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Just Another Dream

Apparently I decided - again - to take a week off. Mostly I was very harried at work... and kind of depressed. But both have passed, and rather like waking up from a weeklong dream, I am prepared to write as if I never left.  How one day off turns into seven (or more), I don't know - I wish my regulr job had moments like this.

In any case, a few thoughts to come shortly. 

Like Death And Taxes... And The South Will Rise Again

All right, yes, I couldn't have anticipated quite so much going quite so wrong for Mitt Romney in one week - and my point about the Iowa GOP and the New Hampshire GOP actually having problems with each other still stands, more emphatically - but the attempts to manufacture lots of "Mitt might fail" drama after South Carolina's primary seems like a stretch. I don't know if Mitt Romney can win this fall or not (though I'm more convinced not), but two things I do know are that our next President will not be Newt Gingrich. Or Rick Santorum.

The past week is a reminder that Mitt Romney is well set up for losing if only for this: five years, millions of dollars, lots of preparation... and this is as good as he got. And what he's got is, well, nothing. His campaign team apparently couldn't imagine winning New Hampshire and losing South Carolina. He wasn't prepared to talk about Bain in detail, his personal income, or his taxes. And still, he offers little more in the way of a campaign than "I'm not a loser like Barack Obama, and I've run a business. QED, bitches."

If there's a reason this year's election looks so dismal - and most emphatically is not, as Mitt likes to suggest, the election of our lifetimes - it's because both of the major parties most likely candidates seem unable to rise above inept campaign strategies. Mitt's a lousy candidate surrounded by apparent mediocrity; while the President insists on shouldering this unpleasant task for our own good, surrounded by advisors whose best case appears to be "well... who else is there?" One can't really blame for priary voters in the Republican Party for voting as if screaming for a lifeboat. Anything, anything... but not this.

There's lots of pundit theorizing, but the question of why Newt Gingrich won South Carolina is just not that deep: South Carolina reasserted itself, this week, as the acid test of who is sufficiently seen as Southern and right wing enough to satsfy the most extreme elements of the right wing base. This generally means a Southerner; not - as many northerners like to oversimplify it - because the south is racist. It's more than that. The notions of disdain for other types of existence is about a lot more than race; it's also anti-intellectual, anti-urban, anti-cosmopolitan of any sort. Mitt Romney, probably, never stood a chance in South Carolina, simply because he's an educated northeasterner from a wealthy, patrician family in the most traditional sense. And really, a similar rejection of northern working class success explains why Rick Santorum, as well, probably also never stood a chance to consolidate his bona fides as the conservative alternative. Newt, in the end, was the guy from the state next door (remember how that same logic is supposed to invalidate Mitt's win in NH?), who spoke Southern and right wing talk radio as no one else could... or would want to.  South Carolina's right wing base roared up and delivered a message that scares the national party to death: ignore the South at your peril. 

At the same time, the impotence of relying, yet again, on a Southern strategy as embodied by Gingrich is all too clear: Gingrich is a lousy candidate, whose own moral failings don't remotely jibe with Evangelical voters. There's lots of discussion, naturally, about how Gingrich's marital failings werre conveniently overlooked on his way to victory, but I'll double down on my thinking that America is in no mood to reward divorce, especially as practiced by someone like Newt Gingrich.  The mess of Gingrich's personal life was saved, really, by the bitter, opportunistic way Marianne Gingrich obviously inserted herself into the political process, and by John King's oblivious, ham-handed attempt to shoehorn a nonexistent "issue" of it into the next debate. "Don't vote for my philandering ex-husband" makes people uncomfortable, even if they agree with the description. And Gingrich, dressing down King, was substantively right - King didn't even try to concoct a question that made any sense, and was trying, mostly, to embarrass Gingrich. And Gingrich, obviously, is beyond shame. 

Romney, on the other hand, isn't: what was fascinating about his tax and salary debacle was how much he betrayed the realities of class, and of his life in the upper class in particular. It's tacky, when you're rich, to talk about just how much money you have. Romney, clearly, isn't comfortable either explaining, or God forbid, justifying his own lavish wealth. He's oblivious to how his own money compares to others - calling his $350,000 plus in one year's speaking fees "small" is probably, comparatively, correct for him. It's just tuneless (and tasteless) when relating to the public as a whole. His tax rate, too, is probably not the biggest deal; it's interesting to note that Romney more or less made the same admission Warren Buffett did about his effective tax rate. Buffett, of course, gets a pass; he favors tax increases. As the more sardonic among us note, me included, nothing precludes Buffett from sending the government more money than he owes. Which is to say... in the end, is Buffett really so superior to Romney, on taxes? So why is Romney's relatively honest admission such a bad thing?

Like John Kerry before him - and more than a few others as well, before them - Romney can't win unless he learns to step out of his own patrician class understandings and expectations. South Carolina was, in no small measure, a reminder of just how and why the Republican base has moved to reject the "Country Club" core of its past; the democratization of wealth and education has up-ended traditional notions of class in our country... but class divisions don't just go away. They are cultural and societal, constructs, not just economic and political ones. Romney's tone-deaf invocation of Class Envy (both in New Hampshire and even after South Carolina) will ruin him in a general election; what's striking is how Republican voters - the ones who piously claim that "class warfare" is a liberal construct - are also, clearly, turned off by that logic. Romney's experience at Bain Capital, it turns out, isn't just an easy target for liberals looking to paint him as Mr. One Percent; appaently even many ordinary Republicans get that a pampered millionaire scion makes a terrible spokeperson for the virtues of American wealth.

The Republican Establishment, really, can't mask the internal dissensions and divisions that are tearing their party apart; what's apparent after three contests, and Florida will likely make more plain, is that there is no one person who can unify and give voice to the conservative right. The wisest Republicans, still, seem to be the ones who decided to flee this year's contest - Paul Ryan, Chris Christie, John Thune... and on and on. They know, as most of us do, that Republicans can't really beat Barack Obama because they don't really have a coherent alternative policy to sell. But South Carolina is a reminder that attempting to find a coherent policy is both impossible in the current climate and can't happen without alientaing some group or another. Newt Gingrich will, most likely, be the voice of the angry Southern conservative at this year's convention, which might be enough to make him the nominee, but I doubt it. Either way, until the Republicans can figure out how to effectively get beyond their Southern base, they've got nothing. And wouldn't nothing be better represented by Mitt Romney, anyway?

The Thing About Celebrities

I've always felt that I have a New Yorker's approach to celebrities - certainly as long as I've ben a New Yorker, possibly since I was a child of 8 or 9 - which is that celebrities, per se, are not all that important, but trends have to come from somehwere. Which is to say, it's always good to know who the latest important celebrities are... and then try not to care all that much about them or what they do.

Lately, it's become next to impossible to keep up with all the variations and dimensions of "celebrity" out there - I blame reality television - but generally, the rules still hold; it's best not to care too much about who's famous or why, but occasionally, one may want to stay up to speed on what's happening with some of the big names of the day.

Which brings me to a few stories that seem to be comsuming a lot of oxygen just now.

First, Paula Deen has Type 2 Diabetes. I spent a lot of time not knowing who Paula Deen was - this is especially easy if one tries very hard not to watch the Food Network - but then I kept seeing pictures of this odd looking (i mean, the expression of perpetual surprise/fear on her face) woman on the covers of magazines at my local drugstore, including her own, and kept wondering, "who is this Paula Deen?" only to find out that Deen, apparently, is southern, and cooks, and became famous talking about southern cooking on television. Also, apparently, "southern" is another way of saying "use a lot of butter and cream and sugar" and the results are often fried or gooey or both.

A lot of the discussion of Deen's diagnosis - which is actually about three years old - has something to do with "just desserts" or the clucking of food moralists, which mostly is a reminder that food moralists may be right but are also annoying and unlikely to win people over. I admit, I find it curious that Deen is suddenly all too willing to discuss her health and ideas for healthier cooking (via her son's new cooking program), just at the convenient moment when she's signed a lucrative endorsement deal with Novo Nordisk. But mostly, I wonder why Deen matters at all, making food most of us wouldn't eat, let alone make on a regular basis.

Then there's Tim Tebow. Tebow is a quarterback for the Denver Broncos, and apparently grew up home schooled by his Baptist missionary parents. So he's very religious. So religious, apparently, that when he scores a touchdown, he drops to one knee and prays, thanking God for his scoring success. I think this is silly, but you know, there are worse things one could do. 

But my goodness, how this whole thing has gotten people up in arms! There are the people who seem to find it crucial to compalin about Tebow and his prayers - and his mediocre playing, or so I'm told - and then there's the copnservatives who seem determined to turn Tebow into a rightwing icon, and "Tebowing" into the next big trend. 

It would be easy to do the "I'm gay and who cares about sports"... but I'm gay and like sports, not football that much, but I try to keep up. I tend to think the conservative embrace of Tebow is, in its way, deeply cynical; it's one thing for other evangelical types to admire Tebow and his openness, another when cynical DC types embrace Tebow because it plays well to the conservative base. Both, though, are in some ways a good example of not being especially godly; using Tebow as a cudgel to judge the religiosity of others misses the point that the wonder of America is that we can all pray any old way we want to... or not pray at all. At the same time, the Tebow haters tend to give their game away by making Tebow into some sort of reliigious zealot, a reminder that there is, among the less religious, a discomfort with religious expression because it is, in fact, so reverent, and thus so hard to assail. Tebow's praying should, really, just be a colorful side note to a moderately successful career. Over time, it may well be just that.

In these uncertain, politically enervating times, the escapism of celebrity gossip is easy and inviting. I picked up the Star Magazine to find out more about the Kardashians, spent and hour or more discussing who wore what at the Golden Globes; I don't claim to be above the celebrity news. the thing about celebrity culture is that it isn't, and shouldn't be our only definition of culture. It's sad to see how much of what passes for "news" these days is warmed up, or leftover, or day old celebrity gossip stretched into filler. Paula Deen is now a "health" segment. Tebow leads the sports pages and political discussions, when he is less than crucial in either space. Kardashians, the saga of Donald Trump, Stephen Colbert and some comedic comment on the cmapaigns... it all goes on and on, and it's amusing, at first, how much we have a thing about celebrities. But not for long.

The Best Of What We Saw, 2011

Finally.

I had some fun with this two years ago, just compiling various movies and TV that impressed me over the past year, and realizing that I didn't have to make it "best movies" or "best TV shows" or anything else... no rules! Whee!

So, herewith, a compendium of 2011. Not the best year to write home about... but not the worst, either.

1. The Closer (TBS, all seasons) - The Police Procedural genre is pretty much played out these days, killed (whamp-wah) by Law and Order, where SVU limps along begging to be killed. (Remember when Mariska Hargitay was a tough talking butch girl with a boy cut? Who's that glamour gal who replaced her?) Or consider CSI, which I find all but unwatchable, except Miami, where "train wreck" doesn't begin to describe the self parody of David Caruso. Or all of the tongue in cheek variations of the procedural on USA. All of which is why I initially dismissed Kyra Sedgwick leading an LA Homicide division of major crimes. But Sedgwick, as it turns out, is still the real thing: a remarkable actress with one of the great parts for a woman over 40 on TV just now, making the most of it. And her southern accent is just darlin', too. Add to that some of the better writing on a whodunnit show of late, and the result is eminently watchable, all of the time. Like SVU used to be, without quite so many of the creepy pervs.

2. Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty (at the Metropolitan Museum of Art), and Daphne Guiness (at the Museum at FIT). The big fashion exhibit of the past year was a blockbuster show (literally) of the Met's Costume Institute, a retrospective of recently passed designer Alexander McQueen. I was one of the last to see it, having stalled all summer, and I'm sorry I waited, though not that sorry, since the exhibit was mobbed from beginning to end. After standing in a two hour line, the rooms were all but impossible to navigate, for all the crowds, but the payoff was reveling in the genius of McQueen, in an exhibit that barely scratched the surface of his complex vision. McQueen committed suicide, depressed about losing his mother and apparently uncertain about his future, but Savage Beauty made the case that his prospects were genuinely limitless. But, oh, those crowds!  What was impossible to fathom was why McQueen generated this much audience - summer, tourists, curiosity... but really, it made next to no sense: people with no real interest in fashion, cruising around an admittedly arresting set of displays, barely comprehending the man who could do leather bondage jackets or tartan ballgowns with equal fluidity and grace. Savage beauty, indeed. The real kudos probably go to Anna Wintour, who draped her prominence and Vogue's name across the whole affair, and helped push the Met to finally commit to an expansion of the Costume Institute, including more gallery space. Long overrdue, and all you needed was a mob to prove it. Without the mob, you get graceful, inventive shows like Daphne Guiness at Fashion Institute of Technology, where the clothes had room to be seen (from all angles), and Guiness' own devotion to McQueen made more sense in the context of one woman's fabulous closet. 

3. This Week with Christiane Amanpour (ABC, cancelled). When ABC announced the brave step of hiring Christiane Amanpour for its Sunday weekly news discussion, I was both thrilled and anxious - would Amanpour rise to the challenge of doing a different kind of show or would she, like Fareed Zakaria on CNN, do a dull show of pet causes and inaccessible narrowly tailored topics? The answer was surprisingly a bit of both, and then some. Amanpour expanded the reach of Sunday shows, delving into foreign affairs like no one else on network TV, and assembling unexpected panels of enexpected views (and true to form, put herself in harm's way in places like Egypt and Libya). Moreover, she had the nerve to do a townhall of American Muslims and their detractors, leading to some impressive, intense confrontations. Still, her disdain for the horse race aspects of American politics and the "who's in/out" discussions of the DC elite showed, and she struggled to make these discussions cvompelling. But then... who isn't just now? For whatever reason - and I suspect it was mutual - ABC and Amanpour gave up as the year drew to a close. This past week's return to the ordinary - a lumpy, less interesting than ever George Stephanopolous - was not auspicious, and as they have since losing David Brinkley, ABC can't seem to decide if they want to do better than NBC, or just photocopy them (and frankly, David Gregory's quite unimpressive as well). One of the few bright spots of political coverage in 2011 is gone and now, in a more interesting year, we have even less. Why must the audience be punished?

4. The Good Wife (CBS). It's got it all: a grown woman in the lead role, women who talk to one another about something other than getting or attracting a man, interesting cases, and intelligent dialogue. I'm not even a huge fan of Julianna Margulies and I have to admit... she's got it, right now. And who else has a supporting cast this deep and rich - Christine Baranski, Archie Panjabi, Chris Noth, Josh Chares, Alan Cumming, Mary Beth Peil... I mean, come on. Of Course, it's basically a glossy soap opera with some legal drama thrown in... but hey, I love a glossy soap opera, and I'm not apologizing for it.

4. Archer (Seasons 1 and 2). The best animated series you're probably not watching. Yes, it's demented and sick... and wrong, but nobody's doing it better. It was hard to figure out how they could top Season 1, but from Archer's baby to Cheryl's millions (well, her family, the Tunts) to Pam's history a hard drinking bare knuckle brawler, nothing was entiurely what it seemed, and everything was up for taking up to, and past, the limit (if nothing else, of good taste). Just as a for instance... until Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, I had no idea that "The Honey Pot" had actualy been a serious spy term. Nor, until I tripped over it online, did I realize they were serious about Krav Maga, the new mixed martial arts discipline. And more of it is just around the corner.

5. The Artist, which restored my faith in silents.

6. Higher Ground, which respected my faith.

7. Downton Abbey (PBS). Sure, it's your basic glossy pre-World War 2 British costume drama on steroids - Upstairs, Downstairs at My Brideshead Revisted in my Gosford Park and all that jazz - and sure, it's so top heavy with those usual British names (I swear I just saw a scene where Maggie Smith banters with Diana Rigg!)... but hell, can anyone fight it? Why would you? To its credit, Julian Fellowes - who also wrote Gosford, and is the current go-to guy for storytelling the British landed gentry - is careful to both cater to the fascinations while subtly undercutting the business entirely. Never has titled nobility both seemed so chic, and yet so unnecessary. It's all very well done - and it was a hoot watching it trample Mildred Pierce at the Emmys - but it's all so... typical, really, isn't it? It's what we all think Masterpiece Theater always does... and here they are, doing it. Let's not overdo the idea that somehow, that makes it brilliant. 

8. Burn Notice (season 4). My Chirstmas present from Mom, since she can't bring herself to buy most of the things on my Amazon wishlist. Still. It's enough that she gets me a gift I wouldn't necessarily get myself - as much as I've enjoyed this show, between vampires and other night creatures, there's not much time left for super spies. Which is a shame, because Jeffrey Donovan, Gabrielle Anwar and Bruce Campbell have gelled into a tight, natural ensemble, aided, now, by Coby Bell as yet another burned spy. And that's before talking about Sharon Gless, whose performance has been demanding an Emmy for a while now. I'm not done yet... but so far, it's immensely satisfying. 

9. My Week With Marilyn.

10. The Vampire Diaries (Seasons 2 and 3, The CW)). It wasn't until Spring that I fully appreciated Season 1 of Vampire Diaries on TV, and by then, Season 2 was ending on the CW... so I bought every episode, one at a time, on Amazon (and then I went and got the DVD anyway). By September, the question was whether the show, which had managed to up its own ante in Season 2, could keep on an upward trajectory... and remarkably, so far, it largely has. Balancing a large cast and multiple stories has its challenges, but Kevin Williamson (along with co-creator Julie Plec) has reasserted himself as a master of merging the fear (and violence) of horror with the teen angst of high school dramas. Which is why the fizzling debut of similarly themed The Secret Circle has been such an odd disappointment. Vempire Diaries remains my example of not dismissing genre pieces aimed at youthful audiences - this is better writing, and surprisingly good acting, more than much of series television these days, surely better and more convincing than a genre killer like Twilight.

11. Midnight in Paris. 

12. Bridesmaids. And we'll get a sequel!

13. Supernatural (Season 6, The CW). With a near pitch perfect conclusion to a five season long story arc, Supernatural faced a "what now" question for much of Season 6 (the season when, it seemed, they thought they were cancelled, only to be renewed). As it turned out, there was plenty to explore, much of it, naturally, quite dark. From soulless Sam to Dean's inner demons to Bobby's gruff stoicism, each of the leads had plenty to work with and explore... and then it turned out that Misha Collins' angel Castiel was the real secret weapon of the whole thing. Now the only problem is... what do they do with Season 7? Hopefully... more than they've done thus far.

14. RuPaul's Drag Race (Season 3, Logo). Raja, Raja, Raja! And Yara, Alexis, Manila, Carmen, and Shangela... Halleloo! The bitchiest season yet, more drama, more tears, more catfights and some damn fine drag, from start to finish. Much of it courtesy (as usual) of runner up Manila Luzon, easily one of the most beautiful men doing drag ever (though yes, Carmen Carrera was indeed stunning, and didn't even need clothes). In the end, despite the silly division into two competing camps, talent and graceful artistry shown through, and if Raja seemed a little predestined to win (she's known RuPaul for years, apparently), she did nevertheless earn it (and nearly lost out, lip-synching for her life), with some stunning looks and some inspired performances. But it was just the overall increase  - in talent, in intensity, in sheer size -  of the show into must see television week to week that lifted it wig and shoulders above the rest. As RuPaul, Inc threatens to take over Logo (can anyone else deliver reliable programming to them?... no seriously, can they?), another Drag Race is about to begin... and already looks like...a winnah. Cue Ru's maniacal laughter. 

Saturday Singalong: Why Don't You Like Me (The Best Of What We Heard)

This was not a great year for music (reviving my theory that you either get great stuff to watch... or great stuff to listen to, except for 1978/79, and possibly 1983), especially pop, though if I really loved Hip-Hop and R&B I'd be pretty depressed (seriously... Nicki Minaj? Even Super Bass?). Still, there were bright spots, and by the end of the year, it was possible to resume nearly unbroken listening to a pop station... even if it was "Hits 1" on Sirius XM, which jumps on new music faster than New York radio (or LA, since I now get KIIS via satellite, too). In no particular order, ten (okay, eleven) of the songs that brightened my ears:

Mika, Grace Kelly. One of those artists that you're supposed to appreciate if you're gay and offbeat (so perhaps I'm not offbeat enough. Darn), Mika's all seventies era glam rock and whippet thin Brit Boy emo... which I get, but was never entirely my scene (Bowie, even early Bowie, just strikes me as too much, most of the time). But every so often, I just get into it. Grace Kelly has Mika sliiping in snippets of the Princess' better movie lines, lyrically linking Grace's cool demeanor to an unrequited attempt to get love, with Freddie Mercury worship thrown in for good measure. "Why don't you like me, why don't you like me..." is about as universal as it gets.

Foster the People, Pumped Up Kicks. Loping along to its own midtempo beat, sinking the lyrics into a deep, fuzzed up echo chamber, it's hard ot make out how grim this song actually is - best kind, really, those catchy songs about misery (Run baby run, outrun my bullet), it's I Don't Like Mondays for the distingue set. I'd give it a 66.

The Band Perry, You Lie. Lots of people glommed onto If I Die Young, their first single, and the imagery is indeed arresting, but I like the Band Perry for not just being traditional country but rather reverently old school about it. You Lie (like the man with the slicked back hair who sold me that Ford) is full of down home notions about giving up on a no good, lying son of a gun, sung with considerable brio, so much so you wonder what happened to that waif who talked about dying in her teens. "It's what you do, it's who you are..." sing it, sister.

Keri Hilson, Pretty Girl Rock. It's easy to see this as a self satisfied, cartoonish paean to being one of the hot ones... but I prefer to think of it as an ode to inner self confidence. "Don't hate me cuz I'm beautiful..." I mean we all are, aren't we? My walk, my talk... it's not my fault, so please don't trip. 

Lady Gaga, You and I, Edge Of Glory. So retro that by the end of summer, my teeth ached. Never mind the controversy over "Born this Way" and a bunch of obvious... er homages... to Madonna; the whole album, it seemed, was a retro 80s schlock fest of epic proportions (and I'm not even getting into Judas or Marry the Night). You and I is a power ballad of the old school, specific in its imagery (at a time when so many ballads are so generic), and a reminder that Gaga can outsing much of the American Idol crew (Carrie Underwood, we're looking at you). Edge of Glory, on the other hand, is probably the best Laura Branigan song Branigan never sang. With a sax solo! And the last charting hit for Clarence Clemons! Jeez! 

Fantasia, Even Angels. Pretty much the best "Lip-synch for your life" competition song on Drag Race this year (okay, Meeting in the Ladies Room was even more inspired... but familiar), with Fantasia on hand to judge it. I've been trying to accept Fantasia as a baby diva, and this really does it - beautiful images (Even angels learn to fly), and a sweet, unforced delivery. Still not a big fan of her reality show... but I'll wait to hear more.

Beyonce, Best Thing I Never Had. Even if the album took some critical heat and was less of a giant seller, "4" was proof that Beyonce has learned a few things along the way, notably how to really harness her strengths as a singer, and actually shape a song's lyrics... and if she had to be less than perfect in Dreamgirls to figure all that out, I can live with it. This should have been the first single (but many artists and labels are leery of going slower or downtempo out of the box), full of creamy harmonies, and showcasing Beyonce as a real threat to Mary J. Blige, on every level. As with "Irreplacable", Beyonce is probably best on these tough girl, man up or get out type songs (Single Ladies, also). Now, probably, she could use the surer hand of a single producer... but I'm not sure she's figured that out yet.

Britney Spears, Till The World Ends. Britney continued to show that her foray into techno-dance pop is no lark - her beats are serious and deep, and the productions are first rate. She also started to glide away from the porn-y, overly sexed obviousness of stuff like If You Seek Amy and Three, a welcome development. If the payoffs weren't quite as... large, she does seem to have found a place on the pop charts as a mature, longtime presence. Which isn't a bad place to wind up, really. 

JTX, Love in America. One of a string of songs by up and coming synthesizer based young bands (which, I guess, could be a couple of guys and some keyboards, really), Love in America is all summer pop rolled in a ball, a cross country, cross genre celebration of everything from true love to hot sex (buttons on your Levi's about to come loose... cute). There's a glut of these acts - with Cobra Starship and 3OH3 leading the way - but there might be room for about three or so.

Breathe Carolina, Blackout. Another striking use of techno editing to make a point, the stuttery, stop/start rhythms of the chorus are well done, although lyrically the song's kind of a mess. It's amost making me wish I was back on a dance floor, somewhere.

One Direction, What Makes You Beautiful. Just another boy band with five guys and dreams of super stardom, these five come from Britain via The British X Factor (which seems to have much more relevance there than the one trying to get established here). I think they're the guys who came in second to Susan Boyle, if that helps. Anyway, this piece of ear candy strikes me as cheerful as that plastic pop of the mid sixties we used to get from corporate creations like The Archies and The Monkees, all jangly guitars and go-go dancebeats. If only you saw what I can see... you'd understand why I want you so desperately... good stuff, that.

...But For The Shouting!

It was the oft repeated sentence of last Tuesday and early Wednesday, and I'm not sure people appreciated the significance: Mitt Romney was the first Republican, ever, to win both the Iowa caucus and the New Hampshire primary.

Now, never mind what is says about Romney or his chances... doesn't the fact that Iowa's Republicans and New Hampshire's Republicans have never been able to agree on who would best be President speak volumes to what's wrong with the GOP? ... and then they go and both agree on Mitt Romney?

Much like 2008, the Republican primaries are over, even if no one got the memo yet. Romney's opponents have had two chances to stop him and both essentially failed. Rick Santorum nearly tied him in Iowa, but then only managed to tie Newt Gingrich for 4th in New Hampshire. Ron Paul attracts about a quarter of GOP primary voters. Jon Huntsman and Rick Perry should have given up months ago. Newt Gingrich is a smart man and a terrible candidate. 

And Republicans are stuck with Mitt Romney.

Like McCain, Romney hasn't so much won the race as beaten an entire party's apparatus into submission. Much like John Kerry, Romney attracts about slightly less than half of the voters of his own party, a bad sign for attracting anyone else. And, like Kerry, the thing that is supposed to make Romney ideal for this race - his "private sector" business experience - is much like John Kerry's war record out of Vietnam... it looks best if one doesn't examine it too closely.

Also, not to get too East Coast superior about it... but is Massachisetts really the best place from which to launch a national politica; career? I mean, since John Kennedy... anyone? 

This, then, is 2012, much the way I expected it to be, and which has already proven itself in the first two weeks: this race will be Barack Obama versus a deeply damaged Mitt Romney, and Barack Obama is likely to win reelection. It's all over but for the shouting.

And sure, there will be a lot of shouting... but really, will it matter? Romney's biggest flaw, it strikes me, is that, like many of our Presidential also-rans, just can't seem to put together the necessary mix of self confidence and clear thinking on his opponent needed to win as a challenger over an incumbent. I saw Romney in an extended interview on CNBC the morning after New Hampshire, as well as watching his victory speech the night before... and two things shown through: he's awkward, and his arguments against Obama are depressingly generic.

Romney's argument against Obama appears to be this: he's a "European Socialist" whose destrictive policies have hurt America and he doesn't understand captalism or free markets, stoking the fires of class envy and resentment in ordinary folks. I would point out, as others have... that none of this is precisely accurate. Much of it, and the examples to support the argument, is right wing boilerplate from talk radio and conservative talking heads. As Al Sharpton (of all people!) pointed out Tuesday night, Occupy and other angry voter demonstrations are not about "envy" of wealth... they're about perceptions of economic injustice. And as a number of others have pointed out, you could take apart that whole notion of the good and the bad about "Eurpopean Socialism" for days.

More pointedly, Romney makes these arguments poorly. Still. He stumbles through his examples, mumbles his applause lines, and he looks especially uncomfortable when trying to say bad things about otherwise nice people. It's one reason that Romney's relied, especially heavily, on surrogates. I'm not saying Romney s a nice man - he strikes me, still, as esentially cold - but I think he was trained to be polite, and he has a hard time doing otherwise. I think he'd politely like America to realize that Obama is wrong. And, really, that's kind of cute (pure Country Club Republican, which is, after all, his upbringing). But it's no way to win a rough and tumble election process. Especially if you're a wealthy scion of a politicallly connected family who seems constitutionally incapable of empathizing with the difficulties of others.

Unless Romney gets significantly better, and his argument gets sharper - and frankly, he's had more than 5 years to figure a lot of this out, so far, and this is where it's got him - it's hard to see how his combination of awkward and unpleasant and specifics-free presentation will be enough to beat a sitting President, even one as spectacularly mediocre as the current one. There will be a lot of shouting, a lot of name calling, a lot of back and forth... but I tned to think we know where this is going. And most of us would be happy, I suspect, if it all just happened sooner, rather than later.

That imatience, I think, goes a long way to explaining the other developing trend of this election, a real disdain among voters for the media, especially 24 hour operations on cable and in the blogosphere. If nothing else, it's interesting to wonder where we go if Americans actually lose patience with the cureent cycle of endlessly chewing over some minor comment, replayed endlessly out of context. Already Mitt's "I like to fire people" comment is largely buried and left aside, sure to reappear, but not really crucial to the outcome that's largely foreordained. Can anyone, really, sit through another panel of likeminded talking heads on any of the cable "news" shows? Three hours of it, at least, on CNN, MSNBC and Fox on Tuesday night, the night when it was obvious, 15 minutes after the polls closed, that Mitt Romney had won New Hampshire. After two hours... was there anything, I mean anything, left to discuss?

I honestly thought I'd find this state of politics depressing, but in some sense, it's really very freeing. Who needs to spend the next 2 or 3 months watching Mitt Romney wrap up the GOP race? Now I've got time to catch up on my reading, watch some DVDs and find something else interesting - actually interesting - to write about. It's all over but for the shouting. And that's why they make earplugs.

Movie Morsels: Odds And Ends From The Holiday Season

Melancholia marks the last of a long hangover of reviews I had planned to cycle through before awards season, but here are a few more observations from holiday moviegoing:

Coriolanus is not the first Shakespeare play many would choose to direct, and Lord knows why Ralph Fiennes thought it made a good directorial debut... or for that matter, a great leading role. Morose, self-centered and self-pitying, Coriolanus does not make for an especially sympathetic role in a grim, dismal thing of a play. This is one of Shakespeare's later works, a war tragedy full of regrets and the pointlessness of killing, and Fiennes gives it an update (and slashed a good bit of the play to get it) to fit wartime Bosnia. Point taken, but the film is more of a cudgel than an entertainment. Fiennes, too, is a very internalized actor, and isn't well served by parts full of similar inner turmoil - his work is too inward and closed off. That said, it's a shame that Gerard Butler's sharply honed performance as the main rival to Coriolanus gets lost in the shuffle, and that Vanessa Redgrave, as always these days, delivers her usual fine work. Oversold as a potantial Oscar contender, this film probably fizzles in the art houses. 

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows is a fine followup to the first, though overshadowed by BBC's modern gloss with Benedict Cumberbatch as a latter Day Sherlock. Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law reprise their curious, are they or aren't they relationship as Holmes and Watson, though Law is somehow even less present than the original. Downey inhabits the nervous tics and five moves ahead smarts of Holmes, but he's capable of better, and more. Director Guy Ritchie efficiently dispatches the non-working role of Rachel McAdams and replaces her with Noomi Rapace, but Rapace can't break the boysroom mentality Ritchie favors any better than McAdams did. Better scripted, with a more satisfying finish, Gamer of Shadows suggests that this tentpole can spin out further sequels, even if the underlying sentiments - Holmes as a bewildering lower class pugilist, the creepy mix of gay overtones and omnipresent homophobia - don't really work.

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo could have been a dismal, creepy disaster, but David Fincher really digs in to find the heart of the material, producing a film every bit as satisfying as the first Swedish films were. Rooney Mara is shot for shot every bit as appealing and quirky as Noomi Rapace was as Lisbeth Salander, while Daniel Craig brings steely grace and good looks to Miki Blomkvist. Craig also shows no signs of abandoning his willingness to gratuitously strip, making Fincher's occasionally letchy camera work equally exploitive (and Craig, thankfully, is briefs, not boxers). Fincher does demonstrate the difference a lot of extra money can make - this film is visually richer, more dense, and fluid. While much of the casting is fine (who else could put Julian Sands essentially into a cameo?), Stellan Skarsgaard (the lone Swede in a major role, natch) really shines as Martin Vanger. The minor changes to the storyline don't affect much, and Fincher seems likely to do similarly sure work on the next two, a real sign that Fincher's matured considerably since grim exercises like Se7en. Mara, however, is probably more likely to win her Oscar for The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest. As it should be.

Ryan Gosling made waves through the fall in two films (Drive, The Ides of March), neither of which seemed to live up to their hype. Drive put an arty glosss on a story that looked a whole heck of a lot like a low budget Transporter, and while the supporting players offered some zip, Gosling's grim stoicism and guttural muttering does not a performance make. Gosling is similarly mumbly in Ides, playing a campaign manager gradually disillusioned by the dirty business of politics behind the scenes. Or at least, he should be, since this adapted play has nothing good to say about the process. However appealing Gosling's good looks, he's too enamored of a Brando-like Method of shuffling and mumbling his way through emotional parts, too full of tics and lacking enough resonance with genuine feeling. George Clooney does some nice work as the Obama-like, say anything candidate, but otherwise Ides is a familiar brew of Hollywood's distaste for political showmanship. And that's really just an arty way to say "cynical." 

That's it for a while on the film reviews, methinks (except probably The Iron Lady or some such), now on to recapping the past year, and thinking about Awards season. Oscars here we come!

Melancholia: Like It's The End Of The World

To me, the real definition of "screen presence" or star power is the ability to visually hold the screen. It's not as simple as being good looking, or well known. It's a quality, I think, of "something behind the eyes" - the presence of a mind that conveys feeling, thinking, something to make us both curious and satisfied, all at once.

I'm not explaining it all that well, but whatever it is, Kirsten Dunst is a movie star because she has it. She has had it for a long time, really since she first burst onto the scrren in Interview With The Vampire. Big or small, arty or lightweight (bring it on!), most of Dunst's work is amazing because she's so much more than just an attractive face.

Melancholia opens (as Manohla Dargis, lord help me, describes) with a series of dreamlike shots of Dunst in various moments of the film's story. There's a shot of her sinking into the ground as she tries to run across a golf course, and a shot of her appearing to conduct electricity. And there's the dramatic shot of her in an opulent wedding dress, tangled in strings and branches, trying to escape a forest. All of it centered on Dunst, beautiful, magnetic, mysterious.

And then the world ends.

Director Lars von Trier makes the nervy decision to show his hand up front - the plot of Melancholia, no spoiler, is that a giant planet is headed for the Earth and will crash into it and destroy it. But that, really, is not what Melancholia is about. Melancholia is a musing on depression, a science fiction story about being so depressed it's the end of the world... except if the world were really to end. 

Dunst plays Justine, a young woman who is getting married at the start of Melancholia, whom we first see on her way to the reception with her new husband. The reception is taking place at the large hotel/estate of her sister and brother-in-law, and things, naturally, go disastrously awry. The bride's family is a mess, her boss is on hand to pressure her to work, and Justine is sinking into a deep depression that makes it impossible for her to please all of the people who expect so much from her. It's a long night, with a variety of dramas and revelations... but we wind up with a marriage that couldn't survive the after party, and a woman uncertain of her future.

We next see Justine returning to her sister Calire's a few weeks later, when her depression has worsened, and the world is gripped by the news of Melancholia, the planet headed straght for us. Claire's husband is fascinated by the planet's movements, the real life science experiment happening overhead, less concerned with his family's growing concern, or with supporting Justine at her most desperate hour of need. Claire is left to try and hold everything together - her fragile sister, her difficult marriage, and taking care of her young son. It is, in the end, too much.

As Claire sinks, miraculously, Justine revives; as Melancholia inches closer to its collision (the one we've already seen), Justine sharpens, gains focus, It's Justine who takes charge as Claire gets ever more hopeless and helpless, especially when John, her husband, realizes that we are, in fact, doomed. And it's Justine who faces the final end more alive, more present than ever, whose face may well be the last thing we ever see.

Von Trier is a difficult, eccentric director - and that's being kind - and Melancholia is not without his usual tics and tendencies, particularly to mistreat his beautiful female leads, and to be needlessly heavy handed with his thematic points, especially in his graphic depictions of sex and female sexuality. That said, this may be von Trier's best, most commercially accessible film yet, a sharp piece of carefully controlled sci-fi that harks back to classics like Raymond Carver, where a hypothetical futuristic scenario yields well observed thoughts on the current human condition. As a metaphor for depression, the end of the world caused by slamming into a planet named Melancholia may be obvious... but it's also, in its way, accurate. Von Trier's implication is that something about depression is personal, internal - it turns on, and then, for some reason, turns off. He also suggests, via Justine and Claire's interpersonal dynamic, that depression is catching, and that passing it along may somehow be part of surviving.

As I said at the start, what holds all of this together is Dunst, luminous, fearless, taking enormous risks as an actress that pay off, handsomely, in the end, as Justine regains her inner strength and sense of purpose. As she bathes, naked, in the glow of Melancholia as it approaches, Dunst is every inch the movie goddess, but that is almost beside the point; it's her moments of near catatonia, her desperation as Justine is at her lowest, that really speak volumes to how natural and unforced her work can be.

Dunst is ably supported by a stellar international cast - especially Charlotte Gainsbourg as Claire and Kiefer Sutherland (who knew?) as the feckless John. But there are masterfu turns by John Hurt and Charlotte Rampling as her parents, Stellan Skarsgaard as her boss, and several lovely young men during the wedding scenes (notably Alex Skarsgard as her new spouse). It's likely that von Trier had two films that didn't make sense until he combined them - one a bitter wedding story, the other, this intruiging idea about a planet. Together, they make a genius combination, a way to underline what matters, and what we really have to live for, in every sense.

Handsomely shot, and beautifully scored (as well as stunningly costumed), Melancholia may suffer during awards season from an understandable backlash against von Trier's thoughtless manner of speaking, but it's terribly unfair to such an ambitious, fascinating exercise, graced with such a daring, expressive performance. In a sane world, Dunst would easily face off against Michelle Williams and Meryl Streep. But likely there's no justice to be had, and Dunst will have to simply advance on a brilliant revival of her career in an overlooked gem. If you have better sense than an Academy voter, I'd urge you to give Melancholia a look.

 

Friday Field Trip: Bittersweet, Hot Chocolate, And The Home Fires

My Friday Field Trip Report is about coming home last night after a short (4 day) jaunt to Maine, a new family tradition you might recall us starting last year. Like last year, everything kind of fell into place at the last minute, reuniting the same group for a second go round of food, festivities, and family time. And again, a good, warm time was had by all.

I said last year... families are weird. This year wasn't so much about how different we were, but, for me anyway, how similar. This year we found more time to spend together as cousins - me, my cousin Christine, and cousin (if not exectly blood related) Jamila. It's complicated... but only on paper.

In person, we make quite a team - we managed a half day road trip to Brunswick to help Christine renew her international Driver's License (she's off again to Mozambique next Monday), shop for shoes, and do a quick tour of Old Navy. Christine and I played hosts of What Not To Wear with Jamila, suggesting new outfits - which was fun, but also depressed me, because I can't stand the show's hosts and the way they try to make their makeover recipients feel bad about themselves.

LIke much of this past year, the trip to Maine was ultimately sort of bittersweet, more good than bad, but something of a mixed bag, at least for me. Which is not to say I didn't love the company of family; to a person, it was wonderful to see them and reconnect (and typical of our stays in Maine, Mom and I actually see less of each other there than at home, even staying in adjoining rooms).

The bittersweet was more about places and memories - thinking of my father's side of the family and how estranged we are, for instance. And the increasing sense that so many bad memories I have lately are associated with Boston - from leaving my old jobs, to having to move, to the collapse of one of my close friendships. Driving home, we listened to a local NPR discussion program about problems with the "T" subway system in Boston, which reminded me how frustrating the commute was, for no comprehensible reason. And it's winter. And it's dark. And it's cold. My family isn't weird. But I am.

(There's also the part about the dreadful decision - which was entirely me - to stop and spend a night at a Motel 6 on the way up. Inexpensive to the point of being depressing.)

But in the end, the pluses outweighed the minuses. Mom and I stopped at a little German market that her sister recommended, stocking up on yet more German and Swedish specialty foods, always enjoyable, and we even tried their little cafe, which had delicious foods and an especially magnificent hot chocolate. We also stopped, as always, in Freeport, where we both found some bargains at the outlet stores. And we made it home in plenty of time for me to restart my viewing of The Vampire Diaries, cause I'm a teenage girl - with TV plans - at heart.

The best, and brightest moments, in Maine, were those quiet ones spent close to the fire, talking with family about times past and present, our hopes for the future, our views of the world at hand. My Uncle makes a mean fire, with all the seriousness and dedication required, as he does most things (and, my Aunt reports, he now approaches vacuuming and ironing with this same precision and seriousness, leaving her free to go out and about). That, plus his encyclopedic knowledge and love of jazz makes for some pretty comforting evenings of warm conversation to a relaxed beat. Keep the home fires burning... and maybe some of that bittersweet will get smoked out. Or something. Now it's back home, and soon it's back to work. And, right now... that's okay.

Because Everyone Deserved A Surge

Right up until Friday, I was right there with everyone else, pointing out that only Rick Santorum had managed to miss the Republican primary spotlight; everyone else had their moment as the frontrunner, but not him. It made him easy to dismiss.

Slow and steady.... that's what wins the race everytime.

Iowa really confirmed what most political observers already knew - the Republican field is a mess, Republican voters both hate their choices and are flailing to find someone to get behind, and Mitt Romney is by no means a sure thing.

But who knew we'd still have Rick Santorum?

Before I go much further, I should add I wasn't planning to write much about this. Then I read Erick Erickson's trenchant analysis of the Republican problem:

The reason this Republican primary season is so chaotic is because George W. Bush failed to have a successor. Had President Bush had a Vice President to run for President, Bush would have undoubtedly made different policy decisions, but even aside from that there would have been an ascertainable front runner coming from the Bush administration to win or lose.

Because there was not such a thing and because the GOP likes orderly processes, we had to go back to 2000 and dredge up John McCain.

The Republican field was unable to reboot because we had no logical successor coming out of the White House to either win or lose. We went back to McCain and have had to work our way back through unresolved issues from 2000. And now, when the field should be rebooted, we’re having to deal with Mitt Romney who should have been displaced by an heir in 2008 and instead, because the 2008 season did not reboot the crop of candidates, is now the guy three quarters of the GOP does not want who is about to be the nominee.

Like some of the other candidates, I didn't write about Rick Santorum because there isn't much to say. There's no rational reason Santorum, who was never entirely in step with his state when he was a Senator, should somehow look more plausible as a Presidential candidate (can he even win Pennsylvania?). As always, he's the candidate who appeals most and best to the sliver of the right who think "social issues" matter most: abortion, "family values," antigay extremism of the worst sort. Even if Santorum could ride that appeal to the nomination - something Iowa doesn't prove - even a campaign as inept as the Obama team can marginalize him enough to win.

But I think Erickson - who's been pretty gloom and doom for montghs about the GOP's national prospects - has the larger point that probably matters most, something similar to what I've said all along: Republicans can't fix what ails them until someone manages to fully examine (and repudiate) the failure of the last Bush presidency. There's no rational "either/or" choice between Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum; they don't represent some "sensible" set of differences between two wings of a thoughtful political party. Rather, they are two terrible, extreme examples of how badly Republicans are struggling to offer an alternative to Barack Obama. And, in the end, having failed to pick anyone who can be "not Romney", social conservatives wound up at Santorum. Because everyone deserves a surge. Rick Santorum deserves credit for surging when it really mattered. Beyond that... his success in Iowa means very little.