I was thinking about Christmas music with the recent passing of Andy Williams. I'd always wanted to do some sort of essential Christmas music list, so I think Andy's a pretty good place to start. By "essential Christmas music," I suppose I mean those songs that mean "You know it's Christmas season when you hear..." And for me, Williams was about It when it came to Christmas. I'll be listing songs by better singers, perhaps, but Andy W. just sounds like Christmas. I think that's because he so clearly loved Christmas--you can't have a Contractually Obligated to Sing Christmas Songs attitude and sound like Williams. When he sings, "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year," he means it. His joy and enthusiasm for the season even let him get away with that monumentally silly "swinging" he does with "Happy Holidays"--"He'll be coming down the chimney down"? (Because he's an umbrella?) So hoop de do and dickery dock, indeed--Andy's Christmas music still rules.
That's why I'd put him just a hair ahead of the other big Mr. Christmas music, Bing Crosby. And this is to take nothing away from Bing--this man practically invented the art of singing for the radio. And "White Christmas" is still tops for a lot of people, even with the somewhat dated 1940's production values. While you've got your radio on an all-Christmas station (which I promptly do by mid-November), listen to one of Bing's other Christmas numbers, "Do You Hear What I Hear?" With just a hint of shift of emphasis, he goes from Shepherd Boy to Mighty King as naturally as breathing (plus it's cool to hear his "B's" explode on "Shepherd Boy")--the guy knew what he was doing, all right.
Other Christmas songs that I look forward to hearing, the good, the bad, and the slightly offensive:
Feliz Navidad--yeah, I know, you'll hear it a couple hundred times when you're not looking for it. What sells me every time is Jose Feliciano's "A-ha!" somewhere in the middle--I'm not sure if it's he's just having fun, or if he's saying, "I know you're expecting me to do this because that's what Puerto Rican singers are supposed to do."
Sleigh Ride--Debbie Gibson's version: a few odd choices in my list--this is one, admittedly. Of course, the Ronnettes do it better--everything off the Phil Spector Christmas album is golden. Still, there's something about Debbie's enthusiasm along with the retro production--I think it kicks in when she starts singing "Giddyap, giddyap, giddyap go!" I'd ride her--I mean, ride with her.
I Believe in Father Christmas--Greg Lake: "Be it heaven or hell, the Christmas we get we deserve"? (Cue the Prokofiev.) Not the darkest Christmas song ever, of course (my vote would be the Kinks' "Father Christmas"), but the darkest Christmas song you'll ever hear on regular Christmas rotation, because no one's paying attention to what Lake is singing, and Prokofiev's "Troika" sounds so wintery.
"Christmas Waltz"--Frank Sinatra: Most of Sinatra's seasonal output falls into the aforementioned "Contractually Obligated to Sing this Christmas Shit" category--most especially those painful late-in-the-day duets where the "guest artist" feigns spontaneous banter with Frank, who has long since left the studio. But here, he's simple and sincere, and lets that voice of his do its job. Bonus: the sweet "Merry Christmas" he says at the end, where he sounds just like a guy from Jersey wishing you a Merry Christmas.
"Mary's Boy Child"--Boney M: Christmas with an island beat is never a good idea. This is the exception.
"Christmas Rapping"--The Waitresses: a little of that distinctive hungover monotone goes a long way, and this song clocks in at over five minutes, but the girls still tell a cute story.
"Hey Santa"--for years I thought this was Wilson Phillips. Turns out it's only two-thirds of Wilson Phillips. That's all I've got for this one.
"Last Christmas"--Wham's version and Taylor Swift's version. I probably don't have to explain what the ever-fabulous George Michael and Andrew Ridgely are doing here (although the song is best appreciated while watching their classic ski-lodge themed video). But Taylor Swift? Well, just listen to when she gets to "My God, I thought you were someone to rely on." Girl's been there, bro. She feels it.
"Wonderful Christmas Time"--Demi Lovato. Yes, Demi Lovato. Message to Sir Paul: you know you're not even trying when Demi Lovato's version of your song kicks your butt. That's because she thinks she's singing a real song, and she throws herself into it with reckless abandon.
"I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus"--Jackson 5. Again, the Ronnettes do it better, but there's something somehow "real" (and a little touching) about the conceit that little brother Michael is trying to tell his brothers--and then threatening to tell his Daddy--that Mama was kissing Santa Claus. Of course, the idea that a grown-up Michael might still believe in Santa was somewhat less touching and somewhat more weird--see below.
"Little St. Nick"--The Beach Boys. There's always something "off" about Beach Boys' Christmas music--kind of like that scene in "Annie Hall" where we see the Christmas decorations on California palm trees. And there's that weirdness vibe--the feeling that Brian Wilson really did think there was "The Man With All the Toys," to quote another of their Christmas ditties. (Their version of "Frosty the Snowman" is just all over the place, with weird interpolations of "Pop Goes the Weasel" thrown in at random.) But "Little St. Nick" hearkens back to what the Beach Boys did at least second best--singing about transportation--by way of celebrating Santa's sleigh as if it were a car. (It took me years of listening to figure out that the "Little St. Nick" of the title was the sleigh.)
There's plenty more that I'm slighting (especially Nat King Cole and John Lennon), but I'll close this with the battle of the Springsteen Christmas songs: "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" has the Jersey boardwalk atmosphere, and it's fun to hear him crack up toward the end, but I'm going to give the edge to "Merry Christmas, Baby" with its killer riff, build, and then return to riff--as classic as sitting down with "A Christmas Carol."
Now...Alistair Sim vs. George C. Scott vs. Patrick Stewart....? That's a toughie.
Thursday, October 25, 2012
Friday, July 6, 2012
Kingdom of Bruce Willis
This was going to be, more or less, a review of "Moonrise Kingdom," which I saw with Mrs. Shoop a couple days back. But that's pretty easy to write: "Blah blah blah pictorially eccentric blah blah blah sense of composition blah blah blah insular blah blah blah indulgent." Which is fine with me--I've seen enough Wes Anderson films to know the drill, and I enjoy it, as I did in this case. If you like that sort of thing, then this is the sort of thing you'll like. What I really wanted to focus on is Bruce Willis, because he's the one who really makes this movie work.
Now that's a pretty sweeping statement, I suppose, since 1) the real star of a Wes Anderson movie is Wes Anderson and his style, and 2) there's a lot of great people in this movie, and they all contribute something decent at the very least. But there's Willis, playing Captain Sharp, and he's terrific in a way that speaks to what makes him, from time to time, valuable. If you think of Willis' best work, he's "ordinary guy stuck in a _____." For example, in Moonlighting, his big breakout TV hit, he's "ordinary guy stuck in a screwball mystery series." In "Die Hard," he's "ordinary guy stuck in an action movie." So it is with "Moonrise Kingdom"--Willis dominates simply by being "ordinary guy stuck in a Wes Anderson movie." By negotiating Anderson's world as best he can within his limited means, with its bizarre characters who don't have first names (or any names, as in the case of Tilda Swinton's "Social Services") and its arbitrary geography, Willis becomes the engaging emotional center of a film that's not big on real-life behavior.
It's probably a lot of fun to be in a Wes Anderson movie--hit your mark and deliver your lines, and let the director take care of the rest. Edward Norton seems particularly freed by the process, having the time of his life staying in motion and rattling off scoutmaster dialogue carrying his ever-present cigarette. The nice thing about Anderson's style is it serves the non-actor children as well as the more experienced performers. But Norton, Frances McDormand, the Anderson regulars, and the kids live in Anderson's world, where nobody talks or interacts like real people. That's charming for a while, but it would get old pretty quickly if it weren't for Willis giving the whole thing a moral, human weight.
So, by all means, check out "Moonrise Kingdom" if and when you can. If you're already an Anderson fan, go for Anderson's Anderson-ness, and the use of Benjamin Britten and Hank Williams in the background. You'll stay for Willis, though.
Now that's a pretty sweeping statement, I suppose, since 1) the real star of a Wes Anderson movie is Wes Anderson and his style, and 2) there's a lot of great people in this movie, and they all contribute something decent at the very least. But there's Willis, playing Captain Sharp, and he's terrific in a way that speaks to what makes him, from time to time, valuable. If you think of Willis' best work, he's "ordinary guy stuck in a _____." For example, in Moonlighting, his big breakout TV hit, he's "ordinary guy stuck in a screwball mystery series." In "Die Hard," he's "ordinary guy stuck in an action movie." So it is with "Moonrise Kingdom"--Willis dominates simply by being "ordinary guy stuck in a Wes Anderson movie." By negotiating Anderson's world as best he can within his limited means, with its bizarre characters who don't have first names (or any names, as in the case of Tilda Swinton's "Social Services") and its arbitrary geography, Willis becomes the engaging emotional center of a film that's not big on real-life behavior.
It's probably a lot of fun to be in a Wes Anderson movie--hit your mark and deliver your lines, and let the director take care of the rest. Edward Norton seems particularly freed by the process, having the time of his life staying in motion and rattling off scoutmaster dialogue carrying his ever-present cigarette. The nice thing about Anderson's style is it serves the non-actor children as well as the more experienced performers. But Norton, Frances McDormand, the Anderson regulars, and the kids live in Anderson's world, where nobody talks or interacts like real people. That's charming for a while, but it would get old pretty quickly if it weren't for Willis giving the whole thing a moral, human weight.
So, by all means, check out "Moonrise Kingdom" if and when you can. If you're already an Anderson fan, go for Anderson's Anderson-ness, and the use of Benjamin Britten and Hank Williams in the background. You'll stay for Willis, though.
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
Shoop and The Newsroom
Saw the first episode of Aaron Sorkin's new show, "The Newsroom." Rather like my last subject, Sorkin and his show seem to generate a great deal of heavy reactions. I'm not exactly a full-blown Sorkin expert--I've seen "A Few Good Men" and "The Social Network" (enjoyed both), and a couple of episodes of "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" (strange on many levels). Never saw "The West Wing." I'm fairly familiar with Sorkin's style, both in his own work and the various parodies of it--it pretty much boils down to Sorkin's being a breed of playwright/screenwriter heavily influenced by the film "His Girl Friday," perhaps the ultimate example of characters spouting reams of hyper-articulate dialogue at a rat-a-tat clip (Glenn Gordon Caron, who created "Moonlighting," is another writer who absorbed that movie). When it works at its best, you're too busy enjoying it to realize how incredibly clever it all is. When it works at its second-best, you have plenty of time to think, "Gee, that's incredibly clever." So, I like the pilot episode of "The Newsroom" more than I don't, but I think it falls into the 2nd tier of incredibly clever more than the 1st, if you're still following me. I'm going to casually go into some of the elements I like, some I like less, and comment here and there on some issues that other commenters seem to have.
First, I like Jeff Daniels in the lead. You believe him as an established news anchor, because after a long career of flirting with, but never quite closing the deal with, major stardom, he's attained something he's never had--weight and gravity. (Actually, I think he started to attain it with "The Squid and the Whale.") Plus, he's funny as hell screaming "YouTube! YouTube!" (It almost makes sense in context.) I also like his little "Network"-y rant at the beginning, including the seemingly controversial line "Worst--Period--Generation--Period--Ever--Period," a line that has truly enraged some columnists and commentators over at the A.V. Club. Personally, I'm fine with the line because a) there's evidence that we're meant to see that line as curmudgeonly and out-of-touch, as Daniels' character is indeed curmudgeonly and out-of-touch at other points in the episode, and b) it doesn't rank on a generation so much as rank on people who put periods after every word in a sentence, and these people deserve to be mocked on every occasion possible. Moronic habit.
I like Sam Waterston, too, but that's no surprise, since I've liked him dating all the way back to "Capricorn One" (go look that one up)--he's clearly having fun, and I'm having fun watching. And I like the points where the news-gathering and the let's-get-this-on-the-air atmosphere and the Sorkin-style dialogue get in synch (again, shades of "His Girl Friday").
There are some parts of the show I'm less on board with--the executive producer who has some sort of romantic past with Daniels seems to serve as a Collective Conscience, which is a little irritating, despite Emily Mortimer's best efforts. (Her character's name is also problematic--MacKenzie McHale. Seriously? "Shaft" writer Ernest Tidyman came up with a better character name by looking absently out a window at an air shaft. But I'm talking about MacKenzie McHale--then we can dig it.) And, unlike a lot of more vociferous commenters, I'm not absolutely sure I have an opinion about the newsroom gang getting information about Real Stories from History (in the case of the pilot, the BP Oil Spill). I could see that turning into Peabody's Improbable History after a few episodes ("This is my boy, Sherman. Speak, Sherman." "Hello, folks!" "Good boy."), but I'll probably give it another couple views to see how it pans out. And there's a cast of younger people who have made very little impression on me, except that guy from "Slumdog Millionaire," because I remember saying, "That's that guy from Slumdog Millionaire."
One other moment I liked--at one point, "Mac" (that is, MacKenzie McHale, who's a bad motherf----r) recites a couple of lines from the title song of "Man of La Mancha" to rouse Daniels' conscience regarding What News Shows Could Be, and then closes with appropriate gravitas, "That was Cervantes." And just as I was saying to the screen, "That's not Cervantes, that's Man of La Mancha," sure enough, Daniels says pretty much the same thing. Thus, Sorkin gives us a moment when we, in turn, can feel incredibly clever, which is pretty damn clever.
Monday, June 25, 2012
Shoop and Girls
"Girls" just ended its first season on HBO, and a lot of folks are talking. If you google "Girls" and "HBO" (that should do it), you'll find reviews and comments across the spectrum of love, hate, admiration and disgust. I don't have a huge investment in the discussion, but it might be worth examining--why has Lena Dunham's show kicked up such a fuss?
One reason, I think, is that it covers a subject that we're just not supposed to be interested in: privileged young white women complaining despite their privileges. Add to that the fact that the girls are played by real-life privileged young white women (lots of daughters of famous people). So "whiny" and "annoying" definitely go with the territory. What the episodes lead to is the question--does the show realize how annoying these characters really are? I think the answer to that, for the most part, is yes--I'd say if Larry David were a 24-year-old girl, he'd be Lena Dunham's lead character Hannah. Just as Curb Your Enthusiasm fans consistently marvel at how obnoxious "Larry David" can be, I think Hannah's mistakes, mis-statements, and occasional dickishness is at least 90% intentional, and the same goes for her annoyingly shallow friends. I base that on two pieces of evidence: 1) Dunham's behind the scenes segments she does following the episodes, and 2) the occasional bursts of wild overacting when Hannah is crying about a "crisis."
What reason #1 accomplishes is what I call the "Ashley Tisdale stays behind to clean up" effect (I never said my names for things roll off the tongue easily). During a showing of "High School Musical 2," the cast is hanging out a pool with the director/choreographer, and they're making plans to take the party elsewhere. Ashley, who plays the flamboyant, self-centered Sharpay, offers to clean up. It's a message to the viewer--"Sharpay wouldn't stay and clean up, but Ashley would. Therefore, Ashley is not really Sharpay." That's an important message for those viewers who wouldn't be able to tell simply from Tisdale's gleefully over-the-top performance that she's not her character. So with Dunham in her after-episode pieces. At first I found them annoying in a kind of "here's what you just saw" kind of way, but I gradually caught on to the importance--Dunham is charming, well-spoken, and intelligent about the stories and the characters in a way that "Hannah" isn't. Mission accomplished.
The case of overacting leads to the second reason--going over the top is a way for actors to tell us that they're not really like that. Denham tends to be very low-key and mumbly as Hannah (as she was playing a variation of herself in her breakthrough movie "Tiny Furniture"), but when Hannah gets really upset over something incredibly stupid, Denham gets hysterical, as she does in the final episode of the season regarding her being 13 pounds overweight. It's her way of telling the viewer, "Yeah, I know Hannah's being a freaking moron about this, and you should go ahead and laugh."
Some critics are down on the acting in general. Of all the elements of a piece of entertainment that are hopelessly subjective, I'm inclined to think acting is highest on that list. In general, I'd say the acting is good enough--what it needs to be. Focuing on Dunham in particular, I think she's good at one-liners and casual conversation, and has some trouble bringing "real" emotion (hence the reliance on overacting), but it all fits what "Hannah" is, so it's fine. The other actors, in turn, do what is needed, if not much more, with the exception of Peter Scolari, who rocks his occasional appearances as Hannah's dad.
Other reasons people give for hating the show, sadly, perhaps speak to our lesser nature, such as, "It's not funny because Lena Dunham's not hot enough." Remarks like that are just rude, and it's too bad some people feel the need to write them, but that's what an internet is for. And some folks focus on how "white" the show is, thinking that "Girls" is racist. Meh. They're white girls, and they know a lot of white people--it works that way sometimes. So on the whole, I like "Girls" fine, and I'll probably watch whenever the next season starts.
Plus, I'd love to hear Zosia Mamet do a medley of some of her father's coolest lines, like "Put that coffee down!" and "All train compartments smell vaguely of shit." That would be tight.
One reason, I think, is that it covers a subject that we're just not supposed to be interested in: privileged young white women complaining despite their privileges. Add to that the fact that the girls are played by real-life privileged young white women (lots of daughters of famous people). So "whiny" and "annoying" definitely go with the territory. What the episodes lead to is the question--does the show realize how annoying these characters really are? I think the answer to that, for the most part, is yes--I'd say if Larry David were a 24-year-old girl, he'd be Lena Dunham's lead character Hannah. Just as Curb Your Enthusiasm fans consistently marvel at how obnoxious "Larry David" can be, I think Hannah's mistakes, mis-statements, and occasional dickishness is at least 90% intentional, and the same goes for her annoyingly shallow friends. I base that on two pieces of evidence: 1) Dunham's behind the scenes segments she does following the episodes, and 2) the occasional bursts of wild overacting when Hannah is crying about a "crisis."
What reason #1 accomplishes is what I call the "Ashley Tisdale stays behind to clean up" effect (I never said my names for things roll off the tongue easily). During a showing of "High School Musical 2," the cast is hanging out a pool with the director/choreographer, and they're making plans to take the party elsewhere. Ashley, who plays the flamboyant, self-centered Sharpay, offers to clean up. It's a message to the viewer--"Sharpay wouldn't stay and clean up, but Ashley would. Therefore, Ashley is not really Sharpay." That's an important message for those viewers who wouldn't be able to tell simply from Tisdale's gleefully over-the-top performance that she's not her character. So with Dunham in her after-episode pieces. At first I found them annoying in a kind of "here's what you just saw" kind of way, but I gradually caught on to the importance--Dunham is charming, well-spoken, and intelligent about the stories and the characters in a way that "Hannah" isn't. Mission accomplished.
The case of overacting leads to the second reason--going over the top is a way for actors to tell us that they're not really like that. Denham tends to be very low-key and mumbly as Hannah (as she was playing a variation of herself in her breakthrough movie "Tiny Furniture"), but when Hannah gets really upset over something incredibly stupid, Denham gets hysterical, as she does in the final episode of the season regarding her being 13 pounds overweight. It's her way of telling the viewer, "Yeah, I know Hannah's being a freaking moron about this, and you should go ahead and laugh."
Some critics are down on the acting in general. Of all the elements of a piece of entertainment that are hopelessly subjective, I'm inclined to think acting is highest on that list. In general, I'd say the acting is good enough--what it needs to be. Focuing on Dunham in particular, I think she's good at one-liners and casual conversation, and has some trouble bringing "real" emotion (hence the reliance on overacting), but it all fits what "Hannah" is, so it's fine. The other actors, in turn, do what is needed, if not much more, with the exception of Peter Scolari, who rocks his occasional appearances as Hannah's dad.
Other reasons people give for hating the show, sadly, perhaps speak to our lesser nature, such as, "It's not funny because Lena Dunham's not hot enough." Remarks like that are just rude, and it's too bad some people feel the need to write them, but that's what an internet is for. And some folks focus on how "white" the show is, thinking that "Girls" is racist. Meh. They're white girls, and they know a lot of white people--it works that way sometimes. So on the whole, I like "Girls" fine, and I'll probably watch whenever the next season starts.
Plus, I'd love to hear Zosia Mamet do a medley of some of her father's coolest lines, like "Put that coffee down!" and "All train compartments smell vaguely of shit." That would be tight.
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
Why Ghostbusters II is Way Better Than Ghostbusters
I was inspired recently (if you call staring at the TV in a semi-comatose state inspired) to watch two iconic 80s movies--Ghostbusters and its sequel (that is, Ghostbusters II). The first was a revisit--I hadn't seen it since its initial release some 28 years ago. I vaguely remember being mildly amused and not terribly impressed back then. I'd never seen the sequel--most folks whose opinion I trust assured me that it was awful, a cynical cash-in on once beloved and inspired figures. What I found in 2012 surprised me a little--not that I found that I'd missed something in Ghostbusters all those years ago, but that the sequel is approximately 3 times the better film (which by no means makes it a classic, but it's still pretty enjoyable). Yes, that's an opinion, and you're probably thinking a really dumb opinion at that. So I guess I'd better be specific, going from the original Ghostbusters, and then, like the opening title tells us in the sequel, "5 years later...":
First off, Dr. Peter Venkman is a dick. Seriously. Check out his first scene, where he's torturing the poor guy and rewarding the hot chick in the "ESP" experiment, in order to get rid of the young man and bed the young girl. Like I said, dick. Now with Venkman's brand of dickishness, I'm touching on a huge cultural phenomenon. Murray as Venkman encapsulated a brand of humor that a whole generation--Generation X--took to heart as its own. Murray's whole "I can't really be bothered to pretend to be engaged in the story or this character, so I'm going to stay outside the whole movie and riff on it" attitude spoke volumes to millions of fans. While it's certainly true that you don't have to be "Gen X" to love Murray and Ghostbusters, I think it's also true that if you were to point to comedies that defined and glorified the Gen X attitude, Ghostbusters would rate way up there. All of that would be fine if it were also funny, but Murray carries that attitude all the way through the movie--when he's supposed to be facing down ghosts, when his friends are supposedly in great danger, and--millions and millions of devoted fans notwithstanding--I don't think it's terribly funny. Contrast that attitude with, for example, the Hope and Crosby "Road" pictures, where the heroes aren't taking anything in the movie seriously either, but that's the crucial difference--there's a real relationship between Bob and Bing, and they're in on the joke together. In the case of Ghostbusters, you've got Dan Aykroyd doing his damnedest to play a guy named Ray, you've got Harold Ramis throwing out the occasional improv-y non-sequitur but with no character to back it up, and you've got Ernie Hudson doing what he can with Token--that is, Winston--but Murray isn't joining in. Again, for the fans, that's the glorious point, but it's a point that eludes your faithful blogger.
Now--jump ahead to Ghostbusters II. Venkman is still a dick, but, huge surprise--the movie calls him on it. Now he's a dick with something to lose, and something to accomplish--win back Sigourney Weaver and prove that he can be a good dad. It's a sappy character arc, to be sure, but it is indeed a character arc, and all of a sudden, we're watching a character in a movie--and, even better, a character who has to play with the other characters in order to get what he wants. We, as the audience, have a reason to care what happens. Again, it's a pretty frail reason, but compared to the first movie, it's a veritable Les Miz, with or without the songs.
This business of character brings me to the one scene in the original Ghostbusters that I really liked and that made me laugh. Ray, Winston, Egon, and Venkman are facing down Zool. Zool demands of Ray, "Are you a god?" Ray looks back at the guys, and Venkman is nodding encouragingly. Ray turns back to Zool and says with complete frankness, "No." Ray then gets blasted, leading to the one real laugh line of the whole movie, delivered by Winston: "Ray, when someone asks if you're a god, you say yes!" What's great about that whole sequence, topped by that very good line (the least they could do for Hudson is give him a laugh line), is that it comes from character--Ray is by nature too straightforward, fact-oriented, and honest to lie, even to Zool. Plus, there's that business with the nod from Venkman--Venkman is clearly trying to indicate to Ray that he should say "Yes," giving him an encouraging "of course you're a god" kind of nod. Ray, however, interprets the nod as "Be yourself--be factual and be honest." And that leads to disaster, as it should in comedy. For about two minutes, Ghostbusters is a great movie, and you wonder (or at least, I wonder) why the other 110 minutes couldn't have done stuff like that.
To be fair, I don't think Ghostbusters II has a scene or a moment that quite tops the Zool confrontation, but it's more consistently amusing. Ramis gets to do a splendid riff on his one toy as a child (part of a Slinky, which he straightened out), and all of a sudden, he's got a character, too--one that has strong (negative) feelings about Venkman (as well as bizarre childhood memories). Aykroyd, meanwhile, gets a certain sad grandeur from really missing his glory days as a ghostbuster. Even Rick Moranis gets to do more than be "annoying guy," and it's kind of cute when he puts on a Ghostbuster suit like a little kid putting on a Superman cape. (Hudson, of course, still doesn't get to do much.) Furthermore, Ghostbusters II has the wonderfully eccentric Peter MacNicol, doing the sort of weird-accent humor that Sasha Baron Cohen currently has a lock on, and he's terrific.
More importantly, Ghostbusters II comes out on top in terms of the other big element that Ghostbusters fans always go on about--New York Attitude. By the end of Ghostbusters, when Winston yells, "I love this town!", you wonder--which town? Oh yeah, I guess it was set in New York. But what does the town have to do with the Ghostbusters' ultimate triumph? Not much connection there--they could have been in mid-town Toronto. And New York Attitude is represented by whom, exactly? By Nashville-born, Kentucky-raised Annie Potts doing a just-good-enough-for-your-college-sketch-show New York accent as the Ghostbusters' secretary? Now, Ghostbusters II, on the other hand--that's an only-in-New York story. Remember the evil goo under the streets of New York, built up by years of New Yorkers' anger and general misery? That's New York attitude, buddy.
To end an essay like this, I of course have to allude to the insidiously catchy theme song. I'm not gonna call those 1984 Ghostbusters. I'm gonna check in with them in 1989, thanks.
First off, Dr. Peter Venkman is a dick. Seriously. Check out his first scene, where he's torturing the poor guy and rewarding the hot chick in the "ESP" experiment, in order to get rid of the young man and bed the young girl. Like I said, dick. Now with Venkman's brand of dickishness, I'm touching on a huge cultural phenomenon. Murray as Venkman encapsulated a brand of humor that a whole generation--Generation X--took to heart as its own. Murray's whole "I can't really be bothered to pretend to be engaged in the story or this character, so I'm going to stay outside the whole movie and riff on it" attitude spoke volumes to millions of fans. While it's certainly true that you don't have to be "Gen X" to love Murray and Ghostbusters, I think it's also true that if you were to point to comedies that defined and glorified the Gen X attitude, Ghostbusters would rate way up there. All of that would be fine if it were also funny, but Murray carries that attitude all the way through the movie--when he's supposed to be facing down ghosts, when his friends are supposedly in great danger, and--millions and millions of devoted fans notwithstanding--I don't think it's terribly funny. Contrast that attitude with, for example, the Hope and Crosby "Road" pictures, where the heroes aren't taking anything in the movie seriously either, but that's the crucial difference--there's a real relationship between Bob and Bing, and they're in on the joke together. In the case of Ghostbusters, you've got Dan Aykroyd doing his damnedest to play a guy named Ray, you've got Harold Ramis throwing out the occasional improv-y non-sequitur but with no character to back it up, and you've got Ernie Hudson doing what he can with Token--that is, Winston--but Murray isn't joining in. Again, for the fans, that's the glorious point, but it's a point that eludes your faithful blogger.
Now--jump ahead to Ghostbusters II. Venkman is still a dick, but, huge surprise--the movie calls him on it. Now he's a dick with something to lose, and something to accomplish--win back Sigourney Weaver and prove that he can be a good dad. It's a sappy character arc, to be sure, but it is indeed a character arc, and all of a sudden, we're watching a character in a movie--and, even better, a character who has to play with the other characters in order to get what he wants. We, as the audience, have a reason to care what happens. Again, it's a pretty frail reason, but compared to the first movie, it's a veritable Les Miz, with or without the songs.
This business of character brings me to the one scene in the original Ghostbusters that I really liked and that made me laugh. Ray, Winston, Egon, and Venkman are facing down Zool. Zool demands of Ray, "Are you a god?" Ray looks back at the guys, and Venkman is nodding encouragingly. Ray turns back to Zool and says with complete frankness, "No." Ray then gets blasted, leading to the one real laugh line of the whole movie, delivered by Winston: "Ray, when someone asks if you're a god, you say yes!" What's great about that whole sequence, topped by that very good line (the least they could do for Hudson is give him a laugh line), is that it comes from character--Ray is by nature too straightforward, fact-oriented, and honest to lie, even to Zool. Plus, there's that business with the nod from Venkman--Venkman is clearly trying to indicate to Ray that he should say "Yes," giving him an encouraging "of course you're a god" kind of nod. Ray, however, interprets the nod as "Be yourself--be factual and be honest." And that leads to disaster, as it should in comedy. For about two minutes, Ghostbusters is a great movie, and you wonder (or at least, I wonder) why the other 110 minutes couldn't have done stuff like that.
To be fair, I don't think Ghostbusters II has a scene or a moment that quite tops the Zool confrontation, but it's more consistently amusing. Ramis gets to do a splendid riff on his one toy as a child (part of a Slinky, which he straightened out), and all of a sudden, he's got a character, too--one that has strong (negative) feelings about Venkman (as well as bizarre childhood memories). Aykroyd, meanwhile, gets a certain sad grandeur from really missing his glory days as a ghostbuster. Even Rick Moranis gets to do more than be "annoying guy," and it's kind of cute when he puts on a Ghostbuster suit like a little kid putting on a Superman cape. (Hudson, of course, still doesn't get to do much.) Furthermore, Ghostbusters II has the wonderfully eccentric Peter MacNicol, doing the sort of weird-accent humor that Sasha Baron Cohen currently has a lock on, and he's terrific.
More importantly, Ghostbusters II comes out on top in terms of the other big element that Ghostbusters fans always go on about--New York Attitude. By the end of Ghostbusters, when Winston yells, "I love this town!", you wonder--which town? Oh yeah, I guess it was set in New York. But what does the town have to do with the Ghostbusters' ultimate triumph? Not much connection there--they could have been in mid-town Toronto. And New York Attitude is represented by whom, exactly? By Nashville-born, Kentucky-raised Annie Potts doing a just-good-enough-for-your-college-sketch-show New York accent as the Ghostbusters' secretary? Now, Ghostbusters II, on the other hand--that's an only-in-New York story. Remember the evil goo under the streets of New York, built up by years of New Yorkers' anger and general misery? That's New York attitude, buddy.
To end an essay like this, I of course have to allude to the insidiously catchy theme song. I'm not gonna call those 1984 Ghostbusters. I'm gonna check in with them in 1989, thanks.
Monday, August 8, 2011
Worse than Godwin
You're probably familiar with Godwin's Law if you muck about on internet threads. Godwin's Law states that at some point on a discussion thread, someone will make an inappropriate and hyperbolic comparison to Hitler and/or Nazis. When someone does that, the thread has been "Godwinned," colloquially speaking. It's a clever way to describe an obnoxious internet habit. I've been thinking about it, though, and it seems to me there are several worse things you can do to an internet discussion. Here are a few:
Buttercupping a Thread: this is a reference to the very popular (and, as I've explained in a brilliant previous post, somewhat overrated) film The Princess Bride. Again, if you're an internet discussion sort of person, you've seen this happen. Somebody in the discussion misuses a word. Then a Princess Bride geek comes in with an implied verbal chortle, snark guns a-blazing: "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." At which point, I imagine, the aforementioned geek chuckles to himself and revels in his or her own superiority for the rest of the day. To my eyes, this is much, much worse than Godwinning a thread. Here's the thing: if the context of the poster is clear, you're pretty much being a dick if you're highlighting a usage error--it's along the same lines as triumphantly pointing out the careless grammatical error that is endemic to nearly all blogging. Furthermore, it's mildly amusing, at best, when Mandy Patinkin says it in the movie. It will never, ever be funny when you say it. So please don't.
Pastafarying a thread: atheist geeks pull this one all the time. If they encounter an ultra-religious person, they'll bring out a (supposedly) hilarious reference to The Flying Spaghetti Monster. (Are you a Pastafarian? Have you been touched by His Noodly Appendages?) The idea, of course, is that coming up with a Flying Spaghetti Monster is no more, or less, silly than worshipping Jesus (or as atheist geeks like to call him, "Jebus"--side note: the year 2000 called, folks, it wants its relevance back). To the geek pulling this verbal prank, it's no less funny the 500th time than it was the first--it's a little like when your dad or grandfather would always say "Chee'burger, chee'burger" whenever he was barbecuing, years after the Saturday Night Live sketch that gave birth to the reference passed from memory. The point is, gang, it's freakin' tired. Religion is silly, we get it. Curb your urge to post this one, and just have a snack. Maybe some spaghetti.
Jesusing a thread: I've seen this rendered as "Jesus-jacking" also, which definitely has a cool, alliterative quality. This is just as bad as pastafarying a thread, and should serve as a healthy reminder that when fundamentalists take on super-atheists, there are knuckleheads on both sides. The Jesus who's in the Bible was definitely funky fresh, and it's more than okay to worship Him. But chances are, screeds about His greatness and the fact that most of you are going to be Left Behind are out of place in a discussion as to whether or not Batman's batsuit should or shouldn't have nipples (answer: of course it should--protruding and perky). There's a time and a place, and in a way, you're insulting the Son of the Big Guy by rendering Him a non-sequitur on a thread. If I were God, Jr., I'd totally leave you behind for that.
Iambic pentamering a thread: this one, as far as I'm concerned, is the internet thread equivalent of wearing a "kick me" sign. It is the unwarranted and incredibly pretentious use of the archaic term "methinks." Usually it's accompanied by a quotation (wrong, most of the time) from Hamlet: "The lady doth protest too much, methinks." Now, "methinks" was a great term for Shakespeare and his contemporaries, because they could render the filler idea "it seems to me" in a neat, iambic word--unstressed, stressed, "me-THINKS." Only had eight syllables in your line? Add "methinks" and boom--iambic pentameter. But write it on an internet thread in the 21st century, and what's your message, exactly? "I'm cool because I've heard of Shakespeare"? Seriously? Better than this is going back for seconds on those noodly appendages.
At any rate, I hope I've helped you to be slightly less dickish on the internet. And if you take offense at what I've written, well, Hitler would have taken offense too, you Nazi.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
shoop and not gleeking
So I'm not a "gleek"--that is, in current popular parlance, a big fan of the popular series Glee. The thing is, I should be a gleek. One might say that I, of all people, should be a gleek. I listen to the Broadway station on satellite radio pretty regularly, and I laugh knowingly at Seth Rudetsky's bitchy asides as he introduces various show tunes. (Indeed, the fact that I know who Seth Rudetsky is would probably make me an automatic gleek in most circles.) And Glee has made its mark on that same Broadway station--along with selections from Oklahoma! and Follies and The Addams Family and the like, selections from the Glee soundtrack pepper one's hour or two of listening on a regular basis.
It's almost absurd, in fact, that I should resist Glee on any level. I am, after all, a big fan of the High School Musical franchise (which is arguably more silly and plastic than anything the Glee gang perpetrates), and I love show tunes and Broadway show lore. Add to that the talents of Jane Lynch, who's always good for a couple of laughs, and the presence of Lea Michele, who's one hot Jewess, and you have to figure that Glee would be the show that would make me downright, well, gleeful. And I do enjoy moments here and there. But somehow, I'm left a bit cold.
Part of the problem for me is the way the musical numbers are edited. But then, I've been spoiled by Fred Astaire, who always insisted that you saw his whole body while he danced. That way, you could see the moves happening in real time and space. (Slapstick comedy works the same way, which a lot of modern directors also don't understand.) With a lot of quick and cross-cutting, I always assume somebody is hiding something, and plus I can't concentrate that well.
Well, fine, but the emphasis should be on the singing anyway, you might retort. But that's a problem for me, too, and perhaps that relates to a bigger overall issue--tone. What are we supposed to think of these singing, dancing misfits? Are we meant to take their problems with some degree of seriousness? The old adage is that you sing when you can't talk, and you dance when you can't walk. What I suppose I miss is a real sense that these are characters who have to sing, as opposed to goofy constructs who find themselves in wacky parody videos and costumes.
I'm not enamored with "Mr. Shue," either--he's one of those proficient actor/singer/dancers who doesn't really generate joy with his skill. (That's actually what made him perfect in his Tony Awards number when he was doing Tulsa's song from Gypsy--the character is a generically talented but blah performer, singing a purposely blah "I need the girl" song.) Other characters seem to be excuses for the writers to write Really Colorful and Elevated Dialogue, and since they all speak the same Really Colorful and Elevated Dialogue, they become pretty interchangeable.
I have some issues with the song choices, too--a Britney Spears episode, for example, simply proved that Britney's songs, heard one after the other, are really boring and repetitive.
There are, as I mentioned earlier, some nice moments. I got a kick out of the "Get Happy/Happy Days are Here Again" duet, for example, and every now and then there's a nice overall energy to the numbers. And I'll probably watch the show every now and then. But no, even though the sun's a ball of butter, I'm not a gleek.
It's almost absurd, in fact, that I should resist Glee on any level. I am, after all, a big fan of the High School Musical franchise (which is arguably more silly and plastic than anything the Glee gang perpetrates), and I love show tunes and Broadway show lore. Add to that the talents of Jane Lynch, who's always good for a couple of laughs, and the presence of Lea Michele, who's one hot Jewess, and you have to figure that Glee would be the show that would make me downright, well, gleeful. And I do enjoy moments here and there. But somehow, I'm left a bit cold.
Part of the problem for me is the way the musical numbers are edited. But then, I've been spoiled by Fred Astaire, who always insisted that you saw his whole body while he danced. That way, you could see the moves happening in real time and space. (Slapstick comedy works the same way, which a lot of modern directors also don't understand.) With a lot of quick and cross-cutting, I always assume somebody is hiding something, and plus I can't concentrate that well.
Well, fine, but the emphasis should be on the singing anyway, you might retort. But that's a problem for me, too, and perhaps that relates to a bigger overall issue--tone. What are we supposed to think of these singing, dancing misfits? Are we meant to take their problems with some degree of seriousness? The old adage is that you sing when you can't talk, and you dance when you can't walk. What I suppose I miss is a real sense that these are characters who have to sing, as opposed to goofy constructs who find themselves in wacky parody videos and costumes.
I'm not enamored with "Mr. Shue," either--he's one of those proficient actor/singer/dancers who doesn't really generate joy with his skill. (That's actually what made him perfect in his Tony Awards number when he was doing Tulsa's song from Gypsy--the character is a generically talented but blah performer, singing a purposely blah "I need the girl" song.) Other characters seem to be excuses for the writers to write Really Colorful and Elevated Dialogue, and since they all speak the same Really Colorful and Elevated Dialogue, they become pretty interchangeable.
I have some issues with the song choices, too--a Britney Spears episode, for example, simply proved that Britney's songs, heard one after the other, are really boring and repetitive.
There are, as I mentioned earlier, some nice moments. I got a kick out of the "Get Happy/Happy Days are Here Again" duet, for example, and every now and then there's a nice overall energy to the numbers. And I'll probably watch the show every now and then. But no, even though the sun's a ball of butter, I'm not a gleek.
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