Getting Back at It

One of my faculty just asked me if I would help him think about starting a blog. It made me realize that I have written on my own blog for quite a while--didn't realize it's been over two years! So, I decided to log in and see whether I ought to start up again. I am now committed to writing a blog a week. Since no one really reads this blog, no shame in making a public promise to myself.

Post coming soon!

Waiting for Superman...and waiting and waiting and waiting

So, I finally saw the film Waiting for Superman. First of all, as a film it is wonderful, in the sense that it is well shot, well told, and pulls at your heart strings. As polemic, it works, but only if you don't question the most basic assumptions of the movie.

Assumptions:

1. No Child Left Behind--or at least its goal to bring all children to "proficient" levels in math and reading--is the goal we should be shooting for. Closing the "achievement gap" in this context is the be all and end all of goals for public education. Really? How about empowering children to think? How about teaching them the real story of the history of the US, how our system really works and providing them with the tools to change their own communities? Admittedly, these goals are harder to "measure," but, more to the point, empowering poor black and brown children to take charge of their own lives is not in the interest of those who benefit at their expense.

2. Teachers unions are evil incarnate. The director/narrator is careful to say often how wonderful teachers are and how important a great teacher can be in the success of a child. Sure, who in their right mind would argue with that? But the way he describes the purpose of tenure is simplistic and misleading. Tenure ought to provide a teacher--just like a professor--intellectual freedom. Unions he points out historically came about for teachers as a way to professionalize teaching, but the implication is that the need for unions to do this are over. Therefore (faulty logic), they are standing in the way of reform in public education. If only we could get rid of every "bad" teacher, all would be well in public schools. But who gets to decide what a "good" teacher is? This takes me back to Assumption #1. Good teachers, according to this film's thesis, are the ones who can teach children to perform well on standardized tests. Well, let's aim high, why don't we!

3. Poverty and persistent institutional racism have nothing to do with craptastic public schools, apparently. In fact, at one point in the film, the director lobs this little bomb: "For years, we have assumed that poor neighborhoods equal poor schools, but what if poor schools are actually creating poor neighborhoods?" Okay, so this argument assumes that neighborhoods and schools are separate entities that act upon each other but are, in and of themselves, separate. Even though, all but one of the children he follows is poor, the narrator never really addresses this. He never really talks about all of the factors affecting children--and teachers--in schools. He sticks to his thesis that unions keep "bad" teachers in schools. We all know that "bad" schools have a larger proportion of bad teachers than "good" schools. Therefore, public schools cannot be reformed. The only answer: something else.

4. Private schools and charter schools are the only places where true reform and stellar teaching can go on. The film starts with the director pointing out that he has opted to take his children to a private school because the public school in his neighborhood is "failing" (i.e., students there are not "proficient" under NCLB). He feels guilty and says, unfortunately, poor parents don't have this choice. Enter, the charter school hunt for a handful of children he follows in their pursuit to get into a charter school. No doubt, the children he follows--with the exception of the girl who lives near Stanford U--are faced with really bad schools. They are overcrowded, unresponsive to parents, under-resourced, and in some of the most depressed parts of their cities. No doubt, these children deserve SO MUCH better. But they, and their parents, deserve better in every aspect of their lives, including schools. So, the film argues, let's pull what resources there are, and put them into charters, where these families have to go through the pride-swallowing siege of hoping they get one of the few open slots through a lottery. This part of the movie was painful and manipulative. It is simply inhumane to make parents and their children go through this. THEREFORE, let's fund more charter schools so that there are more slots.

5. Children in our poorest, most racially segregated neighborhoods, need a "way out." If those of us who don't live in these neighborhoods, whose parents didn't have to work three jobs to make ends meet, who have always had the power to challenge the status quo, really gave a crap about these children, we might stop calling for a restructuring of our country's "entitlements" or more money for prisons or more money for charter schools. Maybe, just maybe, we could demand that all children receive an education that truly teaches them how to challenge authority, how to foster real change and how to rebuild their communities. But, hey, this is super hard work, without a "villain" and a "hero." This work would be complex, messy and just damn hard! It might actually mean that the rest of us would have to share a larger portion of our pie, and that just ain't the American way of life.

Worst Movies I Have Ever Seen

I have seen a lot of crappy movies, but the ones on this list make my "worst list" because they were overrated, they kept me hanging to the end only to reveal themselves as art house crap or they were deemed better than the best movies of their time. These are not necessarily in any order, with the exception of #1, which has always been and will likely remain the movie that pissed me off more than any other--it falls into all three of the categories.

1. The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover
2. The Girl in a Swing
3. Boxing Helena
4. Thelma and Louise
5. Ghost
6. Dancing with Wolves
7. Vinyan
8. Curse of the Jade Scorpion
9. Casualties of War
10. The Running Man
11. Bad Lieutenant
12. The Passion of the Christ
13. Crash (Cronenberg, 1996)
14. Field of Dreams
15. Code 46

Thoughts on Geek Love

Reading Geek Love, by Katherine Dunn, can really mess with your dreams and eventually with your experience of "normal." Dunn's world is ruled by circus freaks (or geeks), but this story goes way beyond submerging the reader in a world of sword swallowers and fly wranglers. Dunn creates a world where the freakish is prized and normal is seen as a burden to be shed, literally.

The story is told, most of the time, in first person through the eyes of a bald, albino hunchback dwarf named Olympia. Olympia's parents run a traveling geek show, where the main act involves the matriarch, Crystal Lil, biting the heads off of live chickens. But the war comes along, and the geeks leave to join the Army, and attendance is falling off. Lil and her husband Al decide to build their own geek retinue by poisoning Lil during pregnancy. Through a variety of means, such as exposing Lil to radioisotopes and drinking arsenic, Lil has a number of deformed children. Several die, like the alligator girl, and they are displayed lovingly in jars of formaldehyde. Arty is born with flippers rather than limbs and plays the prophet from a large tank. Iphigenia and Elly are siamese twins, with completely independent upper-bodies and a shared lower body. They play amazing piano. Oly, the dwarf, is considered almost too normal to keep. The youngest child appears almost completely normal and is almost abandoned, until the family realizes he has telekentic powers.

This summary just scratches the surface of a world that is by turns jaw-dropping, disgusting, and heartbreaking. Dunn's genius is in getting us to contemplate a worldview where having ten fingers and ten toes, no noticeable deformities at all, is considered a horrible fate. A major storyline in the book has thousands of people joining Arty's "religion," Arturism. Followers work toward the goal of having all of their limbs removed and living in homes for the rest of their lives. They see this as liberation from the burdens and boredom of normalcy.

I couldn't put this book down, though I do have to admit I was disappointed with the ending. I felt like Dunn just ran out of steam, but the ride is so worth it.

Changling: Great, Old Fashioned Movie

I've never been a huge fan of Clint Eastwood, the director. I have found many of his movies a little too straightforward, not challenging enough, safe. I am a firm believer that a great director's movies are a little imperfect, flawed even, so as to leave us room for interpretation and for repeat viewing. I felt this way about Mystic River and about his last two WWII movies. Sure the acting was solid, sure the direction was sure, but like the man who directed them, they seemed too restrained and just a little aloof.

But in the case of 2008's Changling, Eastwood's steady hand and "just the facts" approach are just right. This is just a great, old-fashioned movie. Set in 1928, this movie tells the story of a single working mother in LA, who returns home from work one afternoon to find her son missing. Five months later, the LAPD deliver a boy they say is hers, but is not. When she insists that they need to continue to find her son, they have her committed and besmirch her character in the press. To tell you more would be to ruin a truly compelling plot, with anguishing twists and turns all the way to the end.

Changeling is a plot-driven, actor-fueled movie. Angelina Jolie is excellent as the determined and anguished mother. I was struck by how completely she loses herself in the character, especially given her movie star/celebrity status. As much as I like Brad Pitt, I can't say that I have ever seen a performance of his where I forgot that he was the Brad Pitt. Jolie's performance transcends her as a person and is the glue that keeps you pinned to your seat, jaw-dropped and rooting for her character all the way.

The recreation of 1920s LA is stunning and everything about this film seems authentic and curiously modern at the same time.

Dirty Harry, Bravo!

Three Flicks Review

The three-day weekend provided ample time to take in several flicks. I review three here.

W.

I was really looking forward to this one. I like Oliver Stone and I had caught snippets of Josh Brolin's portrayal of the witless wonder, so I had high expectations. Unfortunately, they were dashed. There is nothing to love here, nor hate. It was just plain dull. Where was the audacity and giddy ridiculousness of JFK? Where was the passion, the judgment, the absurdity? This film feels like a solid TV movie without the commercials. Maybe it is just all too familiar. Maybe Josh Brolin, as good as he is, is just too charming. I don't know, but I do know this was a long two hours to spend for not much payoff.

Battle in Seattle

What a great movie! Okay, I am a bona-fide lefty who went into this already believing--knowing--that the WTO is the root of all evil, so I have no issues with the perspective of the filmmaker. The movie ostensibly covers the riots that took place in Seattle during the WTO's week-long meeting there in 1999. The narrative structure works so well, with the director following several individual storylines to provide multiple perspectives. What impressed me most was that even though the director's perspective is clear, all the players are portrayed fairly and complexly. The only exception to this is an American lobbyist for a pharmaceutical company; he's a jerk, no complexity here. 

I was equally impressed by one storyline that focuses on a man, a European, who is attending the meetings and trying to get the powers that be to acknowledge the responsibility of the developing world to ensure that trade decisions favor health over profit. This is such an interesting juxtaposition to the work of the protesters, who would agree with this man, but are responsible in part for keeping him from his task.

I was also impressed by how Townsend portrays the mayor and police. The mayor, played by Ray Liotta, is a particularly interesting figure, who starts out believing Seattle can savor the glory of hosting this global event and ensure that the protesters are allowed to voice their opposition. He just never anticipated how organized and effective the protesters would be. Once that becomes clear, he is pressured to unleash the police.

The acting, cinematography, and story telling are top notch. 

Frozen River

Melissa Leo plays a very poor woman living in upstate New York. Her husband is a compulsive gambler and leaves with the money they have saved for a new mobile home just before Christmas. When she goes to look for him, she discovers that a Native American woman on the nearby reservation has taken his abandoned car. The woman tells her she can sell the car to a guy just over the border in Canada, but when they get there (after driving over a frozen river), she is forced to smuggle two Chinese illegals back into the US. Quickly, she realizes she can make enough money to buy the double-wide. 

This is a gut wrenching, unflinching portrayal of poverty in America. But it is amazingly heartening and hopeful as well. A very original tale that I will not soon forget.

Reflections on "Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist"

Okay, I've said it before, and I will say it again: Lousy movies really chap my hide. I was looking forward to Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist. I like Michael Cera. I'm a sucker for stories in which cool teenagers (i.e., smart, anti-superficial, funny) triumph over privileged, fake ones. And, I was led to believe this movie would have a great soundtrack....so it was with high expectations that we popped the DVD into the machine tonight.

Oh, I failed to mention that this movie was a critical darling when it was playing in theaters. It must have been a slow couple of weeks because this flick is a doodie (as Spalding would say)!

What can I say? Michael Cera phoned it in. The three female characters were boring, grating and just plain stupid, not necessarily in that order. The dialogue was cliche, spartan, and unimaginative.

The highlight of the action for the first hour (it was only an hour and 24 minutes long--thank God) consisted of a drunken 17-year-old puking in a public toilet, dropping her phone and gum in said toilet, fishing them out and reinserting the gum in her mouth.

The love story was boring, lame and completely uninspired. In order to convince us that Norah and Nick really belong together, we have a scene early in the movie where the villain (Nick's ex) tells Norah that she's "heard on the street" that Norah has never had an orgasm. This is so that at the end of the movie, when Nick and Norah are having sex (in a recording studio), we can hear and see Norah's tremendous "O" on the sound board. Ewwww!

The soundtrack pretty much sucks, by the way.