ago. So, the plow guy didn't even need to be out there for this... and yet, he was plowing the roads at 6 a.m.

Have half a mind to call this woman at 3 a.m. tomorrow and remind her that in the last two years, she hasn't paid her association dues (totaling $250) that pay for snowplowing. I have another half a mind to resign and let someone else do this thankless job where two or three people make 98 percent of the complaints, and in the words of Sherlock Holmes, we have to "make bricks without clay." Consider the roads budget of $13,000... of which, the lowest of seven plowing bids was $11,000 for the season. That's just plowing. It does not include sanding to prevent icing. There are 4 dirt/gravel roads that need twice-yearly grading. Add it all up, and this association may just barely get by with the current state of things, if we don't have a bad winter.

I have no problem being woken up by people with legitimate problems that we have volunteered to administrate --- or grab a 22" chainsaw --- to achieve the working order of 3 miles of roads. We go to monthly meetings, conduct bidding processes, and make a list of priorities for road repairs, short- and long-term. I am willing to devote some of my free time to ensure that people can travel safely. I do have a problem with idiots waking us up because they're too stupid to know how to drive in an inch of snow.

This is New England! There are certain realities that you need to accept when living here. Among them:
     • There is no process whereby snow can be removed as soon as it touches the ground.
     • 4x4 / Four Wheel Drive / All Wheel Drive is damn near a necessity
     • Connecticut Yankees don't take kindly to people who regularly bitch and moan about the after-effects of Acts
       of God being anything less than perfect. Most of the time in snow removal --- or most other processes ---
       conditions have to be left at "good enough."
     • Most things in life are covered by the Project Triangle, which can be summed up with the phrase, "Good. Cheap.
       Fast. Pick two." Snow-plowing is no exception.

Holidays 2010

I figured that I ought to post on my blog before I'm charged with neglect and stripped of my guardianship status....

The last month has been one thing after the other. Always something to do, from the everyday maintenance tasks required in the household, to setting up all the trappings of the holiday, to dealing with the unexpected.

In the second year of our artificial tree, we got some new ornaments to fill out the increase in coverage area --- and replace ones that dated from the 70s and 80s and were in sad condition. I also had to string in some new lights to cover for half a string that wouldn't light. That's really disappointing, but it's not unexpected in these days where all the 'Made in China' products are designed to break in short order so we have to buy more 'Made in China' stuff. I try to 'Buy American' when it's possible and worthwhile, but that's often a fruitless and frustrating search.

We got our Christmas shopping done in spurts. Lincoln Log sets for my nieces along with some educational books and a snow tube. I'm not someone who believes in buying baubles for people, so my gifting is almost always things that are of everyday use. Mom & Dad got a set of 10" and 12" Calphalon nonstick frying pans. My brother got an apple peeler/slicer and a stainless steel food mill (the type for making tomato/apple/pear sauce and, come to find out, can be used for mashed potatoes). Also, we gave some maple cream ordered online from Sugarbush Hollow farm in upstate New York. Otherwise, we're filling in with some gift certificates that are earmarked for books or home wares.

I've been preparing quite a bit of comfort food and trying to maintain some sense of order in the refrigerator as things have been coming in. As one example, I've become something of a pusher for the bottles of beer that have accumulated and encroached on my leftover storage space.

The woodpile needed some replenishing, as we burn about 4-1/2 to 5 cords of wood per winter. We have plenty of unsplit supply at our woodlot, but the seasoned stacks are getting pretty low. I hope the two trailer loads we got will hold out. "Gettin' in the wood" and doing some splitting for next year's supply would seem to be the next project. That's going to be a little challenging, what with the near blizzard that is currently dumping a projected 12"-24" of snow by tomorrow morning. This isn't the best time of year to be outside splitting wood in terms of the weather, but I suppose it is the best time in an effort to avoid ticks and Lyme disease, which has a high incidence in this area.

So, onward and upward as we close out this year. I suppose I will be back shortly to post some New Years' resolutions. That's not something I've ever done with any seriousness, but it might not be a bad idea to list out some goals for 2011.

Christmas Trees

By Robert Frost (A Christmas circular letter - 1920)

The city had withdrawn into itself
And left at last the country to the country;
When between whirls of snow not come to lie
And whirls of foliage not yet laid, there drove
A stranger to our yard, who looked the city,
Yet did in country fashion in that there
He sat and waited till he drew us out
A-buttoning coats to ask him who he was.
He proved to be the city come again
To look for something it had left behind
And could not do without and keep its Christmas.
He asked if I would sell my Christmas trees;
My woods — the young fir balsams like a place
Where houses all are churches and have spires.
I hadn’t thought of them as Christmas Trees.
I doubt if I was tempted for a moment
To sell them off their feet to go in cars
And leave the slope behind the house all bare,
Where the sun shines now no warmer than the moon.
I’d hate to have them know it if I was.
Yet more I’d hate to hold my trees except
As others hold theirs or refuse for them,
Beyond the time of profitable growth,
The trial by market everything must come to.
I dallied so much with the thought of selling.
Then whether from mistaken courtesy
And fear of seeming short of speech, or whether
From hope of hearing good of what was mine, I said,
"There aren’t enough to be worth while."
"I could soon tell how many they would cut,
You let me look them over."

“You could look.
But don’t expect I’m going to let you have them.”
Pasture they spring in, some in clumps too close
That lop each other of boughs, but not a few
Quite solitary and having equal boughs
All round and round. The latter he nodded “Yes” to,
Or paused to say beneath some lovelier one,
With a buyer’s moderation, “That would do.”
I thought so too, but wasn’t there to say so.
We climbed the pasture on the south, crossed over,
And came down on the north. He said, “A thousand.”

“A thousand Christmas trees! — at what apiece?”

He felt some need of softening that to me:
“A thousand trees would come to thirty dollars.”

Then I was certain I had never meant
To let him have them. Never show surprise!
But thirty dollars seemed so small beside
The extent of pasture I should strip, three cents
(For that was all they figured out apiece),
Three cents so small beside the dollar friends
I should be writing to within the hour
Would pay in cities for good trees like those,
Regular vestry-trees whole Sunday Schools
Could hang enough on to pick off enough.
A thousand Christmas trees I didn’t know I had!
Worth three cents more to give away than sell,
As may be shown by a simple calculation.
Too bad I couldn’t lay one in a letter.
I can’t help wishing I could send you one,
In wishing you herewith a Merry Christmas.

(image (c) Four Winds Ranch)