I finally saw "Django Unchained" and sadly, I was a little disappointed. Mostly because it just didn't seem to be a spaghetti western. For me, spaghetti westerns are defined by Clint Eastwood and Sergio Leone. The overwhelming aesthetic that permeates those movies is hot dusty sweat. They were filmed in the dusty heat of Spain and that look seared itself into my feelings about spaghetti westerns. Django has none of that. The first half of the movie is set in the cold snowy mountains and the second half in the lush green South in Spring (where the temp never seems to rise above 72 degrees Fahrenheit). No one sweats in this movie. How can this be a spaghetti western?
More disappointing is that there are no great scenes. Some great moments, some great lines, but they just didn't congeal into a coherent whole. I can ignore the plot holes and ridiculousness (Hollywood is filled with those), but I need the scenes to have that characteristic Tarantino structure and tension. In "Inglorious Basterds", the movie starts with an insanely tense scene between the Nazi Hans Landa and the farmer LaPadite, then there is a funny and brutal sequence in the basement bar with a German movie star co-conspirator, the Basterds, and a Gestapo officer, then there's the dinner table scene between Goebbels, Landa and Shosanna Dreyfus - that was tension incarnate! There's not a single scene that lives up to any of those in Django.
Then there's the music. Spaghetti westerns have operatic scores. But Django jumps from pop song to pop song faster than a wedding singer. It was jarring and incoherent. Just didn't work.
That said, it had enough juice to keep me entertained. It's a good movie, and Jamie Foxx has proved himself to be irresistible as an actor, but this was just not the masterpiece I was hoping for.
Tuesday, January 1, 2013
Monday, December 24, 2012
sometimes a movie formula is just a formula
If Tarantino ever made a romantic comedy, it might look a lot like Silver Linings Playbook.
I saw the film this weekend and couldn't escape the idea that, despite its truly admirable qualities, it still counts as a by-the-book RomCom. The thought I had was that this was an attempt to take the cookie cutter script of a generic RomCom and try to make the most film critic friendly version of that genre as possible. Yes it has strong acting. Yes it has strong dialogue. Yes it has emotionally challenging plot complexity. But it never goes beyond purely formulaic.
The most disappointing (and frankly, troubling) aspect was its vanilla whitewash of bipolar disorder. While both main characters are supposed to suffer some form of mental illness treated by medication, neither ever displays any behaviors much more troubling than anything typical RomCom characters display. I concede that this film is courageous enough to expose those typical behaviors as troubling, but it does nothing more than that. I am reminded of this brilliant take down of Zero Dark Thirty as little more than Erin Brockovich for Fascists. The point is that including an ethically difficult topic in your movie does not alone make your movie ethically courageous when all you do is shackle it in the bondage of tired old Hollywood templates.
Anyone who has had a mentally ill family member will likely see little of the behaviors they dealt with in this film (yes, I have a family member diagnosed with bipolar, and this movie seemed completely sanitized and "family-friendly" to me).
Despite that, I still enjoyed the film. It is very well done. It is a true joy to watch DeNiro and Jackie Weaver play off each other as the long married and still deeply loving couple (kudos to her dialogue coach as well; you'd never guess her native dialect). All of the secondary characters are given ample opportunity to contribute meaningfully to the plot and nuance of the story.
It's a good film. But it is a flawed film.
I saw the film this weekend and couldn't escape the idea that, despite its truly admirable qualities, it still counts as a by-the-book RomCom. The thought I had was that this was an attempt to take the cookie cutter script of a generic RomCom and try to make the most film critic friendly version of that genre as possible. Yes it has strong acting. Yes it has strong dialogue. Yes it has emotionally challenging plot complexity. But it never goes beyond purely formulaic.
The most disappointing (and frankly, troubling) aspect was its vanilla whitewash of bipolar disorder. While both main characters are supposed to suffer some form of mental illness treated by medication, neither ever displays any behaviors much more troubling than anything typical RomCom characters display. I concede that this film is courageous enough to expose those typical behaviors as troubling, but it does nothing more than that. I am reminded of this brilliant take down of Zero Dark Thirty as little more than Erin Brockovich for Fascists. The point is that including an ethically difficult topic in your movie does not alone make your movie ethically courageous when all you do is shackle it in the bondage of tired old Hollywood templates.
Anyone who has had a mentally ill family member will likely see little of the behaviors they dealt with in this film (yes, I have a family member diagnosed with bipolar, and this movie seemed completely sanitized and "family-friendly" to me).
Despite that, I still enjoyed the film. It is very well done. It is a true joy to watch DeNiro and Jackie Weaver play off each other as the long married and still deeply loving couple (kudos to her dialogue coach as well; you'd never guess her native dialect). All of the secondary characters are given ample opportunity to contribute meaningfully to the plot and nuance of the story.
It's a good film. But it is a flawed film.
Sunday, December 23, 2012
college is a ponzi scheme
This NYTs article is getting a lot of buzz on Twitter and Facebook: For Poor, Leap to College Often Ends in a Hard Fall.
Sad but true. College is no longer a mechanism for people to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. It is a Ponzi scheme meant to prey on poor and working class families. I didn't pay more than $300 for a semester of undergrad between 1989-1993. I would not be where I am today if I had to pay $3000+ per semester for undergrad. If Chico State cost in 1990 what it does today, my family could not have afforded it. No way. I would never have gone to college, never gone to grad school, never gone to the East Coast, and would not have the career I have now. No way.
And I did not go to an elite school. I didn't need to. All I needed was a good public college. State subsidized college worked for me 20 years ago in exactly the way it was supposed to. I went from a poor uneducated family and made an upper middle class career for myself. Expensive college is failing to do any good today except trap poor kids in a downward spiral of debt and diminishing returns.
My income probably puts me into the top 7% of Americans. I hereby agree to pay higher taxes to help kids go to school. It works.
Sad but true. College is no longer a mechanism for people to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. It is a Ponzi scheme meant to prey on poor and working class families. I didn't pay more than $300 for a semester of undergrad between 1989-1993. I would not be where I am today if I had to pay $3000+ per semester for undergrad. If Chico State cost in 1990 what it does today, my family could not have afforded it. No way. I would never have gone to college, never gone to grad school, never gone to the East Coast, and would not have the career I have now. No way.
And I did not go to an elite school. I didn't need to. All I needed was a good public college. State subsidized college worked for me 20 years ago in exactly the way it was supposed to. I went from a poor uneducated family and made an upper middle class career for myself. Expensive college is failing to do any good today except trap poor kids in a downward spiral of debt and diminishing returns.
My income probably puts me into the top 7% of Americans. I hereby agree to pay higher taxes to help kids go to school. It works.
Sunday, December 2, 2012
on humility
On Humility:
Today is my birthday. All of the many happy birthday posts on my Facebook wall today have been touching and reminded me of one of the most humble moments of my life, a moment I have always deeply treasured. While a grad student in Buffalo, three thousand miles away from my home and family, I was struck with serious illness and spent many weeks in and out of hospitals. During one long three week hospital stay at Rochester's excellent Strong Memorial Hospital, I was surprised one day when about a dozen Buffalo linguist grad students all paraded into my room. They had car pooled up the hour plus drive from Buffalo to Rochester to visit me. In many ways I am a typical American male, I suppress my emotions, I minimize emotional feeling. But that day was one of the most touching moments of my life. And I felt humbled by the outpouring of friendship and love of my fellow students. I also remember being terribly conflicted because in some ways, I felt I didn't deserve this. It is so much harder to accept love than to give it. I don't know why that is. Several years later another Buffalo grad student was having serious medical issues and many of us were helping her with basic daily chores. After I had helped her with groceries one day, she was clearly embarrassed by her need to be helped. I remember sitting down with her, telling her the story of when the dozen grad students drove up to see me. I told her how difficult it was for me to be helpless in that moment, but how grateful I was that they did that for me. I told her we all must find a way to accept love in our lives. It is no easy thing. But once we can accept the love of others, it is then that we know our place. I am reminded of what The Wizard of Oz told the Tin Man: "A heart is not judged by how much you love; but by how much you are loved by others."
Today is my birthday. All of the many happy birthday posts on my Facebook wall today have been touching and reminded me of one of the most humble moments of my life, a moment I have always deeply treasured. While a grad student in Buffalo, three thousand miles away from my home and family, I was struck with serious illness and spent many weeks in and out of hospitals. During one long three week hospital stay at Rochester's excellent Strong Memorial Hospital, I was surprised one day when about a dozen Buffalo linguist grad students all paraded into my room. They had car pooled up the hour plus drive from Buffalo to Rochester to visit me. In many ways I am a typical American male, I suppress my emotions, I minimize emotional feeling. But that day was one of the most touching moments of my life. And I felt humbled by the outpouring of friendship and love of my fellow students. I also remember being terribly conflicted because in some ways, I felt I didn't deserve this. It is so much harder to accept love than to give it. I don't know why that is. Several years later another Buffalo grad student was having serious medical issues and many of us were helping her with basic daily chores. After I had helped her with groceries one day, she was clearly embarrassed by her need to be helped. I remember sitting down with her, telling her the story of when the dozen grad students drove up to see me. I told her how difficult it was for me to be helpless in that moment, but how grateful I was that they did that for me. I told her we all must find a way to accept love in our lives. It is no easy thing. But once we can accept the love of others, it is then that we know our place. I am reminded of what The Wizard of Oz told the Tin Man: "A heart is not judged by how much you love; but by how much you are loved by others."
Friday, October 5, 2012
changes in referential phrasing in presidential debates
During Wednesday night's presidential debate, @Fritinancy tweeted a quip that got my eye:
She caught on to the fact that Mitt Romney used a variation of the name of The National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, often referred to as Simpson-Bowles, but also as Bowles-Simpson.
This piqued my lingo interests so I downloaded the CNN transcript and dug up some fascinating facts.
It is Mitt Romney who first introduces the term Bowles-Simpson and Obama follows his lead, but then Jim Lehrer introduces the Simpson-Bowles variation and Romney follows his lead...until he doesn't. Obama never used the Simpson-Bowles version and Lehrer never used the Bowles-Simpson version.
Here are all instances of the term from the debate:
21:21:38: ROMNEY: …And so what I do is I bring down the tax rates, lower deductions and exemptions, the same idea behind Bowles-Simpson, by the way, get the rates down, lower deductions and exemptions, to create more jobs, because there's nothing better for getting us to a balanced budget than having more people working, earning more money, paying more taxes.
21:28:37: OBAMA:… Governor ROMNEY earlier mentioned the Bowles-Simpson commission. Well, that's how the commission -- bipartisan commission that talked about how we should move forward suggested we have to do it, in a balanced way with some revenue and some spending cuts.
21:31:34: LEHRER: Governor, what about Simpson-Bowles? Do you support Simpson-Bowles?
21:31:34: ROMNEY: Simpson-Bowles, the president should have grabbed that.
21:31:35: LEHRER: No, I mean, do you support Simpson-Bowles?
21:31:36: ROMNEYI have my own plan. It's not the same as Simpson-Bowles. But in my view, the president should have grabbed it. If you wanted to make some adjustments to it, take it, go to Congress, fight for it.
22:11:10: ROMNEY… That's one way one could do it. One could follow Bowles-Simpson as a model and take deduction by deduction and make differences that way.
I can't help but be reminded of the classic Krauss and Weinheimer (1964) experiments Changes in reference phrases as a function of frequency of usage in social interaction. I can't find the paper online, but it involves two participants converging on a shared (typically short) form of a name for an unknown new object.
She caught on to the fact that Mitt Romney used a variation of the name of The National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, often referred to as Simpson-Bowles, but also as Bowles-Simpson.
This piqued my lingo interests so I downloaded the CNN transcript and dug up some fascinating facts.
It is Mitt Romney who first introduces the term Bowles-Simpson and Obama follows his lead, but then Jim Lehrer introduces the Simpson-Bowles variation and Romney follows his lead...until he doesn't. Obama never used the Simpson-Bowles version and Lehrer never used the Bowles-Simpson version.
Here are all instances of the term from the debate:
21:21:38: ROMNEY: …And so what I do is I bring down the tax rates, lower deductions and exemptions, the same idea behind Bowles-Simpson, by the way, get the rates down, lower deductions and exemptions, to create more jobs, because there's nothing better for getting us to a balanced budget than having more people working, earning more money, paying more taxes.
21:28:37: OBAMA:… Governor ROMNEY earlier mentioned the Bowles-Simpson commission. Well, that's how the commission -- bipartisan commission that talked about how we should move forward suggested we have to do it, in a balanced way with some revenue and some spending cuts.
21:31:34: LEHRER: Governor, what about Simpson-Bowles? Do you support Simpson-Bowles?
21:31:34: ROMNEY: Simpson-Bowles, the president should have grabbed that.
21:31:35: LEHRER: No, I mean, do you support Simpson-Bowles?
21:31:36: ROMNEYI have my own plan. It's not the same as Simpson-Bowles. But in my view, the president should have grabbed it. If you wanted to make some adjustments to it, take it, go to Congress, fight for it.
22:11:10: ROMNEY… That's one way one could do it. One could follow Bowles-Simpson as a model and take deduction by deduction and make differences that way.
I can't help but be reminded of the classic Krauss and Weinheimer (1964) experiments Changes in reference phrases as a function of frequency of usage in social interaction. I can't find the paper online, but it involves two participants converging on a shared (typically short) form of a name for an unknown new object.
Thursday, October 4, 2012
knowing your own mind...
How well do you understand your own biases? Is there a way to objectively identify your own biases, without the convoluted mess that is your own conscious meta-thinking?
Why yes, yes there is. Harvard has graciously posted online more than a dozen Implicit Association Tasks. This is a well respected, and kinda freaky, reaction time test that pairs symbols (often words, but can be pictures too) and tests how closely you associate them. It's a subtle and clever test and basically, unbeatable (you can try to *fake* your responses all you want, they'll catch you because of methodological design ... hint .. you can't go too slow).
I recommend everyone giving it a try, if only to get a taste off empirical cognitive science methods.
Why yes, yes there is. Harvard has graciously posted online more than a dozen Implicit Association Tasks. This is a well respected, and kinda freaky, reaction time test that pairs symbols (often words, but can be pictures too) and tests how closely you associate them. It's a subtle and clever test and basically, unbeatable (you can try to *fake* your responses all you want, they'll catch you because of methodological design ... hint .. you can't go too slow).
I recommend everyone giving it a try, if only to get a taste off empirical cognitive science methods.
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
a fiendishly clever branding proposal
Dear artists, scholars, good-deed-doers, what if I offered to pay you money to let me place my name in front of yours on everything you do. Every time your name gets mentioned from now on, my name will be mentioned too, usually first. Keep in mind, I'm willing to PAY you for this. You can make some money by letting me brand your work product from now on with my name. I won't do anything else (like help you in any way), but every time you get noticed for your efforts, I'll pay you one time right now to forever let my name be a part of your public notice. All newspaper articles written about you, all magazine profiles, even on any official bios you may post online or in print, my name will now be there, alongside yours.
My question is, how much would you charge me for this? Would the right price be higher than $1,000? $10,000? $500,000?
This is my perspective on the MacArthur Fellowship (aka the Genius Grant).
I don't see the difference between what the MacArthur foundation does and the offer I made above, with one crucial exception: I gave you a choice, they didn't.
The MacArthur foundation never asks you if you want to be branded with their name for the rest of your life. In fact, they don't even tell you that you are a target of their branding campaign until it's too late. And what's the fellows' compensation? A tidy sum, but couched in the offer I make above, I'm guessing almost every single MacArthur fellow would seriously hesitate before agreeing to it, and many would say no.
Am I being cynical? A curmudgeon? Too clever for my own good?
Or is The MacArthur foundation the most wickedly clever viral branding campaign ever? One could argue that they get nothing out of this ... then again, I didn't claim to get anything out of the above proposal either. In the end, I gave you a choice, they didn't.
My question is, how much would you charge me for this? Would the right price be higher than $1,000? $10,000? $500,000?
This is my perspective on the MacArthur Fellowship (aka the Genius Grant).
I don't see the difference between what the MacArthur foundation does and the offer I made above, with one crucial exception: I gave you a choice, they didn't.
The MacArthur foundation never asks you if you want to be branded with their name for the rest of your life. In fact, they don't even tell you that you are a target of their branding campaign until it's too late. And what's the fellows' compensation? A tidy sum, but couched in the offer I make above, I'm guessing almost every single MacArthur fellow would seriously hesitate before agreeing to it, and many would say no.
Am I being cynical? A curmudgeon? Too clever for my own good?
Or is The MacArthur foundation the most wickedly clever viral branding campaign ever? One could argue that they get nothing out of this ... then again, I didn't claim to get anything out of the above proposal either. In the end, I gave you a choice, they didn't.
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