Shoop and Christmas Music

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.

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.

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.

 

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.

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.

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.

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.

shoop and auditions

I just did a stint watching some auditions for a large group of theatres in the fairly major city in which I live. Now I'm not, nor am I ever likely to be, in any position to help anybody's career, but I did notice a few things about auditions that other actors and actresses might find helpful. Plus one thing that won't help anybody.

1. Nobody needs to see you warm up. We all know you're not warmed up. Introduce yourself and the monologue or monologues, and get on with it.

2. A lot of people who did especially well at the auditions only did one monologue, as opposed to two "contrasting" ones. (Note: Shakespeare and not-Shakespeare isn't always a real contrast.) If you have a three-minute monologue that you do especially well, then go ahead and do it.

3. Try to get to know yourself a bit. I saw one young lady, maybe in her early 20s or a little younger, do a screechingly horrible version of Martha in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf." My one note was "ouch." That's because if you're a young lady in your early 20s or a little younger, you're not Martha in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf." Another youngster sounded really unconvincing saying the f-word in a monologue that highlighted the f-word. If you're not comfortable swearing, don't do monologues with swearing in them. Try to figure out if you're the comic relief, the gay best friend, the leading man, the ingenue, or whoever. Or better yet, get someone fairly knowledgeable to tell you.

4. Use your surroundings when appropriate. One young man was doing Boy Willie in August Wilson's The Piano Lesson, and there was a piano onstage (for musical auditions later that day). And son of a gun, he referenced the piano. He looked at it, gestured toward it, examined it--amazing. My one note was "genius." You can learn to be that kind of genius, though--it's just a matter of training yourself to be alert to possible connections to what you're doing and your environment.

5. Don't get upstaged by what you're wearing. One young lady wore a top that revealed what used to be called extreme decolletage. And yes, all of us male chauvinist pigs know where your eyes are, but keep in mind what the adjective "revealing" means. Would you really want something, anything, to distract the listeners, some of whom are probably pigs, from what you're saying and doing?

The last thing I noticed won't help anybody, ever. It was simply that there were many competent actors (male and female) at the auditions. They were fine, and you could cast one of them, or another, and your play would turn out well, assuming you had a good play to start with. And then there were a few that just stood out. You noticed them, they commanded your attention, and if they weren't right for the show you're doing now, you damn well wanted to remember them for later. And I have no idea why. Sometimes it was timing, sometimes it was a look, sometimes it was the voice, but it really wasn't any of those things. That's why you can't learn it if you don't have it--it's too nebulous and arbitrary. But there's a bright side--that "something" is also hopelessly subjective. It could be that everybody in the theatre saw those things I saw, but it could also be that I was the only one.

Maybe that's the best note to take away from this post--much like love, there's a good chance in the auditioning world that to somebody out there, you're "it." Now sing out, Louise.

shoop, sex and the city 2, and feminism

There are many reasons to hate, dismiss, and otherwise be disappointed by Sex and the City 2. I didn't do any of those things--I had a great time. But I get it--it's awfully long, it piles on too many groaner sex-puns, and runs right into Scooby-Doo territory for the escape-from-the-angry-Muslim-hordes climax (including the classic set-up of a wall, whereupon one, then two, then three, then all four heroines are peering around the corner in their comically obvious disguises). Again, I should emphasize that I enjoyed all that stuff, speaking as an out-and-proud straight SATC fan who squealed with giddy delight upon finally learning Mr. Big's name, but I can see where a lot of people wouldn't--even, and perhaps in some cases especially, long-time fans of the show who left the theatres thinking, wow, was the TV show ever that ridiculous? (Answer: sometimes.) So I get the vitriol and overall mass hatred. But, and this is an important but, there are some detractors who criticize the characters', and the movie's, feminist bona fides. And they're missing out on something very important.

Despite the lingering over luxury and the over-the-top silliness, SATC 2 never leaves feminism behind--in fact, it promotes the idea in positive and entertaining ways. There's a running theme throughout the movie, for example, of women's voices being silenced. Carrie, as played by Sarah Jessica "Who's the Star of this Movie?!" Parker, can't help but wonder (to paraphrase the phrase that constitutes my favorite series drinking game--chugging whenever Carrie says, "I couldn't help but wonder") about the use of veils covering women's mouths and effectively silencing them. Of course, Carrie, being Carrie, doesn't pick up on this until she sees a caricature of herself in the New Yorker with tape over her mouth (accompanying a poor review of her book), but a lot of us don't see the big issues until we get plunged into them personally. We, as an audience, are invited to consider all kinds of advertising where the woman is silenced and the mouth is somehow covered or absent altogether. In other words, that's an SATC character thinking, quite seriously, about a feminist issue.

But the capital-F Feminist moment happens in the karoake scene--Carrie, Samantha, Miranda, and Charlotte all sing "I Am Woman." I'll bet you remember the lyrics. The speaker is "standing toe-to-toe," that is, with any man, as she "spreads my loving arms across the land," and, more pertinently, tries "to make my brother understand." That's What Feminism is All About, Charlie Brown. Not making the male patriarchal scum understand, but making her brother understand. Wouldn't it be nice if all the bright young women in the high school and college classrooms, who are all for equality and fair treatment but quickly preface such views with "not that I'm a feminist or anything," could pick up on this message of love for everybody? SATC 2, for all its frivolousness, finds a funny, lively, and sexy way to send that message. Feminists who are pissed off at the movie would do well to take note. Yes, any group of people that faces discrimination needs some folks who are in your face, mocking, and angry--but they need the entertaining people, too. Once again, Carrie and Co., complete with shimmying karoake dancers, deliver the good word, and the goods.

shoop and the death of snark

Well, that's a ridiculous proposition, I have to admit. Snark ("snide + remark") won't die anytime soon. But what if it did? Would we miss anything? I mean, what use in the great wide world does snark serve? It's worth thinking about.

Snark can, at bottom, be entertaining from time to time. An unfortunate or foolish decision by a world leader, a difficult economic climate, even an atmosphere of fear and forboding--in such cases, perhaps a bit of clever and well-phrased snark can be welcome. It might well be a legitimate way to deal with some of the outrages of the world around us. And some people are pretty good at it--throughout history, and even now, although even the best practitioners aren't pleasing all the time. Snark, pretty much by definition, can't be pleasing all the time.

Snark, moreover, has become an unwelcome way of communicating in general, and that's the snarky body in which I think it would be nice to stick a wooden stake. Because when one indulges in a snide remark in a discussion or in everyday discourse, all too often it becomes a substitute for reasoning. In other words, whatever reason the snark-meister has for disagreeing with you simply becomes the snarky remark itself--a poor substitute for a reasoned, thoughtful argument. It also speaks to an overall rudeness and incivility on the part of the snarkiste, an attitude that claims that reasons are unnecessary as long as the remark is sufficiently hurtful and spiteful to put you in your place--so that others may laugh with me and laugh at you. Thus, debate and useful rhetoric die as snark invades the barren grounds of discussion like so much weed or crabgrass.

Can sincerity thrive in our time? I think so. I think snarks will find themselves more and more niche oriented as people who really want to discuss and even debate a particular topic will clear the cobwebs of snarkery off the mantel and get down to cases. And that's fine--those who want to snark will always find a place for it. Even those of us who don't care so much for it might want to visit now and then--occasionally, snarking can be pretty funny. But not all the time, and not from everybody all at once.

shoop and nice guys

I think we'll check out of the world of TV for a little while. I'll probably have something to say about Sex and the City when the super-fabulous Sex and the City 2 comes out, and as for Arrested Development, well, it's funny. The two bits on that show that always make me laugh: 1) when somebody does his or her variation of the "Michael's a chicken" dance, and 2) whenever Will Arnett says, "Michael." (Trust me if you haven't heard him say it.)

The thing is, I've been obsessed with the concept of being nice lately. Apparently, there's an expression, "Nice GuyTM." This is the sort of "nice guy" who tends to complain that girls don't notice (or won't sleep with) him because he's "too nice." You probably know somebody like this, or maybe you've been or are somebody like this--I know I can relate. It's an age-old problem that long pre-dates the internet, or even the printing press.

Nevertheless, the internet figures heavily into my obsession, because the internet is filled with not-nice people. Mean, vicious, unsympathetic, unempathic, nasty, nasty people. And, because this is the way of the world, these are the people who tend to give troubled "nice guys" the most advice. It should probably cease to amaze me by now, but it doesn't: the people most lacking in empathy are the ones offering their bile-infused opinions in this highly sensitive area where empathy is most sorely needed. Honestly, you should read some of this stuff--and if you google "nice guys," you can. All kinds of super-angry people with no concept of other people's feelings accusing nice guys of self-hatred, misogyny, manipulation, spinelessness, cowardice, you name it. Plus there's the unmistakably geek touch--metaphors from the world of science to explain why the nice guy is such a horrible human being, like "water seeks its own level." Great--now that I know about the surface of water, what do I do?

Now, to be fair to these dispensers of wisdom, there's a grain of truth in the name-calling--but that truth is only applicable to a troubled nice guy who is succumbing to bitterness, and it's a greatly distorted truth at that. So I'm going to talk to the nice guys for a moment or two. For the rest of you, re-visit my review of Julie & Julia--it's pretty cool.

Hello, nice guy. And congratulations--you've embarked on one of the highest and most challenging callings imaginable. For niceness, at its most perfect level, encompasses morality, bravery, charity, and generally making the world a better place. But there are dangers, and maybe you've encountered them already. The biggest one is the desire for reward. It's everywhere in our pop culture, our learned memory, and even our fundamental tenets of morality, religious and secular--the nice person is supposed to prevail, to win, to get what he wants...and, perhaps most germane to our little discussion, to get the girl. And that's where the bitterness might start to appear--when the reward doesn't come. As Pee-Wee Herman says in his landmark Pee-Wee's Playhouse special (it predates his popular Saturday morning show and is more adult-oriented)--"It's not that I expected anything in return, but... I didn't get anything in return!" (There's a reason that line gets the laughs and applause that it does.) And once bitterness does appear, all those other horrible attributes that the non-empathic advice givers accuse you of can follow closely behind. And people, as people will, will set to work on kicking your ass for it.

I would urge you, therefore, nice guy, to examine your motives. Are you really being nice in order to get something--recognition, thanks, rewards, sex? This examination requires ruthless honesty--and here's a hint: unless you're already a saint, the answer's pretty much going to be yes, you want to get something. So here's your challenge, nice guy--see if you can train yourself to be okay with not getting a reward for being nice. Don't shoot for sainthood right away--just see if you can keep up your niceness and accept not getting anything in return. If you can do that, well, I can't guarantee sex (or anything else), but here's what I think will happen. I think you'll start to feel good about yourself, and rightfully so, for being a nice guy. This self-approval, in turn, will lead to confidence. And that confidence might be very useful for you--again, no guarantees, but people tend to be attracted to confidence. But once again, be careful, and be patient--it's not, I'll be okay with not getting anything because in the end I'll get something big. You really have to be okay with not getting anything--it's going to fall apart on you otherwise. And you'll slip sometimes, most likely. Forgive youself--because again, what you're doing is really difficult--otherwise, there'd be a lot more nice people in the world.

And that's what I'd say to a nice guy, without name-calling or animosity. No need to thank me.

shoop and ed o'neill

These days, I'm happy for Ed O'Neill. Now, that makes no sense, of course, being that emotionally invested in notable TV stars whose paths will most likely never cross with mine. Nevertheless, I'm happy for the guy, because he's got a nice late-in-the-day leading role on an excellent TV show, Modern Family, and I get the sense that, yes, even though I know nothing about what O'Neill is like in real life, that he's earned it--he has it coming. But first, I have to talk about William Bendix.

William Bendix was a go-to character actor in Hollywood in the 40s and 50s, and he created a prominent role in one of the great American bar plays--William Saroyan's The Time of Your Life. (He's in the movie version, too, and he's terrific.) Bendix usually played good-hearted but not-too-bright guys, with occasional not-too-bright bullies thrown in. What relegated him, I think, to playing a lot of "simps," was his shape and his face--he was a bulky guy, with a very easy-to-read face, almost cartoonishly easy to read. So his emotions were always right there, and that leant itself to simplicity. It worked against him in many cases, including what could have been a great role, the title role in The Babe Ruth Story. But that movie made Ruth seem incredibly simple and obvious, and with Bendix's open-faced style, well, it was simple times about a million. But catch him some time in Detective Story--Kirk Douglas has the lead, but Bendix is the straight-shooting, common-sense buddy, and you start to wish Bendix could have done that sort of thing more often. His best-known role, for radio and later TV, was super-dumb husband and father Chester Riley on The Life of Riley, saying things like "What a revoltin' development this is!" And so it was.

O'Neill, I always thought, had a lot in common with Bendix. O'Neill projects the simple, direct, guy's guy aura that Bendix had, and he also found a long-running, popular niche as a dim-bulb family man, Al Bundy in Married With Children--although, to be fair to that show, it started out as a wonderfully subversive alternative to the rebirth of the warmhearted family sitcom before both the show, and particularly O'Neill, degenerated into leering self-parodies. O'Neill, however, gets a chance at rejuvenation that Bendix never had (he died relatively young, at 58; O'Neill turns 64 this year), playing a very down-to-earth and often very funny head of a large extended family. You know this guy, because O'Neill lets you get to know him so easily--it's that easy-to-read face. Plus, the writers give O'Neill a chance to rise to some depth and complexity--O'Neill's Jay is a man who has made, and has to deal with, some unfortunate choices in the past, and he's learning to navigate a future that's much harder to read than he is. The whole ensemble of Modern Family does a great job, and you root for all of them, but O'Neilll does just what you always knew O'Neill could do--he takes a big, messy, multi-layered family comedy, and he holds it together. And he makes it look easy.

So, Ed, although you don't need to hear it from me, good for you.

shoop and big love

Do you have a friend or loved one that you always worry about? They're always getting themselves in trouble, and if they had maybe a little more common sense, or a little more insight, or were a little less stubborn or naive, they wouldn't always find themselves in the messes they're inevitably in.


If you enter the world of Big Love, you're going to find yourself worrying a lot. You'll worry about Bill, the affable polygamist played with matchless regular-guyness by matchless regular guy Bill Paxton. And you'll worry about his three wives, and their brood of kids. After this season, Bill now finds himself in the state senate, and there's more to worry about than ever, because the more open he tries to be with his "secret" life, the more this stubbornly holy man--that's the most frustrating/appealing aspect of Bill, the fact that he really believes he's doing the work and living the life that "Heavenly Father" wants him to lead--has to make deals with all kinds of devils, imps, and lesser and greater demons.


And what a cast of demons--there's Harry Dean Stanton as Roman, the Prophet and leader of the Juniper Creek compound, the aggregation of hard-core polygymists from which Bill was expelled as a teenager. Stanton is the righteous, slimy, holier-than-thou demon of many of our nightmares, and yet there's that tender side, too, the side the late John Hughes tapped into for Pretty in Pink. There's Sissy Spacek, too, having the time of her life playing a sneaky lobbyist in full snarl, a color I don't believe Spacek has ever tried on (yeah, she killed a bunch of people in Carrie, but she was a victim first).


But it might be the wives who make the show. You might think you know everything about them after the first episode--Jeanne Tripplehorn as Barb, First Wife, the Sensible One, Chloe Sevigny as Nicki, Second Wife, the scheming one, and Ginnifer Goodwin as Margene, Third Wife, the giddy, goofy one. And so they are, but there's more to all three of them, much to each other's and their own surprise, especially as Bill becomes more and more self-centeredly goal-driven.

Still, I'm not doing this show justice. I could talk about the show's unique juxtaposition of the ordinariness of the characters with the outrageous things they say and do, but that's a very general description. It's little details, like the casual way Bill has to pluralize everything, as in, "I don't want them in my homes" (each wife and set of kids has a separate neighboring house). Or the way no one in the family will curse, but how much anger they put into their substitute curse words: "What the h-- is going on?!" or "Now wait a g-d minute," or perhaps the ultimate putdown, "F-- you, Barb!" That's when you start to like these people. And then, of course, comes the worrying. Followed, naturally, by the impatience of waiting for the next season.

shoop and julie & julia

So I'm interrupting my TV musings to catch up to the movie that returns Meryl Streep to the Oscar race, Julie & Julia. Nora Ephron does something really interesting, and perhaps even a little shocking, when the movie enters its final third.

She torpedoes half of her movie. Just blows it into oblivion. And what's even more interesting, I think Ephron might have done it on purpose.

You probably already know this movie as The Really Interesting Story about the Fascinating Lady and The Really Crappy Story about the Incredibly Self-Involved, Boring Lady. And it's all true--Meryl Streep Does it Again as Julia Child, getting the familiar mannerisms down and making us see a real, living person up there on screen. Meanwhile, Stanley Tucci gets the Good Sport Award as Child's husband, whose job is pretty much to adore Meryl just like it used to be Henry Fonda's job to adore Bette Davis. And he's damned good at it. It's great fun to watch. And then there's the Other Story--whiny, why-hasn't-my-brilliance-been-recognized blogger Julie Powell (a super-glum Amy Adams) cries about living in Queens, cries about messing up her kitchen, cries about, well, pretty much everything, while Chris Messina has Tucci's job as patient husband, but he's clearly, and understandably, not having as much fun. After a lot of back-and-forth between the titular figures, Child faces a monumental setback to her epic cookbook, years in the planning, writing, rewriting, and revising. "Well, boo hoo. What next?" she says brightly, and BAM! All the Julie Powell stuff is obliterated in a single stroke. Why, we immediately exclaim, have we been watching a good half-hour of Whiny McWhiner when we can be watching a plucky, eccentric, can-do heroine who has just rendered an indelible parody of the whole other half of the movie--boo hoo, what next, indeed!

And Ephron must have seen that. She set up her parallels between the heroines with great care and craft, with more than a dash of smacking us over the head. Did she really make one-half of her movie a ponderous slog on purpose so that the Julia Child stuff would come off more wonderfully? It would seem to be a suicidal idea, but check out the results--a nice chunk of box-office change and the umpteenth Oscar nomination for Streep.

The other possibility is probably more likely, but more depressing--there's really an audience that would root for a self-absorbed, whiny rhymes-with-witch and see her as something of a role model. Maybe that's a generational thing. I'd feel better about it if I could be convinced that eventually Generation Whine will be able to laugh at themselves.

But no, I'm not convinced.

shoop and how i met your mother

It started with the most unbelievable fake-out I've ever seen on TV. How I Met Your Mother introduced us to a likeable group of people, played by some appealing people, some I'd seen before (Neil Patrick Harris, Alyson Hannigan), and others I hadn't--but immediately they became the most relaxed and funny ensemble I'd witnessed in a long time. Hannigan I knew could be funny--after all, she made "this one time in band camp" one of the all-time greatest punchlines (and if you've been in band camp and you've heard that joke too often, tough beans--it's still funny). The others' comic abilities came as pleasant, and then increasingly wonderful surprises, renewed week after week. But most of all, the creators of the show set up a budding romance between a young architect named Ted and a TV reporter named Robin. They meet cute, they meet funny--at this point, I'm thinking we're above average, but nothing earth-shaking.

Then came the fake-out.

You see, the framing device of the show is the character of Ted, in the future, telling his two kids the titular story. And once Ted seems to have won Robin over in the "past" (our present), "old" Ted of the future cheerfully tells his kids, "And that's how I met your Aunt Robin."

Aunt Robin?!!

And I was floored. I laughed with sheer pleasure and surprise, but then immediately I thought--"They can't keep that going, no way." How could they encourage an audience to root for a developing relationship that is doomed from the start? How could they move the story of meeting mother along at a reasonable pace and sustain multiple seasons of fun and interest?

How, indeed, since that's exactly what's happened. The writers' supply of inventiveness and cleverness is certainly way up there on the list of reasons. And you can point to Neil Patrick Harris as the breakout figure, who suddenly became quite possibly the funniest person on TV. But in the end, it's that ensemble--Josh Radnor, Jason Segel, Cobie Smulders, plus Hannigan and Harris. You like these guys, and you root for them, even when they're doing really misguided and even shockingly amoral things. They make the less inspired episodes pleasant enough fun, and when the episodes are inspired, well, then we're talking, as Harris' character Barney would say, legen... wait for it... dary. And the rewards for being a regular viewer are...well, just that--rewarding. You get surprising character revelations as well as familiar call-backs from previous episodes. And while this might not be the sheer laugh-out-loud funniest show I'll be examining--that would probably be Arrested Development--there's a warmth to this show that you get when you're visiting some cool friends. I can't do it justice, really--I'd just say, catch up from the beginning if you can, and then dive in to see how it all turns out.

shoop and tv

It's not quite accurate to say I don't watch a lot of TV--usually I get in a little viewing each day, at least. It's more accurate to say that I don't focus on it very often--usually I'm doing something else, and the TV is background noise. I have my old standbys--"Full House" and "MASH" reruns, for example (two remarkably similar shows that some smart cookie should compare one day. That last statement was probably ironic). But Mrs. Shoop and I also have a few shows that we'll either catch on demand, or in one particular case, we'll even go to Blockbuster and hunt down the DVD. (Because as convenient as ordering or renting online might be, there's still nothing that beats the satisfaction of going to a place and getting the item in your hot little hands right then.) So in these next few posts, I'll examine TV shows that have come to mean a great deal to me.

Sometimes coming to love a show is a matter of timing. Because if a show's been on for a while, no matter how great your friends say it is and how you're clearly not in your right mind if you're not watching, you don't want to start in the middle (which is one reason I've never gotten around to "Lost" or "The Sopranos." I might, one day, on a boxed-set impulse buy). That's a comparatively new phenomenon in TV. If you take "classic TV," it doesn't particularly matter if you're starting with the 53rd episode of "Gilligan's Island"--you're going to get the idea, and you're not missing out on any major character revelations (credit Sherwood Schwartz for coming up with the "let's have a theme song that explains the story" idea--why don't we still have those?). Choosing TV now is rather like dating--if you're interested and available, and you can catch the first episode of a promising show, then something might click. On the other hand, if a show actually gets better after the not-so-great pilot episode that made you dismiss the show entirely, then you might miss out, just as you might have spurned your potential soulmate on an off night. That happened to me, possibly twice--I tuned out Twin Peaks after the following exchange: "Who's that lady with the log?" "We call her the log lady." Rumor has it that it was a terrific show. The other time was the first episode of Third Rock from the Sun--if I had any thoughts about it at all, it was probably along the lines of, "This is kinda dumb. Oooh, what's that shiny thing on the couch?" But whenever repeats of other episodes catch my attention, I usually find myself laughing quite a bit. Another missed opportunity.

So the shows I've come to follow have been as much a matter of timing, mood, and luck as of inherent quality. Sometimes I've been able to watch from the beginning and build a great deal (too much?) emotional investment, and other times I've had to go back and catch up. Over the next few posts, I'll be sharing thoughts on How I Met Your Mother, Big Love, Arrested Development, and maybe Sex in the City. I'm hoping to comment on the socio-historical perspective of... oooh, what's that shiny thing on the end table?

shoop and salinger

There's a moment in "Zooey" where the title character is in the bathtub re-reading a four-year-old letter from his older brother. The letter and the letter writer give Zooey no end of annoyance, but something keeps pulling him back, even to the point of taking the darn thing in the full tub with him--not the best place to read something composed of aging, fragile paper to begin with. I've yet to bring Franny and Zooey--or Nine Stories, or Raise High the Roofbeam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction, or Catcher in the Rye into a tub with me, but I do go back to them for...well, something, even though I often think to myself as I read and re-read, wow, these are incredibly annoying people.

As Salinger played more and more with self-reflexiveness, meta-fiction, Zen, and just plain not giving a damn whether his stories had any shape or purpose, the how-hard-this-stuff-is-to-get-to-the-end-of quotient ratcheted up exponentially. With "Zooey," at least, the patient reader is rewarded with a knockout wrap-up that actors (or at least a lot of actors I know) just love--that if you're an actor, you're pretty much acting for God (I think most actors believe that already, but it's nice to have it confirmed). And "Raise High the Roofbeam" is probably the most accessible Buddy-driven story, if you can get past Seymour's diary entries. But the end of "Seymour--An Introduction"? There's an ending that just makes you want to toss your book across the room or out an open window. And yet...yeah, I keep going back to it. (Although I've never quite made it through "Hapworth 16, 1924"--that one's a real ball-buster.)

And it's not just because I'm starting to "get" what Salinger left behind--the kinds of entertainment for which you can give him credit. Characters who probably don't realize how obnoxious they are? I tend to think of the "meta" Larry David on "Curb Your Enthusiasm" as an aging Zooey (Zooey, in fact, would be 80 this year, while Franny would be 75)--and again, we can think of the "meta" persona Salinger left behind in the ever-loquacious Buddy. And the way Salinger playfully capitalizes some words? Now read some David Mamet and watch what he does with his dialogue. A quick google search, especially over the next couple of days, will give you many more examples, both "high" and "low," I'm sure.

What keeps me coming back, I think, points back to how I referred to Salinger's characters at the beginning--they're people. What Salinger mastered in his dialogue is a remarkable combination of "who the hell says things like that" (i.e., "This is Kaliyuga, buddy, the Iron Age" from "Zooey") plus a composer's ear for sound and rhythm that really did capture people actually talking. At its best, that combination convinced you that, okay, these people said things like that. You could easily run hot and cold with all of Salinger's characters--for me, Holden Caulfield was, depending on when you asked me between, say, high school and now, a super-cool guy who "got" what being a teenager meant, a spoiled prep-school tool, and a sad, mixed-up kid. Of course, he's all of those things and more--because he's a person, and people are that complicated and contradictory, engaging and maddening.

At any rate, I like to imagine Salinger now, chatting with the Fat Lady on her porch. It's a "Zooey" reference--if you haven't already, pay him a visit.

shoop and up in the air

I think Jason Reitman is making the best Michael Ritchie movies of the 21st century. You probably know who Reitman is by now--he directed Thank You For Smoking, Juno, and now one of the probable Oscar-contenders, Up In the Air. As for Ritchie? He spent a lot of his career as a gun for hire, piloting some successful vehicles for star personalities (Fletch, for example, which is pretty funny, but it's mostly Chevy Chase doing his best Chevy Chase, shot from competent angles) and some not so successful (The Golden Child with Eddie Murphy, back when everybody went to see Eddie Murphy movies, and the regrettable A Simple Wish with Martin Short, when Ritchie had even given up on story continuity). But once, in the 1970s, Ritchie was actually considered a major director--Time Magazine, for example, devoted several pages to a review of Semi-Tough, a movie the reviewer didn't even like very much. Where Ritchie excelled was small-scale satire with often petty, unadmirable characters who either change very slightly, or consider changing briefly and then think better of it. So his best movies were usually devoid of big moments, or potentially big moments that are quickly deflated. Check out Robert Redford in Ritchie's The Candidate, for example, asking after what should have been his character's huge moment, "What do we do now?" Or my personal favorite Ritchie film, Smile, where following a beauty contest gone spectacularly and often hilariously wrong, things pretty much continue in the community as normal, or perhaps a little bit worse. Ritchie tuned his worldview toward the sunny side in the climax of The Bad News Bears, but what lingers is how miserable Walter Matthau's character is, and what a bleak future is in store for those unfortunate kids he coaches. Ritchie couldn't sustain that kind of creativity into the 80s and 90s, partly, I think, because his style was so deceptively passive--observing real, random behavior and letting audiences pick up, or not, on the telling details he included. That kind of style needed equally creative artists joining Ritchie, which was too seldom the case.

Reitman seems to be on a roll currently, making those kinds of movies I didn't think we'd see anymore. After seeing Up In the Air, I realize now how much credit he deserves for Juno--Reitman trusted the story and the characters would hold up despite the occasionally too-clever flourishes of Diablo Cody's much-honored screenplay that nearly kill the movie before it gets started. (Note: if you haven't seen Juno, I'd say rent it and skip the first 10 minutes.) Here Reitman makes expert use of George Clooney's double-edged effortless charm--effortless as in, he makes it look easy, as well as effortless as in, he's not really trying--Ritchie would have had a field day with Clooney, I'm sure. Clooney's Ryan Bingham is a fascinating and frustrating catalog of starts and stops, flourishes without follow-through. When he launches into a catalogue of how to go through airport security and who to ideally get behind (Asians, preferably), Clooney gives the lines a great amoral snap--but that's the only time; it's not really his character. Similarly, we see flashes of humanity and caring when it comes to his family, but again, they're just flashes. So it seems appropriate when his one, big, movie-ready romantic gesture lands with the thud that it does. And what are we left with? Has Clooney's character learned anything or changed? Maybe a little, but we're just not sure. The movie's title is smashingly appropriate.

Reitman also has a gift for detail similar to Ritchie's--he likes the reactions of his actors, who all come through splendidly for him--Reitman seems to be catching them unguarded as if waiting for his direction. Also, pay attention to Natalie's boyfriend saying goodbye to her as she sets off to travel with Bingham. The boyfriend has no lines, but notice how he's dressed compared to Natalie's power travel outfit. And we know everything about this relationship.

I'd like to see what Jason Reitman directs next, and I hope his path is clear of potential Golden Children.

shoop and avatar

There's an episode arc from the Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle where the intrepid moose and squirrel are chasing after an elusive element called "upsidaisium"--something that can instantly turn things upside down. I think that's a good way into "Avatar" for a few reasons. For one, it speaks to the characters' straight-faced references to "unobtainium"--in the real world, a science/engineering joke referring to the impossible element that could make something work, but in Avatar's case, it's the element that the development company wants badly enough to chase the indigenous blue folks away from their magic tree. The term is just as silly as the one in Bullwinkle, and it also matters as little as far as the movie itself goes. There's also an area on that planet that is, indeed, upside down--it makes about as much sense as the big, goofy animals and the blue people. What we've got here, in other words, is a doofus movie with a plot cribbed from any number of old westerns (not just Dances With Wolves), no characters to speak of, and some really clunky dialogue...and it's all terrific.

You probably know this already, even if you haven't seen it yet, as some billion dollars worth of worldwide filmgoers have. And you probably know the terrific part--it's the "you're in this world" feeling that James Cameron and a lot of other smart, talented people have engineered for us. That's pretty much my point--it takes some genuinely smart people, and maybe even a genius or two, to make such a successful doofus movie. Or, to put it another way, it's worth noting what Avatar didn't need--for example, performances. Oh, Sigourney Weaver's there, all right, looking hale and hearty, but she's just lending her presence, much the way Sean Connery used to do in the 80s and 90s. (Here's my idea for a remake--Medicine Man, except with Weaver in the Connery role, calling some younger guy "Dr. Bronx" and having a fairly chaste cougar-romance in the jungle.) It's not Weaver's fault that she's not acting; there's really nothing else for her to do. The rest of the cast, whatever their skill and talent levels happen to be, are all in the same boat.

Then there's Cameron's dialogue, and it's absolutely uncanny. I mean, it's bad, but not just inept--there's a certain on-the-nose heavy-handedness to it that actually works in the world of his films--Billy Zane's villain in Titanic comes to mind, speaking in a way that you can practically read the speech balloons over his head. In a way, my ramblings here tie in nicely with my last post--James Cameron might well be the best comic book movie director ever who never really made a comic book movie. And his dialogue is an important element--I don't think you can learn to write dialogue like that, and I'm not sure it's possible to do it on purpose. For example, in the hero's voice-over (which Cameron freely--I would almost say gleefully--uses in place of character development, literally telling us, at one point, that somebody's character has developed), he explains that his brother was killed because someone "wanted the paper in his wallet." Wow! I mean, is that any way for any sentient being to say that his brother got killed in a robbery? But in a comic book--yeah, of course that's what he'd say. Same with the evil colonel, played in appropriate one-note fashion by Stephen Lang, who's actually another good actor--as he addresses the troops, he helpfully tells them that they're "not in Kansas anymore." Note to screenwriters and playwrights everywhere--that was a good line in The Wizard of Oz, and it will never be a good line again. Except in the comic book world that Cameron has created, yes, it works just fine, thanks.

I'll take this one step further before signing off--Cameron and the movie have been getting some flack for some of the reasons I've talked about--dumb story, no characters, silly dialogue. I suspect, however, that the damn thing wouldn't have worked as well, or maybe at all, unless that all-around level of doofusness (doofosity?) was part of the package. Thinking, logic, encouragement to look inside and question ourselves--none of that goes with the joyride Cameron has dreamed up. It's the coolest ride ever, cool enough that many people will want to go on again--and with all the substance that that description implies, i.e., none. It is a hoot, though.

shoop and what's wrong with The Dark Knight

Actually, the title's a bit of a tease, because what's wrong with The Dark Knight can be summed up pretty quickly--it was too long and too loud. Although I'll have a little more to say about The Dark Knight later, this is really about what's wrong with comic book movies in general. And, as was the case most of the time, my Dad had it right.

In this case, what Dad was right about was the 1989 Batman with Michael Keaton and some weird music by Prince. "There was no 'pow' or 'bang' or 'sock,'" Dad noted, and his complaint was perfect. You see, for our family, and for a lot of people my age or a little older I suspect, Batman meant the TV show with Adam West and Burt Ward as Batman and Robin, and a slew of celebrities as guest villains--most notably, Burgess Meredith as the Penguin, Cesar Romaro as the Joker, and Frank Gorshin as the Riddler. The heroes intoned heroic platitudes with the straightest of faces, while the villains were free to indulge in the sort of hamminess usually reserved for Christmas pantomimes. As for the "pow," "bang," and "sock," you could count on those when the caped crusaders fought the villains' henchmen--each punch accompanied by a gloriously colorful comic book graphic. The show taught the world what "camp" meant, and it lasted a couple of seasons--as long as such giddy foolishness could last, I think--and even more importantly, it was meant to last some 26 minutes of TV time each week.

Now in 1989, Tim Burton had a novel idea, and it was enough to make a trailer that was really impressive. If you're of a certain age, you probably remember Michael Keaton in the bat suit grabbing a villain and saying, "I'm Batman" with about 50 layers of bad-ass cool. (Years later, I realized that was more a triumph of sound recording and editing, but it still rocked.) Burton's novel idea: what if you took Batman absolutely seriously? Unfortunately, the answer is, you can't. You can see it in Burton's first Batman, the one with Jack Nicholson's Joker, and in his sequel with Danny DeVito's Penguin and, most memorably, Michelle Pfeiffer's Catwoman. And that's who you remember, the villains with their weird deformities, wacky colors, and what-the-hell attitude toward their own evil. Burton's first Batman was something of a mess, with Keaton trying to be on the cool end of "real," and Nicholson multiplying the TV show by 10--but it's "real" and "serious," so the Joker dies at the end. In the sequel, Batman pretty much made an appearance--the villains had completely taken over.

Joel Shumacher gets a lot of flack for what he did to the Batman franchise, but what he really did was recognize that the camp had to be embraced. But Shumacher's films weren't perfect, either. Yes, there were George Clooney's bat-nipples, a masterstroke of ushering Batman out of the camp closet, and there was Arnold Schwarzenegger's Mr. Freeze making his henchmen sing along with the Snow Miser's song from "The Year Without a Santa Claus," but Shumacher didn't recognize the danger of overkill, and, frankly, too much money. If you go back to the TV show, part of the essential charm was its no-budget effects (Batman and Robin scaling the side of a building, with its "of course it's fake" sensibility, became a signature scene). The camp becomes too heavy with honest-to-goodness special effects, which I think illustrates a general rule of camp entertainment--it can't travel first class.

To return to The Dark Knight for a moment, this problem of taking the story and characters seriously is directly related to its overlength. (I won't even talk about the movie's twisted politics wherein George W. Bush is Batman.) The movie should have ended when Harvey what's-his-name turns into Two-Face, when exactly half his face gets burned by acid and he makes all his decisions by flipping a coin. I'm going to repeat that, because it illustrates the point I'm trying to make--he turns into Two-Face, when exactly half his face gets burned by acid and he makes all his decisions by flipping a coin. In other words, he's a comic book villain in a comic book world--you can't take him seriously. And you certainly don't want to close out his story arc by adding another half-hour to a movie that's already been banging on too long. What should have happened was, Harvey becomes Two-Face, giggles maniacally while flipping a coin, and we tune in text time. Or we buy the next issue.

And that's the fundamental problem with comic book movies in general--they're movies and not comic books. They're also not pitch-perfect TV camp classics. If the medium is indeed the message, then the message comic books send simply don't jibe with the message of movies. There are, however, a few exceptions. The first two Spiderman movies were pretty good (didn't see the third)--largely because you have a hero who already provides a running commentary on the world of superheroes. Peter Parker is essentially a dorky kid navigating a fundamentally ridiculous set of circumstances, the ridiculousness of which he completely recognizes. (That's why he can say things like, "I will be Spiderman no more"--he knows that sometimes, he has to talk like a comic book.)

You know which comic book movie really got it right? Superman, from 1978. What critics complained about initially--its unevenness of tone from "mythic" to "big city comedy" to "camp" to sincere heroism and back again--was its key strength. That's what you get in a comic book from page to page, sometimes panel to panel. It took not a "visionary" director like Burton or Christopher Nolan, but a fairly literal director like Richard Donner to realize that all those elements are part of comic book heroism, so he put them all in there, one after the other. It helps if you have an impossibly comic book style actor to play your hero, too, plus an impossibly legendary star to play the hero's dad. Christopher Reeve never really topped being Superman (could anybody?), and if Marlon Brando's legendarily overpriced turn as Superman's pop gave us the silliest part of the movie, that fits the picture even better. If only Marlon had taken a sock at one of his detractors, and we could see a big "sock!" on the screen. I'd like to think that scene exists somewhere, in a more perfect world.