I was talking with an equally technophobic friend the other day. John and I were both trying to figure out why we have a land line phone at all. We both have cell phones. Our wives have cell phones. Our kids have cell phones. Off the top of my head I can’t come up with anyone I know who doesn’t have a cell phone. Although I have come up with a reason to keep the land line. I prefer it.
To me the cell phone, which was envisioned as a real world application of the Star Trek communicators, is a lot more like the walkie-talkies that I saw advertised on Major Mudd when I was a kid. Works a lot better in the ad than it does when you try to use it. The signal seems to break up whenever I try to have a conversation with it.
So, all things considered, if I have to have a conversation on a phone I’d rather have it via the old fashioned wired-to-the-rest-of-the-world land line. It worked for Alexander Graham Bell and it still works for me. Besides, the phone companies have spent gazillions of dollars upgrading the wiring to fiber-optics and such so I can get a crystal clear sound all the way up to the sneaker phone I have next to my desk.
That’s another problem right there isn’t it? Once upon a time the “phone company” was a megalithic monopoly which was bad. They were responsible for the call you received from its point of origin, say…Uncle Enos in Bangor, Maine, right to your ear as you sat by the little table the phone was on in the den in, say… Brookfield, Connecticut. We’re talking New England Telephone country here and they handled everything. They probably would have liked to edit Uncle Enos’ content, you know what happened to his language when he got excited, but they didn’t have quite that much influence.
On reflection, while New England Telephone was a monopoly, it was a good monopoly. Or at least it seemed that way. But somewhere in the metamorphoses into Nynex and Bell Atlantic and Verizon and, in Northern New England FairPoint, they became just another utility. Worse, now they are only responsible for getting the phone call to your house, after that you’re on your own.
Left to our own devices we generally favor inexpensive, often cheap, devices. Which is how the fiber optic cable winds up connected to a sneaker phone. Which needed to be replaced the other day.
Naturally, I had nothing to do with the process. I don’t know whether the cordless phone preceded the cell phone or the other way around. Either way the marriage of convenience and communication is still to me a marginally successful shotgun wedding. Oh, they’re married alright but they seem to fight all the time.
Okay, you’ve guessed that we have a new cordless phone. It’s charging for 15 to 20 hours right now getting itself ready to handle all of my incoming and outgoing calls. But am I ready to handle it? Probably not.
New England Telephone’s phones came with a dial. I now know that it was a godawfully slow device but at the time it seemed downright speedy. But what I miss is its simplicity. You dialed the number, it connected to the number, you talked, you hung up, done. Once a month you would get a bill that only a monopoly or a loan shark could present with a straight face. You grumbled that they ought to break up the bleepin’ phone company monopoly and you paid the bill because it was that or smoke signals.
My brand new cordless phone comes with a manual. 62 pages and, unusual these days, every one of them in English.
There’s how to read the display, how to use the four way function key, using the handset menus, how to figure out where to put the phone (I have a suggestion for this but they won’t like it), how to set up the phone book, how to create phone book entries, using the voicemail and that’s before I even get to the part where I can customize my phone. That’s right. After all that my phone isn’t really ready to work with me at an optimal level yet.
So what we’re got here is an opportunity for me to save all that enormous workload I used to have when I would get somebody’s number and write it down in a little black book by having the convenience of getting somebody’s number and programming it into my phone. And for that great effort saved I can spend some quality time with my brand spankin’ new 62 page manual figuring out how make a phone call. I think I picked the wrong lifetime to give up drinking.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Monday, June 22, 2009
Positioning Statement
Here’s another technological marvel I haven’t had occasion to use yet, the global positioning device. The first reason is, as a friend of mine says, “as soon as I go out my door I consider myself to be on enemy territory.” Another reason is I almost never go anywhere that I haven’t been before.
But the GPS devices are out there and I have friends who think they’re pretty nifty. There’s one called “TomTom,” there’s one called “Garmin,” another called “Magellan,” and still another one called “Hummingbird.” I would think what you call a product like this could make a huge difference in its initial success.
So “Garmin” just mystifies me. What connection am I supposed to make? I think of Leonard Garment, who was a Special Counsel to President Nixon during the Watergate mess. Okay, most people probably wouldn’t make that connection but I don’t think of finding my way anywhere, except out of the White House, when I hear Garmin.
“Hummingbird?” Don’t they go by sense of smell or something? That may have worked to get to Gloucester, Massachusetts when there was a fishing industry, or to Berlin, New Hampshire when there was a paper mill running, but I can’t see it being much good now.
“TomTom?” I’d want to know who was going to be on the receiving end of my beats. I’m not sure my wife would let me keep drums in the passenger seat in the event we get lost, which I guarantee I would do if I missed a beat.
“Magellan” sounds promising but I wonder how many people realize that Ol’ Ferdinand never actually made it around the world. Wikipedia says that of 237 men who started out on the first trip around the world only 18 completed the trip and returned to Spain. There were about that many others who straggled back later one way or another later, but that’s not how I want our family trip to work out. Magellan himself was killed in the Philippines. No, that’s definitely not how I want my trip to The Cape to go at all.
I know there’s a whole industry out there devoted to “branding” so I would think they could come up with the name of an explorer who was able to finish the trip. Doesn’t that seem like a better idea?
Here’s one badly branded travel item, Amelia Earhart Luggage. It was an endorsement deal when Amelia was alive but once she disappeared somewhere over the Pacific in 1937 wouldn’t you think the market would have disappeared too? They were still selling Amelia Earhart Luggage in 1964. What was the slogan, “Amelia Earhart Luggage, when it gets lost it stays lost”?
Since this is America, and we always like to encourage entrepreneurship, here’s a couple of services that could become enormously successful in the hands of the right capitalist.
Lindbergh Baby and Child Care. Let’s face it, as Americans we have no historical memory so when people hear “Lindbergh Baby” they’re not going to recognize that there could be a problem, it will just be a vaguely familiar phrase that we can capitalize on. But between you and me, don’t hire a guy with a German accent named Bruno. I’m just funny that way.
Wiley Post Alaska Tours. Wiley Post was the first pilot to fly solo around the world. In these days when we have whack jobs attempting to cross the Atlantic in rowboats, on surfboards and using grandma’s china cabinet as a flotation device, what he did may sound like just another bit of flat out silly adventuring but back in the 30s, when he did it, it was a big deal. He’s mostly remembered now, if he’s remembered at all, for being the pilot of the plane that crashed and killed Will Rogers. Like I said, if he’s remembered at all. In any event, I am one columnist who will never be a customer.
On those rare occasions that I do find it necessary to leave the house, I’m pretty happy with the on-line resources like MapQuest, Google Maps, and whatever else. I like to be able to hold the directions in my hand, go over them a couple of times before I leave and I like to be able to look at them in groups of two or three rather than one at a time. It seems I’m always going someplace where the directions involve a sequence of, “travel .1 miles and bear left onto Whatsit Street.
Follow Whatsit Street for 2.2 miles.
Right onto Wherezit Road for .9 miles.
Right onto Imlost Avenue and drive for 10 miles before you admit you screwed up somewhere.
Of course this is New England so if there are road signs they’re hidden by a tree.
Friday, June 12, 2009
Y2K-2 This Time It’s the TV
Remember back in the late 90s when we were constantly hearing about how dangerous the Y2K computer bug would be? Many computers recognized the year’s date as only two digits, 1995 would just be 95. The fear was that we’d get to the year 2000 and the computers would all go kerflooie because some might get that it was 2000 and others would think it was 1900. Computers wouldn’t be able to communicate, we wouldn’t be able to communicate, power grids would shut down, there would be plague and pestilence upon the land.
So what happened? Not much. Some countries spent oodles of money getting ready for Y2K and others pretty much let it happen without doing much at all and everybody got the same result. Nothing happened. Zero, Zilch, Zip, Nada. The world kept spinning on its axis and we’ve all pretty much forgotten Y2K and what it was all about. Ever wonder what would have happened if Congress could have pushed back the date change-over?
First off, you know they’d have done it in a heartbeat because the country wasn’t ready and the world wasn’t ready. There was a line of code in somebody’s Commodore PC that hadn’t been rewritten and that could cause the downfall of western civilization. You know they would have cooked up some scheme to delay the start of the year 2000; it’s just a question of how long they would have delayed it. This year we found out.
When the Federal Communications Commission decided to get broadcasters off the schnide and into digital transmission they set it up for February 17, 2009. It was an arbitrary deadline but the commission was tired of the Alphonse and Gaston routine of the TV industry. As February 17th neared there came cries from the wilderness of, “Somebody’s not ready!” So after months of “news” stories and seemingly endless informational announcements on our local TV stations, Congress blinked and pushed the date of the transition back to June 12th.
Some stations, not wanting to pay to transmit signals in both analog and digital – that costs money you know, decided to just go ahead and go digital anyway. You probably didn’t notice that. Other stations just changed the date on their transition to digital promos and kept those suckers running. You probably didn’t notice that either; by now they’re part of the landscape like bad furniture store commercials and file footage of people building the last Pontiac.
A few people have been affected. My mother-in-law, whose little bitty kitchen TV was built by the manufacturer of Dick Tracy’s two-way wrist TV wasn’t able to use a converter box for it. She has to go to work without seeing Matt, Meredith, Ann and Al in the morning. I believe that her heart will go on.
So what do we get with digital, usually high definition, transmission? Mostly it’s lipstick on a pig. It hasn’t made broadcasters provide better programming. We’ve got clear sharp pictures and surround sound of muddy fat people going through a nerf obstacle course. We’ve still got WHDH’s (Boston’s channel 7) news team looking like High School Musical – The Newscast. We’ve still got the “Runaway Bride” saga starring the meandering quarterback Brett Favre every late spring. There’s progress for ya.
One thing is different. They’re finding they have to cut back on the make-up on some of the faces we see. Make-up can do a lot for some people and for some of us even when they put it on with a trowel it would look like a bad patch job on a classic New England stone wall. But with HDTV you can tell when there’s too much. When the anchorwoman blinks and it looks like the garage doors closing… that’s too much… and probably an inappropriate color.
There’s also new opportunity in HDTV. Put all your money in industrial spray tans. HDTV is making people hit the spray tans like never before. Some people are way over-doing it. Take John Boehner, remember it’s pronounced BAY-ner, the House Minority Leader. He was standing next to a new bronze statue of Ronald Reagan at the Capitol the other day and he, Boehner, was more bronze than the statue. That’s too much. You could probably make a pretty good living just supplying him with spray tan.
Here’s a fun thing you can do some time when you’re watching the Sunday talk shows. Watch for a talking head to bring a hand up to his or her face. It can be pretty funny because they almost never bother to spray tan their hands. Just make sure you don’t have a mouthful of coffee when they do it because you’ll realize that they look like Muppets. Well dressed Muppets, but Muppets. It’s hi-tech fun brought to you with digital clarity in high definition so you can laugh at the talking head-igentsia after you’ve gotten so frustrated listening to them that you had to hit the mute button.
Oh, and if you didn’t get your converter box and the TV signals you were accustomed to disappeared on June 12th don’t despair. You can still find out what’s going on via the internet, radio, magazines and, at least for now, newspapers. For entertainment there are still movies, books and music. My guess is you handled this crisis just like you did the Y2K bug. If it hadn’t been for the hype, you wouldn’t have noticed it at all.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
A Time to Heal
It could easily be argued that I watch too much baseball on TV. Not successfully, but you could make a case. What with the Red Sox on almost every day, ESPN game coverage, Baseball tonight, and now MLB TV, I can finally get almost all the baseball I want to see. This has helped me to appreciate the competence of the people who provide Red Sox Nation with the coverage we get for 162 games every year plus, we hope, the post-season.
Baseball is tough to broadcast because it’s pretty much a seven day a week endeavor. Let’s face it, there aren’t that many people we want to spend 3 hours or more with every day. There is our spouse, maybe whomever we begat and perhaps one or two others, and that’s probably it. That may even be an overestimate for some.
The point is, three hours or so every day with the same person would get difficult. The fact that the Red Sox radio and TV broadcasters Joe Castiglione, Dave O’Brien, Dale Arnold, Don Orsillo and Jerry Remy are agreeable company is quite remarkable and, from what I’ve heard of the teams in the rest of North America, extremely unusual.
The New York Yankees’ John Sterling and Suzyn Waldman, and the Chicago White Sox’ Ken Harrelson are so bad I feel embarrassed for their families. How would you like to explain somebody in your household coming up with a phrase like, “It’s an A-bomb, from A-Rod?” Suffice it to say that if that were the best I could do I would deserve, and fully expect, to be denied by all who know me.
So here in New England we are quite fortunate with our broadcasters and we’ll be even more so when Jerry Remy is back in the booth. And props to Don Orsillo for doing so well with NESN’s analyst of the day. It can’t be easy constantly shifting gears to work with a new partner but Orsillo has done it with grace and poise to this point. But there is room for Don to improve his performance, and who better to tell him than a grumpy guy from New Hampshire?
1-If you have to give the pitch count can you promise to only do it once per game per pitcher? Only John Farrell, the Red Sox pitching coach, needs to know this number and I’m not sure we wouldn’t be better off if he didn’t know it either. He’s keeping track of it himself anyway.
2-Lose the stopwatch. No pitcher in the world is going to complain that the Red Sox spent 22 minutes at bat scoring five runs for him. These are all young healthy men. They can sit for 22 minutes and still function afterward. The guys who can’t do that are the pitching coaches with the little clicker in their left hand keeping track of the number of pitches their pitcher has thrown.
3-I know you graduated from Northeastern University, Don, but when did Yoda become an instructor there? “And diving for the ball is Lowell!” I don’t think the Force is With You when you say that.
4-Repeat after me, “every day.” This one’s not your fault. It’s rampant in a culture that will “utilize” what it could simply “use” because “utilize” is a polysyllabic and people think that it makes them sound smarter. The same goes for “on a daily basis.” This is a phrase that means every day, so you can just say, “every day,” and the world will know what you mean. Or maybe you drive from Boston to Providence by way of Hartford.
5-Don, just because they put a statistic in front of you doesn’t mean you have to read it aloud. I know baseball is full of stats and some of them can actually be meaningful to real fans and students of the game. The time you told me that “Rheal Cormier is the 13th winningest left-handed reliever in Philadelphia Phillies history,” went over the edge. With the possible exception of Rheal’s mother, who the hell cares? I swear that if someone handed you a sheet that said, “Rheal Cormier is the 13th left hander in Phillies history to get a vasectomy,” you’d read it.
6-“…he looks to first and to third, but doesn't throw to either venue/destination." Venue, Don? Destination, Don? You’re “utilizing” again when you could just “use.” You could end the sentence at “either.” You’re a pretty natural guy, Don. Using these phrases has become has become a habit, a crutch, one you do without.
While I’m forever grateful that we are spared the incessant inanities of, say John Sterling, or the sycophantic homerism of Ken Harrelson, I think Don could be better if he would just have faith that he can walk without his crutches.
And that’s what we’re here for brothers and sisters.
For Don Orsillo has been stricken with a disease that tears at his ability to talk without using his crutches. But you can do it, Don! You can rise up to your full potential and get through an entire broadcast without using your crutches. And then, with faith, you can get through an entire home stand without your crutches! And eventually if your faith, and creativity… lets just go with faith, is strong enough you may make it through a whole season without your crutches.
You can do it, Don! You can take that first step and be free of your crutches forever!
Baseball is tough to broadcast because it’s pretty much a seven day a week endeavor. Let’s face it, there aren’t that many people we want to spend 3 hours or more with every day. There is our spouse, maybe whomever we begat and perhaps one or two others, and that’s probably it. That may even be an overestimate for some.
The point is, three hours or so every day with the same person would get difficult. The fact that the Red Sox radio and TV broadcasters Joe Castiglione, Dave O’Brien, Dale Arnold, Don Orsillo and Jerry Remy are agreeable company is quite remarkable and, from what I’ve heard of the teams in the rest of North America, extremely unusual.
The New York Yankees’ John Sterling and Suzyn Waldman, and the Chicago White Sox’ Ken Harrelson are so bad I feel embarrassed for their families. How would you like to explain somebody in your household coming up with a phrase like, “It’s an A-bomb, from A-Rod?” Suffice it to say that if that were the best I could do I would deserve, and fully expect, to be denied by all who know me.
So here in New England we are quite fortunate with our broadcasters and we’ll be even more so when Jerry Remy is back in the booth. And props to Don Orsillo for doing so well with NESN’s analyst of the day. It can’t be easy constantly shifting gears to work with a new partner but Orsillo has done it with grace and poise to this point. But there is room for Don to improve his performance, and who better to tell him than a grumpy guy from New Hampshire?
1-If you have to give the pitch count can you promise to only do it once per game per pitcher? Only John Farrell, the Red Sox pitching coach, needs to know this number and I’m not sure we wouldn’t be better off if he didn’t know it either. He’s keeping track of it himself anyway.
2-Lose the stopwatch. No pitcher in the world is going to complain that the Red Sox spent 22 minutes at bat scoring five runs for him. These are all young healthy men. They can sit for 22 minutes and still function afterward. The guys who can’t do that are the pitching coaches with the little clicker in their left hand keeping track of the number of pitches their pitcher has thrown.
3-I know you graduated from Northeastern University, Don, but when did Yoda become an instructor there? “And diving for the ball is Lowell!” I don’t think the Force is With You when you say that.
4-Repeat after me, “every day.” This one’s not your fault. It’s rampant in a culture that will “utilize” what it could simply “use” because “utilize” is a polysyllabic and people think that it makes them sound smarter. The same goes for “on a daily basis.” This is a phrase that means every day, so you can just say, “every day,” and the world will know what you mean. Or maybe you drive from Boston to Providence by way of Hartford.
5-Don, just because they put a statistic in front of you doesn’t mean you have to read it aloud. I know baseball is full of stats and some of them can actually be meaningful to real fans and students of the game. The time you told me that “Rheal Cormier is the 13th winningest left-handed reliever in Philadelphia Phillies history,” went over the edge. With the possible exception of Rheal’s mother, who the hell cares? I swear that if someone handed you a sheet that said, “Rheal Cormier is the 13th left hander in Phillies history to get a vasectomy,” you’d read it.
6-“…he looks to first and to third, but doesn't throw to either venue/destination." Venue, Don? Destination, Don? You’re “utilizing” again when you could just “use.” You could end the sentence at “either.” You’re a pretty natural guy, Don. Using these phrases has become has become a habit, a crutch, one you do without.
While I’m forever grateful that we are spared the incessant inanities of, say John Sterling, or the sycophantic homerism of Ken Harrelson, I think Don could be better if he would just have faith that he can walk without his crutches.
And that’s what we’re here for brothers and sisters.
For Don Orsillo has been stricken with a disease that tears at his ability to talk without using his crutches. But you can do it, Don! You can rise up to your full potential and get through an entire broadcast without using your crutches. And then, with faith, you can get through an entire home stand without your crutches! And eventually if your faith, and creativity… lets just go with faith, is strong enough you may make it through a whole season without your crutches.
You can do it, Don! You can take that first step and be free of your crutches forever!
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Remember Boom Town? And I mean the “Pablo” sidekick years, not Captain Billy. How about Uncle Gus? Big Brother Bob Emery? Okay, how about Bozo the Clown? Major Mudd? Salty’s Shack? If you remember any of them you’re baby boomer. And you know what that makes you…Special.
Baby Boomers had to have new schools, different music, different politics, different wars and Boomers invented (or at the very least re-invented) sex. All for the betterment of mankind, of course. Well that’s the way Boomers have seen themselves generally.
Naturally I see things a little differently. I think baby boomers are the one big failing we can attribute to the Greatest Generation. Record numbers of babies were born after World War II in what may have been the greatest stimulus package in American history. The trouble is all those kids grew up. That’s not exactly it, they all got older. Can we agree on that?
Nope. The problem is we can’t all agree even on that. You see the one thing the Baby Boomers haven’t ever done well is face reality, particularly the reality of aging. We Boomers (there, I confessed) were all young together and we’ve been loathe to admit that we might not be young forever.
Rock, originally known as rock ‘n’ roll, was youth music. From “At the Hop” to “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” from Elvis to the Stones boomers celebrated themselves as young and sexy. It was never going to end. And even as we entered our 50s and 60s we fought it every inch of the way.
Some of that was good. Eating healthier, exercising, and generally taking care of ourselves. Some of it was just silly. Singing along with “Be True to Your School” and not thinking of it as at least a little bit odd, maybe even satirical, is silly. Thinking Mick Jagger is sexy…well that has always been silly.
So why do I bring all this up now? The Boston Globe recently did an article on Baby Boomers rejecting the terms “grandma” and “grandpa” because it sounds too…well…old. The article referred to a book called, "You Can Call Me Hoppa! The Grandparents' Guide to Choosing a Name That Fits." More proof that denial is not a river in Egypt.
Look kids, if you’re old enough to have grandchildren having them call you “Grand Dude” or “G-Ma Smooth” isn’t going to make you seem hip to your grandchildren. If you have grandchildren you have to face one basic fact. YOU ARE OLD ENOUGH TO HAVE GRANDCHILDREN. The mere fact that they exist proves that you are old enough.
What you need to remember is that there’s a huge difference between being old and acting old. You can pick the number that works for you but at some point we got old. Once you’re gotten your head around that remember my motto, “You can only be young once, but you can always be immature.”
I used to tease a friend of mine at school that he went right from high school to being 40 without any of the fun in between. He just acted older than the rest of us. Like most other things age is all in your state of mind.
But it’s also in the mind of your grandchild. And if you remember your own grandparents you remember that they were old. They were to you anyway. Because the difference between 4 and 54 is more than 50.
It doesn’t matter whether your grandchildren call you “Grandma” or “The Grandster” they’ll still think of you the same way. They don’t need somebody 60 years older than they are to teach them how to be hip.
They need you to be concerned about them and they don’t need a junior grade Norma Desmond arguing that “I am big, it’s the pictures that got small.” Be a grandparent not a superannuated peer. There’s nothing wrong with silly, but be silly with them not to them.
Baby Boomers had to have new schools, different music, different politics, different wars and Boomers invented (or at the very least re-invented) sex. All for the betterment of mankind, of course. Well that’s the way Boomers have seen themselves generally.
Naturally I see things a little differently. I think baby boomers are the one big failing we can attribute to the Greatest Generation. Record numbers of babies were born after World War II in what may have been the greatest stimulus package in American history. The trouble is all those kids grew up. That’s not exactly it, they all got older. Can we agree on that?
Nope. The problem is we can’t all agree even on that. You see the one thing the Baby Boomers haven’t ever done well is face reality, particularly the reality of aging. We Boomers (there, I confessed) were all young together and we’ve been loathe to admit that we might not be young forever.
Rock, originally known as rock ‘n’ roll, was youth music. From “At the Hop” to “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” from Elvis to the Stones boomers celebrated themselves as young and sexy. It was never going to end. And even as we entered our 50s and 60s we fought it every inch of the way.
Some of that was good. Eating healthier, exercising, and generally taking care of ourselves. Some of it was just silly. Singing along with “Be True to Your School” and not thinking of it as at least a little bit odd, maybe even satirical, is silly. Thinking Mick Jagger is sexy…well that has always been silly.
So why do I bring all this up now? The Boston Globe recently did an article on Baby Boomers rejecting the terms “grandma” and “grandpa” because it sounds too…well…old. The article referred to a book called, "You Can Call Me Hoppa! The Grandparents' Guide to Choosing a Name That Fits." More proof that denial is not a river in Egypt.
Look kids, if you’re old enough to have grandchildren having them call you “Grand Dude” or “G-Ma Smooth” isn’t going to make you seem hip to your grandchildren. If you have grandchildren you have to face one basic fact. YOU ARE OLD ENOUGH TO HAVE GRANDCHILDREN. The mere fact that they exist proves that you are old enough.
What you need to remember is that there’s a huge difference between being old and acting old. You can pick the number that works for you but at some point we got old. Once you’re gotten your head around that remember my motto, “You can only be young once, but you can always be immature.”
I used to tease a friend of mine at school that he went right from high school to being 40 without any of the fun in between. He just acted older than the rest of us. Like most other things age is all in your state of mind.
But it’s also in the mind of your grandchild. And if you remember your own grandparents you remember that they were old. They were to you anyway. Because the difference between 4 and 54 is more than 50.
It doesn’t matter whether your grandchildren call you “Grandma” or “The Grandster” they’ll still think of you the same way. They don’t need somebody 60 years older than they are to teach them how to be hip.
They need you to be concerned about them and they don’t need a junior grade Norma Desmond arguing that “I am big, it’s the pictures that got small.” Be a grandparent not a superannuated peer. There’s nothing wrong with silly, but be silly with them not to them.
Atonement (R)
There are people who find it odd that I usually don’t read novels. Oh sure, I’ve read A Tale of Two Cities, and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, but contemporary fiction I mostly give a miss. The film “Atonement” is a perfect example of why I’ve made that choice.
If I watch a crappy, pretentious movie I’m out two hours of my life that I’ll never get back. If I read a crappy, pretentious novel, I’m out many more hours that I’ll never get back. That said, my guess is that “Atonement” is a better book than it is a movie. But that’s still not saying much.
The story is more or less told from the point of view of Briony (Saoirse Ronan), an imaginative, wealthy, somewhat spoiled child of an English Country Manor. She misinterprets an innocent encounter she sees in a garden between her older sister Cecilia (Keira Knightley) and Robbie Turner (James McAvoy) the favored son of one of the kitchen staff. Briony builds that, a mistakenly presented draft of an apology, and another incident into a charge that sends Robbie away from the house and off to prison.
With the coming of World War II Robbie winds up in the army at Dunkirk. Cecilia is a nurse caring for wounded soldiers and Briony (now 18 and played by Romola Garai) eventually in nurses’ training. Oh, and Briony is played by a third actress, Vanessa Redgrave, much later in her life. You wouldn’t think it would take three women to play one character but without the latter two we wouldn’t understand that Briony came to understand the need to make an atonement.
If you like the same scene being played more than once to get the perspective of different characters, non-linear time shifting and half spoken sentences weighty with unspoken emotion, this movie is your cup of English Tea served to you in a country garden. If you’re really into non-linear time shifting and a scene being played more than once, rent Christopher Nolan’s 2000 film “Memento” and you’ll see all you need to of that.
There’s a five minute tracking shot of Robbie when he and two army pals arrive at Dunkirk. Robbie walks through the tumult and turmoil in the time of the British evacuation. Director (Joe Wright) is extremely proud of the scene. It may be very cinematic but it’s pretty pointless in the context of the film. All that matters to the audience is that Robbie is at Dunkirk… and I’m not sure that couldn’t have been covered adequately in a line or two of expository dialog by another character.
So what’s to like? The actors all do a good job. Dario Marianelli blends the frequent presence of typewriters into a basis for a rhythm riff that cues the score in an interesting way. There were also a couple of occasions where a character does something on screen that becomes the last note in a score cue that I liked.
All in all what we have here is someone way too conscious that he is making a film rather than someone who is trying to tell a story well on film.
This is the director who made a version of “Pride and Prejudice” and was very proud of having done so without reading Jane Austen’s book. He claims that he read Ian McEwan’s book Atonement. I’m not sure which, if either, author got the greater benefit from Mr. Wright’s talent.
If I watch a crappy, pretentious movie I’m out two hours of my life that I’ll never get back. If I read a crappy, pretentious novel, I’m out many more hours that I’ll never get back. That said, my guess is that “Atonement” is a better book than it is a movie. But that’s still not saying much.
The story is more or less told from the point of view of Briony (Saoirse Ronan), an imaginative, wealthy, somewhat spoiled child of an English Country Manor. She misinterprets an innocent encounter she sees in a garden between her older sister Cecilia (Keira Knightley) and Robbie Turner (James McAvoy) the favored son of one of the kitchen staff. Briony builds that, a mistakenly presented draft of an apology, and another incident into a charge that sends Robbie away from the house and off to prison.
With the coming of World War II Robbie winds up in the army at Dunkirk. Cecilia is a nurse caring for wounded soldiers and Briony (now 18 and played by Romola Garai) eventually in nurses’ training. Oh, and Briony is played by a third actress, Vanessa Redgrave, much later in her life. You wouldn’t think it would take three women to play one character but without the latter two we wouldn’t understand that Briony came to understand the need to make an atonement.
If you like the same scene being played more than once to get the perspective of different characters, non-linear time shifting and half spoken sentences weighty with unspoken emotion, this movie is your cup of English Tea served to you in a country garden. If you’re really into non-linear time shifting and a scene being played more than once, rent Christopher Nolan’s 2000 film “Memento” and you’ll see all you need to of that.
There’s a five minute tracking shot of Robbie when he and two army pals arrive at Dunkirk. Robbie walks through the tumult and turmoil in the time of the British evacuation. Director (Joe Wright) is extremely proud of the scene. It may be very cinematic but it’s pretty pointless in the context of the film. All that matters to the audience is that Robbie is at Dunkirk… and I’m not sure that couldn’t have been covered adequately in a line or two of expository dialog by another character.
So what’s to like? The actors all do a good job. Dario Marianelli blends the frequent presence of typewriters into a basis for a rhythm riff that cues the score in an interesting way. There were also a couple of occasions where a character does something on screen that becomes the last note in a score cue that I liked.
All in all what we have here is someone way too conscious that he is making a film rather than someone who is trying to tell a story well on film.
This is the director who made a version of “Pride and Prejudice” and was very proud of having done so without reading Jane Austen’s book. He claims that he read Ian McEwan’s book Atonement. I’m not sure which, if either, author got the greater benefit from Mr. Wright’s talent.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Leatherheads (PG-13)
What I know about pro football circa 1925 you could fit on the back of the “Press” card stuck in the band of your snap-brim fedora. In other words, not much. But you don’t have to know much to go along for the pleasant ride that is “Leatherheads.”
George Clooney is “Dodge” Connelly, a dodgy character of an aging pro who just loves to play football even as a pro. You see, in 1925 pro-football was a joke to real fans, the press and, to some extent, the players. The teams were constantly running out of money and folding, the schedule was adjusted almost daily because the team you were supposed to play went out of business and you may not have had the money for railroad tickets to get to the next game anyway. College football was the thing and Carter Rutherford (John Krasinski) was THE star of college football. And not just a football star, a hero of the recently concluded “Great War.”
Dodge finds a way to entice Rutherford’s agent C.C. Frazier (Jonathan Pryce) to agree to have Rutherford turn pro. That way, of course, is money. Dodge pretty much gives away the store to get the War Hero/Star into the pros but he sees that Rutherford can give his league instant credibility. There is one problem: Lexie Littleton (Renee Zellweger).
She’s the best writer on the Tribune and she’s out the find out what really happened in the Argonne Forest when Carter Rutherford became a war hero. Suffice it to say there is a story behind the story and the hero is not quite what he’s billed as, but there’s no real chicanery afoot. Lexie winds up being the center of the attentions of both Dodge and Carter.
This is the kind of movie where Carter and Dodge fight over the girl for quite a while and when they’re done neither man has a mark on him. But logic has little place here and you just stipulate to certain facts that may only sort of make sense. Like Lexie getting the chance to write this kind of sports story in Chicago of the 1920s. It’s far more likely that a woman, no matter how good a writer, would be spinning her wheels writing recipes or society pieces for the Trib, not revelatory stories about sports heroes.
There’s also the question of Renee Zellweger as Lexie. Never a conventionally pretty girl, Renee is 40 now and it’s tough for her to pass for the age of 31 that Lexie admits to. As an actress she always seems to be trying a little too hard to me. But that may just be my problem; it needn’t be yours.
Some terrific character actors back up the main cast and they do a great job of filling out the background. Peter Gerety does a nice turn as the man who becomes commissioner of the league and while it’s never stated that this is the early N-F-L, it’s obvious that the commissioner is going to start the enterprise down the road to being the No Fun League we know today.
There’s some snappy screwball comedy dialog and another jazz-age evoking score by Randy Newman who also gets a cameo as (what else?) the piano player in a speakeasy. At two hours it could have been a bit shorter although there are a couple of the deletes scenes on the dvd that I thought should have made the cut.
“Leatherheads” is certainly worth the rental and if you buy dvd’s or blue ray discs this would be a fun addition to your library.
George Clooney is “Dodge” Connelly, a dodgy character of an aging pro who just loves to play football even as a pro. You see, in 1925 pro-football was a joke to real fans, the press and, to some extent, the players. The teams were constantly running out of money and folding, the schedule was adjusted almost daily because the team you were supposed to play went out of business and you may not have had the money for railroad tickets to get to the next game anyway. College football was the thing and Carter Rutherford (John Krasinski) was THE star of college football. And not just a football star, a hero of the recently concluded “Great War.”
Dodge finds a way to entice Rutherford’s agent C.C. Frazier (Jonathan Pryce) to agree to have Rutherford turn pro. That way, of course, is money. Dodge pretty much gives away the store to get the War Hero/Star into the pros but he sees that Rutherford can give his league instant credibility. There is one problem: Lexie Littleton (Renee Zellweger).
She’s the best writer on the Tribune and she’s out the find out what really happened in the Argonne Forest when Carter Rutherford became a war hero. Suffice it to say there is a story behind the story and the hero is not quite what he’s billed as, but there’s no real chicanery afoot. Lexie winds up being the center of the attentions of both Dodge and Carter.
This is the kind of movie where Carter and Dodge fight over the girl for quite a while and when they’re done neither man has a mark on him. But logic has little place here and you just stipulate to certain facts that may only sort of make sense. Like Lexie getting the chance to write this kind of sports story in Chicago of the 1920s. It’s far more likely that a woman, no matter how good a writer, would be spinning her wheels writing recipes or society pieces for the Trib, not revelatory stories about sports heroes.
There’s also the question of Renee Zellweger as Lexie. Never a conventionally pretty girl, Renee is 40 now and it’s tough for her to pass for the age of 31 that Lexie admits to. As an actress she always seems to be trying a little too hard to me. But that may just be my problem; it needn’t be yours.
Some terrific character actors back up the main cast and they do a great job of filling out the background. Peter Gerety does a nice turn as the man who becomes commissioner of the league and while it’s never stated that this is the early N-F-L, it’s obvious that the commissioner is going to start the enterprise down the road to being the No Fun League we know today.
There’s some snappy screwball comedy dialog and another jazz-age evoking score by Randy Newman who also gets a cameo as (what else?) the piano player in a speakeasy. At two hours it could have been a bit shorter although there are a couple of the deletes scenes on the dvd that I thought should have made the cut.
“Leatherheads” is certainly worth the rental and if you buy dvd’s or blue ray discs this would be a fun addition to your library.
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