Movie Reviews- Red Tails, Kill List and more

Red Tails

Ok, first things first about Red Tails, because this has been going around the blog-o-sphere a bit. There are no black women in Red Tails. A few are shown in photographs. One man has a relationship with a local white (actually more olive) woman. They kiss and apparently (it is after all a PG-13 film not R) do the do. Imagine that!! A man away from home and a woman with no men around actually find each other attractive. If that bothers you enough to make you clutch your pearls in shock and not want to see the movie then that's that. To each their own.  Keep your race pure, fight the power, skip the movie.


Red Tails is not a great movie. It has some rather serious pacing and script problems. This was the director's (Anthony Hemingway) big screen debut. It's not overly surprising that the dialogue is stilted with a decidedly small screen feel. Many actors are people you will recognize from The Wire, which is where the director was from.
As you already know from the hype, reaction and criticism Red Tails tells the story of the Tuskegee Airmen, African American fighter pilots of the WW2 AAF who had to battle segregation, an intensely hostile officer brass and media scorn to be able to make a contribution to the war effort.

Fighter pilot movies come with built in limitations. As the men are wearing flight masks and/or helmets during battles, there's not any room there for deep expressive acting, nor is the target audience for these movies generally interested in such. The time for acting is when they are on the ground. Usually such movies have to paint the actors in very broad strokes very quickly so that they can get back to the action. Red Tails tries to do this but fails with all but two or three of the actors.


There's Easy (Nate Parker) the conflicted and self-pitying flight leader who is measuring himself against his father; Lightning (David Oyelowo) his hot tempered second-in-command who is the best fighter pilot in the squadron but who constantly questions orders and rages against segregation; Deacon (Marcus Paulk) a simple minded country dude who thinks religion will get him through the war unscathed; Ray-Gun (Tristan Wilds) a mild mannered young man who REALLY hates being called Junior and a few others who kind of blend together. Cuba Gooding Jr. and Terence Howard portray the unit's top leaders. Andre Royo (best known as Bubbles on The Wire) shows up as a caustic and demanding mechanic. Royo's role is small but he brings gravitas. But with a great many actors in the film, it was obvious they were "acting". That's never a good thing. I blame the script.

Oyelowo was a dead ringer for either my Dad or Uncle as younger men. So I was already positively disposed to him. He also had the best role and did the most with what he had. He can definitely point to this film as good work. The others, ehhhh. Again, the director made this movie feel too much like TV. Scenes ended much too quickly. I was halfway expecting "Tune in next week" or " Lysol works best on tough dirt" after some transitions.

The action was pretty good, if very obviously CGI. It would have been nice to focus more on that. It was exciting to imagine flying in a wedge formation and needing to be aware of your surroundings at all times, while all the while both your enemies and your friends are blasting away at each other with .50 caliber machine guns and 30mm cannon. That took skills, nerve, and dedication. Lucas delivers on that-not as much as Star Wars but enough. For a few glorious moments you are in the cockpit of a P-51: young, brash and deadly, challenging a German destroyer all by yourself. Rumble young man, rumble. 


Because this was largely aimed at a younger audience, Lucas and Hemingway simplify things too much. The racists are largely cartoonish. The movie does not explain that at this time the racists had the full force of military and civilian law behind them. Where as Spike Lee's Miracle at St. Anna spent a bit too much time on flashback, Red Tails could have used a flashback or two of some romance, a family memory or some experience of the Jim Crow South.
All in all this movie was fun but not super high quality. I would say a solid 5 out of 10. I am glad the story was told again. I hope this film does well financially. Positive portrayals of black heroics are rare. Seems like this should have been a summer movie. If you like war movies this is just an ok film. If you don't like war movies you won't care for this. Again the primary audience for this movie is teen boys or people who used to be teen boys. And that's fine.
TRAILER


Kill List

Movies like Kill List are often called a thinking man's horror movie with the implicit suggestion that the more intelligent people will like this movie while the bovine masses will wander off in search of the latest Saw or Final Destination installment. Well there is something to be said for movies that make you think, no doubt about that. But movies also do better with a clear theme. Kill List stands right at the intersection of those two descriptions.
The director had something to say but I'm not sure he really got his message across. In some ways this film was reminiscent of Rosemary's Baby or some other more artistic horror films. It's very weirdly atmospheric and interspersed with brutal violence. If you're in the mood for something definitely outre, this could work for you.

A former British soldier who is now a contract killer, Jay (Neil Maskell) ekes out a hand to mouth existence with his beautiful but argumentative Swedish wife Shel (Myanna Buring) and their son. Shel will go upside Jay's head quicker than Elin Nordegren with a nine iron. Money is low. Evidently something went really wrong on a job in Kiev. Jay doesn't like to talk about it. Jay's former Army buddy Gal (Michael Smiley) shows up for dinner with his odd new girlfriend. He has a new job-one that's supposed to be pretty easy and pays well. After some more disputes with Shel, Jay agrees to take the job. There is a list of people who Jay and Gal must kill. Things get odd as these people seem to know Jay and don't resist their murders.

Jay starts to get more and more violent as the murders go from quick eliminations to very brutal and bloody messes. And why is Gal's enigmatic girlfriend talking to Shel? And what's up with the strange symbols popping up in some of their victims' effects and Jay's house? And who killed Jay's cat?
This really was a throwback to some of the best of Hammer movies, before they declined. However the film was in part based on the director's nightmares and it shows. Also the English and Irish accents are very strong which is usually not a problem for me but the dialogue and ambient sound are not mixed properly. The conversation among characters is exceedingly hard to follow. As a result this is probably a movie you'd have to watch a few times to really understand the strange ending. The problem is you might not care enough to do that.
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I'm through with white girls(The Inevitable Undoing of Jay Brooks)

Although Tyler Perry has become for better or worse the only commercially (albeit not critically) successful black filmmaker who regularly examines relationships, it didn't have to be that way. Perhaps if more people had seen this film recent black film history might be very different.

Jennifer Sharp directed this deliberately quirky independent movie. It is worth checking out. Sharp created this film in a very short period of time for a very small budget but it really doesn't feel cheap.

Jay Brooks (Anthony Montgomery) is a Black American graphics novel artist/writer -DON'T call his work comic books as he will cut you- who exclusively dates Caucasian American or European women. He seems to view this as fitting in with his non-stereotypical lifestyle. He has a white roommate. Jay does not march to the drum of what is considered popular within mainstream black culture. He's a horrible dancer, is not into rap and is certainly no one's idea of a tall dark and handsome Mandingo warrior stereotype.

Although Jay claims indifference that some people (including some of his white paramours ) question his essential blackness, in truth he is somewhat worried about/insulted by this. Jay is however, more concerned that every single relationship he has doesn't last. Sometimes he's the dumpee but mostly he's the dumper. Wondering if he has gone over to the white side too much Jay decides to give black women the benefit of his company. This doesn't go well until he meets Catherine Williamson (Lia Johnson-who was also a producer of the film), a beautiful black bohemian author who doesn't like to do public readings of her work because of her stereotypically Caucasian "Valley Girl" sounding voice. 

As stories of this type usually do, the movie follows a theme of boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy must change and grow and face either a happy ending or tragic parting. I enjoyed this movie. It showed what you can do with a little bit of money, a good script and a lot of determination.
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Things Behind the Sun

Everyone has bad things in their past. Some are worse than others. It is a cliche that some of us are so damaged that we're frozen or stunted while others seemingly let the most horrific events roll off of them like water off a duck's back. Everyone is different. Certain folks need a kick in the butt and a stern reminder to drop the self-pity. Others simply have to work through things at a slower pace that may take years. It is true though that we are all the sum of our experiences and for better or worse those experiences shape how we view the world and engage it.

Things behind the Sun is a raw powerful movie despite dipping into or even wallowing in some of these cliches. I wouldn't even call them cliches at this point; they're more tropes. The movie starts out detailing the messed up life of rock singer/songwriter Sherry McGrale (Kim Dickens) who, despite the fact that her hit song is moving up the charts at warp speed, spends a great deal of time engaging in self-destructive boozing and partying. This behavior always comes to a crescendo at the same time every year, when she normally can be found passed out drunk at the exact same Florida house. This time Sherry is ordered to attend AA meetings and so it makes national news.

Her song (it's about rape) comes to the attention of a music magazine editor (Rosanna Arquette) who dispatches young writer Owen (Gabriel Mann) to interview Sherry and get some background info on where/how she grew up and who her inspirations were-the usual music stuff. Owen has to get past Sherry's protective manager/on-again and off-again boyfriend Chuck, a harried and paranoid Don Cheadle.

But Owen is not really looking forward to this assignment because he and Sherry grew up together. He already knows all too well what inspired her song. You can probably guess where this is going-the writer and director Allison Anders based it in part upon events in her life.

This film was extremely hard to watch at times but that was the point I guess. This is NOT a film for kids or for anyone who can't watch events depicting extreme brutality and betrayal. Unlike The Accused, this doesn't come across as overtly political or shrill. This is a much more personal story. The predominant emotion is sadness. Evil is shown not only to have negative impacts on the object but also on the actor(s) and those who encounter the victim later in life. And if we run across people that are pure evil, even as we strive to remove them from our life or remove them from the planet there can still be a twinge of regret for wasted talent.

This was another independent film with limited budget and short schedule but it matches up in both looks and story with any big budget movie. Eric Stoltz, Elizabeth Pena, Patsy Kensit, and CCH Pounder also star. If people really want to understand what evil is, this movie shows it without flinching.

Free Birth Control!!! (Whether you want it or not)

Conversation between Federal Government and citizen.

Maybe I should use a different finger to make my point

Well hello there subject citizen! I’m here to help you. From now on all of your birth control pills are gonna be free!! No co-pays or deductibles. Isn’t that special? You can thank me later.

What’s that friend? You say you don’t need or use birth control pills? Hmm. Well that’s no problem because future HIV screenings, breast pumps, sterilization procedures, domestic violence counseling and screening, well-woman tests, and STD counseling are gonna be free!!! Isn’t that wonderful? Aren't you just quivering with joy and gratitude? I know I would be. 

Oh. You say you’re an XY human being and not an XX human being. Well see I’m afraid these benefits apply only to people with XX chromosomes.  You XY's will just have to continue to pay on your own for gender specific issues. I think that’s fair. Since I’m the Federal government, what I say goes. I got your equal protection right here pal.

Ehh. Speak up sonny it’s hard to hear you with my head in the clouds. Oh, you say you have firm and deeply felt religious, financial or moral objections to paying for other people’s birth control? I thought we went over this before. That’s just too bad partner. Life is not fair. I think it’s a good idea. You will just have to violate your religious objections. What’s the big deal anyway?  So your premiums rise so that other people can have “free” birth control? It’s “free” to them isn’t it? And that’s a heck of a selling point, you must admit.

Yes I know that virtually all plans already provide birth control, 99% of women who have had sex have used at least one contraceptive method, impoverished women are covered by Medicaid and most teen mothers said lack of access to birth control was not a problem. I read that new study which showed that higher income women (who were presumably paying co-pays for their birth control) had much lower rates of unplanned pregnancies than poor women (who were often covered by Medicaid)  So? Shouldn't you be ecstatic to pay more so that they can pay less? Stop mumbling about the inefficiency of subsidizing something someone was already doing.

Oh cut out that blubbering. So you have diabetes or colon cancer or prostate cancer or black lung or heart disease or optic neuritis or MS or Parkinson's or high cholesterol or obesity or any number of other LIFE THREATENING conditions. Tell it to someone who cares. You will still have to pay out of pocket for office visits and co-pays for medications related to preventing or treating those conditions. Those diseases either disproportionately impact men or impact men and women equally. I certainly can’t preen as the great savior of women’s health if I’m trying to reduce costs for both genders now can I sport? Any of this getting through to you kid?

Yes, that's right, everyone has the absolute individual right to use or not use birth control as they see fit. I'm glad you're finally seeing the light there buddy. I knew this would get through your thick skull eventually!! We agree on something. Finally!!

I want YOU to pay for birth control

Eh. No. Just because everyone has the individual right to use or not use birth control as they see fit doesn't mean that you have the individual right to pick a plan that doesn't include birth control OR that you have the individual right not to pay for other people's birth control. They have the right to choose; you have the duty to pay for their choices. What are you some sort of nutty libertarian? How dare you express preference as to what goods and services you want to buy with your own money. You say you have nothing against anyone using birth control you just don't want them to reach into your pocket to pay for it? Stop oppressing me with logic. The same people who smugly shout if you don't like abortion don't have one also say if you don't need birth control pay for mine anyway. And that makes all the sense in the world to me. Yes it sure does. No I won't explain how.

Say you'll sue? Yeah, so what I just lost in Hosanna-Tabor v. EEOC where I tried to argue that there was no ministerial exception to federal employment laws. That's a completely different case. I don't see any issue with church and state coming together as long as the state gets to tell the church what to do. And I do so love telling churches what to do. I know I said if you liked your health plan you could keep it but you know I said a lot of things. And stop whining about the Amish or Christian Scientists getting religious exemptions. I like them. You, I don't like.

So you say you might drop insurance coverage or close up shop rather than pay for coverage that violates your deeply held ethical, religious, philosophical or moral beliefs? Well that is a road you don't want to travel down my friend. If you're smart you'll get with the program. I have this handy dandy new indefinite detention law that I can't wait to try out. Go ahead. I dare you. I double dare you. I double DOG dare you.

QUESTIONS
1) Do you think the new HHS policy is a good thing? If so why?
2) If people who object decide to pay fines or drop coverage what should the Federal government do?
3) Is this a threat to religious freedom and/or freedom of conscience?
4) Do you recognize the "double DOG dare" reference?

Music Reviews-Songs in the Key of Life, Hardcore Jollies and Etta James

Songs in the Key of Life

Stevie Wonder is often considered to be a genius. I can't call if but if he is then Songs in the Key of Life is the release that proves it. He had never created anything as fantastic before and would never do anything as sublime afterwards. This is without a doubt the best release Wonder ever created, a top ten seventies album and arguably one of the best albums of all time.
Growing up, I listened to this album obsessively. It was one of the few current pop albums that my parents also loved. There were many times that I would come home to hear this album playing. So it brings back a ton of good memories. Wonder's writing here is top notch. Listening to it makes you think why can't people write lyrics like that today? His love songs get the point across without getting lost in explicit descriptions. The blues and protest songs are angry and direct but don't slide off into pity or hatred. 

I can't really compare this album to many others, inside Wonder's work or out of it. It transcends simple comparisons. I don't listen to a lot of modern music because I generally find it soulless and lacking in rhythm with too many electronics but Wonder proved back in 1976 that electronics and modern sounds didn't necessarily have to impede soul or rhythm. The album is seamless-literally. There is no way to tell if or when Wonder transitions from playing almost all the instruments himself to working with a full band or if he is recording live in studio. He combined the most up to date synthesizers and electronic orchestration with skilled talented band members, great song writing and really warm mixing and production. There are too many session musicians to mention but some special guests included luminaries such as Herbie Hancock, Minnie Ripperton, Syreeta Wright, Dorothy Ashby, George Benson and Deniece Williams.


Sonically juxtapose this album to almost anything released after say 1990 and notice the difference in recording volume. Songs in the Key of Life is recorded very warmly with a full rich sound. You can hear everything and nothing is too loud. Modern music is often recorded way too loudly which gives a sterility that thankfully is nowhere to be found on this album.

At a time when many contemporaries were either turning amps up to 11 and playing the simplest blues riffs they could steal, or boasting about not even being able to play their instruments, or running pell mell into disco, Wonder showed that there was still room for someone who took music seriously and didn't let cynicism dominate his worldview.


Musically this album runs the gamut from the updated hardcore urban blues of Pastime Paradise and Village Ghetto Land to gospelized masterpieces like Joy Inside My Tears to jazz inspired tunes like Sir Duke , afropop like I am singing to pop ditties like I wish and If it's Magic  and Isn't She Lovely to R&B like As or Knocks me Off my feet to funk/rock like All Day Sucker or Contusion. There is literally not a bad song or filler on this release. That's unusual for any album let alone a double one. Double albums tend to be sprawling and virtually always have a few duds or indulgent navel gazing songs on them. Not so here. The quality control is incredibly high. Everyone should have this album. If you don't shame on you. Go out and get it. Now. If you do have it, take it out and listen to it. This album is medically proven to cure loneliness, confusion, depression, rage and melancholy.


Hardcore Jollies

Funkadelic was always the more outrageous, dangerous, rock oriented half of P-Funk, George Clinton's conglomeration of musicians, and this release lives up to that billing. Hardcore Jollies is "dedicated to the guitar players of the world" and proceeds to show why from the first cut, a demented take on Coming Round the Mountain.


After guitar legend Eddie Hazel left the band, he was replaced by a man known as "Kidd Funkadelic" -Michael Hampton. Although Hardcore Jollies was not Hampton's first outing with the band it may be -in my opinion-the one in which he had the most impact. It's hard to say. I like this album a lot but it is VERY heavy on guitar wanking. The man himself, Eddie Hazel also shows up to play on a few cuts. Unless you are a guitar junkie or completist collector this might not be an essential Funkadelic album for you. But if you LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE guitar then this album is a must-have. The only "hit" that is on this release is Cosmic Slop but to me that was more than worth the price. Of course to me almost anything P-Funk did in the seventies was more than worth the price so there's that.


Unfortunately by 1970's America, music critics, radio programmers, record companies, and most shamefully musicians and audiences that should have known better had begun to redefine "rock" so that the term excluded (with the exception of Hendrix and Chuck Berry) almost everything that any black musician ever created. Thus David Bowie or Talking Heads doing James Brown inspired music are still rock musicians but James Brown or Funkadelic? Nahhhh. This is silly, racist and most importantly untrue. Hardcore Jollies is a rock album. Period. As I mentioned it's full of extended nasty midrangy guitar solos played by Hazel and Hampton that sound like Godzilla and Mothra put aside their differences and decided to kick everybody else's a$$ for a change. Bootsy Collins and Cordell Mosson hold down the bottom end here. Hendrix Alum and drummer extraordinaire Buddy Miles also can be heard on this release. This album, sounds for lack of a better word, out there. There's judicious use of synths and reverb. Listening to it makes you feel like you entered another world. The lyrics are often explicit with plenty of double entendres. Check out Smokey and You Scared the Lovin Outta Me.

Etta James

Etta James passed away yesterday. Unfortunately some of the younger generation only knew her from her song At Last or from the film "Cadillac Records" which was full of exaggerations and artistic license (Etta James did NOT have a relationship with either of the Chess brothers-yes there were two, not just one) or as an older cantankerous woman who didn't appreciate Beyonce's versions of her songs or depiction of her life.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. All music is related. This is especially the case with African American music. And before say the late seventies, many black musicians grew up in an era, where although they may have eventually specialized in whatever genre their interest lay, they had to be able to acquit themselves well in a variety of different music styles. Jimi Hendrix backed up Wilson Pickett and Little Richard.  George Clinton started out singing doo-wop. Fred Wesley hit it big with James Brown but his true love was jazz. Jazz giant David Newman got his big break in Ray Charles' band. And Ray Charles played anything he damn well pleased.

This is the world in which Etta James grew up. She was comfortable singing in a wide variety of genres. I love blues but Etta James was more than a blues singer. She came in at a time and place when blues was both influenced by and transitioning to rock-n-roll, R&B and soul. She also had quite a way with pop and gospel songs. Ironically and sadly she died the same week as Johnny Otis (a Greek-American bandleader who for all intents and purposes decided to be black), the musician who "discovered" her. 

Back in the day there was a song called Work with me Annie by Hank Ballard. This was a pretty suggestive song because "working" was exactly what your dirty mind thinks it was. It was followed up, just in case any really dim person missed it, by a song titled Annie had a Baby, can't work no more. A teenaged Etta James sang an answer song titled Roll with me Henry and her career took off. If you haven't heard her sing you really missed a treat. She had struggles in life as we all do but her personal issues* aren't important to me. What is important is the incredible voice James had. She should have copyrighted the term "smoky alto".

Do yourself a big favor and take some time to listen to her sing Something's got a hold of me, Baby what you want me to do (in which she takes a vocal solo in which she imitates a harmonica), You can leave your hat on, I'd Rather go Blind,  Ball and Chain, A Sunday Kind of Love,  Only Women Bleed,  Fool That I am or many many more. You may be interested in her seventies album Only A Fool, which had very bass heavy production and was chock full of rock and soul covers aimed at the younger audience. There's also a cover of Prince's Purple Rain floating around there somewhere. I'm not a huge fan of her post eighties work but like a lot of people from the old school she worked until she couldn't any more. Much respect. Nothing against Beyonce or Aguilera or Adele or Joss Stone or whoever but this right here was the real deal.

*Fun fact-James was also known for not taking any stuff. In the Howlin' Wolf biography Moanin' at Midnight, the author describes an incident at a 1955 Apollo show where the lovestruck but then illiterate Wolf had someone write a note of sweet nothings to the seventeen year old James. James responded by confronting the 6-6 300lb Wolf and rudely rebuffing his advance in front of his entire band. "Old country man" was the nicest thing she said. Undeterred Wolf had someone write another note to take to her. James wrote back a note that was simple and sweet. "You m******f****! F*** you!!" At this point Wolf got mad. But he took the hint.

Detroit City Council President-Broke and Busted

I don't know about you but I like to model my behavior after those who are successful at what they do. If I need to lose weight I'm not going to pick a doctor, dietitian or personal trainer who's morbidly obese. If I want career advice I won't listen to some fellow that has been in the same job without promotion for his whole life. And if I want to be successful with the opposite sex I certainly wouldn't seek counsel from a man that hasn't been on a date since the Reagan Administration. But that's just me. Evidently some good citizens of the city of Detroit feel differently.


STORY
At a time when the City of Detroit faces bleak choices of bankruptcy, the imposition of some form of emergency manager or consent agreement and/or massive cutbacks and layoffs, the voters decided that they would sleep easier knowing that the City Council President was a man who had already demonstrated repeated inability to pay his bills on time as agreed.

Detroit— City Council President Charles Pugh is facing foreclosure and says he likely will abandon his $385,000 Brush Park condominium. His personal financial struggles come as he and council colleagues fight to bail Detroit out of its own fiscal crisis.
On Friday, Pugh said he can't afford to pay his mortgage after taking a pay cut and leaving a high-paying TV career to run for the City Council.
"Making my mortgage payments has been a struggle for me," Pugh wrote in an email. "I fought hard to stay in my condo because I had an attachment to it, but I can no longer afford to do so."
The mortgage issue is the latest financial problem facing Pugh, 40, a former Fox 2 television anchor and radio show host who was the top vote-getter in the 2009 election. He is paid $76,500 as council president.
"I am devoted to this city and helping us to move forward despite wage cuts and personal sacrifices such as foreclosing on my own home," Pugh said. "These are the tough choices Detroiters make every day, and I am no different."

Well no. Sorry there Chuckie but you are different. Most Detroiters do not earn and will not ever earn $240,000/yr which was Mr. Pugh's approximate salary as a Fox 2 anchor before he quit his job to run for City Council. Now $240K may not be all that much money on the coasts but out here in flyover country it's a pretty nice salary. In fact, per NYT research that salary put Pugh in the top 3% of earners in Metro Detroit.

I am sympathetic to people whose financial situation changes unexpectedly. If my boss were to announce today that my salary would be cut by two-thirds because he thought that was commensurate with my actual production (ahem), well I'd be up the proverbial creek without a paddle. But if I decided on my own to quit my job and go sell T-shirts outside of Comerica Park  can I really demand sympathy? Shouldn't I have thought about how to pay my mortgage before I chose a new job with smaller salary? If I went to my mortgage holder, what would they say to me?


The difference is that unlike with his personal finances, in which the only people hurt by default will be Pugh and/or his creditor(s) and neighbors,  if the City of Detroit were to go bankrupt or have an emergency manager imposed, there would be thousands, if not millions of people negatively impacted. If everyone in Detroit did what Pugh is doing (and many have) the bottom would fall out of the sickly housing market and the moribund tax base would die.
That said there are more people who are walking away from their mortgage and some intellectuals even think that this action may be both moral and in your best interest. So this is very mixed up with an individual's concept of right and wrong and their bottom line self-interest. I was raised to consider that the time to ruthlessly pursue your self-interest is BEFORE you sign your name to a contract. Once you've agreed to terms, you should live to those terms. Pugh was making more than enough money to make a larger down payment on that condo or get a place just as nice for a little bit less money.  And it appears that Pugh's chaotic personal finances may be shading over into his political finances.

Judging by his personal life Pugh seems to not understand the link between cause and effect, present action and future consequences. That would bother me if I were a Detroit resident relying in part on Pugh to help find a solution to the financial crisis.
QUESTIONS
1) Do Pugh's personal financial troubles have anything to do with his job overseeing the city finances?
2) Is it okay to walk away from a house or condo that you can no longer afford?
3) Does a leader have a responsibility to set a standard for financial probity?
4) If someone owed you money but said that times were bad now and therefore they wouldn't be paying you back, would you be understanding and accepting?

Book Reviews-Rethinking A Dance with Dragons, Just After Sunset and more

Rethinking A Dance With Dragons

A good friend started George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series on my recommendation and has read the first four books. She is finishing book five, A Dance with Dragons (ADWD). To put it mildly, so far she is less than impressed. "Dumb, Dumb, Dumb" were her exact words.

We agreed that the first three books were excellent, but that there were a few stumbles in book 4, A Feast for Crows (AFFC). I think AFFC is worse than ADWD but having now reread and discussed ADWD I would make a few additions to my original lukewarm positive review. I briefly touched on these points before but didn't emphasize them.
There are some spoilers from the first book although I will generally avoid spoilers from the other books. If you figure stuff out on your own well I can't help that. Have a cookie because you're smarter than the average bear!


PACING
This is the biggest problem with ADWD. It  is just under 1000 pages.  Despite the length, the story moves forward only haltingly. In book one, we ended with Ned Stark's execution and the North's secession under Robb Stark, the new King in the North. In book two we saw feuding between two brothers, special challenges faced by Sansa &Arya Stark, Tyrion given a chance to lead, and an invasion. In book three, well just read it. These stories moved. They were tight and you couldn't wait to turn the page.

But in ADWD we get incredibly detailed histories on which princess married which noble and why certain great families have been warring for years but the story doesn't move much past where it was in AFFC. Because ADWD and AFFC were originally supposed to be one book this is understandable but somewhat frustrating. This leads directly into the next issue.

EDITING
There are 5-6 critical storylines that make up the series theme. These are

• What's going on beyond the Wall?
• Will the Stark children be reunited and have revenge on their family's enemies?
• Will Daenerys become Queen?
• Will Jon discover who his mother was?
• Will the roles of Littlefinger and other chessmasters ever be revealed?
• What does it mean to be rightful heir?

I don't expect complete resolution now. But after five books I would like to see some progress towards answers. Instead ADWD features many chapters on people whining about their responsibilities or quixotic quests by flat characters in boring new settings. This could have been ruthlessly chopped from ADWD. There are over 20 different points of view between ADWD and AFFC. This harms the narrative flow. Imagine if Lord of the Rings were told from the point of view of Grima Wormtongue and Lobelia Sackville-Baggins. That might be an interesting diversion for a while but now imagine that Tolkien had spent a full third of the book detailing the various adventures those relatively minor personages had, what they ate for breakfast, where they used the toilet and what they thought about their one great love who got away.

TIMING

It looks like GRRM has written himself into a pickle here. I know he's talented enough to get out of it but his incredible attention to detail and every little thing that's happening in a story, combined with a penchant for cliffhangers that end every book means that in ADWD many of the characters we care most about are still too young to have much impact on events. What was needed was a five or seven year break, which would have fit PERFECTLY after the horrific events in A Storm of Swords. Many events in ADWD could have been described in flashback where suitable. The harsh training that Arya and Bran are each undergoing is not necessarily something that needs great painstaking detail. Speaking of specific characters leads me to my last point.

CHARACTERIZATION

Many characters that we've come to know and love act in ways that simply don't ring true. In some cases they regress. In A Game of Thrones we see Daenerys transition from a frightened girl who is molested by her brother and sold to her husband to a defiant leader who has dragons. In books two and three, people that underestimate her tend to regret it. She's wiser than people realize and combines a savvy realpolitik with a caring nature.
In ADWD she's changed to a horny teenager who is distracted by butterflies and blue beards (don't ask). Whenever a serious decision or deep analysis is needed she runs off to ride the train.

Jon Snow, who famously put (and kept putting) duty and his word above his love and loyalty for his family has turned into an emo moping teen. My friend calls him "Eeyore" and honestly that's a pretty accurate description. He has reason to be depressed (events in books one through three) but still. Of course character growth or degradation is part of a storyline but these are EXTREMELY sudden transitions that don't ring true. Tyrion suffers the most from this. In ADWD Tyrion is definitely the butt monkey.

All in all I STILL THINK ADWD is a worthwhile read. It's just not as good as the first three books. It shares a lack of focus with AFFC. ADWD has sections which compare favorably with the first three books; there's just too few of them. Unsurprisingly the best prose is centered around Jon Snow and the political situation in the North. I wish Martin had made that the central storyline.

I hope that ADWD is just a "transitional" book and the next book gets back to the stripped down churning storylines that made the earlier books so amazing. Martin is still the man. If AFFC was a swing and miss, ADWD is a single. Because Martin's earlier at bats were all grand slams, people notice the difference.

Just After Sunset
by Stephen King

This is a recent collection of short stories by the famed horror author. I picked this up after Full Dark although Just After Sunset is the earlier release. In the foreword King explains that he had lost his taste for creating short stories and was a bit worried about it. He did not feel that his financial success was a fair trade.

After editing another collection of short stories, King felt inspired to write (and in some cases rewrite) some more short stories of his own and Just After Sunset was the result. King is a extraordinary writer of course but I didn't enjoy this book as much as I did Full Dark.

The stories here seem to be connected by fears of loss, aging, disease and dying. If you are the sort of person who is REALLY bothered by the fact that at some time over the next thirty years your body will greatly deteriorate, you may contract some chronic disgusting disease or condition, and you will eventually pass into non-existence, this probably isn't the book for you. King only goes for the disgusting gross-out once in "A Very Tight Place" which details the battle of a man trapped in a port-a-potty by a vindictive neighbor. More typical though is "Willa", a ghost story told from the POV of ghosts, "Rest Stop" in which a wimpy author tries to find the courage to confront an abusive husband or "The Things They Left Behind" which directly confronts the 9/11 horror.

It's a mug's game trying to figure out what was going through a writer's mind when he wrote a story or how much of himself he put into it. King is sympathetic to that point of view but does nevertheless include some afterword notes on each story. I was grateful for that. It is always fascinating to get a peek under the hood so to speak, into the mind of a creative person to see how it works. Little things that the rest of us ignore or take for granted are seeds for that person's inspiration.

The Pigman
by Paul Zindel

There are some books that may be written for teens but really have a lot to say to us all. The Pigman is such a book. When I think of books that influenced me to become the cynical, distrusting person that I am The Pigman would have to be near the top of that list. In some stories the author uses examples to try to convince people to live a better life.  I'm not sure that Zindel did that with The Pigman.

The novella is pretty depressing actually. In some respects it was both forerunner for more realistic books aimed at young adults and really a downsized noir novel. It's about two high school students, high spirited troublemakers, John Conlan and Lorraine Jensen who enjoy among other pranks, making calls to people pretending to be charity workers looking for money. One of the people they call is Angelo Pignati -an old man who is desperate for human contact. John and Lorraine go over to his house to pick up the money but find that Mr. Pignati is such a great guy that they become good friends with him.

This relationship starts out in a lie of course but becomes real as neither John or Lorraine know as much about life as they think they do and since Mr. Pignati is widowed his only friend besides the teens is a baboon at the zoo. The story ends on a very dark down note. There's something to be said for the idea that we come into the world alone and leave alone. But maybe while we're here we can add a little happiness. I don't know. I know what I took from this novella was not to trust people so easily.

The Way of the Wiseguy
by Donnie Brasco (Joe Pistone)

Joe Pistone is an Italian-American former FBI agent who worked undercover for over six years infiltrating the NY Mafia. He started out with small time hoodlums associated with one Family.
Using skills learned in the FBI but mostly from his own experiences growing up in an Italian-American New Jersey neighborhood, Pistone reinvented himself as "Donnie Brasco"-jewel thief, occasional drug dealer, and all around tough guy. He infiltrated the Bonanno Crime Family and was in fact proposed for membership. The fact that Pistone survived undercover as long as he did without losing sight of who he was was amazing. He was after all working closely with people for whom killing was second nature.  His cover was so good that in fact when he was pulled from the assignment and his FBI status revealed to mobsters, many mobsters who worked closely with him refused to believe it and thought that the FBI must have kidnapped and brainwashed "Donnie".

Although it's somewhat arguable as to how many mobsters are in jail because of Pistone-he claims over 100- what's beyond debate is that for six years he swam with some of the biggest sharks in the ocean of organized crime and didn't get bit. So he may know a little bit about how Italian-American gangsters (or as they like to call themselves "wiseguys") behave.

The Way of the Wiseguy is his second book on the topic. Here he's more relaxed and less "on" as an FBI agent. We get to see more of Pistone's own nature and thoughts come out. He repeats throughout the book that there is nothing honorable or decent about wiseguys. They are the scum of the earth and he had no problem putting them in jail.  He says he's pretty much the same person coming out of the assignment as he was before-same values, beliefs and goals. But he does admit to this though:

The one thing that did stick with me long after I ceased being Donnie Brasco was the wiseguy attitude. Not backing down from confrontations, standing up for yourself, taking no sh**, cutting corners here and there. I'm not talking about acting like a tough guy or throwing your weight around or doing anything illegal or unethical. I'm talking about being someone who understands how the world works and makes it work for him. Nobody's sucker. A guy who knows his way around.

There was one instance where Pistone was working with his mob mentor Lefty to close a deal with a corrupt bank exec. The exec got scared and backed out. The exec told Lefty that he was scared of "Donnie's killer eyes". Pistone was impressed, relieved and miffed that his acting was so good. Lefty had been involved in over twenty murders and evidently didn't scare the executive as much as an FBI agent pretending to be a mobster.

The book is a short (200 page) but revealing and to the point discussion of how wiseguys differ from normal people. Pistone explains Mafia protocol, how wiseguys make their money, why wiseguys aren't nice people, their typical day, why you should never ever ever let a wiseguy do you a favor, what their hierarchy is, how wiseguys relate to women and other such questions you may have. The book also has some CD transcripts of discussions between "Donnie Brasco" and Lefty in which Lefty had noticed some inconsistencies in what "Donnie" had done and was trying to determine if this might lead to "Donnie's" murder or, more importantly from Lefty's POV, his own.

Movie Reviews-Ink, Contagion and more

Ink

Have you ever had a particularly vivid dream, woke up and wondered where it came from?

Do you have sudden benevolent urges to give that indigent money, help an older person to cross the street or hold the door open for someone carrying packages? Or do you sometimes have feelings of paranoia or aggression. Do you humiliate the waitress for getting your order wrong or make a co-worker feel like crap for making a mistake? Do you lie awake thinking about what you SHOULD have said or done to someone who offended you, how angry you are that you may not see that person again and how you're not going to take it anymore?

There are some flicks which shamelessly steal from other movies and yet still manage to be inventive in their own right. Ink is such a movie. It is also a film which answers the questions posed above. Like its influences The Matrix, Dark City, Donnie Darko and a few others, Ink posits a reality that exists alongside our own and has impact on us, though we may never touch it. The movie makes a nod to the strange world of quantum physics. Ink is also at the same time a real fairy tale that may touch your internal sentimental child.

Athough Ink does not use explicit religious dogma (God is only mentioned in passing) in this film it's clear that evil and good are discrete things, not just ideas. When we sleep we are visited by two distinct type of entities. The Storytellers may be selfless servants of God (angels). They provide dreams and visions which inspire our higher feelings and capacities. They appear in flashes of light. The Incubi (devils) are working for the Other Side. They give us nightmares and visions of pain and fear, designed to cause us to behave in selfish and ultimately self-destructive ways. The Incubi are twisted and foul. The Storytellers all appear human.

Under normal conditions neither the Incubi nor the Storytellers can physically interact with humanity. But they fight each other ALL the time. John (Chris Kelly) is a harried businessman who dreams of playing with his young daughter Emma (Quinn Hunchar) though in real life he does not live with the girl. In the dreamworld a monstrous entity known only as Ink successfully kidnaps Emma's soul, fighting off her Storyteller defenders. In our world this causes Emma to slip into a coma. Ink intends to hand over Emma to the Incubi so that he may become one of them and thus become numb to pain, regret, fear, and anything else that is human and moral.

The Storytellers counterattack on two fronts-sending one of their most powerful number Liev, (Jessica Duffy) to follow Ink and Emma, while they also enlist the help of the blind Pathfinder Jacob (Jeremy Make) a rare Storyteller who is able to effect physical change in our world. They want to break John out of the path he's on and convince him to save his daughter.

This independent film was written, directed, scored and produced by the husband and wife team of Jamin and Kiowa Winans. It's an excellent example of how a good story and intelligent use of camera and effects can make up for a limited budget. Ink also has a lot to say about how we're all connected to each other thru the various choices we make or don't make each and every day. The music and lighting in this film were VERY well done. Ink makes incredibly stylized usage of light and darkness, shadow and color. Much of this is achieved via judicious use of oversaturation. The SFX were all done on a Mac. Go figure. They work though. Ink is both limited by its budget and a good example of how to make every dollar count.

The quantum physics (each choice creating a separate universe of existence) was a nice touch. Give this movie a look. It is something very different from bloated effects extravaganzas like Cowboys and Aliens. It is definitely something you will think about afterwards. Although it has some action it is nowhere near as action packed as the trailer would indicate. This is definitely the thinking (wo)man's film. It drags a little from time to time; it also would have been nice to get a little more insight into the motivations of the Storytellers and Incubi. But nothing's perfect.   TRAILER

Contagion

This film was written and directed by Steven Soderbergh (Traffic, Syriana) and will be immediately familiar to fans of his style. Although it is about the spreading of an unknown and seemingly unstoppable disease, that's really just the hook to get the people watching. The film's real story is detailing how people react to each other in times of stress and how intimately we're all connected to each other, whether we realize it or not.

This is an ensemble cast. All of the actors get a chance to shine. Contagion opens up with a business executive returning home from an overseas trip to Hong Kong. As is often the case, being away from home has made this person a bit randy and they decide to enjoy a little adulterous sex before going back to their spouse and child. This executive , Beth Emhoff (Gwyneth Paltrow) has a cold/flu of some sort though. This sickness worsens until she has a seizure and dies in front of her husband Mitch (Matt Damon) and child.

Paltrow was patient zero. In a very short period of time many of the people she came into contact with have also become sick. And since we live in the era of easy cross border travel, that's a lot of people. Once the authorities figure out that this is something serious, hundreds of thousands have already been infected. And before they can even start the detective work , overseen by CDC head Dr. Ellis Cheever (Laurence Fishburne), millions are at risk.

As mentioned, the focus is not really on the physical effects of the disease (which are not shown all that much) but on the fear, depression, paranoia, greed and also the love and sacrifice which the pandemic causes. Would you kill someone to get their vaccine for yourself or a loved one? If you had inside information would you share it with your loved ones? Could you make very cold decisions about shooting people who escaped quarantine? Those are the "horror" elements of this movie. If you're looking for lots of blood and gore, this film doesn't have that. It does have a very good story along with good actors, great sets and an increasing sense of panicked paranoia. This movie could give you OCD about touching other people or even being around folks.

Along with the aforementioned actors the cast also includes Kate Winslet, Elliot Gould, Sanaa Lathan, Jude Law, Marion Cotillard, Jennifer Ehle and Bryan Cranston.
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Election

In any organized crime group when the time comes to select a new leader, things can get a little bit hectic. Aggressive violent men who are used to having their own way and don't mind hurting or killing to get it don't always make the best followers. The Hong Kong Triads are no different. Every two years(which seems a bit short) the Wo Sing Triad elects a new chairman. This chairman is both simultaneously a boss and a front man. Much of the real power in the Triad is held by various "Uncles" who oversee and control different aspects of the Triad's business. The Uncles are usually older semi-retired men. The chairman is always chosen from among the younger up and coming gangsters.

For this election the choice is between Big D (Tony Leung) -a brash gangster who is prone to temper tantrums and violence and Lok (Simon Yam)-a more stable hoodlum with a reputation for cleverness. Both gangsters have their subordinates plead their case to the various Uncles as well as make a few side deals or spread some cash when needed. Lok wins the election. The fact that Big D had mistakenly ordered an assault on an Uncle who he thought was moving in on his territory didn't help his chances.

However before the forward looking and seemingly genial Lok can formally be recognized as Triad Chairman, Big D, who is the very definition of a sore loser, refuses to accept Lok as chairman. Big D kidnaps some of the gangsters who voted against him and threatens to start his own Triad -thus ensuring a bloody war-if he is not made chairman. Throughout the film the police are constantly harassing the Triad members and threatening to do worse if the dispute is not resolved quickly and quietly.

The wiser leaders of any large organized crime group realize that the primary purpose of their group is to continue to exist and earn money. Feuds are bad for business though they are of course sometime unavoidable. The question in this movie is whether the calm and urbane Lok has the guts and viciousness to fight for what is rightfully his and whether the brash and violent Big D is really so proud and unyielding that he would destroy the Triad in a bloody war, rather than submit to another and make a lot of money. This film has subtitles. There is much less violence than one would expect but what violence does exist is not cartoonish. You actually feel for the people involved.
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Outpost

This was another low-budget movie about deathless Nazi soldiers. Outpost lacked the humor and spirit that was in Dead Snow but it was also quite a bit creepier. In the present day Balkans, while a war is raging, a mysterious businessman Hunt (Julian Waldman) hires a British mercenary DC (Ray Stevenson) and his ethnically diverse group of soldiers for hire to escort Hunt to a WW2 era deserted SS bunker where Hunt intends to obtain some minerals for an unnamed consortium. Now DC didn't survive as long as he did by believing everything he was told. But the money is too good to pass up and Hunt assures them they'll be in and out in 2 days, max.


When the men enter the bunker they find dozens of dead bodies and one survivor, who they assume has survived the current ethnic cleansing going on in the area. This man does not talk. Later that night the men seemingly come under attack from all sides. Despite an impressive display of firepower the mercenaries kill no one. Afterwards their only casualty is a man shot with a bullet that went out of production in the 1940's. Their unease rises to panic when two of their number disappear and are found dead in the morning. And they're seeing strange things. DC demands answers from Hunt who informs him that no he wasn't looking for gold. He was looking for and has found a Nazi machine that via zero-point-energy or quantum physics was able to change the plane on which human beings existed. The Nazis successfully carried out experiments on Waffen SS soldiers (shown in a particularly spooky B&W film sequence) which allowed them to exist simultaneously in different dimensions and more or less be immune to death. And the mercs' arrival at the bunker has attracted the Nazis' attention. This ruins DC's day of course and the remainder of the movie is a combination of mercs dying one by one or making a last stand against opponents that are indifferent to bullets and not constrained by time or space.


Modest fun but not great. But it does have some legitimate scares. The bunker is very dark and exactly the sort of place where a grinning Nazi ghost materializes out of nowhere to stab you from behind.
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