Stab329's Open Salon Blog

Movie Review: Hugo

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 12:11:47 -0500

I find it no surprise that the two movie critics I most commonly read, Andrew O’Hehir and Roger Ebert, both use the word “breathtaking” in their reviews of Martin Scorcese’s Hugo. Stunning, arresting, awesome… I am disappointed that off the top of my head I cannot find more synonyms to describe the visuals of the movie. They are a remarkable achievement. We get a beautifully recreated Paris, and a finely detailed train station, both strewn with dreamy hues. We see all the inner machinations of clocks, an automaton, toys, and other gadgets. At least one scene finds our protagonist treading hesitantly through a nighttime snowfall towards a residential building surrounded by statues of some kind of goblin creatures realized in very fine detail. At least one scene gives us a 19^th century magic show put on in a gorgeous theater. Other flashback scenes recreate the sets of old movies such as A Trip to the Moon. The recreation of the set is stunning by modern standards, and one can only marvel at what an invention the actual thing must’ve been in its own time. The whole thing is a visual marvel. As much as perhaps any other movie to date, including Avatar, Hugo begs to be seen in theaters and in 3D.

I went into Hugo very ignorant of the plot. I did not read about it; I have not read the book from which it is adapted. Young Hugo and his father, both skilled clock repairmen, acquire a curious thing called an automaton. When Hugo’s father dies unexpectedly, Hugo is determined to find out what this contraption can do. As the film began to unfold, I suspected that the “bringing to life” of the automaton might be the climactic moment of the film. Not so. That “bringing to life” moment arrives roughly 1/3^rd into the movie and actually introduces what feels like an almost new plot, though it isn’t entirely: the automaton reveals something mysterious and of extraordinary personal intrigue to one of the two child characters (by this time Hugo has befriended Isabelle, the adopted daughter of a shop owner from whom he’d been caught stealing).

The children’s need to answer the questions raised by the automaton’s revelation drives most of the rest of the action, except roughly the last 20 minutes. The film has a final action sequence after all the questions raised by the automaton’s revelation are answered. The rest of this review will spoil some of those revelations, though not explicitly, and possibly no more so than any other review as reviewing the film would be quite a challenge without doing so. Just warning.

The real stars of Hugo are George Méliès and early cinema. Méliès films are displayed often during Hugo, and at least once it treats us to a montage of very-old-cinema footage. Viewing the sustained presentation of actual very old movies, pretty much all of them released between 1900 and 1930, in 3D format on a modern movie theater was transcendent. The footage’s presentation conveys abiding affection for cinema’s incipient decades. I felt like I was viewing an intentionally lush valentine and thank-you card to Méliès, the Lumiere Brothers, on up to Chaplin and other pioneers, direct from Scorcese on behalf of all of us. It is very touching. Scenes with Ben Kingsley as Méliès creating his art, he and his actors proceeding with the enthusiasm of children on Christmas morning, are almost equally endearing.

Since viewing Hugo, I learned that old film preservation is a pet cause of Scorcese’s. If Hugo is an imperfect film, it is probably because the entire plot seems ultimately in service as a vehicle to deliver the previously described affecting scenes. When not displaying old cinema clips or depicting old cinema in the making or viewing, the film suffers from a little too much cliché from characters and scenes. The kids, Isabelle and Hugo, seem largely straight from the fairy tale cookie-cutter. Hugo is the orphan vs. the world. His most endearing moments come when he is interacting with his father (Jude Law), and his father dies early in the film. After this, we are offered little insight into Hugo’s internal life other than what is needed to drive the plot. Asa Butterfield, as Hugo, struck me as a gifted actor. He’s given the tall order of being the centerpiece of a special effects extravaganza directed by someone named Scorcese and starring someone named Kingsley, yet he never appears overwhelmed by the task. The story just didn’t seem to offer him much opportunity to not look like he was channeling Elijah Wood as burdened Frodo. Isabelle is a watered-down Hermione Granger. The kids have British accents, seeming all set for a Mary Poppins appearance. They love and pursue adventure even if they risk getting into trouble, Bridge to Tarabithia comes to mind. The constant presence of a large clock tower, a la Peter Pan, and a suspense scene involving a wardrobe but no Aslan, doesn’t help the story escape some sense of contrivance (the clock tower does get a chance to be part of the film’s most suspenseful moment which doubles as an homage to Harold Lloyd’s famous clock-dangling scene in Safety Last!).

Instead of Jumanji animals or Lemony Snicket villains as obstacles in their quest, the kids get Sacha Baron Cohen as an uptight clumsily-authoritarian station manager. When he is not fulfilling his plot obligations as scourge to Hugo, Cohen’s character is a source some hearty laughs, such as a peripheral gag involving his character talking with another character about that other character’s relationship problems. Cohen’s character also fulfills one cliché that I enjoyed: the villain whose cold heart is warmed by the story’s end. Almost all the best moments in Hugo that don’t directly feature old cinema are moments that include Cohen’s character. Borat cemented a reputation for Cohen as one of the most daring and enterprising entertainers of our time, so it seems very fitting for him to be cast in a film that successfully infuses early cinema pioneers with the same characteristics.

Among other tropes trotted out in Hugo: the scene that turns out to be a dream sequence, and the climactic scene where one character is absent at the scene’s beginning but arrives at some unknown point, their presence revealed when they speak off-screen, surprising the other characters in the scene.

These banalities cause some moments of Hugo to labor on. But the superlative payoffs- the constant visual feast, the scenes that both reflect and beget profuse reverence for early cinema, a powerful performance from Kingsley and amusing sideshow from Cohen- make Hugo a worthwhile experience.

Photographer of Iraq War Horror Comes to My School

Wed, 2 Nov 2011 06:11:46 -0400

Try to imagine yourself on a road trip with two acquaintances. Not friends you know well, just two people who, for whatever reason, had to come on the trip with you. Imagine a stop for gasoline. You fill the pump, go inside to pay. You look outside and find a stranger has approached one of your mates and seems to be engaging him confrontationally, the stranger looks angry, starts putting hands on your mate, shoving him. Quickly it escalates into a fist-fight, your mate is mostly trying to defend himself, his attacker is becoming more aggressive by the moment, first knocking your mate to the ground, then punching him in the head, in the face, kicking him violently, in the stomach, in the face. The confrontation turns from shocking to unimaginably macabre: the assailant pulls out a knife and starts unreservedly slashing at your travel mate, slashing at neck, face, arms, back, whatever part of your mate’s body is most exposed. The assailant is so violent and aggressive that no one interferes as your mate is pinned, and the attacker begins slicing your mate’s neck. Onlookers are all morbidly still, frozen and staring with vague emotionless expressions of curiosity. The violent assault proceeds until your mate’s head is severed from his body, and it lays on the ground just a few inches removed from where the rest of the body lays, and an unimaginable pool of paint-red blood is flowing in all directions along the ground from the neck space where your mate’s head used to be.

This evening I listened to a speaker at a conference who experienced pretty much exactly the preceding story. Haider Hamza grew up in Iraq, only about 18 years old when the United States invaded his home country. His biography in the event’s program states that he graduated from Baghdad University in 2006, won a Fulbright Scholarship and moved to the United States… covered and witnessed major events including the trail of his former president Saddam Hussein, the killing of Saddam’s sons…” and so on.

Hamza is a photojournalist, and his presentation included a slideshow of very big photos on a very big screen, and he had photos of the recently murdered man described above, severed head and astonishing pool of blood included. Hamza had a very casual, understated mode of speaking, as if he wanted the photos to do most of the talking, he was just there to offer captions. He spoke very dispassionately but somehow still captivatingly. He only very casually warned before the slideshow began that it would contain violent images, the understated tone with which he dispensed with the warning belied the very stunning nature of the photos we saw. He showed dead children, he showed the beheaded bloodbath, he showed an Iraqi man confronting a U.S. soldier while the barrel of the soldier’s rifle was literally pressed against the Iraqi man’s belly.

His delivery and pacing offered absolutely no attempt to dramatize what he was presenting. He proceed with a calm, casual assuredness. He gave us time to process the photos. He told the horrific beheading story casually. He showed a photo of a child who looked about 6 years-old, casually telling us that he’d snapped the photo moments after the child had passed away from war wounds. He casually told us that witnessing war as he had hardens a person to rather unimaginable things, but the one exception, the one thing to which he never became immune, was the sight of children dying, “every time you witness it is the first time.” Again, his casual delivery belied the macabre reality with which he was presenting us. He casually, in fact with a tone of some humor, showed us one photo of a recently-fired U.S. army tank, explaining that the right side of his body had been cut by shrapnel from that firing. He nonchalantly explained that it was the taking of that photo which taught him to photograph tank-firings from behind the tank, and proceeded to the next photo: a recently-fired tank photographed from behind. He might as well have been describing his experience tasting a funny new food at a restaurant.

In retrospect, it makes perfect sense that he would not dramatically warn us about the gruesome images we were about to see. He had taken these photos. He was there. He actually saw his beheaded travel-mate. He actually saw the dead children. His driver (the other travel mate) had actually been shot in the buttocks (and he had a photo of this). He had actually been wounded by tank shrapnel. He hadn’t just seen the photographs of the bellowing Iraqi widows, one who’d recently lost her husband and her son, another waving the shirt almost completely covered in blood which her husband had been wearing before he’d been shot, he’d taken the photographs, he was there. The idea that we citizens of the country that initiated all this horror deserved even slight warning about how images of its consequences might effect us now seems incredibly offensive. It’d have been more fair for him to say “you fuckers better sign off of Facebook, close your fucking laptops, allow me to confiscate your phones and never return them, tear up your fucking magazines, shut the fuck up for 5 fucking minutes of your lives and stare at these fucking photos.”

Hamza was one of four panelists to give a presentation at this event. I happened to sit near the back and I became profoundly, almost violently disturbed by the lack of attention almost everyone around me paid to the other speakers. They too were giving informative presentations that every American ought to be forced to contemplate, but only Hamza seemed to truly captivate the entire room for almost all of his presentation. The others were talking ideas, had powerpoints and theories, and also some very important experiences to talk about, but they did not have photos. I will forever have more appreciation for the power of photojournalism thanks to Hamza.

Obama Admin's Dodge on Marijuana Legalization

Sun, 30 Oct 2011 01:10:03 -0400

UPDATE I below...

The Obama administration, to its credit, keeps a section on the White House's web site (called "We the People") through which citizens can directly petition the administration. Any time a petition receives enough signatures, the administration promises a response.

Amusingly, and encouragingly, the most popular topic on the petition site is marijuana legalization. Eight different petitions call for it in some way. One petition entitled "Legalize and Regulate Marijuana in a Manner Similar to Alcohol" has just under 75,000 signatures on it. Now that the administration has responded to the marijuana petitions, they are no longer active. By comparison, the most-signed still-active petition on the website (calling for an end to puppy mills) has around 30,000 signatures as of October 29, 2011.

The Administration, of course, has taken zero steps towards marijuana legalization. Unsurprisingly, their reply, penned by Gil Kerlikowske, Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, was fairly articulate defense of this inaction. It was also a complete dodge.

The reply grounded its logic on the negative health effects of pot:

According to scientists at the National Institutes of Health- the world's largest source of drug abuse research - marijuana use is associated with addiction, respiratory disease, and cognitive impairment. We know from an array of treatment admission information and Federal data that marijuana use is a significant source for voluntary drug treatment admissions and visits to emergency rooms. Studies also reveal that marijuana potency has almost tripled over the past 20 years, raising serious concerns about what this means for public health – especially among young people who use the drug because research shows their brains continue to develop well into their 20's. Simply put, it is not a benign drug.

I do not know exactly how reliable their assessments of the health effects of pot are. I'm willing to accept the statements. Of course, they have nothing to do with the rationale for legalization of marijuana. The rationale does not, and should not, rest on pot's status as some benign drug. Unless the Administration wants to start moving in the direction of prohibition of cigarettes, alcohol, and many kinds of junk food, the health effects of pot are completely peripheral to the debate. The administration even acknowledges "we are not going to arrest our way out of the problem."

Education and treatment are well-known to be the most effective anti-drug programs. This the administration also acknowledges in its reply. But still no action towards legalization, on the grounds that weed is unhealthy and keeping it illegal protects our children (all the way up into their 20's). Apparently locking people up and helping them establish a criminal record, which can disqualify them for jobs and for things like financial aid for education, somehow doesn't undermine their well-being.

Prohibition is well known to be ineffective in deterring consumption of a desired product. The drug war is well known to be a waste of government resources, an Associated Press report released this past summer stating that it has cost $1 trillion and failed to meet all its goals over the last 40 years. It's also well-known to have detrimental effects on non-violent citizens deemed criminal doing nothing but making their own decisions about what they want to consume. The black market drug trade is a notoriously violent affair.

It would be extremely irrational to hope that the Administration would establish this top-down form of democratic expression and then allow it to seriously challenge them on any policy. It seems like one more demonstration that the Obama brand is more interested in the superficial appearance of people's power than in the actual empowerment of people. Big ten gallon hat, no cattle.

It is heartening that the cause of marijuana legalization drew the attention it did. I have often heard it said that positive social change has historically been really about critical masses of small victories. Having the White House establish this feedback conduit and seeing it used to promote a cause that challenges administration policy, showing the administration that the people paying attention to Obama enough to engage in one of his superficial initiatives are not all simply in the business of feeding him easy causes to champion (such as ending puppy mills), is hopefully one such small victory.

UPDATE I

NORML, unsurprisingly, thoroughly dismantled the logic of the Obama admin's reply.

Vlog 8-25-2011: U.S. "Democracy," Climate Change

Sun, 28 Aug 2011 12:08:27 -0400

I tend to be a bit behind the times with technology. I just discovered iMovie.

Your own thoughts on these topics eagerly welcomed.

Outlier Libya

Fri, 18 Mar 2011 07:03:40 -0400

For the last decade I've read my Noam Chomsky and Glenn Greenwald. In 2007 I co-captained a busload of Minnesotans on an overnight, weekend jaunt to Washington D.C. to participate in demonstrations against the wars. If he'd stayed in the race until my state's caucus night, I would've voted for Dennis Kucinich, one of the farthest-left liberals in the U.S. Congress, in the 2008 Democratic primaries. I regularly post angry criticisms of Barak Obama on Facebook. I've declared to my Facebook friends that I am so disgusted with his presidency that I will not be voting for him in 2012.

On the issue of a U.N.-imposed No-Fly Zone on Libya, I've parted ways with my radical left brethren.

The Rebels Want the No-Fly Zone
Here is the reaction of citizens in rebel-held (and Gaddafi-targetted) Benghazi at the announcement of the U.N. No Fly Zone:

For the purpose of this blog entry, no need to view beyond the 35-second mark

This report by the Real News network (non-corporate media a la Democracy Now!) shows an earlier rally of Benghazians calling loudly and passionately for imposition of the No-Fly Zone.

Before the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, a strong argument against the invasion was the testimony of an anti-Taliban commander and U.S. ally Abdul Haq (whom the Taliban would kill not much later):

[M]y view is that the US should keep up the pressure, above all with money, but should not bomb... if the US keeps bombing and helps the Northern Alliance, then our work will be much more difficult... The anti-Taliban campaign needs two stages: a military strategy to split and remove the Taliban, which should be carried out by Afghans themselves, not the US...

Haq's opinion was echoed by a gathering of over 1,000 anti-Taliban Afghan tribal leaders in Peshawar, Pakistan in late 2001, where "many spoke out against the U.S. bombing."

I've opposed pretty much every U.S. military undertaking in the time of my political consciousness, particularly the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, on the principal of self-determination; I've seen all those undertakings as instances of the U.S. imposing its will on other nations, or imperialism. In this Libyan instance, the call for the No-Fly Zone has been led by Libyan rebels, not to mention "endorsements by the Arab League, the Gulf Cooperation Council, Libya's National Transitional Council and the Organisation of the Islamic Conference." It feels like the more arrogant mindset in this instance would be that opposed to the action being called-for by the democratic forces represented by the rebels.

The Rebels and Libyan Citizens Are Currently Under Attack and in Imminent Danger
We have a pretty clear case of a dictator trying to squelch democracy and attacking his citizens. The argument against this action is that it will kill civilians. This is one case where the evidence is clear and compelling that civilians will be killed without action. Gaddafi has re-taken cities that were under rebel control. He is militarily stronger than the rebels and acting aggressively already.

Citizens actively engaged in attempts to overthrow a dictator, the dictator violently suppressing the resistance with a military force capable of massacre until the rebels surrender, imminent danger of new strikes against civilians and rebels, rebels imploring the international community to help, these seem like rather clear grounds for international intervention.

Without calling specifically for a No-Fly Zone, Human Rights Watch recently stated:

[E]ach state has a responsibility to prevent war crimes, ethnic cleansing, crimes against humanity, and genocide within its borders. When it fails in that duty, other states, through the United Nations, have the responsibility to use those measures that are necessary and appropriate to protect civilian populations from such crimes.

In a fast-changing environment with incomplete reporting of facts on the ground, Human Rights Watch urged the UN Security Council to consider the full range of options available to meet its responsibility to protect civilians from large-scale atrocities.

The UN Resolution Does Not Authorize Foreign Troops on the ground in Libya
As loudly as many Libyan rebels are calling for imposition of the No-Fly Zone, there seems to be an even more unanimous declaration from them that foreign ground troops should stay off of Libyan soil. The UN resolution authorizes “...all necessary measures… to protect civilians and civilian populated areas under threat of attack in the Libyan Arab Jamhariya, including Benghazi, while excluding an occupation force.” (emphasis mine)

Prominent twin cities anti-war activist, and recent target of unjust FBI raids and investigations, Meredith Aby stated on Facebook: "The US and the UN should not bomb Libya. The US bombing Libya will not lead to "liberation". It will lead to civilian casualties and to the US stealing Libyan oil for US corporations." This seems a succinct and fair summation of "anti-war" sentiment towards U.N. intervention in Libya.

Whether the attacks will "lead to liberation" can not be known for certain. Given the uncertainty, the people in the best position to judge whether it's worth a try are those being victimized by Gaddafi. They certainly can not share the same opinion, but there seems to be a pretty public, fervent call among many of them for the No-Fly Zone.

In a piece written to refute the idea that the Iraq invasion qualified as humanitarian intervention, Ken Roth of Human Rights Watch laid out criteria for what would qualify. He wrote:

We recognize that an intervention motivated by purely
humanitarian concerns probably cannot be found. Governments that intervene to stop
mass slaughter inevitably have other reasons as well, so we do not insist on purity of
motive. But a dominant humanitarian motive is important because it affects numerous
decisions made in the course of an intervention and its aftermath that can determine its
success in saving people from harm.

By this criterion it is hard to quibble with someone opposed to U.S./U.N. Libyan intervention. There is no doubt that plenty of factions within the coalition imposing the No-Fly Zone have oil on the brain. It seems pretty fair to assume Libyans know the record of their would-be western saviors. They're calling for the No-Fly Zone anyway.

The U.N. resolution did not authorize any occupation force. If this limit is observed, it would limit the U.S./U.N. ability to forcefully impose some imperial will. Libyans clearly do not want foreign troops on the ground in Libya, any incursion of U.S./U.N. ground troops onto Libyan soil would be a glaring sign that the intervention is morphing into an imperialist crusade that lacks regard for Libyan self-determination. Any coalition behavior like that will be roundly opposed by Libyans, and thus should cleraly be opposed by us.

Until then, I find it difficult to condemn giving the people what they want.