Favorite Characters: Owen Harper (Torchwood)

Okay – so the first (few) times I watched Torchwood, Owen did nothing for me.  Granted, I acknowledged from the first that he’s a lot better after series 1, but I was cynical about the course correction, regarding it as a too-little-too-late attempt to make fans like him.  Somewhere along the line, though, he started to grow on me, and on my most recent Torchwood rewatch, I actually found myself appreciating Owen quite a bit.  Much of that is down to Burn Gorman’s excellent acting, but overall, I’ve learned to enjoy Owen for what he brings to the show.

Like many Whovians, I was completely turned off by Owen’s ugly ethics in Torchwood’s pilot.  It’s what initially put Owen in my doghouse and kept him there for a long time.  “That scene” still bothers me, and I will never, ever be okay with what Owen does in it.  However, inexcusable as it is, I’ve come to believe that RTD and co. really didn’t consider its implications.  I think they were going for roguish and id-feeding, along with what they probably assumed would be a cheap laugh, and no one realized that they ended up with heinous and gross.  So, while the incident itself remains awful, I’ve grown more inclined to blame the writers for it rather than the character, especially since it’s the only time we see Owen do anything like that.

This reassignment allows me to look more generally at Owen without that distasteful, deal-breaking scene clouding the lens, and more generally, he’s fairly interesting.  I get a better sense of the character I think the show set out to create, a man who uses his antisocial behavior, sarcasm, and lightly-taken sexual encounters to keep people at arm’s length.  In many ways, he’s a somewhat more extreme version of the leading man in the “hate” portion of a love/hate romance – plenty of moments in which viewers (and Gwen) can say, “What an unfeeling jerk!” and yet, there are just enough flashes of genuine humanity that we’re kept on the line while he slowly becomes a better person.

As is typical with characters of that sort, the show rolls out his tragic origin story in due time, but it mostly avoids the woobified bad boy trope.  We learn what caused Owen to put up his walls, and it’s truly terrible, but Owen, Jack, and the audience are the only ones who are ever made privy to this traumatic experience.  It’s shown only in flashback with no present-day discussion, rehashing, or dramatic in-show reveal, and as such, there’s no character to exclaim, “This is why Owen is the way he is!”  The knowledge doesn’t sweep any of his callousness or insensitivity under the rug, doesn’t romanticize the recklessness that masks his issues.  Rather, it only contextualizes him and makes him a fuller character.

What’s more, I’ve started to recognize the groundwork laid for the rehabilitated Owen of series 2.  Where before I grumbled at all the centric plots for a character I didn’t really like, I now see that Owen takes gradual steps toward change almost from the start.  He’s a character who really learns from his experiences and takes things to heart, even if the visible change is slow to peek through.  As early as episode 3 of series 1, events occur to make him examine his behavior, and all throughout Owen’s time on the show, he reacts to everything that happens to him and grows accordingly.  He’s often resistant to it and backpedals frequently – some of it is Owen-will-be-Owen stuff, whereas I think that, other times, he’s wary of letting his guard down after so long – but his overall trajectory is always moving forward, and now I can see the trail that connects the different versions of Owen that the show gives us.

Divergent (2011)

Having recently spent a lot of Oscar-related time at the cinema and thus having seen the trailer for Insurgent multiple times, I’m finally jumping on the Divergent bandwagon.  It was only a matter of time – I love dystopian fiction, smart YA series, and compelling female protagonists, and this book hits several sweet spots.  (Some spoilers – it’s simply unavoidable.)

It’s not a dystopian novel without a completely jacked-up society, and in Divergent, we have a post-apocalyptic Chicago populated by five factions allegedly installed to prevent a repeat of the devastating wars of the past.  The members of Abnegation, Dauntless, Erudite, Candor, and Amity each follow certain guidelines and traditions based on their self-evident virtue of choice, and every young person’s life leads up to their aptitude test, which tells them the faction they naturally align with, and the choosing ceremony, in which they decide if they want to remain with their home faction or transfer to another.  Beatrice Prior has tried to uphold the selfless principles of Abnegation, but she’s always felt out of place in her faction.  Their ways don’t come naturally to her, she’s drawn to the reckless lives of the Dauntless, and try as she might, she can’t quiet her so-called “selfish” inclination toward curiosity.  She meets her aptitude test with apprehension for the future it may suggest for her, but her results are even more world-shaking than she could have anticipated:  she is Divergent, someone with multiple aptitudes and no clear place in her society of never-the-twain-shall-meet factions.  As she moves forward and explores who she’s supposed to be, hiding her true designation is of the utmost importance.

There’s a lot more plot stuff, but even if I only cover the skeleton of the narrative, there won’t be time for an actual review, so let’s just hint at creepy societal conformity, secret outsiders, teenage romance, ultraviolence, the coolest zip-line ever, giant conspiracies, drug-induced hallucinations, and personal revelations galore.  So much going on here.  For the most part, it hangs together well – some of the twists pulled the rug out from under me, though I guessed others early on, and the book lays some good groundwork for the expanded scope of its sequels.

So far, the world-building is the most interesting aspect to me.  I enjoy exploring the different factions and learning about their practices, values, and inner workings.  It’s especially interesting to meet the various transfers (16-year-olds who changed factions at the choosing ceremony.)  Though they obviously transferred for a reason, they still carry the upbringing of their old factions with them, and it’s neat to see the hodgepodge of their interactions with one another.  However, I have to say – there’s just no way the whole faction system is sustainable.  You have certain factions hating others, Abnegation is sort of the punching bag of the entire city, and while teens are allowed to leave the faction they were born into if it isn’t the best fit for them, it’s viewed as a detestable betrayal, and transferring essentially means breaking from your family forever.  Despite its beginnings as a means of peacekeeping, it’s charged with bristling tensions, tribal superiority, and familial resentment.  No wonder the place is spoiling for the revolution.

Warnings

Some petty insane violence (much of it involving teenagers,) sexual references, drinking, and thematic elements.

Relationship Spotlight: Douglas Richardson & Martin Crieff (Cabin Pressure)

Pound for pound, Cabin Pressure might be the most engaging scripted radio program I’ve ever listened to – not that I’ve listened to tons of scripted radio programs, but still.  The characters are fantastic, the situational comedy is absurd, and the voice-acting is topnotch.  Honestly, it’s so good that I don’t have a single quibbling wish that it could be a live-action show instead.  It’s spectacular just the way it is.  I don’t need to see Benedict Cumberbatch or Roger Allam, for example, to count Martin and Douglas’s relationship among the best odd-couple duos around.

Their respective situations and personalities create a perfect storm for humor.  Martin, the captain, is eternally, insecurely nervous but just-shy-of-frantic to prove his mettle.  He’s fastidiously by-the-book, prone to losing his head in a panic, and desperate to be seen as a capable pilot and figure of authority.  Meanwhile, first officer Douglas is a seasoned (read:  jaded) veteran of the skies who’s a natural voice of reason and can pilot with ease.  He’s been flying long enough that he’s not overly invested in the rules, and he remains unflappable under almost any circumstance.  Nearly everyone who encounters Martin and Douglas automatically assumes Douglas is the captain and sometimes even argues the point with them, which of course delights Douglas and infuriates Martin.

So, we have an agitated stickler and a laidback rule-breaker, with the latter allegedly subservient to the former.  This leads to all manner of power struggles, with Douglas pulling countless stunts just to mess with Martin and watch him squirm, while Martin flails in his efforts to keep Douglas contained.  Douglas naturally responds by being uncontainable, and the more Martin pushes him, the more he pushes back – in one instance, he introduces Martin over the intercom as the French “Captain Martin du Creff,” forcing Martin to keep up the pretense in all his cabin addresses.

But they’re more than just two diametrically-opposed pilots trapped in the same cockpit.  They’re also friends, in a fashion, and their shared penchant for silly travel games helps the hours to pass by on long boring flights.  Whether they’re going as long as they can using words of only one syllable, cramming a cabin address with Hitchcock references, or wondering if they could fit 100 otters on the plane, they keep one another sharp and entertained.  Though they often complain about each other, I doubt either would have nearly as much fun with any other co-pilot. 

And despite the way they frequently antagonize each other (especially Douglas to Martin,) they usually come through for one another when it really counts.  For all of Douglas’s ribbing, he also gives Martin valuable advice that helps him to become a more self-assured captain; in these moments, he’s almost like a father figure to Martin.  No matter how hopelessly ridiculous a conundrum is, Martin has faith that Douglas will cook up a plan to fix it.  And let’s face it, he usually does.  We’re talking about a man who can figure out how to fake a flight to Timbuktu or determine which one in a group of identical geese swallowed one of Martin’s possessions (and how exactly did a pair of pilots get themselves into that last predicament?  Don’t ask – just listen to it and marvel at the glorious insanity.)  For Martin’s part, he sometimes manages to come through for Douglas as well.  He’s not often in as strong a position to do so, but whenever he can, he makes it count.  Both are excellent characters in their own right, but they’re indisputably so much better together.

Favorite Characters: Usnavi (In the Heights)

Since Lin-Manuel Miranda’s new musical Hamilton opened off-Broadway this week, I’ve spent a lot of time listening to the cast recordings of his previous shows.  In the Heights naturally brings me to Usnavi, and I’m reminded of how much I love this character.  I don’t think that show could’ve asked for a more rootable focal point, especially when he’s played by Miranda in the OBC.

Bodega proprietor, rap enthusiast, and neighborhood glue, Usnavi is our eyes into the community of the show’s Washington Heights block.  He’s from a Dominican Republic he doesn’t remember, the son of immigrant parents long since deceased, but he carries the dream of his home and family in his veins.  He can describe the way to off-the-beaten-track Dominican beaches, and his unique name – a Latinized pronunciation of “U.S. Navy,” which his mother and father saw “engraved on a passing ship” when they arrived in New York – keeps his history with him.  As he rises with the sun to run the corner store bequeathed to him by his parents, he cheerfully balances everyone’s morning coffee needs and holds onto the idea of returning to his island one day.

Balancing people’s needs is Usnavi’s main M.O.; he knows the regular order for everyone in the neighborhood, he looks out for his younger cousin Sonny, and when a blackout sends the block into chaos, he pushes his way through the darkness to check on Claudia, his surrogate abuela.  He’s forever seeing to others’ concerns and witnessing others’ stories, sometimes at the expense of his own.  When everyone speculates about what they’d do with $96,000 in lottery winnings, Usnavi’s wishes are simple:  after paying off his debts, he’d keep just enough to get to the Dominican Republic and make gifts of the rest.  His friends would say he doesn’t take time to live his own life, and perhaps he’s not always bold enough to do so – while he’ll easily rush to Vanessa’s aid when she needs help and he always gives her free coffee, he gets tongue-tied at the prospect of admitting his feelings for her.  He’s prone to nervousness and, when nervous, highly susceptible to running his mouth off about goodness knows about, which doesn’t make him too smooth with the ladies.

As hard as he works and as much as he gives, though, he doesn’t give the impression of one weighed down by obligations.  Rather, he’s a lively, engaging presence to everyone he meets.  He bilingually greets his neighbors, takes on his friends in hip-hop battles of wits, and faces the daily grind with a self-deprecating smile and a buoyant attitude.  His optimism and good humor are infectious, and his slyly clever raps hit you with the full force of his personality.  Everything about him is open, eclectic; in the opening number alone, he cribs from Mark Twain (“Reports of my fame / Are greatly exaggerated,”) Duke Ellington (“You must take the A-train,”) and Cole Porter (“And oh my God, / It’s gotten too darn hot.”) 

Over the course of the show, he learns that he sometimes needs to look out for himself as much as he looks out for others, but he ultimately loves his position as the neighborhood “streetlight chillin’ in the heat / [Who] illuminate[s] the stories of the people on the street.”  In the Heights is a story of community and chosen family, and no character in the show embodies that better than Usnavi.

A Few Best Picture Nominee Comments

I used to try and see as many “Oscar movies” as I could in a given awards season, focusing on my personal top ten categories (best picture, the four acting categories, the two writing categories, best director, best score, and best cinematography) but casting a wider net whenever I could get my hands on less major films.  These days, that’s just plain not practical – I don’t have the time for something as ambitious as that, and less of the time I do have is spent among the plentiful cinemas of the Cities.  So, I mainly shoot for the best picture nominees on the grounds that they make up a good chunk of the nominated films in my favorite categories anyway, and only seek out additional pictures under special circumstances.

My efforts this year have been decent but not exemplary.  Of the eight potential best pictures, I’ve seen six (Whiplash and Birdman still elude me, and I’m not likely to get them in before the ceremony on Sunday.)  I do, however, have a complete nomination list (obviously,) and I’ve noticed something surprising in the overlap between the best picture and acting nominees.

So, there are eight movies up for best picture, yes?  American Sniper, Birdman, Boyhood, The Grand Budapest Hotel, The Imitation Game, Selma, The Theory of Everything, and Whiplash.  Meanwhile, there are five actors and five actresses nominated for the lead acting categories.  For our five men, four of them are in best-picture-nominated films; Steve Carell, in Foxcatcher, is the only odd man out.  Of the five women, though, only one – Felicity Jones in The Theory of Everything – is in a best picture nominee.  The other four women aren’t in movies that received the top nod.  In fact, with the exceptions of The Theory of Everything and Reese Witherspoon’s Wild (which also features a best supporting actress nomination for Laura Dern,) these movies are up for leading actress and nothing else.

What does this mean?  It means the main Oscar race is between a lot of men’s (and boys’) stories.  Of the eight best pictures of the year, only one has a female leading role with enough weight behind it for the actress to snag a nomination.  There are other actresses, supporting actresses, nominated for these movies – Emma Stone is the male lead’s daughter in Birdman, Patricia Arquette is the male lead’s mother in Boyhood, and Keira Knightley is the male lead’s friend and colleague in The Imitation Game.  (Of course, Felicity Jones also plays second-fiddle as the wife of the male lead in her film, but The Theory of Everything gives us more of Jane’s story than these other movies give for their characters.  Well, Boyhood and The Imitation Game, at least – I can’t speak for Birdman.)  Furthermore, it’s not as if the supporting actresses in these three films were nominated while the lead actresses were not.  In Boyhood, The Imitation Game, and, from what I can tell, Birdman, the nominated actress is the top-billed woman in the movie.  It’s not just that the lead actresses don’t have award-worthy characters or performances – it’s that the movies don’t have leading actresses.  I don’t know about Whiplash, but I’d put American Sniper, The Grand Budapest Hotel, and Selma in the same category – in all three, the most prominent female is the wife/girlfriend of the male lead, and while American Sniper’s Taya and Selma’s Coretta get a bit of focus, they’re far overshadowed by their husbands’ stories.  To find films with lead actresses at all, let alone films that tell women’s stories, you have to seek out pictures with only one or two nominations.  I don’t know if this speaks to a problem with Oscar voters or the main thrust of Hollywood at large, but if someone pinpoints the culprits, can we stick them in a room with Katniss Everdeen and let her do what she does best?

A Man of No Importance (2002)

I’ve always loved Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens’s talent for writing scores that, despite bearing the duo’s distinct style, are also beautifully adapted to suit the musical for which they’re created.  Ragtime naturally drips with early 20^th-century verve, Seussical’s whimsy comes through in every note, and here, A Man of No Importance superbly immerses the audience in its 1960s Dublin setting.  The Irish flutes, fiddles, and pipes are gorgeous, and the show they inhabit is every bit as lovely.

Based on a 1994 film of the same name, A Man of No Importance follows Alfie Byrne, a middle-aged bus conductor/amateur theatre director, through the events that shake up his quietly-unlived life.  Alfie is a kind lover of poetry and stagecraft, a devotee of Oscar Wilde who’s out of place in his insular, Catholic world.  He lives with his sister Lily, who’s been putting her life on hold waiting for Alfie to get settled.  What she doesn’t know – what no one knows – is that Alfie has been softly languishing in the closet for decades.  He’s hopelessly in love with Robbie, the lively, boyish driver of his bus.  When Alfie wants to mount Wilde’s Salome with his spirited group of dramatists, he starts a maelstrom of controversy that ultimately threatens the secret he’s guarded most of his life.

Alfie’s story is excellent – I know coming-out dramas are plentiful, but there’s something so gentle and reflective about this one.  As this “man of no importance” sees his place in the community threatened by rumors and judgments, as he longs for a “golden love” to call his own, as he pursues the magic of art in his own small way, you can’t help but root for him.  He’s a romantic dreamer of a man who’s reached the middle of his life without doing more than glimpsing at its potential, and his soft self-denial is heartbreaking.  His interactions with Robbie ring with everything he’s not saying, and “Love Who You Love,” a sweetly comforting number to a despondent young friend, is a beautiful but bittersweet declaration – beautiful for its tender assurance, but bittersweet in that Alfie can’t take his own advice.

Meanwhile, the amateur dramatics are an utter delight.  The show wonderfully captures the cozy, impassioned, sometimes ridiculous nature of community theatre, from the aging prima donna to the overeager bit player.  “Art,” which takes Alfie through the chaos of an average rehearsal, is a hoot, but there’s also something so genuine and wonderful about it.  Is the theatre troupe very good?  It seems not, but that doesn’t make it any less valid.  This collection of demonstrative Dubliners congregate because they love the stage and the performance of the written word.  They thrill at being in front of an audience, and they take pride in everything they create together.

I love the way Wilde himself is incorporated into the show.  Alfie quotes him reverently, offers up historical anecdotes like a total fanboy, and sings “Man in the Mirror,” his frankest admission of his predicament, to an imagined Wilde as he wishes he could share Wilde’s boldness and self-assurance.  To Alfie, Wilde represents everything life could be, poetry and wit and, most of all, love, and he makes a fitting symbol to spur our leading everyman to action.

Warnings

Language, sexual content, some drinking, and thematic elements.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: The Passionate Plumber (1932)

Well, it’s not terrible.  That’s about the most I can say about this MGM Buster Keaton talkie.  It’s the first film that pairs Buster with Jimmy Durante, and it’s evident from the start that it’s not a good combo – Durante’s loudmouth brand of humor runs roughshod over Buster’s quieter style.  Put that together with an odd plot and minimal physical comedy, and you don’t wind up with a great film.

Buster plays Elmer, an American plumber working in Paris who gets mixed up in the farcical romantic muddle between the lovely Patricia and her smooth-talking boyfriend Tony.  After he accidentally winds up owing Patricia a lot of money (who he’s naturally in love with,) Elmer is hired to pose as the wealthy woman’s lover; she knows that the married Tony is no good for her but, unable to give him up, she banks on him bowing out when he sees her with another man.  Elmer takes to his new job with complete dedication, which becomes an annoyance to Patricia when she decides she wants Tony after all but Elmer doesn’t accept being called off.  (Like with the physical exam scene in Doughboys, Buster mined this movie for its comedic potential and later used it to make a much funnier short:  She’s Oil Mine follows the first two reels of this film, in which Elmer is first mistaken for Patricia’s lover and forced into an absurd duel with Tony, pretty closely.)

The Good – What little physical comedy there is works wonderfully, especially a scene of Elmer causing accidental havoc at a casino.  There’s also a nice run of gags with Elmer clumsily trying to serve Patricia breakfast in bed and a fantastically-Buster-ish moment of Elmer attempting to conceal a small dog on his person.  Aside from that, Elmer has a few good flashes of intelligence – he’s both a plumber and an amateur inventor, and he dreams up a pretty clever means of getting money to buy a suit.

The Bad – It’s a good thing Jimmy Durante’s McCracken (Patricia’s chauffeur) doesn’t spend all his time attached to Elmer, because Durante just steamrolls Buster.  His comic energy is completely different, and it’s tiring to watch him shout and mug while Buster waits for his turn to do anything.  The movie itself is largely unfunny, lots of forced farce that feels like it’s just going through the motions.  The only real laughs come when everybody else stops butting in and lets Buster do his thing, and even he seems listless through stretches of the film.  I don’t know if his personal problems were starting to interfere with his work by this time or if he simply hated the movie, but there are sections where he just doesn’t feel like Buster.

The Ugly – As with Sidewalks of New York, Elmer’s dimwittedness is all the more frustrating because we see hints that he really is a smart guy.  So, it’s aggravating to see him playing the dope again.  Also, I really dislike the plot in the second half, where Patricia wants Elmer to leave her alone but he won’t go.  She tries to evade him and complains about being a prisoner in her own house, and Elmer just keeps talking about his contract.  The whole thing is weird to me – other than plot contrivance, I don’t get why Elmer insists on hanging around.  Is it a patriarchal “I know what’s best for you” attitude towards the little woman?  Is he just so in love with her that he won’t leave after he finally gets an “in?”  Is he too dense to realize that she doesn’t want him there and that irritating her won’t pay off his debt?  I can’t tell you the answer, but each of these explanations leaves a bad taste in my mouth.