Preparing cake from a box and what it says about us?

In the 1930s, a man named Duncan Hines sent a list of 167 restaurants he had discovered criss-crossing the nation as a travelling salesman to his friends as a Christmas present. The response was positive so Hines decided to self-publish an expanded list entitled “Adventures in Good Eating”. The expanded list was so popular that Hines quit his job as a salesman to pursue a career in travel guide publishing and restaurant reviews. He was extraordinarily successful at it, so much so that his imprimatur ”Recommended by Duncan Hines” become a highly coveted honor by establishments nationwide.

Six years before his death, Hines sold the rights to his name to the Hines-Park Food company, who developed a line of cake mixes that persist to this day. 80 years later, the Duncan Hines brand has become synonymous with easy-to-prepare cake mixes and straight-out-the can frosting. The recipe has, of course, changed over the years to satisfy the needs of supermarkets and their customers demanding longer shelf-lives and sweeter desserts. A glance at the ingredients should leave many wondering if the modern incarnation of the Duncan Hines cake would meet the high standards of approval its namesake was famous for.

Cake Mix

Sugar, Enriched Bleached Wheat Flour (Flour, Niacin, Reduced Iron, Thiamine Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid), Vegetable Oil Shortening (Partially Hydrogenated Soybean Oil, Propylene Glycol Mono- and Diesters Of Fats, Mono and Diglycerides), Leavening (Sodium Bicarbonate, Dicalcium Phosphate, Sodium Aluminum Phosphate, Monocalcium Phosphate). Contains 2% Or Less Of: Wheat Starch, Salt, Dextrose, Polyglycerol Esters Of Fatty Acids, Partially Hydrogenated Soybean Oil, Cellulose Gum, Artificial Flavors, Xanthan Gum, Maltodextrin, Modified Cornstarch, Colored with (Yellow 5 Lake, Red 40 Lake).

Chocolate Frosting

Sugar, Water, Vegetable(s) Shortening (Soybean(s) Oil Partially Hydrogenated and Cottonseed Oil, Mono and Diglycerides, Polysorbate 60), Cocoa Powder Processed with Alkali, Corn Syrup Contains 2% or less of the Following: ( Corn Starch, Salt, Flavor(s) Natural and Artificial Chocolate, Sugar Invert, Preservative (Potassium Sorbate), Sodium Acid Pyrophosphate, Citric Acid, Sodium Citrate

For the sake of comparison, here are the ingredients for a standard yellow cake with chocolate frosting made from scratch.

Cake Mix

butter, white sugar, egg yolks, milk, vanilla extract, flour, baking powder, salt

Frosting

sugar,cocoa powder, butter, evaporated milk, vanilla extract

This is not an implication that cakes made from scratch are healthier alternatives to their ready-made doppelgangers. So why list them?

The other day I attended a barbecue that served the very same combination of Duncan Hines cake and frosting listed above. Knowing the ingredients I naturally abstained, but I did take the opportunity to observe the reactions of my fellow guests. One struck me in particular, that of a man in his mid 60s who couldn’t help but repeat how delicious he found it. It got me thinking. “Compared to what?” I wondered?

The presentation of baked goods is de rigueur at social events. There is even a subtle but notable behavioral reward associated with that presentation. Baking a cake carries the subtext of an investment in time and in a country where people hold time a precious commodity, that investment is considered a generous act, but there is no gradation in gratitude regarding how much time is invested. The qualitative difference between cakes from scratch and box cakes are significant. Cakes made from scratch are considerably lighter, less sweet and have a flavor profile that is noticeably less artificial. What I found interesting is nobody seems to care. When I brought this topic up on Twitter, I received considerable pushback. Here are some actual tweets:

Cake is cake. It really doesn’t matter where it came from, you’re gonna eat it anyway.
People don’t have the time or money for scratch baking.
I understand that you are a food snob, but not all of us have the time, money, or need for high-end baking.
It’s cheap. it’s easy. people like it. Reminds you of home.

I don’t know when Americans lost its passion for baking. In Europe, presenting a box cake at a party is committing social suicide. But that’s besides the point. Americans have been consuming literally the same chocolate cake with chocolate frosting for over half a century with seemingly no end in sight. Why? How much time and money are we really saving by cooking cake from a box? Why do we settle for one kind of cake when there are thousands of cake recipes to choose from? Is the need to maximize every sensory experience a symptom of snobbery?

To be fair, baking is hard. It requires precise measurements and strict attention to detail and even then success is not guaranteed, a truth I’ve come to accept after many failed attempts at baking my own bread. But there is an incredible feeling of satisfaction when you get it right. Americans love their carbohydrates but they’re not particularly a fan of preparing them from scratch and that’s a shame. In a previous blog I discussed the food revolution that’s sweeping this country. One of its core principles is restoring our connection to the food, a value that has been lost to decades of convenient mass production. The transformation of starch to consumable and transportable baked goods is one of our greatest culinary achievements dating back thousands of years, predating civilization itself. What better way to restoring that connection than re-introducing baking from scratch to the kitchens of America?

Posted 2 weeks ago

Tags: baking, Duncan Hines, cake,

A call for civility on the geeks of the world

Before you read this article, I invite you to check out these editorials as a primer for what I am about to discuss:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBv3TzH2jao
skip to 1:23 if you don’t want to watch the entire clip

Not enough homage is paid, I think, to the prescience of ”Revenge of the Nerds”. It is an important film in that it is one of the first to document the rise of the geek in American culture. “Revenge of the Nerds” foretold the paradigm shift in power from the Luddite to the technologically savvy that continues to evolve to the present day.

Growing up a child of the 80s with a passion for computing wasn’t easy. Society still valued the altruism and nobility of hard labor. We still built things with our hands, tangible things, with the blood and the sweat and the tears and what not. There is nothing more scary than irrelevance, and we represented a changing world that many feared they were incapable of adapting to. So society assimilated us the only way it knows how: marginalization. They labeled us geek and nerd. We became outcasts, that is, until the world caught up with us.

I’ve been a nerd as long as I can remember. I owned my first computer at the age of 10, an Apple IIc. Around the same time my father purchased for me my first modem, a whopping 2400 baud. I don’t know what compelled him to spend that much money ($2000 if memory serves) on what was essentially just a hobby for me at the time, but I am eternally grateful he did. His generation witnessed the decline of the industrial revolution and the rise of technology but even though the future was uncertain my father was keen enough to sense the things to come. While he may or may not have foreseen my generation becoming the stewards of age of the personal computer, that expensive piece of hardware afforded me an opportunity his father couldn’t possibly dream of. Every parent wants to give the world to their children, but my father gave me the closest thing possible: a gateway to the world.

Around the world, the Internet continues to realize the promise of a generation. Dictatorships are toppled, corporations are held responsible for their actions and politicians can no longer spread falsehoods with impunity. While some may consider that assessment naive, I remind them that no system is perfect and because the Internet is still a free exchange of ideas not all the ideas are good. This is certainly the case in this country where the erosion of the virtues of free speech has become inimical and pervasive. Like anything free you get what you pay for.

It comes with no small sense of irony that the same people who ruthlessly mocked us for our love of computing are users themselves. It also comes with no small sense of satisfaction that those same nerds are now the founders of most profitable and powerful corporations in world history. It seems the nerds truly earned their revenge. Funny thing happened though when we legitimized this technology for all: the assholes gained access to the same global communications network as the rest of us

The aforementioned articles represent a thoughtful effort to raise awareness of the increasingly caustic and often times misogynistic rhetoric found in website comment threads. Ahh yes, the comment thread, the Mos Eisley spaceport of intellectual debate. If you’re not sure what I’m talking about, just scroll to the bottom of your favorite news site to see the random brainfarts of the uncleaned masses. While I hardly consider toxic online conversation a new phenomenon, there is a growing consensus that it has reached its saturation point. This is, after all, the first time in our history where criticism is global, instantaneous and archived.

While I agree the problem exists and needs to be addressed, I do not agree on who is to blame. People are so quick to blame geeks and nerds for this behavior. Devin Faraci of Bad Ass Digest even went as far to say “Nerds are the new jocks: racist, sexist and afraid of change”. The question of who is to blame is considerably more complicated, considering there are no geeks and nerds, not anymore. We are all geeks and nerds now. Soccer moms are sharing videos of their children playing on the field. Grandparents are talking to their grandchildren around the world over their mobile phones. Presidents are communicating with their citizenry through social networks. A television show about zombies is one of the most popular series in the country and we’re about to spend millions of dollars on tickets to see a movie about a group of comic book superheroes that’s been in print for over 50 years. Nobody holds rightful claim to that title anymore.

Every hurtful, sexist, racist comment spewed on the internet is mark against us all. We don’t know how to speak to one another; maybe we never did. I am certainly not innocent in the charges levied here. I’ve said some hurtful things online, I’ll be the first to admit it. A lot of it comes from my own fear of irrelevance. The world is changing so quickly its hard to keep up sometimes and I can’t see as clearly into the future as my father once did. But my eyes are open now and I’m trying to make good choices. I only hope this sentiment goes viral before we go too far to see a way back.

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Posted 4 weeks ago

Tags: geeks, nerds, civility, comment threads,

Movies and Animals - revisiting our obligation

Following news of the death of a third horse during the production of the HBO series “Luck”, I found myself caught up in what I considered at the time to be a clever meme mocking the network’s failure in keeping these animals from harm. As the meme went viral, I did a little soul-searching in an attempt to gauge my feelings on whether or not it was moral to use this tragedy for comedic purposes. Maybe mockery and word play is just how indignation manifests nowadays in the Twitterverse. Perhaps the loss of animal life simply doesn’t register on an emotional level for most people. Hell, maybe its just fun for some people to shit on the mistakes of others. I don’t have the answer. I do, however believe it is our duty as a civilized society who uses animals in entertainment to periodically take stock in how we are treating and portraying the creatures we share this earth with.

Hollywood is no stranger to controversy surrounding the use of animals in entertainment, although it has made admirable strides to ensure their safety and well-being during production. Then again, its had a long time to learn from its mistakes. Animals have been a part of movies since its inception. Our insatiable curiosity about the natural world continues to inspire filmmakers. Telling their story is a solemn responsibility, one many filmmakers unfortunately fail to respect, sometimes to the detriment of the species. Outside of nature documentaries, the risk for doing harm to the animal and its ecosystem compounds. Once the filmmaker co-opts the animal for the purpose of narrative, it is impossible to anticipate its effect on people and the resulting consequences.

Consider the work of Ric O’ Barry, former dolphin trainer turned activist. In the documentary, “The Cove”, O’Barry discusses his history of dolphin training for the hit television series, “Flipper” and its direct effect on people and the dolphin population. Fans wanted to see a dolphin up close and personal, perhaps even swim with one. Aquariums and resorts around the world responded to meet the demand, buying up wild dolphins plucked from pods around the world by the hundreds. Many dolphins live today in small, poorly maintained pools under considerable stress. This is an example of an unintended consequence. Here’s another.

Following the 2003 release of Finding Nemo, pet stores around the world fell over backwards trying to meet the demand of thousands of children who wanted their very own Nemo (species: clownfish) and Dory (species: regal/hippo tang). Both saltwater species require precise water chemistry,specific diets and pristine tank conditions to survive. The regal tang in particular needs a large, wide tank to swim and reduce the stress of captivity. It is also notoriously difficult to care for even for the experienced saltwater enthusiast. (Trust me, I know.) Parents with little or no knowledge of saltwater aquariums purchased starter kits based on rather cursory advice from their local pet store. Wild populations of both species plummeted to meet demand while many of these fish perished due to inexperience. The trend continues to this day.

A couple of weeks before the release of Joe Carnahan’s latest film, “The Grey”, zoologists, biologists and wolf advocates raised their voice in resounding protest over the inaccurate depiction of wolves in the film. Citing statistically insignificant evidence of wolf attacks on human beings, they derided the film as an irresponsible depiction of the wolf as a savage and aggressive man-killer. Wolves, by and large, are timid around man and will usually retreat upon first sight. They have, however, no qualms with going after their prey…to the dissatisfaction of hunters and livestock owners who charged their representatives in government with their eradication. They compared the film to Jaws and its inaccurate depiction of sharks. The issue here is the implication made by these movies that these animals kill with some kind of personified intent, which is absolutely not the case. You might recall a movie in the late 70s called “Orca”, about a killer whale who hunted down a whaler for killing its mate. The notion is absolutely absurd, but for those who don’t understand animal nature, this could be interpreted as fact. That’s the suggestive power of movies. Whether or not the Grey will contribute to an uptick in wolves being shot is irrelevant. The damage is done before the first shot is fired. Wolves are scary and kill people. Sharks are scary and kill people. Orcas are scary and kill people. They become objects of horror in the minds of the audience, indistinguishable for some from your standard axe-wielding serial killer.

With the exception of the dog, I can’t think of an animal more prevalent in film than the horse. In regards to “Luck”, its sad that three horses had to die to tell the story of horse racing in this country, but maybe that’s the most important lesson to take away from this sad turn of events. Thousands of horses around the world are put down each year from injuries sustained during racing, practice, transport and insurance fraud. This doesn’t even include the horses that die from neglect or being sold to slaughterhouses. It raises some interesting questions. What do we owe the horse for thousands of years of loyal service? What is a horse to a man outside of professional racing in an age where technology has rendered the horse as a work animal obsolete? I may live in an urban part of the country, but a man on a horse to me seems anachronistic.

Look, I’m a realist. I don’t expect anyone in the film industry to adopt a “live and let live” policy towards animals. I think a more reasonable request of filmmakers would be take a moment and consider if you’re doing more harm than good. Engage yourself with the facts. Consult the scientific authorities. Most of all, be honest.

I leave you with two quotes from movies with animals in them that I think are both poignant and relevant.

Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.
Jeff Goldblum - Jurassic Park

“If we are to assume that these whales are ours to do with as we please, we would be as guilty as those who caused their extinction.”
Leonard Nimoy - Star Trek IV

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Posted 2 months ago

Tags: Luck, horses, The Grey, movies, hbo, wolves, wolf, shark, jaws, finding nemo,

The Runaway train of Shane or how The Walking Dead lost control its characters

Something strange happened when the writing team of “The Walking Dead” made a conscious decision to diverge from the source material, something I can confidently say I’ve personally never seen in a live action adaptation before: the role of main protagonist shifting to another character…unintentionally.

It’s been my experience that television pilots generally introduce the principal in the first scene, with notable exceptions like police procedurals where the opening sequence is a storytelling device used throughout the run of the series. Fans of the zombie genre no doubt noticed the similarities between the opening scene of “The Walking Dead” and the movie “28 Days Later.” Both stories feature the main protagonist awakening in a deserted hospital, confused with no memory of how they got there only to discover the world as they knew it was gone, replaced with one plagued by the undead. As a graphic novel, “The Walking Dead” enjoyed the ancillary benefits of being unencumbered by a production budget and run-time restrictions, affording it a rather unique opportunity to explore the zombie genre in an episodic fashion. The fans were delighted, so came the television adaptation.

This is where things got interesting. At some point during the development of the tv adaptation, the production team came to the conclusion that following the plot points of the source material would not be in the best interest of the series. Where or not the decision was motivated by budgetary or creative concerns I am not sure. A cursory google search for answers was less than forthcoming. The fact remains that the television series tells a dramatically different story, using the graphic novel only as a framework. The series introduced a handful of new characters, rearranged pivotal moments and invented new ones entirely. The result was a mixed bag of tedious filler and dismal exposition peppered with a handful of action/gore scenes. The character that suffered most from this chaos was the main protagonist, Rick.

In the graphic novel, Rick is portrayed as a capable leader. Galvanized by failure and tragedy, Rick was able to soldier on and do the job that needed to be done. He was far from perfect, but there was always a sense that he knew what he was doing, that the aggregate effect of his choices kept people safe. He was, by any measure, a hero.

In the tv series, Rick is a remarkably different man. His decisions are impulsive, poorly conceived and executed haphazardly. He is often fraught with indecision, failing to anticipate the obvious consequences. Whether or not this is more in-line with reality is debatable. The unfortunate side effect of this artistic decision is a man who’s ability to lead is justifiably questioned by both fans of the series and the characters in the story.

How did we come to this? The answer is Shane.

Shane is Rick’s best friend. When the zombie apocalypse was released on the earth, Shane presumed Rick was dead and took care of his family. Eventually he came to assume the mantle of husband to Rick’s wife and father to his son. In the book, Rick’s return drove Shane crazy, having settled into his new role only to be ripped from his new family. Possessed with jealousy and rage, Shane attempts to take Rick’s life and is, in turn, killed by Rick’s son. This happens very early on in the book. In the television series, Shane is still very much alive, attributed with most the qualities I respected about graphic novel Rick. He is the most human and by far the most compelling character on the show, one of a handful who actually seem to recognize and be affected by the horrific nature of this new world. He has, IMHO, become the dominant voice in the group of survivors.

The writers are clearly waging a campaign to destroy Shane’s integrity and return the focus to Rick. Whether its the attempted rape of Lori, the murder of Otis or the slaughter of the zombie horde locked in the barn, nothing they have come up has succeeded in curtailing Shane’s skyrocketing popularity. Why? Well, for one, Rick is a bore. Shane is a man of action, even if those actions are often times reprehensible. Keep in mind Shane lives in a world of nightmares where a horrific death is a daily possibility. Let’s also not forget Shane’s connection to Lori. How would you react if your lover for whom you risked your life to protect suddenly withdrew her affections, forcing you to watch her every day with another man? Shane’s behavior is within the boundaries of an average person’s reaction to a world of nightmares and the loss of his adopted family and even though you may consider his actions abhorrent, he is still more capable and heroic than TV Rick. It should have been Rick who went with Otis to recover the respirator for his son. And how would Rick have handled the situation with fat Otis slowing everyone down? No doubt he would have tried to save him resulting in both of their deaths. During the Holocaust, many Jews became Nazi cooperators to avoid death even if it meant the death of other Jews, strangers and family. Why? The reason is simple: life is precious and any action is justifiable in the course of ones survival and who are we to question otherwise? It’s easy to judge Shane until we start to think about how we would react ourselves given the circumstances.

In the lastest episode, Dale and Andrea have a debate about Shane. Dale considers him dangerous. Andrea simply replies, “Shane has done more to keep us safe than Rick has ever done.” They HAD to write that line, think about that. Shane even said it himself. “Rick is not made for this world.” The fact that it’s coming out of his mouth doesn’t mean its not true. It was Rick who handcuffed Merle to a pipe only to regret that decision and risk lives to free him. It was Rick who lead them to that Resident Evil ripoff of a CDC building. The mistakes keep piling up, leaving the audience and the characters wondering why this guy is still in charge. I’m not sure what happened, but when they messed with the DNA of “The Walking Dead” a mutation in writing occurred. All the moments in the book that defined Rick as “the man” were gone, leaving a vacuum of leadership. Shane assumed the role, both in the minds of the audience and the characters, and the writers have been fighting to change that ever since. The only way they can Stop Shane’s rise is to kill him off as a character, which at this point would be a disappointment to the many fans of Shane who consider him the only reason to watch the show anymore.

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Posted 3 months ago

1 note

Tags: The Walking Dead, Robert Kirkman, Shane, Rick,

On sports and “MoneyBall”

As Superbowl Sunday fast approaches and I prepare for my yearly tradition of not watching it and scrolling through hundreds of banal, 1-3 word sport tweets in aggravation, I felt now would be an apropos time to discuss the dichotomy of sports as brilliantly illustrated in the movie “Moneyball”. Before I begin, I feel its important to admit my own personal bias. I have held a sour disposition on sports my entire life. I come from a family of sports fanatics, which makes me something of an aberration as I have never understood the mindset of the huddled masses and their love of the games. To clarify, it’s not that dislike playing sports, because I do enjoy the activity when its on my own terms. I just can’t stomach watching them or the conversations that surround them.

Lords knows I wish I could. A distaste for professional sports is anathema to most people in this sports-obsessed country. I’ve become something of a social pariah among my fanatical friends when the subject is broached, mocked and dismissed as a homosexual effeminate. So unpleasant is my self-imposed isolation that I’ve gone as far as to feign an understanding of the game with clients and strangers to avoid the stigma, the result sounding not unlike Eddie Murphy in this scene from Coming to America. But like so many things in this life, a love of sports is intrinsic, and I just don’t have it.

With that in mind, I can understand why you may find my fondness for Moneyball rather perplexing. The film has been described by many as a sports film for everyone and for good reason. This isn’t the story of your conventional underdog. Moneyball is an exploration of the dichotomy of sports between romance and the cold reality of statistics. The story follows Billy Beane, general manager of the Oakland Athletics, as he attempts to redefine the conventional wisdom regarding athletes and their inherent value while simultaneously reflecting on his own. For the fanatic, sports is a lifestyle, but for the professional, it is a business and like any business winning is the only barometer for success. For years, scouts and the managing staff of professional sports teams have built franchises by throwing huge sums of money at individual athletes based on rather superficial metrics with the intention being the aggregate effect would result in a winning team. Money was the all important factor in success, creating an unfair advantage for franchises with huge cash resources. Billy himself was recruited using those standards and having experienced personal failure both as an athlete and a general manager, he became obsessed with changing that paradigm. Enter Peter Brand, a young Yale economics graduate who schools him in the ways of sabermetrics, an analysis methodology that measures the value of a player not as an individual but as a component in the process of achieving team objectives. In the context of baseball that means getting on base and scoring runs. With saberemetrics it became possible to put together a winning team for relatively little money, a possibility that appealed very much to the cash-strapped Oakland general manager.

So began an audacious experiment in baseball that changed the game forever. While the Oakland Athletics ultimately failed to win the championship, they did break the American League record for consecutive winning games on a payroll nearly half that of the New York Yankees. As to the efficacy of sabermetrics, Moneyball has no answers, but it did raise a number of profound questions., not only about sports, but humanity in general. What is the value of a person? Is winning and losing merely an equation we have yet to solve? How much of our seemingly random world can be controlled by leveraging mathematical theory? Mathematicians have been trying to produce a theory of everything to explain the mysteries of the universe for years. Is sabermetrics merely an extension of this theory?

What I found most compelling is the character of Billy Beane himself. The movie presents the character as obsessed with the validation of victory, detached from the game to the point where he refused to even watch them. Through the prism of sabermetrics, Beane not only sees the game with refreshed perspective, but is able to reconnect with his players as well. Consider that for a moment. Through the power of mathematics, an athlete learns to better appreciate sports. Think of the applications of that consequence in areas like education and mental health. The possibilities are engaging.

I hope that explains how someone who doesn’t enjoy professional sports could find pleasure in a movie about professional sports. The notion that any subject matter can be made accessible and engrossing in the hands of a competent storyteller is what I love about the movies. Admittedly, even I felt a connection to the huddled masses who have long shunned me, however fleeting. I’m sure I’ll be back to myself in no time come Sunday.

Posted 3 months ago

Tags: Moneyball, Billy Beane, Oakland Athletics, sabermetrics,

Q: now you make me want to watch the twilight movies haha

A:
“Enjoy?”

Posted 4 months ago

IntoNoRes+: The Layover NYC: Tony's Books

helencho:

Here’s a list of books Tony recommended at Kitchen Arts & Letters in last night’s New York City episode of The Layover:

El Bulli by Ferran Adria
1994-1997
1998-2002
2003-2004

On Food & Cooking - Harold McGee

The Whole Beast - Fergus Henderson

Reblogged 4 months ago from helencho

57 notes

Response to @filmcrithulk article on Batman

This was posted in the comments thread of @filmcrithulk article on the Batman entitled “What the f is it about the Batman”. I really enjoyed writing it and felt it was important enough to me to re-post here.

You touched on the cultural shift from mortality to crime that inspired Frank Miller’s reboot of the character and that’s important. The iconography of the character was completely different. It was more noir, playing up the cape and the shadow play like a stage actor. The dippy television series of the 60s erased all of the threatening aspects of the character, broadening his appeal but erasing the most compelling facets of the mythology. The Miller reboot represented the same rejection of that interpretation of Batman that fueled the scathing response to the Schumacher films. It explored the psychology of Batman, the deeply rooted pathos, using dark and Gothic imagery.

You were wise to raise the question, “why do you want to be the Joker?” From what I can infer from you’re writing, you’re also implicitly asking, “Why would you want to be the Batman?”. I agree with the sentiment. After Miller, the character became a template for substantially darker and psychologically more complex storytelling…and the character knew success it had NEVER seen before…but few stopped to ask why. If you look at his vigilantism as a metaphor for self-destructive and addictive behavior, would the character be as attractive still if he was, say, a junkie? Or an alcoholic? I mean, that’s how it manifests in the real world. Pain, loss, financial isolation…reality shows us this is not the building blocks of heroism…quite the contrary in fact.

I don’t want to know the Batman. I am, in many ways, Bruce Wayne….with a significantly smaller portfolio and muscles. I have felt loss, I know pain, anguish. I have pushed people away from me in the selfish, self indulgent pursuit of forced isolation. Few people want to be around someone like that. I don’t think most of the Batman’s fans could stand spending a day with the guy.

As to the question posed by @filmcritHulk, “What the f is it about Batman? Why do we like him?”, I guess I can only answer for myself. I find exploring the Batman character to be an meaningful opportunity to discover something psychologically revelatory. It is CRITICAL to understand, however, that this discovery comes from insight into the writer’s intent and not the character itself. In other words. In other words, the writer is teaching us these truths, not the Batman…and it is to him we should be grateful. Unfortunately nobody makes Brian Azzarello and Lee Bermejo costumes.

One of my favorite “Batman” yarns doesn’t really involve Batman at all (an excellent point you raised in your article regarding that which is most compelling in his universe seems to be in orbit around Batman but not Batman himself). It was written by Neil Gaiman for Secret Origins series. A TV crew is interviewing the Riddler, who amid a nostalgic look back over his relatively innocuous criminal career, pauses and says “What happened to us? The Joker is killing people, for God’s sake!”

What happened to us indeed.

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Posted 5 months ago

Tags: Batman, filmcrithulk,

A reply to the Adam Carolla #OWS rant sans the word “fuck”, “douche”, and “ass”

Everyone invested in the #OccupyWallStreet movement, either for or against, seems to be discussing Adam Carolla’s latest rant on his podcast regarding said movement. Conservatives have been desperate to find articulate voices to buttress their arguments against a tidal wave of progressive talking points that are clearly resonating with the American people in a positive way. Carolla, with his blue-collar bonafides and that “pick yourself up by your bootstraps” life philosophy that Conservatives would pour over their morning breakfast cereal and drink the bowl if they could. Finally, it seems, a celebrity has arrived to defend their indefensible and selfish positions on issues like income disparity, corporate greed and joblessness. For many on both sides, Carolla’s honesty is a welcome and refreshing voice in a debate mired in racism, ignorance and stupidity. Even if its dismissed as intentionally provocative, which it is, the fact that a podcast can generate this much controversy is really exciting and should lend some confidence to other podcasters who have prayed for some viability to be injected into their broadcast medium of choice. After all, the podcast seems to be the last, safe place a man like Carolla can bear his soul without the specter of consequence hanging over him, and Carolla is no stranger to controversy. You might remember the sex-advice show “LoveLine” or the Man Show, that overtly homosexual homage to male chauvinism that paved the way for pathetic male-centric marketing like the Spike Network and Man Cave. The last controversy involving his podcast regarded the use of transgender slurs for which he later apologized. His latest dismissive condemnation disparages such a wide swath of people it’s absurd on its face. He begins with a common argument among working conservatives.

“I just heard today that, in California – before the economy fell apart – I think it was the top 1% of taxpayers paid for 50% of the taxes that came in here, in California. That’s 1% paying for 50%. Not good enough? Not good enough?”

What Carolla fails to understand is members of the #OccupyWallStreet movement neither want or need the 1% to pay their taxes. That 50% of the tax burden represents untold billions in financial resources hoarded and squandered by a select minority who through considerable political influence in the form of campaign contributions bought themselves a political system that not only allows them to hold on to that money but further leach from an already distressed financial system. To avoid speaking in baseless generalities, here’s a couple of examples:

The Californian direct democracy system allows any resident to collect the requisite number of signatures to place an policy initiatives on the ballot to be voted on in the general election. This signature collection process is extremely resource intensive, both in time and money, placing it well outside the capabilities of the average system. Corporations, like Amazon.Com however, are using this process to avoid paying state sales tax under the guise of interstate commerce freedoms.
California is #8 in the nation in income disparity between rich and poor. California has not had an estate or inheritance tax since 1982. Money flows from generation to generation without infringement. (Although it is rumored to return in 2013)
In 2007, California had the second highest foreclosure rate in the county, losing billions in economic growth from the economic meltdown caused in no small part by the banks and the financial services industry who engaged in a coordinated strategy of predatory mortgage lending and over-leveraging of worthless mortgage securities without government oversight.

“I understand some people have more than others. That’s always gonna be there. Even…Y’know, we started off, this evening, talking about the auto show and about how the crazy competition just led to these crazy crazy cars. And I know, sometimes, it goes astray but, for the most part, it’s the best system we have. And, trying to get the top 1% to pay for the top…bottom 55% – or to pay-in 55% – that’s not the angle that’s used. The angle’s: worrying about what the fuck the other 50% are doing, not what the top – who is already paying *way* more than their fair share – is doing.”

Notice how he glosses over the critical observation in bold. #OWS would argue the term “astray” is woefully inadequate, that through years of deregulation and political manipulation the rich have rigged the “best system we have” to benefit themselves. Consider Mitt Romney, potential GOP presidential candidate, who through his financial management company Bain Capital leeched hundreds of millions of dollars from companies all over the country while thousands lost their jobs and watched their stock values plummet, all perfectly legal. How about the illegal? Check out this interesting report from the FBI regarding financial crimes over the last five years.

CORPORATE FRAUD PENDING CASES

It is clearly evident that greed, criminal or otherwise is becoming more and more prevalent among those who know how to play the system. Check out this graph-heavy article by Mother Jones to see income disparity trends over the last 40 years. This is not heresay or opinion. This is fact. The middle class is deflating while the upper class is prospering, now more than ever. #OccupyWallStreet understands this and is fighting this trend before its too late to do anything about it.

“There’s something that’s come up in this country, that didn’t used to exist, which is: envy. And it’s a big issue. And it *was* understood, back in the day, and we are empowering…we now are now dealing with the first wave of participation trophy – “my own fecal matter doesn’t stink”, “empowered”, “I feel so fucking good about myself”, “everybody’s a winner, there’s no losers” – we’re dealing with the first wave of those fucking assholes. That’s who we’re dealing with now. ‘Cause this has been going on for about 25 years, and we’re just starting to get – maybe 20 years – and those kids were 8 or 9 years old, and we’re getting the first…”

This is where Carolla’s argument begins to really fall off the rails. One of the most prevalent misunderstandings of the #OWS movement is its demographics. If you watch Fox News, you are probably operating under the false assumption that this is a movement of twenty-something disenfranchised potheads who lack the guiding principles of hard work and discipline. This could not be further from the truth. #OccupyWallStreet is a movement that spans generations, from seniors looking for a fair deal on health care and retirement to college graduates looking for work in an evaporating job market caused by a shrinking economy and exportation of American jobs to countries with cheaper labor. Few would deny narcissism is a plague on our society, but one can argue narcissism increases in direct proportion with ones financial holdings. The more you have, the more superior you feel towards your fellow man and the less inclined you are to share your good fortune. As the #OWS clearly demonstrates, there have been very few winners and many many losers over the last couple of years.

“Carolla: So what we have – I haven’t really broken this down but I’m going to try now – we created a bunch of fuckin’ self-entitled monsters. And this has become the pursuit of my life, where people are so far out of it, and what they expect, and what they think’realistic’ is, and what…the set of rules that pertains to them versus the other guys, cause *that’s* what the bottom line is.”

Who is the “we” Carolla is referring to? The baby boomers? Yuppies? GenX? It’s not uncommon for frustrated, middle aged men to employ nebulous antagonists in support of their argument. They use phrasing like “let me break it down for you” and “bottom line”. This is a multi-faceted and intellectually complex issue that cannot be distilled into one neat point of view. You’re talking decades of American political history fueled by hundreds of years of social evolution. It was only a relatively short time ago we were subjects of the kingdom of England, bound to his will and crushed under thumb to the point of revolution. It has only been around seventy years years since the Great Depression crippled the American economy and the New Deal assisted in its recovery. It’s only been three years since the mortgage crisis and we’re only beginning to see the effects and that which drives people of all ages to protest, not some ridiculous notion of entitlement. And what are these unrealistic expectations they’re fighting for? Affordable health care? The dignity of a good paying job and the means to support ones family? The ability to negotiate for better terms with ones employer? For the government to follow its mandate and protect their financial futures from bankers looking for risky short term gains?

“Alison Rosen: Is that the “millennials”. I think that’s the name to be used… Carolla: I call them the ass douches. Rosen: Colloquially, they’re known as the ass douches?”

While Carolla may consider this hardy har har, let’s not forget these “ass douches” are standing peacefully at the front line, taking tear gas, pepper spray, batons to the stomach and losing their freedoms for a cause they believe in. Besides, if there’s any reason not to take him seriously, it’s his use of dated mid-90s put downs.

And then everyone gets involved and then everyone gives everyone a participation trophy, and then everyone feels good about themselves. But not *based* on anything. You should feel good about yourself *because* of your *accomplishments*. Not because somebody yelled at you to feel good about yourself and you got a fuckin’ fake piece of plastic that was sprayed gold and had your name on a plaque at the bottom of it. And, when these folks become adults, and enter the work force, and we – they’ve done stories about this. “

This is a rather Californian point of view. As a mecca for pseudo-psychology and snake oil phrenology, California has developed quite the reputation as a nanny state, with public policy bordering the absurd. Carolla’s father was a psychologist. I can’t speak to their relationship, but one can imagine this as the source for his disdain for the profession. What this has anything to do with #OccupyWallStreet is beyond understanding. People didn’t lose their jobs, savings, investments and homes from some nonsensical and systemic weakness of character. “There goes Mr. Jenkins. Look up to him. That guy works hard. That guy built a company. That guy built an empire. Now look at him. He’s got his Rolls Royce. He’s drivin’ up the hill.”

But what do we do *now*? Now it’s like: “Oh, look at him. Look at him. Does he need that car? Why’s he need that car? I’m drivin’ a fuckin’ Chevette! Why’s *he* get to drive that fuckin’ car, you know? Let’s go up there and throw a rock at it.” “That ain’t gonna help you get out of the Chevette, ass douche.”

Is Carolla actually suggesting people were not covetous prior to whatever generation bred this army of narcissists? Again, another assertion that the guiding principle of #OccupyWallStreet is envy, which its not.

“Carolla: We started, you know, we have these weird swings in raising kids, and they’re not very good. I mean, I grew up in the sort of 70′s, “just free to be me, you and me”, “Hey man, if he doesn’t want to learn to read he doesn’t have to learn to read”…yeah, just “run wild”, you know, “free range”, “do your own thing, man” – that whole hippee “do your own thing” – never fuckin’ panned out. And – the super self-esteem building, and just all this bullshit where we have to knock down a Christmas celebration and call it a “Holiday Celebration” so we don’t offend the one kid whose parents are litigious, or whatever – we fucked our society up royally; basically, take that one kid and empowered him, and we’ve gotta stop, ’cause that’s what all this is.”

Carolla continues to conflate his gripes with a indisputably irrelevant attack on secularism. While it is not germane to the topic at hand, its important to point out growing sensitives to non-Christian religions is a good thing. When our government spends tax dollars celebrating one religious holiday over another, it debases people. There is nothing wrong with a little tolerance, a little understanding when it comes to sensitive issues like this. Parents are fully capable of educating their child about Christmas and celebrating their holiday in the privacy of their own home without imposing it on Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists and the many other religions in this melting pot of a country.

It used to be that you’d look – I’m not saying you took random rich guys and worshipped at their alter – but you took guys who built something, and you said “There’s a guy who’s accomplished something”, not “Well why isn’t he paying his fair share?”. I mean, when did that ever fuckin’ come about? “That guy paid-in millions of dollars last year. You paid in shit, and you’re pissed at *him*?”. Obviously it doesn’t make sense. Obviously it’s not a *rational* thought. It’s *shame* driven.

This is another illustration of a feeling not backed up by fact. This kind of speech lacks any kind of critical thought whatsoever. It’s the same manner in which people speak of black people whenever they see black crime on television, the ubiquitous ”They’re all like that”. See the commonalities in phrasing? “It used to be”, “back in the day”, “I remember”….all anecdotal, all based on personal experience. When Steve Jobs died, a nation celebrated his accomplishments. Where was the derision? When #OWS speaks of the 1% “paying their fair share”, they’re directing that message at companies like GE who paid no corporate income taxes due to loopholes or the Bush Tax cuts which largely benefited the rich. Even now, the Republicans are opposing the extension of payroll tax cuts because they do not benefit the wealthy, who for the most part do not collect a paycheck and live off of their investments.

“And – you want to extrapolate this – this is essentially what the terrorists do with us. They see us over here in our hot tubs, driving our big cars around, havin’ our parties, turnin’ on…”

Ugh. An almost Herman Cainian understanding of the middle east. That’s why they hate us? Because we’re the only rich country in the word strutting about? Not because of our history of meddling in their affairs, including the backing the Jews in the creation of a state right in an area of incredible religious significance to them and the countless wars that followed? It’s difficult to tell if Carolla was being serious. He is, after all, an entertainer first. Unfortunately, the right has no qualms with co-opting his views in their campaign to shut down #OWS. Not that it matters. It will take a lot more than the tongue-lashing of a comedian to turn the tide of public opinion. Follow me on twitter!

Posted 5 months ago

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Tags: occupy wall street, adam carolla, ows, OCCUPYWALLSTREET, income disparity,

Dear Walking Dead: Stop wasting my time

This is one of my favorite scene from the West Wing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8unqrdurxyg

We see Josh Lyman, head bowed in humbled supplication. We meet Toby Zeigler, who knowing full well the abject nature of this meeting, begrudgingly tables his resentment for the sake of the team. We meet Mary Marsh, christian political hitman, oozing smug contempt and making egregious demands as compensation for a rather flippant remark Josh made about her faith earlier in the episode. We meet The President, who after entering the fray right at the conflict’s crescendo, reads the room, diffuses the tension with charm and subverts his opponents arguments with frankness and their own faith. You see Mary squeak a rather unwise and haughty snark to the President, who responds in calm and aggressively assertive manner that instantly conveys to all who bear witness who is in charge here. “I am the Lord your God”, and so forth.

Television is not an easy medium. Unlike movies, where the audience is an active and economically invested consumer focused on entertainment at hand (to varying degrees, depending on your theater), television has to compete with all sorts of everyday life distractions…the kids, the telephone, work, dinner, dogs, and so on.

Aaron Sorkin understands television. (Not to discount his feature film work by any means but it isn’t relevant to the focus of this article.) I admire his scripts for two reasons: consistency and economy. He understands there is a short window in which a tv show can capture audience attention and retain it long enough to generate interest. Even if you’ve never seen a single episode of the West Wing, you can glean more information about the characters, interpersonal dynamics and general artistic aesthetic of the show from that six minute clip than you can from the entire nine episode run (so far) of The Walking Dead.

Hand me the remote, this show is terrible.

To be honest, I was never a fan of the zombie genre to begin with. We have an unhealthy obsession with apocalyptic visions of the future in this country. I don’t know why. It’s almost as if we want society to fail. Zombies were always something of an allegorical condemnation of modern society, the notion that we are all mindless sheep wandering through life without purpose, decaying with age. The original Zombies used to eat brains, as if to suggest we can no longer think for ourselves. This manner of thinking is rather pervasive among the downtrodden and depressed and in my opinion complete horseshit. People live like zombies because they choose to. Happiness is a choice. Surviving is a choice. This is the central theme of the Walking Dead graphic novel and why I truly enjoy reading it.

The graphic novel of “The Walking Dead” is something of an aberration in the zombie genre, a fresh perspective. Unlike other zombie yarns where the objective was escape or victory, The Walking Dead focused on the practical reality of living in a world fraught with mortal danger and no hope of relief. It stripped the characters of creature comforts, leaving them only with their wits to scavenge a life out of nightmare. That the story was set in a zombie apocalypse is immaterial. Evidence of the tremendous human capacity for surviving horror is found throughout our own history. Whether its the Jewish Holocaust of WWII or the genocide of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, people find a way to live in the worst of circumstances. There is a tremendous courage in surviving. The Walking Dead understands this, and I found the message as inspiring as it was, at times, heartbreaking.

The television version lacks that substance. For nine episodes now I’ve been watching clumsy, boring people knock about like pin balls in a machine, making one stupid decision after another. I have seen every episode, comparing plot points with the graphic novel, trying to understand the thought process behind some character arc decisions. Mostly I’ve just been suffering from the banality of it all: the tedious exchanges between Rick and Lori, the lack of action in general, the redundant speeches and incongruous character behaviors. I find myself waiting to feel the same trust I had with the comic book so I can just sit back and enjoy the show but it never comes. It’s like a meditation on inanity punctuated by moments of gratuitous gore. For example, why were so many people impressed by the well zombie? WTF? Consider how much time was invested in the pointless exercise of its extraction and the inevitable FX shot of its evisceration. What the hell was the point of ALL of it? To demonstrate how stupid these people are? Would you drink from that well if the zombie was removed successfully? Clearly it was just an opportunity to gross people out because everything else in that episode was fucking worthless.

I don’t like investing my time in a television show that eventually peters out under the weight of its premise…shows like Heroes that left me feeling cheated and disappointed at a potential unrealized. That the television version of the show is wildly popular is not news. That it completely diverged from the established graphic novel story-line may very well be. I’m not sure how popular the graphic novel is, but there’s no way its driving the kind of ratings I’m seeing every week. That it shares a network with the likes of “Breaking Bad” and “Mad Men” doesn’t hurt I’m sure. They need to take a page from Sorkin. Every scene must matter;this lack of a cohesive narrative is fucking killing me. I want to love this show because I know the story its capable of telling. I need forward momentum. I needs menace. I need a reason to watch…and that window I was talking about earlier? It’s closing…fast.

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Posted 6 months ago

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Tags: the walking dead, aaron sorkin, the west wing,

Thoughts on the return of Beavis and Butthead

I would be remiss in discussing the 90s without first setting the proper mood, so before you continue,

tab up this youtube link and crank it in the background. Got it? Moving on…

You may disagree with a lot of what I have to say here. I’m not sure if my contentions are tainted by the prejudice of nostalgia or the malaise of an aging 30-something. Maybe there is some validity to my argument, who knows. I welcome the debate…truly.

The 60s will remembered as the decade of social renaissance, the 70s a struggle to align those ideals with practical reality and the 80s a bacchanalian free for all of greed, power lust and hypocrisy. The 90s rejected the empty vanity of the 80s and merged the ideas of the 60s and 70s with a modern sensibility. It was like a spell had been broken, the glamour lifted to reveal an ensemble of coke addicts dressed in spandex pairing make-up with overly-quaffed manes frozen by aqua-net. The music was considerably darker and more authentic with a message aimed at a generation of disenfranchised kids who were all too willing to abnegate hair metal in lieu of something real. And so it was, the decade of grunge, inspiring an entire generation to introspection and parental rebellion. Eventually the message would be co-opted and diluted by corporate influence as it always has been and die, selfishly taking rock music with it.

And there was Beavis and Butthead, the whole time, watching and laughing as it all rotted away.

I kept the candle burning for some time, nurturing the hope of its return by consuming a steady diet of indie alternative, humble and innocent, muted and emotionally pure, perfectly suited to an indie movie soundtrack, commercials about cotton and hipster loft parties in gentrified oases in otherwise shitty Brooklyn neighborhoods. But it was gone, and with it Beavis and Butthead.

It’s important to note the culture of MTV and how drastically it has changed since its inception. For the children reading this article, MTV stands for “music television”, in that they were the first network ever to play music videos on television, effectively ending the reign of broadcast radio over the music industry. MTV pulled rap and rock out of the clubs and shoved it in face of America and kids ate that shit up like free McRibs. The programming was revolutionary. Unplugged, a series featuring mainstream rock acts playing acoustic instruments, has a portfolio featuring some of the most cherished recordings in rock history. The Real World, what many consider to be the first incarnation of the modern reality show, truly avante garde for its time, absent contrived storyline and human drama.

Then of course, Beavis and Butthead, these two idiots who didn’t care about anything, driven only selfish pleasure. They sat in judgement of the world like praetors at a coliseum doling out thumbs up or down to whatever they thought was cool or not, peppered with Mike Judge’s subtle insight into commercialism, hypocrisy, social inequalities and injustice. It was as stupid and as brilliant as a cartoon can be simultaneously, and I doubt very much there would be a South Park or a Family Guy without its influence. My best friend of the time and I used to run up huge phone bills watching entire episodes on the phone together and not even talking to one another, just enjoying that time laughing together. I still talk like them now and then, that trademark Butthead “uhhhh” employed while searching for an answer in my mind.

Just like the music of the period, the positive influence that MTV had over the youth of the world was co-opted and diluted after its acquisition by Viacom, becoming more or less a financial vampire using the power of music to drain children of originality, individuality and, well, their allowance. At some point, some worthless business exec decided it was more lucrative to invest in reality programming and abolish everything that made the network what it was. Today it is a wasteland of negativity, superficiality and tired ideas.

‘Nuff Said.

So I wonder, why bring Beavis and Butthead back? Who is it for? It’s been 14 years since MTV ran new Beavis and Butthead episodes. I mean, 14 years, g-d, in tv time that’s like resurrecting the dinosaurs. What of my generation, the veteran B&B fans? We’re entirely different people now. Some of us have families. Some of us have seen death, other countries, other cultures. After 14 years, can we still enjoy these two fantastic idiots as adults?

And what will this next generation make of Beavis and Butthead? Who are these kids? I read this article the other day that claims 91% of kids play video games. That’s a staggering figure. If they’re not playing video games, they’re participating in the global conversation, connected and inter-connected through Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and the thousands of other social networks. They’re experiencing the world through media, through food, through travel. They’re participating in peaceful, effective protest against the economic status quo. These are not the delinquents of Mike Judge’s brilliant subversive critique of 90s society. Kids don’t watch music videos anymore like we used to. The music is completely different. I mean, look at the shirts B&B wear. AC/DC? Metallica? Two bands that haven’t released new studio albums in 4 years….when’s the last time they had a single that kinds under 20 sang in their rooms much to their parent’s chagrin? How many kids would recognize their trademark oral cover of the signature guitar riff of Deep Purple’s “Smoke on the Water”?

If this doesn’t demonstrate what I’m talking about, nothing will.

This sucks. No words. Click.

I am conflicted. I want Beavis and Butthead’s perspective on things in this new world. They have have been stupid, but they were incisive in their stupidity. They cut right through all the bullshit, all that hypnotic corporate marketing what to like and what to consume. You know what I mean, those things we’re supposed to buy because they say something about who we are when in reality they say nothing at all. I must drink this coffee, see this movie, wear this t-shirt, buy this album. For Beavis and Butthead, it was “this is cool” or “this sucks”. It came from the gut without pretense, and while all this is really good stuff, I flat do not trust MTV to do anything right. I’m afraid of what they could do to the show. Mostly I’m afraid of it being rejected by a generation that just may not get it….and frankly that’s not their fault. It’s like a parent who screens Star Wars to their kids for the first time and the kids find it boring and leave to play with their toys. I want this generation to get it so much because of how inundated they are with false display of feelings, attitudes, and intentions. They need B&B now, more than ever. The question is, will they be open to it?

My answer?

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

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Posted 7 months ago

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Tags: beavis and butthead, mtv, liquid television, mike judge,

Oft Maligned and Unintentionally Funny movie scenes and the importance of investment

In the spring of 2010, Roger Ebert whipped the gaming community into a frenzy following his assertion that video games are not and can never be considered an “artform”. I had dropped an obscene amount of time playing contrarian on various message boards, admittedly for personal amusement. I enjoy playing devil’s advocate whenever possible, especially with an opponent as intelligent and galvanized as a gamer in zealous support of his hobby/lifestyle. It wasn’t until recently, however, did I realize all the time I had wasted shredding the arguments of others I never took stock in my own feelings on the matter. For the last couple of weeks, my wife has been playing a game called Nier with a near rabid obsession. Upon completing this game, she tweeted this…

I’ve never witnessed such an emotional reaction to a video game before. I mean usually its either elation or boredom, but always superficial…certainly not visceral. What was so exceptional about this particular game? I did a little investigating, found a clip of the ending that had moved her and I had no reaction whatsoever. Did I lack context? Do I share Ebert’s bias toward video games? What causes two individuals to have two completely different reactions to the same subject matter? Hell, it doesn’t even have to be two people. When it comes to those ASPCA commercials, I cannot predict with any accuracy what I feel. If you have no frame of reference, picture a montage of suffering pets set to a rather sappy Sarah Mclaughlin song. How can the same person have such a wide range of emotion in response to the same subject matter?

The answer is investment. Art is manipulation, and the extent to which you choose to be manipulated is the measurement of your investment. To me, there is no better illustration of this concept than divergent audience reactions to a movie scene. It is a fascinating aberration and perhaps the only reason why I bother to see a movie in a theater anymore. Many of these scenes become the victim of parody or condemnation because they require more investment than a person is either willing or capable of contributing. Here are some of the more popular examples of what I’m talking about.

Castaway - Wilson

Castaway is the story of a man stranded on a desert island and forced to cope with the physical and mental rigors of isolation and survival. Director Robert Zemeckis accomplishes this by limiting non-diegetic audio throughout the character’s stay on the island, with the notable exception of this scene. In order to cope with the stress of his isolation, the main character needed a mechanism by which he could communicate his feelings vocally. He accomplished this by personifying a volleyball that had washed up ashore. He gave the ball human features drawn in his own blood and hair fashioned out of the leaves of palm trees. Over time, he came to depend on the ball to maintain his sanity and focus his mind. By the time we arrive at this scene, years have passed, and the protagonist has embarked on potentially suicidal last-ditch effort to find rescue on a make-shift raft. Exhausted and dehydrated, he falls asleep, and in the gentle rocking of the sea, the volleyball falls from its perch and into the water. Too weak to swim out and afraid of losing his raft, he is forced to abandon his volleyball friend. He apologizes profusely to this inanimate object and collapses into tears, the torture of his experience running from him like blood from a wound.

I remember nearly half of the theater started laughing at this scene. I made it a point to look around. Some were sniffling, like me, eyes wet with tears…and some had no reaction at all. No reaction is more valid than the other, although the unintentional reaction was most definitely comedy. On its face, crying over a volleyball is absurd. In this context, it is certainly not, but your emotional response is dictated entirely by your investment in character and story.

American Beauty - The Plastic Bag

American Beauty is a story of self-liberation, following the journey of a family man mired in the pathos of an uninspired existence and the effect it has on the people around him. The catalyst of this peregrination to redemption is the man’s pot-dealing neighbor, a teenager of profound sensitivity, stoicism and intelligence, who inspires him to reconnect with his passion. Before this scene, we’ve learned the pot dealer is a frequent victim of physical abuse at the hands of his father, a retired soldier and stark disciplinarian. His mother is suffering from some kind of memory/consciousness affecting illness like alzheimers and is frequently catatonic. We’ve also discovered the teenage pot dealer is something of an amateur filmmaker. Like the volleyball, the camcorder is a coping mechanism, a way to dispel the sorrow of a life of violence and heartbreak by focusing on quiet moments he finds particularly beautiful.

In this scene, the young man is courting the main character’s daughter by illustrating his perspective with the hope that she will like the way he sees the world. They sit, quietly, as he explains what this footage of a plastic bag floating in the wind means to him, the poetry of the inanimate given purpose if only for a short while. He is, for a moment, overwhelmed by experience, and his female companion melts in the wake of his raw humanity.

I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge the density of the subject matter in this scene. Life has a tendency to leave us jaded and spiteful. The message of this scene is antithetical to that state of mind. It requires considerable emotional vulnerability to connect with this character and the significance of the plastic bag in his world. People mock this scene often, and I’ve often wondered if the derision is some kind of subterfuge masking an inability to eschew the doldrums of an uninspired world for something meaningful and real. It’s sad really, because the lesson of this scene, that appreciation of the natural world is essential to happiness, is so very important.

Unbreakable - They Called Me Mister Glass

Unbreakable follows the journey of one man who discovers he has supernatural abilities like that of a comic book superhero. This particular scene concludes the film, revealing that his mentor is actually his enemy. Samuel L Jackson plays the mentor, a brilliant man with an unusually fragile body. Throughout the film, the mentor is relentless in his quest to convince the main character that he is blessed with these abilities. We know the mentor has a deep respect for comic book mythology and we assume that is the motivation driving this compulsion to validate the existence of a real super hero. It is not until this scene that the true nature of the mentor’s compulsion is revealed. Throughout the film we are witness to the debilitating effects of the mentor’s illness. His bones are brittle and he is weak and slow. As a child, his weakness is mocked mercilessly by the other children. As he grew up, the torture of his existence, an incessant cycle of injury, surgery and rehabilitation twisted his mind. In his madness, he looked to comic books for a purpose, a reason to live, and eventually came to the conclusion that he represented a polar extreme, and in comic book mythology there must be balance. So he set himself on a path of murder and terrorism with the insane hope that each act of horror would reveal his antipode. Every day there is someone on this planet suffering alone asking why he must live in agony. The truth of our reality is there is no answer, but in the world of Unbreakable, disease has purpose, and there is comfort in that purpose. Both the mentor and the hero learn the answer to that essential question we all ask of ourselves: “Why am I here?” Whether or not its fair that a maniac like him deserves that catharsis is certainly debatable. The revelation of his justification to exist is one of the most unique and complex in all of film and yet people were laughing. My best friend was laughing. I’m confident if they actually lived with disease they wouldn’t find it as funny.

This is not a pass for filmmakers who fail to invest in their stories, mind you. It goes both ways. I often think of that moment in Revenge of the Sith where Darth Vader screams “noooo” while the room shakes. Even I laughed at that scene. Let’s not forget though, this is the moment Anakin is told the love of his life is dead, his children are dead, and his body is all but incinerated aside from the remaining flesh kept alive by machinery. This is the moment he abandons everything that made him human and truly becomes Vader. It’s sad, it’s heartbreaking, but I didn’t give a fuck, because Lucas didn’t invest himself in his characters.

I honestly believe too many people sit down to watch a movie without any consideration for their disposition. I see them sitting there, playing with their phones, talking with friends. The lack of consideration for the people around them is not really germane to this particular column, but its important to note that if you’re not in the right mind-set to watch a movie, you limit yourself. I invite you to revisit those movies that made you uncomfortable, that you couldn’t categorize neatly, that didn’t fit your mold of what a good film feels like. Make a conscious effort to invest in these people you don’t know, as you would a new friend. You might discover something wonderful about yourself.

Posted 7 months ago

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Tags: american beauty, castaway, movie scenes, investment, unbreakable, unintentionally funny scene,

Hate Obsession: Review of the Oasis of the Seas and why I will never cruise again

It didn’t take much to convince me to book a cruise on the flagship of the Royal Caribbean fleet. The last two years have been a seemingly endless stream of pain, loss and stress eroding my sanity. For me, going on vacation was less a casual opportunity for levity and more a self-prescribed mandate, a hail-mary pass, if you will, to keep my life from falling apart. I discovered the Oasis on one of those “mega-building” shows you see on Discovery or the Science Channels. The talking points were impressive: largest cruise ship in the world, seven distinct environments featuring world class dining, athletic activities and entertainment. My wife had never been on a cruise and I have not cruised since I was a young boy, so this was a first for both of us to experience cruising as adults. I was looking forward to this, which is unusual for me, as I am somewhat of a grumpy bastard. Unfortunately, my fantasy of a week of bacchanalian merrymaking was never meant to be. Reality, it seems, is a cruel mistress.

Before I get into that, I would be remiss in failing to compliment the ship itself. The Oasis is truly an engineering marvel. Walking on to the ship for the first time, I was overcome by the scale and scope of the architecture and interior design. This faded into distant memory the moment I tried our first meal on-board at the Windjammer Cafe, where apparently cooks from Dennys and Ruby Tuesdays go to die. The breakfast buffet featured what I can only imagine to be the result of cooks vomiting into their fellow cooks mouths while shitting that ingested vomit into a cadavers rotting asshole and grinding the lot into sausage sheaths made of horse penis skin, served with a side of eggs so runny they would win marathons. Tis how it was, day after day, every meal, forcing me to limit my daily caloric intake to fruits and vegetables barely dressed by the criminally incompetent food staff. I never ate so healthy in my life.

Sidebar. Lately, when I notice I’m getting a little too dark and vitriolic I hop on Youtube and watch a couple of uplifting videos, something like the Susan Boyle victory during her first appearance on “Britain’s Got Talent”. I’ll weep tears of joy and awe over the power of the human spirit and return calm, the savage beast satiated. I was ready to resume this review in a positive state of mind, and then I remembered the pasta marinara at the Windjammer, and all I can think of is setting fire to each of the seventeen decks of the Oasis and laughing as the reflection of the kitchen staff leaping from the decks as talent-less balls of flame dance on the lenses of my eyes.

Ok, so the food was bad. Can’t expect much from a staff that has to feed 6000+ people every day, right? So i tried one of their specialty restaurants, which came at a premium (or as they call it nominal) fee in addition to the thousands I had already spent. This particular restaurant, the Solarium Bistro, was considered the “healthy alternative”, which I guess in their world translates to unseasoned and flavorless. $80 bucks wasted.

“The dining hall. Somalians eat better than we did.”

Ok, the specialty restaurants screwed the pooch. The service was good, right? Years ago, I visited Jamaica with my parents as a child. I remember one day a man was trying to sell us a hat he weaved from the fronds of a palm tree. He appeared to be a courteous and friendly fellow, but even as a child I noticed an underlying aggressiveness in his persistence…and I could see how it annoyed my father. After repeatedly refusing to purchase the man’s wares, the gentleman became visibly angry and stormed off, cursing off my father as he walked away. I had learned a valuable lesson that day about the artifice of salesmanship, that guttural feeling you have when you notice what is behind the smile of someone paid to service you…an agenda that has nothing to do with enjoying the pleasure of your company or providing a service without the quid pro quo. It’s pretty common with strippers, but I had similar experiences with almost every single staff member of the Oasis. It was the utterly transparent veil of highly trained courtesy, the subterfuge of the whore. I would arrive to my table at dinner every day, my waiter rattling off our names (Hello Jeffrey, Hello Randy, etc.) in a pathetically rote attempt to feign congeniality. Personally, I have absolutely no desire to develop a rapport with a waiter. Occasionally I will chat up a chef or restaurateur if I’m interested in what he or she is doing, but to me, a waiter should be an invisible component of the dining experience. Take my order, bring me my food, monitor the progress of the meal and bring me my check. Some may disagree with that perception, that’s their prerogative. My waiter on the Oasis, however, took it a step further by insisting on cutting my food for me despite my very vocal objections like I was a child at my aunt’s table learning the intricate mysteries of the knife and fork. I looked around the table as my family cringed uncomfortably and my mind flashed memories of the days when my mother would lick her thumb to clean off something on my face in front of all of my friends. It was mildly embarrassing, especially for me considering how often I eat out and the caliber of restaurants I invest my time in patronizing. He would bring me food I didn’t ask for…entire appetizers, entrees and desserts, after I had already completed my own. “You will like this”, he would say, without any knowledge of my culinary proclivities. I am not morbidly obese (despite what the metabolic scales indicate) but I am struggling with weight issues and I made a promise to myself that although the food was unlimited and free, I would not indulge in over-eating on the cruise. I am also dealing with the perception that I am a glutton, which isn’t the case. I don’t over eat, I just eat out more often than most people I know. So there I was, casting disappointing glances as he placed dessert after dessert (usually horrible, and I’m not a fan of dessert really) before me with a beatific smile on his face, equating imposition with good customer service as he imagined the healthy tip coming his way.

That’s another thing, the tipping. From what I heard, Royal Caribbean pays their international work force of waiters and house keeping staff a slave wage, so tipping is, of course, encouraged, by Royal Carribbean. You can read their tipping guidelines here. According to their recommend guidelines, you are expected to shell out $18.90 a day, $132.30 for a 7 day cruise, $264.60 for a married couple. That’s quite a ding. My final bill, in addition to the $2100+ I spent to book it, was $1300, and that was after a week of conservative spending on alcohol, souvenirs and premium items. That’s a total of $3400, not exactly chump change for the basic amenities of food and shelter. Shall I go through what doesn’t come with that hefty price tag?

Room service. Oh yeah, the same, disgusting selections are available for free during the day, $5 after midnite, when room service becomes the only game in town for a late night snack.
Soda. $50 per person, per week, for all the flavored sugar water you can pour down your gullet. If not, enjoy a fine selection of ice water, ice tea, or “enhanced water”, a radioactive Crystal light substitute. Good luck finding fresh fruit juice outside of a cocktail. Let’s not forget the mandatory 15% gratuity added to your alcohol order.
Medical assistance. Bad sunburn? Stub your foot? Feeling queasy? Expect to shell out considerable cash for the ship’s doctor, the fees conveniently absent from the Royal Caribbean website. My brother was sprayed accidentally in the face with perfume. The wanted $38 to flush his eyes with water.
Photographs. Want a memory of your vacation? It’s amazing to me in a world of cell phones, digital cameras and camcorders why anyone would rely on staff photography to record their adventures, but in the event you wish to invest in a professional photograph, expect to shell out $20 for a single 8x10 and nearly $300 for a DIGITAL COPY of your photographs on cd. When I heard that price I had a conniption.
Spa Services. I have no problem with a spa that charges for services. I was more irritated by the fact that a massage I can get in the mall for $30 could cost you upwards of $250 when you realize each area of the body has its own set of massage pricing. I also found it unseemly that they offered Botox treatments and colonics as well.
Internet/Wifi. Expect to drop $50/hr for access to the internet. I imagine its priced that way to discourage large numbers of people from using it, but it’s still highway robbery.
Laundry Service. Did your pants or shirts get wrinkled during flight? Sorry, no iron in the room, but feel free to avail yourself of the on-ship laundry services.
Fitness classes. Want to learn yoga or pilates? Not for free, you don’t.

Why list these out, you ask? You would think that after all these opportunities to supplement the booking costs with add-ons, the cruise line could simply pay their workers a little more. The courtesy of the staff would be more genuine and the tips would follow naturally. Instead, what you have is a boat full of waiters hassling you every five minutes for beverage orders and imposing on what should be a relaxing time away from the greedy, outstretched hands of day-to-day life.

If you’re like me and see cruise ship ports-of-call as an opportunity to enjoy and learn about the culture of the islands of the eastern Caribbean, I humbly advise you to fly to the islands directly and spend your week on land. They were so brief you hardly have any time at all to really explore the islands, especially if you are intimidated by the highly commercial and exponentially more pushy local service providers who circle the terminal like vultures waiting to pick over the carrion of naive foreigners simply looking for a good time. I managed to avoid the usual pratfalls of overpriced goods and duty-free dupes by renting a scooter and put-putting my way free of the money leeches only to return to the Oasis later that day to find them waiting for me on board. While I’m on the topic of shopping, allow me to dispel the myth of the great deals and savings of Caribbean shopping. Aside from liquor, you will not save a single penny on goods like jewelry, perfume or electronics. What you will find is well over two hundred stores on the same street selling the exact same merchandise at the exact same prices and lobbying, constantly, for your attention and business. I was taken aback by the overwhelming number of venues following this business model and equally shocked by the how well they were staffed, wondering how in the world they could possibly distinguish themselves enough from their competition to attract enough business to be able to afford to pay all these people a decent wage. The shopping districts are completely devoid of island culture whatsoever. They are ultimate realization of capitalism at its most repulsive. Say what you will of the overcrowded, dirty chinatowns of major metroplitan cities, but at least they have delicious food. Try finding a sit-down restaurant worth your time, I dare you. (With the one exception being St. Thomas. Stop at Gladys’ restaurant in the Royal Dane Mall. Buy the hot sauce too. You can thank me later.)

“I drink the cum of hacks.”

But what about the entertainment, the activities, you ask? Surely they were enough to distract you from the disingenuous service and horrible food? I tried, I really tried, to keep an open mind. After passing up the opportunities to try my hand at courses on the delicate art of napkin folding and making animals out of towels, I felt compelled to avail myself of the headlining act. His name was Scott Record. If you have never heard of Scott Record, consider that a gift from on high. Here’s a little sample of the same act he peddled on the main stage of the Oasis ballroom. You’re probably thinking to yourself, “a man who does parody songs of Creed and Ricky Martin? How could you not enjoy such a relevant and clever act?” If you are, I invite you to kill yourself aka enjoy lunch at the Windjammer Cafe. Scott Record is to comedy as Pol Pot was to loving your fellow man. At least Pol Pot knew how to work a crowd. Then again, the portly, overfed, under-educated drones in the audience were laughing their ass off, so what the hell do I know, right? I mean clearly this is a world where acts that suck a sweaty dick sandwiched between two layers of belly and taint fat are highly successful. It says a lot that the highlight of my entertainment experience was a juggling act performed by a man who used to open for Michael Jackson when he did Thriller on stage. Thank g-d that was only three decades ago or I’d really begin to think these acts were antiquated.

There was a feeling gnawing at me from the moment I turned on the television in my stateroom and saw the original films made by the intolerably daffy cruise director Richard Spacey for the cruise info only channel that this ship was a last bastion of the corny, the goofy, that “knyuck knyuck” Stooges/Catskills/vaudevillian comic sensibility rapidly fading into obsolescence, replaced by a new generation of socially relevant and insightful comedians the likes of Louis CK, Lewis Black, Chris Rock and Dave Chappelle. Every act, from the ice skaters to the rope dancers, from the water acrobatics to the 70’s dance hit parade seemed to cater to a demographic creeping ever closer to extinction. I found myself terribly bored, spending most of my time in the room or in the hot tubs, staring out the window at an open sea, wondering if I could survive the long swim to shore and occasionally wondering if I even wanted to survive the swim to shore. Sometimes I would stare longingly at the heli-pad, calculating how severe my injuries would have to be to warrant an air-lift off the ship, abandoning the idea at what I imagine would be yet another onboard charge to my account. I did, however, enjoy a man named Simian (sp?), the host of a number of the comedy and improv shows. He was everything I wanted in on-board entertainment but didn’t get. I wish I remembered his last name, he deserves every accolade I can muster from an otherwise awful cruise. His wit and acknowledgement of the awful dining on-board made for a refreshing and honest comic perspective and I sincerely appreciated it.

I can’t say I made the best of it. I don’t do that. I don’t make the best of things. I don’t even know what that is. If something is shit, I say it’s shit. I make no bones about it. My cruise was not worth what I paid for it. I feel swindled in a way, by an impressive ship with no substance. The Oasis of the Seas is like a beautiful woman you can’t take your eyes off of that has absolutely no idea how to fuck. You can only admire something for so long before you say, “OK, so what else you got?” The answer, in my humble opinion, is nothing worth your time and hard-earned money. If I were you, buy a ticket directly to your destination of choice, somewhere wondrous, somewhere alien to you culturally that will stimulate your senses and expand your knowledge of the world. Cruising, as my good friend Layton once said, is “for those who overeat, rarely think, newly wed or nearly dead”. I wish I knew then what I know now, but you know what they say about hindsight.

Follow me on Twitter @youresoshain

Posted 8 months ago

3 notes

Tags: cruise, cruising, oasis of the seas, richard spacey, Royal Caribbean, scott record,

The Twilight movies and why homophobic rhetoric has no place in film criticism

The other day my wife posted this in her Google + feed:

“So I just walked into the living room, and Jeff quickly paused the TV. I glanced over and saw that there was a werewolf on the screen, and realized that he was watching Twilight. Grounds for divorce?”

Predictably, the responses:

“You sure which team he’s batting for?”

“I think we’re just going to have to face the facts and try to find Jeff help. An intervention may be in order.”

I confess a feeling of disappointment after reading this particular thread. I understand the humor, don’t get me wrong, but the underlying sentiment is fairly obvious. I watch the Twilight movies, so I must be gay. It’s expected from people I don’t know, but it’s disappointing to hear from the woman I chose to marry, but not for the reasons you think. I don’t believe my wife thinks I’m a homosexual, and I could care less either way. I’m 32 years old, I’m a little long in the tooth to be phased by puerile jabs over where I prefer to insert my penis. No, what really makes me sad is the lack of curiosity.

Over the years, I’ve more or less come to accept how differently my wife and I appreciate movies, both superficially and analytically. I am a film major. Analyzing and critiquing a movie is what I live for. Movies are a glimpse into another person’s mind, and if that person has something to say, we can learn something new about ourselves as human beings. This is the purpose of all good art. Some people can look at a piece of sculpture or a painting and see truth and meaning. I just prefer movies.

I have longed wrestled with my inability to converse with my wife critically about a movie we’ve just seen. It would please me very much to share and compare observations. She’s just not that kind of person. I have other people I can talk to about such things, and thanks to Twitter that network of people has grown dramatically. Still, there is a part of me that dreams of a relationship where my wife understands why I would watch a movie like Twilight, where we could discuss the strengths or weaknesses of a particular piece of entertainment absent the adolescent jabs at my sexuality.

So…why would I watch a movie like Twilight?

Let me begin by saying I believe all movies have value, even the bad ones. If they evoke a thought that leads to an opinion that leads to some insightful truth, that is valuable. I have found such truth in the most unexpected of places, you just need to know where to look. It is, essentially, the very purpose of my blog.

There is also something to be said about Twilight’s relevance in pop culture. This trend of wildly popular teen fantasy novels adapted into movies fascinate me, not only because a new generation has found a love for reading but that it resonates so profoundly with a huge swath of the population, leaving the remainder to ignore, pursue or attack the work out of ignorance.

Let’s spend a lifetime together. We haven’t had sex yet, but I’m sure I’ll
be all you need to satisfy you sexually for all time.

The Twilight films are bad movies. They are maudlin, derivative and worst of all, boring…but I am not their target audience. These are essentially dark teenage romance fantasies. They are also highly irresponsible perspectives on relationships and love, where personal identity and separateness are lessons not yet learned. Consider Bella, a woman in love with a vampire, willing to sacrifice her own humanity and soul for a lifetime with this man she hardly knows. That’s not love, that’s infatuation. It feels like love, but love is not sacrifice. Love is compromise. Love is acceptance. Love is mutual respect. I love my wife, but I can’t imagine spending an eternity with her. Hell, some people can’t even make it a couple of years with the same person. Who’s to say how Bella will feel about her vampire love long after the puppy love fades? This is the mendacity of Twilight, and its like heroin to teenage girls because hormone-fueled obsession and the myth of the White Knight told them by doting parents is something they can all relate to.

Do I….make you uncomfortable?

That’s just one observation about the film that deserves further exploration, but this is not that kind of essay. I really want to address the negative reaction to the series. There’s some pretty interesting patterns of behavior here. Most people with a negative opinion of the movies have never seen them, basing their opinions on a wide range of external influences: peer pressure, latent homosexuality, bad relationships, what have you. Most men tend to dismiss the movie with predictable homophobic rhetoric. “That movie is gay!” “That movie is for queers”. This couldn’t be anything further from the truth. Like I said earlier, men are not the target audience. The puritan vampire, the chiseled werewolf, these are masturbatory fantasies for teenage girls, so any negative reaction to that is either latent homosexual, jealousy or insecurity. As for the emotionalism, most men are naturally uncomfortable with sensitivity and non-sexual romance. An adult, or should I say, a mature adult, should have no problem watching this film and forming an opinion based on more credible criteria.

I’m tired of defending what I watch and why I watch it. I don’t understand why people watch baseball. I find it incredibly boring, but I’ll be the last person to say “you are gay because you enjoy watching men slap each other on the ass when they do a good job”. It saddens me when people close themselves off to certain experiences that might find potentially rewarding even if they didn’t enjoy the experience itself. It angers me when those same people pass judgement on others who embrace life without concern for appearances. I wouldn’t recommend the Twilight movies to anyone, but I will be the first to share what learned from them, because without that sharing there is no debate and no personal growth through truth.

Follow me on Twitter @youresoshain

While you’re at it, surf on over to Bad-Ass Digest and check out FilmCritHulk’s take on Twilight in general.

Posted 9 months ago

8 notes

Tags: bella, edward, kristen stewart, robert patrick, taylor lautner, team edward, team jacob, twilight, twilight breaking dawn, breaking dawn,

Give up? Captain America?

If you’re one of those people who feel genuinely pessimistic about the future of this country as an ideal, you’re not alone. You watch helplessly as corruption erodes the very fabric of our society, and not in a subtle, abstract manner either. Politicians do it right in front of us, pointing fingers like children while those emboldened by the fading attention of a jaded and misdirected populace embrace the baser natures of their avarice, strip mining every aspect of this country that makes us special. We chant the name of our country, “USA, USA, USA”, but do we really feel it, or are we simply programmed to emulate patriotism when appropriate. The last great war of this country was 60 years ago, and the country we were, that dynamo of will, that giant of manufacturing, is long gone. In a relatively short period of time, our nation has lost sight of its greatness. We do not build towering skyscrapers anymore, dams that hold back mighty rivers…hell we just landed our final space shuttle mission, so reaching for the stars is now relegated to 13 year old girls at Twilight red carpet events. We lost our inspiration.

Captain America: The First Avenger is a healthy reminder of what we once were. Soldiers of inspiration were strategically plucked from battle field to keep morale for the war high at home and the bucks rolling in. These guys were celebrated as heroes of the highest order because their fight was noble and the consequences of defeat were real and unacceptable. It was a simpler time, an opportunity for the young nation to prove itself as a world power capable of pushing back the rising tide of evil. It was everything politicians say it is now with fingers crossed behind their back.

This last decade has been a renaissance for comic book superhero films. We’ve seen our share of utter disasters and magnificent triumphs, and although I admit I’m prone to hyperbole, I am trying not to understate the challenge that is bringing these intellectual properties to life. Technical challenges aside, these are the stories that fans have cherished for decades, some as far back as WWII and earlier. That is an awesome responsibility for any team of movie-making professionals. It is easy to sit back and criticize these films. As fans, we have no skin in the game. If you don’t do so already, take a moment at the end of a film and watch the credits. See the hundreds of people from all walks of life who’s skills must be leveraged to the best of their ability to bring you even the most mediocre special effects blockbuster. I don’t envy them. Well, I do, who am I kidding? As I’ve said over and over again to people who find my reviews overly critical, I assure you I do not WANT these movies to fail. If anything, I want them to succeed so much it hurts…and Captain America does, on every possible level.

Let me first say the casting of Chris Evans was pure genius. This is why I would never be a good casting director: I judge people. I hated Evans as the Human Torch in the Fantastic Four. He was, like Ryan Reynolds, one of those fast talking, wise cracking, good looking types that find their way into the genre and spend most of the movie dropping banal witticisms in less than appropriate situations (a personal pet peeve). I think I hated Evans performance b/c I hated the Fantastic Four so much, but looking back he was probably the only thing I liked about that travesty. Unlike Reynolds in the recent Green Lantern, Evans inner hero is remarkably authentic. He nailed the innocence and purity of Steve Rogers: human, flawed, but strong of heart and invincible from a profound love of country. There was nothing forced about that revelation, either. No cliche rallying speech in front of the troops, just simple bravery and modesty.

Modesty. That’s another thing we’ve lost in this country. In our race to become the best, to be #1, we’ve become a nation of ego maniacs. Infused with incredible strength and speed, Captain America never loses sight of who he was. In fact, the movie is completely absent braggadocio. Even the demonstration of his power in the form of hand-to-hand combat is remarkably muted. Yes, his opponents are dispatched expeditiously, but they’re done so in a manner in keeping with the laws of physics given the Captains strength. Everything feels and looks as it should given the components.

The real strength of the film, however, is everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, around the Captain. There are no wasted roles here. Every character is important in the establishment of tone, of setting, of time. The movie develops slowly. We are allowed the time to get to know these wonderful people who help Steve become the hero and back him up as he fulfills the hopes and expectations of those who granted him these abilities. Speaking of which, Stanley Tucci, who for years I’ve been unable to see in any other role but the child-killer from “The Lovely Bones”, has finally wiped the slate clean with a wonderfully beneficent depiction as the inventory of the super-soldier serum that made Captain America strong. Tucci once again illustrates his superb comic timing with incredible subtlety. Conversely, Tommy Lee Jones as the somewhat cliche nut busting Colonel is a wonderfully over-the-top character, although considerably more reserved than his manic depiction of Two Face so many years ago.

Much can also be said of Haley Atwell in this film as the tough female love interest. It is rare to see a woman depicted as both competent and feminine in these films. Usually these female leads are relegated to screaming and dough-eyed gazes full of longing. This is a woman who can kick ass, and not in any kind overtly feminist/girl power kind of way. The character is competent, intelligent, and compassionate…in other words, a real human being, worthy of respect and admiration. I loved this character so much. She didn’t even have to be pretty either although it didn’t hurt.

If Marvel needs any kind of template to base future development on, look no further. This is the magic brew that made Iron Man possible, a movie made by fans, for fans, with incredible attention to detail and an obvious LOVE for the subject matter. To me that is the critical ingredient absent in so many of these rush-to-the-screen profit machines…LOVE. I felt it their investment in spirit, and if this review ever lands in their laps, I want them to know it was an honor much appreciated to see it.

I went to a 10:00 showing tonite. A woman had brought her baby to the showing, which is, in my opinion, one of the most inconsiderate things you can do, not only to the rest of the people who paid to be there but the child itself. The audience erupted in anger, demanding that she left. I’m not sure if its because of the movie, if they’d react the same, say, if it was Green Lantern. I know I did. Every second lost to this screeching nuisance led me to greater panic. She eventually left, thankfully. If she had stayed, she would have needed a Steve Rogers to protect her.