Disneyfying Into the Woods

Spoilers for Into the Woods below!

The word “bowdlerize” comes from the name of Thomas Bowdler, who helpfully edited the works of William Shakespeare so they would be more “appropriate” for women and children in the early 1800’s.  I can only imagine that Romeo and Juliet had a happy ending and Hamlet ended up alive and married to Ophelia.

There were major concerns about the film version of Into the Woods when author Stephen Sondheim seemed to indicate in an interview that parts of the story had been changed at the insistence of Disney, the company producing the film.  One wonders if their motive for producing Into the Woods was less profit and more protecting the image of various fairy tale characters for future projects (gee, a new live action version of Cinderella is coming out soon!). Sondheim later dismissed such concerns as a misunderstanding, but the final version does show signs of bowdlerization.

Some cuts had to be made to get the over two and a half hour production into a two hour run time, such as eliminating the character of the Narrator.  I’m going to ignore those changes (although eliminating the Narrator does eliminate another intentional murder from the script; more about softening the body count later).  I also don’t want to get into the debate of whether or not Prince Charming had sex with the Baker’s Wife or merely got to third base (second base?).  But what changes are there that can be laid at Disney’s door?

One minor change is the fact that in the movie version of Into the Woods, Cinderella’s father is dead while he is alive in the play.  This can’t be attributed to time saving, as he is a non-entity who scarcely had a line. I’d guess that with him alive, the cruel treatment of Cinderella by her step-mother and step-sisters came across as delinquent parenting.  Being dead lets him off the hook for the consequences of his marrying someone “beautiful of face but vile and black of heart,” as the narration describes the step mother. Frankly, I think this change improves the story.

One odd little subtraction from the text is the final word of the song sung by the Big Bad Wolf after meeting Red Riding Hood. He sings eloquently about his desire to devour Red and her Grandmother, imagining the “scrumptious carnality twice in one day.”  The final line of the song in the theatrical version is “Goodbye little girl/and helloooooooo lunch!”  The text of the liner notes confirms that it wasn’t just Johnny Depp messing up; the word “lunch” is no longer in the text, rendering the last line sort of meaningless.  Why allow the wolf to go on in graphic detail about his desire to eat two humans, but then get squeamish about referring to the precise meal the victims will be participating in? I don’t understand this one, but I detect the subtle hand of Disney in cutting the word “lunch.”

One obvious and non-crucial change is that in the theatrical version, Rapunzel’s dalliance with Prince Charming’s brother resulted in twin infants.  Obviously Disney couldn’t show the portrayal of out-of-wedlock hanky-panky, so the kids were cut out.  Presumably the Price and Rapunzel spent hours discussing current events and watching Game of Thrones on DVD.  More on the fate of Rapunzel below.

Let me now get to the places where I think the Disneyfication of Into the Woods significantly undermines the play’s power.  In the play there are a couple of deliberate acts of violence that result in death: the Prince’s Steward strikes Jack’s Mother when she is arguing with the lady giant, killing her; and the lady giant kills the Baker’s Wife by stepping on her.  In the movie the Steward merely pushes Jack’s Mother, who falls and accidently hits her head; the Baker’s Wife sees the giant, flees, and accidently runs off a cliff. Also, in the play a lot of the minor characters are said to be killed by the lady giant off-stage, including Rapunzel.

When Jack is told of his mother’s death at the hands of the Steward, he says that he’ll make the steward pay for his act. In the theater, when Jack is played as a young man, his vow of violence can be taken as a loss of innocence; this nice, affable, somewhat dim-witted young man is now saying he will commit murder. Making Jack pre-adolescent somewhat mutes this point, as he comes off as a kid just talking big.  But none-the-less turning an intentional act of violence into an accidental death diminishes the power of Jack’s vow of vengeance significantly.

One reason why it is acceptable to kill the lady giant at the end is that she has killed a great many people; but since she no longer kills the Baker’s Wife deliberately (plus the Narrator, Rapunzel, et al) the fact that she supposedly killed unnamed people off-screen dilutes the reason for killing her.  In the play, the audience wants her dead because she killed a character we liked, the Baker’s Wife, so we accept Jack’s act of violence against her.  If the Baker’s Wife merely died in an accident, the morality gets muddled.

As I alluded to before, Disney’s motives in producing Into the Woods nearly 30 years after its Broadway debut is a bit suspect.  Disney insisted the production be for the relatively low cost of $50 million, which they recouped in a couple of weeks (as I write this total gross is $155 million, not counting soundtracks and other peripherals).  While the play isn’t exactly X-rated, the material is not for kids and is based on versions of fairy tales that are more “grim” than the Disney versions were (sorry, couldn’t resist the pun). I suspect Disney wanted to get a bowdlerized version out there before someone made a version faithful to the play and Cinderella’s Prince Charming committed adultery with a woman he met in a forest.

This is not to say I didn’t enjoy the film immensely, and I understand that in converting a play to film some changes are required.  If anything, it is nice to see a play turned into a movie and not the other way around. The movie adaptation is excellent, but some of the edge of the play has been lost.  The changes are nice, but as the play notes, “nice is different than good.”

Deflate Gate revisited

The NFL says that the investigation of "Deflate-gate" will take several weeks.  The investigation of charges of domestic abuse against Ray Rice took a couple of weeks, so obviously this is MUCH more important.

I thought Belichick’s initial response to the Deflate-gate allegations was moderately persuasive, in that he flatly denied any involvement.  With Spygate, and other incidents, his MO was to admit the act but claim some legal justification.  For example, in Spygate  he knew taping the opponent’s signals was against the rules, but he said he thought they could be used for future reference (ok, this excuse is absurd as the rule clearly specifies that NO taping shall take place, but he is quibbling and not denying).

But his recent press conference severely strained credibility.  First of all, his position is that he asked everyone who handled equipment for the Patriots if they deflated the footballs and they all said no, so case close everyone is exonerated. Come on, is some equipment manager underling going to fess up that the team faces a possible $500,000 fine and loss of a draft pick because he let some air out of some balls? 

Next, he claimed (apparently after getting a graduate degree in atmospheric science in two days) that it is possible that the loss of air pressure was caused by “atmospheric conditions.”  First off, the conditions for such a drop in pressure would be that the balls were inflated in a sauna and left there until game time, when they were suddenly put in sub-40 degree weather.  Second, he does not explain how these atmospheric conditions affected 11 of 12 Patriot balls but 0 of 12 Colts balls.

Side note: the NFL rule says the balls have to be inflated to a PSI between 12.5 PSI and 13.5 PSI, but the NFL states that the initial pressure was 12.5.  Why at the very bottom of the range?  Wouldn't it make more sense to inflate to the middle of the range, 13 PSI, to allow for some droppage if the weather is cold?  Once again, the NFL system of handling pre-game footballs is insane.

The real corker was his assertion that not only do the Patriots not cheat, but they have a culture of clearly playing within the broad lines of the rules.  This is a bald face lie.  I've heard several people on ESPN accuse the Pats of having a “culture of cheating” but I think it is more accurate to say they have a culture of bending the rules as far as possible.  They are deliberately vague on mandated injury reports; they answer questions at mandated press conferences with “on to [insert next game site];” they use formations so complicated that the opposing coach had to have their legality explained to him.

Belichick said that since no one in the Patriots’ organization confessed it was now up to the NFL to prove someone on the Pats cheated.  They did that when they tested the balls and 11 of 12 came up under-inflated.  The balls were in the possession of the Pats, so who else could have done it?  Someone from the Colts hoping to get the game forfeited?  A weird atmospheric vortex that affected the Patriot's equipment room but not the Colts?

Tom Brady said he had his feelings hurt by the investigation.  I feel really bad about this.  I hope he took his hurt feelings back to his mansion and asked his multi-millionaire supermodel wife to comfort him while he cried.

All things being equal, I’d have made the Seahawks 1 point favorites; with the added distraction of Deflate-gate I’d now say they were 2.5 point favorites.   Of course that’s not where the real action is in Vegas according to ESPN:

“In addition to the Patriots, the under and "heads" were popular bets in Vegas.

Stoneback said professional players at the MGM placed four limit bets on the under, when it was at 49.5.

The total was sitting at 48 at most shops as of Monday. Stoneback said pros had taken the under in the first, second and fourth quarters.

In Super Bowl coin-flip betting at the SuperBook, Sherman said there was four times more money on "heads" than "tails."”

Would I place a bet on heads?  I’d flip a coin first.

Revisiting old TV shows

It's deja vu all over again.

One of the ironies of moving into the future is that we have more opportunities to examine the past.  Once upon a time, when a TV show was cancelled it disappeared from the airwaves never to be seen again, unless it accumulated enough episodes to enter into the TV heaven known as syndication.  Now, thanks to expanding numbers of cable channels, DVDs and streaming, it is possible to go back and revisit shows from long past. The problem is you might not like what you find.

I was pleasantly surprised when I took a peek at the DVDs for season one of the old FOX series Parker Lewis Can’t Lose and found it had not lost its edge.  It was the sort of show, considered innovative at the time, which might now be viewed as hackneyed or superficial (in a thumbnail, it was basically Hogan’s Heroes set in a So-Cal high school).  But I found the absurdist humor still held up, the young cast had a fine camaraderie (OK, Corin Nemec’s subsequent acting career didn't turn out as rosy as forecast, but Hollywood’s a tough place) and the visual panache still had energy. I seem to recall the show dipped in quality, so i won't revisit season two.

But for every pleasant surprise, I seem to find more disappointment.  When The Paper Chase, a CBS series set in law school based on the movie starring John Houseman, was on it was my favorite show.  It was also a favorite of critics, getting a Best Drama Emmy nomination in its first season (it then moved to cable, at a time when cable still had Cable ACE awards and nobody watched).  But when I checked out the DVDs, I was astonished to find my view of the show had been through rose-colored glasses.  The plots were absurd, the acting (other than Houseman) amateurish, and the dialogue was composed by people who have never heard humans conversing. To give an example of an idiot plot, in one episode the main character Hart gets locked in the closet of Houseman’s office with another student at 5 PM Friday.  The two students are stuck there until Monday morning, when they both managed to sneak out unobserved.  How two people could spend 60 hours in a closet with no comment about how they avoided having to go to the bathroom is a mystery that will blessedly never be answered.

I adored the TV series Chuck when it was on, and even bought the first two seasons on DVD.  I thought there was a drop in quality season three so I didn't buy it, but out of curiosity I did stream it on Netflix.  After three episodes I found it unwatchable.  Chuck repeats over and over that he “wants to be a real spy” now that the Intersect has bestowed him with physical as well as mental spy skills.  His handler Sarah keeps explaining to him that being a real spy means being ruthless, not caring about other people, and occasionally killing people; Chuck agrees, but then he not only refuses to kill people, but he also refuses to injure them, lie to them, or apparently hurt their feelings.  I loved the show when I was watching it, but in retrospect I think I’ll stick with seasons 1 and 2.

Sometime when a show is on you put up with what you know is inferior work if you are invested in the show.  I knew the 6^th and 7^th seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer were nowhere near as good as the first five seasons when they were on, but I kept watching hoping it would get better. But at the time I knew it was really bad (but then bad Buffy was still better than 90% of the other drek).  I have occasionally watched episodes from those final two seasons and they are even worse than I remember.

I am currently sporadically re-watching Gilmore Girls in reruns on ABC Family, and I had forgotten how far off the rails the show went in season six (I believe Amy Sherman Palladino had been forced out as show runner that season).  For a show based on the relationship between mother Lorelei and daughter Rory, it was a disaster to have the two of them have a falling out and not speak to each other for half the season.  Then there was the disastrous Luke/Lorelei engagement; I know this development thrilled shippers, but it was a pairing that could only end in a murder/suicide (she’s a fun-loving free spirit, he’s an anal-retentive dark cloud; I know opposites attract, but when matter and anti-matter meet it results in a loud boom).  This was followed by the disastrous creation of Luke’s previously unknown daughter April, which led to the disastrous irreconcilable break-up of Luke and Lorelei, which led to the disastrous re-coupling of Lorelei and Rory’s father Christopher, which led to more complications in season seven.  When I was watching at the time I felt a speed bump, but upon later review it was a twenty car pile-up.

As I said, I have been pleasantly surprised when I have found a beloved old TV series available for re-viewing.  Hill Street Blues is still the best show of all-time even after thirty years.  Kung Fu, being set in the old west, can never get old.  But be careful when looking into a rear-view mirror; sometimes your palette might have altered, and what you once feasted on may now have a slightly bitter taste.

TV Review--Backstrom

He’s not bad, he’s just written that way.

That seems to be the attitude of the creators of Backstrom, the new Fox police procedural that can easily be summed up as House as a detective.  Backstrom, played by The Office alumni Rainn Wilson, is a racist, misogynist, alcoholic, lazy, lying piece of work who, luckily for him, is as good at solving crimes as Gregory House was at diagnosing diseases.  According to one of his subordinates who inexplicably tolerates him, Backstrom operates on a higher level, seeing the truth where others can’t.

The pilot episode lays Backstrom’s vices on a bit thick, as pilots are want to do. But there is some there there.  For instance, when pushed to name a suspect at the crime scene, Backstrom points to a seemingly random African American campus security guard and says, “Him.”  Everyone else dismisses the accusation as racist, but the young man turns out to be involved; a more PC police officer would have dismissed his suspicious behavior as profiling, but Backstrom has no such filters.

It may take some time to sort out the ensemble supporting Backstrom, but there is potential.  There is the female assistant (Genevieve Angelson) who hates him but acknowledges his skills ; the somewhat fawning forensic analyst (Kristoffer Polaha); a gorgeous French woman whose exact purpose I’m not clear on but she’s some kind of tech support (Beatrice Rosen); a beat cop who is supposed to take care of Backstrom when he can’t take care of himself (Page Kennedy); and another detective who, as a part-time pastor, is Backstrom’s complete opposite,  played with amusing understatement by the wonderful Dennis Haysbert.

House managed to survived for eight seasons, but Backstrom had better learn some lessons if it is going to last more than 13 weeks.  First off, as outrageous as House was, the producers chose their moments and vices.  They didn't show House stealing money from poor kids while soliciting a hooker and eating Choco-Chocolate chip ice cream and washing it down with a bottle of bourbon.  Second, House was played by Hugh Laurie, it what is probably the greatest performance on TV not to win an Emmy.  As good as Rainn Wilson is, he is no Hugh Laurie so they can’t be quite as outré and get away with it.  Lastly, House was a Rubik's Cube of psychological analysis as to the reasons for his personality disorders; Backstrom seems to be laying everything on an abusive father, which is a bit simplistic.

The other element that bears watching are the mysteries.  The one in the pilot was fine, but one problem with creating a brilliant cop is that you have to be extra alert in creating worthy cases for him to solve (a problem I believe Elementary is beginning to struggle with in season three).  I’ll have to see a few more episodes to know if the writers can produce a well-structured mystery plot on a weekly basis.

I am moderately encouraged by Backstrom.  I can’t say I liked the pilot, but I didn't hate it and I can see the potential (on the flip side, I liked the pilot for Helix but saw no potential as a series).  Wilson has proven himself to be capable of playing an off-putting yet endearing character, and he certainly has room to play with here. 

The show is set in Portland, Oregon, which means between this show and Grimm, Portland will be the murder capital of America for a while.

Deflategate--the NFL's credibility is under scrutiny again

The curse of Ray Rice is already making an appearance, and the NFL has no one to blame but itself.  When baseball had a gambling scandal, they created the perception of integrity by appointing Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis as commissioner (of course his main accomplishment was keeping African-Americans out of the sport for 30 years, but at least no one claimed that there were blacks playing in the major leagues).

Basketball faced a gambling threat when referee Tim Donaghy admitted to improprieties in order to make money from betting on games he worked, and claimed that other refs had either fixed games or engaged in point shaving.  Basketball dealt with the situation swiftly, although that is no solace to the Sacramento Kings whose loss in the 2002 Western Conference finals was allegedly orchestrated by the league.

Professional football has not suffered from any major allegations of on-field shenanigans.  The Wikipedia section on “American Football Scandals” (I would note that the entry on futbol (soccer) scandals is much longer) deals mostly with off-field events like the Vikings party-boat scandal and the exploits of “Pacman” Jones at strip clubs.  The most recent accusation of on-field impropriety was the “bountygate” scandal that resulted in Roger Goodell suspending Saints’ coach, defensive coordinator and some players.  However “bountygate” was not about the Saints gaining a competitive advantage, other than possibly the increased chance of winning if an opposing player was injured.

The one exception to the above is of course “Spygate,” the accusation that Bill Belichick of the Patriots secretly taped the Jets’s defensive coaching signals.  Subsequent allegations were made regarding previous games the Patriot’s played in, including Super Bowl XXXVI in 2002. Roger Goodell investigated, fined Belichick and the Patriots, and then destroyed all the evidence. 

The Patriots are once again at the center of a scandal regarding an on-field edge, with the NFL reportedly finding that 11 of 12 game balls provided by the Patriots were inadequately inflated, which would provide an advantage to the quarterback and the receivers (and the defensive backs of the Colts when intercepting the ball).

The first thing to note is that the method by which the NFL manages game balls is completely insane.  Each team is responsible for providing the balls to be used by that teamin the game.  So tampering with a game ball would only provide an advantage for that team, and not for the opponent. Why wouldn’t you have a system where both teams played with the same balls?  Why wouldn’t you have a system where an indifferent third party controlled the balls until game time?

Roger Goodell makes $45 million per year.  If the NFL hired someone to be in control of the game balls for every regular season and post-season game, and paid them $500 a game, it would come to $133,500 per year, or 0.3% of Goodell’s salary.  That seems a small price to pay for the continued integrity of the biggest sport in America.

No official judgment has been made, but let’s assume that the early reports are true and the NFL confirms that someone with the Patriots knowingly supplied footballs that did not meet the NFL’s regulations on pressure.  Maybe some low-level staff person would have done this without instruction; maybe Bill Belichick personally let the air out of the footballs while taking a break from preparing his offensive scheme.  If true, what should the penalty be?

The only answer possible is that the Patriots have to forfeit the win over the Colts.  The alternative being suggested, that they lose a first round draft pick (imposed after Spygate), is wholly inadequate; first of all, as the AFC champion their draft slot is going to be rather low in the first round.  Secondly, ask Jerry Jones (or any owner) if he’d trade a first round pick for a trip to the Super Bowl, and he’d say “Hell, yeah!” faster than Chris Christie heading for a buffet table.  Penalties need to deter wrongdoing.

When a crime is committed to attain something, logic 101 says that the first penalty is to take that item away from whoever acquired it.  If you catch a thief robbing your home, you don’t send him to jail but let him keep your TV set. 

The fact that the Patriots won 45-7 does nothing to contradict this.  The Patriots didn’t know they’d win easily; otherwise they wouldn’t have (allegedly) deflated the balls. And football is a non-linear game; once the Pats were up a couple of touchdowns thanks to mushy footballs, then that put pressure on the Colts that wouldn’t have been there but for the deflating.  Once a team gets on a roll, it tends to stay on a roll (just ask the Packers).  Lastly, Alex Rodriguez doesn’t need steroids to be a great hitter, so if he is caught juicing he should be allowed to play?  Just because you don’t need to cheat does not absolve you if you do cheat.

Some people have pointed out that the Pats actually played better in the second half of the game, when the balls were properly inflated.  That just proves that the Patriots were both dishonest and stupid.  If they cheated then failed to cash in on their advantage, that’s just pathetic; but still cheating.

The NFL is facing a credibility problem thanks to its handling of the Ray Rice incident, where even the NFL’s internal investigation concluded that Roger Goodell lied to the owners when he said the league had contacted all law enforcement agencies in an attempt to obtain the in-elevator footage.  Add to that the suspicious “non-call” of pass interference in the Dallas/Detroit game, and the suspicious “non-catch” by Dez Bryant in the Dallas/Green Bay game, and you have a situation where the NFL appears to have orchestrated a Super Bowl consisting of the two most popular teams in the league, the Seahawks and the Patriots.

If not for the pass interference non-call, the Lions might have beaten the Cowboys, and the winner of that game might have beaten the Packers but for the “catch” rule.  The Patriots possibly won due to under-inflated balls.  We really should be having a Lions/Colts Super bowl this year.  But who’d want to watch that?

As an aside, the Broncos claim Peyton Manning was injured during the last game of the season and the playoff game, yet they never filed an injury report with the NFL, and the NFL has not fined them.  So either the NFL decided not to punish an admitted transgressor, or the Broncos are lying and Peyton was just playing like a 38 year old quarterback.

If the Patriots are found guilty of tampering with the footballs in the AFC championship game, then the Colts deserve to go to the Super Bowl.  Did I mention that Patriot’s owner Robert Kraft is a good friend and supporter of Roger Goodell?  Gee, I wonder what will happen.

Whither the US economy?

Let’s start off with an initial factoid: according to census data, the median household income in America has been stagnant for twenty five years, rising only 0.4% between 1990 and 2014 (in constant dollars; $51,735 in 1990, $51,939 in 2013).  Wealth has increased, as the economy and the population both grew, but it has all been sucked up by the top 1% of the top 1%, that is to say the top 0.01%. 

While people like those in the Occupy movement are troubled by this, the increasing income disparity appears to be of less concern for most Americans.  One reason for this might be the fact that in the 2000’s, moribund household incomes were masked by a borrowing binge.  People used their home equity, helped by creative financing from lending institutions, to live in bigger houses than they could afford and buy more amenities than their budget could support.

But then the bubble burst in 2008 (during, it should be noted, the Bush administration, not on Obama’s watch; a recent poll found that 50% of Americans surveyed said that the recession was caused by President Obama).  Some superficial reforms were adopted, but nothing like what happened after the Great Depression hit.  Despite massive fraud in the lending industry no banking executives were sent to prison.  The economy slowly got better despite the federal government’s commitment to do as little as possible.

So where are we now?  Incomes are still where they were three decades ago, so what is distracting the proletariat?  Now there is a growth industry in car registration loans, allowing people to live slightly less beyond their means than they could with home loans.  The news media pronounces itself relieved when the unemployment rate goes down to a level that would have been unacceptably high in the 1980’s (the official unemployment rate is 5.6%, but when discouraged workers and those employed part-time who want full-time work are factored in the rate is 11.2%).  Nearly one-fourth of California’s population (23.8%) lives below the more extensive definition of the poverty line, and the only people who seem concerned by that fact are the poor, and well who listens to them?

The general state of things is reflected in our advertising.  A commercial with Montel Williams declares that a woman who needs a payday loan to pay her utility bills is a good mother and not fiscally irresponsible.  Commercials for sites like Quibids tell people they can buy big screen TV sets for under $50, just don’t ask why anyone would sell a TV set for so little.  We rely on retailers like Amazon and Walmart to provide low-cost goods by using cutthroat business tactics we'd rather not know about.  Maybe it is the TV programs I watch, but I find there are an amazing number of commercials for bankruptcy protection, defenses for tax non-payment, and schemes to get something for nothing, from flipping houses to the state lottery.

One reaction to median incomes not going up for twenty-five years is the movement to raise the minimum wage.  If economic growth can’t pull median incomes up from above, maybe raising the minimum wage can push it up from below.  I may be happy making whatever I am making (even if I haven’t gotten a raise in ten years), but if I find out the counter person at McDonald’s is making more, I’m going to agitate for a pay increase, and if I don’t get it I might consider singing “You deserve a break today,” for a living.

What is the answer?  Let me quote the movie Network--not the most famous quote from that movie, but a line that came before it.   Before Howard Beale got to, “I’m as mad as Hell and I won’t take it anymore,” he said that he didn’t know what the answer was, but “All I know is that first you’ve got to get mad.” As long as voters are willing to accept no growth in median household income for twenty-five years, things won’t change.  As long as we as a society are okay with the unemployment rate as long as it’s below 10%, nothing will change.  As long as politicians know they can get re-elected by telling voters that during a recession government must “tighten its belt” just like Herbert Hoover used to say, we're on a treadmill to nowhere (in fact we’ll be going backwards).

After the Great Depression, it was felt that only a radical restructuring of the role of government could avoid the collapse of the capitalist US economy.  After the Great Recession, there was no attempt to correct the root cause of the crisis, and Congress is eagerly repealing the meager reforms that were passed.  Meanwhile voters seemingly accept that what is good for billionaires must be good for them, even while the quality of their lives diminishes.  In the words of Frank Underwood on the TV show House of Cards, “Democracy is overrated.”

No more link between Oscars for Best Picture and Director?

The Oscar nominations are out: let the whining begin!

It seems like every year the list of “snubs” gets longer and longer, as everyone who had delusions of getting a nomination gnashes their teeth in public when the expected nomination fails to materialize.  The snubs this year range from the bizarre yet explicable (The Lego Movie wasn’t nominated for Best Animated Film because that branch of the Academy hates computer animation, no matter how entertaining) to the predictable (Jennifer Aniston not being nominated for a film nobody saw that went into wide release in January).

There has been one increasing source of “snubbery” due to a decision made in 2009 to expand the number of Best Picture nominees.  The rationale for the change, supposedly, was that the Academy was tired of the five Best Picture nominees being hogged by small independent films while studio blockbusters were ignored.  Studios wanted to make their money AND be nominated for awards too, and it was thought that adding a couple of slots to the Best Picture field would let a couple of “popcorn movies” into the hunt.  However, only the Best Picture category was expanded, and there’s the rub.

One of the tightest bonds at the Oscars is the link between Best Picture and Best Director.  Since 1933 only two films have managed to win Best Picture without getting a nomination for Best Director: Driving Miss Daisy in 1989 (probably Hollywood’s attempt to reward a film about race relations that wasn’t Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing) and 2012’s Argo (which was the Academy having a little fun at Ben Affleck’s expense).  The tie may be loosening, as the last two Best Director winners failed to win Best Picture (Gravity’s director beat out the director of 12 Years a Slave; Ang Lee won for Life of Pi over the director-nominationless Argo).

But now with eight to nine nominees for Best Picture but only five nominees for Best Director, you create a whole host of snubs.  The three or four directors who aren’t nominated for directing a Best Picture nominee are “snubbed,” which this year are Clint Eastwood (American Sniper), Ava DuVernay (Selma), James Marsh (The Theory of Everything) and Damien Chazelle (Whiplash).  How can these Best Picture nominees be taken seriously if their director wasn’t nominated?

On the other hand, any director who is nominated when his (or her . . . let’s try not to be as sexist as the Academy) film is out of the running for Best Picture creates a snub in the other direction.  This year that would be Foxcatcher being snubbed despite Bennett Miller getting a Best Director nomination.  Doubling up on this snub is that there are now four snubbed directors of Best Picture nominees who could make a claim for the Best Director nomination that went to someone whose film was not so acknowledged.

Going forward, will the differences between the number of Best Picture nominees and Best Director nominees cause the historical link between the two to dissolve?  Will Best Director Oscars go to large, technically ambitious films like Life of Pi and Gravity, while the Best Picture awards go to smaller, more artsy films like 12 Years a Slave and Argo?  This year, I can easily see the Academy giving the Best Picture award to the frontrunner Boyhood, but snubbing director Richard Linklater in favor of Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, whose Birdman was more technically ambitious.  Will they really give a Best Director award to the guy who directed Dazed and Confused?

The directorial snubs this year boil down to claims based on age and/or politics (Clint Eastwood), race AND gender (Selma’s DuVernay), and general obscurity (Marsh and Chazelle).  At least there isn’t someone who failed to get a Best Director nomination because Academy voters are still embarrassed about DareDevil.

January movies

You have to admire the artistry of people who do their jobs well, even if you don’t really appreciate what they do.  I think Stephen King is an excellent writer, although I do not read horror novels.  I inherited several CDs from my parents featuring Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin, and while it isn't my kind of music, I have to admit they knew how to croon. 

So I have to tip my cap to a group of people who have a difficult job and do their best—the people who make commercials and trailers for movies released in January.

The thing is, everybody knows that January is when studios take out the trash; or rather they hope people will pay $8 or so to watch the trash.  Films with big budget potential get a summer release, or at least a late spring release date (“summer” now seems to start around the vernal equinox).  Movies that are Oscar bait get a fall or Christmas release.  But if the studio thinks it has a clunker on its hands, well something has to fill movie theaters in on Martin Luther King Day weekend.

So it is up to the intrepid promo departments of the studios to try and put lipstick on what the entire world knows is a swine.  And judging from their work product, they are oblivious to the drawbacks of what they are selling.

Jupiter Ascending looks like the next Matrix blockbuster!  It even has major stars, like that chick who was in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and the guy who played Ned Stark on season one of Game of Thrones.  It looks like it features lots of science fiction action that just begs to be seen on a big screen and not on a DVD. Or there is The Seventh Son, about some centuries long battle between . . . I dunno, good and evil?  Jets and Sharks?  Badgers and warthogs? 

Paddington is the modern retelling of that timeless children’s classic about a CGI bear with dull, blank eyes and a taste for human blood, er, I mean honey.  No wait, that’s Winnie the Pooh.  Sorry.  Mortdecai is Johnny Depp’s latest attempt to pick up a paycheck, which is pretty funny given how little screen time he had in the last two films he “starred” in, Transcendence and Into the Woods.  And who wants to miss The Boy Next Door, where Jennifer Lopez just might show off more than she did at the Golden Globes, if that’s possible.

And of course no January is complete without the latest Kevin Hart extravaganza.  Last year he turned in an Oscar-worthy performance with that comedy classic, Ride Along.  Now in 2015 he stars in The Wedding Ringer, which I believe is based on an unpublished play by Shakespeare.  This could become an annual event, watching for the first sighting of Kevin Hart like he was a groundhog in Pennsylvania.

As I understand it from the commercials, the movie is about a man played by Josh Gad who is getting married to a woman played by Kaley Cuoco-Sweeting (from The Big Bang Theory).  Right off the bat, this is ridiculous enough to place the movie on the sci-fi shelf at Blockbuster if they still existed; she’s a gorgeous blonde, and, well he’s Josh Gad.  But apparently the guy has no friends so he hires Hart to pretend to be his friend and best man.  The writers must be geniuses because I can’t see any way to get laughs out of that plot.

Maybe I’m thinking the commercials for these January releases look good because 2014 wasn't the greatest year for movies.  I mean, right now the leading candidate for a Best Director Oscar is the guy who directed Dazed and Confused.  Compared to the best of 2014, the worst of 2015 doesn't look too bad.

But then, I've only seen the commercials and the trailers.  Who knows, maybe the trailers for Mortdecai will win an award.

Movie review: The Imitation Game

Benedict Cumberbatch is on a roll.  He won an Emmy for his role as Sherlock Holmes in the BBC series Sherlock; he provided the voice of Smaug in The Hobbit; and now he stars in The Imitation Game, getting serious Oscar buzz for a Best Actor nomination (Gold Derby has him in third place).

In The Imitation Game he plays Alan Turing, the famous British mathematician who was responsible for cracking the German Enigma Code, significantly helping the Allies win World War II.  His name has become attached to the phrase “Turing Test,” referring to the test to determine if a computer can imitate human responses well enough to be mistaken for human.  The role provides Cumberbatch with an opportunity to flip his performance as Sherlock Holmes in a way; Sherlock knows everything and understands everyone, while Turing knows everything and understands absolutely no one.

Turing basically invented the computer in the process of breaking the Enigma Code, but his biggest obstacle wasn't the complexity of the Code but his own personality.  As with so many IT people after him, he had appalling people skills. When one of his colleagues produces an idea that will greatly speed up the computations necessary for cracking Enigma, Turning responds that the idea isn't exactly terrible. “That’s Alan for ‘Thank you,’” explains Jane Clarke (Keira Knightly), the only human smart enough not to annoy Turing to death.

Thank heavens for Knightly’s character.  This film is filled with mid-twentieth century British men with stiff upper lips, all of them as sunny as a London evening in March.  Knightly brings light and energy into every scene she’s in. He character’s rapport with Turing is so palpable that it almost obscures the vital fact that Turing was, in fact, gay at a time when that was illegal in Great Britain.

The film’s structure, which creaks more than a bit, is centered around an investigation of Turing after World War II has ended, which resulted in Turing being prosecuted for what was decorously called Indecent Behaviour.  Flashback then take us back to Turing’s work during the war, while flashbacks-within-flashbacks take us back to Turing’s school days and his first boyhood crush.  The film would have us make some psychological insights into how the latter influenced the former, but frankly I don’t see it.

I've seen enough film biographies to know to take any fact given with a grain of salt.  Who knows how much of the truth (or what is known of the truth) is fitted into the script.  I always err on the side of assuming any resemblance to the truth is mostly coincidental.  But the story of Turing’s race to crack the Enigma Code, and his subsequent realization that the German’s couldn't be tipped off to the fact that the code had been broken, makes an entertaining cinematic tale.

The script is solid, save for one scene towards the end when Turing and Clarke have it out.  It is a testament to Knightly’s acting that her reaction seems false and I place the blame on the words in the script and not her acting.  After being Turing’s sole source of support for many years it isn't credible that she would do a 180 literally in the middle of a conversation.

The film is worth watching for Cumberbatch’s performance, and Knightly’s as well.  If you really want to learn about Alan Turning you probably should find a good book to curl up with.  Or look something up on what the film refers to as a “Turing Machine” better known as a computer.  I hear they are all the rage these days.

TV Review--Galavant

You know a TV comedy is in trouble when the commercials for the show tout the presence of “guest stars” like Rutger Hauer.  Nothing against Mr. Hauer, who is a fine actor and has had a notable career in Hollywood, but if his name is being used to lure people to a sitcom, that’s a bad sign.

But that’s what the commercials for Galavant touted, along with other guest stars like John Stamos and Weird Al Yankovic. The reason they were emphasizing the guest stars is that the actual stars were all people you've never heard of, except possibly Timothy Omundson, who did excellent supporting work on Psych for eight seasons.  Also, selling a musical spoof of medieval fairy tales is a tough sell, so I guess you push the better known names and cross your fingers.

The concept of a large-scale comedy “event” isn't a new one, but it is unique enough to count as innovative programming by a broadcast network.  In 1986 someone attempted to make a comedy miniseries that was a parody of the pompous historical miniseries of the time called Fresno; it is now a cult hit, meaning that it flopped. And medieval parodies have been on TV before, notably Wizards and Warriors in 1983.  But a multi-episode musical spoof of medieval tales? That is relatively unique (and yes, I realize that is an improper use of the word unique; sue me).

Galavant stars Joshua Sasse as the titular character, a knight who is depressed since his true love (Mallory Jansen) dumped him to marry evil King Richard (the aforementioned Omundson). Another princess (Karen David) rouses him from his funk by asking for his help, and in no time he is off jousting, fighting and singing.

Yes, singing.  This is a musical, with songs attributed to eight-time Oscar winning composer Alan Menken.  However, I don’t think Menken will be picking up any awards for the songs from Galavant, even if the Emmy category for Best Song is less prestigious than the Oscar.  How generic is the music? During the first episode of Galavant ABC took the title melody, made up new lyrics, and used it in commercials for other ABC sitcoms.  If it is that easy to come up with new lyrics to match the tune, then the composer isn't trying too hard (as a comparison, try making new lyrics for any of the complicated tunes from Into the Woods).

Virtually the sole source of humor in the show is anachronistic dialog in the fairy tale setting, which the writers don’t appear to realize is not funny in and of itself. The fairy tale setting in a musical with links to Disney would seem to attract a younger audience, but much of the dialog is too suggestive for kids.  It is too sophomoric for adults and too suggestive for kids, so what does that leave? It’s like the opposite of The Princes Bride, which appealed to young and old alike.

The acting, mostly by actors without a long resume, is unimpressive.  Sasse is occasionally able to project the rakish charm the writers were aiming for, but mostly he just grins.  David does a nice job as the liberated princess but isn't given a lot to work with. Omundson seems to be trying to play his part bigger than it was written, which doesn't work when working with minimalist actors like Vinnie Jones.

The first two episodes did not thrill me, so, what’s left? I guess I’ll have to keep watching and wait and see if that Rutger Hauer guest spot is really worth the wait.

The Hall of Fame still gets it wrong

Arguing over the Hall of Fame is one of the most enjoyable and frustrating things imaginable.  There are no standards, no rules, just eighty years of maddeningly inconsistent voting history that can be twisted in every way imaginable.  Arguing over Oscar and Emmy winners is fun, but if Hugh Laurie doesn’t win an Emmy for House that doesn’t really impact Jon Hamm’s chances for winning for Mad Men in 2015.  If Lee Smith gets into the Hall of Fame then every closer with a descent Save total will be getting votes for the next two decades.

No one should have a problem with who got in this year.  Randy Johnson was such a lock than anyone who didn’t vote for him should have their voting rights revoked (although the probable reason was that he was such a lock that some voters decided to support more marginal candidates than an obvious winner). Pedro Martinez’s counting stats are a little low, but his peak dominance puts him in the Sandy Koufax “no one could touch this guy for six years” category.  John Smoltz was a dominant starter and an effective closer for three seasons, and was helped by the indication of teammates Maddux and Glavine last year (they are this century’s Tinkers/Evers/Chance). And Craig Biggio missed by just two votes last year, had 3,000 hits, played three elite defensive positions, and had excellent power numbers for a top-of-the-order hitter, including hitting more doubles than Henry Aaron.

Of course the main problem is who did not get in.  The best hitting catcher in baseball history is still on the outside looking in, but the good news is that Mike Piazza looks primed to make it next year (I'd be more upset if not for the fact that even Joe Dimaggio had to wait four ballots to get in).  And to make an old argument, Jim Kaat has seventy more wins than Smoltz but isn't in the Hall, which makes no sense to me as the whole point of baseball is to win games.

The player who garnered a lot of support than I didn’t understand was Mike Mussina.  One stathead on the MLB network supported Mussina’s case by citing his park-adjusted ERA, meaning that he looked at Mussina’s hypothetical career in a hypothetical neutral ballpark and based on his hypothetical performance wanted him inducted in the reality Hall of Fame.  Look, I am a stathead myself, I have a graduate degree that involved serious stat theory and even did my master’s thesis using baseball statistics.  Statistics can help provide context, telling us how much to discount Larry Walker’s stats due to playing in Denver, or how much the Astrodome hindered Jeff Bagwell.  But the HoF is supposed to acknowledge REAL accomplishments.  The criteria for entry shouldn’t be reduced to the players with the highest Wins Above Replacement in a park-neutral environment, but who excelled on the playing field.

My second problem with Mussina’s candidacy is that it is the Hall of FAME.  Who is Mike Mussina?  Did he win any Cy Young awards?  No.  Did he win any Game seven’s in the World Series?  No.  Was he the ace of one of the greatest pitching staffs ever?  No.  I read an analysis that argued that Reggie Jackson shouldn't be in the HoF because he had a low batting average and wasn't really that good of a hitter; but he’s REGGIE JACKSON, the Straw That Stirs the Drink, the guy who hit three homers in a World Series game. When I hear the name Mike Mussina I draw a blank.

Bill James wrote a book entitled What Ever Happened to the Hall of Fame? That included several alternate paradigms for determining who belongs in the HoF, and my favorite was, “Can you write the history of baseball during that player’s career and NOT mention him?”  Mussina doesn't meet that criterion for me (as an aside, neither does Rafael Palmeiro, who has 500 homers, 3,000 hits but started exactly one All-Star game in a 20 year career).

I saw a few debaters say they “re-evaluated” the careers of players like Carlos Delgado and discovered they were under-appreciated in their careers because of new statistical measures like base running efficiency.  That’s nice, but the point of the Hall of Fame is not an objective analysis of worth, but a celebration of who had an impact on the sport.  Unless someone discovered Delgado batted in 300 more base runners than he was credited with, it isn't going to affect my vote (if I had one).  I will concede that Delgado, who has the 28^th best career slugging percentage of all time, deserved to get more than 3.8% of the vote his first (and last) time on the ballot.

I find the criteria that carry the most weight with me was how the player was perceived during his career. How many All-Star games did they start (adjusting for old fogeys being voted in automatically when they don’t deserve it)? How did they fare in MVP or Cy Young voting?  How big of a deal was it when they left one team to join another?  Finding hidden jewels using advanced sabermetrics is fine, but ultimately not what the Hall of Fame is about.

The FBS playoffs do their job!

After years of stalling, the NCAA was dragged kicking and screaming into the 21^st century this year.  For the first time ever, what used to be called division I of NCAA football will have its championship determined by a playoff instead of an opinion poll.  For years major college football was the only college athletic endeavor that was not decided on the field by a playoff system.  Given how successful the basketball tournament has become, you wonder why it took them so long.

And right out of the shoot the playoff system has changed who will be the national champion.  In any past year the early-January championship game would have been between Florida State University and Alabama.  

Why?  Because the folks surveyed (eventually augmented by computers, but computers programmed by humans so pretty much the same thing) to determine the teams playing for the championship would have definitely included FSU, as the reigning national champion who went undefeated.  Going undefeated is the Holy Grail of college football, even if it means playing a schedule composed of high school girls’ teams.  They beat only one team ranked in the top ten, a Notre Dame team that was #5 at the time but ended the season unranked.  FSU had a great deal of difficulty beating mediocre teams, and didn't beat them by a wide margin, but they finished 13-0 so they would have received an invitation to the championship game.

And Alabama? They would have been invited based on reputation, plus being the one-loss team with the least embarrassing loss.  Frankly, I consider them beating Arkansas by a point a de facto loss, but the standings say they were 10-1 and won the SEC title, so they would have been invited to the championship game.  Oregon and Ohio State would have been relegated to some lesser bowl game like the Iguana Bowl or the Ducalax Laxative Bowl. 

But a funny thing happened in the first FBS Playoff semi-final games.  Both FSU and Alabama lost.  FSU was routed decisively by Oregon, and Alabama was embarrassed by Ohio State’s third string quarterback.  So the championship game will feature two teams that wouldn't be there but for the new playoff system.

This is the way it should be, with outcomes decided on the field and not based on popularity.  Well, the rankings are still based on the opinions of a bunch of “experts” but it is as close as you can get.  Unlike pro sports, college teams can control their schedules, and with a single defeat often derailing an entire season lately schools have been stocking their schedules with more and more cupcakes.  This also leads to coaches running up the scores against weak opponents to appear to be better than they actually are.

The four team playoff system has done its job admirably.  The two pretenders to the throne have been shown to be posers, and the two better teams will determine the victor on the field of play.

This does not mean that if a four team playoff is a good idea, then an eight team playoff would be better. I am sick of people arguing that because of a dispute over who should be #4 or #5 or #6, we need another round.  First of all, it is a slippery slope; if you expand to eight teams because of the dispute over #4, then you need to expand to sixteen to avoid disputes over who is #8, and so on until you have a 64 team playoff just like basketball (oh wait, basketball is 68 teams).

Secondly, there has never been any credible claim that a team ranked lower than #4 ever had a legitimate shot at the season-ending #1 ranking.  Someone can do the research, but I’m will to bet that if you go back 25 years you will never find a #5 ranked team receiving more than a handful of votes for #1.  I’m not saying that some #5 teams might not have had a punchers chance to win a game against the ultimate #1, but it wouldn't happen often enough to justify keeping a bunch of football players out of class for another week.

After all, these kids are students who have classes to attend.  Yeah, right.

Movie Review--Into the Woods

I’ll begin with an admission; I consider Into the Woods the best musical of the last quarter of the 20^th century.  What else is there? Toss out the spectacles, like Miss Saigon, Phantom of the Opera (which lost the Tony awards for best book and best score to Woods yet still nabbed the Best Musical Tony) and Les Miz.  Throw away the jukebox musicals, like Jersey Boys and Contact.  Please omit any musical based on a movie (Sunset Boulevard, The Lion King).  Anyone thinking Cats should stop reading this right now.  What’s left?  Fluff like A Chorus Line, forgettable shows like Passion, and idiosyncratic shows like Avenue Q (it has a brilliant score, but it has to be performed with puppets).  The only other contenders are Stephen Sondheim’s other masterpiece Sweeny Todd (too macabre) and Evita, which was made into a movie starring Madonna; enough said.

The musical Into the Woods opened on Broadway in 1988, so its path to the film version was a long time coming.  This was mostly because musicals were considered death at the box office until Rob Marshall single handedly resurrected the genre with Chicago.  Still, even with Marshall attached to Into the Woods the Disney folks would only finance a stripped down version for a measly $50 million budget.  I wonder if part of their thinking was to keep someone from making a really subversive version of a story involving Cinderella.

The budget constraints don’t show as the film looks mah-vel-ous.  Special effects like a giant beanstalk are now done cheaply on computer, and they wisely declined to actually show Cinderella at the ball, so they saved money there.  The cast is mostly . . . well, not B list, but B+ list, except for Meryl Streep.  Streep has now crossed what I call the Lawrence Olivier Threshold, which means she has reached a point where she can chew the scenery for days and because of her years of superb work, she will be forgiven.

The book brilliantly interweaves a number of the stories from the Grimm fairy tales: Cinderella (with golden shoes, not glass), Jack and the beanstalk, Little Red Riding Hood, and Rapunzel.  These stories are notably grim, in every sense of the word—several characters are blinded by birds (or thorns), a number are killed (although this being a Disney production, a couple of murders in the original text are converted to accidents), and two characters are eaten, although they get better.

The book touches on a number of Big Themes; being careful what you wish for, proper parenting techniques (hint: abandoning your daughter to a swamp after blinding her boyfriend is not being a good mother), and the need for community. Supplementing the dialog are the songs (or is the dialog supplementing the songs?) all of which feature Sondheim’s signature wit and intricacy. 

The book manages to turn the fairy tale characters into real flesh and blood human beings.  Cinderella is an abused step-daughter living in a nightmare; Jack is a dim-witted boy whose best friend is a cow; Little Red Riding Hood is a self-assured young girl easily distracted by forbidden fruit; and a baker and his wife (the only new characters to the story) desperately want a child.  Each wants something, but when they get what they want the result is no happy ever after.

The cast, mostly non-theatrical actors, further ground the material in real emotion while playing against the fanciful background.  Anna Kendrick brings a sadness to Cinderella, appropriate for a woman treated as a servant by a wicked step-mother and two wicked step-sisters.  James Corden and Emily Blunt as the baker and his wife, have a nice chemistry as a married couple more familiar with the other than themselves.  Chris Pine brings a Captain Kirk bravado to Prince Charming.

The literalness of film creates some problem with the more theatrical elements of the play.  The script omits the character of The Narrator, which is taken up by voice overs by the baker.  The death of Jack’s cow on stage is funny, but the sight of a real cow keeling over is not so amusing.  And the film’s rendering of the giant attacking the village, obviously done off-stage in the theater, comes across less convincingly on screen.  I also had a problem with casting a pre-teen boy as Jack, as he came across as inconsequential in some of his more emotional scenes.

On the other hand, the film lends some nice touches that would be impossible on stage.  Cinderella’s song as she’s leaving the prince’s ball (On the Steps of the Palace) is nicely done as almost an internal monologue, with time frozen around her as she contemplates her options.  And of course the princes look much more dashing on horses.

It looks like the movie version of Into the Woods will nearly earn back its production budget over its opening weekend, which is good news for fans of converting Broadway musicals to the screen.  It used to be that Broadway was the source material for dozens of movies per year; now each year movies are re-imagined as Broadway shows (I can hardly wait for Back to the Future: The Musical).  [I’m not sure, but I think the last Top 40 hit to come from a Broadway show was One Night in Bangkok from Chess]  The economics of Broadway means it will never again be the source of innovation and imagination it used to be, but it is nice to know that Hollywood can still turn a Broadway musical into a big-screen hit.  It just takes 26 years.