Atlas Shrugs, and So Do I

Check out my latest at The Partial Observer. Excerpt:

You would think that a novel so popular would have the major Hollywood studios bidding up the asking price for the rights. But it didn't happen with Left Behind. And it didn't happen with Atlas Shrugged. If Big Hollywood thought they could make a profit with either, they would have made either movie. Hollywood must have decided that while both novels were popular for niche audiences, neither had mass appeal.

And they aren't shy about making liberty-centered movies. Think about the three most successful franchises:

• Star Wars
• Lord of the Rings
• Harry Potter

Each of them provides a powerful message of liberty. But liberty is not the message the audience receives. Instead, they see "good vs. evil" and, since the audience member thinks of himself as a good guy, he's still willing to use State force to punish anything he thinks is evil.

When people go to movies, they're not hoping to be converted to a religion, let alone an ideology, and they're generally NOT thinking about opening their minds.

Firefly and Artificial Scarcity

Check out my latest at The Partial Observer. Excerpt:

But we don't have a free market, and the central problem is power. Second-rate minds who crave power go into politics. First-rate minds who crave power go into business and finance. Together, they exact tribute from the people: the politician by collecting taxes, the financier by collecting debts and interest. Then they set up social programs and "philanthropic" foundations to make the people dependent on them. Together, they make laws and regulations that make it nearly impossible for individuals to escape their systems of control.

Together, they have created a world of scarcity on a planet of abundance.

Adam Carolla Economics

Check out my latest at The Partial Observer. Excerpt:

It seems ironic that someone could do something only for the hefty paycheck, and yet not be greedy. But if Carolla or Favre HAD been greedy, they would have lost their leverage. They were willing to walk away from their jobs and receive no money at all.

The same logic applies to the tax considerations of the wealthy.

Imagine someone earning supposedly $1,000/hour, but because of a 36% tax rate, nets $640/hour. Because the new tax rate will be 40%, his net income is $600/hour.

Ten Things

Ten things, July 18, 2009:

10. Tiger Misses the Cut at the British Open. Tiger is still relatively young. Every year he gets by with winning one major tournament, I think it's possible he'll surpass Jack Nicklaus's record of 18 major championships. Each year he wins two, I think it's probable. Each year he fails to win even one, we're reminded of how difficult this really is. This year, he has the PGA Championship left. Tiger is 33 and has to win five more majors to surpass Nicklaus. We can no longer take it for granted.

9. The best news about 59 year-old Tom Watson leading after three rounds of the British Open is that it suggests Tiger Woods could be in the mix in the majors for another 26 years at least.

8. Did you know: Aaron Burr saved Alexander Hamilton's life before he ended it.

7. Is it just me, or is Coldplay just bubblegum pop music for adults? There is absolutely nothing wrong with it; I really like this. It's just that I don't love music by today's 30- or 40-somethings as much as I do music performed by 20-somethings before I was born.

6. Did you know? The last story on November 22, 1963 CBS Morning News was a human-interest story about this group called The Beatles that had captivated Britain. Then, JFK was shot. After days of constant JFK Assassination coverage and to lighten the mood of the country, Walter Cronkite suggested re-airing the Beatles piece as the first non-JFK story on the CBS Evening News. So, The Beatles were the last story before the Assassination and the first story after it. Chicago DJ legend Dick Biondi had actually played the Beatles earlier in 1963, thinking they were the best thing since Elvis, but they never caught on on the merits of the music, they needed massive national propaganda that the likes of Walter Cronkite could provide. I'd provide links to this information, but I learned it all by listening to the radio many years ago.

5. When I was six years old and our family was on a long road trip, we played 20 Questions. I stumped the tribe, who was thinking I'd choose Bugs Bunny or Batman. The person I was thinking of was Walter Cronkite.

4. Third-best non-fiction movie of all time: Fog of War starring Robert McNamara; Second best: The Wizard of Oz; Best: The Matrix. I suppose the latter two are subjective: does "non-fiction" mean relation to historical "facts," or does "non-fiction" mean ultimate truth and reality?

3. Second-best non-fiction music video: The White Stripes, "Seven Nation Army" It's not what the lyrics say, it's how the song is constructed and how the video is made. You know, hypnotizing.

2. Best non-fiction music video: Elliot Smith, "Son of Sam" I just fear that all of us are as controlled as the protagonist that Smith portrays, whether we're conscious of it or not.

1. 30 Rock gets a record 22 Emmy nominations. Bring the head writer (Tina Fey) of a live comedy program (Saturday Night Live, in one of its better periods) to create, write, and star in a single-camera sitcom and what do you get? A sitcom that goes for the laugh in every single scene, regardless if it's toilet humor, farce, or satire. There have been many single-camera, non-laugh-track sitcoms. Some of them are brilliantly plotted (Arrested Development), some clever (Corner Gas), some charming (Everybody Hates Chris) but none are as energetic and relentless as 30 Rock. A sample of episodes is found here and the Kidney Now! finale is here. Frankly, I think the stunningly adorable Norah Jones - I say "adorable" because she has short hair; I'd says "gorgeous" if she still had long hair - deserves an Emmy just by the way she says "And only three of us are drunk."

Criticizing Critics, Or, You Get What You Pay For

Let's acknowledge off the bat that nothing on the Internet is actually free. But information and access to a wide range of opinion has a cost of near zero, in the same way that Seinfeld and the Simpsons are available for "free," even though someone, perhaps you, bought the television you watch them on, and you have to sit through the commercials.

In the same way, no Internet service is free, and a lot of free sites, like this blog, include advertising. Ultimately, the systems and services are profitable to those who provide them, even if they provide no direct charges to you (or payment to me).

This is all well and good. It's better find find an obscure piece of information within a few minutes rather than drive to the library and ask if there's a reference librarian on staff.

And everyone who expresses their opinion in this system have a right to do so. I don't criticize their right. I'm reluctant to criticize their content. But when the content itself is dedicated to criticism, and it's from a mainstream site, one might expect informative content.

We all know that some free content is better than others.

If Roger Ebert came out with the "25 most disappointing movies, by Roger Ebert" and this came out on the main page of a leading search engine, we would know we are getting solid, well-written content. But when we click on a link to Hollywood's biggest flops and fiascoes of the last 25 years, we would expect to see some combination of the 25 biggest money-losers and most-panned movies of that period. We wouldn't expect the random choices of people no more qualified than you or me.

Then again, isn't that exactly who we'd expect, considering this "content" is free?

We see,

• one movie that made actually made a profit, but not enough of one for the authors' satisfaction.
• another movie that made lots of money, which the article authors didn't like. What's worse is that this movie was a remake of a movie they had loved growing up, and they anticipated the remake with excitement! How can anyone approach the remake of a beloved movie with anything but dread?
• an actor who supposedly epitomizes flops, Kevin Costner. Costner's career suffered from the backlash of "stealing" the Best Director Oscar from Martin Scorsese, and the Best Picture Oscar from "Goodfellas" with his "Dances With Wolves" (as if the Oscar votes were his fault), and following it up with mediocre but popular movies like Robin Hood and The Bodyguard, and only after that participating in just a couple of over-publicized flops.
  

Some time ago, the same site provided a list of rock bands that should quit already. Among the entries was The Who, which is understandable. But then the author of the list admits that he didn't even like the band's 1971 album Who's Next. One can't help but ask, who are you to tell me which bands should quit, when you yourself didn't like the band even when they were by critical and popular acclaim at the top of their game?

I suppose the next stage for search engines is to build news and opinion pages featuring writers who actually know what they're talking about. But short of that, there's not much to complain about. We get what we pay for. It's just that we expect billion-dollar media companies to hire people who know what they're talking about and respect their audience.

The Perfect Christmas Album

I'm listing my favorite Christmas performances at The Partial Observer. Check it out, and Merry Christmas!

A List That Will Live In Infamy

This article actually has a good list of "greatest guitar riffs," except that the author doesn't know what "infamous" means, and neither do the Yahoo! Music editors. The article's been on-line for 12 hours at least, and nobody at Yahoo made the correction.

Extras

A few weeks ago I saw Cloverfield on DVD, and then last night I saw the 2002 movie Signs, which I believe is an indirect inspiration for Cloverfield. Both are movies about "extras" in other people's movies. One is a monster movie and the other is an alien movie (or both are both) and the audience is never told how or why these creatures came upon the northeastern states. Cloverfield is more to the point, that this is about the "extras" running in a seeming panic in a bad Jerry Bruckheimer movie. Signs is about another story, and the monsters are but an occasion to bring it to light. But in neither one do we involve the White House, the Pentagon, a maverick cop or scientist, his estranged wife, a heroic military unit, or anybody else on the supposed "front lines." It is about people who by their location or status are on the periphery of cataclysmic events, people who have no power and can make no judgments for anyone other than themselves - individually or as families.

Often such movies provide, at most, a mix between the "average" people and the heroes. Perhaps 9/11 and empathy for its victims helped change this equation, although Signs must have been scripted, if not filmed, by the time 9/11 happened. Or perhaps both are prophesying some other, other-worldly event that will sweep up a lot of innocent life in the future. More probably, they're both just movies, but movies in an age that gives some semblance of respect for the audience.

How many other movies have their been about Extras, that is, about people trapped in some cataclysmic time that is not about the heroes who brought the ultimate victory? I know there must be more movies like this than just Cloverfield and Signs, but I'm drawing a blank. Any thoughts?

Gone Baby Gone

I saw the movie Gone Baby Gone on DVD tonight. It has one, and only one, amazing stunt - and it lands the character who did it in the hospital. A good guy kills a bad guy and feels terrible about it afterward. Just about all the characters look like real people instead of Beautiful People - including the two good-looking young leads; their hairstyles and wardrobe make them One Of Us. These small tokens of respect to the intelligence of the audience by themselves make the movie worth watching.

The most interesting thing about Gone Baby Gone, however, is the moral dimension, but to even come close to describing what it is, means giving some of the key plot developments away to those who haven't seen the movie. I will just say that I came away impressed - more impressed than with several films that garnered even more acclaim in 2007.

Congratulations to Ben Affleck for his debut as a director.

Don't Blame Britney and Miley

This is my latest at the Partial Observer. Excerpt:

By 1997, some Christians decided to boycott Disney because Disney - which was never anything remotely like a Christian company - started to give out same-sex partner benefits to their gay employees. If your business employs large numbers of animators, make-up artists, costume designers, and dancers, this sounds like a sensible business decision. The new generation of Christians, however, demanded "wholesome" entertainment from a "wholesome" company, when their grandparents would have warned that seeking "entertainment" was itself the problem. The very fact that a Christian boycott of Disney was called for was proof-positive that the Old Time Religion had died and the boycott could never work. The real problem was not Disney, but the fact that conservative Christians watched Disney videos and vacationed at DisneyWorld. The problem was not the symptoms of sex, violence, or profanity in the movies, but the disease that Christians caught when they had fallen into the hypnotic trap of mass media and pop culture. They would watch the same television shows as everyone else and, perhaps to a lesser extent, the same movies. They would watch the same sports and the same news programs. They would be swayed to want something they didn't need through advertising. They would be presented with a narrow range of choices in the ballot box, and be told this was "freedom" and "democracy."

Had the old-time Christians been as vehemently against radio, records, and television as they were against cards, alcohol, and shows, conservative Christianity may actually have become a counter-cultural movement today, rather than a whiny, paranoid subculture within the mainstream culture that it has become.

No Country For Old Men

I recently saw the Coen Brothers film No Country For Old Men. The setting is West Texas, circa 1980. The "old men" in question are people like Tommy Lee Jones's character, Sheriff Ed Tom Bell. Jones the actor is in his early 60's, and so presumably is the character. Bell came from a family of sheriffs, and had been a sheriff himself since the age of 25.

Bell recalls that in the older days several sheriffs in nearby counties never even carried a gun. But now (i.e., 1980), the illegal drug trade brought with it big money, gang shoot-outs, and roving hitmen. This level of evil, this disruption of a once quiet and peaceful life, is too big to overcome and too discouraging for old men.

And what, again, is the cause of this new kind of evil? The fact that drugs were illegal. That's not to say other cultural changes didn't take place that could cause disillusionment, and the villain is an unstoppable force for evil who may have arrived in many different contexts and situations. Nevertheless, illegal drugs was the occasion for this lawlessness and this evil, and simply wouldn't have taken place if drugs were legal.

Hooray for Hollywood!

I don't know if this has happened before, but I see it as a sign of progress: of the weekend's top five movies, exactly one had a white male lead. The rest starred Asians and females, with only one sequel.

Established white male stars like Hugh Jackman and Ewan McGregor can't even blame reverse discrimination or affirmative action for getting their asses handed to them. The film industry is just about the freest of markets, in the sense that, more than anywhere else, the customer is supreme. Who says that the free market leaves women and minorities behind?

Is Hollywood corrupting society, or is it a model society should emulate? Just like when they go to movies or rent or buy DVDs, people should be free to buy a product at their own risk, and if the product sucks, it will quickly tank through word-of-mouth. No regulations, prohibitions, or price supports to limit customer choice. This would give female and minority entrepreneurs the best chance to succeed.

The profitability of a movie is voted on by the people, not determined by the government. Every other industry should be like that.

But It's Still Hannah

If I understand it, Hannah Montana is a fictional character played by Miley Cyrus on television and on tour. In concert, the first half of the concert is Miley performing as Hannah, and the second half Miley is performing as herself.

There is a transition at the end of the closing song of Hannah's set in which a stand-in dances briefly as Hannah while Miley switches costumes to take the stage to perform as herself. Some fans who figured it out are very upset.

Is this fraud? Are the fans being cheated because it isn't really Miley out there for a minute or two?

Of course not, because it is still Hannah Montana the fictional character who they paid to see, only for this brief period she is being played by someone else. The fans paid to see, for the first half of the show, "Hannah Montana," not Miley, and they're still seeing Hannah Montana, just as it's still Indiana Jones even when he's played by a stunt double instead of Harrison Ford.

If this was pulled off in the portion where Miley, the real person, had a stand-in, that would be different. The fans would have a right to feel cheated. But not when it's a fictional person they're seeing in the first place.

Hannah Montana fans should grow up.

(That last sentence is supposed to be ironic.)

Andre the Prophet

I recently saw, for the first time, the 1981 movie My Dinner With Andre. This is probably Exhibit A for the influence of Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel's television show that championed small, independent films. This contribution to the culture can not be underestimated.

I can not say whether the movie is "deep" or "profound." Ironically, those who find it pretentious are probably pretentious themselves, whereas those who love it, like me, probably don't really get it (if there's anything to "get.")

But I was impressed how the themes resonate to this day. With minor changes, the movie could have been shot today. Or in 1957. While the Nazi horror seems to loom large in Andre's consciousness, I think the same concerns were being felt even in 1927.

Andre is a theatrical director who flipped out and travelled the world trying to find himself for the better part of five years. One of his theatrical colleagues had also quit directing, saying that theater had no point since all anyone did in real life was play roles and "perform" for other people. One of the questions in the film is being-as-doing compared to being-as-being.

Wally, the dinner companion, is himself a playwright who aims to get the audience to experience reality in a new way, and who desires greter authenticity from people. But he's not as mystical, reflective, or self-absorbed as Andre, and enjoys the "simple" things as well as the technology that makes life easier.

Andre's concern, however, is that people are turning into robots, going through their routines and playing their roles without thought. And what really struck a cord is his comment that he feels that America is turning into a concentration camp, except it is the people who are building it, and the prisoners are also the prison guards.

Whatever else you may think of Andre, I think he was on the mark here. Life has become so easy in one sense, yet so busy in another sense, that we do not stop to pay attention to what's really going on around us. I don't know if Andre would have predicted someone like George Bush coming to power and destroying habeas corpus, but he certainly wouldn't have been surprised that the American people have gone along with it. They are too busy playing their own roles in life to stop and think maybe we should get a different script.

Times Change

In one episode of the 1970's series Hawaii 5-0, Dano ("book him, Dano"), while off-duty and after having a couple of beers, shoots and kills an apparently unarmed kid (Dano claims he had a gun). He is publicly denounced by name by a radio commentator, charged with first-degree murder. He turns himself in. Obviously, McGarrett and the rest of his team try to find what really happen to get him acquitted.

What's so unusual about this plot? Thirty years ago, nothing. These days, it is more than probable that the a cop in a similar situation would be see his name kept out of the paper, be put on paid leave, and suffer through an "internal investigation" that largely blames the kid and maybe slapping the cop on the wrist.

Remains of the Day

I'm not normally one to make a big deal about pro-freedom film or literature. Movies about rebels and individualists can be wildly popular yet fail to transform the political culture. Children cheer on Han Solo, but grow up to become state troopers dedicated to violating Constitutional rights on our highways, or imperial warriors in far-away deserts. They are more like stormtroopers than freedom-loving rebels, and they don't even realize it. People don't get parallels and metaphors. Entertainiment is viewed primarily as just entertainment. After all, people watched MASH and All in the Family in the 1970's only to vote for Ronald Reagan in the 1980's.

That said, I recently saw Remains of the Day starring Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson again, and I wonder if it's an overlooked classic for individualists. Not because it perpetuates the Munich Myth that Britain was somehow responsible for the security of small European countries. Rather, because it's essentially a cautionary tale.

Hopkins' character, Mr. Stevens, is an English butler whose lord is part of the aristocracy involved in high-level affairs. Stevens dedicates his life to serving someone dedicated to public service. It makes sense; this is one way to be part of something bigger than oneself. By serving his lord, Stevens is also serving King and Country.

And Stevens would suspend judgment, override conscience, sacrifice love, and lose his own individuality for his job. Time and again, he remained silent when he could have spoken up; he wouldn't intervene in affairs he was sure were far over his head. But the whole time, he was serving a gullible Nazi dupe.

Remains of the Day is certainly a warning to all who feel a "devotion to duty" in one of the traditional institutions of society. You could easily just end up wasting your life following orders from incompetents. Who wants to spend their life serving stupid and evil men? And who wants to look back on years of misplaced faith? Who wants to sacrifice everything only to end up with nothing - not even a clear conscience?

Better to make one's own judgments and make one's own mistakes. Subordinating one's own self to some "higher calling" actually helps no one in the long run.

Taking Bets

1. Which Law and Order program will rip off Anna Nicole Smith's death: the original or Criminal Intent?

2. Will they rush a script together and air the show by May this year, or will it air next year?