Captain Abu Raed (2007)

This movie got dismissed by many reviewers for things that might be very true. The musical score might be terrible. I don't know. But I think that the charge that the script is trite and predictable is not a charge that I would level at it. The flim comes from Jordan, and the city scape of Amman is breath-taking. If you are unfamiliar with the place, you should see this movie for that alone.
Our hero is Abu Raed. He has lost his wife, his child, and his will to do much more than his daily job as a janitor at the local airport. One day he finds a captain's hat, he wears it home, and he transforms himself into the neighborhood story teller, the man who travels the world and brings it back to the children who live around him.

The part of the story that is not so typical of Western stories is that of who Abu Raed choses to make a difference with. The boy who adores him or the boy who challenges him? The does make an attempt to help each of them, but the boy who idolizes him has a father who has very different plans for his son than an education--while this is not what Abu Raed would want for him, he does not interfere with that father's plan. The boy who challenges him is living in an abusive home he does intervene with. That boy might not make it to adulthood, that boy's father has lost the morale high ground to choose for that boy, and Abu Raed puts his life on the line to change that boy's life. It is a story with much sadness, both within and all around it, but there is more than that, and I would recommend it.

The Prevention of Bullying

I just don't get it.
There have been a spate of teen suicides on the heels of Tyron Clemente taking his life after Dharun Ravi and Molly Wei streamed a webcam video of him having sex with a man. It has become public knowledge that bullying related to sexual orientation is alive and well in the nation's schools. Children who are being called gay are not even necessarily gay, but that is a whole different problem to sort out. We would not tolerate someone being bullied because of race or religion, and we cannot make an exception for sexual orientation.

We know that the effective interventions for bullying include bringing the issue into the light of day. To that end, sexual education should include information about homosexuality. It is biologically determined. It has existed since the Greeks. East coast liberals did not invent it. No one is advocating that we promote it. Just that we describe it's existence.
In a secular nation, one that has a seperation between church and state, this seems enormously uncontroversial. Study after study shows that children's moral compasses are set by their parents--not their peers, not their schools, not their neighbors, not society as a whole. Parents are the single largest determinant of what children believe is right and wrong. But public education can not allow parents to decide what exists and what doesn't exist in the natural world.
Public schools are advocating tolerance of homosexuals. They are not recruiting. They are not even saying what is right and what is wrong--they are saying this exists. That it is naturally occurring. That people themselves do not determine whether they are gay or straight. And that it is wrong to discriminate or bully, period.

Cristians say it is a sub rosa attack on their religion. The Bible does have a number of injunctions against homosexuality. The same Bible also condones polygamy--Abraham and Jacob had more than one wife. Islam and Judiasm have the same father, but two different mothers. The twelve tribes of Jacob have four different mothers--2 sisters and their two slaves. That was then and this is now. Slavery is no longer tolerated. We no longer accept polygamy--it dates from a time in the world where breeding was of paramount importance. That is no longer the case--sexual do's and don't's change accordingly. There are many aspects of Biblical culture that we no longer accept as relevent for today's society. Teach your children what you will, but it is time for public education to move on.

Letters to Juliet (2010)

This is a full on, no apologies offered romance--so if that is a genre you cannot abide by, stop now and avoid this movie.
There are two stars of this film, and there are two love stories.
Vanessa Redgrave is one of the first, playing Claire, a woman seeking an old love, and she is the most compelling reason to see Letters to Juliet. In this movie you see the talents of a legendary British actor and Italian settings that have you ready to book your flight to Italy as soon as the credits are running.
However, Claire is not technically the heroine. That role falls to cat-eyed Amanda Seyfried, an appealingly offbeat ingenue. She plays Sophie, a winsome fact checker at The New Yorker who goes to Verona on vacation with her fiancé Victor (Gael Garcia Bernal, impish, handsome, hipster thin, and fun in a thankless role), a chef whose idea of an Italian holiday includes cheese, wine and olive oil tastings (actually, I would have peeled off with him myself, but the movie goes with Sophie who is more inclined to the typical tourist haunts).

Sophie stumbles onto a bizarre real-life tradition in Verona, home of Shakespeare's Capulets and Montagues. Young women write letters to Juliet, seeking counsel in matters of the heart from Romeo's doomed love (presumably, although who knows? Some may ask for help with math) and deposit them under the prototype of her famous balcony. For decades a fleet of Juliet's "secretaries" have been answering these letters.
What brings her into contact with Claire is a letter left in the wall many decades ago when Claire was a teenager waffling over what to do about an attraction to a fabulous young Italian named Lorenzo. Sophie responds, as Juliet's secretary, urging her to follow her heart — if it is still ticking — and within days, Claire shows up in Verona with her grandson Charlie (Chris Egan, who has no where near the appeal of Gael Garcia bernal, so you know that love is a quirky thing from this movie).
Sophie and Claire are kindred spirits, romantics perfectly matched to take on a driving tour of Italy, looking for Lorenzo, wherever he might have landed.
But I'd take anyone to Letters to Juliet and my guess is we'd both leave with a little Italian glow.

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson

I really loved this series, and the last book, this one, was the best. I am a life-long reader of the murder mystery genre, even though I rarely write about it (or talk about it, if it comes to that). I have never seen a murder mystery become so wildly popular. It is a world wide phenomenon. All of which is both sad and exhilarating. Sad because the author died very shortly after delivering the set of three books to his publisher, and exciting because it opens a whole potential audience to this genre--maybe other great writers will dabble in the medium as a result and the genre will be enriched. Also sad because this is it--the author had a vision of at least seven books, even embarking on writing the fourth, and if anything like the first three, they would have been intertwined, referring back to things that had happened before, consequences of previous actions coming to fruition or back to bite one in another volume.
The series features a dour, smart, world-weary editor who becomes entangled with a slightly autistic, highly traumatized young woman, and they form an unlikely team. They take on giants and they chip away at them. They have victories and failures. The novels weave the two of them into and out of the narrative in a manner that is both engaging and interesting. If you haven't already, pick up the series today. Then move on to the rich genre of Scandinavian mysteries.

Robin Hood (2010)

I have linked this to Anthony Lane's review in The New Yorker, which was lengthy and lukewarm, and seems to reflect the popular sentiment about this movie. And in the interest of full disclosure, I am not a fan of either action movies or Russell Crowe. Or Ridley Scott, for that matter. But I really enjoyed this film--which was admittedly much too long to see in a theatre, and with a fair amount of mumbling that required the English subtitles to be on even when they weren't speaking French. It is so much easier to be forgiving when you are watching the movie at home--I think it is one of the reasons why viewers routinely rate TV shows better than feature length films.
The setting is s little confusing if you don't have English history firmly in your mind--usually the Robin Hood story is set in the time when Richard the Lion Heart is out on a Crusade (1189-1194) and his younger brother John is wrecking havoc at home in his absense. This story is the prequel to the Robin Hood legend, and is set after Richard's death (1199), when John is now the King of England for real. No hope of Richard returning. But in reality, Richard was never coming back to England--he spoke only French and never lived any length of time during his life not spent on the battlefield in England (perhaps he was beloved because they really didn't know him).
Robin Hood is consistently depicted as a loyal supporter of King Richard. Richard's contemporaneous image was that of a king who was also a knight, and that was apparently not a common co-occurence. He was known as a valiant and competent military leader and individual fighter: courageous and generous. That reputation has come down through the ages and defines the popular image of Richard. In reality, he spent less than a year of his life in England, spoke no English, plotted to overthrow his father, and he spent lots of English money in France without apparent regard for the consequences of it. This is reflected in Steven Runciman's final verdict of Richard I: "he was a bad son, a bad husband and a bad king, but a gallant and splendid soldier."("History of the Crusades" Vol. III)
Ridley Scott's production depicts Robin Hood as a soldier's soldier, a man who is courageous and generous himself, and a bit at loose ends as he returns to his homeland. He is not so much gallant as stalwart. He is a man's man rather than a woman's man. He stumbles into a place to settle his loyalties early on, by returning a well made sword to the father of the man who carried it. There he is bestowed with the sword, a story about his own origins, an estate, and a wife (the lovely and lively Cate Blanchett). When he informs his travelling companions of his sudden change in circumstances the day after their arrival in Nottingham, one says, more or less, 'Nicely played, Robin--a bit rash, but well done.'
The movie goes on to show Robin off to his best advantage--so well, in fact, that John realizess that he must go. The thrown is his alone--Richard died childless, and named him his successor, but the mood is dark in England and Robin seems too much like Richard to be tolerated. So Robin is made a wanted man, a price is placed uppon his head, and hence, an outlaw is born.

The Secret Lives of the Wives of Baba Segi by Lola Shoneyin

I had one big problem with this book. It is cultural. I really couldn't get over my distaste for people who would enter into polygamous relationships. I get the appeal--security and companionship for the women, more sex for the men. I get the difficulties--anyone who has escaped high school knows that packs of women can be dangerous--to each other and to those around them. My reaction is not intellectual, however. It is visceral.
So you have to get over that to get into this book, because those dynamics are in play. Baba Segi marries a fourth wife, Bolanle. His first three wives may not agree on much, but on this they are united and opposed. The new wife is young, educated, and wordly. The other wives feel threatened from the moment they meet her, and they put up a big time fuss that doesn't quit. Bolanle has her own reasons for marrying Baba Segi, but she tries very hard to be a part of the family. SHe loves the seven children of the other wives and she takes care of them, tries to teach them--which makes the other wives even more angry. The book quickly develops into solving two crises--Baba Segi wants to find out why Bolanle is not yet pregnant, and the wives want to be rid of her. In a very circuitous plot run, the solution to the first problem allows the second to be acocmplished. But while the plot map of the book is straight forward, the story is in the telling. Wonderful book.

Post Election Blues

Thank goodness I am still feeling all the good vibes from the Rally to Restore Sanity. I am still basking in the light that there are many people like me. Those who see the good in what has happened over the past two years. People who think that we have made progress and in the right direction--and who don't tend to oversell their case. Or their prowess. Because there is not much to really celebrate otherwise after this week's post midterm elections, neither nationally nor in Iowa. The most disturbing turn of events was the assault on the legality of gay marriage.

I am so proud of our state related to gay rights. We had two places on the mid term election ballot to demonstrate our feelings on gay marriage in Iowa. The first was on the re-election of three of the judges who were part of the unanimous 7-judge panel that held that denying couples the right to marry based on their gender was unconstitutional in Iowa. The second was a referendum that comes to the ballot every ten years about a constitutional convention. While the referendum failed, the three judges on the ballot all went down decidedly. Their defeat was personal. It is the first time I have wondered about the Iowa political process, which largely seems very centered.

Ok, so maybe it is all about how difficult change can be. How scary. Same sex marriage is a change. The right kind of change. Change for the better. It is a matter of civil liberty and equal protection. We are a better country when we afford the same rights to everyone. Sometimes I am amazed that it is happening so fast, and at others I am equally amazed it has taken this long. Unfortunately, it seems like the adage of two steps forward are inevitably followed by one step backward continues to hold. The more the world changes, the more it stays the same. Now it is time to pray that level headedness will return to the state, and we will be ashamed of what we have done and atone for it. In the meantime, don't miss this chance to get the Raygun shirt celebrating our trend setting.

Patriotism and the Rally to Restore Sanity

One of the most irritating things about the extremist rhetoric is the very un-American sentiment of "love it or leave it"--the essence of our republic is that public discussion is not only tolerated, it is encouraged. We are modeled on the classical Greek civilization that flourished in Athens at the time of Socrates. In that time it was the obligation of every Greek citizen to be engaged in the running of their country, and to work towards solutions that encompassed the values and ideals of all citizens.

That is not the America of the 21st century. Unfortunately, what we have re-emerging now is more a model of who has the deepest pocket. That is the voice that is heard loudest, and it is remarkably effective. I marvel at their ability to get the people who are least likely to personally benefit, the people who can in no way fund their own society's infrastructure, to vote for politicians and policies that benefit those that are rich but few in number.

I accept all that as inevitable. What I do not accept is that we who oppose that, who believe in social justice, that we are unpatriotic. The founding fathers believed in social justice. The lack of it fueled their revolution. They didn't think that the one with the most money should continue to make those less fortunate pay and pay again. They advocated for a transparent and open system, with basic rights for all, and the ability to add to those rights as values shifted. So I was happy to see patriotism on display at the rally last Saturday. We love our country. We believe in it's people. The politicians are not serving the public, and the media is not either. But that doesn't mean we don't love the nation we live in.

Music at the Rally to Restore Sanity: Can it Make a Difference?

Wow. I know, I grew up in the 60's. The era of rallies that could change the country. In the adolescence of rock and roll. I am prone to think that music has the power to put a voice to change. To inspire. To unite people. So consider my reflections on the music at the Rally to Restore Sanity those of a starry eyed child of the sixties. But it was really great to be with literally more people than I have ever had a shared experience with, and have music be a piece of what was emotionally moving for me.

The first thing I loved about the music was the variety. They even had an incarcerated performer. How much more inclusive can you get? Roots opened, and then were joined by John Legend, and it was a great lead in to the afternoon. The next musical performance was more of a skit. Jon Stewart introduced Yusuf, formerly known as Cat Stevens, who played a beautiful rendition of 'Peace Train'. He was interupted by Stephen Colbert, who wanted to foster fear, and brought out Ozzie Osbourne playing 'Crazy Train'--the artists good humoredly started and stopped at the rally host's command, until they agreed on the 'Love Train' as a common theme, and the O'Jays came out and played. It was good music, good religious and ethnic variation, and good theatre.

My favorite performance of the day was Mavis Staples and Jeff Tweedy playing 'You Are Not Alone'. Wow, she still has it, and Tweedy's guitar just amplifies how wonderful her voice is. The sentiment fit the occasion, and while it wasn't 'get up and dance' music it was really nice to hear. Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow, joined by TI from prison, sang what was more of an anthem than rap, and Tony Bennett closed with an a capella version of 'America the Beautiful' and they closed with everyone on stage singing an old Staples Singer's song 'I'll Take You There'. Musical memories are different. They are stored somewhere else in your brain. They seem more primative, and therefore can be more satisfying, and resonate emotionally for longer periods of time. I am still in the good place emotionally that the music at the rally took me to, and I hope to stay there for awhile to come.

Rally to Restore Sanity Redux

The Million Moderate March was a peaceful afternoon that was crowded and entertaining as a first-hand experience, and hopeful as I look back on it. Hopeful in a way that I haven't felt in months. The endless rhetoric of doom is tiresome. The Rally to Restore Sanity was an antidote to the 24/7 onslaught of gloom and doom. As Jon Stewart said in his serious reflections at the end of the rally, "These are hard times, these are not end times." So, as I spent the day shoulder to shoulder with my fellow marchers, I took in what was in my immediate sphere as well as what was going on at the Capital stage.

A rally is a risk. There are things that you can control and there are things that you cannot control. The team of Stewart and Colbert were able to script a three hour program of entertainment that deftly wove the musical, the serious and the absurd together in roughly equal measures in order to hold the crowds attention as well as leave them wanting more. And thinking more. Maybe taking the message back to their communities. Let it infect others. The musicians ranged from hip and hop to soul and crooning. They were black, they were white, they were young, they were old, they were Muslim, they were not. It was inclusive and engaging, and very impressive.

But there are things that you cannot control about a rally, and that is who shows up, and how glad do they appear to be there. My fellow rally mates were the most impressive show of the day. Who we were and how we acted was what made the experience for me. We were all ages. Really. My gray hair didn't stand out, and we were interwoven nicely in the crowd. If they had asked us to count off decades and stand accordingly--a 20 year old next to a 30 year old next to a 40 year old and on up it wouldn't have been more of a mixture than it was naturally. We were all colors. We were from all over. The airport was a continuation of the rally--strangers talking about their experiences all day. As Mavis Staples and Jeff Tweedy so compellingly sang, You Are Not Alone.