Monthly Archives: December 2016

Movie Review: Rogue One, A Star Wars Story

We saw Rogue One last night, and enjoyed it very much. It’s fast paced, exciting, and exceptionally well acted. I found parts of it very moving. I found it a morally serious, thoughtful movie about war and revolution and the cost of standing up against fascism. I really, basically, liked everything about it. I just didn’t think it was a Star Wars movie. It’s not the right kind of good movie for that.

Let me clarify. I love Star Wars (which I will not now, or ever, call A New Hope). 1977, I came home from my mission, and on the plane read a magazine article about the Star Wars phenomenon. I decided that it would be the first movie I saw post-mission, and it was. I saw it nine times before I saw anything else. I kept thinking ‘where has this movie been all my life?’ It filled a void for me, reminded me how absolutely blasted much fun it could be, going into a movie theater and seeing something that audacious. I still think it’s one of the greatest movies ever made.

What it wasn’t was good. Great, yes. Groundbreaking, addicting, yes. It is, in fact, a well nigh perfect movie. It accomplishes what it’s trying to accomplish. It’s flawlessly entertaining. But it’s not a good movie, and it’s not trying to be one. No new insights into the human condition, no rounded, human characters, no depth, no philosophy. It’s just a hoot, a riot. It’s a pastiche, an intentionally artificial joyride through bad movie history. It’s the greatest B-movie ever made, until Lucas and Spielberg managed to make an even better one with Raiders of the Lost Ark. It’s high camp, massively, insanely entertaining. That’s all it’s trying to be, and it succeeds marvelously on those terms.

But movies are also imaginative explorations of the human condition. And on that level, Star Wars pretty much fails. There’s one scene in Star Wars that I illustrates this, I think. It’s just after Luke and Han and Chewie rescue Princess Leia. The four of them are trotting along in the interior of the Death Star, and as they come around a corner, a bunch of Imperial Stormtroopers show up. And Han goes berserk, shouting like a madman and running right at the Stormtroopers, and they’re spooked, and run off, and Chewie follows Han, and there they are, Han yelling and the Troopers retreating (for no earthly reason), and Luke and Leia are left alone. I suppose that Lucas wanted them alone, and had to figure out how to separate the four of them, and that’s what he came up with. But it’s still a genuine head scratcher. We don’t ordinarily notice it, though, and just how silly it is, because dumb stuff like that happens all the time. It’s Star Wars; it’s supposed to be campy and fun.

But Rogue One isn’t really like that, not at all. From time to time, the movie threw in Star Wars-y stuff to remind us where we were; a brief glimpse of R2D2 and C3PO, or a quick shot of the obstreperous customer from the bar scene. Those scenes were more jarring than reassuring, though. They brought back Peter Cushing for this movie, twenty years after the man was laid in his grave, and his face was the one special effect that really looked CGI-ed, and kind of creepy.

No, Rogue One is a serious movie. Its protagonist, Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones), is a semi-orphaned child; her mother shot in front of her, her father a traitor, her protector, a terrorist. She becomes a revolutionary more or less by accident, scratching and clawing for a place of autonomy and purpose in a universe where several factions want to claim her because of the legacy of her last name. You could argue that she’s not a very volitional protagonist (her choices don’t really drive the action of the film), but I found her tremendously compelling. She’s fighting to define her own purpose, her own destiny. And in the process, is both ground down by history, while also remaking it.

That’s kind of the theme of the entire movie. It’s a movie about pawns who queen themselves. Cassian Andor (Diego Luna), is a pilot and a spy, tasked with finding and killing Jyn’s father, Galen Erso (Mads Mikkelsen). But the discoveries he makes along the way force him to expand his purpose, to look for a way to destroy the Empire’s fearsome new superweapon, the Death Star. Along the way, Jyn and Cassian meet more stateless vagabonds, Chirrut Imwe (Donnie Yen), a blind Jedi ninja monk, who became, for me, the most magnetic and fascinating character in the movie, and his friend, Baze Malbus.  And they just kind of tag along, before finding their own sense of mission and purpose.

And then we meet the Rebel Alliance, and discover them to be a much less formidable opposing force than we might have supposed from Star Wars. The Alliance isn’t all that unified. It seems to be mostly a loose collection of movements, from different places and planets and ideologies, who have come together in opposition to the increasingly brutal and fascistic Empire. They don’t seem to be able to agree on any strategy or tactics, and they are pretty much paralyzed until they do agree. Cassian and Jyn finally force their hand, and seem astonished at how easy it was.

In short, it feels like the way real politics actually works. It feels like what an actual Alliance opposing a fascistic state might look like, and how it might function. It’s grubby and dark. A lot of Storm Troopers’ white plastic uniforms are badly stained and filthy. And characters we’ve come to care about a lot end up dying, sometimes pretty pointlessly. It’s about war, and death is central to war-waging. There’s a bleakness to this movie that I loved, and wish there were more of. Because the ending struck me as sort of grotesquely chirpy. Not to give it away, but this movie doesn’t so much arrive at Star Wars as collide with it. It left a bad taste, sadly, because so much else in Rogue One works.

I think it’s the second best movie in the Star Wars canon, after Star Wars. I grade them as follows: Movie 4 (Star Wars) A plus. Movie 3.5 (Rogue One) A. Movie 5 (Empire Strikes Back) A minus. Movie 6 (Return of the Jedi) B minus. Movie 7 (The Force Awakens) C minus. Movie 3 (Revenge of the Sith) D minus. Movies 1 and 2 (Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones) F.

Rogue One‘s not really a Star Wars movie. (No opening scroll! Different musical themes!). But whatever it is, it’s very good. I’m encouraged by this direction for the franchise, and will look forward to Episode 8 with great anticipation.

 

 

Moana: Movie Review

Moana is astonishing. It’s been out three weeks, and here I am, finally getting around to seeing it and reviewing it. But I was wrong to resist it so strongly. Numerous friends told me how good the movie was; they were right.

I know a lot about Disney animated musical feature films, not because it’s a subject that particularly interests me, but by virtue of being a 21st century American with kids. I know all the princesses, I’ve seen all the movies, and can probably sing the biggest songs from each. I know correspondingly much much less about the culture and worldview and achievements and mythology of Pacific Islanders. I know that Samoans and Fijiians and Hawaiians have rich and astonishing histories and traditions, but I am almost completely ignorant of those cultures. So here we have a Disney animated musical about a Pacific Island girl. And I would say that I am approximately 1000 times more interested in the mythological underpinnings of this story than I am in the Disney musical parts. That said, I didn’t particularly want to see it. And there’s a reason why: it’s called Pocahontas.

In 1995, Disney released their latest Big Animated Movie, based on the story of Pocahontas. I took my kids to see it, as mandated by federal law. And it was awful. I found it a misguided, ahistorical, grotesquely insensitive exercise in cultural appropriation. And the songs weren’t even very good. ‘Ah,’ I thought, Color of the Wind is a beautiful song. I’m being too harsh.’ But no, I just listened to that song again. Could those lyrics have been more condescending? Pocahontas was a disaster. Well-intentioned, sure. But bad.

So I figured Moana would be bad too, and in the same way. And again, I’m coming at this from a position of utter ignorance. But I thought it was terrific. I thought it genuinely honored its cultural sources. The animation was astonishing, and the story couldn’t have been more compelling.

Most of the movie is set on a small boat in the middle of the Pacific ocean, with just two characters. Moana (voiced by the sensational Auli’i Cavalho) is young; she’s not really a princess, and she’s not a target for romance. She’s smart and brave and incredibly self-confident. She knows who she is and what she needs to do, and she’s about the most volitional protagonist I know. Her pure driving energy keeps the movie afloat, which is a good thing, because there do need to be longish scenes of exposition, while dumb American audiences (like me), get caught up on the cultural tropes the film’s exploring.

But the other main character is Maui (voiced by Dwayne Johnson, and who knew The Rock could sing?). And if Moana is the irresistible force, Maui is the immovable object. Maui is a demigod, plus he can sail a boat (which is, for Moana, his most immediate value to her). He has a magic fishhook, and anthropomorphic tattoos that admonish and encourage him and also tell his backstory. He’s a tremendous character–blustery, comedic, whiny, tough, charismatic, immature.

Their task: to replace a magic jewel stolen by Maui from another divine creature, thus removing a curse on her people. My guess is that this Maui is a pastiche; that there are different Maui legends among Hawaiians than you’ll find on Fiji, or Samoa, or on Tahiti or on Tonga. Again, I don’t know a darn thing about Polynesian history and culture, except that they were the world’s great sea-faring people, more adventurous even than my Viking forebears. The film honors that too; shows us the history of those great seagoing catamarans.

If there were moments in this film that didn’t 100% make sense to me, I figure it’s just because of my own cultural ignorance. In the meantime, I loved it, and wish there were more films like it. I couldn’t help notice, in the closing credits, how many cultural advisors the film employed. Good for them! Get the details right; hire experts, and listen to them. Disney has learned a lot since Pocahontas.

One last note; I couldn’t help notice that several of the songs in this movie were written by Lin-Manuel Miranda, including the two best songs in the show: “How Far I’ll go,” sung by Moana, and “You’re Welcome,” sung by Maui. So, here we have a musical about Pacific Island culture, and two of its best songs are written by a Puerto Rican kid from Washington Heights. Isn’t that great? By golly, that’s America!

My Rudolf fiasco

We had our ward Christmas party last Friday, and I was part of the featured entertainment. I have this thing I do; a kind of fractured fairy tales thing, only for Christmas. I gather the kids up on stage, and sit in a comfy chair, and tell them a Christmas story. Only I mess it up. I’ve learned over the years that little kids love correcting a grown-up, so I pretend to be wholly incompetent. I’ll start by telling the story of the Grinch, say, only I’ll drag in everything from Goldilocks to Sleeping Beauty to Lord of the Rings. And every time the story goes off the rails, the kids are outraged. “No!” they cry. “That’s not how it goes!” And I course-correct, and a great time is had by all.

I’ve done this for years. I did it with my children when they were young, and their friends, and other kid relatives. I am, it seems, fairly good at feigning befuddlement.

I did it in our ward last year, and it went well. The kids were appropriately incensed by my, to them, astonishing inability to tell a simple Christmas story. One kid–maybe 5 or 6–came up to me in Church the next Sunday. “Boy,” he said, shaking his head. “You are the worst story-teller ever.” “I know,” I responded sadly. “I’m sorry. I’m just bad at it.” And he walked away, astonished, no doubt, that someone was fool enough to ask this poor sad sack to tell a Christmas story when it was clearly beyond him.

A couple of years ago, I was on the organizing committee for the Christmas party, and we decided to hire Santa to entertain the kids. Someone knew a professional Santa, a guy in the stake, and we brought him in, despite no one knowing his act. And I’m sorry to say it, but he was a big disappointment. He struck me as the kind of adult who thinks that what kids want is a strong moral lesson. Little kids do not want a strong moral lesson. Little kids want goofiness. And what’s wonderful about children is their exuberance, their energy, their imagination, their love for the truly silly. This Santa couldn’t even be bothered to plop kids on his lap and ask ’em what they wanted for Christmas. If I were Santa–and I’ve got the body type for it–I’d love that; treating each kid as special. But not this guy. I think it got in the way of his preachifying.

Anyway, I was looking forward to this year’s Christmas party. I decided beforehand that I would tell the story of Rudolf the green-nosed reindeer. That way, they’d catch on immediately to the nature of the game. “No!” they’d shout. “Red-nosed reindeer! Rudolf has a red nose! Not a green one.” And we’d be off running.

I do very little preparation for this thing. I can generally keep track in my head of where we are in the story, and which other extraneous tales I’ve already dragged in. I have various stalling tactics I can use when I need to buy time. “Are you sure?” I’ll ask. “I thought Rudolf had a green nose. Green means go; red means stop. Rudolf is what makes Santa’s sleigh go.” And meantime, I’m trying to figure out how to work Little Red Riding Hood into it.

This year, though, the kids were prepped. They were loaded for bear. They’d clearly remembered the goofy Christmas story guy from last year. And they had no interest in playing. In particular, I blame a cabal of older kids, 8 or 9 years old, deeply cynical little post-modernists, who showed up to the Christmas party with a plan. “You want to deconstruct Christmas stories,” I imagine them saying. “Well, deconstruct this, sucka!”

So I go “I’m going to tell the story of Rudolf the green-nosed reindeer.” And a few younger kids were suitably aggravated. “No!” they shouted on cue. But these older kids had the situation in hand. “Yeah,” they said, smirking. “Green-nosed reindeer. Sure. Let’s go with green.”

It didn’t matter where I went with it. They were ready for me. So I said “Let’s see. Santa’s reindeer were Dasher and Prancer, Donner and Blitzen, Comet and Cupid and Harry and Hermione.” And the kids went “Sure! Harry Potter’s a reindeer. Why not?” Yikes.

By the end of the story, Gandolf and Dumbledore were also on Santa’s sleigh, casting spells so Santa could get down particularly narrow chimneys. Cindy Lou Who and the Big Bad Wolf were working together to save Christmas, and Cinderella and the Three Little Pigs were huffing and puffing to get Santa’s sleigh some tailwind. I was tap dancing like Savion Glover, and the story was like Kafka channeling Tristan Tzara. Those kids! Those rotten kids! Derailing my story like that.

Who am I kidding? I had a ball. I had to work a lot harder than usual, but it was a ball. In the end, I brought things home, Santa’s sleigh made it through the fog, Rudolf was a hero, and Harry and Hermione, reindeer, got extra hay at the end of the night. I build an event on mis-told Christmas stories, and the kids did me one better, and turned the night into a pure story adventure. It was kind of a fiasco, but it was also fun, and the kids seemed to enjoy it, making this grown-up sweat. Darn ’em. I fully admit it; I met my match in this particular group of kids. And I couldn’t be prouder.

 

Book Review: Seveneves

Neil Stephenson’s Seveneves is one of those science fiction novels that invades your dreams and your subconscious. Days after you finish it, you find yourself thinking about it, and the implications of this scene or character or situation. Even finishing the book can be difficult; I found myself reading the last 100 pages at a snail’s pace, because finishing it meant I would have to stop reading. (Rereading, of course, is a possibility, but lacks the same sense of discovery).

It’s a somber book, appropriately, tragically heartbreaking. It’s also a book in love with technology. Stephenson has imagined his world so perfectly, you can sense his excitement over having created it. He’s not just interested in how stuff works, but also in what it looks like. A scene where a young woman waits for public transit to pick her up and deposit her somewhere else, that simple a scene, can be exhilarating. It’s also a book where, for the first two thirds, the title, Seveneves, makes no sense whatsoever, and thereafter makes perfect sense–is, in fact, the perfect title. And that moment of discovery comes at the moment of greatest despair, which also becomes the moment of greatest possibility.

And it’s a science fiction novel (or is speculative fiction the preferred label these days?), set entirely on Earth or in our planet’s general vicinity. It has space travel–a lot of space travel–but all of it close to home.

The basic premise couldn’t be more terrifying. Something, some Agent, splits the Moon. Shatters it. (The characters briefly speculate about the nature of the Agent, but without reaching any conclusions). The Moon, as it disintegrates, starts throwing off meteorites, which Earth’s gravity captures. Scientists (including one science expert character clearly modeled on Neil DeGrasse Tyson), calculate that it’s just a matter of a couple of years before all of the Moon comes crashing down, leading to catastrophe. In other words, the Moon’s destruction will wipe out all life on the planet Earth. If humanity is to be saved, it will have to be in space.

And so plans are made to build a large expansion onto the International Space Station. And to create smaller craft, which they end up calling ‘arklets’ for a group of young people, carefully selected from every culture on earth, representing earth’s diversity, with the ability to ‘swarm’ in order to dodge space rocks.

And in the meantime, we’re given time and space to imagine it; the ultimate Armageddon. The near-complete extinction of, not just the human race, but all life on Earth. It’s a staggering thought, shattering. Wisely, Stephenson allows us to experience it as we would–by showing the connections between a few characters and their immediate families. A woman and her fiancee; a man and his new wife; a young woman and her father and brothers. That’s how we would feel about it; that’s what the novel does.

I mean, we all come to this earth knowing that we’re going to die. But we do count on that three-score and ten. We want to make plans, excel at something, achieve, leave a legacy, if only a legacy of family and love and marriage. We are pretty well inured to dying. But life doesn’t strike us as hopeless. We do set goals, and take pleasure in achieving them. What if we were robbed of all that? What if we knew it was all going to end, for all of us. Strangely enough, as I read, I thought of Tom Lehrer, the great comic pianist/singer, and his cheerful, upbeat song about thermonuclear holocaust: “We’ll all go together when we go.” What if that were our reality? Still could be, obviously.

Could this work? Stephenson estimates that, after the initial bombardment, it would take Earth approximately 5000 years to cool down enough to sustain life again. Well, could humanity survive 5000 years in space? Could we work out some kind of artificial gravity, enough to keep bone density compatible with homo sapiens survival? Could we find shelter, from cosmic rays if not honking big pieces of moon rock? More to the point–and this is the saddest part of the novel–could we get along? Could we keep from killing each other? Could we survive mentally?

I don’t want to give away much in the way of spoilers. Suffice it to say that the novel seems both implausible and, just barely, possible. And it’s ultimately extraordinarily optimistic, even in the midst of terrible tragedy. That may be among it’s most remarkable achievements; that it’s ultimately kind of upbeat in tone.

I like science fiction. I also don’t keep up with the genre, and it may well be that there are ten other sci-fi novels out there as good as this one that y’all are going to tell me about. Still, this one is extraordinary. Just a superb read. Treat yourself.