[Moon-dæg] Two Takes on North Korea, Part 2

Background
CNN
CBC
TIME
Closing

{A caricature of Kim Jong Il by David Baldinger.}

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Background

The Bombardment of Yeonpyeong is the latest military incident between North and South Koreas which raised tension on both sides. Apparently, North Korea did not want South Korea to go through with a training exercise that they had planned for November 23rd, 2010, however, South Korea ignored the North’s cease request, and so they attacked the island barracks.

Yet, the incident also goes deeper than just a single ignored request.

The maritime border between the two countries has been contentious for quite some time. Since 1973, in fact, when North Korea redrew the border on the heels of the redefinition of “territorial waters” from 3 nautical miles to 12. However, South Korea and the UN continued to only recognize the border they had drawn up at the end of the Korean War (1952).

Because the idea is to limit each of these four parts to as few words as possible, only three major news outlets will be examined: CNN, the CBC, and TIME. The first and the last of these are American outlets, while the second is Canada’s national channel. Though small, the purpose of this range of news outlets is to get a general cross-section of how the issue was treated.

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CNN

CNN presents a fairly balanced portrayal of the event. The news outlet constantly quotes sources that are representative of the groups that it’s making statements about. However, the way that it deploys these quotations is interesting.

On the one hand, the Koreas and the US are quoted more or less in full sentences or phrases that read naturally as parts of a statement.

On the other, the presentation of some quotes from Hong Lei of the Chinese government is quite different. The man is quoted three times, and two of these are placed to seem euphemistic. This is the sentence in question: “Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said China had ‘taken note of relevant reports’ and expressed its ‘concern.’” The quote that follows this sentence in the article is on par with the others, but this selective quoting suggests that China’s integrity is being called into question.

The CNN article also takes the chance offered by reporting on the bombardment to note that North Korea, days earlier, had made it public that they had built a new nuclear plant.

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CBC

The CBC approaches the story in a similarly straightforward manner, but makes no real mention about the nuclear tie-in. Instead, it is just a general overview of what the incident means for Obama, of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s response, and of Canada’s and the UN’s reactions policy-wise.

There is a twist, though. Rather than revealing the entire incident and then reporting on the details, the article takes a backwards approach. It reports on the details first and then, at the end of each of its sections, presents the basics of what happened. It’s a strange method that emphasizes the outcomes rather than the incident itself, as if the CBC is trying to say that it’s not going to judge what happened, only what’s resulted.

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TIME

The article published on TIME’s website, is very clearly from a magazine rather than a newspaper. For, despite the incident’s serious nature, the TIME article presents North Korea as a kind of dangerous clown at both its beginning and end. It also uses some fiery rhetoric, referring to the attack as “commenc[ing] a fusillade of artillery fire,” and outrightly calling it a “bombardment” (which is a little bombastic, but makes sense since North Korea fired 170 shells at the island).

TIME’s treatment of the nuclear aspect is also vamped up as it is stated that, according to US intelligence, North Korea already has 8 to 12 nuclear bombs. Interestingly, though, rather than just connecting the bombardment and North Korea’s revelation of its new nuclear plant, the TIME article suggests that these two incidents are part of Kim Jong Un’s training to be North Korea’s next leader.

Nonetheless, just like the CNN article, China is also painted as vaguely sinister, though with a bit of a broader brush. The article states that China’s reaction to the incident was delivered with “a blandness that approached indifference.”

Despite the lack of explicit fear-mongering in these articles, it’s interesting that the two of American origin mention North Korea’s newest nuclear capabilities and frame China as being a player in the incident, but a very aloof one. The mention of nuclear power definitely calls back to fears of nuclear war, and the portrayal of China just coolly looking on while the incident happened suggests that the country is lax on politically tough calls.

The lack of these two aspects in the CBC article suggests that American coverage is more sensational and more about making a story of something rather than reporting on the facts of something.

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Closing

Next week, we’ll see what South Korea itself has to say. As per the rest of the week, this blog will not have any new entries. So, until 4 June rolls around, you can check out older articles in this blog or my translation blog at tonguejar.blogspot.ca.

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[Freya-dæg] Hey Musketeers, Don't Forget about the Pointy End!

Plot Summary
The Good
The Bad
Judgment
Closing

{Arya Stark learns the rudiments of swordfighting, and gets more one-on-one practice than any of the musketeers. Image from the HBO Quote Wallpaper collection.}

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Plot Summary

The Three Musketeers (the 2011 adaptation) is a new take on an old tale. It doesn’t stick too closely to the original novel by Alexander Dumas in terms of it’s story, but the basic structure remains. There’s a special corps of soldiers known as the musketeers, D'Artagnan (Logan Lerman) grows up hearing about them, and when he’s old enough sets out to join them.

But, in this version, our three major musketeers - Athos (Matthew Macfadyen), Aramis (Luke Evans), and Porthos (Ray Stevenson) - are all washed up. Or, to paraphrase Aramis:'they exist to fight for great causes, and there are no great causes left.'

Enter Cardinal Richelieu (Christoph Waltz) with an evil plot to throw England and France into war so that he can usurp power from France’s boy king Louis XIII (Freddie Fox). But the three musketeers and D'Artagnan find out about the cardinal’s fiendish ploy, and set out to stop it.

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The Good

The effects are well done, and they’re used sparingly. And the same can be said for most of the major characters.

In fact, all four of the major players in the movie's action - Athos, Aramis, Porthos, and a woman called "Milady" (Milla Jovovich) - are nicely complicated. In the case of the musketeers, we're given a brief explanation of their current state and so we can see how they each deal with it in their own way. But, in the case of Milady, we're only given half of a good character since we're not shown why she's as duplicitous as she is. Though perhaps this is because the writers were too busy making her the main source of fan service in the film.

Actually, it's quite easy to get the sense that a lot of thought went into the script and how plot and character are revealed through it. This is especially true of the movie's fine details (like D'Artagnan saying “in French?” when Aramis speaks to him in legalese). The costumes worn in Louis XIII’s court are also nicely done, though the less said about the rest of the extras' costumes and props the better.

However, little is skimped on the swords in the movie, and reflecting this are a number of well done sword fights.

Particularly in group fights, the fight choreography is nicely done. Whereas other movies have the baddies line up and throw themselves at the hero one by one, here group fights leave you with the sense that they're all trying to get in to fight the hero at the same time. The épée itself is essential to this effect, since, more often than not, it's swung in wide arcs to intimidate the group while a single one of them steps into the fray.

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The Bad

However, with all of that praise for the movie's sword fights, they also deserve quite a bit of scorn. Or, rather, their absence does.

This movie simply does not have enough one-on-one sword fighting. Throughout the movie there are promises of duels, but most of these promises are tossed aside to advance the plot or to make way for a melee scene. The final fight between D'Artagnan and the head of Richelieu’s guard corps., Captain Rocheforte (Mads Mikkelson), is definitely a great one. Yet, the rivalry between these characters is played as little more than a formality. The dynamic between these characters would be more engaging if we were playing as D'Artagnan, but since we’re just watching it’s hard to be really engaged in that dynamic.

But the mishandling of this rivalry isn’t the only thing that can be pinned on the script writers.

The first hour of this movie is essentially nothing but set up for what the focus of the movie should be: D'Artagnan’s quest. If you watch the movie without this knowledge, then you risk feeling like you’ve lost an hour of your life.

Now, for the sake of analogy, this movie follows the exact same pattern as the Avengers does. It starts with some action (the three musketeers and their heist), moves on to a long section where plot and character are supposed to be developed (court intrigue, political posturing, and the like), and then finishes off with more action (a pirate fight on airships, capped with the only memorable one-on-one sword fight in the movie).

With the Avengers this pattern worked since there were a lot of characters and we’re actually shown how they interact and what they’re like through these interactions. With The Three Musketeers, the long middle section just drags. This should not be.

A 17th century movie about musketeers, a group of soldiers famous for their dashing derring-do and fencing ability, needs to have sword fights. Not big melees, but proper, good sword fights. The Three Musketeers would benefit tremendously from a duel or two in the middle section.

Maybe Louis XIII challenges his rival, Buckingham (Orlando Bloom), but Richelieu steps in and persuades the king to step down - in a scene where the two spar until Louis gets the Cardinal’s point.

Or maybe some smoldering difference amongst the musketeers causes two of them to duel, revealing a difficult issue from their past that they can’t keep from bubbling up after D'Artagnan's idealism opens old wounds.

Something was needed during the middle bit of this movie to keep the tension up - this movie needed a Loki. And no one delivered. Least of all Richelieu.

Now, it’s not really fair to single out specific part of a movie, a particular line or gesture, that completely sours it, but it can’t be helped here. Andrew Davies and Alex Litvak have both committed an atrocity in this movie's script and it must be made known.

The character that’s supposed to be the movie’s big, scheming, villain, the man who is played by Christoph Waltz - known for his role as the coolly intimidating Hans Landa in Inglorious Basterds - utters a single word that practically ruins this movie. In a scene with Milady, at the 53 minute and 34 second mark, Richelieu offhandedly and completely casually, almost to the point of giving it a goofy delivery, says “yup.”

{What a movie breaking moment looks like. An original screen grab.}

Maybe it's a sign of the power of an actor, but completely unraveling your character with a single word is not a good thing.

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Judgment

The Three Musketeers, in its finished form, is a movie that seems to have been written with three purposes in mind:

• One: to entertain.
  
• Two: to start off a franchise (completely clear in one of the movie’s last scenes).
  
• Three: to take every existing action movie cliche and put them into a 17th century setting.
  

As of this writing, it accomplishes one of these purposes, and let’s just say that a dragging middle is never attractive in a movie, and there’s been no official word yet of any sequel.

A lot of care and thought obviously went into the script, but after that first draft it was poorly directed, produced, or edited, because all of the time that’s spent developing plot and character in the middle section takes us so far away from the action movie at the film’s start and end that the end result might as well be two movies spliced together.

So, Freya, fly high and leave this one where it lay. Hopefully it will do no more harm to a story that has been adapted and redone so many times that there are nearly as many adaptations (36) as Alexander Dumas had original works of fiction (39).

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Closing

Next week things will be a little bit different.

On Monday, part two of the essay on the Western and Korean media coverage of the Bombardment of Yeonpyeong will be posted, but that will be it for the week's posts. Instead of regular updates, over the course of the week a few more pages will be added to this blog, and things in general will be tidied up.

Come 4 June, the Monday-Wednesday-Friday rhythm will return.

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[Wōdnes-dæg] Elon Musk, Space Travel, and the Promise of the Future

Introduction
Interpretation
Individuals and Exploration
Playing at an Alternate History
Closing

{Part of the Falcon 9 rocket, while under construction. Photo by Jurvetson (flickr).}

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Introduction

There was an article of note in the Globe and Mail today. Something strange and wonderful. Not that the Globe and Mail having a good article is strange (though it is wonderful) but the content of the article is both of these.

The article is a brief piece that’s straight to the point about it’s headline: “Billionaire businessman cheers a new era of spaceflight.” It’s all about Elon Musk's ship, the Falcon 9, and its launch towards the International Space Station with nonessential supplies.

Marcia Dunn, the article’s author, notes that this flight marked “the first time a commercial spacecraft has been sent to the [International Space Station].”

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Interpretation

That an individual has managed to get a capsule launched into space is either a sign of progress in space exploration, a time when individuals can go into the vast unknown above on their own initiatives or with their own goals in mind, or it's a sign that there are finally people who just have too much money.

In either case, the fact that people can now do what only governments could before is an incredible fact.

And whether it leads to the Federation familiar to Star Trek fans, or to something more dystopian like a lone eccentric billionaire sending fiendishly irradiated spiders into space in capsules rigged with special sunbeam catchers that aggravate the arachnids, forcing them to somehow fully populate their capsules so that he can then threaten the earth with a terrible rain of falling, deadly spiders ('so thick as to blot out clouds and sun,' the eccentric billionaire might declare as his sinister grin appears on every earthly screen) unless his demands are met, is something that will mostly be left to fate.

Mostly.

But what can really be taken away from this article is that all of the talk of things like mining asteroids or sending teams to the moon (maybe Newt Gingrich’s moon colony is closer than any of us can fathom) or Mars have just become one step closer to being turned from science fiction into science fact.

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Individuals and Exploration

Individuals can be dangerous when leading expeditions, either intentionally (think Cortés, and his drive to conquer the Central American interior) or unintentionally (Columbus’ unwittingly bringing European diseases over to the Americas), but at the least they're untrammeled by the slow machinations of large bureaucracies.

Regulations are good, and things like environmental impact definitely need to be considered when launching rockets into space (Cid's launch in Final Fantasy 7 is a light version of what an unregulated launch *could* look like), but too many regulations can weigh down the human spirit and its curiosity.

{Cid's rocket in Final Fantasy 7: a light look at an unregulated launch.}

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Playing at an Alternate History

If Columbus or Cortés had to appear before a court of overseers and assure them that the environmental, social, and physical damage caused by their expeditions would be minimized or non-existent, then the Americas would likely not be the Americas. From a social standpoint, that might have been a much better option from the perspective of all of the First Nations peoples of the Americas who were displaced, destroyed, or disbanded by the Europeans, but from that friction so much was learned.

If there was such a group of overseers in 15th and 16th century Europe, and they turned down the major European explorers’ proposals to sail beyond the sea, would things like cars or planes or computers or the internet have been developed?

Maybe, but the world in which they were would be one very different from ours. And in this brave new world, anyone able to afford his own space capsule would have invariably been someone with a mind twisted by generations of knowing only a strict class system. Someone with the kind of mind that would probably use that fortune to launch metal clouds containing a doom rain of radioactive spiders into orbit rather than a capsule full of supplies to a place in the heavens where once-disparate nations meet and work together to advance human knowledge.

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Closing

Check back here Friday for a hunt for the good in the 2011 adaptation of The Three Musketeers.

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[Moon-dæg] Two Takes on North Korea - Part 1

Preamble
Two Takes on North Korea - Part 1

Preamble

I've decided to change the format for Monday's entries.

Instead of a series that includes four different entries (one that lays out all the facts, one that attempts a logical approach, one that looks for "truthiness," and then one final entry that returns to logic), each four part Moon-dæg series will now be a standard length essay of 2000 words split into four parts.

Periodically, short stories and poetry cycles/mini-epic poems might also be posted, so be sure to keep reading.

All of that said, onto the first of the new format four-part series, an opinion on modern perceptions of North Korea.

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Two Takes on North Korea - Part 1

{One of the few allowed to look out from the Hermit Kingdom. Photo taken by Marcella Bona}

North Korea, from a political standpoint, is a strange remnant from the post-WWII era, and really, in some ways, the last vestige of the Cold War. The Berlin Wall fell, the USSR collapsed. Nuclear power continues to be a problem both as a source of energy and as a weapon, but it's something that nations at least have a handle on. Sanctions are in place where needed, and most countries take these sanctions seriously. Not so much North Korea, according to this Australian Federal Police (AFP) article from 21 May.

However, North Korea's recent failed rocket launch has caused it to lose face internationally. Nonetheless, and as that AFP article points out, North Korea will try again. And this persistence is in the face of more and more information coming to light about the country's regime and living standard.

Two examples of these information leaks are Guy Delisle wrote and illustrated a graphic novel called Pyongyang, all about his time working for an animation studio in the North Korean capital and Mike Kim's Escaping North Korea: Defiance and Hope in the World’s Most Repressive Country.

As it is now, North Korea is seen as a place of social backwardness, starvation, and demoralization. But there's a curious angle on this story if you go south of the North's border.

In South Korea, even in the capital of Seoul (just about 35 miles (56 km) from the border between the two Koreas) people seem almost indifferent to their Northern neighbor. In fact, it's more likely for South Koreans to express a wish for reunification in some form or another than to say that they feel hounded by a constant nagging fear.

The case that will be made over the next three Monday entries is that the disparity between the South Korean and North American view of North Korea is a lingering result of the Cold War. Not necessarily directly, but in the sense that the North American news media has wakened to the importance of finding and pleasing a target audience.

Most young people get their news from blogs, websites, or specialized channels, whereas most of those over the age of 40 get their news from television, radio, and newspapers. The old means of getting news are well aware of this demographic shift and have no intention of letting their base demographic - the Baby Boomers - lose interest in what they have to say. Thus, as a means of replicating the same kind of fear that many Boomers are familiar with from the cold war conventional news media try to play up the fear angle in their coverage of North Korea.

The next two entries in this series will look at the tone and style of coverage of the Bombardment of Yeonpyeong, and through these investigations attempt to show that conventional North American media spins such stories for their fear effect.

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[Freya-dæg] Handling One of the Worst -- Manos: The Hands of Fate

Plot Summary
The Good
The Bad
Judgment
Closing

{No B horror movie is complete without a picture of Frank Zappa during his experimental mustaches phase. This image is a self-made screen grab.}

There is a handful of movies that are truly and absolutely terrible movies, but Manos: The Hands of Fate definitely puts up a good fight for the title of worst. Nonetheless, this blog’s not about reviewing things only on reputation, or even on the general common sense that guides most other reviewers. No, sir (or ma’am). So, let’s just get right to this piece of American cinema history and see what good we can find in it.

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Plot Summary

This plot summary contains spoilers. You have been warned.

Mike (Harold P. Warren), Margaret (Diane Mahree), and their daughter Debbie (Jackey Neyman) are driving through the desert of Texas on their way to a fabulous summer home vacation. However, they get lost and instead wind up at a creepy old house watched over by a hunched up man named Torgo (John Reynolds). After some convincing Torgo allows the family to stay the night even though Torgo fears that it will displease his Master (Tom Neyman).

Strange things start happening to the family in the house, and eventually it is revealed that The Master is the leader of a cult that sacrifices hapless men that stumble onto the house and that takes the women that come to the house as his wives.

The family makes a daring attempt at escape, but will it be enough to break free from...Manos: The Hands of Fate?

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The Good

In spite of this movie’s reputation, it’s low production values (if you ever graphically represented them, you might have to answer to some angry mole people), and its amateurish cast and crew, there are some things that shine through.

The character of Torgo is a strangely intriguing one. Perhaps this is because he is the one character who’s given the most story. It isn’t a complex one, but it’s much more background information than we’re given for any other character. Simply put, Torgo is upset with The Master for leaving him out of the wife acquisition game. Torgo’s lusting after a woman is made more poigniant by the factoid that he was originally supposed to be a satyr (according to Wikipedia).

Further, the conflict between Torgo and The Master is the most interesting one in the movie because it can be related to (we’ve all had bosses that we feel mistreat/don’t appreciate us), and because they're the two most competent male actors in this movie.

Now, as a B horror movie it’s a backhanded compliment, but this movie also has some moments that are just so bad they’re funny. Frank Zappa was charmed by the cheesiness of 1950s monster movies, and Manos is definitely a nod in this direction, intentionally or otherwise. In either case, you're likely to bust a gut watching this one, maybe even two if you watch the Mystery Science Theatre 3000 riff track version of the movie.

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The Bad

As hinted at above, this is a movie filled with amateurs. Of course, according to Wikipedia that’s exactly who was behind this movie from its conception through to its handful-of-theatres release. Warren directed on a bet, wrote it, and hired locals from a modelling agency to fill parts. He filmed it on a wind-up 16mm Bell-Howell camera that could only record video or audio and just for 30-32 seconds at a time. All of these factors, and possibly more (Hotel Torgo might enlighten further) work together to make this an all around bad movie.

It’s dully written and has some stilted dialogue that’s delivered so monotonously you’ll wonder just how desperate the Emerson Releasing Corporation was as its first distributor.

It has terrible cinematography that is limited to two shots: a tight zoom on speakers (and even those that are just supposed to be looked at in certain scenes), and a wider shot that shows the actors in the same way that they’d be viewed from the front row of a playhouse. The camera itself is of poor quality, and artificial lighting is virtually non-existent.

But, most egregious of all of its faults, is that its story is so disjointed and poorly told as a tale of terror. Instead of blending the story of the family on vacation, the kooky cult, a pair of constantly necking teenagers, and the cops that try to nab those crazy kids each story is off on it’s own and the only connection appears to be coincidence - not fate.


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Judgment

So, Manos, the hands of fate. There’s menace in Torgo’s performance, and in The Master, but there’s so little background provided.

Why does the cult of Manos perform human sacrifice? What are the powers that one of The Master’s wives is constantly on about? Why are these powers supposedly weakening? How is it that this house is hidden from the rest of the world, or, why does everything think the road leading to it ‘goes nowhere’? Why would a family want to vacation in the desert?

You need to assume so much just to be terrified, and the terrifying shots are held for far too long.

Terror and horror are based on the unknown. Something that we’re supposed to be afraid of needs to be on the edge of our knowledge or understanding either because it’s so bizarre (think David Lynch) or because it’s obscured (literally or by other elements of the story/setting/characters/description) but still just barely visible. So much of the horror genre relies on our own imaginations, and giving no information at all is just as bad as giving too much.

That said, if you ever have a spare hour and eight minutes and are looking for some laughs, or if you have a strange drive to find out what a 1960s insurance and fertilizer salesman thought was scary, then watch this movie. If you want to be a film critic or even just a casual reviewer, watch this movie. It’s a bad movie in every respect, and that’s exactly why you should watch it. It is a great movie to use as a “zero position” for any ratings scale.

So, Freya, grab this one and bring it up to the hallowed halls. For even a place of eternal battle populated with the worthy needs to have a jester in attendance - and on that note, make sure that The Master’s robe isn’t damaged, he might not be fated to find another one like it.

{Dat robe! Image from The Enemy Below.}

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Closing

Come back next week for a new take on the four part series of the past, an article on the newest news, and a hunt for the good in the 2011 remake of The Three Musketeers.

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[Wōdnes-dæg] Classic Korean Films for Free on YouTube

{A poster from a Western release of Chan-Wook Park's OldBoy - a popular example of great Korean cinema. Image from 85 Anti's tumblr.}

This isn't as new as many of the things that have been posted here on Wednesdays in the past, but it's too big to keep quiet on. Thanks to WebProNews for getting this story in front of me.

The Korean Film Archive (KOFA) did something truly amazing on 10 May 2012. Taking full advantage of the internet’s communication and distribution capabilities, and in partnership with YouTube, KOFA released 70 classic Korean films on YouTube. These movies are available in their full versions with subtitles provided by Google and are an varied display of the world of Korean film. And, they're available for free.

Along with Japan, Korea is among those nations that are the most eager to promote their culture abroad, a trend among most financially strong Asian countries that might just be interested in the soft power approach to international relationships.

Putting this large piece of their film history out on the internet for all the world to enjoy is definitely a master stroke in Korea’s cultural export game. All 70 films are available on KoreanFilmArchive's channel.

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[Moon-dæg] Thoughts on Screens (A Break for Re-Alignment)

Introduction
Screens
Privacy
Closing

{To realign the four part series that are usually written for each Monday in the lunar month, this week’s entry for Moon-dæg is a standalone. Image from Wikipedia.}

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Introduction

Great comedy should make you think as much as laugh. Greg Proops’ The Smartest Man in The World is a good example of this kind of comedy - even if much of the thought provoking stuff that Greg speaks of is done during the “boring, preachy part” of (nearly) each episode. Nonetheless, something from episode 149B is strangely thought-provoking.

While answering a question (starting around the 47:15 mark), Greg paraphrases a part of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451: Guy Montag’s wife Mildred asking him “when can we get more screens?”

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Screens

As a person born in the mid 80s, I can still remember what life was like when the only screen that time was spent in front of was the TV screen. Whether it was a broadcast, or a video game, or something off the VCR. Computer screens were around, but they were generally just used for homework.

This isn’t about tooting my horn and saying that those days were better, but rather about wondering if something was lost as screens have became more and more ubiquitous. To speak in Marxist terms, things that are now done on screens but that could be done without it - like the writing of this blog article for instance - are being separated from their creator by these viewing machines.

Yes, it’s my hand typing these words, but they’re being put into my word processor in the same Times New Roman typeface that anyone else with a word processor uses. If I were to hand-write this entry, I might not be able to transcribe it, but it would have a different and unique feel, written in a font that is very much my own.

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Privacy

Perhaps it’s a matter of privacy. If you write something on a piece of paper, then you have almost complete control over that paper. There’s really very little that can happen to that paper that’s outside of your control, either directly or indirectly.

Typing something up in a word processor, though. There’s less privacy there, the threat of viruses, or of remote operators manipulating your system through a hack of some kind make this definite. Plus, anything that only exists digitally is much more difficult to entirely secure, since its existence is much more ethereal.

After all, what you’re reading right now are words, but really these words are made up of pixels, and those pixels are made up of signals that tell them to be one color or another.

So not only is there a lack of privacy on the modern computer, or at leas the threat of it, there’s also a certain lack of concrete-ness - it all looks solid, but at it’s base its all very abstract.

Yet, strangely enough, there’s more trust inherent in the lack of privacy and concreteness related to digital content. Although, maybe trust and the belief that other people will be decent enough to not destroy your online, wired, connected world are the substances that will be used for the new walls that will go up between people, the walls that will come to replace the wood and the drywall that have all been circumscribed by invisible connections traveling through wires or airwaves.

"'Fences make good neighbors,'" as Robert Frost noted, and hopefully fences made of trust and discretion will be more effective than those of wood and steel.

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Closing

Check back here on Wednesday for an entry on the newest news, and on Friday for a hunt for the good in Manos: The Hands of Fate!

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[Pseudo Freya-dæg] Take Care Strolling Down This Boulevard

Introduction
Plot Summary
The Good
The Bad
Judgment
Closing

{Any movie that shows what might have happened to Professor Lupin in his later years and gives him lines like “see, you’re not allowed to do more than one thing, which is why a polymath, such as myself, prefers to do nothing,” can’t be all bad...right?}

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Introduction

Last night’s MC-ing gig at the L-Lounge in Kitchener, Ontario went well, considering so much of my part was ad-libbed, but did the movie I watched the day before - London Boulevard go just as well? Let's find out.

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Plot Summary

A gangster by the name of Mitch (Colin Farrell) is released from prison and tries his damndest to escape the gangster life he once knew. Despite taking on a fairly regular job keeping the paparazzi away from a lovely young model known as Charlotte (Keira Knightley), he is unable to escape the seedy underworld that he was once a part of and, ultimately, his criminal doings come full circle.

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The Good

The style that a lot of critics (such as Joe Neumaier, Jesse Cataldo, and Donald Levit) see obscuring the movie’s substance is definitely present, but it doesn’t overwhelm the movie’s substance as much as they claim. Instead the style of the movie sets it apart from other gangster movies and glosses over the clichés that are used, making them less apparent.

The movie's style also lends itself well to some very intense scenes. In particular, the funeral scene and the abandoned parking garage scene where we see how brutal Rob (Mitch and Billy’s boss, Gant) can be are excellent examples of just how engrossing this movie can be - even though they’re intensity is in opposing areas.

Similar to the intensity that the movie’s style builds, the expression of that style through Mitch’s actions and words also makes for some elegantly brutal scenes of violence. Mitch is supposed to be trying to get away from the criminal life, but almost all of the fight scenes in this movie would be enough to make a certain character played by a young Malcolm McDowell weep for joy.

Mitch’s attempt to clean up his act by taking a bodyguard job isn’t anything new, but at the least it’s not often that a model is the person being protected in these movies. Singers or actresses, sure, but models usually don’t get that kind of treatment. Curiously Charlotte's presence is also what introduces some interesting psychological and sociological theory into the movie.

For it's Charlotte who lobs lines like “I don't want them to have your photograph, they can't have you;” a quasi-meta speech about how all women’s roles in movies are focused on getting the male character to talk; and whose presence in the story combined with her struggle with the paparazzi suggests an underlying question of the power of the media’s eye.

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The Bad

Conversely, Charlotte’s presence in the story is also problematic. Not necessarily for reasons of coherence, but of cohesion.

The reason that the movie lacks a strongly united story is the presence of five different subplots. We’ve got Mitch and Billy (Mitch's old criminal life), Mitch and Joe, Mitch and Gant (Mitch's new criminal life), Mitch and Charlotte, and Mitch and his sister. In the end all of these threads are gathered up, but rather than being wound together into a rope they wind up being more of a very stylish frayed end - the kind of homemade rope that a clever artist might put out as a piece of modern art.

The subplots involving Mitch and Gant, and Mitch and Charlotte are fine since they’re almost entirely contained within the movie. The other three, however, are not, and except for the story with his sister, they really should have been.

Knowing Mitch’s history with Billy would have made much of his motivation later in the movie clearer, and it would have helped him to become a more complete character. Instead of having these gaps filled, though the audience is left guessing at just what happened between them before Mitch was sent to prison. A fairly decent guess can be made, but nothing is certain on this front.

Another blow to the full development of Mitch's character is delivered by the subplot between him and Joe. It plays out nicely enough, but we're never given a clear reason why Mitch cares so much about Joe - so much so that he calls in a favor to give Joe a proper burial, even though Mitch knows that doing so is dangerous.

Also, and this is a problem caused by having so many different subplots as well as the movie’s stylish presentation, there’s no rest offered to viewers at all throughout the movie. Almost every scene ends in the middle of some motion or other, and just as often the next scene starts in media res.

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Judgment

London Boulevard offers a visual and aural spectacular not based on special effects and CGI, but on interesting cinematography, lighting, choreography, a great soundtrack, and crackling dialog. It’s also a great gangster movie, but just not cohesive enough to be an great movie in general.

Still, a movie doesn’t have to be objectively great to be saved from the rotting piles of terrible movies on the dread fields of the panned-film plains, it just has to have enough good to redeem itself. And London Boulevard has that and a little more.

So, Freya, swoop on down and take this one by the arms, it'll appreciate the ride.

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Closing

Come Monday, the first entry of a new four part series will be posted and on Wednesday there'll be an article on the newest news.

On Friday, in honor the upcoming Victoria Day holiday, I'm going to attempt something that even the Grandmother of Europe herself might have feared - I'm going to see if there's enough good to outweigh the bad in Manos: The Hands of Fate.

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Blog News for May 11, 2012

Since I'll be MC-ing at tonight's The 2nd Trunk Show at the L-Lounge in Kitchener, today's blog entry will be delayed until tomorrow.

So, check back here Saturday evening for a hunt for the good in London Boulevard.

[Wōdnes-dæg] Wild Things Are Beyond Genre Classifications

Introduction
If Genre’s a Guide, Keep Reading Your Map
What’s Behind the Words
Closing
References

{Colbert and Sendak in a mid-interview dramatic pause. Image from chron.com}

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Introduction

In memory of the late Maurice Sendak, today's entry is all about the arbitrariness of genre. Sendak's own take on the matter is nicely encapsulated in an exchange he had with Stephen Colbert during Colbert's interview segment "Grim Colberty Tales with Maurice Sendak Pt. 1" on 24 January of 2012:

“Colbert: Why write for children?

Sendak: I don’t write for children.

Colbert: You don’t?

Sendak: No. I write. And somebody says, that’s for children.”¹

With age comes wisdom, and Sendak nailed it when he gave this brief explanation of how what he wrote was classified.

But if genre is something that “somebody says” it is, where does that leave the writer?

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If Genre’s a Guide, Keep Reading Your Map

As a mysterious writer decipherable only as "CH Tung" points out, genre can help to guide a writer by giving a sense of direction or purpose.² This is true, and a good point to be made about the classification of writing, but it seems to be saying something different from Sendak’s quick explanation.

Like a painter who decides to paint a landscape rather than a portrait, a writer who decides to write a novel rather than a short story helps to give him/herself direction, but beyond that the definition of “genre” ceases to be useful in literature - especially in today’s mixed literary scene.

After all, are the books in the Harry Potter series children’s books, young adult books, or can they be said to hold an ageless appeal?

The magical elements in the series mark it quite clearly as fantasy, but each one also contains a central enigma or mystery that is usually solved by each book’s end - so are they also mystery stories?

And taken as a whole, the series very obviously shows at least some growth of its central characters, so could an omnibus edition also be considered a bildungsroman?

This is the application of genre to take issue with, that which tries to pin a work to a narrow field of interest or audience.

It's also good to be wary of the academic sense that the term only extends so far as the essential kinds of writing (poetry, prose, drama), and yet can also be used to refer to fantasy, science fiction, and mystery all lumped together as one, like some kind of literary equivalent of the word “cancer” meaning both a constellation with a celebrated and storied past, and a terrible disease living off of and destroying its host.

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What’s Behind the Words

At the heart of the issue of classification, and maybe what Sendak was poking at with his assessment of what being someone who 'writes for children' meant with Colbert¹ and elsewhere,³ could be the idea that classification to such a degree isn’t what writers do, but is instead what readers - or sellers - of books do to make sense of all the literature found in the world. Writers merely write, and though they might call their works one thing, those generations that come after them may call them another.

Given things like Pottermore and the Harry Potter theme park being built in Japan, in fifty years maybe that series will be classified as a work of trans-media/revenue-seeding fiction.

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Closing

Check back here Friday for a hunt for the good in the Knightley and Farrell flick London Boulevard.

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References

Be sure to check out the wikipedia article on Maurice Sendak for an overview of all of his works (as writer, illustrator, and both).

1. Colbert, Stephen. Grim Colberty Tales with Maurice Sendak Pt. 1. 24 January 2012 -from- Oldenburg, Ann "Stephen Colbert talks politics, sex with Maurice Sendak." USA TODAY 25 January 2011.

2. CH Tung. “The Value of Genre Classification.” 1986.

3. Barber, John. “The Globe's interview with author Sendak: Portrait of a cranky old man.” Globe and Mail 24 September 2011.

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[Moon-dæg] A Final Look at Wind Farms

Introduction
On Either Side
The Hazy Long View
Winding Down
Closing

{Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty giving a brusque, verging on covert, mid-response thumbs up to wind farms. Image from the Globe and Mail.com}

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Introduction

People's positions on wind farms are hard to change. But what really underlies the passion on either side of the debate?

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On Either Side

Resistance to and/or acceptance of change is certainly a major factor in the matter of wind farms, but just as deep is a concern for the future.

Those who are for wind power are those who believe that it truly is for the best, and that it really is just what needs to be done in order to help prevent global warming, to make power generation more sustainable, and to just plain make the future a more hospitable place for the generations that will have to live there.

On the other hand, those people who are against wind farms in rural Ontario are those who believe that wind farms are just the choice de jour of a government that wants to bully those with less power than citizens living in cities, or who believe that wind farms and wind power are some kind of elaborate sham - no more efficient than coal power, and certainly no more green.

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The Hazy Long View

Compelling evidence has been put forth on either side. Some research suggests that wind farms cause local warming, and other research suggests that wind farms are becoming cheaper and cheaper.

Although not nearly so charged as when debates involve things like the definition of life or when it starts, the place of wind farms in Ontario is definitely divisive.

However, taking the long view, wind farms seem beneficial. Are they expensive to consumers? Of course. Have they been forced on some municipalities by a government that some have decried as overly paternal? Sure.

Maybe it’s overly idealistic, but it seems that any transition into a new form of power generation is going to be painful - partly because of cost, partly because of inconvenience, and partly because of a perceived threat to the pastoral ideal, the old idea that any countryside is pristine and unblemished in every way possible - from its soil to its people to its skyline.

Perhaps a better question to ask than whether people should be for or against it is simply whether or not there will be any kind of benefit to it in the long run.

Bringing in wind farms with little negotiation might be a classically paternal move on the part of the McGuinty Liberals, or some stereotypical Liberal over-spending at the cost of bill-paying citizens, but in 50 to 100 years will it do as much harm as people are saying? or will wind farms have done some good - maybe making Ontario’s countryside more pristine than it was before?

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Winding Down

Perhaps this issue has sparked so much debate because the only way an answer can be firmly grasped is more by feeling than by thinking. The future that Ontario wind farms might positively or negatively effect is so far off that trying to forecast just what will happen involves too many variables.

There are immediate woes and victories, but do either matter as much as either side make them out to?

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Closing

On Wednesday check back here for an article on the newest news, and on Friday be sure to stop on by for a hunt for the good in London Boulevard.

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[Freya-dæg] Johnny English Reborn Improved

{An example of Atkinson's Mr. Bean-esque mugging in Johnny English Reborn. Image from Pfangirl Through The Looking Glass.}

Introduction
Plot Summary
The Good
The Bad
Judgment
Closing





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Introduction

Johnny English Reborn is one of those movies that you hope is better than it's predecessor (especially given the 8 year span between them) and that gives you a performance like a trained monkey at a piano recital. The judgment on this one's going to be all hush hush until the very last minute.

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Plot Summary

The movie's plot follows from the ending of the first.

Johnny English (Rowan Atkinson) has since become a real MI7 agent, but has lost his knighthood because of his failure on a major mission in Mozambique. However, because he gets the call from Pegasus (played by Gillian Anderson) to come out of suspension, he returns to the agency and takes on a mission involving the mysterious group "Vortex." Some slapstick gags, antics, and a Behavioral Psychologist love interest (Kate Sumner, played by Rosamund Pike) later, Johnny's the only one who can foil Vortex's plan to assassinate the Premier of China while he's meeting with the UK's Prime Minister in a high security Swedish fortress.

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The Good

Showing some of the true colors of a worthy sequel, the main character in this flick has changed. Johnny English is no longer the bumbling new agent who has no clue whatsoever, now he's the bumbling experienced agent who has every clue necessary but still has his penchant for mixing things up fully running the show.

This character growth might sound like a minor improvement, but the growth helps to deflect a lot of the predictable jokes that may otherwise have come up, and it allows Atkinson to deliver many of the comedic moments in a style that's similar to the one he use for Mr. Bean.

Particularly in the section of the movie where he's fleeing capture on a souped-up motorized wheelchair. The section takes many of the conventions of a regular chase (the interruption, the surprise appearance) and uses them to comedic effect. Dave White of movies.com described the film as "a reasonably steady stream of closed-mouth chuckles over comic incidents," but the wheelchair scene turned those chuckles into guffaws.

Speaking of other reviewers - another major criticism of the movie, lobbed by Lou Lumenick of the New York Post, is that the movie puts way too much emphasis on jokes that appeal to "...children who laugh at the sight of men being repeatedly kicked in the groin."

Maybe watching the Love Guru can forever change your perspective on cheap gags, but Johnny English Reborn really doesn't use crotch-hit gags that often. In fact, the writer seems to be wary enough of them to veer left of a few potential instances of the gag throughout the film.

However predictable the movie may be in some ways, it mostly failed the major predictability test: whether or not Johnny cross dresses at any point in the film ala Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows.

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The Bad

Overall, Johnny English Reborn's major problem is with its supporting cast of characters. Many of them are acceptable because they have such small roles, but Kate, the love interest, and Agent One are two dimensional at best.

In fact, the entire romance sub-plot of the movie appears to have been added in a quick and dirty kind of way. It's obvious that Kate's interest in Johnny starts off as clinical (as she herself points out) but we never really see it become emotional, it's as if the integral we're-a-couple-now scene is missing from the movie.

Agent One, aka Simon Ambrose, (Dominic West) is similarly thin in character, being simply the ideal agent who's more than he seems.

The other supporting cast member worth mentioning is English's sidekick, Colin Tucker (Daniel Kaluuya). Tucker's character is actually given some loose back story, and so he's something of a 2.5 dimensional character, but there simply isn't enough done with him to make him substantially different from Bough (pronounced "Boff") in the first movie, except, just as is the case with English, he's an actual agent rather than an office worker.

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Judgment

Johnny English Reborn isn't worthy of the extra word added to the title. "Reborn" is simply pushing things too far. "Improved" would've worked nicely and is much more accurate.

The improvements in some of the characters, in the use and execution of the jokes and gags, and in the character of Johnny himself suggest that the writers for this one (screenplay: Hamish McColl; story: William Davies) are an improvement over the writers (Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, and William Davies) for the last movie , but unless a movie by the name of Johnny English Renewed comes out in 2020 you shouldn't expect too much from this series.

That said, Johnny English Reborn is an improvement over the original in terms of comedy, but it steps backwards in terms of characters - a lot of this movie seems to be here simply because the standard elements of a spy movie are necessary for the comedic premise. Yet, the major thrust of that premise, Johnny English himself, has been improved, and so, though narrowly, this one gets a save.

Freya, swoop down and save this film from the likes of Gigli and The Love Guru.

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Closing

Next week watch this blog for the conclusion to my four part series on wind power in Ontario, an article on the newest news, and a search for the good in London Boulevard.

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[Wōdnes-dæg] A "Rebel" Gay-Straight Alliance in the Waterloo Catholic District School Board

Introduction
Interesting Local Developments
Over-Great Expectations
Closing
References

{A standard board for a Gay-Straight alliance group. Image from search.com.}

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Introduction

The matter of "sexual minority youth" in Catholic schools came to the fore again recently.

This time, removed from the national coverage afforded the matter in Toronto schools, there seems to be at least some hope in the Kitchener region as this article in the Kitchener-Waterloo Record by Liz Monteiro implies.

One of the key players in this situation, Anthony Piscitelli, is undoubtedly right that it's a divisive issue that would do more harm than good for the students as camaraderie amongst teachers would certainly take a hit if they were forced to take a side.²

Nonetheless the presence of students with a variety of sexual orientations within Catholic schools is still an important issue that needs to be addressed.

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Interesting Local Developments

What's most interesting here is the simple fact that Catholic groups around the Kitchener-Waterloo region don't seem to have any problem with it.

A consultant for the Waterloo Catholic District School Board from the Congregation of the Resurrection (an Institute of Consecrated Life for men), Rev. Fred Scinto, said that students shouldn't have to live in fear of being persecuted because of their sexual orientation - he even went so far as to quote St. Augustine, saying "We are a church of saints and sinners but Christ is still within it."³

In fact, this issue is particularly newsworthy because it's already playing out a little bit differently than it did in the province's capital. For the Kitchener-Waterloo region already has a school that has a group that is essentially the same as the oh-so-feared gay-straight-alliances. This school is St. Mary's High School and it sounds like the group there has done nothing but good for all of the students involved.

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Over-Great Expectations

So why are gay-straight alliances still such a big deal elsewhere? It seems like there's very little justification for it outside of some kind of ungrounded fear that these alliances are going to serve as homosexual hook-up groups, at least that can be inferred from the emphasis that these articles put on the Church's message of chastity for adolescents.

I think that Luisa D'Amato hits the nail on the head when she writes:

"The central problem here is the medieval logic of Catholic thought, slammed into modern North American culture with its deep concern for human rights. According to Church teachings, every person must be loved, gay people included, but not their sexual acts, which the Church teaches are sinful and morally disordered, both because they occur outside Church-sanctioned marriage and because children cannot be born from them."⁴

The issue here is a weird paradox in Catholic teaching that allows for all sorts of people to be accepted by the Church but that denies that at least a part of every person's identity - what makes them a complete person - is sexual.

As D'Amato goes on to point out, the denial of this aspect of people as part of accepting them "hasn’t worked out so well for the priesthood and, it is increasingly clear, presents nothing more than a delusional fantasy in the real lives of real people."⁴

Real lives aren't so neatly compartmentalized. Nor can real people easily section themselves off. Trying to do both just makes for a hardened mass of knots that even Alexander the Great couldn't cut through.

Hopefully, the example set by St. Mary's will be seen by other schools and by other boards, and support groups for students of any "sexual minority" will spring up in other Catholic schools.¹

At least then, as a new teacher, there'd be one less thing to disagree on with the majority of Catholic schools.

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Closing

Check back with this blog on Friday for a hunt for the good in Johnny English Reborn.

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References

1. Monteiro, Liz. "Kitchener Catholic high school already has a gay-support group." TheRecord.com 2 May 2012.

2. Simone, Rose. "Fear of ‘divisive’ discussion ends gay-straight alliance group motion." TheRecord.com 29 April 2012.

3. Monteiro, Liz. "Schools have duty to provide safe environment, former student tells board." TheRecord.com 30 April 2012.

4. D'Amato, Luisa. "D’Amato: Piscitelli has it right — the Catholic school board should listen." TheRecord.com 2 May 2012.

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