What's wrong with a fictional sport, you ask?
Well, quite a bit, when you consider the strangle hold someone else's creative mind has placed over the minds and creative spirit of our future movers and shakers.
Last week I was able to visit a half dozen college campuses along the fabled northeast corridor. In the majority, reference was made to either Harry Potter, Quidditch, or even quidditch tournaments, of all things. The only school that didn't mention this fictional endeavor was a real-world Ivy League institution that is riding the crest of the popularity wave, and doesn't seem to need to support of muggles or wizards to ensure further popularity.
For colleges that wish to promote their uniqueness, and how they allow individual students to blossom into free thinkers, with independently created majors, and universal access to world class faculty, you would think they would have something more in common than a game which involves young adults parading about green space with a broom out their ass. Or is it out there arse, if you want to say it in the traditional English.
Just about everywhere on tour, students, and in some cases admissions department staff, referenced the proximity of their school to the holy grail of media popularity: the Harry Potter legacy.
A student guide at NYU noted that Emma Watson had transferred from Brown. At Tufts, the only reference to 'that university in Cambridge' was to note Tufts' recent defeat of Harvard in some sort of quidditch match. At Wesleyan there were repeated references to quidditch, but, then again, the enthusiastic tour guide just wouldn't stop raving about Middletown, Connecticut, so try and figure that one out. Even at Boston University, admissions staff proudly mentioned BU's contribution to this bizarre world of pop entertainment and dubious athletics.
Columbia, and Columbia alone, deviated from what fast become the norm, and neglected to enter the arms war, or is it brooms battle, over quidditch. But they're in NYC, enjoyed an obscene number of applicants for this fall's entering class, and are riding a wave of popularity not seen since the period when activist Mark Rudd took over the campus in '68 and rocker Jim Carroll dropped out in the mid 70's.
Early childhood behavior experts emphasize the importance of play, and creative activities for children. But that's for early childhood. And while there's an irony in seeing quidditch taking off on all these fancy northeast campuses, it would be even better to see a campus go quidditch free, taking a stand in support of real independent thinking, while helping these coddled kids recognize they are actually adults, after all.
And that's the way it is, as another cranky old man says.
Monday, April 25, 2011
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
The College Tour
It’s one of those rites of passage, like learning to drive, experiencing your first kiss, or even swimming in the ocean.
The junior year college tour.
If you’re part of the vast American middle class, you’ve probably been part of this in one form or another. Whether as the primary college student, or as a younger sibling, or perhaps just as the parent or tag along relatives, you’ve ended up traipsing across a bevy of college campuses, wondering what this place will have to inspire and impress the lump ‘o 17 year old you dragged with you for the afternoon.
The thing is, this is actually quite an important time, and more than a mere rite of spring. It’s an opportunity for young people to help to begin to define themselves, their interests, their desires, and their sense of being as individuals in this world.
But first they have to be awake, get the coffee or cola out of their teeth, decide upon the proper/perfect/appropriate/acceptable outfit du jour, and make it to the damn campus on time. Well, the latter part is usually the responsibility of the parental unit, though that can be compromised by any one of several actions taken by the lump ‘o 17 year old.
After a few days of concentrated college touring, which has included seeing the same faces on different campuses on succeeding days, dozens of questions from parents and prospective students alike that were already answered on the website’s main page, and an assortment of comic light moments, I have the following observations:
Colleges are different. But know what the college represents itself to be, so that you can see how close it gets in the overview presentation.
Student guides provide a great perspective on the overall population, even if they’re a turbocharged version of the average student at the school.
People are clueless. HS students don’t appear to know what they want from a college at this point, and their parents appear to know even less.
Colleges at this point just want you to apply. It pads their application numbers, makes them appear more selective, and more than pays for the recent graduates added to the admissions office staff.
If a school will not accept AP or IB scores other than for placement, then you’re in a serious academic institution. If the school will give you credit for AP scores, then you’re not at a very demanding place.
Multi-tasking has taken over. Today’s undergraduates all seem to be double-majoring, or triple-minoring. No one has a singular focus any longer.
There are woefully few people of color on campus visits.
If your tour guide insists on walking backwards throughout the tour, don’t even bother to give that school any further consideration.
If the walkways on the main campus are asphalt, and not concrete, cement, or brick, don’t bother with this school. (for the cognizati, yes, Harvard Yard is asphalt, but it’s rimmed in brick. On the other hand, it’s Harvard, so that’s your problem)
Everything is up in the air when it comes to admission. The buzzword now is passion, but how many 17 year olds are passionate, about anything, let alone able to define or articulate their passion in a convincing and impressive essay. But learning about schools from the time their sneakers are on the ground this spring can go a long way to reducing surprises post-admission, or even unnecessary applications this coming fall.
Undoubtedly, there will be more to come. This process is just building at this point, and for this excursion, we just covered the I-95 corridor. I have heard there are colleges across the entire United States. So this could grow.
Stay tuned.
The junior year college tour.
If you’re part of the vast American middle class, you’ve probably been part of this in one form or another. Whether as the primary college student, or as a younger sibling, or perhaps just as the parent or tag along relatives, you’ve ended up traipsing across a bevy of college campuses, wondering what this place will have to inspire and impress the lump ‘o 17 year old you dragged with you for the afternoon.
The thing is, this is actually quite an important time, and more than a mere rite of spring. It’s an opportunity for young people to help to begin to define themselves, their interests, their desires, and their sense of being as individuals in this world.
But first they have to be awake, get the coffee or cola out of their teeth, decide upon the proper/perfect/appropriate/acceptable outfit du jour, and make it to the damn campus on time. Well, the latter part is usually the responsibility of the parental unit, though that can be compromised by any one of several actions taken by the lump ‘o 17 year old.
After a few days of concentrated college touring, which has included seeing the same faces on different campuses on succeeding days, dozens of questions from parents and prospective students alike that were already answered on the website’s main page, and an assortment of comic light moments, I have the following observations:
Colleges are different. But know what the college represents itself to be, so that you can see how close it gets in the overview presentation.
Student guides provide a great perspective on the overall population, even if they’re a turbocharged version of the average student at the school.
People are clueless. HS students don’t appear to know what they want from a college at this point, and their parents appear to know even less.
Colleges at this point just want you to apply. It pads their application numbers, makes them appear more selective, and more than pays for the recent graduates added to the admissions office staff.
If a school will not accept AP or IB scores other than for placement, then you’re in a serious academic institution. If the school will give you credit for AP scores, then you’re not at a very demanding place.
Multi-tasking has taken over. Today’s undergraduates all seem to be double-majoring, or triple-minoring. No one has a singular focus any longer.
There are woefully few people of color on campus visits.
If your tour guide insists on walking backwards throughout the tour, don’t even bother to give that school any further consideration.
If the walkways on the main campus are asphalt, and not concrete, cement, or brick, don’t bother with this school. (for the cognizati, yes, Harvard Yard is asphalt, but it’s rimmed in brick. On the other hand, it’s Harvard, so that’s your problem)
Everything is up in the air when it comes to admission. The buzzword now is passion, but how many 17 year olds are passionate, about anything, let alone able to define or articulate their passion in a convincing and impressive essay. But learning about schools from the time their sneakers are on the ground this spring can go a long way to reducing surprises post-admission, or even unnecessary applications this coming fall.
Undoubtedly, there will be more to come. This process is just building at this point, and for this excursion, we just covered the I-95 corridor. I have heard there are colleges across the entire United States. So this could grow.
Stay tuned.
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Nose Pressed Against the Media Window
Every once in a while I have the opportunity to get up close with some of the pressing issues facing our media landscape. At least from my perspective.
Just last week I may have been among the handful of people who spent time at both FOX News and at National Public Radio.
This was not a test, nor did I lose a bet. Each visit was for a meeting, and each visit provided perspective on why each institution, regardless of claims to the contrary, just doesn’t represent the universe of Americans who are cast across this vast country.
Over at FOX, there’s an apparent order, and hierarchy. It’s defined by the relatively larger spaces that each producer enjoys. Not cubicles, or banks of open space, mind you, but relatively comfy workstations with around 100 square feet of space, more than on average in other newsrooms. That’s one thing. Another is personal appearance. Journalists these days, at least those among us who toil behind the camera, have become every more comfortable in our clothes in this century. That’s not the impression at FOX. There, virtually everyone, both men and women, seem to be dressing from a workplace standard that hasn’t been updated since the election of George H.W. Bush. Men in ties, mostly, and women in sharp outfits. It’s a serious workplace, with everyone looking relatively crisp, and quite professional.
And then there’s the overall appearance. The FOX News Washington bureau looks like a workplace from before the election of a Bush as President. It’s a white place. There were so many white men milling about, and passing through corridors, that you would think you fell into a casting call for ‘Mad Men.’ Neat, clean looks, cropped hair, and scrubbed pink and alabaster faces seemed to fill in most every desk and workstation and control room seat. Yes, that’s often the look in many downtown Washington offices, even in 2011, but not to this extent. Not at all.
Time at NPR provided a visible contrast. Diversity rules the roost. A progressive hipness infuses every space in the building, from the leftover books bin, which had more books on sports than on policy, to the entry space, which provides a passel of images of NPR correspondents from across the nation and the world. It’s Portlandia, but on the edge of what used to be DC’s Chinatown.
The dress at NPR is significantly casual. Yes, it’s radio, after all, but some of the producers and editors must have meetings with sources outside of the newsroom every so often. And the workspace, well, there is need for more space, and more comfortable space, for all at NPR. Workstations are thrust one into the other, the carpets are a bit ratty in places, and there are reports of mice running across the floors.
But the most distinguishing characteristic, from a media perspective, was what was on the tv screens at NPR. Yes, there are television at NPR. While many who work for this public media provider may eschew televisions in their personal life, professionally they at least recognize the significance of images and visual reporting. And towards that end there are monitors near the news boards within each show’s primary news desk.
At the location I visited, all four televisions were tuned in to cable news channels. But here’s where NPR just doesn’t get it. You would think that with four channels, there might be CNN, MSNBC, FOX, and perhaps either C-SPAN or some other hard news channel. At this time, the four tv’s were tuned to CNN, MSNBC, a second set on CNN, and the fourth set, well, that was tuned in to al Jazeera English.
I almost swallowed my tongue laughing to myself when I came upon this, given what seemed to me to be obvious irony. But with reflection, it wasn’t ironic. It was just NPR.
Those same folks who show up at a knife fight with a tote bag (love that line) still sup at a different trough than their media brethren. And even as they present the widest array of news over four plus hours of programming each day on their morning and evening shows, they don’t seem to get that each of the three primary US cable companies are worth watching to see not only what’s being covered, but how that story is being covered.
Simply put, if you don’t have FOX on (or CNN, or MSNBC), you can’t know what it is they’re covering, and what they’re not. Virtually every other newsroom in Washington has all the primary channels up for view, and this is the first time I have come across one of them not only not on, but having an outlier channel on in its’ place.
Each newsroom seems to suffer from a criticism often leveled by outsiders, and that is their seeming inability to grow out of their comfort zones, FOX with the white majority, and NPR with its tone deafness to the wider audience of Americans.
Hell, maybe it’s just me, but these contrasts helped me through a long week, and a week that certainly had moments of amusement, and clarity. Now, who hid the remote. I need to see what’s on the tube this evening. Perhaps there’s a good cricket match on al Jazeera Ocho.
Just last week I may have been among the handful of people who spent time at both FOX News and at National Public Radio.
This was not a test, nor did I lose a bet. Each visit was for a meeting, and each visit provided perspective on why each institution, regardless of claims to the contrary, just doesn’t represent the universe of Americans who are cast across this vast country.
Over at FOX, there’s an apparent order, and hierarchy. It’s defined by the relatively larger spaces that each producer enjoys. Not cubicles, or banks of open space, mind you, but relatively comfy workstations with around 100 square feet of space, more than on average in other newsrooms. That’s one thing. Another is personal appearance. Journalists these days, at least those among us who toil behind the camera, have become every more comfortable in our clothes in this century. That’s not the impression at FOX. There, virtually everyone, both men and women, seem to be dressing from a workplace standard that hasn’t been updated since the election of George H.W. Bush. Men in ties, mostly, and women in sharp outfits. It’s a serious workplace, with everyone looking relatively crisp, and quite professional.
And then there’s the overall appearance. The FOX News Washington bureau looks like a workplace from before the election of a Bush as President. It’s a white place. There were so many white men milling about, and passing through corridors, that you would think you fell into a casting call for ‘Mad Men.’ Neat, clean looks, cropped hair, and scrubbed pink and alabaster faces seemed to fill in most every desk and workstation and control room seat. Yes, that’s often the look in many downtown Washington offices, even in 2011, but not to this extent. Not at all.
Time at NPR provided a visible contrast. Diversity rules the roost. A progressive hipness infuses every space in the building, from the leftover books bin, which had more books on sports than on policy, to the entry space, which provides a passel of images of NPR correspondents from across the nation and the world. It’s Portlandia, but on the edge of what used to be DC’s Chinatown.
The dress at NPR is significantly casual. Yes, it’s radio, after all, but some of the producers and editors must have meetings with sources outside of the newsroom every so often. And the workspace, well, there is need for more space, and more comfortable space, for all at NPR. Workstations are thrust one into the other, the carpets are a bit ratty in places, and there are reports of mice running across the floors.
But the most distinguishing characteristic, from a media perspective, was what was on the tv screens at NPR. Yes, there are television at NPR. While many who work for this public media provider may eschew televisions in their personal life, professionally they at least recognize the significance of images and visual reporting. And towards that end there are monitors near the news boards within each show’s primary news desk.
At the location I visited, all four televisions were tuned in to cable news channels. But here’s where NPR just doesn’t get it. You would think that with four channels, there might be CNN, MSNBC, FOX, and perhaps either C-SPAN or some other hard news channel. At this time, the four tv’s were tuned to CNN, MSNBC, a second set on CNN, and the fourth set, well, that was tuned in to al Jazeera English.
I almost swallowed my tongue laughing to myself when I came upon this, given what seemed to me to be obvious irony. But with reflection, it wasn’t ironic. It was just NPR.
Those same folks who show up at a knife fight with a tote bag (love that line) still sup at a different trough than their media brethren. And even as they present the widest array of news over four plus hours of programming each day on their morning and evening shows, they don’t seem to get that each of the three primary US cable companies are worth watching to see not only what’s being covered, but how that story is being covered.
Simply put, if you don’t have FOX on (or CNN, or MSNBC), you can’t know what it is they’re covering, and what they’re not. Virtually every other newsroom in Washington has all the primary channels up for view, and this is the first time I have come across one of them not only not on, but having an outlier channel on in its’ place.
Each newsroom seems to suffer from a criticism often leveled by outsiders, and that is their seeming inability to grow out of their comfort zones, FOX with the white majority, and NPR with its tone deafness to the wider audience of Americans.
Hell, maybe it’s just me, but these contrasts helped me through a long week, and a week that certainly had moments of amusement, and clarity. Now, who hid the remote. I need to see what’s on the tube this evening. Perhaps there’s a good cricket match on al Jazeera Ocho.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
College Admissions Season
I’ve recently finished three books on the college admissions process.
• Overachievers: The Secret Lives of Driven Kids by Alexandra Robbins
• Acceptance: A Legendary Guidance Counselor Helps Seven Kids Find the Right Colleges and Find Themselves by David Marcus
• The Gatekeepers: Inside the Admissions Process of a Premier College by Jacques Steinberg
Recommended by friend an all around college info know it all Susan Stewart, these three, along with the just released Crazy U: One Dad's Crash Course in Getting His Kid into College, by Andrew Ferguson, document the perplexing process of getting a high school student prepared, and then admitted, into the best college for that student.
Here are the ten takeaways I have from this intensive prep class.
For the student:
Take the most rigorous courses your school has to offer, and do exceedingly well in those courses.
Don’t just be active. Be active as a leader in your clubs, teams, and activities.
Don’t screw up.
Write well.
Be witty.
Follow instructions on the application and essays
Get great recommendations from your teachers
SATs and ACTs matter, but they are far from the only part of you that schools evaluate.
Know the schools to which you’re applying, and how they will impact you, and you will impact them.
Apply early, early action or early decision if you can.
Visit your final choices so that you literally get a feel for the place.
For the parent:
Be an alumnus of a fancy school
Come from a geographically underrepresented part of the country for your child’s first choice school.
Prepare to spend a boatload of money on the process of just getting in
Have a spouse who provides your child with diversity, or, better yet, be a person of color yourself
Stay on top of your child’s progress with their applications
Help your child focus on the primary elements involved in selecting schools
Be supportive
Be realistic. Not everyone gets in to Stanford. Even those with 2400 scores.
Don’t be shy about inquiring about financial aid. Just be sure to complete the forms.
Once your child is accepted, selects their school, and ultimately goes off to college, let them grow up and begin to enjoy learning to become the person they are to be.
• Overachievers: The Secret Lives of Driven Kids by Alexandra Robbins
• Acceptance: A Legendary Guidance Counselor Helps Seven Kids Find the Right Colleges and Find Themselves by David Marcus
• The Gatekeepers: Inside the Admissions Process of a Premier College by Jacques Steinberg
Recommended by friend an all around college info know it all Susan Stewart, these three, along with the just released Crazy U: One Dad's Crash Course in Getting His Kid into College, by Andrew Ferguson, document the perplexing process of getting a high school student prepared, and then admitted, into the best college for that student.
Here are the ten takeaways I have from this intensive prep class.
For the student:
Take the most rigorous courses your school has to offer, and do exceedingly well in those courses.
Don’t just be active. Be active as a leader in your clubs, teams, and activities.
Don’t screw up.
Write well.
Be witty.
Follow instructions on the application and essays
Get great recommendations from your teachers
SATs and ACTs matter, but they are far from the only part of you that schools evaluate.
Know the schools to which you’re applying, and how they will impact you, and you will impact them.
Apply early, early action or early decision if you can.
Visit your final choices so that you literally get a feel for the place.
For the parent:
Be an alumnus of a fancy school
Come from a geographically underrepresented part of the country for your child’s first choice school.
Prepare to spend a boatload of money on the process of just getting in
Have a spouse who provides your child with diversity, or, better yet, be a person of color yourself
Stay on top of your child’s progress with their applications
Help your child focus on the primary elements involved in selecting schools
Be supportive
Be realistic. Not everyone gets in to Stanford. Even those with 2400 scores.
Don’t be shy about inquiring about financial aid. Just be sure to complete the forms.
Once your child is accepted, selects their school, and ultimately goes off to college, let them grow up and begin to enjoy learning to become the person they are to be.
Monday, March 14, 2011
Disastrous Coverage
Covering a breaking news story that involves death and despair, following a natural disaster, is painfully difficult work.
But the reporter should never be the story.
The story should be the crisis. The impact on the effected community. The challenge the community faces in restoring itself, to regaining or even just attempting to reclaim what was lost.
In the now five year race by electronic journalists to out Anderson Cooper Anderson Cooper, Diane Sawyer seems to have outdone herself with her work on this evening's World News broadcast.
She was in the right place, on the ground reporting on this terrible situation in northern Japan. But her writing suggested the entire nation was deprived of essentials, the editing of her anchor piece melded days old footage with what a camera captured today, without a single reference to any sense of time, and she injected herself into virtually every frame of her piece, hardly a first for an anchor, but an unnecessary addition to each shot when the visuals for this story already speak with a clear and credible voice.
Let's see some questions of authorities with regard to this horrific impending nuclear power situation, let's document the work being done by relief workers from the range of nations that have responded to the crisis, let's let those involved in the story tell us what they're doing. Just because the language isn't English, and the patterns and practices are not western, does not mean there are simple and earnest stories that can be told, and told for the cameras, sans the anchor prattle.
Perhaps it's just the rush of adrenalin that comes with being on the scene of a situation like this. So let's see how Sawyer follows up during her time on the ground, and let's see if her focus and treatment do not devolve into worn words and hyperbole.
But the reporter should never be the story.
The story should be the crisis. The impact on the effected community. The challenge the community faces in restoring itself, to regaining or even just attempting to reclaim what was lost.
In the now five year race by electronic journalists to out Anderson Cooper Anderson Cooper, Diane Sawyer seems to have outdone herself with her work on this evening's World News broadcast.
She was in the right place, on the ground reporting on this terrible situation in northern Japan. But her writing suggested the entire nation was deprived of essentials, the editing of her anchor piece melded days old footage with what a camera captured today, without a single reference to any sense of time, and she injected herself into virtually every frame of her piece, hardly a first for an anchor, but an unnecessary addition to each shot when the visuals for this story already speak with a clear and credible voice.
Let's see some questions of authorities with regard to this horrific impending nuclear power situation, let's document the work being done by relief workers from the range of nations that have responded to the crisis, let's let those involved in the story tell us what they're doing. Just because the language isn't English, and the patterns and practices are not western, does not mean there are simple and earnest stories that can be told, and told for the cameras, sans the anchor prattle.
Perhaps it's just the rush of adrenalin that comes with being on the scene of a situation like this. So let's see how Sawyer follows up during her time on the ground, and let's see if her focus and treatment do not devolve into worn words and hyperbole.
Monday, February 28, 2011
is the circle jerk our media future?
It's got to be better than this.
Tell me it's better than this.
Confirm for me that Arianna Huffington really is nothing more than a name-dropping star-fucking money-hungry wannabe who may have succeeded at accomplishing her short term goals.
Here's from her lede on the Huffington Post today.
Arianna Huffington: Bill Maher Saves the Oscars... At Least for Me
For my money, this year's Academy Awards telecast was the funniest in ages. No, not because of the show itself -- Anne Hathaway and James Franco's "young and hip" shtick wore thin pretty quickly -- but because I watched the show sitting next to Bill Maher at the Vanity Fair dinner at the Sunset Tower Hotel. Bill kept up a running commentary that put the on-screen patter to shame. At one point we realized that we were both tweeting and retweeting what each of us was saying to the other. "This is excruciating for me, I can only imagine what it's like for you," I leaned over and said to him after a particularly lame joke. He then tweeted what I'd said... which I then retweeted. I'm not yet sure if this mode of communication is a good thing or a bad thing -- I'm just reporting.
I'm just reporting, she says. This is journalism? This is the future of news? This is going to save us, to propel us forward in the digital universe. Overhead conversations between people at a table.
Tell me we can do better than the well-coifed and over-sexed version of Beavis and ButtHead laughing at each other's jokes.
Confirm that there is real stuff out there on the web, and not just the content created by traditional media doing the hard work in dangerous places where journalists get hurt just plying their craft.
Let me know that quality still matters, that there's a difference between opinion and news, hearsay and insight.
Make us think, help us learn, allow us to be informed, and educate us with wit and charm. Don't just repeat regurgitation. Sloppy seconds have no place in news.
Tell me it's better than this.
Confirm for me that Arianna Huffington really is nothing more than a name-dropping star-fucking money-hungry wannabe who may have succeeded at accomplishing her short term goals.
Here's from her lede on the Huffington Post today.
Arianna Huffington: Bill Maher Saves the Oscars... At Least for Me
For my money, this year's Academy Awards telecast was the funniest in ages. No, not because of the show itself -- Anne Hathaway and James Franco's "young and hip" shtick wore thin pretty quickly -- but because I watched the show sitting next to Bill Maher at the Vanity Fair dinner at the Sunset Tower Hotel. Bill kept up a running commentary that put the on-screen patter to shame. At one point we realized that we were both tweeting and retweeting what each of us was saying to the other. "This is excruciating for me, I can only imagine what it's like for you," I leaned over and said to him after a particularly lame joke. He then tweeted what I'd said... which I then retweeted. I'm not yet sure if this mode of communication is a good thing or a bad thing -- I'm just reporting.
I'm just reporting, she says. This is journalism? This is the future of news? This is going to save us, to propel us forward in the digital universe. Overhead conversations between people at a table.
Tell me we can do better than the well-coifed and over-sexed version of Beavis and ButtHead laughing at each other's jokes.
Confirm that there is real stuff out there on the web, and not just the content created by traditional media doing the hard work in dangerous places where journalists get hurt just plying their craft.
Let me know that quality still matters, that there's a difference between opinion and news, hearsay and insight.
Make us think, help us learn, allow us to be informed, and educate us with wit and charm. Don't just repeat regurgitation. Sloppy seconds have no place in news.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
best film review I have read, ever
A.O. Scott with the New York Times is one of those serious film critics. He looks the part, plays it well, and converses on film and media at a very high level.
Imagine my surprise to see the verve and energy in his review of the current Nicolas Cage car and girl epic, 'Drive Angry.'
Like many regular moviegoers, I have been berated by repeated showings of the trailer for this release. But even the amped up 2 minute trailer didn't do it for me, and I wasn't planning on catching this one.
But Scott's review is inspiring, and I suspect I'll make the time to check out the 3D version. After all, as he notes in his second sentence, and his closing paragraph, how often do you get this combination on screen.
Here's the review. See if it's not impressive.
On a Mission, but Not From God
By A. O. SCOTT
Published: February 25, 2011
There are those who insist that no great work of cinematic art will ever be presented in 3-D. The most persuasive among them — Roger Ebert, for example — offer learned arguments grounded in science and aesthetics. None of that really has anything to do with “Drive Angry,” which at least in its 3-D version makes a loud, incoherent but oddly compelling case for the enhancing effects of stereoscopic projection on certain treasured objects of the cinematic gaze, like classic Detroit muscle cars, women’s breasts and Nicolas Cage.
Last things first. Mr. Cage’s acting style — if that is still the right term — seems these days to require not an extra dimension, but rather an entire parallel universe. In this movie, he plays a grandfather from hell (I mean that literally, though to say more might count as a spoiler) with lank blond hair, a haunted demeanor and the poetical name of John Milton, a sop to the English literature grad students who are sure to flock to this movie.
The details of his character are both preposterous and beside the point, as “Drive Angry,” directed by Patrick Lussier (“My Bloody Valentine 3D,” “Dracula 2000”), from a script he wrote with Todd Farmer, lets Mr. Cage continue his exploration of the mysteries of the universe. His companion is Amber Heard, playing a hard-luck waitress who can both throw and take a mean punch and whose very short denim shorts compete for attention with the 1969 Dodge Charger she drives.
You can guess how she drives it, though there is plenty of anger to go around, and a lot of action, some of it pretty inspired. And also a gooey heap of plot, which is revealed efficiently and without too much concern for plausibility of any kind. Milton is on a mission to rescue a baby from a Satanic cult led by a neorockabilly messiah (Billy Burke) with long fingernails and what may be a prosthetic soul patch. Giving chase is a dapper fellow who identifies himself as “the Accountant” (William Fichtner) and who is invulnerable to everything except the magical antique gun that Milton keeps with his gear.
Apart from some half-cartoonish digital effects and the whole 3-D thing, “Drive Angry” could almost be mistaken for a raunchy, cheesy exploitation programmer of the same vintage as some of its cars. Or rather, a whole retrospective of disreputable ’70s B pictures, what with the cars, the supernatural mumbo-jumbo, the churning, anonymous heavy-metal guitars of Michael Wandmacher’s score and the nudity.
All of these elements combine in one extraordinary sequence, during which Milton manages to gun down about a dozen Lucifer-loving, farm-implement-wielding thugs, while smoking a cigar and taking slugs from a bottle of whiskey. And, through the whole bloody barrage, having sex. “That never happened to me before,” his partner says later, recalling the episode more graphically and succinctly than I can here. “Has it ever happened to you?”
http://movies.nytimes.com/2011/02/26/movies/26drive.html?ref=aoscott
Imagine my surprise to see the verve and energy in his review of the current Nicolas Cage car and girl epic, 'Drive Angry.'
Like many regular moviegoers, I have been berated by repeated showings of the trailer for this release. But even the amped up 2 minute trailer didn't do it for me, and I wasn't planning on catching this one.
But Scott's review is inspiring, and I suspect I'll make the time to check out the 3D version. After all, as he notes in his second sentence, and his closing paragraph, how often do you get this combination on screen.
Here's the review. See if it's not impressive.
On a Mission, but Not From God
By A. O. SCOTT
Published: February 25, 2011
There are those who insist that no great work of cinematic art will ever be presented in 3-D. The most persuasive among them — Roger Ebert, for example — offer learned arguments grounded in science and aesthetics. None of that really has anything to do with “Drive Angry,” which at least in its 3-D version makes a loud, incoherent but oddly compelling case for the enhancing effects of stereoscopic projection on certain treasured objects of the cinematic gaze, like classic Detroit muscle cars, women’s breasts and Nicolas Cage.
Last things first. Mr. Cage’s acting style — if that is still the right term — seems these days to require not an extra dimension, but rather an entire parallel universe. In this movie, he plays a grandfather from hell (I mean that literally, though to say more might count as a spoiler) with lank blond hair, a haunted demeanor and the poetical name of John Milton, a sop to the English literature grad students who are sure to flock to this movie.
The details of his character are both preposterous and beside the point, as “Drive Angry,” directed by Patrick Lussier (“My Bloody Valentine 3D,” “Dracula 2000”), from a script he wrote with Todd Farmer, lets Mr. Cage continue his exploration of the mysteries of the universe. His companion is Amber Heard, playing a hard-luck waitress who can both throw and take a mean punch and whose very short denim shorts compete for attention with the 1969 Dodge Charger she drives.
You can guess how she drives it, though there is plenty of anger to go around, and a lot of action, some of it pretty inspired. And also a gooey heap of plot, which is revealed efficiently and without too much concern for plausibility of any kind. Milton is on a mission to rescue a baby from a Satanic cult led by a neorockabilly messiah (Billy Burke) with long fingernails and what may be a prosthetic soul patch. Giving chase is a dapper fellow who identifies himself as “the Accountant” (William Fichtner) and who is invulnerable to everything except the magical antique gun that Milton keeps with his gear.
Apart from some half-cartoonish digital effects and the whole 3-D thing, “Drive Angry” could almost be mistaken for a raunchy, cheesy exploitation programmer of the same vintage as some of its cars. Or rather, a whole retrospective of disreputable ’70s B pictures, what with the cars, the supernatural mumbo-jumbo, the churning, anonymous heavy-metal guitars of Michael Wandmacher’s score and the nudity.
All of these elements combine in one extraordinary sequence, during which Milton manages to gun down about a dozen Lucifer-loving, farm-implement-wielding thugs, while smoking a cigar and taking slugs from a bottle of whiskey. And, through the whole bloody barrage, having sex. “That never happened to me before,” his partner says later, recalling the episode more graphically and succinctly than I can here. “Has it ever happened to you?”
http://movies.nytimes.com/2011/02/26/movies/26drive.html?ref=aoscott
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