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One Party To Rule Them All (The Galadriel Syndrome)

I had wanted to write this around the Inauguration, but time and travel intervened. Still, the State of the Union speech makes a good time for a similar point.

There's a moment in the first Lord of the Rings film - and I get to wear my "Honorary Geek" badge with pride here - where Galadriel explains to Frodo why she shouldn't have the Ring of Power he is transporting to Mordor. She explains how having so much power would convince her that what she was doing right and good, even as she turned herself into an omnipotent godlike presence, willing and able to destroy non-believers. Cate Blanchett does marvelous things with the speech, and the visual effects are striking, but I loved the scene for reminding us that the real danger of absolute power is not what you do with it so much as the fact that you feel that you are entitled to do it.

 

I was struck at the Inauguration, and with the politics that have unfolded in recent weeks, by the fact that, in many ways, we are a nation with one operating, successful political party. While Republicans did manage (weakly) to continue with a majority in the House, and have control of in a umber of states, this past election was a rejection of Republicans and conservatism by a new working majority that prefers Democrats. And the implications of consolidating that power - demographically, it appears to be harder and harder to imagine a route to national GOP victory - force some consideration of what it means to effectively have one party rule.

Take on banal example - the Inauguration Ball, which the Obama team consolidated into one monstrous, 40,000 person event in the DC Convention Center. Where there had previously been as many as 17 elitist, small events scattered across hotel ballrooms, now we have the equivalent of a keg party in your neighbor's field. That's liberals for ya, and my own sense of gay good taste cringes, but that's really beside the point of the optics , when the President and Mrs. Obama made three very theatrical, identical, and largely meaningless "first dances" on stages at different ends of the enormous venue. The effet was less elegant than carefully choreographed, meant to establish distance, not intimacy. And that distance and control, really, is a good indication of having the kind of power that cannot be questioned, and the impression of deserving it.

Republicans have a chance, after Obama's State of the Union, to present there own list of proposals for governance. There's lots of talk that Marco Rubio (!) will offer a thoughtful challenge to the President and a full throated defense of conservative ideas... but really, at this late date, what are they? On health care, the right has offered a "not that" argument against the Affordable Care Act and little more; they oppose any discussion of taxes that involves raising revenue; they support "spending cuts" but offer no specifics on where to cut, and on and on. On issue after issue, year after year, Repub;icans have offered less and less in terms of concrete proposals and almost no fresh ideas that get ahead of any politicla discussion. Gun controls? nope. Immigration? Not much beyond fences and arresting people.

Lately, I find myself watching panel discussions and Congressional hearings on C-Span - the other half of my "Honorary Geek" badge - and I'm struck, repeatedly, by the lack of substantive ideas, questions, or proposals coming from anyone on the right. Almost always, if the President proposed it, or the left supports it, it's simply bad. And the alternative is... doing nothing, or rolling back what's already been done (and is often already working). This is not any kind of approach to serious policy. And it's the deeper reason why, by and large, most Republicans and movement conservatives aren't being taken seriously. Including, for instance, Marco Rubio, whose jump to the front of the National GOP line has everything to do with the image he projects (of bright eyed, right wing Hispanic) and not the ideas he proposes. Rubio vaguely proposes to "do something" on immigration, but it's really too little to impress the most active Latin Americans on this issue, and his bravest notions won't really fly on the right. Moreover, he projects just the kind of youthful inexperience and naivete that defines right wing stardom these days - the more he has to chase approval on the far right, the less attractive he'll be to the mainstream. Or he'll defy the right, and marginalize himself to the fringes.

All of which is fascinating, I suppose... but as a leftie, I'm more concerned about being in the party that won. It's a far cry from my youth in the depths of the "Reagan Revolution," when our extinction seemed more imminent and our ideas seemed hopelessly out of fashion. But, well, at least we had ideas. And we kept having ideas, and rethinking and reshaping those ideas, until we adapted into the party of today. I don't love everything we've become, but that ability to adapt and rethink is the only way conservatives can survive. And right now, I think their ability to do any of that is dubious, at best. 

But what has "being a Democrat" become? In one sense I think "winning" has become the goal that defines us most, but not best; we've figured out how to win national elections, we've built a new coalition of engaged voters across a variety of interest groups, a "majority of minorities" who see that we do best when all of us have a chance. As long as we don't rock the boat, stay silent about poverty in any substantive way, and soft pedal areas of disagreement. The overt and covert silencing of dissent, the weakening of our ability to criticize our own, the papering over of internal tensions... it's these growing failures that signal the rot that starts from within. We can win another ropund of the Presidency (and her name is Hillary), we can hold the Senate, we can, even, retake the House, no matter how negatively its dismissed; but those victories, a return to one party dominance better than 2008, will mean little if all we do with them is perpetuate a new status quo. We need dissent, we need the tension of competing ideas, we need better answers than the ones our leaders just keep coming back to on their own.

If Republicans can't pull it together - and more than ever, I'm convinced they can't - than the question becomes whether One Party Can, in fact, Rule Us All. My own guess is, it can't, that we will, somehow, devolve back into two parties (at least), even if those two are drawn from a deep split within the left itself. Yes, the health of our democracy almost requires it, but it's more than that. At some point, we have to learn the lesson of, well, Galadriel: however well intentioned, it is never good to concentrate too much power into one hand. I don't know if this new feeling of Democrat ascendancy can handle knowing that, or handle dealing with it. But if we don't... the disaster that follows will, in some sense, be entirely of our own making.

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Friday Favorites: Heroes, Season One

I've been on a serious media binge lately, which is a slightly pretentious way of saying "parked in front of the tube," but I like to think of my watching as vitally imprtant to my (unpaid) work as amedia observer and critic. We're too quick, these days, to dismiss the idea of being, and having, an audience. 

Long topic for another day... but anyway, lots of my viewing has been in the "Sci Fi/ Fantasy" genre, when stretched to include everything from comic book adventures to vampire stories... and Supernatural, which is somehwere in between. Between these and police procedurals (from a renewed interest in Castle to a new fascination with Law & Order UK, plus a new season of Justified) my watching is pretty full. And still, I get bored and need more options.

All of which brought me back to Heroes, one of the more fascinating zags of NBCs recent zig-zag of desperation programming, most of which I blame on the disastrous run of Jeff Zucker as head of programming (and I, too, gleefully await what his disastrous hand will bring to CNN). Heroes sprung from the mind of Tim Kring, a veteran series showrunner, and the astonishing thing was the completeness of his reimagining and rethinking the notions of superheroes and comic books. The disaster, which accompanied this brilliance, was how a show which started so daringly and with such promise, could descend into a near incomprehensible muddle in the (for a series) short space of four years. Television is, yes, littered with such curiosities; but Heroes was, and remains, a real bright spot in glorious failures - no series in recent memory shot so far for the moon, and flamed out just as vividly.

The Season One DVD set of Heroes is a near must for anyone who cares about fantasy/superhero TV - nothing else in recent years comes as close to being so completely satisfying as this show's 22 episode arc called "Volume One." A combination of origins tales, along with a tasty string of mysteries and twisty turns, Heroes builds up a raft of interesting, dynamic characters whose overlapping storylines offer myriad possibilities for interactions (and surprsing insights along the way), and yet still manage to culminate in a sensible resolution while laying the groundwork for an interesting future.

That furture, alas, was pretty much squandered, and in no small part, Heroes was the highest profile victim of the deadly Writer's Strike of 2007, which hit the show in the midst of a crucial second season, and probably did as much as anything to derail the show's forward momentum at a moment when this, the show with some of the most complex writing on TV at the time, needed continuity and clarity most. And all of that, really, is clear in the first season, especially on DVD, where one can see the original cut of the pilot (expansive and probably rightfully cut down with a number of extraneous plot details excised), and a raft of deleted scenes from many episodes.

But savor, if you will, the possibilities: from Peter and Nathan Petrelli, the shy nurse and his ambitious poltical brother, both of whom gradually discover amazing powers, while testing nd strengthening their brotherly bond. Or Hiro Nakamura and his best buddy Ando, who tags along as his friend learns to bend time and space. Or Claire Bennet, the pint sized cheerleader amazed to discover her own indestructability. These five lay the groundwork for a new ideal of heroic action, with the threat of the end of the world merely weeks away. And that's just the beginning of a huge quilt of characters with conflicting motives, dangerous aspirations and secret plans. And through it all, there's Claire's mysterious stepfather, and his shadowy organization, identifying the "Specials" and erasing their memories... but to what end? And what of Sylar, the most dangerous, and possibly the most powerful of all?

The expansive cast is chock full of smart and nearly career making performances, starting most obviously with Hayden Panattiere's turn as Claire, the tough, brave cheerleader whose body can survive just about anything. No one will ever wonder if she can carry a series again. Masi Oka makes Hiro a transcendant presence, ably partnered with James Kyson Lee's understated turn as Ando. Milo Ventimiglia provides the emotional center of the show as pained, tortured Peter Petrelli, while Adrian Pasdar gives layers and layers of complexity to the ambitious Nathan. And Zach Quinto made his career with the devious, devastating Sylar.

The real star here is the show's brilliant and fully thought out premise, the idea of everyday people suddenly turned into superheroes, thrust into unanticipated dangers and demands they never expected to face. Every role, every story, and seemingly every detail is aligned with the show's premise and purpose, and each episode hurtles along on its way to the season's ultimate goal, a dramatic confrontation where every person and every power winds up tested and pushed to the brink. Kring's sense of passion and purpose for this project is admirable, even enviable. And visually, the show repeatedly evokes the comic books and graphic novels it consciously emulates, right down to the Comic Sans font used for its titles. That the show takes the time, money and effort ot get all these details right is a credit to the visionaries who built it, and to NBC, which spent lavishly to make it all work.

In the end, Heroes was a modest hit, but among the geeky fanboys it chased hardest, it became just the culty kind of hit its creators seemed to want most. Like many, I was simply dragged into it by friendly coworkers who shared the box set with me and won me over pretty much at hello (or, more precisely "Ya Ta!" as Hiro says). It's been amusing, over this blizzard, to revisit the familiar ground of Season One, finding new things to discover, and realizing how much I'd forgotten since moving on. Heroes deserves to be remembered, and cherished, and passed along to others like a delicious secret. It may not be for everyone... but TV this good deserves to live on, and shared.   

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The Drone Wars

I don't buy the notion that there's an extensive "controversy" over the use of unmanned drones (or as I like to think of them... robot planes) being used to hunt down and kill identified terrorists, even when the terrorists turn out to be American citicizens. The lack of controversy is not because I think there's nothing to be upset about... but because this is another one of those issues where everyone had an opinion going into it, and not much changed in the past couple of weeks when various "dramatic" revelations seeped out. "Controversy," I think, kind of requires at least some of us to be shocked into changing our minds when new information is revealed.

Along these lines, I think a lot of liberals aren't so much upset about drones as they are, still, not really thrilled about anything the CIA does, ever. Or even with the idea of a CIA. Myself, I tend to think "intelligence" remains an embarrassing business of failing to meet the definition of the term for those who do it, but I've relaxed a lot of my rigidity about what the CIA does (this, you may not understand, goes back to when I was 15 and wrote my first research paper on the CIA's role in assassinating Salvador Allende, and I'm real good at research). Especially since 9/11, I think the work of stopping terrorism is, first and foremost, the task of operations like the CIA, rather than, say, The Army.

As for drones, I am on the (admittedly unpopular, especially on the left) side of generally being okay with it, a position I've taken before, and where I remain comfortable. I don't want more terrorist events in the US, and I think "taking out" those who lead organizations that plot such terror actions is a way to do that. 

I also tend to think that it's tenuous to say that Anwar Al-Awlaki is best described as an "American citizen" while running Al Qaeda recruitment in Yemen; Awalki himself tended to claim Yemeni citizenship, having been born in the US while his parents, from Yemen, were here for University. He grew up mostly in Yemen, attended college in the US on a foreign student visa, and his role as an Imam advising and encouraging others to jihad doesn't seem like the most, erm, patriotic of lifestyles. His father remains a top Yemeni government official. All of which tends to undermine laments that al-Awlaki should be seen as someone like a next door neighbor who just happens to be living overseas. The argument about drone strikes against Americans absent an American legal process seems murky at best given this person as a target.

I'm not thrilled about any government program of targeted killing, and I'm not remotely suggesting that the drone program, its legal justification or its operational practices, doesn't deserve extensive scrutiny and debate. This is not about "shut up and stop complaining." But I do think we should sort out the complaints and keep in mind the practical realities of the world in which we live while doing so. The theoretical legal doctrines of using drones on "American citizens" ought to be questioned, but a world in which the only "citizens" are in the al-Awlaki family thus far is where theory and practice need, probably, to both be taken into account. I don't know if I'd feel the same about a drone policy under George W. Bush. And just today, John Yoo, Bush's legal architect of torture policy, took to the Wall Street Journal to support the Obama drone strategy... but at the same time offering a "you're justifying it wrong" on the legal questions, arguing that simply labeling people as "enemy combatants" trumps questions of citizenship. It seems to me the Obama Administration is less cavalier than that, and that's probably a good, or at least a better, way of thinking about things like this.

Similarly, I don't think the question here is whether drone policy can hinder or derail John Brennan's appointment to head the CIA; Brennan's come across as thoughtful and deliberate in his public testimony, and his experience seems appropriate for the job. And like most post 9/11 policy, Congress isn't especially brave challenging approaches to attack terrorist threats. But more pointedly, I don't think a majority of Americans are anywhere near the hand wringing of the anti-CIA left on drones and targeted killings of suspected terrorists. That may change, but I don't think the events of these couple of weeks, the revelations of memos and uncertain numbers of "civilian" casualties, have changed many minds. 

If you don't like the CIA, if you don't like armed conflict, if you don't like military approaches to international issues... then it seems to me the drone policy is really just a detail in a much larger, more complicated, and in some ways very idealistic, argument. That doesn't make a passionate commitment to anti-violence less worthwhile... but in the context of  a debate that's less about whether to have a drone program but more about how a drone program will operate, that position seems pretty much left out of the whole thing. We may get there, and in some ways, I'd be relieved if we did; we would surely be living in a better, more enlightened world. And maybe I have just given in to being a cynical realist when it comes to accepting a world of guns, drones and random acts of violence. But for now, the Drone Wars seem like a reailty we'll be stuck with for a while, a reality many Americans seem willing to accept. The enormity of changing that reality isn't a reason to stop trying... but it's a lot to take on, and I'm not sure the Pro-peace Left is really equipped, at this point, to effect that kind of change. And isn't that the way the CIA likes it?

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The Ed Show

"Don't speak ill of the dead," my mother said, or words to that effect (maybe "everyone's entitled to a positive view in death'), so perhaps it's no surprise that over the course of today, Ed Koch went from New York's fairly contentious ex-Mayor to a loveable curmudgeon who just loved his old home town.

I don't want to speak ill, but I do think we shouldn't completely leave reality behind. When Rudy Giuliani ran for Mayor in 1989, he very clearly positioned himself as the alternative to the New York That We Just Had... and then he promptly lost to David Dinkins... who had just defeated Koch in his bid for a fourth term in the primaries.

Giuliani turned around and ran nearly the exact same campaign in 1993, defeating Dinkins; and that time, many Democrats - especially the political Clubs in Harlem which produced Dinkins - felt Giuliani's approach was racial code. It was, kind of... but mostly Giuliani was still running against the New York of Ed Koch, with Dinkins playing the Koch stand-in. And again, New Yorkers liked the appeal of that message.

New York City in the eighties was the time of Ed Koch; and though we may tell this story differently now, at the time New York was a tough, gritty town with plenty of problems, and knowing the right people, in and out of government, could smooth out a some of them. That's what Ed Koch gave us, and by 1988, it was not a New York that people necessarily liked.

Koch was in many ways part of the last gasp of a generation of postwar white male politicians who helped build and maintain the urban Democratic political machines of many major cities, especially North and East. Like William Donald Schaeffer in Baltimore, he was a "confirmed bachelor" who seemed to do little more than eat, breathe and sleep political machinations. They, and other men of their age presided over the late seventies and early eighties rot in city governments that tended to end in scandal, often over patronage. And gradually, the cities they led, and the machines they built, moved to let women and minorities (and eventually, Republicans, in some cases) in to the machines, or the machines broke (and perhaps the ultimate ironic proof of the problem is Boston, where for all the liberal broadmindedness, minorities cannot wrest the Mayoralty from the Irish and Italians).

Koch's scandals, by the late eighties were numerous. There was Donald Manes, the Democratic leader of Queens, involved in an enormous kickback and bribery scandal out of the Parking Violations Bureau. Then there was Bess Myerson, the former Miss America, appointed ot Koch's City Arts Commission, who bribed a judge in a personal matter by hiring the woman's daughter to work in a patronage, do-nothing job. Let's not start on OTB. This is the New York of Tom Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities, the New York that coddled and crowned Donald Trump, the New York of the eighties-era banking zillionaires, real life Dynasty types whose crass consumerism crashed in 1987. 

Ed Koch was Manhattan triumphant; he came out of Greenwich Village and made it all the way up the East Side. AIDS? Homelessness? Crime? Don't be a downer. Don't ask questions. Half of what Koch is being credited with - the balancing of New York's books - was both required by the Financial Control Board he didn't control and solved by the tax money that rolled in with the stock and bond boom. The other half, the part where he's credited with bringing New York "back from the brink" didn't even happen under him; to the extent that New York has reduced crime and "cleaned up"... well, that's how we got Giuliani, and what he gave us: a safer, less gritty, less edgy, and arguably less interesting city. And we, us real deep down urban types may pine for that gritty edginess... but we don't really want Ed Koch's New York back, not really. Remember Westway? We just wish you didn't have to trade a sense of safety to get back cheaper rents and a livelier arts scene. And how upper middle class are those aspirations, really?

I met Ed Koch once, at this thing I was working on back when I did phramaceutical marketing. This was in his ex-Mayor phase, where he could be had for a small fee and a nice lunch to speak, where he tende to sell himself as... well, you know, that lovable old curmudgeon who just loved NYC to bits. I got him a little riled by quizzing him on why he would favor ending rent controls and stabilization. But hey... how often does one get the chance to ask? I remember being struck by how tall he was, how he really did come off larger than life in person. And that he was a pretty tough customer.

Like I said, I don't come to decimate Koch... just to keep it real. My adopted hometown, the city I love, the Manhattan that still glitters and gleams... I love the town that produced Ed Koch and appreciate the big personality it takes to be that town's Mayor. Ed Koch, for better and worse, helped make New York what it was and what it is, and I can't imagine one without the other, either. It's a shame to see the Ed Show end, but let's not add to the Disney-fication of New York by pretending he was Uncle Walt. He deserves better than that.

Friday Favorites: The Parent Trap

I keep wanting to continue my weekly hat tip to films I love, but somehow Friday rolls around, and it's late and I'm tired... and well, I have to break the habit.

I know it's totally uncool, but I still have some residual affection for the mess that Lindsay Lohan has become. I still hope (against ever decreasing hope) that she can pull it together, and prove herself, yet again, as the promising talent we once saw. Some people have come back from worse... but not many, and every passing day suggests that this story will not end well. 

The Parent Trap is one of those movies that seems impossible (and unneeded) to remake. When Hayley Mills played identical twins, sisters separated at birth, it was an impressive feat, all the more impressive for such a young actress. Who could match that?

I didn't see Lohan's version until probably a year later, on cable. At first it felt like a lark, but then I found myself paying attention, especially to the details of Lohan's twins. And eventually, I found myself actually making the effort to see her version not just in bits and pieces, but all the way from start to finish. 

Like the original, Lohan plays twins separated as babies by their parents' messy divorce. One is raised in Napa by her wine making father, the other in London by her dress designing mother. The girls "accidentally" meet at summer camp, and gradually realize they are sisters. And then the fun begins.

First the sisters switch places, so that they can meet their missing parent. Here's where Lohan shines, managing the neat trick of both the prim Brit who's dying to know her father, and the boundless openness of the American girl who longs to have her Mom back in her life. Lohan is helped immensely by both Dennis Quaid and Natasha Richardson, and their own sweetly conflicted feelings. 

Eventually, the two are found out, leading to the third act minor conflict where the two have to unite to remove the one obstacle to their parent's reconciliation, a manipulative woman insinuating her way into dad's life.

Director Nancy Meyers apparently picked this project to help her daughters work through their own feelings, after Meyers divorced director Charles Shyer, after years together as writing and directing partners; Lohan's characters are named Annie and Hallie, the names of their daughters, and both girls have small roles in the film. Meyers is a natural for the material, giving it just the right mix of fairy tale perfection touched with real world possibilities. The supporting cast is charming without veering into overly cutesy. Quaid and Richardson are immensely appealing.

But the real find of this project was clearly Lohan, wise beyond her years, creating two surprisingly distinct characters, who nevertheless are identical twins. It's a real feat when you can, with just a look, or the quaver of a voice, realize that one twin is playing the other, without Lohan breaking character or seeming false to either role. It's this film, I'm sure, that made much of Hollywood sit up and take notice. In the world of Disney's tweens, Lohan made most of the others seem instantly irrelevant. Which is why she quickly moved on to a Freaky Friday remake as well.

Of course, we know now what we didn't know then: that Lohan's wisdom beyond her years was hard and painfully won, and the damaged girl who could pretend so well for the cameras couldn't fake it in real life. I get it... she's a mess. But watch The Parent Trap (or even her Freaky Friday), and then tell me again how her life is a joke, even a sad joke. To me... it's nothing short of a tragedy. And one that, sadly, may never be solved. That's not funny, it's a goddamn shame.

Live, And More

I don't really care whether or not Beyonce lip-synched the National Antrhem, so much as I am fascinated by why a fairly modest, unsurprising decision redounded so badly for her. And I think the problem is twofold, and intertwined: a failure to be frank and up front, and a desire to preserve an unrealistic illusion.

Beyonce Knowles is a curious kind of star, at least for me; though she's obviously quite talented, her success has a lot to do with a long term, carefully managed strategy dating back to her childhood. Very little, ever, was left to chance. Destiny's Child (which is, literally, a description of her) went through several iterations before the carefully managed combination of Beyonce, Michelle Williams and Kelly Rowland became the  standard bearers. And even then, this was never a fantasy of Supremes like equality before Diana Ross got pulled forward. The ultimate goal, always, was solo stardom for the lead.

The notion of carefully controlled image, of carefully managed impressions, tends to dog Beyonce constantly. The internet rumors that her pregnancy was faked or stage managed, the presentation of her marriage, the ups and downs of her acting and singing careers... always there's this dissonant sense of what's real and what's "faked", and how to square the public presentation with overheard, "private" impressions.

The first thing that flashed in my head when suggestions of Beyonce's lip-synch surfaced was of Whitney Houston, naturally, and the 1992 Super Bowl, when she, as they said, "performed to a safety track" she'd recorded in advance of her appearance. It was lip synching, and essentially, no one cared. No one cared, I think, for those same couple of reasons: Arista (her label) was pretty up front about what happened, and no one, really, thought Houston couldn't handle live singing. Ever.

Impressions of Beyonce as a live performer tend to be somewhat more precarious. And more pointedly, her public persona is more carefully managed, for better and worse, than Houston's ever quite was.  Houston probably needed more protection, less overexposure. But it'e telling that, even now, neither Beyonce nor her spokespeople have particularly addressed the performance at the Inauguration, even after a week. Even a simple, "yes, she performed to tape" statement would kill a lot of the speculation and surmises that follow from the gossip.

Two things about the performance probably stick: the first is that faking a performance at the Inauguration is not a huge deal, but it's an odd choice, especially when, in the Obama years, Aretha Franklin, James Taylor, and Kelly Clarkson all managed live singing in similar, or identical circumstances (it's worth pointing out, too, that all three of those names are extremely seasoned live performers; and, too, that Franklin's performance wasn't her best... but no one cares). These are the days when, warts and all, the public has come to expect live event singing at particular venues and events. The other point is that Beyonce probably didn't help herself by recording a small, fairly intimate version of the National Anthem that didn't necessarily play well in the expanse of the National Mall. Big events tend to call for a "big" reading of the Anthem; we're full on Americans in our moments of natiuonal patriotism. Beyonce's version was small and quiet in the early going, and it felt small, and kind of tentative. It doesn't mean her performance choices were bad... but I tend to think she's still learning, as a singer, to be the kind of performer her fame suggests she already is - bigger than the room, up there with the legends. Her stardom is huge; her performing abilities are not, always. And again, that tends to be a reflection of her place in her generation, not necessarily a knock on her potential. A lot of these younger stars - whose fame seems outsized, and who have been carefully stage managed - seem overwhelmed when stepping into the shoes of these giant moments.

As I started, I don't care whether she lip synched; and, like RuPaul, I think she probably lip synched it better than most; she made it look so genuine, it was hard to believe the stories, at first. But I think the point is, lip synching wouldn't be a big deal if Beyonce and her people were honest about it, and if they challenged the occasionally absurd expectation that "live" singing should be an expectation or an ideal. But both, really, would be challenging and asking people to let go of their illusions. And that faith in illusions, I think, is still the problem Beyonce Knowles has most. Be fake if you must... but really, you might as well be honest about it. That's how to get to the place where no one cares.

West Of Memphis: These Are, Indeed, Their Stories.

By now, I think those who know me well know how leery I am of jumping on popular bandwagons. I'm a big believer in the lonely voice of dissent, the ones who doubt the wisdom of crowds, those who see no need to support a cause celebre. I can do this even when the easier course is to just join the 99%, while still thinking that the 1% are no heroes. Bitter... party of one.

West of Memphis, then, presents all kinds of muddle. How can one support an injustioce? How can one not support three poor young men railroaded into an unfair, unjust sentence? How can one deny a good cause, even if it has celebrities attached? Well, it's not easy... but let me try: West of Memphis is a documentary act of political theater. What it documents is powerful and even moving. What that document means, and what it shows about our popular culture... may not be its real strength.

The film documents the events that led to the cause of "Free the West Memphis 3", three young men accused, tried and imprisoned for the murders of three young boys back in 1994 in the town of West Memphis, Arkansas. Pulling together work from three other documentaries, made for HBO, and with new footage, the film traces the  initial horror of the original crime, the sensational aspects of the original trials, and the arduous process of hunting down and providing information for the eventual appeals that led to the recent release, under difficult circumstances, of those three convicted, yet demonstrably innocent, killers.

West of Memphis works best in that part of pop culture mindset put in place by CSI and SVU (with side order of Justified) - as people sift through the questionable forensics, retrace the statements of witnesses, and gradually piece together a horrific, and tragic, alternative take of events, the film works as a mystery thriller whose revelations, even when obvious, still feel breathtaking. The unfortunate thing is how these developments play out over many years, reminding out that TV's one hour dramas tend to misstate the real abilities of even the best detective to suss out the real truths. 

The cause of the West Memphis 3 was originally championed by Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh, the couple responsible as well for the astonishing adaptation of Lord of the Rings (and now, the somewhat more endless feeling Hobbit), and of all the celebrity participants, their roles feel the most natural and organic to the proceedings. The case was, and is, clearly, as much an obsession for them as it was for those closest to the convicted men, and their passion for finding the truth, and eventual justice - without inserting themselves too heavily into the process - is admirable, and quiet moving. 

I have no doubt that others, like Henry Rollins and Eddie Vedder, are also genuine in their search for justice. But the celebrity quotient of the documentaries steadily rises over the years until it begins to overwhelm at least some of the good intentions. The concerts, the press conferences, the chumminess through prison vistor glass... all starts to feel a bit too easy, too familiar, too much about "look who's here" and less about the tragic case and all the lives damaged in the wreck. The surreality surely is topped off by the fact that the penultimate major victory of the justice seekers comes out of a (dismissed) nuisance lawsuit against Dixie Chicks lead singer Nathalie Maines.

The ultimate resolution for the West Memphis 3 - freedom at the price of a useless, meaningless guilty plea for each of them - isn't exactly the most uplifting, and the film squarely evades the hard questions of what, really, will happen to all of these sad lives once the cameras are off and the real world moves in. Mystery solved... what else is there left to see?

West of Memphis raises some hard questions about class and crime and the search for justice in the small towns of the south... but generally avoids, as a film, much in the way of illumination beyond familiar tropes and easy stereotypes. It's hard being different, a bad attitude can get you imprisoned, society can be cruel to the developmentally disabled... these are not revelations so much as cliches, absent acknowledgement of other, more complicating social ideas. And the film does little to move beyond the cliches in trying to give context to these tragic turns of events. The result, then, is a documentary which left me, for all the interesting details and cunning detective work, a little nonplussed and emotionally distant. I'm glad they're free, I'm not sure its justice... and I tend to wonder what real life looks like for these folks when the cameras get turned off. And I don't think Johnny Depp can answer that for me. Or you. 

... Including And, And The

I'm less interested in Lance Armstrong "coming clean" about his doping habits than I am about the sense that it was appropriate, or necessary, for him to take his confessional to Oprah, and why Oprah seems to think of herself as national obsolver of celebrity sin. Armstrong's behavior, and his lying about it, strikes me as fairly clear well before he admitted it on television; and Oprah showed, yet again, why this role of confessor is hardly her strongest suit. She got few if any specifics about his doping practices, rarely challenged his (debatable) accounting of past events, and was hardly probing nor suggested the kind of familiarity with cycling or the medical issues around doping to quiz him in any thoughtful way.

That's hardly new; along with the casual assumption of her role as celebrity confessor comes a docile media rarely willing to hold Oprah up to her own past, challenge any aspect of her (even still, however limited) popularity, apparently awed, still, by her (even somewhat reduced) wealth and clout. Oprah's strength in daytime talk television was never particularly related to her strengths as an interviewer (I'll maintain Donahue was way better, forever), but more her ability to empathize and speak for a segment (a surprisingly large segment, in retrospect) of the audience who shared her sense of struggle over personal issues and sense of empowerment from within. OWN has lately, with some desperation, been programmed with significant amounts of old "Oprah Show" broadcasts, and they are, often as not, fairly illuminating just in terms of the host's own transition from charming neophyte to polished celebrity sob sister. The sobbing didn't change... but she did.

Armstrong's fall was, in its way, mostly inevitable; our society lauds athletes in weird ways, and leaves them few options as their athletic prowess fades. It doesn't diminish the talents of those who can run faster, kick harder, jump higher to point out that those physical skills are temporary, at best, and no proof of overall personal greatness. You don't have to be a good person to be a great athlete, and too often we grant too much of the former and, in a sense, take the latter too much for granted. It's why, after so many years of watching, I find Olympic athletes, especially the stars, more sympathetic than laudable. Outside of those grand arenas, out in the real world, I'm not sure those unicorns really have a place in the world.

"Doping" is a curious scandal, one that I'm not prepared, as some are, to call a hanging offense. How much of Lance Armstrong's success was the extra kick of steroids and EPO and blood replacement will be hard, if ever, to sort out, and in the end, hardly matters. He shouldn't have done it. But we can't, I think, confidently claim to know what would have happened if he never had. Perhaps the really sad story is that, without drugs, Lance Armstrong could have achieved many remarkable things, and those things, the true things, are the ones we'll never know.

Instead, we are left with Lance Armstrong, the man who lied and lied and lied again, who lied when it would have been easier to tell the truth, and who, most likely, hardly knows enough to know how to tell the truth, fully, at this late date. It's okay, though, because Oprah says so. I mean, it is... right?

(The title of this post comes from Mary McCarthy's memorable line about Lillian Hellman during their decades long feud, mostly about Hellman's "memoirs" that put herself central to the major developments of major events. "Every word she says is a lie," McCarthy said. "including 'and' and 'the'.")

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Les Miserables: There's A Grief That Can't Be Spoken

Of all the "big eighties" musicals (Phantom, Cats, Dreamgirls, etc), I've long suspected that Les Miserables is the best known and least understood of the bunch. More than the others - only Phantom really comes close - Les Miz isn't really so much a traditional musical comedy as much as it is light opera, a style very popular early on in American musical theater, but that eventually got subsumed into the opera houses of most of America (along with Gilbert and Sullivan and Porgy and Bess). Light operas and operettas were the sort of thing Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald did for MGM, where there was a lot of emphatic singing and usually little spoken dialogue, but it didn't quite qualify as "serious" opera because they were more recent, and tended towards more popular melodies.

Few people get that Les Miserables, in French, was originally more of a song cycle with some staging, before Cameron Mackintosh swept the whole thing up, translated it into English and gave it an elaborate staging in London. Even then, the initial reaction to it as a piece of theater was as more of an event, not easily categorized as traditional, straight musical theater. As it made its way to Broadway, Les Miz became treated more conventionally, even though, as a show, it actually has next to no spoken dialogue, is mostly sung-through, and relies heavily on recitative as well as traditional "numbers," which often function, in the show, more as solo arias, or duets and trios, amongst main characters. It's a short hop, really, from Les Miz to La Boheme, shorter than the hop to, say, a Phantom. The musical themes assemble and reassemble in the different numbers, and the show's first act closer, "One Day More," gradually blends the different threads preceding it into a stunning thematic whole.

Thus, in some ways, it's unfair to come to Les Miz expecting the familiar contours of the form that's been identified, since World War 2, as the American musical comedy. Les Miz is more thematically dense, more musically demanding, even if it does not, fully, fit the form of conventional opera. More than any show in recent memory, it is a singer's show - it requires, first, singers who can act more than actors who can sing (never mind dancers; the show is almost entirely free of traditional choreography). Arguably, Les Miserables has attained its cult status, and its rabid fan base by being staged as a musical, while playing to its operatic pretensions.

And so Les Miz arrives on film, proving that it still has worlds to conquer, its operatic pretensions in place, its place in pop culture secure. Tom Hooper's adaptation is all the junkies could expect - big, bold, brash and full of soaring musical moments. However well made, it cannot entirely mask the show's book flaws, and while visually magnificent, it can often feel somewhat less than the sum of its parts. And as always, the show rises and falls, most, on the strengths and weaknesses of its singers.

Many have argued that the film's weakest link is Russell Crowe as Javert, obviously the most actorly of the film's lead singers. Crowe has worked hard, and he does have singing experience (a band with him and his brothers is big in Australia), but his limited range is apparent, and at times he does struggle. But I think Crowe is being sold short for what he brings as an actor (and then too, the part of Javert is easy to treat harshly). At his best - his version of Stars, or Javert's eventual death scene - Crowe wisely undersings and retains the humanity of his character where others would go for bombast, or reach for the rafters. Crowe knows film well enough to understand its intimacy, and he connects with the camera in ways that others don't do quite as well. It's an idiosyncratic, star turn performance that works more than it doesn't.

On the other hand, there's Hugh Jackman, muscling his way through Jean Valjean with his usual scene chewing, always "on" qualities, who seems genuinely miscast. Valjean is the show's most brutal part, a screamingly high tenor role where the singer has to hit the highest notes with a full on belt. It's a singing skill that really encompasses a handful of men (there have been, I think, maybe 8-10 Valjeans  on Broadway in the life of the show)... and Jackman just isn't one of them. It's painful, really, to see the vocal strain as he tries to put over crucial numbers, none more so than the cruelly high "Bring Him Home." Lord knows, Jackman's qualities of pure showmanship can overcome most obstacles... but a note out of reach doesn't magically get reachable. And his acting can only take that so far.

The film starts with Valjean being paroled after 19 years in hard labor for stealing a loaf of bread during the French Revolution. Unfortuately, his parole makes him (shades of today) a virtual persona non grata in civilized society, and so he faces an agonizing (those notes!) dilemma of turning to crime or hiding in a new identitity. Assuming a fake name and a false identity, Valjean becomes a town mayor and factory owner, where a young woman named Fantine loses her job when the other women turn on her because of the foreman's obvious preference for her good looks. This leads Fantine on her own downward spiral, which she describes in her number "I Dreamed A Dream."

Anne Hathaway's appearance, 20 minutes in (she's gone by about 20 minutes later) is the film's down payment on greatness, and Hathaway shines so bright the effect is nearly mesmerizing. Gaunt and grim, she slogs her way through Fantine's travails, and though she's not the vocally strongest Fantine (Patti Lupone, for Christ's sake, was the original), Hathaway has that quality I've only seen in Marion Cotillard on film, of truly being able to act a song so thoroughly, all other doubts wash away. Bewildered, hurt, scared and desperate... all of this and more plays across her face as she attacks the song, sometimes letting emotion overwhelm her notes, other times, hitting them all the harder and more accurately to let the music do its job. Her performance is the most solid Oscar entrant I've seen all year.

Les Miz is a sprawling show, and Fantine's death leads to the real meat of the show, where Valjean adopts Fantine's daughter, Cosette, from a rapacious couple of innkeepers whose every thought is stealing (the Thernadiers, here played expertly by Helena Bonham Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen). Still running from his jailer Javert, Valejean and Cosette wind up in Paris in 1832 as an eventualy botched student revolutionary protest sweeps up a group of young men, including Marius, Cosette's suitor, and the Thernadier's daughter, Eponine.

This is one of the great legendarily down shows, and virtually all of the show's most memorable numbers are death scene last gasps, interpsersed with dripping declarations of undying love and the occasional call to stand up and fight for freedom. The ideas are big, the music swells, but the lyrics are often surprisingly small, and often trite. Les Miz succeeds best, and affects most, when its not trying too hard, pushing too high, or smacking us with the obvious. But even its most shameless moments can pack a surprising punch.

After Hathaway, Jackman and Crowe, the biggest vocal surprises are Eddie Redmayne and Amanda Seyfried as the lovers Marius and Cosette. Redmayne is a foursquare romantic tenor in great voice, and Seyfried has a glorious light soprano that lifts her material way higher than I remember when I saw the show. The Eponine role is a natural stunner and she delivers. Carter and Cohen are aces as the Thernadiers. And the smaller roles - Gavroche, Enjolrais - work as reliably as one should expect.

Tom Hooper's direction is less assured than one might expect, as he seems to struggle with balancing the intimacy of the characters and their solos with the bombast and enormity of the action surrounding them. Les Miz, on stage, is memorably presented on a spinning disc, rotating characters on and off, and Hooper does his best to try and recreate the effect with pull backs and dolly shots to surround the sets, but he also frames his soloists in super tight, unforgiving closeups (Hathaway's lack of Hollywood vanity is remarkable), and the mix of shots doesn't make either choice necessarily effective. Hooper's focus on soloists robs "One Day More" of some its punch, Fantine's death is poorly staged, and Jackman's showiness would look less desperate if Hooper pulled back. None of this can diminish the power of the strongest numbers (Dream, On My Own, Empty Chairs at Empty Tables, Master of the House), but  by the end, the show feels more like a slog than a journey.

Still, for its flaws, indeed perhaps because imperfection keeps this monster human scale rather than enormous and bloated, Les Miserables manages a surprising amount of subtlety, genuine emotion, and soaring power. Indeed, the film's attempts at intimacy solve a number of the second act book problems the show carries with it, which allows the show to feel more like an altogether more inclusive whole. All of which make it, for me, the Oscar contender to beat for Best Picture (I'll do Lincoln shortly), and a glorious adaptation of a misunderstood theatrical event. Someone may try again... but good luck with that. This one will stand pretty tall regardless, for a long time. 

I Wish Every Day Could Be Like Christmas (I Really Do)

The Swedish traditions for the holidays are to leave the tree up well into January, a way to preserve some of the spirit of the season into the new year. And, really, doesn't that alone recommend Swedish culture? Who else gives you Christmas that lasts almost an entire month?

(I got that from a book I gave to a friend to help her grow accustomed to the ways of the American Swede she married. Welcome to the family!)

Today the tinsel came down, the baubles came off, and I carefully repacked the lights. I remember how, as a child, my father explained that one day I would be the Man of the House. Most men can recall some version of that conversation, I find, and for years I dismissed those talks, as we do, or considered them cheerfully anachronistic (also, they usually involve a discussion of lawn mowing). As with many things (including lawn mowing), I can admit in middle age that my father was, in at least some sense, right. Even gay men will, at some point, have to learn what it is to be a man. And that being a man is okay. And as I carefully put away the Christmas lights, I feel the reality of being that man.

Taking down the Christmas tree this year feels, like so many things, somewhat bittersweet. Christmas is definitely over; it's time to move on. Onward and upward... that's my approach to the year so far. The presents I got were fine - a nice new pair of Puma sneaks for work, a couple of lovely cookbooks (with elaborate recipes I'm not sure I can attempt), the DVD collection of a British series featuring psychopathic killers - these are my simple pleasures.

And yet... there's a sadness, a sense of the things that are missing, time passing too fast. I can't explain it all that well, and I worry that this is what life is these days, something not quite good enough, quietly disappointing. That's not the Christmas spirit I was raised on, and I feel a little lost without it. 

All of which is why, more than most years, I feel like putting away Christmas, while necessary, can't really be an improvement. January just looks darker, and all the more grim, with the candles snuffed out, and the twinkling lights stored away in the basement. More than most years... I wish every day could be like Christmas, this year. I really do.