Movie Review: 300: Rise of An Empire

Directed by Noam Murro. 2014.

It's wisely observed that solemnity is a breath away from stupidity. Take, for example, the following pair: "The borders of Lacedaemon will mourn the death of a king descended from Hercules." vs. "The Greeks were betrayed by a hunchback." The former, reported in Herodotus, retains even in translation a sense of grandeur whereas the latter, written by Zack Snyder for 300: Rise of An Empire, invites chuckles. Now it may seem strange to begin the review of an action flick with quibbles about writing, but the movie was so heavily narrated and the action scenes so spectacularly forgettable that this 300 comes off as a drab, talky, slog.

In fact, I've forgotten all of the movie's sword-and-sandals action except for one part where the Greeks were fighting with big bronze axes. The highlight is of course the naval battle at Salamis, but an utter lack of environment dulls this climax. Without a sense of size, scale, strengths, topography, and geography, we're just watching activity in which any result is possible and therefore don't invest in the action.

I'm not at all opposed to set-piece battles and even whole movies revolving around one climactic brawl, whether The Two Towers or Waterloo, but you need to prepare the audience so we can wrestle with expectations and possibilities and, hopefully, engage the story. There are a few notable shots of ramming triremes, although the movie's best shot is of them still, and a great big Persian oil barge goes Exxon Valdez and then kaboom, but the action here is unremarkable.

The script doesn't redeem this 300 either, following up an interminable prologue by confusingly bouncing among 1) narration over Thermopylae, 2) flashbacks of Thermopylae 2) narration over Marathon, 3) Themistocles in the past trying to persuade the Spartans to commit ships, 4) Themistocles in the present fighting at Salamis, 5) Persian General Artemisia talking to Xerxes at various points in time, and 6) Artemisia fighting at Salamis. The plot is intelligible, but the sequence of events is confusing and enervates the momentum.

To its credit the script attempts to sketch two opposing characters in Themistocles and Artemisia, but it would be nice if it had ventured something beyond the fact that one loves Greece and the other hates it. The smoldering cool of Eva Green's Artemisia is the more interesting, but it wears over the course of even 100 minutes. She doesn't change or have any cause which might be refuted, and while she does bring about her own downfall, it's predicated off actions which are but hastily recounted, neither taking place during nor developed in the movie. Themistocles on the other hand is flat and dull. In truth I can't recall a thing he said. And then the two knock boots on Artemisia's barge because Zack Snyder is writing the script.

Given how much the film leans on Spartan Queen Gorgo's narration and how she's driven for vengeance like Artemisia, the two women should have been cast opposite instead of Artemisia and Themistocles. Since I can't resist speculating...

You could give parallel arcs to the two wronged women in which Gorgo, who lost her husband to a cause she didn't believe in, achieves justice in contrast to Artemisia, the victim of rape, who is consumed by her desire for vengeance. Then you could oppose Themistocles and Xerxes, in which beside the obvious theme of liberty opposing tyranny, Xerxes could chide Themistocles with the taunt that the fickle Athenian mob will turn on him. That would have been something.

I appreciate that both 300 flicks tried to flaunt a brash bravado and an unapologetic purity of purpose, but if a film's going to be so simple it needs to be flawless to be effective. The alternative is an adolescent mishmash from which we walk away stolid instead of stirred, hostile even to a scant script that can't support cheesy dialogue, lackluster pacing, flat acting, and dull, clumsy visuals. To be fair, I enjoyed bits of 300, but it's a shame such a source should yield anything so terribly forgettable.

Switching Off vs Switching Over

It's a trite saying of the self-important that sometimes you just need to relax. The claim isn't even tough to justify, for just about everyone feels either that he works hard or hard enough and even the most leisured seem to find themselves at the edge of exasperation. One can find plenty of intellectual confirmation for the cause too, with just about any school of thought or philosophy making room for a little rest and relaxation. Yet the key component to relaxation is in fact the work itself. You don't realize how pleasant and restorative is relaxation until you've pushed yourself to the limit.

Teaching this academic school year has been instructive for your blogging educator. The early years of teaching, one hopes successful teaching, follow a familiar path. First you learn to establish order and organization, then you find the ideal presentation of the curriculum as you have found it, then you slowly perfect the curriculum, finally learning to adapt it to students, time, and place. All along the way you develop and find your own voice, style, and teaching demeanor. Occasionally an upheaval at one step sends you back a few, but the process seems reliably sequential. It also seems like many professional endeavors, to accelerate. This year I've gotten pretty carried away, and I won't out my hubris by suggesting at which step I find myself.

Re-designing tests, scanning articles, making projects, I'm progressing to the point where work is my default activity. It is swallowing everything. Weekly Shakespeare? Gone. Online and mail-order lectures? Poof! The fruits of my leisure reading are found on my bedside desk, on which reside half-a-dozen or so books, opened but plopped text down a few pages in.

Worse, even my interest for other things seems to wane. Less often do I anymore awake on Saturdays yearning for Bach than do I rise to find my mind turning to tweaking yesterday's work. Instead of the old postprandial hankering to write a new blog post, I've found it easier just to tackle the next test or assignment coming down work's pike.

There's no villain in this story, though. I like my job, respect the material, and honor the agreement with my students and patrons. I can do no differently than I do. The curiosity is that even exciting, challenging, and valuable work, including intellectual work, can be stultifying. Man is multifarious. I recall still the tremendous indignation I felt toward the musicologist who wrote that, and I paraphrase, Mozart's musical abilities were developed radically beyond his other skills. (Emphasis mine.) Indeed they were, though, and the trio of interest, skill, and effort tend to amplify each other and resonate to the deafening of all other desires. We're often encouraged to be well rounded, but seldom reminded how difficult it is to keep that pleasing, burnished bent.

Again there's no villain here, except the extremities in which some virtues consume all of the oxygen, extinguishing others. It's easy to praise rest and moderation as well, but it's in fact even easier when you can feel the coarsening effect of immoderation. Naturally, to notice the effect you need to stop and reflect, which is tough to do when you're tired. One cannot reflect or meditate in exhaustion.

Of course, it's a trite saying of the self-important that sometimes you just need to relax. It's an easy enough claim to justify, for just about everyone feels–so what to do? It's easy to cry for moderation, but how exactly can one champion mediocrity? Anyway, effort is preferable to indolence, and tepid work means tepid relaxation.

It seems a prudent start to view relaxation not simply as the absence of work, but also as calling for the cultivation of other virtues; the slackening of one line to pull on another. I ought to note that here by work I mean anything done by necessity or disposition, i.e. something which inclines toward extremity. In this way one cultivates an interest which opposes the other to balance. In the alternative, either the lacuna of inactivity swallows up work or the wave of work fills the crevices of your mind. By an opposed arrangement vigor is checked so that it neither dominates nor collapses into sloth, and instead of relaxation as idleness, we have purposeful repose which repairs and permits the exercise of all virtues in quiet, humble balance.

How Not to Write, Think, or Be

All artists strive for a connection between form and meaning and I'm always happy to point out when they succeed. Take this condemnable Salon piece which is as intellectually confused as it is syntactically jumbled. Now Salon's suffered from political dysentery for years and it's apparent willingness to hire anyone on the left has liquefied the once esteemed publication into a chowder of cheap ingredients. Still this article makes me wonder: do they edit their pieces to make them worse? If not this is a shockingly inept display from an author and editor.

Let's look at the choice grammar first.

I am going to start with three beloved movies of my childhood, and end with a suggestion of why liberals will probably never be able to come to grips with what they winningly call “inequality.”

Start what? Discoing? It's probably not a great idea to leave out the main verb of the first sentence. Then he sets up his thesis as a conclusion. "Will probably never be able to come to grips with what they" is one of those phrases that would vanish had the author read it aloud even once. What a clunker. Next, we wonder what "winningly" could possibly mean here. Charmingly? Successfully? Now we wonder why "'inequality'" is in quotations. I'll give a pass on the referential use of "of" but boy is it awkward. It's best to restrict that use to idioms.

Then we get this work of brilliance:

Well, no. And with that acknowledgement, let me advance to my bold hypothesis: The dick joke is not always what it seems to be. The dick joke is not always your friend.

First, is this a hypothesis or thesis? Is an experiment going to follow or are you laying out argumentation? Choose the proper word, please. Worse, though, we realize the statement isn't even the "hypothesis," because the phrase "what it seems to be" explains nothing but rather refers back to the previous paragraph. It's always nice when the author can't be bothered to explain his idea in one clear sentence.

Alright, I'll drop the grammatical dissection. The article is badly written. What about its content?

Let's look at his three points:

1. Animal House isn't liberal because its protagonists are like liberals' bad guys in real life.
2. Caddyshack isn't liberal because conservatives make fun of country club grandees too.
3. Ghostbusters isn't liberal because in it one government official is bad and the good guys run a business. 

Well guess what, you verbally incontinent intellectually costive fool: the movies aren't political at all. The frat boys of Animal House aren't heroes, but we rally around them because they're enthusiastic and frank. Nobody likes stuck up country club blowhards, and finally, the right doesn't have a monopoly on entrepreneurship. The Ghostbusters aren't right wingers because the EPA dweeb lets the ghosts out. Neither party has a monopoly on any virtue, and to taint any by claiming it for one ought to mark any man the fool as much as heedless ordination into political file.

Oh, and whence this cheap shot?

Drink, take and lie: translate it into Latin and it could be the motto of the One Percent.

Yeah I hear there's a really active Eta Sigma Phi over at Bear Stearns. Try this one on for size:

Quam recitas meus est libellus: sed male cum recitas, incipit esse tuus.

The Joy of Contrarianism

A great deal of philosophical, scientific, and broadly intellectual investigation involves the search for universal truths: A is A, force equals mass multiplied by acceleration, murder is immoral. Yet man has always had a fascination with the aberration, be it bad boys or black pearls. There is often pleasure in variety, even in anomaly. As applies to human action, the maxim may simply Grouch Marx's that no one wants to be part of the club that will have him as a member, a predilection which can take an unhealthy turn into oikophobia and hatred of the familiar. Whatever the condition, I hope it's not serious, because I've got it.

How else can I explain the contrarian joy I find in not watching the Oscars tonight? And major sporting events, and the darling shows of the critics, and so on down the populist line. It's so pleasant to walk another path and remain in ignorance of the vulgar, and for once I don't wholly mean vulgar in a pejorative sense but merely common. Of course it's always hard to tell whether I don't like the subject or simply its popularity. I suppose if the whole nation were suddenly glued to Don Giovanni that I would join in.

Maybe not, though. Maybe I'd put on The Magic Flute out of spite. Childish perhaps, but possible, for popular success confuses the two most cherished elitist beliefs: that great art has universal relevance and that the majority is always wrong.

Perhaps that's not the appeal of contrarianism, then. Maybe it's the way standing out, even if in some infinitesimally small way, seems to magnify the deliberate nature of the change. Just the teensiest bit of effort makes one feel less the lemming and more the individual, even when the change is of no other consequence. The slightest choice seems to liberate one from the torpor of conformity and to energize my studies. I'm doing no great work this evening, I don't think, but how precious it seems, how much more mine.

I also feel, quite foolishly perhaps, that I'm getting a jump on all the rubes when I'm walking out of step during popular events. In fact I've often imagined I could best Lex Luthor and take over the world in a cinch were I to play Don't Stop Believin' in every American bar during the World Cup, which I figure would incapacitate most of the our humble globe's population.

World domination aside, I'll have to make do with that comforting ignorance of bourgeois boobery. I don't know a lick about any of the frippery which adorns tonight's spectacle. Such are the joys. Sure, I'm missing out on dishing some facile ridicule, and who doesn't like that, but they're fish in a barrel. What non-Congressional body could possibly be more ripe for insult?

No, I'm just going to sit with my tea, T. S. Eliot, and Bach in this corner of civilization which is tonight especially private.

Movie Review: Ghostbusters

Directed by Ivan Reitman. 1984.

If George Lucas' Star Wars prequels are good for nothing else, they demonstrate that you can spend the span of three movies without telling us anything interesting about characters or making us care about or understand them in nearly any way. Among the many virtues of Ghostbusters is that its script shows how to explain everything about both characters and relationships in about ten minutes. In that tiny space of time, we not only meet our trio of paranormal investigators, but befriend them. 

First we find Peter Venkman (Bill Murray), and discover he's not the greatest professor or the most serious scientist, that he's a ladies man, and that, willing to stretch the truth, Pete's a born salesman. Then we meet Ray Stanz (Dan Aykroyd), an intimate as well as colleague of Peter, who trusts him to permit his physical gags which are right out of a Marx Brothers routine. Ray has a childlike love for science and a plucky enthusiasm which crosses over into heroism. He's the heart of the soon-to-be Ghostbusters. Finally, we meet the brains, Egon Spengler (Harold Ramis). He's a cloistered nerd, keeping a physician's distance from things and interacting with the world via tools and gadgets. Egon is also close to Peter, who demonstrates his kinship with Egon by rewarding his nerd pal with a candy bar, but not before first teasing him with it. Friends and scientists, the salesman, the genius, and the boy wonder. Not bad for ten minutes' characterization. 

Even the last moments of the introduction, though, characterize. The difference is that this scene characterizes the whole movie. When the trio corners its ghostly prey in the basement of the New York Public Library, the ghoul lashes out and the investigators flee out onto Fifth Avenue. The sight is pretty ghastly, with a toothy luminescent beast bursting from the body of a little old librarian, but the music which simultaneously erupts is a jaunty ditty on the piano. The message is clear but subtle: we'll be busting ghosts, but this is going to be fun. 

Now while the first scene establishes the characters, the second scene ignites the plot. Getting kicked out of their cushy, well-funded Columbia University digs establishes the guys as underdogs and forces them out into the world to do something.  

The script wisely delays the entry of the fourth Ghostbuster, Winston Zedmore (Ernie Hudson) until the team is officially in business, a delay which has several substantial benefits for the script. First, it de-clutters the opening. Introducing four characters probably would have been too much. Second, the delay allows us to play the role of straight-man, identifying with the trio of friends. Had we met Winston earlier, his sober character would have competed with us for acceptance into the group dynamic. Instead we feel so close to the guys after the introduction that when they go into business, we share their risk and thrill. Third, Winston's arrival gives us a sense of success because the Ghostbusters are expanding. Lastly, he gives the group another straight-man to whom they can explain their paranormal shenanigans. 

Instead of the fourth Ghostbuster, then, we meet their wheels and pad, the now iconic ambulance and firehouse, most memorable for their dilapidation and Ray's affection for their vintage cool. Whereas their first customer, the single cellist and unwilling object of Venkman's libido, Dana Barrett (Sigourney Weaver), gets the plot going, it's their first emergency that gets the movie rolling. The call comes in and the team flies out, sirens blazing, to a hotel which in busting they promptly trash. There they vanquish the ravenous green Slimer and emerge The Ghostbusters.

We could summarize the plot, which holds about as much water as can a story involving a shape-shifting Sumerian god destroying the world from a Manhattan rooftop, but as novel as ghost busting, proton packs, and ghost traps are, we watch for the characters. It's simply a pleasure to watch the chemistry between these guys, goofing around and playing off each other's virtues and vices as they try to succeed against all odds. Each by himself is entertaining to watch, but it's a delight to see Pete admonish Egon's relentless calculating, Ray explain in detail science that goes right over Pete's head, and Winston look on flabbergasted at the bunch. Too many movies to count throw out a few vague characterizations at the beginning only to follow them up with bupkis, but the gang of Ghostbusters stays Pete, Ray, and Egon throughout. Ghostbusters never drops its characters and a few scenes demonstrate the consistency.

Take that scene when the Ghostbusters are called into action. The alarm sounds and in response, childlike Ray flies to the fire pole, Peter grabs his food so he can go down with it, and Egon buttons his jacket. When they enter the hotel, Peter blurts out, "Has anybody seen a ghost?", Ray looks at Peter's boorishness in shock, and Egon looks at a woman, amazed that she's actually look at him. Looking for the ghost, Egon whips out his detector, Ray jumps right in guns blazing, and playboy Peter stoops to getting slimed. After they've bested the beast, the Ghostbusters emerge victorious: Ray is full of piss and vinegar, explaining their feat, while Pete whips out the invoice pad and Egon gestures to him how much to charge.

At last with all the pieces in place–characters, equipment, and ghosts–we get one the most satisfying montages in movie history and the introduction of an unexpected character: New York City

Now if there's every a movie which knows how to hit its beats, it's Ghostbusters. Each scene knows what it's about and so do we. You can easily characterize each scene so far:

1. character introduction x3 & establish group dynamic
2. spark the adventure
3. building the Ghostbusters
4. prepare the main plot
5. first fight: Ghostbusters are born
6. amplification via montage

The next step, naturally, is to throw a monkey wrench into the smoothly turning wheels. How? Dana is violently kidnapped by the main baddie and turned into the gateway to Earth from the supernatural plane while her neighbor is turned into a dog and the key to the gateway. Got that? To amplify the sense of complication and variety, the teams splits up: Peter goes out with Dana, Egon crunches data at headquarters, and Ray and Winston are out on the town. Slowly they piece together the mystery of the Gatekeeper, the Key Master, and the corner apartment at spook central. 

Finally, to escalate us into finale territory–hit those beats!–EPA prick Walter Peck accidentally releases all of the Ghostbusters' captured nasties, setting the stage for the arrival of Gozer and the Day of Judgment. To top it off, the Ghostbusters are arrested. Again, when most movies would forego characters and details to focus on plot, Ghostbusters keeps the characters, well, in character. When the team is called up by a mayor desperate to stop Manhattan from falling into chaos, Ray and Egon give the science, Winston appeals to him as an everyman, and Peter reminds the mayor how wise it would be to save millions of registered voters. 

Of course Ghostbusters isn't all plot and characters. There's plenty of room for snappy dialogue and gags that are fun in themselves. The most famous and hilarious is a running gag in which Dana's hapless neighbor, played by a brilliantly spastic and oblivious Rick Moranis, gets locked out of his apartment again and again. Ghostbusters isn't all writing either, though, and its special effects hold up today, in particular the matte paintings that capture NYC to a tee. In a day of facile digital effects, it's satisfying to see so many practical ones from matte paintings to scale models, character miniatures, and real rocks, fire, and goo. 

It's also refreshing to see a movie whose rough edges weren't burnished for political correctness and cheap shots. There's plenty of smoking and liberal use of shit in conversation and exclamation. There are even references to religion, four of them, without any ironic or sarcastic twists. Likewise, can you imagine today a movie in which the bad guy is from the EPA and the good guys are businessmen? What about one in which the good guys not only rake in the dough, but save the day, and without any sly twists about the evils of money and entrepreneurship? Speaking of which, the product placement is pretty subtle. Producers and directors can get obnoxious with placement, and this movie has Coke cans floating around and such, but they're pretty inconspicuous. Ghostbusters hasn't been airbrushed for maximum marketability and loaded with cheap ads. Yes, it spawned a huge line of toys and cartoons, and there are even shirts and mugs worked into the movie, but they make sense in context and the film maintains its authenticity. 

Ghostbusters remains about the characters, though, and the final conversation in which the guys plot to overthrow Gozer the Destructor is as authentic as their first in which they launched their paranormal eliminating business: Ray is prepared to go down fighting, Peter is cracking jokes, Egon's calculating the science, and Winston thinks this job doesn't pay enough. When the boys say goodbye before they cross the streams and hope to stop Gozer, we realize that we'd miss them. We've befriended these guys, and when they wake up after the blast and Peter has the girl, Ray's his adventure, and Egon his science, we share in the victory. When they drive off in Ecto I with the uncharacteristically grateful citizens of NYC running behind, we agree with Winston who gets the movie's last line: I love this town! Yep, and we love the Ghostbusters too.

On Tipping

Not cows, of course. That's a cruel thing to do! I speak of tipping for services, especially at restaurants. It seems an ingenious system: part of the price of your experience is reserved for your judgment. You can decide just how good everything was and vote with your wallet. What could be wrong with such a system?

First, the gratuity is ostensibly for service, yet every aspect of the meal falls under the umbrella of service. In some cases tips are split among various staff, but it's inevitably the waiter who bears the burden for any mishaps in the meal, whether or not anything is his fault.

Second, the quantity of the tip seems to me invariably arbitrary. What is service worth? Why is 15-20% customary? First, the percentages are contingent on the prices of the foods, yet that has nothing to do with the quality of the service. Second, those percentages might not be the same in all markets at all times. Besides that, all gratuity is arbitrary, subject to the vicissitudes of the mood, temperament, expectation, and resources of the patron.

Most importantly, though, we have a problem of definitions. A gratuity is either: 1) a gift of money, over and above payment due for service or 2) a gift or reward. . . for services rendered. So is it for the service or is it a special thanks beyond the objective cost of the service? If it's over and above the cost, then the tips arbitrary quantity is not so relevant. If the tip is part of the service, then the variation is relevant. In such cases, our above two points work to the detriment of the server and the patron: the server may get less money than his service warrants, since his tip is going to supplement his wage, and the patron either gets worse service because with servers receiving less, the quality of the service goes down, or overpays. For example, if $15 of my $20 tip goes to what the waiter expects as his wage, then it's a more expensive meal which might not be worth so much to me were I to tip on top of that amount.

Obviously there's no non-arbitrary way of delineating what the server expects as his wage and what he makes in total. Surely he feels he deserves as much, if not more, than he receives. The server no doubt, though, is content with his average intake or he'd not keep the job. It is that average which I refer to as his "expected wage."

Now I'm not suggesting any chicanery is afoot, though that's possible. The employer considers as the server's wage what the employer can afford and when the server takes and keeps the job, the employer knows that's the right price. Now I'm not arguing the server salary is too low. Maybe it is and maybe it's not. The server is not entitled to have one job which gives him all the resources he needs. I'm arguing the two points above: that the gratuity system 1) makes the server's tip contingent on factors outside his control, and when used as part of the server's wage, the tip 2) obscures the cost of the service, affecting the quantity and efficacy of my payment as tip (which ought to be used to gauge customer satisfaction) and as wage. Together, servers often get less of the money they earn and the value of the service goes down for the patron.

It would seem easier for the patron and more consistent for the server, though, for the employer simply to raise the cost of the meal, making the tip a pure gratuity over the cost of the service. The employer would have do more to adjust all of his prices according to the demand for their establishment at the new rate and for the supply of servers, but that's business.

As a customer figuring a tip I feel like the task of calculating the cost of the service has been offloaded onto me. That cost should be part of the cost of the meal, if only because I can't know what the cost of service is. How can I? I don't run a restaurant. I know what I'm willing to pay, but that's a spectrum. They should offer a product at a definite price. If I don't like the product then I don't return and when that happens enough, the owner has to figure out what's right and wrong in his business.

Seems preferable to inviting this conversation after every meal.

Presidential Rhetoric, Part VII: Andrew Jackson

Welcome to Part Seven of our series on the rhetoric of American presidential inaugural addresses. Please feel free to look at the previous entries in the series:

1. Worthy of Marble?
2. John Adams
3. Thomas Jefferson
4. James Madison
5. James Monroe
6. John Quincy Adams

We continue with our present look at the rhetoric of Andrew Jackson's inaugural address. Let us see if any of the blood and guts of Old Hickory are to be found in his first speech as president.

The text of the speech, via Bartelby.com

–

Given it's brevity, it's best to make neither introductory nor concluding but rather summary remarks about Jackson's speech. We'll also dispense with the customary line-by-lie analysis. First, Jackson's is by far the shortest inaugural so far, weighing in at only 1,100 words or so. Second, it's plain and free of tropes, figures, and flourishes which adorned previous speeches. Jackson is his most poetical when waxing about the military, but generally he's quite sober. Third, the speech is not structured rhetorically, with formal sections devoted to refutation, summary, and so forth. Instead, it is structured as a list with little regard for the delicate task of transitioning from topic to topic. Fourth, Jackson does not offer examples or stop to paint pictures. He's not trying to persuade. In fact, and most important of all...

Fifth, Jackson's not really trying to persuade at all, and instead he's simply listing his policies. He's not trying to win over his enemies by making his plans seem ideal or reasonable and he's not trying to paint a picture of a grand, unified America to compensate for the inevitable sour feelings which follow an election. Jackson is laying down his agenda, not making any attempt at any of the classic modes of persuasion: 

A. of the personal character of the speaker

B. putting the audience in a particular frame of mind

C. proof or apparent proof of the words themselves.

Jackson at times qualifies statements, stating that the debt is a threat to liberty or the economy should favor goods essential to national independence, but does not actually argue the points. 

We can state then that while the speech is political, it is so in a restricted sense because it doesn't advise, deliberate on, or urge so much as declare. Likewise it doesn't fit into Aristotle's epideictic mold at all since it doesn't bother to praise. Overall, we can conclude of it what we did of President Obama's Inaugural:

Aristotle at the opening of the Rhetoric identified the craft as that which utilizes the best of the available means of persuasion. The author of this speech would not seem to have availed himself of the potential means.

Still, there's a workmanlike clarity to the agenda as well as a noteworthy, if not praiseworthy, candor in its frank indifference to persuasion. Jackson is always crystal clear, if not memorable or persuasive. It's a plain, speech, if indistinct.

Lying by Omission?

Ellen Page is a lesbian. Far more interesting than the actress' sexuality is her characterization of her previous nondisclosure as, "lying by omission." That particular kind of untruth is perhaps best known through the juridical phrase, "The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth," a principle by which one is expected to give accurate, complete, and unobscured answers to questions. Answers to questions. It does not require one to go around giving people unsolicited information.

It is, for example, a lie of omission if I ask you which drugs you have done and you, having done many, reply deliberately that you've only smoked marijuana. Such a statement is true, but consciously incomplete. In contrast, it is no lie of omission if you and I sit down to lunch and having decided I much despise you, I treat you kindly and after eating, depart without voicing my loathing for you.

Perhaps Ms. Page feels guilty for giving false impressions, which is only a lie if she was deliberately acting to conceal something. Otherwise people were simply drawing incorrect impressions, which happens all the time. Do we correct all, or any, of these untruths? Everyone makes assumptions about others, most notably that everyone else is like he is, but also more sensibly what is statistically probable. These conclusions are often wrong, but is it necessary to correct everyone's impressions of you? Qui tacet consentire videtur, admittedly another legal not moral principal, but there isn't always a moral imperative to voice your opinion, and therefore silence isn't always a lie, in this case not unless you want everyone to know something about you.

Perhaps Ms. Page thinks that since her conduct does not betoken that she's a lesbian, she's lying. This is an unnecessary conclusion for two reasons. First, not all truths manifest themselves in obvious ways. For example, it's improbable that you know where I keep my slippers or the brand of my cell phone. It's unreasonable to suspect normal social intercourse to reveal certain things and it's not mandatory to overcome this lack of familiarity. Second, it's possible she's confused a falsehood with the act of prevarication. Any act might invite interpretation which is inaccurate without its agent acting in deceit. For example, if you see me eat sauerkraut you might think I like it since you don't know I was doing it to win a bet.

Besides these logical points, it doesn't take much thought to realize the solution of mandatory preemptive disclosure makes a poor maxim. First, we consider people who talk about themselves to be presumptuous, especially when the information is unsolicited. Second, the principle is unnecessarily self-serving: why does it by nature exclude what you don't want known? Should we elevate yet another legal principle, the 5th Amendment, to a moral prescription? This reasoning is hardly systematic, to say the least.

Nitty gritty reasoning aside, it's not unreasonable or unexpected that someone wants to feel liked and normal, to feel accepted. One can more sympathize with that than self-righteous self-expression. I'm not denying it may be virtuous to make an unpopular statement, but it's muddled ad hoc moralizing to call such a silence as Ms. Page's a lie of omission.

Fear, Pity, and the "Used-to-Haves"

Aristotle famously argued (§ 1378 and 1452) that the impact of tragedy and oratory is very much contingent on the speaker's ability to arouse fear and pity in the audience. Who would think that a little bauble from the Huffington Post fulfills Aristotle's requirement. The poets and playwrights ought to be jealous. Alas for its humble author, the piece doesn't provoke the emotions how she intends. You see what was supposed to happen was simple: she writes about how terrible her life is and we feel pity. Then, of course, we wag our fingers at the usual suspects. Of course Aristotle could have told her (1386) that displays of the terrible often produce the opposite of pity, but nonetheless I'm feeling full of pity. Why?

Because no one deserves to be this foolish and it's a downright pitiable sight to see someone suffering who has absolutely no clue as to the causes of it. The world with all of its complexities seems to swarm around this woman who sees only her own unjust deprivation. What indignation she harbors that all is not the way things ought to be, as if all she had were secured by some omnipotent guarantor who has now been usurped by a cabal of corporate raiders. Of course it's a normal human reaction, as a certain philosopher observed, to assume that which has always been will continue to be, but letting a few years of luxury forecast the future demonstrates only that she' seen so little.

Conservatives and libertarians have overused the word entitlement, but no other word exemplifies her expectations. Because she works hard, because she has made a certain wage, because she has lived a certain way, she's entitled to further compensation, presumably in perpetuity. Never mind who actually needs her services, how often, and at what expense. Never mind that we only receive if we serve. We're supposed to empathize with her excruciating separation from bourgeois comforts to the point where we simply assent to the fact that what she possessed was not lost, but stolen. Yes, let us wag our fingers at those protean demons of deprivation, today the "Republican Congress" and "Corporate America!"

As an intellectual expression this is drivel ripe for ridicule. As intellectuals ourselves we want to reprehend the fool who has guzzled so desperately the PC Kool-Aide that she's stained with its cheap crimson glow. Nevertheless her utter lack of apprehension and comprehension of any facts or reason deprives us of any desire or reason to offer correction. We just sit and pity that evil, ignorance, which we fear for ourselves.

The author suffers genuinely I have no doubt, yet not from "The Great Theft," but from cupidity gorged on excess, incensed by privation, and rooted in ignorance. 'Tis true 'tis pity; And pity 'tis 'tis true.

Movie Review: Robocop (2014)

Directed by José Padilha. 2014.

My honest review of the Robocop reboot should begin with a picture of me eating my hat, but a mea culpa will have to suffice. I'd never been more sure sitting down in a theater that garbage would follow than when I sat down to see the new Robocop. Of course it's a cynical cash-grab, right? The producers are cashing in with minimal effort on another well-known franchise.

Maybe, probably, but director José Padilha and the writers took the challenge as an opportunity sensibly to remake Paul Verhoven's gritty 1987 classic. The remake conundrum is ongoing: why remake a movie at all? Change too little and it's not worth the effort, but change too much and it's better to make a new movie from scratch. So what did they do, and is it worthwhile?

Well, they did what they ought to: they updated Robocop. It's not a better movie than the original, but it's more timely and precise. It's not satirical, but it still asks questions. Let's talk plot.

Foremost, Robocop 2014 retains the essence of the original's story of disabled police officer Alex Murphy getting transformed into a cybernetic cop whose mind is ultimately controlled by his computerized half. There are interesting layers to this process, though. First, is the process worth performing in the first place? Alex's wife thinks so, because she's trying to preserve her husband's life. At Omnicorp, the CEO wants Alex to survive to pioneer their program, Dr. Norton (Gary Oldman) wants Alex to thrive because he wants a successful legacy. Finally, the people want a hero to believe in and who can clean up the city. Alex's own thinking evolves. At first sight of his body's feeble remains without his new mechanical frame, he asks to be shut off. Soon, though, he wants to bring his killers to justice and realizes he can't disappoint his wife and son by dying again.

Into this mix the writers work in a political and commercial intrigue more timely and clever than the trendy '80s paranoia about corporate expansion and privatization of government monopolies. On the commercial side we have Raymond Sellers (Michael Keaton), the CEO of OmniCorp whose main goal is to sell his police robots. On the political side we have Senator Hubert Dreyfuss, whose namesake act and popularity have persuaded the public that a machine without the experience of human feeling can't be let loose on society. Another invigorating twist is the social dimension: Sellers hopes to use Officer Murphy, Robocop, as a rallying hero to drum up support for the company among the public. It's ultimately the public, with their crime and expectation of a painless solution, who creates Robocop.

Representing the pro-robot contingent of the public is TV host Pat Novak (Samuel L. Jackson), who constantly whoops for any and all means of security. Jackson's Novak is a frank and funny caricature of Bill O' Reilly, from his histrionics to his cutting off guests. This cable news host and hype is a timely update of the 1987 version's cuts to nightly news broadcasts which set the original's chaotic tone. Novak's not the lone civic voice, though, and as in Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight, the public makes an unflattering appearance with its uncritical public hoorays for Robocop even as he acts on protocols they can't know the slightest about.

Speaking of those protocols, there's a hitch which complicates the whole mess further. Namely, Murphy's emotions make him less stable and efficient than the fully mechanical alternatives, so Dr. Norton is pressured by Sellars to dumb down Murphy's emotions to make Robocop compliant, furthering three interesting reactions.

First, we question Murphy's free will. On the one hand he appears to act with reason, on the other Dr. Norton informs is that the control is an illusion and that the computers decide everything for him. It's an epistemological box from which Murphy can't escape on his own.

Second, Murphy needs his emotions to do anything. In a surprisingly subtle scene early in the picture, Dr. Norton struggles with a rehabilitating officer trying to play guitar again. As the main begins to play for the first time since his injury, he and his wife begin to cry, inducing the doctor to request he not be so emotional that he throws off the test. The man responds that he can't play without them. Wisely the script leaves unspoken the fact that this fact, the need for emotion, is the same as Senator Dreyuss' argument that an officer needs emotions properly to judge. Instead, the director draws parallels to the contemporary issue of drone surveillance and bombing with scenes which bookend the film. The first of these, in which suicide bombers attack U.S. automated forces, is so well shot, and with one camera motion in particular, that it instantly told me I was in for a better movie than I thought.

Third, neither the emotions nor Murphy's will can be controlled. Murphy wants to be himself and obtain justice.

Amidst these perennial philosophical questions, corporatism-induced crises, news hype, the uninformed public, and scientific hubris, there's the simple crime drama which got Murphy mixed up with the criminals and hucksters in the first place. This plot is very light fare but just enough to support the rest of the movie: Murphy ruffled the feathers of a local crime kingpin buying heavy duty weapons from someone inside Murphy's department. When Murphy's first released as a free-willed Robocop he begins to solve the crime of his own death, a slick touch, but he's shut down before he can create mayhem by outing the corruption within the department. Now we see Murphy as the pawn of both OmniCorp and the politicians.

When he's freed from his programming strictures by a guilty-conscienced Dr. Norton, who is later pilloried by Novak for being a whistleblower, Murphy decides to clean house. Yet Sellars doesn't need Robocop or Murphy anymore. The Dreyfuss Act has been repealed because of Robocop's example, and OmniCorp is poised to make a fortune. With his company's success on the line, Sellars realizes that what's even more profitable than a hero is a martyr and plans to cash in on Robocop being killed in the line of duty.

The resolution is obvious enough, but this remake gets a lot else right besides the plot. The action is kept light and effective. The opening cop shoot out is filmed with some novel camera angles and its brevity doesn't give Robocop that generic shoot-em-up vibe. The finale's brief twin action scenes keep the visuals fresh too, the first by a switch to Robocop's infrared vision, blacking out the cliche but unavoidable sets of garages and warehouses, and the second by Robocop's novel use of his superior robotic foes as cover, vaulting from one to the other as they destroy one another trying to blast him.

Robocop is also neatly paced, rising briskly and clearly, moving from Murphy's regular cop life through his transformation into Robocop and then bouncing swiftly among Novak's news show, Sellars' boardroom maneuvering, and Murphy's development. Everyone gets a little breathing room, though. Murphy's wife is allowed scenes where she's briefed on the reconstructive plans for Alex after the attack and where she tries to reconnect with him after it's clear her husband has been programmed. It's not a world-class arc, but she doesn't drop out of the picture either. Dr. Norton is allowed to have a little arc of his own too, at first seeming well-intentioned and desirous of helping Murphy, then falling to vanity for his project and to intimidation from Sellars, and finally coming clean.

Director José Padilha even squeezes in just enough of Basil Poledouris' classic walloping score to hit the "now he's Robocop" beats, and even a reference to the infamous cult catch phrase from the original, "I'd buy that for a dollar!"

Even the acting I can't complain about. Michael Keaton's Sellars isn't as brutish and sadistic as Kurtwood Smith's odious Clarence J. Boddicker, but he's as merciless and manipulative, twisting everyone for his benefit to their detriment and even death. Gary Oldman brings the everyman persona from his turn as Gotham City's Jim Gordon, selling Dr. Norton's despairing fall from respected scientist to corporate stooge. Finally, Joel Kinnaman, heretofore unknown to me, pulls of Alex Murphy and Robocop, for much of the movie only with his face and voice. We see the frustration in his eyes and hear the hopelessness in his voice as he realizes the limbo he now inhabits between life and death, man and machine, freedom and servility.

This remake seems like one every fan of the original was waiting to hate, but they shouldn't. It's more sober and mature than the original, developing significant themes and arcs up to its conclusion, which leaves us wondering whether Murphy can ever be free as Robocop. The original has a lot to like, but so does its 2014 counterpart. A worthwhile remake.