Weblog 158

February 15, 2009~ 12:15am
Before this computer was demolished on Monday of this past week (and is now restored, thank God) I had meant to write a piece about the movie we watched last weekend. On the surface, a delightful romp. A totally engaging hour and 20 minutes or so-- we watched Robert Downey Jr. in "Ironman".



(Yes, another super hero movie, a genre I happen to like and Wayne loves.) Downey was, well...Downey... and I find him delightful. Personal problems nothwithstanding, when he's acting, he's all there. I suspect the director and producer had him very much in mind when they conceptualized this story for film adaptation. Downey's humor and his nonchalance and charm are things they've incorporated into this incarnation of the comic book hero, and even his 'klutziness' seems to fit --adding many of the lighter spots to the film.

The beginning grabs hard and you hang on for the ride as Tony Stark- genius and arms manufacturer- is taken hostage in Afghanistan, and sees for himself the corruption of corporate ideals he fancies his company had when viewing his weapons monopoly safely from a posh penthouse life in the states.

The terrorists drag him off to their caves and demand he build for them one of his much-publicized Jericho missiles.



You have to suspend all belief to buy into the idea that any man, genius or not, would have the wherewithal to build a sophisticated weapon from pilfered odds and ends, but Tony builds not the weapon they so covet-- but his first IRONMAN suit.

The area around Tony's heart is threatened by shrapnel he'd taken in the initial attack on his convoy, and the metal bits are kept from piercing his heart by a contraption rigged from a large magnet implanted in his chest attached to a car battery -- LOL!!! -- placed there by (surprisingly) another captive who just happens to be another near-genius scientist. Tony quickly replaces his cumbersome life-support with a super-battery of his own making, and that's the power behind the Ironman suit as it glows like a klieg-light from his chest. All of this is fantastic, action-packed popcorn-chomping fun.

....And now for my thoughts about how the theme of Ironman was a little disturbing to me, and more than just a little manipulative.

Just as in WWII many of our films featured Nazi villains, in typical Hollywood fashion, we now see Middle Eastern villains-- depicted as grungy, greasy-looking terrorists complete with rags wrapped around heads, eyes black and crazy, Arabic diaglogue with English translation scrolling across the bottom of the screen-- and it feeds our fears. It's 'Us against Them'. This does more harm than good in the long run because it argues against seeing Middle Easterners as 'people'-- only as 'enemy'-- only as 'other'.

I'd like to see more films about human connection made during our torturous struggles in that part of the world. I'd like to see movies that highlight the commonalities between people.... things as simple as what I heard in an interview on NPR with Washington Post senior correspondent Thomas Ricks concerning General Petraeus' efforts to work WITH the Sunni insurgents during the surge, which has proven much more effective than soldiers keeping to the Green Zone and out of neighborhoods, and it's come about through talking, through respect for differences, and by finding any common ground available. One soldier, in talking to a former Sunni enemy, said, "You'd like to kill me, wouldn't you?" and the man answered, "Yes. But not today."

An American captain asked a Sunni if there was anything about America that the man liked. "The movie 'Titanic'," he answered. (Apparently that movie was a HUGE HIT and became very popular in that part of the world.) The former insurgent told the captain that he'd cried when he'd seen it, and the captain confided that he too had cried-- at that point a small crack appeared in the wall between them, and the American was actually able to make some headway in enlisting aid from a former enemy in tracking down Al Quaida operatives.

I believe that the more we concentrate on stereotyping villains as frightening, turbaned extremists the worse off we will be. People are people underneath their outer trappings, and movies that emphasize that are ultimately healthier for human nature than easy dramatic prejudice.

For all its entertainment, "Ironman" took the low road in trying to make the story topical, and that approach helped to further some very nasty bigotry by reinforcing the idea that Muslim equals 'fear'... equals 'enemy'.

(As a side note....what the hell happened to Jeff Bridges in this role?) He's as capable as ever on-screen, but man, he looks like he's aged about 20 years and put on at least 30 pounds! LOL!!!



And yes...it's another stereotype: the bald, 'magician-mustached' evil mastermind behind the scenes: think Lex Luthor, think Goldfinger. Even Dr. Evil from the Austin Powers movie, it's almost expected now: bad = 'chrome dome'.

I suppose 'the dude abides'.....but it's sure hard to see him under all that flesh. (Oh, Jeff....where art thou???) "You'd like to kill me, wouldn't you?" "Yes," Jeff says. "But not today."




February 16, 2009~ 5:15am
If you ever get a chance, set your dial so you can watch (or rent, as we did) the superb and moving "Eugene O'Neill", from the 'American Experience' PBS documentary series



It chronicles the developing genius that garnered four Pulitzers and a Nobel Prize for the man who became the father of American theater by wresting profound pain from the deepest, haunted parts of his soul and spilling it onto paper, creating an entirely new art form.

It was only in his last years of his life - and under the ministrations of his third wife, and while his health was failing terribly, that he wrote his three finest and final works: "The Iceman Cometh", "Moon For The Misbegotten"- and the seering masterpiece, "Long Day's Journey Into Night"- the story of his own nuclear family in all its brokenness and pain.

O'Neill had 'Long Day;s Journey' locked in a vault at Random House with the stipulation that it was not be read until 25 years after his death, and never performed. His wife Carlotta defied that decree and 3 years after Eugene's death, it was published and finally performed in 1956, three years after his passing. The play received thunderous acclaim and rightfully so.

If ever an artist was entirely haunted, Eugene O'Neill certainly fits that description: a ghost in his own life. An extraordinary individual, able to create diamonds from the crush of fate.

At the end of the documentary, both Wayne and I were wrung out and a little teary-eyed. Certainly watching the the aging Jason Robards' devotion to O'Neill's theatrical legacy did much to produce that sort of emotion, but the words....the words of the man himself, are what ultimately grab the heart and wring it dry.




February 16, 2009~ 8:15pm
Ok...this is one of those anecdotes you just have to record so you'll remember it. I visited my daughter and little Kay and Bill on Friday. My daughter Holly began to tell me a story about overhearing those two tykes talking in Bill's bedroom. (She was laughing so hard, I had to strain to hear it.....)

Bill: "Kay, I got fungus on my nuts."
Kay: "Oh...." (with evident interest and some incredulity)
Bill: "Yah, but I use this cream and it really helps...."

(From her own bedroom, Holly- knowing Bill did indeed have a mild case of jock itch which she'd been treating with an antifungal creme, became concerned that Bill had gotten into the medicine cabinet and was 'self-treating')

Holly: "Bill! What are you putting on yourself? Let me see...."
(Bill, coming into the hallway, holding up his remedy)

Holly: "BILL!! IS THAT KAY'S CHAPSTICK?"
Kay: (reaching) "That's my Chapstick, Bill! GIVE IT BACK!"

(At which point, one worn down tube of Chapstick was thrown in the bathroom garbage can......LOL!!)



THIS IS NOT
TINACTIN!!
Do NOT apply
to privates!





***

(Return To Weekly Archives)