Die a Hero: Opinionated Movie Comment #4

The Dark Knight (2008), Christopher Bale, Heath Ledger, Morgan Freeman, Gary Oldman, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Aaron Eckhart; dir. Christopher Nolan
Batman Begins was a damned fine origin story, with killer set design, great costumery, and a solid story. (Oh yeah, and a damned fine cast, too.) The Dark Knight has all of that, sure, but this second venture is a layered exploration of order and chaos, morality and madness. Ledger’s Joker is a tour de force, a nonstop maelstrom of comic fury and psychotic punch. And the writers captured the Batman/Joker dichotomy perfectly. The added thread that further twists that web is the addition of Harvey Dent. Ah, Harvey—another facet of madness, complete with scarred coin, though with a fine alteration to the original minting. And Harvey the uncaped crusader has the central line in the film: “You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” One might offer that up as a theme, but it’s just not that simple—layered; I said layered. Batman—or, properly, the Batman—feels more real than other superheroes. Why? Simply put, his lack of powers. Batman is a nearly imdomitable warrior, true, but he is all too human; in the movie and in the comic, scenes are often given to surgical repairs, whether performed by the faithful Alfred or by Bruce himself. His tools are technology and his own body, not flight or X-ray vision or silicon webs. But this movie is not about Batman or the Joker—it’s about humanity. It’s about that moment where we have to look our darkest selves in the eye and make a choice: fight or give in. Where the film gets it right—no, where it exceeds expectations—is in its bleakness. The characters talk of hope, but Gotham has none. I mean, sure, the symbolism is operating—Batman offers hope, Dent offers hope, of kinds, but many of the detectives in Gordon’s Major Crimes Unit, the special unit meant to bring order to the city, are dirty; the mob runs most of the city; and Batman’s presence, his beginning, seems to have made Gotham more dangerous, not less so. But Bruce Wayne sees something in Harvey Dent, a hope for himself and for his city, and this movie is Harvey’s story almost as much as it is the Joker’s or the Dark Knight’s. The questions of morality, or of survival perhaps, that fill this story are questions born of the age. The nihilism of this Joker, the desolation of amorality, the atmosphere of fear that inhibits Gotham, the readiness to turn on what was once loved or at least admired, even the technological tool that enables Batman to find the Joker (Echelon?)—these are of our time; they speak to the world we face now. It’s bleak out there, and courage comes in many forms; justice comes from many directions. There is one thing we can agree on—we need heroes, and we need those who operate under cover of the dark. And sometimes, sometimes, those two are one and the same. (Promotional image (c) 2008 Warner Brothers)

Thank You For Smoking: Opinionated Movie Comment #3

Thank You For Smoking, Aaron Eckhart, William H. Macy, Cameron Bright, Katie Holmes, JK Simmons; dir. Jason Reitman
Yes, the director here is the son of Ivan Reitman (Ghostbusters, Meatballs), and Reitman the Younger appears to be aiming for satire rather than slapstick. The movie is based on a novel by Christopher Buckley, son of conservative (or libertarian) icon William F. Buckley, Jr., so there’s an interesting thing here about the Sons of American Icons, about Hollywood meets Deep Thought. America is living in spin, and our hero (or antihero) is the sultan of spin, the lord of lobbyists. Nick Naylor is the voice of America’s tobacco industry, and he’s damned good at his job. The opening scene lays it all out—he appears on the Joan Lunden show as an apologist for the tobacco industry; he immediately charms a boy dying of lung cancer (caused, of course, by smoking) and he makes a promise that he really doesn’t have the power to keep. He justifies his job, to his son, with an explanation based on flexible ethics; and here’s where the film fails: Is it satire of the industry of spin, of Big Tobacco, or is it a story of a man coming to grips with his relationship with his estranged son? There are numerous entertaining scenes and memorable moments (which I won’t share here for fear of ruining anyone’s enjoyment of the film), and Aaron Eckhart oozes charm, breathing life into this character, drawing us into his world just as he repulses us. So like the film, my review is disjointed: Watch it, but don’t expect a fully functioning, unified piece of work.

To Hunt Cool or Not to Hunt Cool...: Book Critic at Play #3

So Yesterday, by Scott Westerfeld
In 2001, social commentator Douglas Rushkoff did a show called Merchants of Cool for Frontline. This program takes an in-depth look at marketing to teens, specifically a phenomenon called cool hunting. It’s a great and disturbing program. A few years later—and I don’t know if there’s a direct connection—Scott Westerfeld, author of the wondrous (and disturbing in its own right) Uglies Trilogy, wrote this book: So Yesterday. This novel takes on the very same topics, and wraps them in a tale of… industrial espionage? delusional youth? It’s hard to tell till the last few pages, and that’s a good deal of the charm. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that Westerfeld is a master of packing and youthful characterization. Hunter, our narrator, is a 17-year-old Cool Hunter, a focus-group veteran, a Trendsetter but not an Innovator. (Caps are Westerfeld's, not mine.) He meets Jen, a cooler teen, on the street, takes a picture of her shoelaces to send to his boss, and then takes her along to a focus group on a new ad for "the client" (a thinly disguised Nike). Jen makes a brilliant observation that Hunter's boss, Mandy, does not pass along to the client because it would mean they'd have to reshoot the million-dollar ad. (I won't ruin it, but it's a demographic comment, a pithy observation about representation.) Everyone is impressed with Jen's brilliance—and her cool. Jen is an Innovator, and it is near this point in the novel that Hunter explains the layers and levels of consumers, observers, and doers. Clever, very clever. In any case, Mandy later calls Hunter and asks him and Jen to meet her the next morning. The problem is, she never shows. It seems that Mandy has disappeared. Part teen adventure, part romance, part social satire, and all neatly presented by an appealingly self-deprecating and self-doubting narrator, So Yesterday is a fun, finely packaged exploration of consumerism and cool hunting. And this media educator has been wondering how in the world he might use it in class (given that the media course doesn’t feature novels).