The Odyssey, but not epic poetry

The question of adaptation has been an open one in culture since people began doing them in other media, as it were. Just like the fact that sex wasn't invented in 1968, this is not a 20th century or now 21st century phenomenon. The Odyssey, the epic poem ascribed to Homer, was most likely just a written rendition of what had been oral tradition for many years or even centuries before the point where he is acknowledged to have written it (~8th century BCE.) But legends of this sort have been the subject of books, plays, operas (one of my favorite moments in Amadeus refers to this quandary, when Wolfgang argues against constantly using the same, old subjects) and more recently, film and TV. No one is ever going to get it "right" because there is no "right." The best creators understand that this is their world and welcome to it and I'm assuming that's what motivated writer/director Christopher Nolan in the latest film adaptation of The Odyssey.

Now, right up front, one has to acknowledge that even in a three hour film, which this almost is, there's almost no way to reasonably encapsulate all 24 books of the original poem, so things are going to be left out. Nolan does follow some of the same narrative pattern of the poem by first introducing Odysseus (Matt Damon) already living with the nymph, Calypso (Charlize Theron) and trying to remember everything he went through after he and his followers left Troy. To his extreme credit, he also weaves in a few more elements that would likely have been excluded, such as the eating of the lotus flower causing Odysseus' lack of memory (a different adventure in the poem) and the inclusion of the Laestrygonians destroying most of the expedition; a moment that most have likely never heard of if they hadn't read the original story. I also appreciate that he weaves in actual history to the proceedings, as one of the concerns of the time is the encroachment of the Sea Peoples, who are cited in the historical record as the most likely primary cause of the collapse of much of civilization after the Bronze Age (~12th century BCE.) So there's enough here to make an epic story. But I'm not sure there's enough to make an epic film. The main theme that Nolan operates from is the actual desire of Odysseus to forget what he has done and what kind of person it makes him. In doing so, it ascribes a very modern perspective to a very old story. I don't think there's anything wrong with that, intrinsically. Again, this is Nolan's interpretation and the theme that he assigns to the protagonist is a very understandable and, indeed, laudable one. It's not at all in tune with the poem, given that Odysseus and his crew raid the Cicones, allies of the Trojans, on the first step of their journey home and promptly sack their town, slaughter all of the men and sail off with the town's money and all of their women to be slaves of one kind or another. This is how it was done in 750 BCE.

Nolan also focused more on the case of the suitors than the poem does. That story is prominent in the poem, but not to the extent that it's the focus around which the story revolves. We spent almost as much time with Telemachus (Tom Holland) and Eumaeus (John Leguizamo) as we did with Odysseus. I realize that's an attempt to not only give an emotional attachment for a modern audience to revolve around but also to give some agency to Penelope (Anne Hathaway) who otherwise has comparatively little in the poem, in contrast to other women like Calypso and Circe (Samantha Morton.) If Odysseus is not only trying to get home for 20 years but is in conflict with himself over whether he even wants to make that attempt, it's nice to know something about the people he's going home to. But that focus on the suitors also meant that some of the other stories were kind of given short shrift. The most notable is the encounter with the cyclops, Polyphemus. In the poem, Polyphemus speaks normally as he's eating Odysseus' men and Odysseus eventually gets him drunk to get him to talk to them as humans, rather than dinner. That's the point where he falls asleep and they blind him in order to escape. But the whole point of that encounter is that Polyphemus, as a host, violates Zeus' law which is supposed to be emblematic of the collapse of proper society and was a main theme of the film. Instead, it's just a cyclops who looks more like a mutant derivation than an entire race of them (the island on which they land in the poem is inhabited by many of them) and the whole episode becomes just a run-in with a monster which, again, minimizes it and denies another opportunity to point out one of the central themes of the story.

Another of those themes was the rejection of divinity. Unlike in the poem, Odysseus frequently questions any kind of faith in the gods. That walks hand in hand with the perspective of a man who rejects the 10-year-war and wholesale slaughter that he's just been a part of, because why would the gods bless something like that? The fact that Agamemnon had sacrificed his daughter to make sure they had the favor of the winds is just reinforcement of that question. In that respect, I appreciate not only the central thrust of that idea but also that all of "the gods", with one exception, were left to appear as they were to the ancient Greeks: as forces of nature. "Zeus" was the crack of thunder. "Poseidon" was rough seas. Yes, "the gods" might have been there and Poseidon might have made it difficult for them to return because of what they'd done to Polyphemus (one of his many sons) but there was no way to verify that in the same way there's no way to verify the influence of any kind of divinity. That's what faith (or lack thereof) is and Odysseus was a man who had lost it, in more ways than one. The lone exception was Athena (Zendaya) who appears multiple times to simply ask the questions that bring the story along. I thought that was smart and it follows with Athena being one of the more human-approachable of the Olympians in many of the myths (the other one who has a significant role in the poem is Hermes, alas.) It's just too bad that it didn't transition from those elegant themes into the dialogue.

Straight up, the dialogue was weak. Most of it was boilerplate and overly obvious. If you had to fill the dialogue balloons of your average adventure story, these lines would've fit right in with little effort. I can't think of a single memorable line from the film, which is disappointing, especially considering the source material (i.e. epic poem.) Likewise, none of the performances really stood out to me except the two pig people: Leguizamo as the earnest pigherd and Morton as the witch who sees people for what they truly are. Given the opportunity to make Circe the villainess that many have presented her as over the centuries, Nolan stuck to the poem and made her a far more understandable and sympathetic character (She and Odysseus become lovers and live together for a year in the poem...) But, unfortunately, as with the rest, none of Morton's lines really stick out to deliver that. It was more about her ability to deliver through acting; again, to her credit. On a technical level, it's perhaps fortunate that none of the dialogue was that great, since a fair amount of it gets lost in the SFX noise. It might have been just a product of the sound system at the theater we were in, but I've heard other complaints about the sound mixing, as well. It's also notable that, despite the poem being replete with sex and sexual encounters, the film has none of that. That's not really surprising, as sex has never been a major driving force in Nolan's films and, again, this is his interpretation. It's just kind of funny to see such a major element of the poem become completely invisible.

In the end, it's a decent film that present an interesting moral quandary for its protagonist and one that I'd be willing to see again but one which I also think falls fairly short of most of Nolan's other achievements (Memento, The Dark Knight, Inception, even Oppenheimer.) I also appreciated some of the timing of it, not least the encounter with Scylla and Charybdis since we just finished our third chapter which revolves around namesakes of those legendary creatures. I wrote that story 15 years ago after first imagining my interpretations (ahem) of them 35 years ago because, of course, I'd read The Odyssey. I'd still recommend sitting down for three hours and watching the film, so that's my interpretation of it.

Still no story 2

So here's a great example of how attempts at storytelling (and, likely, test screenings) have evolved in the past 20 years. The Devil Wears Prada was a film based on a hit piece novel that wasn't interested in anything except presenting its subject, a thinly-disguised facsimile of Vogue editor Anna Wintour, as a bestial overlord. A limp Hollywood nod toward feminism in 2006 was tacked on at the end. As I asserted in my last post, there wasn't really a story to be told there as that wasn't the point of the novel in the first place. Two decades later, the same writer and director team (Aline Brosh McKenna and David Frankel, respectively) had either fully absorbed the transition in attitudes of criticism in the modern era or realized that without even the skeletal framework of the book they really had nothing to build a film around. Consequently, The Devil Wears Prada 2 is constructed of the most obvious and turgid of plots imaginable and it makes the film not only as predictable as the original, but also lacking even the mild moments of shock humor that emerged then. If the original was a hit piece, the sequel is about as inoffensive as anything could be and still be using the word "devil" in its title.

Word on the street is that neither Meryl Streep, reprising her role as the tyrannical editor of fictional fashion magazine Runway, Miranda Priestly, nor Anne Hathaway, likewise returning as Andy Sachs, journalist stooping once again into the world of haute couture, wanted to do a sequel. What had been said in the first film had been said and that story was finished, which is always a perspective I can find myself in alliance with. What usually draws performers back in is an attempt to say something new and/or different about their characters. That was not the case here in any way so what may have led them back is not only a pile of money but also a lack of other decent projects at the moment, if not both. But that's all speculation on things I don't know about. What I do know is that the story as presented is really just the same plot from the first film, without any of the shock value and instead attempting to fill out the stick-figure characters of that film and make Priestly more human (thus, distracting from the title as anything other than a marketing slogan) and Sachs able to stand on her own, rather than solely within the shadow of Priestly. What it doesn't do is make either of them more interesting or, once again, give any justification to their characters' regular assertions that the fashion world is crucial to the existence of modern society and thus attempt to justify Priestly's absurd behavior. That world is still shallow and self-important, which is exemplified once again by multiple sequences of characters parading past or with clothing while not advancing anything even resembling a story. The scene of Priestly, Sachs and likewise-returning Stanley Tucci as Nigel Kipling entering Milan was less a scene than a reproduction of the post-breakfast walk in Reservoir Dogs (Here's our stars, walkin', lookin' cool) except that the latter at least served as the opening credit roll.

And, again, with the plot being as predictable and formulaic as it is (Sachs once again working for Runway, Priestly once again mistreating everyone while trying to keep the magazine relevant in the world of the Internet, Kipling once again being the backstop to everyone and often to his own detriment while mild crises ensue, etc.), what it can't depart from in terms of the formula established by the first one is that a) money rules the fashion world in the same way that it does most of everything else and b) much of modern society is beholden to the largesse of ridiculously wealthy people who occasionally deign to look in on the lives of the peasants. In fact, one of the opening statements of this film is how journalism has been dying because good stories (like, say, films other than this one) aren't as important as advertising clicks. Runway finds itself in the same scenario which is a laudable statement to make. The main problem is that said scenario doesn't find resolution (aka Hollywood happy ending) in the hands of the main characters of this play, but instead the largesse of yet another billionaire. What it's saying is that we've basically returned to the 18th and 19th centuries: if you're an artist, you either find an agreeable and very wealthy patron or you're out of luck because those masses can't save you (and usually won't, anyway.) Somehow this message is delivered at the end of the film as if it's a good thing, since said wealthy patron isn't an idiot Tech Bro but instead a reasonable and intelligent woman. But that still means that culture and, thus, society in the perspective of the fashion world is completely dependent upon the rich to sustain it. That's a reality that we're all living with now and it's a message that should make everyone sigh in frustration, rather than applaud for the fact that dragon lady Priestly and somehow-still-crusading journalist Sachs have won the day at the end.

I have a hard time believing that McKenna's script was written with that in mind, which is probably just another indicator that it wasn't really written to deliver a message or tell a story, but just to provide an opening to reuse the scaffolding of the first film. Just as Sachs and her circle of friends said in the first film and repeated here: Ya gotta pay the rent, so... To Hathaway's credit, her performance here shows the maturity of the last 20 years and is a significant improvement over that first effort. But the rest of them are as one-note in this film as they were in the first and even more characters are added in to give their  own contributions to parts and lives that don't seem to serve much purpose; not least Kenneth Branagh, who plays Priestly's husband who at least doesn't serve as part of the excuse for her attitude (i.e. no one would think twice about her acting that way if she was a man) but is otherwise the complete waste of one of the better actors (and directors) of the modern era. Similarly, Patrick Brammall is the boyfriend whom Andy once again feels guilty about abandoning when there's even less reason for that role to exist, since this story isn't about her supposedly ignoring her principles to make money but embracing them to do the same thing. And Emily Blunt once again serves as the snooty foil, this time not just for Andy but for everyone, but still lacks the humor that would have made her character somewhat interesting.

So, yeah, still not my thing. It was worth the time to hang out with some new friends and talk films, though, so that's something. On that note, as you've noticed, things have been sparse around here in recent times, not least because we abandoned our Michigan Theater membership a year ago and, thus, haven't seen a whole lot of new things. So I'm going to return to some previous material in the near future (Back to the Bat, as it were) and we are at least seeing The Odyssey tomorrow, so there will be that. Hopefully the lack of material hasn't lost the few of you who still sometimes pay attention.

The Devil needs a plot

Continuing my now seemingly monthly schedule of posts (I will likely get back to Spider-Noir, but it was as uninspiring as noted), I once again was propelled by an inquiry after watching a 20-year-old film in anticipation of its just-released sequel. The film in question is The Devil Wears Prada, a David Frankel production that I had long been completely disinterested in because I knew the type of film that it was: the erroneously-named "brain candy" because it doesn't actually encourage you to use the organ in question. We sat down to watch it yesterday at a friend's place because we're planning on watching said sequel (innovatively titled "The Devil Wears Prada 2" on Monday.) In the end, my suspicions were proved accurate and the 20 year wait could have gone on much longer with no loss to be known.

The film is based on a novel by Lauren Weisberger who had once worked as a personal assistant for Vogue editor, Anna Wintour. Most people assume that the book is a roman à clef as a result and Wintour has accepted the similarity between herself and Meryl Streep's character in the film, Miranda Priestly. Priestly, the tyrannical magazine editor whose presumed focus and drive on making her magazine, Runway, the best it can be in the highly competitive fashion industry is about as stereotypical a role as I've ever seen Streep take and leaves me questioning what really interested her, not least because the rest of the story is as thin as the paper it was printed on. (This was back in 2006, when people still used paper.) To wit: Idealistic young woman looking to do "serious" work as a journalist instead demeans herself to participate in the fashion world, only to absorb all of its tenets (style over substance!), alienating her friends and lover before finally realizing that that world isn't for her. The End. Pretty bow on top included (We are talking about fashion here.) You could map out the progression of this story inside the opening five minutes of the film and precisely nothing was surprising or interesting along the way as you traveled in your straight line from A to B. The story doesn't challenge you, the characters do nothing but fill their assigned roles and most of it is a demonstration of how to take an industry which supposedly thrives on innovation and taking chances and depict it as traversing the safest, most non-controversial path possible.

The cast is no different in this respect. Outside of Streep's underplayed and restrained performance (likely to allow the other actors to more fully fit their stereotypes), Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt and Stanley Tucci don't bring a whole lot to the picture other than walking in their assigned paths. Indeed, I thought Hathaway was really miscast in this role, since it seemed to call for someone who could emote more at the injustice of the treatment she was receiving, rather than passively endure it as either the price of paying the rent in Midtown or because she knew she only had to keep playing this part for another 60 minutes of screen time and it would all be over. You can see the little touches of casting and writing designed to both be more "inclusive" (Hathaway's character graduated from Northwestern, in the Midwest, rather than Brown as in the novel in order to make it not entirely East Coast snobbery (Fashion is global!)) and, unfortunately, less so as, with the lone exception of Tracie Thorns, everyone in the cast is not only White but also apparently straight. In the fashion industry. The fact that they're all upper middle class to upper class Yuppies and very conscious of their assumed station in life just makes it that much more repellent. I'm all about stories about characters that are not the type of person you'd like to meet on the street. I write many of them. But I also want my difficult/dangerous/nasty characters to be interesting and none of these people are. They're mostly just contemptible, not only for what they assume about their lives but how all of those assumptions make them crucial to the existence of modern culture and society. You simply don't understand. They have to be snobs because, well, that's the business!

Obviously, I am not the target audience for this kind of thing, even if I was inclined toward films that ask you to "turn your brain off and enjoy." My version of "enjoy" is a story that asks me to think about why it's happening and who these people- these humans -are. But none of these people are actual humans, despite the late, faint attempt to convince everyone that Priestly still is one, even if she can't bother to learn her assistant's names or be conscious of the fact that they have personal troubles (aka life), as well (the "humaniziing" scene being Andrea having to emotionally extend in sympathy for Priestly's impending divorce.) That attempt to make Priestly likeable is couched in the assertion that she has to be "The Devil" because she's a woman in her highly competitive industry and if she were a man, everyone would simply look up to her/him for doing what needs to be done to succeed. I have no illusions that there are many male executives who are every bit as contemptible as Priestly in any number of industries. I have no interest in getting to know them or watching a film about them, either, as they remain, just like her, terminally uninteresting.

All of that said, I will still be sitting down in front of the sequel, if only to satisfy the curiosity of whether Frankel and writer, Aline Brosh McKenna, has learned anything in the past 20 years. All of the main cast are along for the new venture, as well. One would hope that people like Streep, Hathaway and Stanley Tucci are conscious of trying to do something new and/or different but with a huge audience out there looking for "brain candy", my hopes are not high.

Just gray

There's something primal about certain media in black-and-white. Most noir films were done in the pre-color era and the tone and atmosphere of all of them suits that presentation. Bright colors just don't speak "noir"; quite literally, since it's the French word for "black" or "dark." The Glass Key wouldn't be what it is if that first dining room scene was in a nice set of peach and olive pastels that could've represented the average decor of the time. No, it needed the grays and the shadows implied by them to give the sense of menace that shrouded the politics and the maneuvering of the various characters to make the film a classic, in addition to the writing and the performances, both of which are excellent. Likewise, many comics are just suited to that more stark presentation. Quinn and Vigil's Faust just wouldn't have had the same visual impact if it was in color, since a lot of Vigil's excellent fine line work would've been washed out by color, some by the printing process and some by the failure of the human eyes to discern detail when distracted by other stimuli. This is to say nothing of the requisite blood spray in every third panel. Indeed, although we were doing all of Fifth Panel Comics' output in black-and-white because of economics (color printing was far more costly at that time), I soon decided that our presentation was better because of the lack of color and when Jeff suggested we do the Webcomic, I was still scripting while imagining everything in monochrome. (I usually still do.) That's why when I heard about Spider-Noir and that it could be watched in the old visual style of the period in which it's presented (the 1930s), I was kinda geeked about it. I mean, yet another Spider-Man production wasn't particularly thrilling, but doing it in the style of a Dashiell Hammett story sounded great. Having watched the first episode (in the lack of coloration, as intended), I have mixed feelings as yet.

I have a fondness for noir, even if some of it seems relatively staid in the succeeding decades that so much storytelling has been built upon its foundations or has tried to emulate it. Just like with jazz, I can both see and understand the underlying meaning of those stories and the style and appreciate the building blocks that they represent to a lot of more modern drama. Miller's Crossing is my favorite Coen brothers' film for more than one reason, but a primary one is that it's clearly an homage to the noir films of old, even as it retains the Coens' famed quirkiness in many of its scene changes and reaction moments. But the other reason it's a favorite is that all of the characters are fully developed people. This is, of course, a sticking point for me in all media. If you're going to tell me a story, you have to tell me a story about humans (or at least really interesting demons/aliens/whathaveyou.) If your characters are just serving the plot, rather than living their lives, a lot of the shine is going to come off your story, no matter what style or genre it happens to inhabit. That means you have to sell me on the first episode of any series with real people. Spider-Noir, unfortunately, didn't really do that.

Why can't I find any good black-and-white pics of Reilly? Should tell you a lot.

Part of it is the Nicolas Cage effect. I don't like Cage as an actor, really, because he's a capable character actor trying to do the Leading Man thing. While he was brilliant and believable as a dying drunk in Leaving Las Vegas, in all of the rest of the roles I've seen him in, he's still doing Nicolas Cage. It's the same combination of faux world-weariness and occasional jarring surprise at being in these circumstances in the first place when everyone can see said circumstances except him. Every time. This has been the same pattern since The Rock (Why am I forced to be doing this incredibly exciting thing?!) with one exception in Adaptation. Even then, half of his dual role in that film was still Mr. Put Upon Who Doesn't Understand Why Life Won't Change. And, yes, Ben Reilly is still Nicolas Cage. It's just not interesting anymore and here he has an entire role built around that perspective, as the failing PI (stereotypical) who's a retired superhero because of a tragedy and who is alternately pitied and held in contempt by everyone around him who don't understand why he can't snap out of it. Yes, a lot of noir leads are supposed to be cynical, as that's the style, but just like another of Marvel's characters, Jessica Jones, if anything Reilly is too cynical, to the point that it gets tiresome, rather than remains humorous or otherwise entertaining.

Meanwhile, we also have the intrepid reporter who knows the truth (Lamorne Morris, playing Robbie Robertson of Daily Bugle fame), the disgusted secretary who, like Cher, doesn't understand why Reilly can't pick himself up (Karen Rodriguez), the femme fatale/important client who clearly has motives beyond the central thrust of the plot (Li Jun Li as Cat Hardy, another prominent Marvel character (no spoilers!)) and the powerful crime boss whom half the city lives in fear of for one reason or another (Brendan Gleeson as the notorious Silvermane.) In the end, the only one of those who delivered an interesting performance was Gleeson and he had the least screen time. Why? Because all of them are filling stereotypes, rather than actual roles, but Gleeson adds the one thing that Cage sorely lacks in all of his leading man attempts: gravitas. Yes, he's still Brendan Gleeson, but he's not the Gleeson of In Bruges or 28 Days Later or Cold Mountain. Why? Because he can leave at least part of himself behind and inhabit the character of all of those roles, which is something that Cage has never really been able to do. Of course, that's a writer issue, too, in that all of those other roles I mentioned are stereotypes, which means there's not as much for those actors to work with and Oren Uziel may be capable at his craft but he sure isn't Martin McDonagh, Alex Garland or Anthony Minghella, respectively.

There is, of course, a little Marvel cachet with the aforementioned roles, plus the appearance of Flint Marko (the comics nerd in me immediately blinked in memory and mumbled: "Sandman?", later confirmed by the requisite fight scene) and I totally appreciate the reframing of all of said characters in the 1930s style, in which Reilly's former identity wasn't "Spider-Man" but was instead The Spider, akin to The Phantom or the original The Spider. I like all of these things because I'm a comics nerd and a noir nerd and, consequently, it would seem like this series should be right up my dark and shadowy, newspaper fluttering alley. But I'm not sure that either Cage or Uziel are the ones to make it work. I'm not bailing out immediately. I'll give it a couple more episodes to see more of Gleeson and to hopefully see Tombstone, whom I've been told is present in the series and was one of the last interesting characters I remember from the days when I was reading Spider-Man titles (the late 80s...) But it wasn't a great start (i.e. it didn't do a The Wire/Breaking Bad/Chernobyl, even if that is a very, very high bar to reach.) We've also seen the first season of Sons of Anarchy in the last few days and I haven't written anything about it because I haven't really found it worth the time. Maybe later.

Impressions

After a long absence, I can finally do the MacArthur thing on this blog ("I have returned."), not least because I'm also now sitting in another nation where the people don't initially speak my language and some of them wonder why I'm here. We have made the move to Portugal and my first impressions are that, long-term, we probably made the right choice, even if short-term frustrations and confusion have made the opening week less exhilarating than it otherwise might have been. Moving is always a disruption and a trans-Atlantic move to another culture is moving². We gave up a lot of comfortable and familiar things and people to come here and the upside is that almost all of the people that we've met have been so welcoming that it gives the initial sensation of comfort. And the word "things" doesn't really embody the material stuff. We're still waiting on a couple pallets full of those "things" so this temporary absence is very far from a crisis, albeit sleeping without a mattress has been getting less and less thrilling with each day that goes by. I'm all about camping but generally when I plan to do so.

The most interesting aspect to all of it has been, of course, those welcoming people. The vast majority of Portuguese that we've encountered speak English and often do so without prompting as soon as they see the likely "American" blank face when either they speak or I'm about to ask a question that I don't know how to properly produce without sounding like Twoflower (i.e. somehow if I speak LOUDLY AND SLOWLY they'll understand me.) But they're quite used to both tourists and ex-pats here and the typical pidgin sign language of "Want this?" and "Yes" gets everyone by. It's just always amusing when we walk in with our American-accented "Ola!" and they immediately respond with perfect English, like in the interesting Italian restaurant we stopped into the other day, where we started saying the Portuguese on the menu and the operator immediately stopped and said: "English? Yeah, that's no problem." Said restaurant was interesting because it seemed to be set up on a "fast food" model where you could get fresh pasta, like gnocchi carbonara, but didn't present the American fast food "vibe", as it were. It also wasn't a chain, but is instead just one outlet in Santa Clara (across the Mondego River from Coimbra) doing its own thing.

One of the other upsides was coming to a football-mad culture, where game nights are distinct outings for a lot of the population. We were out during a Monday evening that happened to be when the Primeira Liga was staging all of their games as the season nears its end. Coimbra is heavily-populated by Benfica and Sporting fans, albeit Porto wasn't playing that evening, so there's no way to tell the real ratio. We sat in a local joint, known as The Sports Bar (Portuguese humor may be underrated), to watch the second half of their match as they tried to stay in consideration for the title they've won more than any other club and the anguish of their supporters was evident when the result did not go their way. I know those feelings intimately and they don't change across cultures or locations. Meanwhile, the local semi-pro club, Académica, is playing for promotion into the second division (i.e. the fully pro ranks) this Saturday. We have tickets. If you're not going to support the locals, then why are you there? (Besides, it might be more appealing to watch than Liverpool, at the moment.)

And it's the locals that are of the highest concern in many ways. We went to a concert the other night and were greeted by a couple walking around the facade of the building like we were. They recognized Americans (blank face?) and asked why we were visiting. We said: "We just moved here." The reaction was obvious: "Ahhh...." (slight pause) "Well, welcome!" There are a lot of people like us here and it's an open question as to whether that's a positive thing for the local environment. I'd like to think it is, since adding more to the mix is the same essential element that has made the United States and modern American culture what it is, despite the efforts of the idiots to deny it. Indeed, that modern American culture is evident everywhere here, as you'll often see people walking around wearing clothing with slogans in American English and the aforementioned fast food has also permeated the environment, as one of our neighbors tried to explain our mutual address to someone else by starting with: "Do you know where the Burger King is? We're just up the street from that." That "just up the street" concept is a huge upside, as well, eager as I was to get away from our dependency on a car to do much of anything outside the house. We are a few minutes walk from two major shopping malls (they still have them here), both of them with grocery stores and a smaller one of the latter is one block away. We've been here 8 days and have already walked home with groceries a half-dozen times, which is a wholly unAmerican thing for much of our suburbanized, car-oriented situation in the States in recent decades.

It's also a popular sentiment amongst the expat group that we met up with yesterday. It was an interesting mix of people who'd been here for years or had only recently arrived, like us, many of them chatting about all the cool things within walking distance of their homes. It was also another subtle reaction moment, when one of them asked if I was law enforcement, since they'd briefly seen the word "Justice" tattooed on my arm. I smiled and showed the full piece, which is a Diego Rivera-like rendition of a fist crushing a dollar sign, with the raised fists of  red and black others within it and the words "Equality" and "Justice" basing and capping it, respectively: "No, I'm a Marxist." was my response. I could read the surprise and then wariness in the faces of a couple of them, which is a pretty typical reaction for average Americans, most of whom don't really know what that political philosophy is other than "bad." But a couple of them saw the humor in it and we moved on. It was encouraging to hear later from another of our expat compatriots describing Michigan (his birthplace, as well as mine) as: "Well, there's Detroit and then Ann Arbor and then it's all Republicans until you get to Chicago." That's pretty accurate and another sign of the detachment that modern groups of Americans feel for each other. We'll have to see how we fit in with all of these new groups here and if I can shake the "invader complex" after a while.

Unbridled outrage and the lack of conclusions

Since we're no longer members of the Michigan Theater, we've been seeing fewer films, as you might expect. So when the Oscar nominations were announced the other day, I decided I/we should try to catch up on a few things. We've seen four of the ten Best Picture nominees but had seen none of the documentary feature films, so I figured we'd start there. I'll cover the first four (The Perfect Neighbor, The Alabama Solution, Mr. Nobody Against Putin and Come See Me in the Good Light) here. The fifth, Cutting Through Rocks, is only available on the Sundance Channel so I'm not sure when we might get a chance to see that.

The Perfect Neighbor- This one was about the killing of Ajike Owens in Ocala, FL in 2023. Susan Lorincz was Owens' neighbor who complained constantly about Owens' children and the children of other neighbors playing near her apartment. Those complaints included repeated calls to the Marion County sheriff. On June 2, 2023, Lorincz allegedly assaulted some of the children by hurling objects at them and calling them names. When Owens came across the street and knocked on her door to protest that behavior, Lorincz shot her through the locked door, killing her. Lorincz later cited Florida's "stand your ground" law as an explanation for her behavior. Public protests followed swiftly and Lorincz was eventually convicted of manslaughter, among other charges, and given 25 years. The film is yet another tragic example of basic racism and the idiocy of these so-called "self-defense" laws that allow our gun-happy society to exercise their "rights" to kill other people. But the fascinating thing about the presentation is that the vast majority of the film is comprised of the sheriff's officers' bodycam footage, as well as internal cameras at their HQ. Those bodycams give us insight as to their views on the absurdity of the situation (frequently walking away from visits to the neighborhood muttering about how the only one causing problems is Lorincz) but also to how they're basically unable to do anything about a person who is clearly not stable (she's arrested during the film for destroying the gate of a local business that had been closed on the area where she'd illegally parked her truck) but isn't doing anything that would enable them to either act directly or, at the very least, find some mental health resources for her that might help her situation (if those even exist at that level in the state of Florida.) It's on Netflix.

The Alabama Solution- should leave any decent person with a fine sense of outrage (similar to what you should be feeling over events in Minnesota these days.) It's about the systematic mistreatment within and injustice of the correctional system in Alabama, which basically serves as those of many states do, which is the perpetuation of slavery under another name (i.e. unpaid labor by prisoners who are systematically denied any genuine case review for release.) What makes that worse are the number of deaths that take place in that state's system that are simply waved away by the public (there are a couple great moments when the local shock jocks are heard dismissing an inmate being beaten to death by guards with essentially: "Shouldn't'a been there in the first place!") and which leaves families no recourse as to accountability or even explanations as to why their loved ones end up never returning from behind bars. It's infuriating, but really well done, since most of the footage comes from cell phone recordings from devices smuggled into the prisons (by guards, so they can make more money, as they are also systematically underpaid and abused by the system.) Some of the best parts are in recorded conversations with Robert Earl Council and Melvin Ray, two prisoners who are the leaders of the Free Alabama Movement, which the Alabama dept. of corrections despises because it exposes their perfidy in the most basic of ways. It's on HBO. 

Mr. Nobody Against Putin- This one starts out far more lighthearted than the first two, as it's initially presented as the story of a young man, Pavel Talankin, who is the videographer and event coordinator for the largest school in Karabash, a town of 15,000 people in the Ural mountains, once solely famous for being the most polluted town in all of Russia, thanks to the local copper mining and smelting operation. (See Mark Twain's Roughing It for a detailed description of just how awful copper mining- and mining, in general -really is.) Pavel loves his job... until the invasion of Ukraine begins and his job and that of the teachers becomes one of spoon-feeding propaganda to their students to encourage them not just to support the invasion, but also to indoctrinate them to the idea of fighting for Russia being their highest possible mission in life. It becomes an hour-and-a-half excursion into the concept of "patriotism being the last refuge of a scoundrel." It's also told entirely through Pavel's equipment, both at the school and his home and reveals not only his personal misgivings, but also how he starts to translate those objections into actions at the school (At one point, where the school is now required to start each day with a march through the hallway to the Russian national anthem, he replaces it with The Star-Spangled Banner.) Eventually, his actions attract the attention of higher-ups and things begin to get really dark in this small town. Once again, the primary emotional reaction of most watching should be some level of outrage, followed by shaking one's head at the stupidity of it all. It's on Apple TV.

Come See Me in the Good Light- And, finally, what is easily the most personal of those presented and what may be the best of them, as well. This film is the story of Colorado's poet laureate, Andrea Gibson and their wife, Megan Falley, as they struggle with Andrea's cancer. It follows them through treatment, the changing tides of their progress and regression and how it changes Andrea's outlook on their work, their relationships, and their life. Having grown up in a strict Baptist household, Andrea's poetry orbits the topics of identity, gender, and self-determination (and the emotional impact of all of those) pretty regularly. In the early 00s, they began performing as a spoken word artist and became something of a rock star in the poetry scene, but retreated from all of that after their diagnosis. Neither Andrea nor Megan are inhibited by the presence of (plain, old regular) cameras and so this ends up being a surprisingly intimate depiction of two people struggling with the concepts of mortality while still trying to maintain their normally hopeful (Megan) and determined (Andrea) demeanor about life and everything in it. When it came to a close without displaying what the resolution of Andrea's struggle was, Tricia complained that we didn't find out "what happened." My response was that because this was a film about life, whether they had died or not wasn't relevant. The film had shown what they wanted and that was life and everything in it that was to be appreciated and sometimes endured. It's also on Apple TV.