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.

The next 25

I've been wondering why these books start back at 1923. Is that when TIME itself started? Because there is really no other logical explanation. According to wikipedia, here are some important events that took place that year:

Jan 10th: Lithuania seizes and annexes Memel
Jan 17th: Juan de la Cierva invents the autogyro (see Fig 1.o)
March: Greece adopts the Gregorian calendar
March: TIME magazine hits newsstands for the first time (AH-HA!)
And my personal favorite, July 10th: Large hailstones kill 23 in Rostow, Soviet Union.


So as we can see, 1923 was obviously a watershed year, what with its old-timey flying machines and such.

Anyway. To continue.

26. A Dance to the Music of Time--Anthony Powell

27. Death Comes to the Archbishop--Willa Cather. Man, Cather's so cool. 1) Nebraskan 2) Transvestite 3) named "Willa", and I'm always a fan of solid "W" names, like my adopted grandma Wanda. She was OG. Rest in peace, you awesome old lady.

28. A Death in the Family--James Agee. Previously mentioned in my "books that I haven't read yet" entry. Oh Agee, why must you come back and haunt me!? And how some sometimes I get you confused with Edward Albee, whom I consider self-indulgent and whiny!?!?

29. The Death of the Heart--Elizabeth Bowen

30. Deliverance--James Dickey. Whoa, is this what I think it is?? If so, I might have a hard time taking it seriously. Kind of like how First Blood is apparently a sober, introspective novel about Vietnam-era PTSD but when you think about it, all you can picture is Sylvester Stallone in a red bandana. Likewise, when I hear the name of this book, all I can think of is, "You sure do got a purdy mouth."

31. Dog Soldiers--Robert Stone

32. Falconer--John Cheever

33. The French Lieutenant's Woman--John Folwes. Man, I haven't read any of these. Shame on me.

34. The Golden Notebook--Doris Lessing. Okay, awesome. I am actually reading this right now. It's sitting next to me on the couch as I speak, along with an Etch-a-sketch and Cookie Monster (who is wearing a pumpkin costume). So far I really like it, although I'm only on page 15, which is being marked by a Team Jacob bookmark. One of the things I like best about it is Lessing's extensive conversation with herself in the intro about what she was trying to "do" with this work--how she wanted to write something that she felt really embodied the mid-20th century, and what she felt she could bring to the table to contribute to people's understanding about the way life is right now (that is, in the early 60's, when she was writing it.) She compares her goals to those of Thomas Hardy's work in contribution to the poor during the Victorian era. This is definitely something I can get behind. So the main character, Anna, is an unmarried feminist who is also a communist. All I've really read so far is Anna and her best friend Molly sitting around in an apartment eating strawberries and waiting for a dude named Richard to drop by, and everything is very British and now I want strawberries. But I have high expectations!

35. Gone With the Wind--Margaret Mitchell. Man, I really do want to read this! I checked it out from the library once and it was eleventy million pages, though. And I was like 13. But I do like authors who are famous recluses (except Pynchon--fuck you, dude) and I like the South and I wish I could say "fiddle-dee-dee" but that's the kind of phrase that's hard to work into your everyday lexicon without sounding like a retard.

36. The Grapes of Wrath--John Steinbeck. Look, I recognize that this is actually a seminal work in Amerian Lit, possibly the great American novel, and it's skillfully done. But I still hate it. It's still depressing and quite frankly, boring. Let me tell you a little story about this book. This was the last book we had to read in senior year American Lit. And I was the only person who'd read it before that, including the teacher (it was her first year at our school). So she had to read a chapter or two every night ahead of where we were, and was relying on the old teacher's lesson plan on the book in order to teach it to us. Last week of school, I drag in first period, having stayed up all night to attend a Bright Eyes concert (ahhh, 2003, how I loved you) and she's finishing reading the book right then and there. She looks at me and says, "I now understand why you hate this book." So at least I wasn't alone.

37. Gravity's Rainbow--Thomas Pynchon. Dude. I'm still mad at you about Crying of Lot 49. You're not pulling this one over on me! You're not Cormac McCarthy! Gtfo.

38. The Great Gatsby--F. Scott Fitzgerald. Garrick once had an amazingly well-thought-out rant about why he hated this book. I wish I could remember at least some of it. Then again, Garrick also once wrote me a several thousand word long email about the similarities between Will Turner and Luke Skywalker, so take that as you will. I love this book, but now as I'm sitting here trying to think about it, I don't really know why. It's...stylish? I guess? I like the character of Gatsby, how I imagine he seems like the kind of guy that sweats too much when he's nervous. And Fitzgerald is my ultimate example of how I don't think you can really fully appreciate a good work of literature unless you have at least a passing familiarity with the life of the author. Rich girls don't marry poor boys, Scott!

39. A Handful of Dust--Evelyn Waugh. I don't know anything about the life of Waugh! I'm a hypocrite. Also, Jack said one of his professors was writing a book about Waugh, and he (Jack) suggested the title "WAUGH--What is He Good For?" That made me snort just typing it out.

40. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter--Carson McCullers. I read this in junior high and don't remember much about it. It didn't dazzle me, but it gets such high praise in the annals of American Lit, maybe it deserves another chance. I remember it having this Peyton Place-ish vibe: a small town full of colorful characters and dark secrets. Man. I DO love PP. I wonder if it'll be on this list!!

41. The Heart of the Matter--Graham Greene. I once bought about half of Greene's books at a college library sale but I only ever got around to reading like, two of them. I have this book stored in my parents' house somewhere. Also I love Greene because of Donnie Darko: "Do you even know who Graham Greene is?" "PLEASE. I think we've all seen 'Bonanza.'"

42. Herzog--Saul Bellow.

43. Housekeeping--Marilynne Robinson

44. A House for Mr. Biswas--V. S. Naipul

45. I, Cladius--Robert Graves

46. Infinite Jest--David Foster Wallace. THIS IS MY FAVORITE BOOK OF ALL TIME. THIS BOOK SAVED MY LIFE. LOOK HOW LOUD I HAVE TO YELL, THAT'S HOW MUCH I LOVE IJ. What could I say about this book that would communicate my undying fealty toward it, its genius, and its complex, vibrating understanding of who I am as a human being? When David Foster Wallace hung himself last year I stayed in my room all day and cried and listened to Elliott Smith, which is basically the same thing I did when Elliott Smith died. ANYWAY. I wish I still had this book, but I gave it away to my friend Liz. She later joined a Virgin Mary cult so I'll never get it back. Sad. I'll probably write a blog devoted to just this book someday, so I'll save the hardcore elaboration until then.

47. Invisible Man--Ralph Elliston. This is the one about being fake black, right? Not about being literally invisible?

48. Light in August--William Faulkner

49. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe--C. S. Lewis. Hell yeah! I love Lewis, especially this series and The Screwtape Letters. I love how the kids take everything in with such cool British aplomb--oh, there's a war on and a magical land inside the wardbobe, how delightful--and the land of Narnia is one of the most well-spun fantasty universes ever created, from Magician's Nephew to The Last Battle. Also, movie version of Prince Caspian is so handsome!

50. Lolita--Vladimir Nabokov. This seems to be one of those books that becomes more and more vindicated over time, and rightly so. Highly lyrical, beautifully doubtful, you'll be re-checking the author section again and again; are you SURE English isn't Nabokov's native language? This book was important enough to spawn a whole new concept of how young women were viewed, for better or for worse.

Time's 100 Top Books

THE COMPLETE LIST: http://www.time.com/time/2005/100books/the_complete_list.html

So because I actually have nothing of substance to say, and my face hurts, diverting my attention, here's Time's 100 top books from 1923 to 2000, with my witty and occasionally verbose commentary. (Note: I also might make uninformed, stupid, and perhaps inadvertently racist comments about books that I have not actually read. You just never know.)

1. The Adventures of Augie Marsh--Saul Bellow

2. All the King's Men--Robert Penn Warren. I keep thinking I've read this book because I've read half of All The President's Men, the nonfiction novel about the Watergate scandal. This is not that book. This book is about the South and corrupt politics, which are both things that intrigue me, so I should probably read this book at some point.

3. American Pastoral--Philip Roth. I've read Roth's Portnoy's Complaint, and while I like it, it did not convince me to ever read another Roth novel. Shortsighted? Perhaps. I have no idea what AP is even about.

4. An American Tragedy--Theodore Dreiser. I'm pretty sure I've read this. It's about a golddigger guy, right? And he murders his lover with a boat oar? Does that sound correct?

5. Animal Farm--George Orwell. I'm pretty sure I'm the only American to ever read this that wasn't assigned to do so in English Lit class in high school. It was okay. Frankly I liked it better than 1984, which I've always found somewhat overrated in a modern context. Yeah, I get that it BLEW MINDS when it came out in the 40's, and the whole "Big Brother" concept transcends time and space (plus I find it really fun to say things are "doubleplusgood," etc.) but it's no Brave New World, you know? It's not even Animal Farm. What was I talking about again? Oh yeah: I like AM because talking animals are cool and so are allegories, especially ones about talking animals. The Garden of Eden! The life of St. Margaret! Those things are cool. Also it always makes me think of the song "Piggies" by the Beatles, which is really not that great of a song but I'm still in love with.

6. Appointment in Samarra--John O'Hara

7. Are You There God? It's Me Margaret--Judy Blume. There is nothing I can say about this book that hasn't already been said, or would like, contribute to the world's consciousness about this book in any real way. It takes about BRAS and stuff. Ew. A classic when you're 12 but otherwise pointlessly unreadable.

8. The Assistant--Bernard Malamud

9. At Swim-Two-Birds--Flann O'Brien. I like these wild cards that the editors are throwing around. This one has a very catchy title.

10. Atonement--Ian McEwan. I haven't read this but Shana and I rented the movie and it has literally the most depressing movie ending I have ever seen. IT ATE MY SOUL. It was a happiness a-bomb. Don't watch it unless you want to cry so much that your tear ducts shrivel up and fly away.

11. Beloved--Toni Morrison. This is one of the books I think of when I think of "fem lit." This is not to be confused with that disgusting moneymaking behemoth, "chick lit"--the reading equivalent of watching whatever's on TV. " It's about slaves or something. It's like Uncle Tom's Cabin for women who find it hard to read old-timey books.

12. The Berlin Stories--Christopher Isherwood.

13. The Big Sleep--Love. This. Book. So fantastic. I saw the movie first (which, spoilers: has a much different ending than the book, as the movie was primarily a Bogie/Bacall vehicle, so of course they ended up together at the end) and was interested enough to go through a short novel noir sort of phase; I read this and The Thin Man and a handful of short stories. Nowadays it's a bit hard to read this sort of thing without giggling slightly at all the hardboiled detective cliches--the shadowy rooms, the dames, the whiskey. But remove yourself from that and appreciate the well-plotted action, and it's a good book.

14. The Blind Assassin--Margaret Atwood. I have not read this but I generally like Atwood, so I should keep this in mind. She's one of the only science fiction authors I can consistently stomach.

15. Blood Meridian--Cormac McCarthy. Fuck this book so hard. This is my least favorite book ever. With two different authors (McCarthy and Tom Robbins) have I had the experience of people assuring me, "Read this! This is great." I read book X, hate it, and then listen to someone (often a different person) say, "No no, read book Y! It's great! Different, yet the same, as book X!" Let me tell you something: If you hate a book (and I mean HATE. Hate like you would smack it if it were a person and gossip viciously about it behind its back, girl-style), don't bother reading anything anything else the author has written. Your life is too goddamned short to put yourself through that gorey rigamarole. At least mine is. This book is 1) Archaic for no particular reason 2) Contains no real character development, plot, QUOTATION MARKS, etc etc. 3) Is like 300 pages long, and as far as I can tell, every chapter is basically interchangable with one another. It BAFFLES me, the popularity of this book. It basically is just talking about murdering people (mostly committed by a 14 year old named The Kid) under a sunset and there's a desert, it's really hot, blah blah blah. I've been to the desert. I know it's hot there. Just thinking about reading this book makes my blood pressure rise. I also read two more books by this author, No Country For Old Men and The Road (and no, I have not seen either of these movies) and saw the film version of "All The Pretty Horses." And every moment devoted to these endeavors was wrung from me like Jesus crying tears of blood onto the stones of Gethesename. Fuck McCarthy.

16. Brideshead Revisited--Evelyn Waugh. Jesus sent me a little present just now by putting this book next on the list. This book is great! I love Brit Lit, I really do. And I think the microgenre of this would be "between-the-wars", which seems delightlfully Mitfordian. This is the story of Charles Ryder, a poor, somewhat confused (about sex, about youth, the war, his artistry...) young man who befriends a family of aristocrats and spends the next 20 years weaving in and out of their lives. There is also an excellent film version with Emma Thompson playing the matriarch, Lady Marchmain, Mrs. Flyte. I've also been told the BBC miniseries is good, too, though I've never seen it. The movie version plays up the possibly-gay angle much harder, and some Waugh purists decry this, but for me it makes the whole thing hang together much better in a way that I think Waugh would have appreciated. It throws the whole Catholicism thing into better relief. Waugh apparently decried this book in later years, saying it was overwrought, but I really feel it's a cornerstone of 20th century British literature. As the title suggests, you can't go home again.

17. The Bridges of San Luis Ray--Thorton Wilder

18. Call it Sleep--Henry Roth

19. Catch-22--Joseph Heller. Yes! Yes! This book. The definitive book of World War II. Rejected by 25 different publishers before acceptance, taking over a decade to complete. A landmark in American satire, poking fun at WWII-era "Americanism" and xenophobia, something that all of us who came of age in a post 9/11 environment can sympathize with. This is the book that all authors, would-be and established, should apsire to write.

20. The Catcher in the Rye--JD Salinger. Have there ever been more split opinions about any book than this one? When I was a youth and read this, I hated it violently. (And probably by this point, you should realize that my opinions on books run towards the violent.) But that was about a decade ago, and since then I've come to appreciate Salinger's other major works, Nine Stories and Franny and Zooey. Being that, I can't really be sure I am an accurate judge of this book anymore. Also it features the insult "crummy," delivered in a manner that makes me think that Salinger was using deadly force with it, like calling someone a "cunt" today.

21. A Clockwork Orange--Anthony Burgess. Things you might not know about Burgess, and this book: The author was a linguist, and the book was partly written in an exercise of language, much like Tolkein's LOTR trilogy. Somewhere along the way, probably when Stanley Kubrick got his dirty little hands on it, CO became a byword in "omg the youth of today!!!" and by all accounts, Burgess spent the rest of his life regretting he'd ever put pen to paper on the whole subject.

22. The Confessions of Nat Turner--William Styron

23. The Corrections--Johnathan Franzen. Um. I got about 30 pages into this and put it down. Did not want. At this point in my life I'm somewhat over the whole white boy, middle class, O WOE IS ME I have it soooo hard sort of thing. Yeah, I get it, you want to feel marginalized by society because minorities have such a fun time, living in their ghettos and reservations, and you want a slice of that pie. That's fine. Take it. But please don't be a whiny jerk about it who blows the rest of the money in their bank account on leather pants while you're at it. At least have some self-deprecation.

24. The Crying of Lot 49--Thomas Pynchon. Fuck you, Pynchon. You will never be Ray Bradbury. Why would you even want to be? He sucks too.

25. A Dance to the Music of Time--Anthony Powell


I will do more of this when I'm in a more giving mood and can write things more explanatory than "Fuck you, Pynchon."

Webster v. Fahey: Revisionist History

This entry is only passingly about books, and contains a LOT of pedantic information about my city. Read at your own risk.

So as I've mentioned before in previous spaces, my friend Dusty just opened an art/mixed media gallery in North downtown Omaha (idiotically known as NoDo). I spend a lot of time in this part of town, as Saddle Creek Records has a complex on the next block that includes an art house theater, an awesome bar, and a coffee shop that I love. Formerly, both Axiom and the Saddle Creek Complex were located on Webster Street, about 20 blocks from my abode. They are now located on Mike Fahey Drive.

In our part of town, most of the streets are named for important early Omahans, Nebraskans, or heroes of the Civil and Plains Indians wars. Running south to north, in what I consider my general neighborhood, the streets go Dodge (named for Grenham Dodge, a Civil War general), Davenport (I admit I don't know what this is named for, though I presume it's the same thing/person as the town of Davenport, NE), Chicago (self-explanatory), Cass (another Civil War general, and also the street I live on), California (see "Chicago", above), Webster (see below), Burt (named for our first territorial governor), and Cuming (another Civil War soldier).

As you can see, there's a somewhat common theme for the streets in this part of the city, which dates back to around the turn of the 20th century.

I'm upset about the name change from Webster to Mike Fahey. Really upset. Not like, throwing things upset, but upset enough to complain about it at parties to Dusty and write blog entries about it. And here's why!

John L. Webster was, in the 1870's, the lead attorney for Union-Pacific railroad, which was a gigantic corporation--the importance of the railroads in forming this part of the world really can't be understated. It was a big-ass fancy job. In 1876, he worked pro bono in a landmark civil rights case, Standing Bear v. Crook. He was on the side of Standing Bear.

You might remember Standing Bear from your American history class, but you probably don't. A brief rundown: Standing Bear was a member of the Ponca tribe, which was a non-nomadic tribe living in Northeast Nebraska (near the present day NE-SD border, on the banks of the Niobrara River). During the time period when the US government thought it was fun to fuck with Indians for no particular reason, the Poncas were rounded up and forced to march to Indian Territory (present day Oklahoma) in what's now know as the "Ponca Trail of Tears." While in OK, Standing Bear's son died, and his deathbed wish was to be buried at home on the Niobrara. So Standing Bear and his family turned around and marched all the way back home, a distance that's about 12 hours by car, in the dead of winter. They made it about as far as Omaha before Standing Bear was arrested and thrown into jail at Fort Omaha by General George Crook. Standing Bear sued Crook for rights of habeas corpus, i.e. that he was unlawfully detained, both by being confined to a reservation, and in the prison. He won his case, in no small part because of the awesomeness of his attorneys, John Webster and Andrew Poppleton (which is the name of the last street I lived on!) And in so winning, he was declared a human being by the Nebraska court system.

Obviously, this is a pretty big deal. It's considered one of the most important court cases in American Indian history, which you can imagine has seen a whole hell of a lot of court cases. And it's also very important for civil rights for all American citizens, in that it reaffirms that you can't be randomly thrown into prison or confined to a landed space, like an Indian reservation, without just cause.

This is all laid out beautifully and intricately in a wonderful book called "I Am a Man" by Joe Starita. The title is taken from Standing Bear's speech during the trial, as translated by Susette "Bright Eyes" LaFlesche:

"My hand is not the color of yours, but if I pierce it, I shall feel pain. If you pierce your hand, you also feel pain. The blood that will flow from mine will be the same color as yours. I am a man. The same God made us both."

I saw this man speak last winter in the home of General Crook, which is now a museum at Fort Omaha. Terrific topic. Terrific book. Required reading for anyone interested in Plains Indian history or minority rights.

The story ends very sadly: Standing Bear's brother Big Snake was later killed by soldiers for attempting to make the same journey home, and in the 1960's, the Ponca tribe was dissolved by the federal government, and the reservation sold off to farmers. They were reinstated about 10 years ago, but the damage that the dissolution did will probably never be fully healed.

Mike Fahey was the mayor of Omaha from 2001-2009. He was born in KC and attended college at Creighton University. He gained prominence in the city by starting an insurance company. He gained notoriety for the following:

1. Quote wikipedia: "In October 2006 the City of Omaha Safety Auditor Tristan Bonn submitted a report which detailed Omaha Police Department officers' aggressive, rude and unwarranted traffic stops, which unprecedentedly involved African Americans and other people of color.^[2] Within a week Fahey fired her, as he called Bonn "insubordinate" for submitting the report.^[3] The incident has caused ire within North Omaha [i.e. the black part of town] particularly.

2. "Fahey has been criticized for his decision to build a new baseball stadium in downtown Omaha as a means to securing a long-term contract with the NCAA to keep the College World Series in Omaha. As a result of this, a group of Omaha residents circulated a proposal to recall Fahey. This petition drive failed, with the Recall Fahey campaign collecting only 8,202 of the required 21,734 signatures."

GUESS WHERE THIS BASEBALL STADIUM IS LOCATED. OH RIGHT, ON WEBSTER STREET, right behind the Saddle Creek complex. It's under construction as I write this, and is currently in the spooky rebar skeleton stage.

It's also been alleged that part of the reason Fahey wanted the stadium in that part of town (which is undergoing a swift gentrification process) was because he himself had bought up a fuckton of land by the river, and then resold it to the city, making an absolute killing. This is all common knowledge for the citizens of Omaha.

A link from the Omaha World-Herald about the street name change:

http://www.omaha.com/article/20100118/NEWS01/701189954

So tell me. Which one of these men deserves to have a street named after him?