Relationship Spotlight: Peggy Carter & Edwin Jarvis (Agent Carter)

Another great Marvel friendship here – this one doesn’t even need superpowers to be awesome.  It’s too bad that Peggy and Steve didn’t get their dance, but if she’s going to be kicking ass and taking names somewhere without him, I’m glad she has Jarvis to back her up.

The unwanted sidekick who ultimately proves themselves invaluable is a tried-and-true archetype, and Jarvis (not to be confused with  J.A.R.V.I.S., Tony Stark’s intelligent computer system) fits the bill.  When Peggy agrees to help Howard recover his stolen inventions, she’s in a fairly solitary place.  She’s still privately grieving Steve’s loss, and she’s silently seething at the way the SSR treats her like a secretary and wastes her skills as an agent.  She’s not in the mood for a tagalong, and she’s very insistent about handling things herself.  The last thing she wants is Howard’s butler, Jarvis, foisted upon her to help with her secret mission.

And at first glance, Jarvis doesn’t seem like he’d be much help even if Peggy did want it.  He doesn’t give off the air of being made for the field, and he’s used to a routine and neatness that belies the grime and unpredictability of spy work.  It’s understandable that Peggy would look at him and only see a stuffed shirt.  However, Jarvis isn’t just anyone’s butler – he’s Howard Stark’s butler, which inevitably means that he’s dealt with grime and unpredictability plenty of times.  And, as ill-suited as he seems for the task, he’s more than willing to do whatever will help Peggy in any way he can.  Not that he’s a spy extraordinaire, but he’s hard-working, fastidious, loyal, and extremely eager, all of which are good qualities to have in a pinch.

So, slowly, they start to become partners.  It’s still definitely a hero-sidekick type of situation – Jarvis never condescends to Peggy, which is a major point in his favor – but Peggy comes to value Jarvis’s support.  As she fights for her worth, she recognizes Jarvis’s as well, learning to appreciate a punctual get-away driver, a, extra pair of eyes applied to a problem, and someone who has her back when things get dicey.  She doesn’t always show that appreciation very well, partly because it’s hard for her to open up to someone again (albeit 100% platonically) and partly because, like most Marvel heroes, she doesn’t always listen to other people’s advice as well as she should.  Over the course of the (too-short) series, they come to mean a lot to each other.  They don’t always see eye-to-eye, and when they fight, it’s hard, because each knows how to get to the other, but when it really matters, they’re always there for each other.

One of my favorite scenes on the show comes early in season 1, when Peggy recovers Howard’s weapons cache and immediately begins planning her victory walk through the SSR offices, proving what she can do once and for all to those self-important misogynists.  Jarvis, though, realizes she can’t do this because they’ve been carrying out their investigation in secret, counter to the one the SSR is running.  When he tells her as much, she brushes him off, too caught up in relishing the chance to finally be recognized as the incredible agent she is, and so he starts in with the tough love.  Taking on the role of her superiors, he starts bombarding her with questions, and Peggy is forced to accept his point – that there’s no agency-sanctioned explanation for her actions or her discovery, and that, as much as it kills her to do it, she has to call in an anonymous tip and let another (male) agent take the credit for what she’s done.  Jarvis is tough but honest in getting her to see this, as well as empathetic in seeing what she has to sacrifice.  I enjoyed these two before that scene, but this is when I knew I loved them.

Original: Greeting My Grandfather from Opposite Ends of the Church (2012)

Greeting My Grandfather from Opposite Ends of the Church

You sang with the Sunday choir,

Which means you sat without fail

At the front of the church

On display,

Somewhere between the pulpit

And the curtain covering the baptismal.

Ours was the third pew from the back.

Though we never owned it,

We staked a claim on it weekly –

Like students who chafe under assigned seating,

But given their freedom,

Return to the same desks every day.

This left a sanctuary between you and me,

All those parishioners

In sardine-can rows of pews

Separating us.

So, when instructed to rise

And greet our neighbors,

Yours was never a hand

I could shake.

The hearty “hellos”

And Sunday smiles

Weren’t built to span

More than a pair of pews,

Couldn’t reach someone

A congregation away.

But every week,

You’d greet me with a straight-backed salute,

And I would respond in kind. 

I would fix my gaze

Past the pulpit

And wait for your eyes

To fall on mine.

Then we’d share a “good morning,”

You and I,

That leapt over every stained-glass window.

I don’t know when the sight

Began seeping from your eyes –

If there were Sundays

When you couldn’t see the shape

And color of me,

But I know

You never missed a salute.

Did you turn, I wonder,

Toward the third pew from the back,

To where, unseeing,

You knew I would be,

And lift your hand to your brow,

Trusting I raised mine in reply?

The Timid Young Man (1935)

This is kind of a weird one.  While it has its good comedic moments, it doesn’t have much in the way standout comic sequences.  What’s more, though, some of the plot is just uncomfortable.  Not really sure how this short was dreamed up, but it’s no favorite of mine.

Fleeing from a wedding that he evidently agreed to while drunk, Buster heads for the hills.  On the way, he picks up a hitchhiker/runaway bride.  Both have sworn off romantic entanglements and cheerfully declare themselves a “woman-hater” and “man-hater” respectively (note:  this just seems to be their way of saying they’re done with women/men.  There’s nothing to indicate that either actually hates members of the opposite gender in any malicious way; just unfortunate phrasing.)  They plan to camp in the mountains together but are soon set upon by an unpleasant boor of a fellow traveler who pushes Buster around and acts like the girl is his property.  Buster and the girl need to do some quick thinking to get away from him.

It’s this guy, the interloper, that really brings the short down for me.  I get that understanding of harassment has grown hugely since 1935, and a domineering guy who “won’t take no for an answer” constitutes the main external conflict in plenty of old comedies (a fair number of Buster’s silent stuff features the bad guy pulling the girl into his arms and laughing as she tries to get away.)  This plot really doesn’t sit right with me, though.  Maybe it’s by virtue of the fact that it is a talkie and doesn’t tell its story through oversized gestures, a practice which can distance you a little from what’s happening onscreen.

But for whatever reason, this guy skeeves me out way more than a lot of these types of plots do.  He repeatedly calls the girl “baby,” wants her at his beck and call, and is a generally lascivious creep.  He’s also taken Buster’s car keys, stranding them with him, and insists that, when they do part ways, the girl is going with him, not Buster.  It just makes me really uncomfortable, and it’s compounded by the fact that Buster’s character is a little more easily cowed here.  It’s not quite the “chump dynamic” from the MGM years, but he doesn’t push back nearly as much as I like to see with Buster.

All that understandably puts a damper on the humor, and unfortunately, there isn’t a lot start with.  Most of what we do get is contained to small moments, bits of incidental comedy from Buster.  There’s a good gag of him leaning on a folding chair (you can imagine how well that turns out) and a funny shot of him attacking a watermelon.  There’s only one good comic sequence, involving a fishing hole, a small dog, and some Mexican jumping beans; creative and cute.  Fishing isn’t quite as reliable as baseball, cars, and trains, but it’s still one of those topics that pretty much always lends itself to good Buster comedy. 

Warnings

Slapstick violence and some unpleasant harassment.

Character Highlight: Susan Foreman (Doctor Who)

Back where it all started.  Susan’s far from my favorite companion – the conceit in the early years of always having one adolescent companion puts Susan in the “needs to be saved” column too often – but she’s special because she’s the first.  Even though we technically meet Ian and Barbara before we meet her, she’s the first to travel with the Doctor, and as Ian and Barbara struggle to come to grips with what’s happening, she bridges the cultural gap between her grandfather and her teachers.

There’s this idea of Susan as constantly screaming/crying, getting captured, and spraining her ankle as she flees the bad guys, and like the idea of most generally less-liked companions, it’s not strictly true.  Yes, she does all these things, and yes, the other three tend to come up with solutions to their assorted scrapes and crises far more often than she does, but she isn’t useless.  She can help, too, and even if she’s cast more as the student following the “lessons” of her teachers and grandfather, she is capable of her own initiative.

Susan is smart and curious, taking joy in seeing new things and sometimes letting that enthusiasm get her into trouble.  She’s friendly, kind, and entirely devoted to her grandfather.  She feels a tug-and-pull between the itinerant life she’s led traveling with the Doctor and the thought of something steadier, like what she has at Coal Hill School; she loves visit new places and meeting new people, but she also has moments when she desires a home that doesn’t dematerialize.

As I said, in early episodes she functions as a sort of go-between for the Doctor and Ian and Barbara.  Susan is a definite peacemaker, and she tries to help the Doctor and the two teachers understand one another, almost like she’s trying to get the two halves of her life to get along.  She educates Ian and Barbara on the rudiments of TARDIS travel and makes explanations for the Doctor’s more obstinate actions, and she tries to make the Doctor see that these humans can do and understand more than he thinks they can.

I like Susan best in the scenes when we’re reminded how, typical teenage girl or not, she’s an also alien from another planet.  I love references to her travels with the Doctor from before Ian and Barbara are brought along with them, and I like her little hints of alienness, like her ultrasensitivity to the psychic atmosphere that allows her to communicate using her thoughts in “The Sensorites.”  Speaking of “The Sensorites,” I also like that, in that story, Susan is the one to give us our first description of Gallifrey.  It’ll be years before we see the Doctor go back again, but as Susan remembers the sights of her home, we see how she’s wholly alien but thoroughly “human,” as we would say, with the same appreciation for beauty and longing for where she comes from.

And not for nothing, that very first shot of her remains a classic.  The pixie cut, the stylish ‘60s dress, holding a pocket radio to her ear and swaying with a far-away look in her eye, the soft twist of her arm to the music strange and beautiful.  Every inch an unearthly child.

A Little Princess (1995, G)

For starters, let me admit that I’ve never read A Little Princess, so I don’t know how much this film adaptation deviates from the book (a lot, I hear.)  It’s possible that, if I read it, the movie would lose some of its shine for me, but I have my doubts about that.  First, regardless of the original story told by the book, the story the movie tells is lovely and excellently-told, and second, I’ve loved this movie since I was a kid, and that’s a bias that’s hard to mess with (a few spoilers, by necessity.)

When her father has to join the fight during WWI, bold, imaginative Sara is sad to leave her home in India, and even sadder to part with him.  However, at the New York boarding school where he brings her, Sara is soon causing a commotion.  She doesn’t accept something is true just because an adult says it, she speaks her mind, and her stories of magic and romance, while a hit among the students, don’t jibe with the strict Miss Minchin’s ordered way of life.  A sudden tragedy drastically changes Sara’s circumstances, and she struggles to maintain her belief in the wonderful and impossible as her new life threatens to grind her down.

Nitpicks first.  Most of the child actors definitely feel like child actors, and even Liesel Matthews, who plays Sara, sometimes gives off an air of reciting her lines instead of saying them.  That said, everyone does a decent job, and Sara’s charm, spark, and heroism shines through the vast majority of the time.  Some of the humor gets a bit kiddish at times, but it’s not bad.  (This is the furthest I can go in criticizing it.  See, I told you I love this movie!)

But the good is so good.  I first saw this film nearly a decade before I knew who Alfonso Cuarón was, but his direction is topnotch as he deftly moves between changes in tone – the delightful, heartbreaking, touching, triumphant, suspenseful, funny, and magical moments all come off just as they should.  As usual, Emmanuel Lubezki is on hand to make the cinematography look amazing.

All the themes, from making your world how you choose to see it, to the love of a true friend, are beautifully explored and just what an 8-year-old girl needed when she saw this in the movie theater 21 years ago.  I love watching Sara at every point in her journey:  confidently forging her own path, losing sight of herself, and finding her way back again.  I also love her gorgeous relationship with her lovely father (Liam Cunningham, who I’ll always adore because of this role) and the easy way she nurtures friendships with some of the sad and lonely girls at the school, scarcely aware that she’s giving them exactly what they need.  I’m biased toward Becky (her reaction to the “feast” is the cutest thing ever,) but Ermengarde and Lottie are great, too.

Also?  Let’s be real.  “I am a princess.  All girls are.  Even if they live in tiny old attics.  Even if they dress in rags.  Even if they aren’t pretty, or smart, or young.  They’re still princesses.  All of us.”  Come on!  I defy you to tell me that’s not awesome.

Warnings

A few scary scenes, thematic elements, and a war scene (no fighting, just aftermath.)

News Satire Roundup: August 21st

August 21 – First up was Ryan Lochte’s scandal in Rio and fall from grace as America’s favorite “sweet dumb merman.”  From there, it was straight to the main story on charter schools and their wildly-inconsistent regulation from state to state.  Plenty of gory facts, like a school that reported attendance numbers at 1500% of reality to get more tax dollars, or schools that unexpectedly closed less than two months in.  I appreciated John’s point that this sort of bad business risks so much more because it can ruin a kid’s future.  Last was a direct appeal to Trump that, with two bad options of losing to Clinton or actually being president, Trump should take option 3:  drop out and claim it was all a scathing satire of the U.S. political system.  As a template, he used the children’s chapter book The Kid Who Ran for President (full of startling parallels) and offered Trump that kid’s campaign suspension speech to use as his own.

Since there was no Daily Show this week, let’s have a quick shout-out to the correspondents.  By and large, I think the folks supporting Trevor do a bang-up job, bringing the funny and the truth bombs in equal turn.

Far and away, Hasan is my favorite.  His pieces dealing with Islamaphobia are always sharply funny and really incisive – I loved his initial reaction to Trump’s Muslim ban, and his recent field report talking to Trump supporters at the RNC convention was just incredible.  I also really love Jessica (sigh – so long, Jess!) and Roy.  Favorites of theirs include Jessica’s pieces on Beyoncé’s Superbowl performance and remarks made about women who support Clinton vs. Sanders, and Roy’s discussions with Trevor on #OscarsSoWhite and Jesse Williams’s BET Awards speech.  While I always enjoy Desi’s What the Actual Fact pieces, I like the rare occasions when we see her doing something different; her field report at the NRA convention was great.  I had a hard time with Ronny at first, but lately, I think he’s really started finding his voice on the show.  The Olympics bit he tagteamed with Roy was easily the funniest of those segments.

I understand complaints that Jordan, though entertaining, is overused on the show, and to an extent, I agree.  However, I think part of that is the interesting fact that he’s really the only major correspondent who’s a white male – Lewis is an infrequent contributor, and Adam’s appearances have been limited thus far (plus, when his ethnicity factors into his pieces, it’s usually from a Jewish perspective.)  So, if the show needs a douchey specimen of white male privilege, Jordan’s the one they need to play that, and since we wouldn’t that to be the only thing we see from him (just like, while Hasan, Michelle, and Roy report about Muslim, women’s, and Black issues, none of them reports exclusively about those topics,) we see him in other stories as well.  So yeah, I think there’s some overexposure, but I also think it’s interesting that it results in part from his position as the “token white man.”

Finally, I enjoy the practice of casual gender and racebending in the short sketches the correspondents perform about various news blurbs.   I like that it just is.  Yes, Roy is their go-to Trump, and he’s Black, but he’s not playing up any sort of “Black Trump” angle, any more than Desi mined her gender for humor when she played Merrick Garland.  It’s just an efficient way to do these skits without having to rely on Jordan or Adam for virtually every one.

A Very Long Engagement (2004, R)

Even though it’s wonderful, this film is very much the most unconventional of Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s moives, in that it is so conventional.  By that, I mean its sense of whimsy isn’t quite so off-kilter, the visuals, while stunning, aren’t Jeunet’s usual brand of kooky beauty, and on the whole, the film is grander and more sweeping than his others.  It’s also his only film based on a previously-written work, which I’m sure has a lot to do with it, but he strikes a fine balance between telling the story as it needs to be told and infusing it with his own sensibilities.

It is 1920, three years since Mathilde’s fiancée Manech was reported dead in WWI, but she still refuses to believe it.  When she learns that Manech was in fact court-martialed for self-mutilation, and that he and four others were sent over the top for execution via no man’s land, she’s more determined than ever that Manech somehow escaped with his life.  She begins a tireless investigation into the events of that day, meeting secrets, coverups, and misinformation at every turn but bound to keep digging until her efforts bring Manech back to her.

This is a beautiful film that deftly mixes a handful of genres.  It is by turns a war drama, an amateur detective story, an epic romance, and a light comedy, and it moves seamlessly through changes in tone and tenor.  I found it a little tricky to follow my first time through, if only because characters tend to run together in war movies and I had a bit of trouble keeping track of who was who.  By now, though, I’ve seen it several times, and I love how well the mystery unfolds.  The various reveals Mathilde uncovers take her forward and backward in her crusade at a nice pace, and the whole puzzle hangs together wonderfully well.

There are elements here that are very Jeunet.  I enjoy his visual creativity, such as Mathilde’s fantasy playing out like a silent movie and the neat execution of the “sunglasses” murder.  The flashbacks of Mathilde and Manech’s relationship offer a love story that fits in with Louison and Julie, Amélie and Nino, and Bazil and the contortionist.  As usual, I also love the fanciful details Jeunet includes, like the bartender’s wooden hand, the running gag with the mailman, and the assorted “deals” Mathilde tries to strike with fate on Manech’s behalf.  Where it departs from Jeunet’s usual fare is in an overall more grounded tone – understandable, given the WWI setting of the flashbacks.  Even though the story it tells is still fantastical, the world it inhabits feels more plausible than that of Jeunet’s other films.  Some might call it a “mature” film for him, but that would make it sound like a slight to his others, which isn’t the case.  He’s doing something different here, while still injecting the movie with a little of himself, and he does it very well.

Plenty of Jeunet’s regulars in the cast, including Dominique Pinon, Ticky Holgado, and Jean-Claude Dreyfus, with Audrey Tautou as an excellent Mathilde (I still prefer Amélie, because who wouldn’t, but she’s really great here.)  The film also features Jodie Foster, performing in what sounds like good French to my untrained ear, and a terrific turn by Marion Cotillard prior to her Oscar win and subsequent heightened profile in Hollywood.

Warnings

Violence (including battle scenes,) sexual content, language, drinking/smoking, and thematic elements.

Favorite Characters: Groot (Guardians of the Galaxy)

Groot!  I have a tendency to love silent or largely taciturn characters (see Sunny Baudelaire, WALL*E, or Bang Bang from The Brothers Bloom,) and Groot is a fairly lovely, awesome example.  A delightful, surprisingly rich character was created from stellar CGI and dozens of delivery variations of the same line.

From the moment we meet him, it seems obvious that Groot isn’t the lynchpin of the operation.  As Rocket scopes out passerby in search of potential bounties, everyone’s favorite walking, (sort-of) talking arboreal lifeform is busy drinking water from a public fountain – the toss-a-penny-in kind, not the drinking kind.  When Rocket catches him in this less-than-hygenic display, Groot denies it, badly.  The dynamic is instantly clear:  Rocket, not Groot, is the brains of the outfit.  This bears out numerous times throughout the movie.  Rocket reminds us through the regular aspersions he casts on Groot’s intelligence, and Groot affirms it pretty well when he dives into a plan when only half of it has been explained, returning to Rocket like a dog with a treat who has no awareness that he’s just complicated a prison escape tenfold.

So, if Groot can’t be the brains, that leaves him to be the muscle.  And muscle he most certainly is.  It’s not just his enormous size; Groot knows how to throw down with his branches, which he can grow and extend at will.  And while he never comes across as the brightest bulb, he does seem to have a good instinct for knowing when a massive show of force is needed.  When Rocket has to exasperatedly feed him his instructions, it’s usually less physical directives like, “Put that guy in that bag” (it’s okay, Groot – genders can be confusing.)  As far as intimidating dangerous inmates or efficiently dispatching a mess of bad guys go, however, Groot doesn’t need telling.  I’m not sure if it’s because Rocket has him well-groomed at this point on fighting or if it comes more naturally to him, but he and Rocket are like a well-oiled machine on this front.

Which can seem bizarre because, despite his bulk and lethalness, one of the first things you notice about Groot is how gentle he is.  (Granted, at least some of that is the fact that all he can say is, “I am Groot.”  I think we have a tendency to infantilize people/tree-based aliens who don’t speak well, particularly those who can only utter one simple sentence.  Groot’s gentleness still holds up as a general characterization, though.)  While he can get down to business quickly enough during the action scenes, his usual demeanor is more “take time and smell the roses.”  He moves and speaks slowly, he enjoys simple pleasures (like fountain water,) and he offers up touching displays of beauty with little prodding (like growing a flower in his palm to give to a beggar child.)  And even when he’s at his most dangerous, he’s liable to turn around a second later and give a sweet smile, again reminiscent of a proud dog coming to his owner for approval.

And in the end, the fighting and strongarming is in aid of his greater goal:  protecting his friends.  At first, his loyalty is reserved only for Rocket – when everything hits the fan, he can found on multiple occasions executing smooth, seamless movements to get Rocket to safety.  It’s so fluid, it’s hard to tell if the two are well-choreographed or if Rocket doesn’t have anything to do with it at all, if Groot instead just picks him up or shields him with Rocket hardly even realizing it.  And later, as he gets to know the others a little better, it’s not long before he gets into a similar state of mind to always put their safety ahead of his.  The other guardians tend to disregard Groot a lot, but they shouldn’t, because there’s nothing he wouldn’t do for them.

Female-Led Sexy-Spy Show Comparison: Alias & Nikita

Some time after I watched (and adored) Nikita, I checked out Alias, based on my love of Victor Garber and a friend’s recommendation.  I enjoyed Alias, though not as much as Nikita.  However, that’s possibly in part because I’d already seen Nikita, and the two shows ring major bells with each other, to a fairly crazy degree in a few places.  Note:  I’m mainly just looking at the comparisons to be made here, not deciding whether Nikita (2010) cribbed plot elements from Alias (2001).  If nothing else, even though Alias came out a decade before Nikita, it was predated by La Femme Nikita – both the French film and the first TV series inspired by it – neither of which I’ve seen, so I can’t speak to who did what first.

There’s of course our main premise.  In both shows, the heroine, a highly-adept spy for a top-secret organization, comes to learn that the organization isn’t what it claims to be.  When the organization kills the man she loves, she turns absolutely against them and starts planning out to take them down.  Did I mention that in both shows, the dead fiancee’s name is Danny/Daniel, and that the heroine also has a deep but complicated relationship with a colleague named Michael (he goes more often by his last name, Vaughan, in Alias, but still)?

Just in case you’re starting to wonder if this is a shot-for-shot remake scenario a la Psycho, let’s get into the differences within these similarities.  In Alias, SD-6 masquerades as a specialized branch of the CIA when, in fact, it has no government affiliation whatsoever.  Only the higher-ups know what it really is and are aware of its more nefarious aims.  Most are like Sydney at the start of the show; they fully believe they’re CIA operatives, having been recruited and gone through vetting and training that seems perfectly official.  On the other hand, Division does have its origins in government, designed as an off-the-books black-ops group to do the jobs the government can’t own up to.  However, it has since veered from that path and become much more self-serving, doing similar opportunistic-but-immoral jobs as SD-6.  It is able to do so because its head has “little black boxes” storing electronic proof of all the government’s dirty secrets, which he uses to keep himself in power.  Division recruits, like Nikita, are mostly criminals who are removed from prison, have their deaths faked, and are trained in Division’s secret underground base for an indeterminate amount of time, knowing that they’ll be “canceled” if they don’t measure up.  Though they’re similarly lied to about what Division is really about, they realize from the start that it’s not about going through “official channels.”

Given their very different arrivals to their organizations, it’s understandable that Sydney and Nikita are very different people.  Nikita already knows how shady Division is, but when they kill Daniel, she breaks out and plots her revenge, interfering with Division missions and trying to track down Percy’s black boxes so he can be taken out without international repercussions.  Meanwhile, Sydney doesn’t learn the truth about SD-6 until after they kill Danny, at which point she marches straight to the real CIA and volunteers to share what she knows, ultimately becoming a double agent who works at sabotaging from the inside.  In this way, Sydney is more like Alex than Nikita; though she intentionally gets herself placed in Division knowing what it is, Alex serves as Nikita’s mole, feeding her encrypted intel and helping out where she can.

I incline way more towards Nikita as a character, because I feel she’s generally more complex from a writing standpoint and more competent from a spy standpoint (there are a lot of times in the first season of Alias when I want to shout, “You’re a double agent in the belly of the beast!  Work on your frickin’ poker face!”)  But to be fair to Sydney, she and Nikita start their shows in very differently.  Nikita begins three years after Daniel’s death, with Alex freshly imbedded and Nikita ready to take her plans to the next level.  Alias, on the other hand, all but opens with Danny’s death.  Within the pilot, Sydney is blindsided by the murder of her fiancée and the discovery that the “government organization” she works for is anything but.  She has a huge amount of stuff to process, on the fly, as she jumps right into being a double agent, while Nikita has already had years to process all that before we even meet her.  As such, it totally makes sense that Nikita holds it together better at the start and has a more steely resolve – she’s much further down her path than Sydney is down hers.

The E-Flat Man (1935)

This short, I’d say, has some fun ideas with a fair amount of lackluster execution.  Unlike many of the Educational shorts, it doesn’t have a ton of physical comedy, which is always going to be a wasteful decision when Buster’s in your movie.  Still, it has its moments, enough that I come away mostly liking it.

When the police respond to a late-night robbery at a drug store, their car is unwittingly stolen by Buster and his girlfriend as they elope.  Hearing the BOLO put out for them but not knowing why (Buster assumes the girl’s father is angrier than anticipated about the elopement,) the pair do everything they can to evade the law.

The one really nice bit of physical/situational comedy here comes near the start, when Buster and the girl are making their getaway.  Buster is outside her house with a ladder, but she repeatedly disappears and moves to a different window every time he starts his ascent.  When they do get in sync, there’s some good slapstick with the girl tossing her luggage down the ladder as Buster’s climbing up it, and I really love the slick way he flips around to the back side of the ladder when he sees the girl starting to climb down above him.

Some other funny gags to be had.  One of my favorites doesn’t even involve Buster but the gangsters who winding up breaking into the drug store – I get a kick out of the medicine cabinet in their hideout being crammed with bullets, grenades, and ether.  I also like various bits involving Buster and the girl on the run.  Accidentally stowing away in a refrigerated train car is fun, especially with the sight gag of them sitting around a bonfire they’ve started inside, and Buster’s unconventional means of giving the girl a boost into the car in the first place is great.  After their night in a hay mound, there’s a fine sight gag of four or five hitherto-unseen drifters emerging from the hay at the exact same time as our duo.  Buster realizing they’ll have better luck hitchhiking if the girl does it is an obvious gag, but it’s still cute, and there’s an enjoyable mini-callback to The Scarecrow.

As you can see, many of these jokes are more situational and sight gags than tumbling or slapstick.  Nothing’s wrong with that type of humor, of course, and I like all of these moments, but knowing all that Buster can do, you can’t help but wish the film played more to his considerable talents.  I’m not sure what the deal is with this one since, like I said, a lot of the Educational shorts don’t skimp on the physical comedy.  However, it is a little disappointing to have so few opportunities here for Buster to let loose.

Warnings

A bit of “don’t try this at home.”

Why Earth? (Doctor Who)

Now, the average Whovian knows the real reason the Doctor seems to spend so much time on Earth, particularly in modern-day Great Britain (“modern-day” being a relative term depending on when the episode is made.)  TV shows are expensive, sci-fi shows even more so, and fantastical alien locales most of all.  That’s why, while we do get the occasional alien locale and a fair share of spaceships and astronaut bases, we also get a lot of England (both past and more present than seems strictly necessary when you can go anywhere in time and space.)  It’s why Earth is so frequently beset with alien invaders, and it’s why new-series companions tend to still have strong Earth ties to their family/boyfriends/day jobs; it keeps the budget within range. 

That’s the external reason, but what about in-show?  Over the years, some have complained about the show’s Earth-centricity, whether because they want more alien worlds, it seems improbable that London could experience that much alien activity, or it just seems weird that someone who can go anywhere seems so beholden to this particular place.  In “Hellbent,” Me brings this up to the Doctor, wondering why “a high-born Gallifreyan” is so interested in piddly little Earth.  She mentions it in connection with the 1996 TV movie, which purports the (IMO) awful idea that the Doctor is in fact half-human, using his love for Earth as proof of her theory.  I don’t like this explanation (and not just because I don’t like the half-human thing.)  To me, this isn’t really a mystery that needs a big reveal – or, in the case of “Hellbent,” at least a big tease – to justify it.  In my mind, there are two reasons the Doctor loves Earth so much, and their names are Ian and Barbara.

Way back at the start of the series, the Doctor is a very different man.  Yes, he stole a TARDIS and left Gallifrey, and yes, he’s been traveling time and space with Susan, but not at all in the way he does now.  He has a removed, scientific interest in other planets; he likes to go out, take readings, and collect samples, but he doesn’t want to meet the natives and he certainly doesn’t want to get involved in any local conflicts or problems.  Traveling is about research and knowledge, not adventure and aid.  He’s not interested in helping anyone other than Susan and himself, and when Ian and Barbara discover the TARDIS, he kidnaps them and takes off in it to prevent them from telling anyone.

So how does the Doctor go from the man who, seeing Barbara stumble when they’re being chased by cavemen, steps over her, to the man whose continual aim is to help those who need it?  Ian and Barbara are a big part of that.  The first few stories of the series are filled with arguments between the Doctor and the two teachers, challenging both his isolationist policies and his self-serving ways as they refuse to see others suffering and do nothing.  Over the course of season 1, Ian and Barbara’s eyes are opened to the wonders of the universe, but so are the Doctor’s.  He learns to see it as more than a series of places and times he can coldly examine, recognizing it as a place where he can do good, and it’s important that it’s a pair of humans – who the Doctor initially views as being far below himself – who show him that.

That’s why I think Earth is so special to the Doctor.  Even though he visited other places between Gallifrey and Earth, it’s where his journey really began because that’s where Ian and Barbara came into his life.  Without them, he wouldn’t be who he is today, and because of that, their planet holds a cherished place in his regard.

Some Love for the Civilians in The Amazing Spider-Man

There’s so much to love about a good superhero movie.  Awesome powers/fight scenes, larger-than-life stories, superpowered characters made to feel human and real, big sacrifices, triumphant moments – the list goes on and on.  For me, I have a soft spot for little scenes showing how the hero has inspired other people, ordinary people, to step up and do what’s right.  And that is one place where The Amazing Spider-Man films get me every time (a few spoilers for both films.)

I feel like there’s just something about Spidey that engenders these kinds of moments.  Being a quintessentially New York hero gives him something of a “my city” feeling, and the people he saves in turn have an “our Spider-Man” attitude.  In general, Spider-Man also strikes me as a hero who takes time for “the little things” – which is really showcased in this franchise in particular – and that has an effect on people, too.  For all that the Daily Bugle dumps on him and people debate whether the webcrawler is a help or a menace, the people who really understand what Spidey is about are on his side 100%.

The Tobey Maguire Spider-Man films have some of this kind of thing as well.  I love the bit on the first movie where a bunch of New Yorkers throw stuff at the Green Goblin while he’s fighting with Spidey, and the second movie has that lovely scene where Spidey is unmasked as he’s saving a bunch of people on a runaway train, and they give him his mask back and promise to keep his secret (although, why they pass him hand over hand like a crowdsurfing Jesus when he passes out, I have no idea.)

But really, The Amazing Spider-Man films have this stuff down.  I love that Spidey saves a little boy from bullies in the second movie, uses his webbing to repair the kid’s wind-turbine science project, and geeks out over the kid’s accomplishment.  When the kid shows up again at the end, dressed in a Spider-Man mask, to stare down the Rhino, this is more than just a boy who idolizes Spider-Man based on his exploits in the news; this is someone who’s seen Spider-Man and knows what sort of hero he is, who wants to do the right thing like Spider-Man does. 

The big civilian-moment-to-shine scene in the first movie has a similar feel of one of Spidey’s good turns deserving another (notice I saved the first movie for last because this scene is my favorite.)  In this case, Spidey’s save is far from little.  He rescues another little kid stuck in a car dangling off the edge of a bridge.  More than just a daring save, Spidey connects with the terrified little boy and helps him to be brave for what he needs to do.  Spidey can’t get to the boy and needs him to climb up through the car so Spidey can reach him and pull him to safety.  When the kid is too scared to move, Spidey loans him the mask, promising, “It’s going to make you strong.”  This scene leads us to the part the boy’s dad, a construction worker, plays in the lead-up to the final showdown between Spidey and the Lizard.  Spidey is injured and struggling to cover a great distance very quickly, afraid he won’t make it in time.  When he looks and see that all the cranes in the area have swung their crossbars out across the street, giving him a clear path to swing on (after the dad saw Spidey’s predicament on the news and called in every favor he had)?  Gets me right in the feels.  I love that.  I love what it says about people, that they step up to help.  I love what it says about Spider-Man, that he inspires that devotion.  And I love the way it shows Spider-Man how much the city appreciates him for what he does and is looking out for him in return.

News Satire Roundup: August 14th-August 18th

Sunday, August 14 – I appreciate John’s apocalyptic names for the election, which get increasingly longer and darker.  He looked at Trump’s “founder of ISIS” comment, including Trump’s derisive tweet about being sarcastic after it made the news, followed by saying at a rally that he wasn’t “that sarcastic.”  In response to the American Petroleum Institute lobbying with an ad similar to the show’s opening titles, John cribbed another of their ads for a new credit sequence, featuring two peppy millennials sharing disturbing facts about API.  The main story on auto loans was as depressing as you’d expect.  Ads targeting people filing for bankruptcy, a car repossessed with a baby in the back (the driver was dropping her other kids off at daycare,) Wall Street buying bundles of subprime loans a la the housing crisis – thank goodness for a brutally-honest promo John did for his imaginary used car dealership, backed by Keegan-Michael Key.

Monday, August 15 – Trevor opened the show with his elation at South Africa’s first gold medal win before moving on to Trump’s “surrogates,” members of his campaign who appear on news shows on his behalf to explain whatever crazy thing he’s just said.  Trevor didn’t envy them their jobs, particularly with Trump’s “founder of ISIS” comments that he subsequently walked back on.  Ronny’s field piece was also Trump-related, digging into the claim that it’s Trump’s business acumen that makes him essential for the White House.  The usual stuff – outsourcing, bankruptcies, lawsuits, as well as comments about unjust working conditions from a woman who worked at one of his hotels.  The guest, Daniel Radcliffe, reassured Trevor that he doesn’t mind talking about Harry Potter, but they were soon busy discussing his new film Imperium, about an FBI agent who goes undercover in a white supremacist group.

Tuesday, August 16 – I thought this was the best Olympics intro so far, with Roy and Ronny talking about people tweeting at Gabby Douglas to “smile more” and He Zi’s boyfriend proposing after her silver medal win.  Trevor had a few quick jokes about Anthony Wiener’s new scandal before turning to Trump’s foreign policy speech.  After a bit of What the Actual Fact from Desi, Trevor scrutinized Trump’s plan for “extreme vetting” in immigration, ie, Go Over the Muslim with a Fine-Toothed Comb.  It was a two-guest night.  The first was author Yaa Gyasi, who discussed her book about two half-sisters, one in slavery, the other still in Africa; it sounds really good.  The second guest, Sharlto Copley, talked briefly about his film The Hollars, but he and Trevor spent most of their time discussing South Africa and what it was like for Copley as a white person growing up during such a significant cultural and political shift there.

Wednesday, August 17 – Opening blurb on Biden joining Clinton on the campaign trail, featuring the world’s most awkward hug.  Trevor then pivoted to Trump and his entreaty to Black voters, in which he suggested that police bias is a myth pushed on the Black community by Democrats.  Trevor’s reaction to this, naturally, was a little piece of perfection, and he used Trump’s speech as a jumping-off point for talking police bias.  He did a great job covering the DoJ report on the Baltimore police department’s blatant racial discrimination in both official policies and daily practices.  LeBron James was the guest, taking two segments to talk about the many things he gets up to besides basketball.  He discussed his charitable efforts focused on keeping kids in school, his new miniseries that gives prospective entrepreneurs in Cleveland the chance to start their own businesses, and the importance of giving back to his community and using the realization of his dreams to make others’ come true.

Thursday, August 18 – After a nice farewell to Larry Wilmore and The Nightly Show, the election was front and center.  Hasan, Desi, and Adam talked about alternatives to what a number of people feel are two disappointing candidate choices.  Some good jokes, especially Hasan’s crack about how voting for Gary Johnson would be as useful as him signing up for TSA PreCheck and Adam admitting he couldn’t remember the name of the third-party candidate he was touting.  Jordan had a great field piece testing out Trump’s “extreme vetting” for immigrants and refugees on his own supporters.  When one man cited “disrespect for women” as a reason Muslims shouldn’t be allowed in the U.S. and then proudly showed off his incredibly sexist anti-Clinton T-shirt, I marveled at the irony right along with Jordan.  Musical guest tonight, Emily King, who was pretty cool.  I liked her style, and I enjoyed the groove on her first song.