Tag Archives: books

The New Oz Movie

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Well, after 28 years they’ve finally come out with a new Oz movie, and the critics already seem to be jumping all over it with hobnailed boots.

Fair enough. I haven’t seen it yet, so I have no idea whether it’s any good.

What I do question is the critics’ seeming universal claim that the original movie was an unparalleled classic of American movie-making, and the unspoken premise that it should be enshrined forever because it’s awesome, period.

I like “Wizard of Oz,” don’t get me wrong. It is a classic. It has some neat images (the colorchanging horse! The Art Deco Emerald City!) and a couple of good songs. It’s a fairytale quest flick, which I always appreciate, too.

… but.

But Judy Garland was in her late teens when she filmed this movie, and her dialogue would be better suited to an eight-year-old. But the Dorothy character doesn’t actually do a whole lot during the movie–she reacts to situations, sure, but mostly things seem to happen to her. And the characterizations are mostly paper-thin.

It’s a good movie, sure, but I’d argue that its strongest point is its setting, or perhaps the music– certainly not the characters, the plot or the script. Think about it: The yellow brick road. The Emerald City. The color-shifting horse, the angry trees, the flying monkeys, the dark forest and the field of poppies. All that is part of the setting.

And if the setting is great, why not revisit it and expand it?

I’m not saying the new movie is any good–I haven’t seen it, so I don’t know. I am saying that if you do see it, it’s probably best to view it as a standalone movie, or at least try not to remember the first flick through the rose-colored glasses of childhood.

Unless you’re seeing the new movie while you’re still a child as well, you’re not going to be making a fair comparison that way.

There are Donut Cops?

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There are donut cops. This is a thing which actually exists. Had I realized this earlier on in my life, I may have chosen a different career track, although I’m not sure my blood pressure would’ve thanked me for it.

I have a wide assortment of other links that may or may not be of interest:

  • Logan Adams, of “It’s Good to Be in N.D.” has posted after a long hiatus. Hurray!
  • Dull and Boring are together at last, as sister communities. I’ve always thought it would be awkward to live in a town with a weird name, although being able to say “I’ll see you in Hell!” in a chipper, friendly voice would be kind of funny.
  • “The Hunger Games,” which is a great book, and its sequels feature four of the top five highlighted passages in books on Kindle, as well as eight of the top ten. The other two in the top ten are from Jane Austen. All ten of them were written, in other words, by women.
  • A mom-science-blogger calls TLC out on some vaccine-related silliness. TLC asked “why shouldn’t we vaccinate our children” as if doing so were a bad thing. Vaccinating is not a bad thing, there is no link between vaccines and autism and the paper that claimed there was was not only false, but deliberately fraudulent.
  • How do you feel about nounjectives, adjectives that become nouns? The good, the bad, the ugly and the like? Apparently some people have very strong negative feelings about them. I quite enjoy using the term “awesome” as a noun, personally.
  • Men can have sympathetic pregnancies. It’s called “couvade syndrome,” and it sounds pretty uncomfortable, although not as uncomfortable as actually having all your internal organs jammed up into your chest cavity to make room for a bonus human.

The Hunger for Death

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Would you pay to watch 24 children kill each other?

I did, this weekend, when I bought a ticket to “The Hunger Games,” which is playing at our local theater in Jamestown. Now obviously no children were actually killed to make the movie, but the movie, and the book it was based on, ask some very serious questions about audienceship.

What does it mean to be a spectator? What ethical obligations does a member of an audience have?

“Hunger Games” is about a society in which 24 children are selected to do battle to the death while a nationwide audience watches, placing bets on the victors and arguing about who will win over the watercooler at work, one presumes.

There may be some spoilers for both the books and the movies below, so if you don’t want to have things spoiled for you, please do not read the rest of this post.

The “Hunger Games” book is in some ways simpler and doesn’t ask the questions about the audience as directly, because it’s written in the first-person, from the viewpoint of Katniss Everdeen. The movie, however, isn’t a first-person piece. There’s no narration from Katniss, nothing to tell us what she thinks or feels directly. So when she’s kissing Peeta near the end of the movie there’s no indication of the fact that in the book, at least, she is doing this because she knows it will be viewed favorably by the audience. Not because she likes the boy.

By not including any narration, the movie makes the real-life audience into the fictional audience, manipulating us into believing Katniss really loves Peeta.

And this is borne out by the rest of the film, as well. While the movie generally follows Katniss, we also get glimpses into things that Katniss has no awareness of–conversations between people Katniss isn’t present for. Behind-the-scenes looks at the filming of the Hunger Games within the fictional universe.

The movie co-opts the audience outside the film into becoming the audience within the film.

And suddenly we realize that we too are eagerly rooting for Katniss. We too are watching 24 teenagers fight to the death. And although the deaths in our reality are not real–they are actors and actresses, and the blood is fake, and they will get up at the end of the shot–we still paid to watch children die.

What does that mean?  What is the difference between the audience inside the film and the audience outside the film, us?

And before you say, “Yes, but no one really dies in a movie,” I would encourage you to recall The Crow. I haven’t seen it, and I don’t know if it was a good movie, but I have very little doubt that much of its fame was due to the death of its star, Brandon Lee, Hollywood royalty who was killed in a stunt accident during filming. Lee’s death was much-publicized, and one couldn’t help but notice the gothic overtones of the film and link the two together.

Then there was xXx. A stuntman was killed while the movie was being filmed, and the director used the footage, though he did not use the moment of the unfortunate man’s death.

Then there’s reality television, which capitalizes on people’s distress in every episode, with people being voted off the island, shouted at, or humiliated in front of others.

What is an audience’s place in all this? Are we tacitly accepting these behaviors? Are we blatantly approving of them by watching?

Playing Catch-Up

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My collection of links, garnered over days of poking at various websites briefly and putting them aside, has achieved critical mass again, and threatens to shut down all the stuff I’m currently working on if I don’t get rid of some of them by posting them here.

So! For your perusal:

Reading Children’s Books Is Totally Bad and Wrong and Embarassing

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Some guy (Joel Stein, a columnist for the Times) claims that adults should read only adult literature, and really, it just looks silly for an adult to be reading a Harry Potter book.

Does it? I think I grew out of caring what other people thought about what I was reading when I was about 12.

At age 13 I was carrying around my father’s college Shakespeare textbook and my classmates thought I was nuts. I explained to them several times that it was a collection of plays, not a multiple-thousands-of-pages novel, but that didn’t make much of an impression, especially not if I showed them the actual text.

At that point I was pretty much determined to be a very definite nerd. Guess what? Tough cookies. Why would I care what anybody thought of what I was reading? Iago gave me the wiggins and I thought Beatrice and Benedick were the most adorable couple ever.

What about classical children’s literature, Mr. Stein? Do I get a pass for reading “To Kill a Mockingbird” or is that verboten now too? Or is that okay? Is it okay because on one level it’s a kids’ book and on another level it’s a parable about racism and growing up? The first time I read it as a kid I missed some of the nuances; was that my only chance or am I allowed to read it again to see if I missed anything now that I’m 31?

And if that’s okay, what about “The Giver?” Am I allowed to read that one? It’s a kids’ book about freedom, utopia and memory, do I get a pass on that? Is “Lord of the Flies” okay? What about the Leatherstocking tales of James Fenimore Cooper?

What about little-little kid books, like “Animalia?” That came out in 1993, but it still amuses and I still like hunting for the hidden in the ornate, complex pictures. There were quite a few that as a 13-year-old I never found, and my little brother, then 6ish, never did either. Was that our last bite at the apple, Mr. Stein, or can I go back and look again now that I’m 31? Is it offensive if I do?

Really. My response to you is the same response I would have made to people who thought I was weird for reading Paradise Lost in high school:

If the sight of me reading a book written for children offends you, close your eyes.

Or don’t. I don’t care. I’m reading.

The Disappearing Spoon

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The Disappearing SpoonI received so many cool Christmas presents this year I haven’t even begun to work through all of them.

“The Disappearing Spoon” is one of them.

It’s a book about the periodic table of elements, but instead of a tedious account describing chemical properties or atomic structure, it’s a juicy book chock-full of curious vignettes about the discoverers, uses or misuses of various elements. It flits from element to element, with a deft touch, and includes enough scientific explanation to feel a bit educational–but not enough to weigh the book down.

I haven’t finished it yet, but I’m about 4/5 of the way through, and it’s a fantastic read for people who love little trivial tidbits of information.

For example, the Disappearing Spoon of the title refers to an old practical joke involving gallium (element 31). The metallic element melts at 84 degrees Fahrenheit, so you can put it in a spoon mold, serve it, and watch when people freak out because their coffee or tea has melted the spoon.

Destroying My Childhood Love: Putting the Monkey Brain Back

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While I love quite a few movies, books and TV shows, I’m not much of a fan, which is to say: when a piece is adapted into a new medium, I’m not inherently against changing stuff to make it fit better.

I liked the Lord of the Rings movies a whole lot better than the books, for example, and the Last of the Mohicans turned a dull book into a gorgeous movie. I loved the recent Sherlock Holmes. There are also a few cases (such as the recent Star Trek movie) that I’ve liked the product enough to forgive the changes that I really didn’t like.

However, I’ve also seen adaptations that have made me want to fling sharp things at my television set. The first Harry Potter movie was heavy and dull, leaving you feeling like you’d just eaten a bowl of dumplings with gravy. I hated the Transformers movie as I’ve hated few movies before it or since. In both of those cases, though, it was because the finished product was inferior, not because of changes that were made.

Unfortunately, I do have a leetle portion of my brain which could be characterized as “the fan part.”

Today I saw a preview for “The Three Musketeers.”

The fan part of my brain is a little similar to the monkey part of my brain. It is very given to freaking out prematurely and often wants to fling foul-scented projectiles at anything it doesn’t like.

I had a hard time jamming the monkey back in the cage after I saw the teaser trailer for Musketeers.

I didn’t mind that the group had been tasked to steal plans for an airship, or that they apparently had gatling guns and some sort of a fire-gun, but when they referred to a woman as wanting to join the Musketeers I just about flipped my lid.

“They made D’Artagnan a woman?” I asked.

In a state of shock I read the synopsis of the movie, and found they had not, in fact, made D’Artagnan a woman.

Then monkey went back in the cage and I started wondering whether I would have liked it if they had, in fact, made D’Artagnan a woman. Would she have picked a duel with all three Musketeers and then set them all for the same time and place? Would she have seduced a servant to get information about Milady? Would she have behaved as piggishly and gallantly as D’Artagnan does, by turns? What would her relationship with Athos have been?

Whether her position would have been transgressive or not would have depended on the setting. If you’re going to add steampunk to the era, you could also add more egalitarian elements to the setting with no problems whatsoever, provided you kept people’s reactions consistent. Then again, a woman doing all those things in the real world at that time would also have been interesting to watch. How on earth would she have gotten away with it?

It’s all an interesting exercise in reimagining a classic, and of course, it might have been absolutely ghastly-awful and exploitative, or it might have just seemed horribly, horribly wrong. We’ll never know.

Skeptical Buffalo: A Dieting Book for Six-Year-Olds?

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Skeptical Buffalo Says: Wut.

Skeptical Buffalo Sez: Wut.

A dieting book geared toward kids ages 6-12 is provoking controversy online. The author apparently wanted to help kids address their problems. Unfortunately, what he actually did was illustrate a story in which:

1. Getting made fun of on a regular basis prompts a child to make a positive lifestyle change. There are no consequences for the bullies, though that may certainly be argued to be an accurate depiction of real life.

2. Losing weight magically makes you popular and athletic.

To be fair,  the character in the story, Maggie, loses weight through eating better and exercising more, not by starving herself or purging. And obesity is a quickly-growing epidemic among youth.

But still, despite the good intentions and the real problems this book was written to address, it’s a little bit hinky to be telling six-year-olds that weight loss is the magical solution to unpopularity and sadness, or even a solution to bad body image. Weight loss doesn’t always give you the figure you want anyway, and dieters may lose pounds and ultimately, still be highly dissatisfied with their bodies.

I could have weighed six ounces as a 12-year-old and I still would have been tremendously unpopular. And there were plenty of thin and beautiful unpopular kids in my class.

And the image on the book’s cover is an exact inversion of what anorexic people see in the mirror: The chubby Maggie looks in a mirror and sees a thin version of herself.

In real life, a pathetically thin anorexic girl looks in the mirror and sees a chubby version of herself–I’ve seen that image used to illustrate anorexia and bulimia more than once in many places, because it describes so perfectly what people with those eating disorders see. When they look in the mirror, they do not see an emaciated person; they see a fat person. It’s every bit as much of a fantasy as Maggie’s thin-alternate-self in the mirror.

Needless to say, children shouldn’t diet unless there’s some sort of really good reason, and they should be supervised by adults if they must diet.

And there are many girls who, at age 6-12, are sort of… solid. When girls go through puberty their body weight redistributes itself significantly, and I know plenty of girls who were chubby before that happened and normal or even thin afterward.

Will kids reading this book get the impression that they need to slim down, long before their bodies change everything anyway? The author says these books are meant to be read by parents and children together, I believe, but is that really going to happen every time?

Is the book damaging, or a needed antidote to the obesity epidemic among young people?

Bad Movies, Bad Reviews, Good Times?

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Thanks to my Netflix subscription, I’ve been working my way through a series of bad movies, each  more hilarious than the last, featuring interminable sandstorms, wooden acting, writing that had to have come from a million monkeys with typewriters and directors who may not have even bothered to show up.

Why would I waste my time on bad movies, you may ask?

Well, I’m watching them as Mystery Science Theatre 3000 movies.

But honestly, there’s a good chance I’d watch them anyway, even without the sarcastic comments liberally overlaid throughout the films. I have tremendously enjoyed all kinds of awful writing, after all; the Twilight novels are some of my favorite books in the world and I remember trying hard not to get the hiccups from laughing too hard while I read them.

And then there are other types of bad writing. There’s even some specific awards for bad writing, including the “Bad Sex in Fiction” award, offered by the Literary Review (I won’t link this, for the sake of everyone’s sanity), and of course everybody knows about the Bulwer-Lytton contest.

But I also enjoy reading negative reviews. I’ve read long reviews of games the reviewers hated, reviews of movies that should have been put out of their misery, and reviews of books that may have been better off becoming mulch because at least that way, they would be useful to society.

It’s amazing how expressive people can be when they really, truly loathe a piece of art.

To Be or Not To Be… Silly

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I watched a delightful movie this weekend. Or maybe I watched a terrible movie. Or maybe I watched one of the greatest plays in English literature. It’s kind of hard to tell, since what I saw was Mystery Science Theatre 3000′s take on a lame dubbed German version of “Hamlet.”

This Hamlet had Rosencrantz, Guildenstern and Fortinbras surgically removed, whether it was by the editors of MST3K (who need movies to fit into their timeframe) or by the directors of Hamlet.

I’ve never liked Hamlet, and before you think I’m trashing Shakespeare, I’m not. I loved “Othello,” greatly enjoyed “Midsummer Night’s Dream” and liked “The Tempest.” I even liked “Julius Caesar,” despite its liberties with history.

It’s Hamlet. I don’t like Hamlet. What can I say, the guy bugs me. The play’s action is centered around inaction, and while I understand that he’s conflicted between his duties as a prince and his college student humanist ideas, I don’t care. I find him annoying. And the way he treats Ophelia is irritating, although it certainly does seem to be the relationship a teenage girl thinks she wants: a controlling, irresponsible guy who’s moody, crazy and probably wears black all the time. Okay, maybe I’m reading too much into it.

But I’ve never liked Hamlet.

Taking the MST3K spin on it was a whole lot more palatable than the original, I thought. The characters made fun of the sparsity and angular dullness of the set, the glam-sparkly look of Hamlet’s father’s ghost and the bizarre hairdo of the queen, which may have been the inspiration for Queen Amidala in the most recent Star Wars trilogy.

But they also took on the text of the play itself, something usually viewed as sacred ground for literature enthusiasts.

Hamlet’s death scene is (if you’ll pardon the pun) interminable. And that’s the way it was written (although the staging of this particular version certainly didn’t help).

Still a big Shakespeare fan, though. Just not a fan of Hamlet.

(Don’t get me started on Romeo and Juliet, either.)