No clue what to call this

There's a rather excellent critique of a NY Times review of Game of Thrones by tightropegirl on lj,
(otherwise known as Doris Egan - the sci-fi writer and television scribe of such various television series as House, Homicide Life on the Streets, Dark Angel, Smallville, True Calling, and most recently the new season of Torchwood).

Go here: http://tightropegirl.livejournal.com/20679.html

I read the review Egan critiques, and I agree, Gina Bellafante basically makes an ass of herself.


Egan quotes CS Lewis who states:

It is very dangerous to write about a kind [of literature] you hate. Hatred obscures all distinctions. I don’t like detective stories and therefore all detective stories look much alike to me: if I wrote about them I should therefore infallibly write drivel. Criticism of kinds, as distinct from criticism of works, cannot of course be avoided…but it should not masquerade as criticism of individual works. Many reviews are useless because, while purporting to condemn the book, they only reveal the reviewer’s dislike of the kind of which it belongs.

Let bad tragedies be censured by those who love tragedy, and bad detective stories by those who love the detective story. Then we shall learn their real faults. Otherwise we shall find epics blamed for not being novels, farces for not being high comedies, novels by James for lacking the swift action of Smollett. Who wants to hear a particular claret abused by a fanatical teetotaler, or a particular woman by a confirmed misogynist?”

I've seen a lot of critics fall into this trap. They go to an action film such as say Iron Man and get all upset that it is about a superhero and has long action scenes. Uhm Hello? It's IRON MAN!
What did you expect? Same with fantasy - if you don't like fantasy, folks, you aren't going to like Game of Thrones. It's a given. I don't like procedurals and cop shows - they tend to bore me and there's nothing worse than a legal procedural, also documentary style situation comedies give me a headache - do you see me writing reviews of these? NO! I know why I don't like them. I know why other people do.

What made me want to hit Bellafante and applaud Egan, was this bit:

Bellafante: “While I do not doubt that there are women in the world who read books like Mr. Martin’s…”

Egan: Yes, somewhere on the Earth, in some neglected and lonely corner, there may be two or three women who read such books. Unlikely though it seems.

(Me: Hee. Go Egan! I hate to break this to you Bellafante darling, but the people on my livejournal and online that I know of who read George RR Martin are mostly if not all female! Just like the vast majority of people online that I know who love Tolkien, are, gasp, FEMALE! Yes, shocking, I know. The person who recommended I read George RR Martin was a woman in France. We really mustn't generalize it makes us look like idiots. And yes, we actually read him not because of the sex scenes, but because he creates well-rounded and interesting characters who resonate long after the story is told. That play with the mind. Along with intensely detailed stories, with intensely detailed plots.)

Bellafante: “…I can honestly say that I have never met a single woman who has stood up in indignation at her book club and refused to read the latest from Lorrie Moore unless everyone agreed to “The Hobbit” first.”

Egan: Someone else will have to untangle this. It’s nice that we’re getting it straight what women read, though, right? In those chick book clubs?

****

Okay, here, I can actually assist. I used to be in a rather cool couple of book clubs, before they eventually imploded. The first was killed by Don Dellilo's Underworld. The second by Oprah Winfrey chick-lit. Prior to the chick-lit crap, we were reading genre fiction - fantasy, sci-fi, noir, by both men and women writers. Then one of the women decided we should read dysfunctional contemporary literature where everyone whines endlessly about their navel and the book club died.

I've read both Tolkien and Lorrie Moore. Lorrie Moore - I read in 1997, when I first moved to NYC. The book of hers that I read was Who Will Run the Frog Hospital - all I remember from that book is well, the title and something about someone going to a mental ward driven slowly nuts by her humdrum life. I found it very quotable for a bit, then promptly forgot it. Moore like a lot of contemporary female and male literary writers got off on gazing closely at her navel and whining about it. Poetic prose, but not very memorable. If you want to read that stuff - go read Collette - she was better at it, and had more to say. So for that matter is Virigina Woolfe and Kate Chopin, and Gilman. Also Anne Taylor. I read the Hobbit, once, in the 6th grade or in 1980. So that would be about 30 years ago? Moore - maybe 14. Tolkien -30. Guess which one I vividly remember? I vividly remember everything about the Hobbit. I loved that book. And there is so much to talk about regarding it. It is an allegory on warfare, it discusses environmentalism, it discusses power and the appeal of power...there are so many issues, so many things to analyze. It's book club heaven. Classes have been taught on the Hobbit. Essays written.

Moore? Not so much. All she writes about is rich white girl's suburban angst. You can find that on a table in Barnes & Noble - there's about 20 books with various literary names for selection.
Bellafante is not a woman I want to know - the desire to kick her would be a bit overwhelming.

Ugh. I'm being tempted to subscribe to HBO again. Does not help that they are developing American Gods for a fantasy series.

Winter's Bone - film review

Saw the flick Winter's Bone last night. Rather good. After watching this film, I agree that Jennifer Lawrence is pitch-perfect for Katniss in the Hunger Games, regardless of her hair color.

Winter's Bone reminds me of a lot of American indie noire flicks from Frozen River to well, Lynch's Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks. Even had Sheryl Lee in a brief role. Sheryl Lee played Laura Palmer in Twin Peaks. Checked the credits - and it has a female director, as well as a female screenwriter. The director co-wrote the screenplay. Films directed by the same person who wrote the screenplay tend to be better than films written by multiple screenwriters or hired guns. Partly because in film, the director is in charge.

The director here does some marvelous things with cinematography heightening the creepiness and desolation of the forest. The feeling of isolation and despair, with just a glimmer of hope - which often characterizes noir films. Except here, the hero is a heroine, and the difficulty of being female in this landscape is emphasized. The use of black and white film overlaid with color is not used to nearly as great an effect as Black Swan, it's clumsy in places, but overall striking.

Winter's Bone has the distinction of being the only film nominated for an Oscar this year that is NOT shown through a male lense. It's directed and written by women. It's a quiet film. And unlike the Kids Are Alright - the men are not the driving force. They factor into it - but the gaze for what it's worth feels mainly female. It's a story about a girl's search for her father - but not for the reason's one might think - not because she needs him or wants him ...but because she has to find him or she will literally lose her home. The sheriff tells her that if her father doesn't show up in court or she doesn't produce evidence of his death - the bonds men will take her home as collateral.

Winter's Bone if anything demonstrates how unnecessary and problematic the men are to this girl's life. It's the women, in the end, who aid her in finding her father, just as it is the women who beat her up. Her uncle - who attempts to assist, doesn't really and is proven to be largely ineffectual.

In a world seemingly run by men, the backwoods of rural Missouri, the women are fierce and hold their own. In some respects far more adeptly then they do in the realm of professional ballet or computers or for that matter family politics in upper-middle class surburban California.

It's not a pretty film, and is gruesome at times, the violence when it occurs you feel in your gut.
Like Frozen River - there's a stillness and slow...flow to the film that we don't see in
over-produced tales like Inception or Social Network. There are moments here, where you just look at the trees and the sky, or the camera stays on a little girl jumping about on her toy horse on a trampoline. The rainy sky. The bleak mid-winter. Just before spring. And the dialogue...is not neat and clipped and precise like Social Network, it's softer, folksy, backwoods dialect of the working poor. Ree can barely scrub two nickels together, and considers joining the army in order to make $40,000 dollars and to escape...the dreary existence she believes awaits her.

Yet, the film does not end as most noir tales do, any more than Frozen River had before it. If anything it ends on a happy note or happier. Things haven't exactly changed at the end, so much as altered slightly...and there's hope, if only a sparkle.

Highly recommend if you've not seen it. And while I can understand why it didn't win the Oscar for best picture this year...I think in some respects it was the most memorable of the films...or amongst the better efforts. Quiet. Under the wire. Far more deserving than The Kids Are Alright or The Social Network in my opinion.

(no subject)

Watching the new version of Upstairs, Downstairs on PBS, not so bad. I find the old lady sort of intriguing. Reminds me a bit of Godsford Park. But not nearly as good as Downton Abbey. And yes, I apparently have a weakness for parlour dramas or costume dramas, not to be confused with historical dramas...historicals have famous people in them and seem to have little to do with actual history so much as what we sort of wish it was. Not a fan of historicals. Prefer actual history. Possibly a side-effect of having a father who was a historian, albeit a frustrated one.

After checking out the cost of subscribing to HBO and HBO on Demand, they don't have an HBO on Demand or HBO only option, damn them, I chose to pass and wait for all of this to come out on DVD.


Difficult day. Did not enjoy church, felt oddly disconnected. The attempt to connect to other people often feels thwart with the obstacles of my own and their baggage. If we could just dispense with the baggage or throw it to a valet or bellboy to carry somewhere else...life would be so much simpler, I think.

Otherwise, lovely outside - if a bit windy.

Yesterday - watched both The Good Wife and Justified . Enjoyed both, but The Good Wife was more fun and had better details. Justified felt a bit off in places...not quite sure it hangs together as well. ( vague spoilers )

The Good Wife had a rather clever political joke inside it - that I realized, after reading my livejournal correspondence list (flist), really did not translate across the pond. The actor, lobbyist, former Senator, and Republican Presidential Candidate - Fred Thompson (who played the District Attorney in Law & Order for about 15 years), basically played himself on The Good Wife.
I howled with laughter when I figured it out.

This is one of the few shows that having a legal background and a knowledge of local midwestern politics makes the show actually more interesting and not cringe-worthy. I can't watch 85% of the criminal procedurals and legal procedurals on tv because I know too much about the process not to roll my eyes heavenward at the idiocy. Here, I grin at the accuracy. And the critique. This show is so detailed. You have to rewind to catch certain bits.

Also it's detailed analysis of how power works in the US, and how women struggle for it - is dead on. The acting is pitch-perfect. America Ferrara demonstrates her versatility - she's unrecognizable from Ugly Betty. And Julianne Marguiles' understated performance continues to resonate long after she's left the screen. So, she didn't get an Emmy, she got a Peabody.

And I hate the fact that I have to wait three weeks before the next episode.