Pop culture rap...

Got my EW today which keeps me abrest, when LJ doesn't, of what is happening in pop culture:

1. The Mel Gibson fiasco - EW had an entire article on how Gibson had managed to destroy his career in the space of one night. I pondered it a bit and realized that I haven't liked Gibson since Braveheart, when he started thinking - oh, I won, a best director oscar so now I'm the big cheese. Sigh. Kevin Costner did the same thing. Guys, you aren't the first actors to get oscars for directing and producing films - please take a page from Clint Eastwood and Robert Redford - those guys have class. Gibson's best work was in Australia, under Peter Weir and other Australian directors - Year of Living Dangerously, Gallopi, the one with Piper Laurie about the mentally challenged man who was goregous, Mad Max, Road Warrier.. His worste? Let's see Bird on a Wire (couldn't watch it), Air America (more Robert Downey JR's film than Gibson and Downey was better), What Women Want (gag). Fun fair: Ransom (sigh - although it did have more to it than most), Lethal Weapon (actually I adore Danny Glover more in these), Maverick (James Garner and Jodi Foster...sigh, much fun). I refuse to see Passion of the Christ.

And can't say I'm shocked by his behavior. Or feel any sympathy for him. Or have any interest in watching anything he's involved with from this point forward. Not that I did before, mind you.

Course knew all about this way before got the EW - LJ people broke the news, before the news channels broke it.

2. Heath Ledger as the Joker in the sequel to Batman Begins, called, get this The Dark Knight? Interesting. Really interesting. Not the person I would have cast, in fact it almost is against type. But Heath loves that and so does Nolan. Most directors would have put HEath in the Batman role and Bale in the Joker role. The fact they've reversed them is akin to well reversing Carrey and Kilmer in the third Batman (which come to think of it, would have been interesting). I adore casting against type - it makes the film richer sometimes. Brothers Grimm cast Ledger and Damon against type, which was rather intriguing. Ledger is a man who knows how to show emotion with very little dialogue or movement. Having not been a huge fan of Nicolson's take on the Joker or the Tim Burton flicks, which often felt like style over substance (although they were better than Bruckheimer's cluttered messes that followed), am looking forward to this sequel.

3. Nicole Kidman as the complex villianous from the Philip Pullman novels - the first is to be filmed and released next year. I can't wait. I want to see those books on the screen more than I wanted to see the Harry Potter or CS LEwis. Why? Ah. They are more complex. Not sure how they are going to do it without pissing off the Judeo-Christians. These books are Pullman's critique of CS LEwis's Narnia novels and I highly recommend them to anyone who read Lewis - just as a counterpoint.
Curious to see who they tap for the extranged villainous' hubby, who isn't exactly a hero himself.

4. The Descent is being tapped at the must-see horror flick of the summer. EW gave it an A-. And an intriguing review. Did not like the Night Listener, however. Don't care. I'll probably see The Night Listener and skip The Descent. (The Descent sounds far too gory. Blood and guts is not something I enjoy seeing on the movie screen. I can watch the nightly news or one of the CSI's for that.)

Okay tired now. Going to bed.

(no subject)

Went book shopping today...okay, I did not intend to go book shopping. I intended to just take a leisurely walk and lust after books in book stores. But I got tempted. Books lusted after: "Elizbeth Bear's Blood and Iron", Peter S. Beagle's "The Last Unicorn", Marcel Proust's "Swann in Love" (which a portion of my flist has read, more than once already)- new translation by Lydia something - very pretty book - read a page and a half before reluctantly putting it back on the shelf and deciding, no this is not a summer book but a winter one which deserves a blanket, a cup of coco and a hot fire in the background, George Eliot's "Middlemarch" (which another portion of flist has read (note not the same one who read Swann in Love) and dismissed it for the same reasons.

Then found a book of personal essays by Jonathan Franzen entitled How to Be Alone. Read a few passages - such as "the local particularities of content matter less to me than the underlying investigation in all these essays: the problem of preserving individuality and complexity in a noisy and distracting mass culture: the guestion of how to be alone." And," Expecting a novel to bear the weight of our whole disturbed society - to help solve our contemporary problems- seems to me a peculiarly American delusion. To write sentences of such authenticity that refuge can be taken in them: Isn't this enough? Isn't it alot?" Read a bit more. Bought the book to take home and languish in and be comforted by. No, I don't entirely agree with everything he says, but some things....yes, I do. Which is odd, considering how much I despised him several years back for that essay in Harpers - which in this volumn he apologizes for and explains in a way that provides a new twist on it.
Also gave it up for Diana Gabaldon's Outlander - which several people rec'd and I've played with reading a few times over the years. Lengthy book though. And Terry Prachett's Witches Abroad, which may be a tad footnote heavy for my taste, after Kavaliar and Clay but we shall see. Yes, I know, I do not need any more new books. Have no room for the ones I have. What I should do is go to the library like everyone else - but am allergic to libraries (dust mites and evil company, which was filled with evil librarians or rather the librarians that couldn't get a job anywhere else) - that and I take too long to read the damn books and am too lazy to renew it. Cheaper to buy the dang things.

Other thing I spent money on? Video rentals - three for 9.95 at Blockbusters - so rented Shattered Glass, Superman the Movie and Superman II - which I'd been wanting to see since Superman Returns, which is more or less the sequel to Superman II. Felt odd walking about - as if I was not fitting in with the local fashion - in my Kate Hill sleeveless colored/three button down tank top. Black. Everyone else had this spagetti strap or thin strap tees on that made them look sort of saggy in the bust or like little boys with no bust. Thought about getting some at American Apparial but got distracted by bookstores, which were more appealing. I hate shopping for clothes. Do not understand the appeal at all.

Just finished watching Shattered Glass which is about Stephan Glass - the reporter who fabricated 21 of the 42 stories he wrote for The New Republic. The director chooses to tell the tale through the use of a "unreliable narrator" to frame it. Ie. We see much of it through the eyes of Stephen Glass, which would have worked better if he chose a more charismatic actor than Hayden Christianson to play Glass - although having seen the real Glass on the 60 minutes piece in the extras - Christianson does look and act like the real guy. I wanted to see the film through the eyes of Chuck Lane and Michael Kelly played respectively by Stephen Staarsgard and Hank Azaria, who do have screen charisma. Or Steven Zahn who played Adam Pemberton who broke the Glass fabrication for Forbes Digitial. But no, it's via Stephen's eyes, mostly and to a lesser extent, Chuck's and Adam's. The tale does depict how easy it is for a skilled liar to fabricate the truth and convince numerous people that it is the truth. Glass was a pathological liar and a clever/creative one. He didn't just lie, but created notes, a website, a newsletter, and other pieces to back up the lie. Then when he was caught, he continued to lie and manipulate people into feeling sorry for him. Did he get punished? Ah, here's the thing, not really. Oh sure, he got fired and sued and went to therapy. But he came out of it with a law degree from Georgetown, and a six figure book deal for a work of fiction entitled "The Fabulist" about a guy who fabricates articles to further his career in journalism. The people he hurt? They did not fare nearly as well. His main problem? Getting accepted to the New York Bar. Oh he passed the written, they are just uncertain about his character - this was in 1998 or thereabouts, no clue if he's practicing law now.

Depressing film. Not what I expected. But realistic. I've met a pathological liar who managed to hurt me a great deal. Almost destroyed me. I escaped. And eventually he destroyed himself. Granted he was also bi-polar and an alcoholic, so that may have contributed to the problem. And I've managed to let go of it, and even sort of forgive him. Life dealt with him far worse than I ever could.

It is however an interesting one - in that it decides to use the unreliable narrator to frame and present the story. It just doesn't stay in that point of view long enough for it to work, I think. Not like the brilliant David Fincher film Fight Club - where we are inside an unreliable narrator who is lying to himself throughout the movie. Ian McEwan also uses the technique in Atonement. It's in The Others. And M. Night Shyalaman uses it brilliantly in The Sixth Sense. Difficult technigue to utilize, you need a charismatic narrator in a film to pull it off, and you need to stay in that pov through out, otherwise the audience may get annoyed or confused. In the extras, the director of Shattered Glass admits that the unreliable narrator bit was tagged on at the last minute and not originally intended to frame the film - he put it there, when the original framing did not work for the studio. I'm not sure about the choice. I sort of wish he stuck with the New Republic staff telling the tale.

It's not a bad film all in all. I was entertained and found the story fascinating. But it's not a great one either. Doesn't have the grit of other journalistic films such as Absence of Malice or All The President's Men. But then it doesn't really try to be like those films. It's a small story and a small film and works as such.