Hollywood blockbusters and the death of plot

I called my brother the other day to discuss the new Sherlock Holmes movie. We had meant to see it together over Christmas, but were thwarted by the Great Christmas Blizzard of '09. He went with his S.O. Misha, and I saw half of it in theaters (fire alarm) and watched the other half online.

"Overall I liked it," I said. "Robert Downey Jr. was well-casted, and my worst fear wasn't realized: they didn't turn Watson into a bumbling comic relief. And I liked the attention to detail, like him shooting the VR into the wall, and the thing about poisoning the dog."

My brother said, "Yeah, all that was pretty good. But I feel like the plot...like, the whole thing with Moriarty?"

I agreed that the Moriarty thing was completely unnecessary, and my brother said something almost revelatory: "I feel like the plot of this movie was completey tacked on. Can...can a plot be tacked on?"

And the more I thought about it, the more I realized he was right. The movie was well-cast, well-acted, beautifully costumed, and authentically shot (and I do so love gross, gritty, smoggy Victorian movies. Done right, they're just breathtaking.) But the plot. The PLOT. Why is it that, 10 minutes after closing the laptop after the movie was over, I couldn't remember a single thing about it? Other than the fact that it existed? I couldn't remember why Irene Adler was around, why she was in league with Moriarty, what Blackwood had done that was so terrible (human sacrifice? Or something?) and most of all, why I should care about any of this.

I realized, more and more, this seems to be a common theme with blockbuster movies. Take "Pirates of the Caribbean." I've seen the first one maybe four to six times, and I could really only give you a basic outline of the plot. The third movie, I couldn't even begin to recount. I remember it being convoluted for no good reason, or what I realize NOW was probably no good reason. But we're all aware what a bad-ass Johnny Depp's Capt. Jack Sparrow is, and how much fun those movies are otherwise.

Or The Dark Knight. Christian Bale is the best Batman ever, full stop. Aaron Eckhardt is equally perfect as Harvey Dent, and as someone who takes the character of Batman as seriously as any other literary figure, I do adore these movies. I've seen the Dark Knight at least four times, and as recently as two months ago.

Things I remember about the plot include:

-Boats with the potential to explode
-the Joker is there
-Asians laundering money?
-Lucuis Fox faces an ethical quandry

Up until recently, I really thought it was me, that these movies weren't sticking in my head because my memory isn't as crackerjack as I like to believe it is, or that I get distracted by all the whizz-bang. But that's silly. I have a pretty good mind for character and plot in books, so what was the difference in movies?

I think the real answer is, these movies spend $100 million to make me forget that ultimately, they lack substance. Now I know this will come as a SHOCK to you: Blockbusters are typically meant to be all pop and little substance, no? But I've come to realize most of these movies are written in such an absurdedly convoluted way so that you're almost distracted by the fact that they make no sense.

Maybe this is why I've always gravitated towards character dramas. Things move along at human speeds, in realisitc ways, with minimal amounts of distractions and flash. People learn stuff, and grow as human beings.

I mean, of COURSE I want a movie with Batman in it to have explosions. I just also would like it to make sense, somewhere along the line.

Band names taken from history, literature, and pop culture that I want to form.

1. The Baker Street Irregulars
2. The Spanish Armada
3. Charles Foster Kane (this is a solo project. Just to screw with people.)
4. Papa Doc

Books on my shelf that I haven't read/haven't finished:

This list does not include reference books, my Bible, textbooks, or any book that isn't meant to be read comprehensively. I've also included a short note on why I bought the book, or what it's about, or some junk like that, where applicable.

1. Don't Look Now--Daphne du Maurier. Rebecca is one of my favorite books ever. This was a by the lb blind buy. I didn't even bother to read the book flap.

2. Douglas Adam's Starship Titanic--Terry Jones

3. Gods, Demons, and Others--compiled by R.K. Narayan. The blurb on the front of this book says, "Great tales from Indian myth and legend retold in English by India's leading novelist." I pulled this book out of the trash can when we moved into our current abode, along with an INSCRIBED copy of Franny and Zooey. Whomever lived here before us is a heartless bastard.

4. Montana, 1949--Larry Watson. I bought this because the cover and the blurb reminded me of an Annie Proulx book.

5. The Metaphysics of St. Thomas Aquinas--translated by James F. Anderson. I took a class on early church literature while I was at UNL and it was very interesting. I wish I'd paid more attention but I was busy drinking a lot, which leads to a somewhat gappy memory. This is another book I pulled out of the trash. Its previous owner seems to be "Mary Jeannette Dorcey," who lived in Apt. 23 and bought it for $2.

6. The Seven-Per-Cent Solution--by John H. Watson, M.D., ed. Nicholas Meyer. Glorified fan fiction. I don't anticipate liking this book. YOU DON'T FUCK WITH CANON.

7. Eleanor Rigby--Douglas Coupland

8. Adverbs--Daniel "Lemony Snicket" Handler. I started this book in high school and remember liking it, but it was overdue at the library or something.

9. Fathers and Sons--Ivan Turgenev. My roommate's boyfriend left it here and said I could keep it.

10. All Quiet on the Western Front--Erich Maria Remarque

11. Voices of a People's History--comp. Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove. A companion piece to one of my favorite books, A People's History of the United States by Zinn, and apparently a documentary called "The People Speak." This was a Christmas present from my friend Lia, along with Breaking Dawn. Hell yes.

12. Black Elk Speaks--John G. Neihardt

13. The Road to Wounded Knee--Robert Burnette and John Koster. This has "flavor of the month" written all over it, but it looks pretty interesting. Also Koster's interests apparently include "history of the West and parapsychology." I wonder if he does ghost town excursions.

14. Lewis and Clark Among the Indians--James P. Ronda

15. Black Hills, White Justice--Edward Lazarus. This is about Sioux Nation v. the United States, one of the biggest (if not THE biggest?) settlements against the US ever brought about by the Supreme Court. I read about 3/4 of this and then got bogged down in somewhat tedious legalese. I know how it ends, anyway.

16. Indian Fights and Fighters--Cyrus Townsend Brady. Both the title and the author of this book are very catchy.

17. Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto--Vine DeLoria Jr.

18. Born Rich: A Historical Book of Omaha--Margaret Patricia Killian. I bought this at a book sale at a synagogue, which are seriously the best book sales. Go to one, if you get the chance. It's some woman's recollections about being wealthy at the time Omaha was founded as a dirty little river town. It also kind of looks like someone spilled mashed potatoes on the cover.

19. The Authentic Life of Billy the Kid--Pat F. Garrett. The tagline is "A faithful and interesting narrative by Garrett, sheriff of Lincoln Co., N.M., by whom he was finally hunted down & captured by killing him." Leaving aside the obvious syntax problems, this is what we learned in school is called an "unreliable narrator."

20. The Stranger--Albert Camus. I don't remember why I never finished this. It turns out that angst and despair are kind of boring.

21. "The Possessed"--Albert Camus

22. Steppenwolf--Hermann Hesse

23. Gone Baby Gone--Dennis Lehane

24. King Solomon's Mines--H. Rider Haggard. I bought this solely because I'm gay for Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Don't judge me. At least not for this.

25. The Plot--Irving Wallace. Again, book by the lb, no idea what this was about. But The People's Almanac was a perennial favorite of mine and my brother's when we were children. It was snappy, weird, and informative.

26. Utopia--Thomas More. Trashcan book.

27. A Death in the Family--James Agee

28. Vanity Fair--William Makepeace Thackeray. I might have actually read this in high school; I didn't have a life in HS so all I did was read classic European novels. But I might be confusing it with "Pilgrim's Progress", which I also sometimes get confused with "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage."

29. The Story of the Western Railroads--Robert Edgar Riegel. Hahah why did I buy this. It's like something an autistic kid would own.

30. The Reader--Bernhard Schlink. I also own the movie of this, and I've read the first 20 pages, so I sometimes lie and tell peole that I've read this book. I have not. It feels nice to get that off my chest.

31. A Moveable Feast--Ernest Hemingway

32. For Whom the Bell Tolls--Hemingway

33. The Autumn of the Patriarch--Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I think I bought this at the same time as 100 Years of Solitude but was so scarred by the former that I never gave this one a shot.

34. Empire--Gore Vidal

35. Speaker for the Dead--Earlier in the year I was attempting to mack on a boy whose favorite book was Ender's Game. My friend Alecia gave me both books. The macking subsequently failed and, never having been a huge fan of sci-fi, I gve up on this book about 1/3 of the way through.

36. The Thirty-Nine Steps--Abandoned by the roommate's boyfriend, again.

37. Tender is the Night--F. Scott Fitzgerald. I might have actually read this. But all Fitzgerald's books tend to bleed together in my brain.

38. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court--Mark Twain. Trashcan book.

39. Empire of the Sun--J.G. Ballard. I remember this moving being awesome/frightening.

40. The French Revolution--Thomas Carlyle. I want to read this but I'm scared of it. It's over 500 pages long.

41. The Return of the Native--Thomas Hardy

42. "The Cherry Orchard," "The Sea Gull," "The Three Sisters," "Uncle Vanya."--Anton Chekov. I think I've seen a stage version of "Uncle Vanya" but I've never read any of these.

43. Postcards--Annie Proulx. Love her. Love you. Probably will love this, once I get around to reading it.

44. The French and Indian War--Francis Russell. This is the type of book that uses the word "savages." Enough said.

45. The Golden Notebook--Doris Lessing. My brother gave me this for Christmas. Also, Doris Lessing kind of looks like Golda Meier. Check it out:

Three and Three

Do other people do this? I tend to read in genre binges. For about half of my 15th year, I only read books about 17th and 18th century French aristocracy. (Louis XIV is one of my 5 imaginary dinner guests, consequently.) In the last year, this spring and summer was mainly devoted to American West/Plains Indians history. But, as my brother pointed out, basically anything interesting enough to write a nonfiction book about is a pretty depressing subject.

So as a change of pace, in the last month I've been reading one of my first loves, Victorian fiction, primarily detective stories. I've become reacquainted with my good friends, Holmes and Watson, (and NO, we shall not talk about the movie) and also the following:

1. A Treasury of Victorian Detective Stories, ed. Everett F. Bleier

2. From Hell, written by Alan Moore, drawn by Eddie Campbell

3. Gotham by Gaslight, w. Brian Augystn, d. Michael Mignola

(And definitely not Victorian, but I just finished up reading all of the Sookie Stackhouse novels, aka the Southern Vampire Mysteries, aka the True Blood books. In case you are wondering, no, they are not good, and there's like nine of them. This is a bleed-over from another minor phase of mine this fall: Twilight/modern horror, when I was watching lots of "Dexter" and having dreams that I was being eaten like a giant hamburger. But that's another post for another day.)

1. This book is awesome. It's one of the most entertaining books of short stories I've ever read. As I mentioned previously, there's a thrift store I go to where you can buy books by the pound. Which sounds awesome until I looked at my bookshelf and realized I've bought or acquired nearly 100 books in the last 13 months. It contains short stories by two of the big three in Victorian detective fiction:
A. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, English, most famous for his character Sherlock Holmes, an English private eye.
B. Emile Gaboriau, French, most famous character M. Lecoq, a French inspector
C. Edgar Allen Poe, American, most famous character The Raven, but also well-known for Chevalier Auguste Dupin, also a French police inspector.

(If you are a Holmes fan you might recognize the latter two as being name-dropped in Holmes' first novel appearance, A Study in Scarlet. Watson compares his friend's amazing powers of deductive reasoning to the two famous detectives, to which Holmes replies, "No doubt you think you are complimenting me." Hahah BURN. Despite that, Doyle paid great homage to both Poe and Gaboriau, generally considered the fathers of the genre.)

This book also rules because it contains an extremely comprehensive introduction by the editor, Bleiler, where I learned cool facts like that there are two main time periods of Victorian detection: the 40's-50's, when Poe was writing Dupin, and the 70's-90's, when Doyle and Gaboriau were. Poe based his story "The Murder of Marie Roget" (which is set in Paris) on the death of a woman named Marie Roger in New Jersey. His work, with its amazingly clever endings (the letter hidden in plain sight; the nonhuman murderer) was one of the main reasons detective fiction became so immensely popular. One of the other main reasons, especially in England, is because the Scotland Yard, the metropolitan police force of London, was formed in 1829, and many people became immensely curious about police procedures, and then disillusioned with what they viewed were the failings of the police (hence the rise of snarky, overly-smart private detectives like Sherlock Holmes.)

I would recommend this book. Even the stories I've never heard of are fantastic (except perhaps the aforementioned Dickens story, but I cannot discount even that, because it's afforded me ever so much amusement.) But I don't know if you can buy books by the lb where you live, so you might be out of luck in trying to find it.

2. From Hell was written by one of the masters. You might recognize Alan Moore from his many famous works (V for Vendetta, The Watchmen) or from the fact that he is a legendary crazy person and looks like Rasputin and lives in a cabin in the woods or something, like a Montana Freeman. And make no mistake, FH is the best of the best, one of the best graphic novels ever written. It's exquisitely researched and annotated--Moore's footnotes alone take up about 100 pages, covering everything from where he made his research to the changes in London architecture and his and Campbell's painstaking attempts to recreate them on the page. If you're not familiar with this book, it's a reimagining of the Jack the Ripper murders, with them having been committed by Dr. William Whitey Gull, the personal physician of Queen Victoria. This is a real historical personage, and one of the names that's long been thrown around when people are naming candidates for the murderer. The book presupposes he does this for extremely abstruse, certifiably insane reasons; namely, that he's trying to invoke ancient powers channeled through the Masonic order. Yes! Awesome.

If you're one of those fags who still holds out and says that graphic novels are just comic books, la la la not a legit art form, this book will change your mind. Guarateed.

3. This is basically fanboys only. I shall sum up the plot thusly: It's basically about the same thing as FH, only it's got a different murderer, and instead of being investigated by real life police inspector Frederick Abberline, it's done by Batman. He is, after all, the world's greatest detective. This book is no masterpiece, but the drawings are pretty awesome, and it's got one of those awesome matchups that you could only make up while you are trying to fall asleep: BATMAN V. JACK THE RIPPER. I'd watch that.

Okay. Maybe more on this later. Maybe not. Wouldn't you like to know.