Quick Takes in IMAX and 3-D

I simply must get around to blogging about movies more often. When I realize how many months have passed since I saw these films, it makes me wonder how much attention I've been giving my love of watching and writing about movies.

Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland is, in my opinion, a real mess. It has a convoluted story with far too much bizarre non sequitur type stuff going on. I know it's somewhat spectacular (or garish, depending upon your perspective) to look at, but why couldn't he and his colleagues simply have used the plot from the Lewis Carroll novel? Why did it have to be some meta-narrative about Alice returning to Wonderland and re-encountering people she had met there before in her childhood dreams? And why does it have to be called "Underland" when that's not in the title of the movie? And why were so many talented people wasted in such strange parts? I like Helena Bonham Carter and Anne Hathaway and even Johnny Depp (when he isn't in these latter day Burton movies, that is), but they are just given strange things to do here. None of them get to play fully developed characters because Burton and his collaborators have strayed too far from the source material in their attempts to be clever and artsy. Carroll knew how to make the Mad Hatter (Depp's thankless role here) interesting. All Burton can do is make him dance a very strange dance and mumble jibberish. And having seen Mia Wasikowska (who plays Alice) in other roles such as the daughter in The Kids Are All Right, I know she has a great deal of promise as an actress, but she's so passive and bland as Alice that I couldn't imagine why anyone would build an entire movie around her. Yes, The Boyfriend and I saw this in IMAX and 3-D, but I can't say that either of those "experiences" truly enhanced my enjoyment of this movie.

Clash of the Titans was nowhere near as fun or as campy as the "original" from 1981, but nowadays films have to be special effects extravaganzas in order to be considered event movies like this one. In making the focus primarily upon special effects rather than, say, characterization, the filmmakers tend to lose the interest of a lot of viewers like me. I found this to be little more than what's been dubbed a "popcorn" movie: a few hours away from it and you forget almost all of it. There's little nourishment to be had. Sam Worthington, fresh from his success in Avatar, is the lead here as Perseus, a mortal son of Zeus whom the gods have given the unenviable task of saving the world from Hades and his evil minions. I expect Worthington to continue being promoted as the latest It Boy, but he doesn't strike me as the type who can handle a movie that isn't primarily about the special effects. Hades (played by Ralph Fiennes, who seems to be interested only in supporting parts these days and the odder, the better) plans to conquer the heavens eventually as well, so Zeus (Liam Neeson) has a stake in Perseus' eventual success. You don't really watch a movie like this for the plot, however, or for learning about the mythology upon which it's allegedly based. No, a film like this is primarily an opportunity to see how well the special effects team can create super-sized scorpions (try saying that one three times fast) and the kraken/cracken/whatever, and all of that is well done (although I still miss the days when Ray Harryhausen did special effects for films like this and the viewing of them was more fun). Like Alice in Wonderland, Clash of the Titans had also been converted to 3-D after its making, but we were able to see it in its original 2-D format. Again, I don't think there's anything about 3-D that would have enhanced the experience for me.

The Boyfriend and I were actually hoping to see a different film, but it was sold out, so we wound up going to see Date Night instead. If this were the 1930s, I'd use the term "screwball comedy" to characterize Date Night, and I always enjoyed those earlier films. Steve Carell and Tina Fey play a couple in the suburbs whose lives have been boring and routine. They still manage to have a "date night" on occasion, but even that is rather monotonous. After hearing that some friends are ending their marriage, Carell and Fey's Phil and Claire Foster decide to go to New York City and have an elegant, romantic evening at a fashionable restaurant. When they discover that you need a reservation far in advance, they assume the identity of another couple whose name is called. A couple of thugs with guns, thinking they are the couple with the reservation, take the Fosters into an alley behind the restaurant and attempt to kill them. What follows is a hilarious pursuit through the city, an homage to those earlier screwball comedies. Mark Wahlberg has a supporting role as one of Claire's former clients, one to whom she was obviously attracted, and he makes the most of his brief time on the screen. Carell's reaction to the flirting going on between his wife and Wahlberg's character is priceless. There's no deep meaning to this film and you won't learn any true life lessons from watching it--you already know that you should appreciate your spouse and spend more time with her or him, and you already know that sometimes a boring life with someone you love is all you truly need--but you'll certainly laugh at some of the situations in which Carell and Fey find themselves and the ways they try to get out of those situations. You don't need gimmicks like 3-D or IMAX in order to make a film like this one entertaining.

Dream Boy is a small independent movie about two next door neighbor boys who fall in love with each other and begin a furtive sexual relationship. The film is set in the South, apparently during the 1970s or early 1980s, based upon the clothing styles, and that naturally means that the boys, who are teens still in high school, have to keep their relationship a secret from their families and friends. Of course, each of the boys is saddled with trouble in their personal lives, and even though neither of the scenarios is all that unique in terms of independent gay film these days, I won't reveal the alleged surprises that occur. I will, however, readily admit to being appalled if not shocked at what happens when the boys join three of their so-called friends for a weekend getaway in the woods. (Why would people who basically live in the woods already feel a need to get away to the woods for an entire weekend? That mentality has always confused me, being from the country myself.) Both of the lead actors, Stephan Bender and Maximilian Roeg, are quite good, and it was a pleasure to see Diana Scarwid and Rickie Lee Jones playing their mothers. And I always enjoy seeing cinematography of the South when it's handled this well; it creates quite an appropriate mood and atmosphere.

How to Train Your Dragon was one of the highlights of the year for me. I'll be honest and admit that I didn't have high expectations based upon the few trailers I had seen, but when The Boyfriend insisted, I went along, paying for the 3-D and IMAX enhanced version as well. And, boy, am I glad that I did. This is a relatively simple tale of a young Viking named Hiccup (voiced by Jay Baruchel) who is an outsider in his village. He doesn't seem to be as athletic as his fellow teens or as interested in dragon slaying as they are. He does, though, want to fit in, so he begins going to classes in how to hunt and kill dragons, and we in the audience learn about the different varieties of dragons--a charming sequence in the film. Hiccup gets involved in defending the village from a dragon attack and injures a rare dragon of the Night Fury variety. He befriends it rather than kills it, and he and the girl he loves (you knew there would be a love interest) enjoy spending time helping the beast Hiccup has nicknamed Toothless regain his ability to fly. I suppose I don't need to tell you that Hiccup becomes the true hero of the story or that Toothless is integral to his success; you have seen enough movies about outsiders to know how this all ends. Yet knowing that some of the standard cliches are going to be included doesn't detract from the joy of watching some thrilling flying sequences or enjoying some broadly comic scenes involving Hiccup and his fellow schoolmates. This was one of the few movies in 3-D that I saw this year that was truly deserving of putting on those funny glasses.

I have never been a fan of the slasher genre of films. I've seen a few over the years, but I could never quite understand the appeal of watching some crazed killer devise new ways to off people. It always seemed like a sick joke to me that there's a large audience out there for these kinds of movies. The Boyfriend, however, is a huge fan (although he does have an odd tendency to hide his eyes whenever a particularly gruesome murder takes place while I'm always able to watch and be disgusted by what I see--go figure). So you can imagine my reluctance to go see A Nightmare on Elm Street, the "rebooting" of the series that stretches back to the 1980s. I think I had seen one of them, but The Boyfriend has seen them all and wanted to compare this one to those he already knew and apparently enjoyed. Well, even he didn't like this one. It's an attempt to give us a history of how Freddy Krueger (played now by Jackie Earle Haley) became the killer that he is. There's a backstory involving a class of students who all share a secret that I won't reveal even though it isn't all that surprising anyway. They begin dying off one by one, but to be honest, I found it difficult to care about any of them because they are so underdeveloped as individual characters and the actors portraying them are all relatively bland. Even the hunky Kellan Lutz, probably better known from those Eclipse movies, is wasted here, as is the great Connie Britton as the mother of one of the girls who is consistently tormented throughout the film. The Boyfriend, being more knowledgeable about the series, tried to explain some of the links to the original that the filmmakers tried to incorporate, but I think a film should be able to stand on its own, particularly when you're trying to delve into the origin of one of the most famous slashers in the past few decades. At the end of this film, all I felt was as exhausted.

Planning Ahead

We had been working on doing some prewriting activities for the final essay of the semester in my developmental writing classes. Not horribly complicated stuff. Just getting some ideas down on paper for use in the rough draft. We'd been at it for about an hour, and I suggested that most of the information needed for a response to the assignment was now on the sheets of paper in front of them. I then asked them to take what we had previously discussed about organization and write an outline for the rough draft. I thought I would get some solid attempts at putting together a framework for an essay, but I have to admit that my favorite came from one of the football players. His outline, preserved in its original form:

• intro
• body
• body
• body
• conlusion [sic]

As one of my colleagues stated, this student certainly seems to have caught on to how things work in a writing class. Unsurprisingly, his final draft was, to be generous, a bit of a mess and rather tough to follow. Makes you wonder how he went wrong with a structure like the one above.

Spiritual Awakening

The assignment was a relatively simple one. I asked students to watch a movie or television show, select a specific group of people depicted on that show or in the movie, and then explain what a viewer's impression of that group would be based upon how it was depicted. I did suggest that it might be more interesting to choose a group of which the student was not a member.

The students (all of them in my developmental writing classes) made some intriguing choices: serial killers (Dexter), Alaskans (The Proposal), gypsies or "pikeys" (Snatch), pirates (One Piece), married men (Old School), bosses (The Office), snipers (Enemy at the Gates), even Jedis (Star Wars Episode II: The Attack of the Clones). A few faltered in the explanation of how the group was depicted, but it was only a rough draft, so I expect the final drafts will likely be stronger and have more examples and other details.

One, however, stood out not only for the group chosen for discussion but also for a couple of astonishing statements. The students is a tall, athletic Latino. I have reason to suspect that he might be religious given the brochures for the Latter Day Saints that I've seen in his notebook. I would never have suspected that he would choose Pineapple Express as the movie and potheads as the group. The overall essay was strong for a rough draft, but when I read the following statements in the introduction, I have to admit that I was pretty shocked: "People are very judgmental nowadays and they will try to determine the type of person you are by any little thing that they see. For instance people that smoke Marijuana are looked at upon in a very bad way just because they smoke a natural herb that God created for us." In the conclusion, he returned to the same idea: "Potheads are not bad people, they smoke a natural herb that was placed here by God. Humans don't add any chemicals or change the material to make what they want. It is a natural plant and you can pick it and smoke it instantly, other drugs need to be played around with to get the final result, but that's why marijuana is not bad." Yes, I preserved his grammatical errors in the quote, not to mention his apparent lack of knowledge of how people...um..."use" marijuana.

I know I probably shouldn't be shocked that there's a Christian rationalization for pot smoking. People can probably justify almost anything under the umbrella of religious faith. It just seemed so out of character for this young man. He states  in his essay that he doesn't smoke pot (although he has friends who do) and I suspect that to be the case, but I would have never considered him to be a supporter of marijuana use. He even defended potheads as being more goal-oriented that people typically give them credit for being.

I feel like I learn something astonishing with almost every set of papers I read these days.

Shame on the Hall of Fame

For the past three weeks or so, I've been posting videos on my Facebook page of women who have not been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame but who deserve to be (in my opinion, at least). It's a astonishing list: Joan Baez, Pat Benatar, Cher, Petula Clark, Lesley Gore, Janet Jackson, Joan Jett, Carole King, Cyndi Lauper, Stevie Nicks, Laura Nyro, Linda Ronstadt, Buffy Sainte Marie, Carly Simon, Tina Turner, Mary Wells, the Chiffons, the Crystals, the Go-Gos, the Indigo Girls, the Marvelettes, and the Shangri-Las. All of these women have made significant and lasting contributions to rock and roll and to music in general, yet they have yet to be included among the august company of inductees. And I stopped before I could include other luminaries such as Judy Collins, Marianne Faithful, Lita Ford, Janis Ian, Rickie Lee Jones, Nico, Helen Reddy, Carla Thomas, the Dixie Cups, the Runaways, and the Slits (whose lead singer recently passed away).

When you see that list of names and then you look at some of the inductees into the Hall of Fame, you begin to wonder just how fairly women are treated in rock music. I'm not trying to quibble over some of the people who have already been honored, but I do think that if you could find room to include the Dave Clark Five and Gene Vincent and the Lovin' Spoonful and Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers, surely there must be room for Pat Benatar and Linda Ronstadt and the Go-Gos and Lesley Gore. If you can induct Bob Dylan and then later induct his band, The Band, then you can induct Joan Baez. If you can include James Taylor, then you can include his ex-wife Carly Simon and his current touring partner Carole King. If you can induct the Jackson Five and then later induct Michael Jackson, certainly you can make room for younger sister Janet Jackson.

It's true that Tina Turner is in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame already, but as a part of a duo with her ex-husband, not for her solo career. Given the bad blood between them, Tina decided that she would skip the ceremony when they were inducted, leaving Ike Turner to enjoy an evening to revel in his success. Tina Turner has never had a chance to feel that same sense of pride. Yes, Stevie Nicks is also in the hall, but as a part of Fleetwood Mac, not for her solo career. Her time as a solo artist is almost equal to the time she's spent with the rest of Fleetwood Mac. Lest you think that it would be inappropriate to induct someone twice, just remember that Eric Clapton has been inducted three times already, for his solo work and as a part of the Yardbirds and as a member of Cream. And fifteen other men have been inducted twice, including three of the Beatles (no, not Ringo Starr--yet) and all of the members of Crosby, Stills, & Nash.  Tina Turner and Stevie Nicks and other female performers should get the same consideration.

Likewise, Carole King is included in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but in the "non-performer" category that is now named after famed record producer Ahmet Ertegun. She's there with her songwriting partner, Gerry Goffin, but to consider King a non-performer is to miss the contributions of her overall career. Maybe none of the nominating committee has ever listened to Tapestry, at one time the biggest-selling album by a female artist.

By this point, you may be wondering just which women are already in the Hall of Fame. It is an impressive list of performers. The solo female artists in the hall are Aretha Franklin (inducted in 1987), LaVern Baker (1991), Ruth Brown (1993), Etta James (1993), Janis Jopin (1995), Joni Mitchell (1997), Dusty Springfield (1999), Bonnie Raitt (2000), Brenda Lee (2002), Patti Smith (2007), and Madonna (2008). That's eleven women out of the 82 solo artists who have been inducted, about 13 percent of the total. You may notice that not all of them are truly "rock and roll" singers, but they all have certainly influenced rock music throughout the years.

When it comes to duos and groups, the counting gets a bit trickier. Sixteen duos and groups with at least one female member have been inducted, among them the Supremes (inducted in 1988), Ike and Tina Turner (1991), Sly and the Family Stone (1993), Martha and the Vandellas (1995), Gladys Knight and the Pips (1996), Jefferson Airplane (1996), the Shirelles (1996), the Velvet Underground (1996), Fleetwood Mac (1998), the Mamas and the Papas (1998), the Staple Singers (1999), Talking Heads (2002), the Pretenders (2005), Blondie (2006), the Ronettes (2007), and ABBA (2010). A few of those, like the Pretenders and Blondie, are fronted by women, and others, like the Supremes and Martha and the Vandellas, are exclusively female groups, but no one would consider Sly and the Family Stone or the Talking Heads to be "female-centered." Still, if you're feeling generous, duos or groups with female members constitute 18 percent of the 87 duos and groups in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

(A quick note about the Velvet Underground: You may have noticed that I included Nico, who performed with the Underground quite often, as one of the women yet to be inducted. That's because she was omitted from the list of members when the group was honored in 1996. Maureen Tucker, the band's drummer, was included among the honorees, so that's why the Velvet Underground is included above.)

This is all about the category for "performers," by the way, but there are four other categories in which one could be inducted. There's one for "early influences, which includes thirty people, six of them women (Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, Dinah Washington, Mahalia Jackson, Billie Holiday, and Wanda Jackson). Jackson, of course, was a contemporary of performers like Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis, both of whom are inducted as performers. Early influences, according to the hall's website, are performers "whose music predated rock and roll but had an impact on the evolution of rock and roll and inspired rock's leading artists." Perhaps there's some logic at work here that would explain why Jackson (who was inducted in this category in 2009) wasn't just included among the performers, given that she was one of the few women playing rockabilly music in the 1950s, but it escapes me. The lifetime achievement category has seven inductees, all of them men, none of them performers. I've already mentioned the "non-performers" category above with respect to Carole King. Two other women, both songwriters, are included in this category: Ellie Greenwich and Cynthia Weil, both of them inducted with their male songwriting partners too. That category contains 41 individuals. Finally, there's the "sidemen" category, which includes fifteen men best known for performing as backup musicians.

The rules for how an artist is inducted, to be fair, are a bit bewildering. There's a committee that picks finalists each year from a list of artists who have had at least twenty-five years since the release of their first record. Who's on the committee is never quite clear. Neither is it clear who the 500 "rock experts" are who are given ballots of the finalists to select. An artist must be chosen by more than 50 percent of those "experts" in order to be inducted.

This year's nominees are Alice Cooper (the whole band, not just the individual), the Beastie Boys, Bon Jovi, Chic (which has female members), Neil Diamond, Donovan, Dr. John, the J. Geils Band, LL Cool J, Darlene Love, Laura Nyro, Donna Summer, Joe Tex, Tom Waits, and Chuck Willis. Love, Nyro, and Summer have all been finalists in the past; none of them are given good odds for induction this year, but who can tell what the "experts" might decide.

I'd like to make a case for one female artist, in particular. Pat Benatar released her first major studio album in 1979 although she had, technically, released a single ("Day Gig") five years earlier. That would mean that she has been eligible for induction at least since 2004. To my knowledge, she's never even been one of the finalists. Yet she has amassed nineteen Top 40 singles, numerous gold, platinum, and multi-platinum albums, and four consecutive Grammy Awards for the Best Female Rock Vocal Performance. That last honor is rather unprecedented (well, outside of the polka category). Benatar received her first Grammy for 1980's Crimes of Passion album, her second for "Fire and Ice," the third for "Shadows of the Night," and her final award for "Love Is a Battlefield." She was nominated an additional three times in the same category and once more in the Female Pop Vocal Performance.

She was a star from the release of the single "Heartbreaker" in 1979, and she was well established enough by the time that MTV arrived in 1981 that her video for "You Better Run" was the second video ever shown on the channel (after "Video Killed the Radio Star" by the Buggles--someone at MTV had a sense of humor). She was known for her live performances and her groundbreaking videos, and she's still performing today with her husband of twenty-eight years, guitarist Neil Giraldo, and the rest of her band. I myself saw her perform at Mississippi State University in the mid 1980s, and I can still recall how powerful a singer she was (and is) despite being so tiny. I regretted not going to her show this past summer at the Greek Theatre, but she was touring with REO Speedwagon, and I didn't think I could manage to sit through their segment in order to enjoy Benatar and her music.


Benatar took up causes in her music, including domestic violence, child abuse, and sexism. If you read her autobiography published earlier this year, Between a Heart and a Rock Place, you'll understand just how much of a pioneer she truly was. She was one of the few women to challenge the men who controlled the music business. While she didn't always succeed, she managed to get the last laugh sometimes. I think her video for "Sex as a Weapon" was clearly aimed at everyone who told her that she needed to look pretty for the stage.


I cannot imagine a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame that doesn't include someone like Pat Benatar. She defined what being a rock star was during the 1980s and beyond. There's a scene in Fast Times at Ridgemont High where some girls are talking about how much everyone is influenced by Benatar, and the camera then pans the school to show girls with that famous haircut and those outfits. I can even recall when the band Quarterflash was popular (briefly), and everyone was talking about how much the lead singer was copying Benatar's vocal style. Lots of other women in music did too, but it's too bad that the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame hasn't seen fit yet to honor her contributions.

Nutty Neighbors: Late-Breaking News

I know that I should keep you updated more often on the neighbors, but work takes up so much time these days that it's difficult to let you know about every crazy little thing that they do. For example, should I tell you about the loud fight they had last evening? It's not the first argument they've had, mind you, but this one lasted for a couple of hours and there was a lot of yelling involved. However, since they seemed to have made up this morning, perhaps I'll instead update you on a couple of other interesting items.

Item 1: For the past couple of weeks, the key case (you may recall it was very cleverly marked "KEY CASE" so no one would suspect what it is) disappeared from the door frame out in the hallway. The Boyfriend and I speculated about the possible reasons--she lost the case as well as the keys, they have no friends to leave the keys for any longer, he started stapling the key to her clothes every morning--but we reached no conclusion. However, I returned home one night earlier this week to find that the key is still being left in the hallway, just in a less conspicuous fashion.

Yes, that's the edge of the rug in the hallway. Yes, we're back to leaving the key under the rug. Yes, we're also not being very careful about how exposed our key is.

Item 2: Despite the months of having the key case (or, as if you prefer KEY CASE) on the door frame in the hallway and despite now having the key under the mat, Godzilla still sometimes locks herself out of the apartment and has to call the security patrol to let her into her home. It's a $50 charge each time, so it's costing her some money to do this. However, that's not the most unusual part of this. Several weeks ago, we received a memo regarding the complex's policy on dogs. It clearly states (in bold letters and some all capital letters, no less): "Pet Dogs are NEVER allowed in any Tower unit." You may recall that I live in one of the towers in the complex. Godzilla just happened to be sitting in front of her apartment with a dog in her lap when the patrol officer came by to unlock her door. He told her that he would unlock the door but reminded her that dogs were not allowed in the tower apartments. He even mentioned that we had recently received a memo about this issue. I am quite certain that Godzilla didn't read the memo, since most of the memos or phone books or fast food brochures wind up lying on the floor outside her apartment for days until someone else picks them up. She responded that she was just taking care of the dog for a friend--you know, dog-sitting. That's when the patrol officer reminded her of another provision that was included in the memo: "NO visitor or guest dogs are allowed on the property." She asked him to open her door anyway and said that she would take the dog somewhere else that night. You know, of course, how this turned out, don't you? The dog stayed the entire night, and it whimpered every time she left the apartment. Thankfully, its owner must have picked it up the next day, and there's been no further sign of a dog on this floor. (As for other floors, well, that's another story. Apparently, it isn't just Godzilla who doesn't--or can't--read memos.)

Item 3: For the past four days, there has been a box in the hallway outside the door to Godzilla and Hermey's apartment. It's the box from a new printer for a computer, and there is a printer inside. The Boyfriend thinks it's a brand new printer, complete with printer cartridge sitting on top. I think it's an old printer, maybe the one the new printer replaced, with a cartridge that won't fit the new one. Nevertheless, it just looks a bit trashy to leave one's garbage outside in the hallway, especially since we don't have door-to-door pick-up of garbage. Neither Godzilla nor Hermey will take the responsibility to move the box down to the garbage bins in the basement, and The Boyfriend is threatening to take the printer and sell it on Craigslist.

I guess it's not all that intrusive.

It just sticks out a bit and I know you can just walk around it, but I'm sure if you're a considerate tenant, you can think of ways to make it less of an obstacle.

You'd think if someone has the ability to move a box so that it doesn't stick out into the hallway as much as before, that same person could carry it to the garbage chute or to the basement so that the hallway doesn't look like the start of an episode of Hoarders.

This certainly isn't the first time that Godzilla and/or Hermey has left garbage in the hallway. Thankfully, it's usually only paper products like the new phone books or those fast food menus I mentioned above (or those helpful, informative memos from the apartment complex's owners). Still, you'd expect grown-ups to want their place to look a bit nicer than this, particularly if they are still going to have friends come over to visit. Then again, I guess I don't have much evidence that the people living next door are actually grown-ups.

Advice for Advisors

I've been the advisor for a student club on my campus for fifteen years. As the years have progressed, I've noticed that the bureaucratic demands have only increased. To be more accurate, they've gotten worse, and I've gotten more frustrated. Sometime, perhaps when I'm feeling less wounded from the experience, I'll try to recount what happened in the spring when the club wanted to put on a drag show as a fundraiser. It was, simply put, a nightmare and one of the busiest times I've ever experienced as an advisor. I even started to think that that it might be institutional homophobia since the club is for LGBT students and their friends and supporters. However, when you receive an e-mail like the one below, you start to realize that it isn't at all personal. The bureaucracy treats everyone badly.

I received this e-mail from the person in charge of all of the clubs on campus. It was meant to give students some ideas for how they might "earn" some money for their club activities. It's not that unusual, frankly, because a lot of clubs and other groups at colleges and universities go to tapings of television shows. They just don't have to deal with as much paperwork as we do. You should know that the person who sent this e-mail is very well-intentioned, but as you can tell from the following, maybe a bit too hung up on forms.

"Here's a fun fundraising/event idea, however please keep in mind that such events should be planned at least 6 weeks in advance to meet the campus timelines and process requirement.

"(FYI....There won't be enough time to turnaround approvals for these October events, however, keep this type of event in mind for future.)

"For fundraising events such as this, please remember to:

• "Start planning at least 6 weeks in advance
• "Obtain information/agreement/co. forms from the taping co. Be sure to read the details very carefully. Pls check age requirement
• "Seek availability of appropriate advisor to attend/supervise event
• "Seek Club approval
• "Submit FC Pre-Approval Form for Club Events to Student Affairs with fundraising form
• "Once approved, submit Master Calendar request
• "Complete FC Agreement/Contract Packet and forward to Co to sign. This contract is needed back at FC Student Affairs at least 3 weeks prior to the event to obtain FC signatures (per the FC President, there are no exceptions)
• "Submit Field Trip Request with waivers/participant agreement forms to Student Affairs at least 6 working days prior to the event for campus approvals (for FC Students, Faculty and Staff only)
• "Once event is approved by the campus, then you can begin to promote the event, as normal (submit Distribution of Printed Materials form with copy of flier to Student Affairs; obtain signage approvals through Student Affairs)
• "Once payment is received from company, complete the reconciliation part of the copy of your initial fundraiser form (including advisor's signature) and submit it with the deposit form (with advisors signature) and payment to Student Affairs for processing.
• "Enjoy!"

Well, that should be simple enough, shouldn't it? I think that last bullet point must have been ironic. If you've survived all of the preceding steps of the process, you won't have the energy to enjoy your time at Chelsea Lately or Dancing with the Stars or Let's Make a Deal.

I have tried several times over the past few years to convince some other faculty or classified staff member to take over as the advisor to the club. We used to have four advisors. In fact, there were times when the advisors outnumbered the club members. That's actually how the LGBT employee group got started; we were talking together at a student meeting and decided to form our own organization. Times were simpler then, and more people were able to be involved in things like advising. Can you imagine finding a replacement now if she or he found out about what the school demands just to travel to a taping of a television show? And don't even ask what you'd need to submit if you wanted to take one of the school vans to the event.

Doc Days

The past decade has seen such tremendous growth in the popularity of documentaries. I have a dear friend who sees almost every documentary that makes it into the theatres and most of the ones that only appear on DVD, but I don't get to see as many of them as I would like. However, this summer I did manage to catch three great ones.



8: The Mormon Proposition is about the ways that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints helped to place the anti-gay Proposition 8 on the ballot in California and then supported it financially to ensure its passage. I doubt many people are unfamiliar with Prop. 8 at this point, given how much it's been in the news the past few weeks with the federal ruling that banning gay couples from marrying is a violation of the Constitution, but even if you think you've heard all there is to say about Prop. 8, you'll still find this film enlightening. Of course, it is one-sided, but it's a political documentary, not a film made for middle-school children. If you weren't angry at the church (the Mormon church or any other one, for that matter), watching this film just might remedy that problem. If nothing else, you should at least begin to question why churches with such vast amounts of wealth are not taxed and are allowed to insinuate themselves into political issues.



Stonewall Uprising attempts to piece together the story of the riots that erupted in New York City in 1969 when the police raided a gay bar called the Stonewall Inn. The riots are often credited with starting the gay rights movement, a gross oversimplification of the truth, to be honest. However, the importance of the Stonewall riots is undeniable as a flashpoint for gay identity. Once gay people realized that they didn't have to remain oppressed, that they could indeed fight back against their oppressors, everything seems to have changed. I admired that the film's makers managed to find so many people who were involved in the riots and their aftermath, including one of the police officers who has since changed his mind about gay people and is supportive of gay rights. It's pretty intriguing historical information that's imparted by the various participants, and I think the movie does an excellent job of placing the riots within the historical context of what it meant to be gay during the time period. The Stonewall riots have been the subject of many books and articles and even a few films over the years, but there's obviously still a great deal to learn. If there's a problem with the film overall, it's the re-enactments of the riots that the film makers shot (because there's apparently no actual footage from the 1969 riots), but I suppose those moments are handled in such a way that you know you're not seeing true archival footage, so it's a minor complaint.



Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work traces one tumultuous year in the life of the comedy legend, with occasional flashbacks to earlier points in her career. There are lots of moments of Rivers on stage, of course, both new and old moments, highlighting just how funny and daring she was when she first became prominent and how funny and daring she remains. However, if you're going to see this documentary, you're probably already familiar with Joan Rivers and her brand of comedy. You already know what a trailblazer she was, what an icon she has become particularly to female comics. What you'll instead take away from this movie is more interesting in terms of her psychology. She's a workaholic who seems to fear that if she stops working, she'll die. She hates to see an empty page in her datebook; she wants to stay busy. I suspect that might have something to do with the somewhat pervasive sense of loneliness she exhibits throughout the film. She also talks candidly about her plastic surgery, particularly when she admits that no man has ever called her pretty. I found that moment devastating. To think how much she has altered her appearance all because she just wants to be found attractive--it's staggering to contemplate that. It's a stunning film, one worthy of analysis by film scholars and feminist theorists for years. I've always loved Rivers; I owned her album What Becomes a Semi-Legend Most? and have always wanted to see her perform live. Watching this film was the next best thing to a live performance. It's more like having a private audience with Rivers herself.

Nutty Neighbors: New Depths or New Heights

I haven't written about the next-door neighbors in a while, but that doesn't mean that they haven't found new ways to demonstrate their stupidity. In addition to their continual amazement that other people live in this building and are not interested in hearing their loud music (or, even worse, Godzilla's "singing"), my favorite aspect of their ignorance has to do with their keys. Yes, I know I've told you before about the keys under the doormat that became clearly visible when the mat was even slightly nudged out of its position. However, in an obvious attempt to provide greater security for their keys yet maintain that availability you want your keys to have, they've hit upon a rather novel solution.

I suppose we aren't meant to notice that, in addition to the outline of the key on the box, it is clearly marked "KEY CASE." Of course, this would only be visible to anyone who happens to be in the hallway and, well, who can see. So far, this has included several delivery guys, a couple of whom have actually picked up the case and rattled it to see if keys were truly inside, and the mail carrier and people visiting some of the other neighbors on our floor and the maintenance crew members who come by to fix sinks or replace light bulbs in the hallway and the security guards who came to tell Godzilla and Hermey that they were making too much noise (and who also picked up the case and rattled it and laughed that anyone would be so stupid as to leave a set of keys outside their apartment door).

However, the stupidity doesn't end there. For about a week or so this summer, Godzilla and Hermey had company. Actually, they frequently have company, a very confusing trend considering how difficult it is to find parking around this complex and the very limited number of parking spaces reserved for guests. This particular guest, though, was special. She apparently was unable to bend all the down to the floor to pick up the keys or the KEY CASE, so being the gracious hosts that they are, Godzilla and Hermey tried their best to accommodate her. I hope it's visible enough for you to tell how truly kind they are.

Not to worry, the key case has migrated downward since that guest left. It's back at the bottom of the door frame. But it still isn't as if the neighbors are trying to hide the fact that they leave their keys outside in plain view. Godzilla, in particular, is especially prone to bending down in front of other people--such as the Pizza Hut delivery guy who came to our apartment last week--to pick up her keys. It's a source of some amusement for them, frankly. I can't imagine what they think of someone who's willing not only to place her keys in a magnetic case attached to her door frame in an open hallway but also to retrieve said keys in full view of strangers. That takes either an enormous amount of trust on her part or a great deal of ignorance.

I haven't yet figured out why they leave their keys outside. Is someone just really bad at keeping track of door keys? How hard could it be to put two keys on a small key chain in your pocket or purse? Are they really that generous with their apartment that they want just any acquaintance of theirs to be able to use the place without them being there? Godzilla doesn't seem to take her keys with her to work nor bring them inside when she comes home at the end of the day. I am, as always, completely bewildered by their ridiculous behavior.

A Jury of Their Peers

I narrowly escaped jury duty this week. I had already postponed my service twice this summer before I committed myself to getting it over with. I had received my first notice before the end of the spring semester and had initially rescheduled my service to start the Monday after we turned in grades. However, a hiring committee obligation offered a potential conflict, so I postponed my service again until after the summer school session had ended for me. I figured the three weeks between summer and fall semesters would be sufficient; the odds are against a person being chosen for a jury, and if you are, most trials are five to seven days long.

In Los Angeles County, you have to call in to "register" before the first day of your service, and then each night for the week you have jury duty, you have to call in to see if you need to report to the courthouse the next day. The last time I was sent a summons for jury duty, I was dutiful the entire week and was rewarded by not having to go in at all. I was hopeful that the same scenario would play itself out again, and I would be able to go on with my preparations for fall classes. I was in the midst of finalizing my syllabi at the time.

This time, though, I wasn't so lucky. On Monday night, I learned that I had to report on July 27, the day before my 47th birthday. Los Angeles County is under the "one day, one trial" system, so I figured I would go in and spend the day and perhaps avoid being chosen for a jury pool. That's what had happened the second time I had jury duty. Yes, I've been called numerous times; the most recent was my fourth or fifth--I've lost count at this point. I didn't have the same luck as before, however. At about 11:30 a.m. that day, about twenty-five of us were given instructions to return on August 9, almost two weeks later, to be potential jurors for a trial on the infamous 9th floor. That's the so-called "high profile case" floor, the one where they hold celebrity trials and those that have achieved a great deal of press (serial killer trials, particularly gruesome cases, that sort of thing). I began imagining the horrors of having to serve on a trial that would be in the press and fighting my way to the courtroom through television cameras. I even began trying to remember which celebrities had been arrested recently, just in case it was going to be one of those notorious cases.

We were also told by the court clerks that the estimated amount of time for the trial would be twenty days. The only problem for me would be the start of the fall semester one week after the day we were given to report to the courtroom for jury selection. You can't really trust the court estimates for trials, by the way. The first time I had jury duty, I was stuck on a civil case (medical malpractice, to be specific) that was estimated to take four or five days of testimony. We were in the courthouse for three and a half weeks. Knowing that a twenty-day trial would likely last a great deal longer than estimated, I started to panic because I didn't want to miss an entire month at the beginning of a semester, not with five classes (and one of them an Honors Program class), so I asked about another postponement. However, given that I was already in the pool, the clerks said it was too late to change.

We all had to call in again the weekend before August 9 on the off chance that the trial had been cancelled because of a plea bargain or other reason, but of course, the message informed us to be there bright and early on Monday morning. Thankfully, we weren't expected to be in court until 10:30 a.m., so I did get a chance to sleep in a bit later than usual.

The first day was incredibly unproductive. The clerk for our particular courtroom (the same one used for the O.J. Simpson trial, if you're interested in such trivia) called roll three or four times because some of the jurors weren't present. She said the judge would not call us in until everyone had arrived, so it was almost 11 a.m. before we were allowed to enter the courtroom. After everyone was seated, the judge told us a little bit about the case: three defendants, each with a different attorney representing him, all of them charged with murder and charges of conspiracy to commit murder and a couple of them facing additional charges, and allegations of gang affiliation as well. Based upon just those details, I began to think that twenty days wouldn't be enough to hear all of the testimony and deliberate and return with a verdict. The prospect of starting the fall semester with my students began to seem a bit more distant.

The judge asked if any potential jurors had reasons--other than a financial hardship, which is getting increasingly hard to prove in the court system--which might prevent them from serving on this jury. Those of us who did were asked to write down our reasons and submit them to the judge for consideration. The rest of the potential jurors--about a hundred people or so--were given questionnaires to complete in the hallway. Only a couple of people who had conflicts were released from duty. The rest of us were told to fill out a questionnaire and report back the next day at 8:30 a.m. I'd spent half a day at the courthouse and nothing had happened yet with respect to jury selection. I'd just filled out two slips of paper and read almost a hundred pages in one of the books I'd brought.

On Tuesday, we all returned. Well, almost all of us. Naturally, when the clerk took roll, a few people were missing and, just like on Monday, the judge wouldn't begin until everyone had appeared. It was almost 9 a.m. before the last person showed up, and we were all ushered into the courtroom to begin. The clerk read off the juror ID numbers for twenty people, and they were the first ones subjected to questioning by the attorneys. Each of the defense attorneys got to ask questions, and then the prosecuting attorney got the same amount of time as the three defense attorneys combined. If you want to see the disparity in justice, watch jury selection as it unfolds. The three defense attorneys were inept in their questioning; one of them had to repeat his questions two or three times because they were so unclear. It wasn't as if they were trying to trick jurors--at least, I don't think they were--they just weren't very good at articulating what it was they wanted the jurors to answer.

Based upon the questioning, I began to sense some of the key aspects of the case. Apparently, the crime happened in an area known for gang violence, so the attorneys wanted to know who had had bad experiences with gangs and whether or not that would affect their ability to be fair. The key witnesses for the defense were apparently going to be relatives of the three men (mothers, sisters, etc.), character witnesses, in other words, rather than eyewitnesses. The prosecution's witnesses would, of course, including the police who investigated the crime, but there would apparently also be witnesses who had substance abuse problems and/or criminal records--both of which were the subject of questioning about the effect they might have on the credibility of a witness. And it became evident rather early on that none of the three men were likely to testify on their own behalf, and the attorneys, at least one of them, anyway, wanted to know how people on the jury would feel about that decision, if it would seem odd or questionable.

After dismissing several jurors for "cause" during the first round of questioning--apparently, anyone who didn't speak English well or had a direct connection to the court system was automatically out--the number of people in the jury box had dwindled down to just eleven. The clerk read off enough numbers to refill the jury box and then those potential jurors were questioned. This went on, with one brief break in the middle, until almost noon. At that point, the judge announced that he had another commitment and court would be dismissed for the rest of the day. We still had no jury, and another day in the week before school was to begin was almost completely wasted.

Wednesday's session was another early start, 8:30 a.m., again with one or two people missing when the clerk did roll call. We did manage to start before 9 a.m., though, and the previous day's pattern quickly re-emerged of confusing questions by the defense attorneys and sharp-witted questioning by the prosecution. Frankly, it wasn't hard to see that the prosecution was going to be far more effective and professional than the defense. Nevertheless, all of us whose names had not yet been called sat in the audience hoping that we wouldn't be one of those stuck on the jury listening to twenty days of this nonsense. It took quite a while to get to twelve people that both sides could accept as a jury. It was 3 p.m., to be exact, when the entire audience perked up as the clerk swore the jury in. Almost half of the people who had been there on Monday morning were gone, having been dismissed for "cause" or as a result of the peremptory challenges which the lawyers on both sides used rather indulgently.

I started to think that I was going to escape without being questioned. I would be free to go to the college convocation on Friday and then begin my classes on time on Monday. There were twelve jurors sworn in, and the attorneys still had six potential alternates sitting in the box for the three slots the judge felt was probably appropriate given the length of the trial. However, rather than merely choosing from those six people, he decided to fill the remaining seats with potential alternates from the remaining audience members.

Mine was the first number called.

The questioning began after the other two possible alternates were seated. The first attorney didn't ask me any direct questions, spending much of his time asking about the gang-related murder of the best friend of the poor guy sitting next to me and the murder by an ex-boyfriend of the sister of the third "new" alternate. The second lawyer asked his usual rambling questions, and then he made a particularly sharp comment to me that just because I am a teacher, I was not to act like a teacher in the jury deliberations. I was an equal to everyone else, he wanted me to know. I accepted his statement as graciously as I could under the circumstances and waited for the third defense attorney to start. He asked a very bizarre question about how I would vote in the case if it was sent to the jury for deliberations at that precise moment. I responded that it would be impossible to make a decision without any evidence being presented since that's not how trials operate. He fumbled in asking the question a different way before I caught on to what he was trying to say. He was trying to get to the point that if the prosecution didn't offer sufficient evidence in the case, we would be obligated to return a verdict of "not guilty." I finally agreed with him, but I couldn't imagine a more convoluted way to make that point.

It was for the prosecuting attorney that I was allowed to express myself the most. She asked me about the civil case that I had served on some years ago. She wanted to know what impression I had of the court system based upon that case. (I guess I was too transparent when she asked if we had reached a verdict and I said "eventually.") I told her that I thought the past trial had been rather tedious and time-consuming, that I had spent more time sitting in the corridor reading books than sitting in the courtroom listening to testimony, primarily because of delays by the judge in the case who stopped two or three times a day to handle other casework, including arraignments, and because of the inept scheduling of witnesses by the attorneys. I said that if all I was going to do was read books, I'd rather do that at home. It would be a more productive use of my time.

When she asked if my frustrations in that case would affect my emotions in this case, I answered truthfully that they wouldn't, but that's because I had a new set of frustrations. I noted that we had already spent three days in court and had just gotten a panel of jurors, and now I was added to a list of potential alternates and was spending more time worrying about my classes starting on Monday and what was going to happen with my students if I were stuck (yeah, I think I did say "stuck") on a jury for the first month of school. She thanked me for being honest and continued with her questioning of the other two potential jurors.

When the attorneys went to a sidebar--one of dozens they held over the three days of jury questioning, by the way--they and the judge quickly decided on the three alternates. All of them were men and all of them were in the pool of six alternates they had before they called the last three of us into the jury box, but at least, I wasn't one of them. I don't know if my impatience put them off or not, but I was very grateful to be allowed to walk out of the courtroom free from any further need to appear in that building.

I picked up my Certification of Jury Service upstairs in the general assembly room. Everyone else gets $15 for each day (after the first day) of service, whether you're picked for a jury or not. They also get reimbursed for their mileage to the courthouse (just one way mileage, though). They'll all be getting a check in a week or so. I get nothing. As a public employee and thanks to a decision by the governor a few years ago, I receive no compensation for jury duty and, rumor has it, no reimbursement either.

So what do I have as a result of all of this? I wish I could say that I feel proud that I did my civic duty, but I don't really feel that way at all. I feel like I just wasted a lot of time sitting around the courthouse waiting to hear if I had to tell my dean that he would need to start scrambling to find substitutes who wouldn't screw up my classes at the beginning of the semester. Well, actually, I guess that's not all that happened. I did manage to finish a collection of short stories by Nathaniel Hawthorne (who's far more mystical than I remember) and most of a book on the 2004 presidential election by a political reporter who followed the Democratic candidates that year. But that's it, really. Well, that and this story. I suppose that was worth four days of my free time this summer.

Other Teachers Will Understand

I had complained to the Critical Reasoning and Writing class during the next-to-last week of summer school that they weren't doing a particularly good job of introducing the material they were using from outside sources. I was getting parenthetical citations with last names and little else, and I suggested that readers needed to have the ability to judge the credibility of the sources in an essay by knowing something more about the sources than just the author's last name. We even had a little practice during classtime to remind them of this skill that they should have either developed or honed in their College Writing classes.

I took up a set of essays a day or two later. I was hopeful that some of them would have noted my frustration from our in-class discussion. Many of them had done a better job, to be honest. However, while I was reading and grading them over the weekend, I came across this particularly egregious example of how some people just never seem to know when to quit:

"In an essay in The Civil Mind compiled by Margaret Early Whitt and Janet L. Bland called 'A New Campus Crusade' by Keith Naughton, Mary Sue Coleman, the president of the University of Michigan, proposed a new process in choosing prospective students for the university."

How much of that do you really need to know at that particular moment in the essay itself and how much of it could be saved for the Works Cited list where it would look just a tiny bit less...well, clunky and ham-handed? At least, the student was consistent. Every single source was introduced by giving the author's name and the title of the article and where it was located. Probably one-eighth of the essay or so was taken up with these kinds of introductions (and they weren't even saved for only the first reference in the paper either. No, they had to reappear every single time that same source was used.) Thankfully, the student saved the date of publication and the type of source (Print, Web, etc.) for the Works Cited list.

Of course, I marked his grade down on that particular element, and I'm certain he was very disappointed and perhaps even angry. He had actually been one of the few who had done the citations (mostly) correctly for the first essay, but I guess the ones who really don't need the help often think that they aren't doing enough to demonstrate that they "get it."

Where Do You Start?

As a writing teacher, sometimes I get sentences and paragraphs and even entire essays that are just so astonishing in their inability to convey information clearly that I have to save them and share them. The paragraph below, written for a developmental writing class, is the one that stood out this semester as the worst offender. The assignment was a relatively simple one. Students had to describe a place that held some special significance to them. I expected there to be not only physical description of this place but some attempt to explain why it was so significant, what sort of history they had with the places they chose.

I have preserved the sentence structure and the spelling and all other aspects of the original except for the line spacing (which had its own issues). This was the final draft's concluding paragraph. Yes, it is all just one sentence. I had written on the rough draft that the student should try to sum up, as best he could, why the place he had chosen to discuss meant so much to him.

"In conclusion, Angel Stadium means a lot me and it will always be a place of merit and it's a place that will always have importance to me and it will never be a place to I can hang out because of the memories that I have at the stadium and it will never leave my mind and the memories i have of game seven of the world series and it can be a good thing it can also be a bad thing but I see it as a good thing because it will always be in my mind and that is why it has merit and importance in my life."

I just couldn't think of what to tell the student about how to make that conclusion better. Unfortunately, he stopped coming to class at about the same time, so I never had a chance to return the graded paper and talk to him about how he might try to improve his writing skills. That means that someone--hopefully, someone more patient and talented than I am--will be helping him out in the same class next semester.

Quick Takes: Now Available on Blu-Ray and DVD

You know you've not been blogging very often when it comes time to write about some of the movies you've seen "recently" and you have to acknowledge that most of them are already out on DVD. What with the typical busy-ness of the semester and a change in the living arrangements at home (more on that later, perhaps), it's just been difficult to get around to blogging. I've actually seen quite a few movies besides the ones below, but apparently, I'll have to wait until they're on video for me to write about them.



Crazy Heart will likely be remembered as the movie that finally won Jeff Bridges the Oscar for Best Actor. He is certainly very good here as country singer Bad Blake, but it's a performance that's definitely within his typical range. He isn't asked to do anything extraordinarily difficult in this film, just sing a little and act drunk a lot. You'll be happy to know that he excels at both. I enjoyed the music of this film, especially the award-winning title song, more than the plot, what with its Hollywood take on redemption from the depths of alcoholism. The drunken-country-singer-turns-his-life-around theme has been done before and better; if you want the best version of the story, check out Tender Mercies. Crazy Heart pays a nice homage to that earlier, better film by casting Robert Duvall as Bad's friend. It's always a pleasure to see Duvall on screen. There's also a nice cameo appearance by Colin Farrell, who is a pretty talented singer himself, as Bad's former touring partner who's gone on to have a more successful career on his own. I have no idea why he isn't listed in the credits, but I hope he gets another chance to sing in a movie soon. Maggie Gyllenhaal plays a journalist who gets involved with Bad, but I found that entire subplot to be unbelievable. We all know that he's using her and her little son to make up for the bad relationship with his own abandoned son, and we should all know how badly it's going to turn out when you put your trust in a movie alcoholic who hasn't yet found redemption. Gyllenhaal was this year's surprise Oscar nominee in the acting categories. After years of good performances, the Academy chose to reward her for what is essentially a thankless, less-than-challenging part. Go figure. Maybe the Academy members were trying to redress past slights to a lot of actors, and Gyllenhaal got in the mix with Bridges and Sandra Bullock for The Blind Side and Christopher Plummer for The Last Station, but more on that later...



Edge of Darkness is the latest addition to the growing body of evidence that Mel Gibson movies are becoming increasingly obsessed with violence. This film is quite brutal. Gibson plays a police officer whose daughter is murdered when the two of them come home from dinner one night. After an initial suspicion that he was the intended target, Gibson's cop discovers that his daughter has been involved in some subterfuge at the company for which she worked. Gibson should have figured out something was wrong as soon as he discovered that the company's boss is played by Danny Huston. Is Huston turning into Hollywood's go-to bad guy these days? I'm thinking it might be time to throw him a romantic comedy lead just for a change of pace. He, of course, gets beaten up by Gibson's Thomas Craven, as does the actor playing the daughter's boyfriend and a bunch of other people. I even started to suspect that Gibson's character had arranged his daughter's murder just so he could go on this rampage. Frankly, I was exhausted and feeling a bit beaten myself when this movie was over and I could finally leave the theater. Someone should be writing a dissertation on the growing level of violence in Gibson's oeuvre. I know he didn't direct this film, so he isn't fully responsible for its content, but he did select it as an actor. There's some interesting psychosis to examine there, I think.



Fantastic Mr. Fox is, quite simply, a fantastic movie. A stop-motion masterpiece by director Wes Anderson, this charming fable about a fox who has been domesticated but still feels the urge to steal chickens from hen houses is a delight. Everyone of the voice actors--and this is some pretty high-powered talent on display--is great. George Clooney as Mr. Fox plays off his own sly public persona, and Meryl Streep as Mrs. Fox is a calm, reassuring, but firm presence. They should be paired again in a live action film. I loved the interplay between Clooney and Bill Murray as Badger, Mr. Fox's partner in crime. Badger isn't always quite up to speed on what's happening, and Mr. Fox is often frustrated by his need to repeat what seem like simple conclusions to his friend. The highlight of the film, though, is the competition between the Fox family's son Ash, voiced by Jason Schwartzman, and a young fox for whom the family takes responsibility, Kristofferson, voiced by Eric Chase Anderson. Ash always loses to Kristofferson, regardless of the contest, but then again, Kristofferson doesn't even realize there's a competition going on. I'd also point out that the set design and decoration are brilliant, a series of quite stunning masterpieces of location. The amount of time and effort the filmmakers have taken to create this gem is well worth it. This was one of my favorite movies from last year. If you haven't seen this movie yet, rent it immediately and enjoy.



It's Complicated is the kind of movie that Hollywood studios used to make, a generic romantic comedy, no particular deep messages involved, just some fun for the actors and the audience. Meryl Streep (again--what a streak she's on these days) is Jane, a divorced woman who runs a bakery. At her son's college graduation, she reunites with her ex-husband Jake, a randy Alec Baldwin (that may be redundant calling Baldwin randy, I realize), and they begin having an affair. Jake is unhappy with his new, younger wife, played by Lake Bell, especially with her non-stop attempts to get pregnant. Simultaneously, Jane begins dating the architect who is designing the addition to her home, Adam, played by Steve Martin. I don't know why Jane needs a bigger kitchen or even a bigger home. She lives in one of those mansions that only movie middle class people own, with huge rooms and lots of pillows and mementos from a lifetime of travel and such. And I also don't know why it would be difficult for her to choose between these two men; she knows what each one of them is like. Then again, we're not supposed to think too deeply about a movie like this. It's all just harmless fun, and it often brought a smile to my face, particularly whenever John Krasinski appeared on screen. He plays Jane's daughter's fiance, and he's hilarious as the only person who knows that Jane and Jake are having an affair. He may never be a big movie star on his own, but Krasinski could make a long career of playing supporting parts like this one.



The Last Station was advertised as a film about the final days in the life of Russian writer Leo Tolstoy (played expertly here by Christopher Plummer). Instead, the main focus of the plot is really on the musings of a young man named Valentin (James McAvoy) who has been sent to keep an eye on Tolstoy to ensure that the great writer's legacy, including his commitment to a life devoid of material things, is preserved--mainly because there are people like Vladimir Chertkov (Paul Giamatti) who want the Tolstoy fortune to support revolutionary changes in Russia. Chertkov's goals are, unsurprisingly, opposed by Tolstoy's wife Sofya (Helen Mirren), who wants to keep the money for herself and her children. Sofya is quite the drama queen, and Mirren is allowed to chew the scenery almost every moment that she's on screen. It's quite a histrionic performance, and I was surprised that it won her another Oscar nomination for Best Actress. This film also brought Plummer his first ever Oscar nomination (his was for Supporting Actor), and it's a shock to realize that such a long, distinguished career as his has never been acknowledged by the Academy before now. All of this would make for an okay film, but in truth, the movie is really more about Valentin and how he comes to understand what Tolstoy stands for. McAvoy's character has to figure out what kind of life he wishes to live, one that follows the teachings of the writer or one that mirrors the way that the writer actually lives. It's an intriguing question about the conflict that often occurs between one's principles and the (messy) real life one has to live. The Last Station isn't without its genuine moments of emotion, particularly Tolstoy's death at the train station of the title, a scene which much have cinched Mirren's nomination in particular. I suppose this was considered an "event film" given the way that it was released. Here in Los Angeles, it played for only one week in only one theater in December in order to be eligible for Academy consideration, and then it disappeared for a while. When it returned, it again only played for a limited time in a limited number of theaters. Perhaps the distributors were hoping to garner more than just two nominations, but frankly, they should have been grateful given the relatively mundane quality of this film overall.



The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond is based upon an unproduced Tennessee Williams screenplay, and it covers some rather familiar territory for the playwright. Bryce Dallas Howard plays Fisher Willow (terrible name for a character, by the way), a Memphis debutante who doesn't quite fit in with the rest of her alleged social circle. Fisher likes to drink and have fun and enjoys jazz music, all of the things that respectable girls in the 1920s weren't supposed to enjoy. She also has feelings for Jimmy (Chris Evans), the son of the man who runs her family's plantation, but since Jimmy is poor, they could never be allowed to marry or have a relationship. No, Fisher must listen to her grandmother, Cornelia (Ann-Margaret in a role that makes you wish she were cast in movies more often), who wants her to settle down and find a respectable young man to marry. The title diamond earring is one of a pair (family heirlooms, of course) loaned to Fisher by her grandmother for a party. Its loss is the subject of quite a number of accusations and plot contrivances, none of which, frankly, matter (although it does allow for an almost nude scene for Evans, an initial suspect in the diamond's disappearance). This is more of a mood piece than a drama anyway. Ellen Burstyn makes a brief appearance as an older woman who has led a remarkable life on her own terms, but whose current health problems will condemn her to a life under the care of her conservative, traditional family. When Howard's Fisher is in the bedroom with Burstyn's Addie, the film truly comes alive, and it's hard to imagine such a static scene would come across so well. Overall, this is certainly a minor work by the great playwright, and I don't really know that there was any urgency to film this screenplay. It isn't a disaster by any means--although some of the actors' attempts at Southern accents do qualify as such--but it also doesn't add much to our knowledge and appreciation of Williams' achievements.



Nine is the film adaptation of the Broadway musical that was itself an adaptation of Federico Fellini's film 8 1/2. Given all of that adaptation, quite a lot has been lost, and the filmmakers haven't helped their cause any by casting the wrong person in almost every role. I admire Daniel Day-Lewis as an actor, but having an Irishman with little singing ability trying to pass himself off as an Italian director is a bit of a stretch even for the talented Day-Lewis. And his character is so utterly lacking in charm or any other personality trait that would make him seem appealing, I kept wondering what all of these women saw in him. To have such a lackluster character as the centerpiece of the film seems a supreme obstacle to overcome. And, to be frank, the way that the director has chosen to present the songs--as all having come from Guido's consciousness and almost all of them presented on the empty sound stage of his next movie--is a mistake, I think. They should be more integrated into the plot rather than being delivered as if they were asides or diversions from what is a very slight storyline anyway. It's really just about Guido not having an idea for his next movie because he's got too many problems with the women in his life; that's it. I'm also not fond of having actors perform in musicals if they have little or no singing ability, and that is the case with much of this cast. Oscar-nominated Penelope Cruz plays Carla, Guido's mistress, as some sort of hot-blooded, oversexed spitfire. I guess it's mean to be a comic role; it certainly had me laughing but for the wrong reasons. Since she can't really sing, the film creates an elaborate production number for "A Call from the Vatican" in order to distract the audience from noticing her slight voice. Only two of the women in the film acquit themselves with their songs. One is, of course, an actual singer, Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas, who sings "Be Italian" with gusto. The other is Marion Cotillard as Guido's wife Luisa, but only in "My Husband Makes Movies," a delicate, gentle song about her feelings of being abandoned by her spouse. I was not as fond of her other number, "Take It All." I liked the staging of "Cinema Italiano" even if I didn't think Kate Hudson's singing was up to par. Nicole Kidman, who has demonstrated her ability to sing in Moulin Rouge!, is at a loss here with the song "Unusual Way" (which, I must confess, I didn't know was from this musical); it's a weak performance. (And she's an Australian playing a German--there's no end to the lunacy of the assignment of roles here.) I've already written too much about a movie that forces Dame Judi Dench to sing and dance her way through the ridiculous "Folies Bergere." A lot of wasted talent and a lot of bad casting choices all round, sad to say.



The Princess and the Frog takes the fairy tale story of the girl who kisses a frog and turns him into a prince and twists it in a few novel ways. This time, the prince doesn't emerge from the kiss; the girl just turns into a frog too. And this isn't set in a period long, long ago in some mythical land far, far away. This is 1920s New Orleans with all of the jazz music and period atmosphere you'd expect. Tiana (Anika Noni Rose), the "princess" of the title, really just wants to live out her father's dream and open a restaurant; she even has a big number ("Almost There") imagining what the restaurant will be like. It's a song and production very reminiscent of Disney's Beauty and the Beast and the "Be Our Guest" number, but I didn't mind the familiarity because Rose and the rest of the cast are able singers and the music by Randy Newman (with help from Dr. John) is very much in the New Orleans style. We wind up in a bayou--much like the one from the 1970s animated film The Rescuers, to be honest--and there's even a Cajun firefly who is, at times, a little too close to being like Evinrude from that earlier Disney film. Still, the lack of originality doesn't detract from the fun to be had with this film. The princess is really just an ordinary young woman in many ways, and the message that anyone could be a princess is delightfully conveyed here. I could quibble with the choice of Bruno Campos as Prince Naveen, Tiana's frog suitor, who's not African American like much of the rest of the cast, but he is so very funny and charming in the part. And there's also the divine Jenifer Lewis as Mama Odie, who represents the good aspects of voodoo, and Terrence Howard as James, who's there as the bad part of voodoo, both of them a delight to hear/watch. Much was made about how The Princess and the Frog was a return to more traditional methods of making animated films (what with drawing and such instead of computers), and I have to say that the final product is quite beautiful, a jewel of a movie and one of the best of the many good animated films released in 2009.



Shutter Island is a bit of a puzzle, and I'm still not certain exactly how I feel about it. Set during the 1950s, Martin Scorcese's film is very exact when it comes to period detail, and there's no shortage of suspense here. I can't really give too many details about the plot without spoiling it for you if you haven't seen it. Leonardo DiCaprio and Mark Ruffalo are federal marshalls sent to the title island to investigate the disappearance of one of the inmates. The remote island is home to a mental institution for the criminally insane, and a female inmate there has allegedly vanished. Mysterious things begin to happen to the marshalls, DiCaprio's character especially, almost immediately after their arrival, and it isn't long before we as audience members start to question what is real and what is imaginary. The plot hinges upon our questioning, and I was intrigued by that possibility until the last fifteen minutes or so. To be honest and without revealing too much, those final minutes almost ruined the entire film for me. It's not easy to watch what is a very skillfully made film with a lot of remarkable talent--including Ben Kingsley, Max Von Sydow, Michelle Williams, Jackie Earle Haley, and the great Patricia Clarkson in small but significant role--and not feel somewhat disappointed by the cheat of an ending. Stylistically, Scorcese has managed to recreate the look and feel of a lot of films from the decade of the 50s, but plot-wise he and the movie are hampered by Laeta Kalogridis' script.



Watercolors is a love story about a young artist named Danny (Tye Olson) who falls in love with a member of the swim team, Carter (Kyle Clare), who at first resists his attraction to Danny. It's become something of a cliche in gay films to have the shy and sensitive artist fall in love with a jock, and this movie doesn't often rise above the level of cliche, to be honest. The film begins with the adult Danny (Ian Rhodes) at his first solo art exhibit, and we realize that he's been painting images of his high school lover over and over again, much to the chagrin of his current boyfriend, Allan (Edward Finlay). I know that movies like this are important for young people to see; it helps to realize that other people are going through some of the same issues that you are. However, as an older gay man, I've grown a bit tired of watching films that duplicate this plot again and again since these films seem to be excuses to show handsome (well, handsome to some people, I suppose) young men in various states of undress. And Clare's Carter, in particular, spends a lot of time in his Speedos or underwear or nude posing for Danny. Not that I have anything against that on principle, mind you. I just think movies should do a bit more than titillate sometimes. I did admire how supportive Danny's mother (Casey Kramer) and his close friend Amy (Ellie Araiza) and, in particular, his art teacher (the great Karen Black) are, and the three women in those roles are all talented actresses. Unsurprisingly, there is a tragedy at the heart of this film that has led to Danny's artistic obsession. If you've seen gay films before about the coming out experience, you can probably figure it out for yourself. If not, consider this film a template for your future viewings of such movies; they probably won't venture too much from this standard plot either, but at least you'll get to see some cute young boys in their underwear.

Invictus

Invictus is a spare and noble film about the importance of and difficulty in achieving a measure of acceptance and even solidarity among people of different cultural and racial backgrounds. Set in South Africa in 1995, not long after the election of Nelson Mandela to be the first black president of that country, Invictus depicts the sharp divisions between whites and blacks at that time. Even though you expect to see a strong sense of unity by the end of the film--and you know you won't be disappointed--what director Clint Eastwood and stars Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon manage to achieve is nonetheless admirable and even enjoyable to watch. You might even, as I did, find yourself interested in the outcome of a rugby match upon which, seemingly, the fate of South African hinges.

Yes, that's right, rugby--a sport with which I am completely unfamiliar--is the means by which Freeman's Mandela plans to unite the blacks and whites of his country. He notices not longer after taking office that the national team, the Springboks, is automatically granted one of the spots for the World Cup of 1995 because South Africa is the host country. He attends a match and notices that only the whites seem to support the team. Blacks tend to favor soccer, a point illustrated at the beginning of the film when you watch a soccer match played by poor blacks and a rugby match played by rich whites on opposite sides of the road down which the newly freed Mandela is traveling. It's a somewhat heavy-handed way of displaying the sharp divides in the country, but I suppose you need a context for the brief history lesson that also opens the film.

Mandela, trying his best to get his country past the desire on the part of blacks for retribution and the fear on the part of whites of that same retribution, reaches out to the captain of the Springboks, Damon's Francois Pienaar, an Afrikaner (white), to assist him. He doesn't say that, of course. He only hints or suggests it. And Francois is somewhat uncertain as to how to get his less-than-stellar team to engender much of a following in the black community. There's only one black member of the team, Chester, who is something of a national hero. Pienaar, at the urging of Mandela, takes the team to a series of rugby clinics in the poor black townships. We watch some bonding between the guys on the team and the young blacks who come out to play. The team also makes a visit to the prison where Mandela was held captive for more than twenty years, and it's there that Pienaar seems to have his most profound epiphany.

That sequence is also where the film takes its one flight from realistic depictions of these events. Wherever he turns at the prison, Pienaar seems to see a shadowy image of Mandela and what his days there must have been like, whether being confined to his tiny cell or breaking rocks in the yard alongside the other prisoners. It's a bit disconcerting to watch these moments, given how much attention has been given to recreating the time period in realistic terms. However, it doesn't detract from the overall film's success, and it does provide a means for understanding the change of heart that Pienaar seems to have had about the destiny of the team and his home country.

Freeman, as you might expect, is excellent as Mandela. Although many have criticized his accent here, I think he manages to capture both the speech patterns and the mannerisms of the former South African president, and he achieves a much more difficult act of representation: the smile for which Mandela is so well known. It's as if he shines from within when he smiles, making it all the more interesting when you know the mistreatment that he suffered at the hands of the previous white-controlled government. Freeman never loses sight of the actual man; he just allows us to see just how fervently committed to a peaceful unity Mandela was. I can't imagine anyone else in the role, and frankly, I can't imagine that anyone else could do as good of a job.

When casting the part of a rugby team captain, Damon might not be the first person who comes to mind, but he acquits himself nicely here. Gone is his familiar Boston accent, replaced by a carefully controlled Afrikaner one instead. And, despite his role as a rugby player, Damon has to bring a level of gravitas to many of the scenes he plays. When he tells his team during the World Cup final match against New Zealand, "This is it. This is our destiny," you have to believe those words. They could easily devolve into cliche, but thanks to Damon's consistency throughout the film, they ring true.

The title Invictus comes from a Victorian era poem by William Ernest Henley. It's a relatively brief poem, just four stanzas, and it's one that Mandela memorized during his time in prison. He recites some of the key lines at one point in the movie, and he writes out a copy to give to Pienaard. The poem is about overcoming one's negative circumstances, about finding a sense of hope in a time of darkness. The last couple of lines, "I am the master of my fate:/I am the captain of my soul," served as a source of inspiration to Mandela, and he hopes the same fate will happen to Damon's Pienaar. I'm glad to see a movie use a poem as such a key plot point. It isn't a particularly good poem, but it's sentiment is honestly expressed.

I might say the same about Invictus. I think it earns its emotional resonance honestly. Thanks, at least in part, to the unobtrusive directing style for which Eastwood has become known, we are allowed to witness the events of the narrative without being manipulated too often or too heavily. There are no directorial flourishes here, just good, somewhat old-fashioned storytelling that gets to the heart of the racial divide in South Africa. At times, some of the white characters act in ways that suggest that they are still fearful or resentful of a black-led government, and at times, some of the black characters behave as if they feel the whites should all be punished. It doesn't make them into stereotypes or caricatures, though, because they are almost always balanced by another character (and it's usually Freeman's Mandela) who tries to restore a sense of balance. It's a tricky achievement to depict that, but one that Invictus manages to reach.