Sunday, September 30, 2007

Review of “In The Valley of Elah”

This film has garnered some very mixed reviews, surprisingly. Only Roger Ebert and the reviewer for Rolling Stone seem to see the truth here: this film is slow and elegiac because it deals with heavy matters, but it is never boring, not if you understand the situation and the depth of feelings being explored.The film is, admittedly, very restrained, but it has a strong resonance nonetheless.  Perhaps some reviewers don’t get the film because they didn’t really feel what the film is saying, or dismiss it as being a cliche. 


True, there have been dozens of films about how war damages the men who fight in it; that doesn’t mean, however, that it’s a cliché. We need to be reminded often of this fact, since each generation of young men head off to war as if such a thing can’t possibly happen to them; some probably don’t even know such a possibility exists, so short is the collective memory of society about such things. (And of course, the Army counts on just such amnesia to get its recruits for each new war). 

To say  that the treatment of that theme in “In The Valley of Elah” is too dreary and slow means that the viewer has stopped feeling for what is really hurtful in human conduct, that he or she might even be in denial. And that’s the theme of this film: what happens when we lose touch with what’s morally objectionable and grotesque in human conduct; what happens when we don’t care any more because we have been inured to such things in order to protect ourselves from pain. 

Tommy Lee Jones, a distraught father, is restrained and wonderfully grim, wearing a face as filled with creases as a road map as he explores what happened to his son, a soldier, after his son returned from Iraq, and why. Charlize Theron, as the detective who helps him investigate, is quite beautiful even though she is playing a woman who is forced to act as non-sexy as possible to get on in her job with a male police force. Susan Sarandon, looking very old and sad, plays Jones’ wife, and is not, as some critic said, “underused”; she gives a performance that is all the more powerful because it is restrained. All of them deserve Academy Award nominations.

This movie should be a must see for all who believe that the Iraq war should continue until there is an honorable time for America to leave. That time is already long past.
Posted by Beviant in 15:22:40 | Permalink | Comments (2)

Friday, September 28, 2007

“Across The Universe” Review

Saw “Across the Universe” yesterday and liked it very much. What’s not to like? It had wonderful renditions of Beatles’ songs, interesting visuals, and likable actors. It captured the spirit of the Sixties and brought back memories for me of that era. Being in my twenties at that time and caught up, like the central characters, in that spirit of adventure and exploration, I demonstrated against the Vietnam war (once), smoked pot (three times), took LSD (twice) and dressed in hippy type clothing. But I didn’t get as deeply into these things as the main characters in this film do. Still, the film reflects the main forces that were warring against each other in that era: the desire to make a political difference against an unjust war versus the desire to expand one’s consciousness. Both sides wanted to find a peaceful way of life, but among their extremists, lapsed into violence of one sort or another, the demonstraters turning at last to aggression, the dropout/turn-on types destroying their brain cells on drugs.  


The film starts with a guy named Jude sitting on a grey beach singing “A Girl” in a melancholy way, then moves to contrast a fifties-type dance in a school gym in the States with a rather grimier dance in a cellar bar somewhere in Liverpool in order to establish the main characters: Lucy, the blonde beauty and Jude, the dark-haired, cute Liverpudlian. (He infuses the Liverpool accent into the film and its music that somehow ‘allows’ the American accented singers to do their renditions of the Beatles’ songs.) The film follows Lucy and Jude’s adventures as they move to New York and live in a shared apartment with Lucy’s brother, Max and others. She becomes politicized and demonstrates against the war; he starts a career as a poster artist. They both explore psychedelic drugs, at one point traveling in a Ken Kesey-type bus out to the country to visit a Dr. Cleary (Timothy Leary), who won’t see them.Then they all have some interesting psychedelic experiences to the tunes of some of the Beatles’ more druggy songs. It’s all quite invigorating and beautiful, with Beatles’ songs worked in in ways that bring new meaning to some of them. After seeing that progression accelerate from drug-induced enlightenment to a kind of mind-blowing, we are shown the opposite side of the coin as the peaceful demonstraters get beaten by police in the Columbia University riots and are jailed, after which some are shown making bombs.

In the meantime, we have a sub-plot involving their friend, a Janis Joplin-type singer and her boyfriend, a Jimi Hendrix-type guitarist, both making wonderful music. And the music of the Beatles just doesn’t stop. It’s wonderful. We come to care about all of the characters as things get much darker, climaxing in a very odd, very moving version of “Strawberry Fields Forever” that blends war images with psychedelic images. I’ll never hear that song again and think only of peaceful fields of strawberries. Instead, I’ll see strawberries exploding and bleeding, saturating the screen and its images.

Speaking of which, I’d love to get the sound track of this film. These are wonderful covers of the original songs. As some reviewer on line says in response to someone’s snarky comment on how it doesn’t give the original Beatles’ singing the songs, Fred Astaire wasn’t George Gershwin when he sang Gershwin songs, either, but still did them memorably, and that’s the case here. 

All in all, it’s a movie I’d like to see again and can highly recommend.  
Posted by Beviant in 15:18:09 | Permalink | Comments (2)

Monday, September 24, 2007

Mabon Celebration

Had  a wonderful day yesterday in celebration of Mabon. First we went to  a farm/orchard called La Bonte, where the family members picked deep red MacIntosh apples from low, heavily-laden trees in goreous weather, with a sky that was very blue and cloudless, and temperatures just cool enough to keep us from sweating. We were in the midst of this bounty when, at 9:50, autumn arrived. P and J and D picked three big bags full; we got one bag. Then we bought apple goods at their store: pies, crisps, cake, muffins. Delicious! And all this before noon, which was a good thing, since the place got very crowded from about 10 onward.


We went to Westmount Park for a picnic lunch, where Devon met some friends from the daycare she went to last year, and ran  around happily on the climbing apparatus with them as a boy their age pretended to be chasing them. 

Later, I made a batch of my carrot-apple soup, which I now do in a ‘quickie’ method: buy packaged carrot soup, then add 6 Granny Smith apples (cored, peeled and cut into large chunks), 2-3 cups of chicken broth, 3 tsp. red wine vinegar, 1 onion cut into chunks, salt and pepper to taste. Simmer for an hour, then put into blender until pureed. Reheat. This has a tart-ish taste. You could add some curry, which is how we used to make this soup, until it started tasting more curry-flavored than apple-carrot flavored. I also used to make the soup from scratch, in which case one uses about 6 good sized carots (peeled and chopped into chunks), plus some uncooked rice for thickening.

Took the soup to P and J’s place for a Mabon dinner. They have their apartment in prime condition, with every corner full of interesting things, all autumnal at this time of year. The living room is wonderful, with Chinese lanterns from our garden adding to P’s collection of green men and green women plaques, a paisley-patterned throw on the sofa and plump autumnal-colored cushions scattered here and there. I just sat on that sofa and gazed around in wonder and appreciation, with the sun streaming into the livingroom around me. 

Dinner was wonderful too: roast chicken, the sweetest corn I’ve ever tasted, roast vegetables, and then apple pie and ice cream for dessert. We didn’t have a ritual, except at the end, when P. cut an apple in half at its middle to expose the star or pentagram in its center, then passed one half of the apple around for us all to take a bite from. As we did so, we were asked to silently say ‘thanks’ to the apple trees for their bounty, which we did. Then Devon took the other half and placed it on the altar in the livingroom. And yet the whole day was a kind of ritual, as Pasley has pointed out.

We caught the end of the sunset from their balcony, and P. brought out sparklers for us to hold. Devon had never seen them before and was quite pleased. We all wished on a star, then went back to the livingroom, where the lights were dimmed and candles were lit on the mantle. That was when Devon delighted us with some songs about apples and autum, some of which she had learned at kindergarten. She has quite a dramatic sense; when starting one song about autumn, she draped my red pashmina shawl on her lap artistically; then, after extolling the colored leaves and apples part of autumn, she drew the shawl over her head and shoulders and proceeded to walk around the room, huddled and pretending to shiver as she sang about the cold and rain of autumn. It was priceless. I really think she will enjoy taking ‘musical drama’ classes later this month; I can just see her in a musical.
 
After Devon went to bed, we read some autumn poems, then talked until about ten, when we old folks headed home. A really wonderful day in all, thanks to P and J, especially P, who plans these things and has just the right touch in carrying them out. I am really blessed to have such a wonderful family! 
Posted by Beviant in 15:28:42 | Permalink | Comments (4)

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

American Fears

I have been cruising YouTube to look for speeches by U.S. presidential campaigns candidates, and am amazed to see how many people equate the words ‘European’ and ‘Washington’ with negative ideas. In Mitt Romney’s speaches, he says basically nothing about his record, just uses those two words to give what he obviously hopes will be bad vibes to those watching, and lo and behold, they respond just as he hoped they would. They are so brainwashed about America’s being the best system in the world that they don’t even investigate what the systems are like in European countries. In fact, some of Romney’s supporters even post about how expensive it is in places like Sweden to buy jeans and BMWs, in answer to one poster who was quoting things like statistics on how much much better things like clean air policies, life expectancy and health care costs are in Sweden, as if things like clothes and cars are all that matters in deciding whether or not a country or system is ‘great’.


It depresses me to see the people who type “Mitt’s the man!” and “Mitt for 08″ under his speech as commentary. Have they not listened to Hilary and Barack? Are they so much against anything remotely liberal that all they think that a candidate’s being tough on illegal immigration is enough reason to elect him or her?Oh, and whether or not someone (i.e. Romney) is for or against gun ownership, because, as one poster says, they don’t want someone who’ll stop them from being able to go to the woods and shoot? These attitudes  are going to either destroy the U.S. or bring about another emperor-type president, like Bush, and further ruin both American reputation in the world and whatever the U.S. does in the world. 

There are probably enough people in the U.S. simply who want to end the war and get rid of Bush to be able to elect an Obama or a Clinton, but you wait: the Republicans will do something to jigger the votes, as they did last time. It all makes me so very mad….
Posted by Beviant in 18:10:19 | Permalink | Comments (2)

Wednesday, September 5, 2007

Reflections on Devon’s Starting Kindergarten

Things are better now, for Devon, than they were when I was going to kindergarten. I was a pre-Boomer, born in 1941, and attending kindergarten before the great horde of kids who would be born starting in 1946. Kindergarten wasn’t available at schools, so my mother sent  me to a private one down the street from my grandmother’s house in Vancouver, in Kitsilano, where my mother and I were living while she gave birth to my sister Barbara. My mother just assumed that since the kindergarten was nearby, it was reliable, never dreaming that it was run by a women who, a few years later, would be literally taken away to a mental hospital in mid-day after she fell apart in front of all the kids. 


She should never have been running a kindergarten, given her temperament. We drove her crazy. Not deliberately: there were just too many of us, and she had no scheduled activities, nothing to teach us like songs or games. Taking us into her home, probably out of a need for money, she spent all her time trying to keep us from fighting, breaking things or crying since she had no schedule, no activities, no proper method or manner. When you said no to her, or failed to obey immediately, she threw you against a wall and left you there to sob and consider why you had been punished. Once she banged my head against a wall because I hadn’t obeyed her fast enough. And yet I wasn’t a naughty child. I just asked too many questions. And I probably didn’t hop to obey her when she ordered me around. Once she put me in a closet for what seemed like hours.
I told my mother what happened at the ’school’, but she thought I was making it up stories. I also told her that I didn’t want to go there, but she ignored me. Parents were like that back then. They didn’t trust kids’ words on anything. And just assumed that adults were right most of the time. They themselves had been to schools where teachers administered the strap frequently and publicly. They believed in authority figures and thought they were always right or else they wouldn’t be where  they were, even after having experienced a war where ruthless, elected dictators like Hitler  had been finally overthrown after much bloodshed and sorrow.

Besides, she had a new baby to care for and needed me to be out from under her feet.  Five years later, while she was in Vancouver giving birth to my last sister, Linda, she sent my little sister there. Barbie had the same experiences I had had. It was only when the woman in charge was carted off during the day, leaving the kindergarten kids standing there amazed, that my mother learned that we had been right; the woman had not been fit to run a kindergarten. I remember feeling very vindicated at the time. But my mother said nothing to me to suggest that she was sorry for doubting my word. Parents didn’t apologize for anything in those days.  To do so would have been to admit that you were human, instead of infallible, and parents had to appear infallible.

Luckily for Devon, a great deal has changed since then. Parents and teachers are not thought to be infallible, for one thing. Ever since the 60s, people have been questioning authority figures, which is a good thing, on the whole. Now, perhaps, parents are too quick to believe that their kids are being picked on when in fact they (the kids) are just geting duly disciplined in areas where they really need it. Kids today will not only never get strapped, but if a teacher were to touch them they (the teachers) would probably be charged with assault. And rightly so, I guess.

And yet—-that bad experience of kindergarten didn’t deter me from being in love with learning. I went eagerly to Grade One, when I was almost 7 (this is the curse of being born in December—you have to wait a year longer to get into school), and never looked back.  Which goes to show that children who are fairly bright will probably survive even negative educational experiences and still do well. There were many other teachers in my education who were not good, too, like the music teacher who threw pieces of chalk at you if you didn’t look at her when she was pointing out the notes to sing on the blackboard, but that’s another story.) On the whole, if your family life is encouraging, you’ll probably do okay at school even if your teacher isn’t very good. Which doesn’t mean, of course, that it doesn’t matter. How much better, then, would kids do if they all had great teachers?


Posted by Beviant in 17:57:56 | Permalink | Comments (2)

“For My Daughter” by David Ignatow


For My Daughter

When I die choose a star
and name it after me
that you may know
I have not abandoned
or forgotten you.
You were such a star to me,
following you through birth
and childhood, my hand
in your hand.

When I die
choose a star and name it
after me so that I may shine
down on you, until you join
me in darkness and silence
together. 
Posted by Beviant in 17:44:34 | Permalink | Comments (2)

“Candles”

                            ”Candles” 

by Carl Dennis, from New and Selected Poems 1974-2004. © Penguin Books, 2007. 

If on your grandmother’s birthday you burn a candle
To honor her memory, you might think of burning an extra
To honor the memory of someone who never met her,
A man who may have come to the town she lived in
Looking for work and never found it.
Picture him taking a stroll one morning,
After a month of grief with the want ads,
To refresh himself in the park before moving on.
Suppose he notices on the gravel path the shards
Of a green glass bottle that your grandmother,
Then still a girl, will be destined to step on
When she wanders barefoot away from her school picnic
If he doesn’t stoop down and scoop the mess up
With the want-ad section and carry it to a trash can.
For you to burn a candle for him
You needn’t suppose the cut would be a deep one,
Just deep enough to keep her at home
The night of the hay ride when she meets Helen,
Who is soon to become her dearest friend,
Whose brother George, thirty years later,
Helps your grandfather with a loan so his shoe store
Doesn’t go under in the Great Depression
And his son, your father, is able to stay in school
Where his love of learning is fanned into flames,
A love he labors, later, to kindle in you.
How grateful you are for your father’s efforts
Is shown by the candles you’ve burned for him.
But today, for a change, why not a candle
For the man whose name is unknown to you?
Take a moment to wonder whether he died at home
With friends and family or alone on the road,
On the look-out for no one to sit at his bedside
And hold his hand, the very hand
It’s time for you to imagine holding.
Posted by Beviant in 17:35:29 | Permalink | Comments (2)