Spring in Richmond VA

The Bureau Chief and Mme Le Chef just got back from a great visit with the family in the former capital of the Confederacy. The first day was grey and rainy, but yielded some parking lot theology. I think the last word of the first line is "blue".

After that the wonderful WARM (hear that San Francisco!) Eastern Spring arrived.

A seeming endless coal train runs between the swollen James River and Hollywood cemetery, resting place of two US presidents and lots of Confederates.

An enigmatic "cabin" in Bryant Park.

Photoshop was not used on any of these pictures.

Chicken John Revisited

Expectations diminished again:

San Francisciana

Some manifestations of the city's eternal interest in the offbeat:

They travel:

Political aspirations:

Diminished expectations:

Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire

I put off seeing "Precious", even with its good reviews, because I was afraid it would be very depressing or, as I used to say in my salad days, "a gratuitous bummer". It's not that, even though the main character's life is harrowing. The reason we can endure watching the details of Precious' miserable existence is that the director, Lee Daniels, and the editor, Joe Klotz,  have done a clever thing. The first part of the film, where everything is introduced, is cut in a rapid, almost music video style. This artistic choice has the effect of partially insulating the viewer from the horrors. The second half of the film, where the possibility of hope appears, is shot and edited in a slower, more conventional style. It works. It's a good film.

The Many Functions of the Bureau

In addition to bird watching, we can do fire spotting. These pictures are from December 20, 2009.

The pictures are out of order, to tell a better story.

The fire was actually across the street and behind the building that looks to be burning.

It was a 12 unit apartment building. No one was hurt. At first glance I thought that an image of Jesus was on the billboard hovering above the flames. That would have been perfect but when I zoomed in, it did not seem to be the deity. Alas.

The Hurt Locker

Virtually no one watched the Hollywood films that were made about the war in Iraq up till now, certainly not the Bureau Chief. But a film about that war, “The Hurt Locker”, was just nominated for nine Academy Awards and its director, Katheryn Bigelow, won this year’s Directors Guild Award, which is often the precursor to the Directing Oscar. The film’s box office was only moderate but it was not expensive and should get a second run after the Oscar hoopla. Why is this film’s fate different from the others, most of which dealt with returning veterans?

First, it’s a very good film, well made and smart, but it also does a couple of things that none of the other films did (judging by their reviews).  It’s a procedural. The screenwriter, Mark Boal, was embedded with a U.S. Army Explosive Ordinance Disposal unit in Iraq and reported on it. People are fascinated by certain types of processes. “How do they do that?” I assume that is behind the success of the various “CSI” shows on TV, not that I’ve ever seen any. (Only a bureaucrat as amazing as The Chief could have insights into so many things he hasn’t actually seen.) And bomb disposal has an obvious aspect that crime scene investigation doesn’t have. AT ANY MOMENT THE BOMB MAY BLOW UP!

By concentrating on one small unit with a very specialized task, Bigelow allows the audience to experience the Iraq war in an intimate and believable way without having to deal directly with the overwhelming historical fact that the war is immoral, illegal and was launched on the basis of cynical lies. But at the same time she does not ignore the toll taken on the Iraqis and on the Americans. It’s very skillfully done.

It’s a truism that you can’t make an anti-war film by showing war because even if you follow a bunch of soldiers who are all eventually killed (this goes back to “All Quiet on the Western Front”) an 18 year old boy watching it will always say, “But I will be the one who survives and I will have passed my test”. And then he enlists.

Bigelow deals with this by not attempting to make an anti-war document but by examining the attraction of war. Clearly the main character, played by Jeremy Renner,   is addicted to the adrenaline rush. His fellow soldiers are not  and fear he will get them killed. We have to follow to find out. Kathryn Bigelow has been on the edge of making a totally successful film for her entire career and now she’s done it. Brava.

Avatar and District 9

There are several similarities between these two films. In both the villains are greedy, callous corporations and their mercenary armies. Both are tales of the meeting between humans and aliens. In both the main character eventually gets to see things from the aliens’ perspective. In both movies the main characters make video diaries. There’s even a similar war robot in both of them, that the operator rides inside of.

There are also big differences. What little humor there is in “Avatar” is feeble, whereas “District 9” is darkly hilarious. Since the plot of “Avatar” is completely predictable and the dialogue is the same macho banter that James Cameron has been recycling for over 25 years, the joy of the movie resides in the amazing planet that the advanced computer graphics have created. You must see it in 3D. When the aliens (the Na’vi) leap up onto their flying reptiles and soar through the vertical world of the forest, I felt a movie going exhilaration that gets harder to access with each passing year. “District 9” has no interest in visual beauty.

I should mention that the Na’vi look like 8 foot tall, blue, fashion models with Bambi eyes. The aliens in “District 9” look like human-sized bipedal crustaceans with short, waving tentacles on their faces, The humans call them “prawns”. The aliens’ interplanetary ship has broken down over Johannesburg and more than a million aliens have been herded into a squalid, refugee camp where Nigerian gangsters prey upon them.

Whereas the hero of “Avatar” is a paraplegic marine veteran who eventually gets to show his courage and intelligence, the hero of “District 9” is a self-satisfied corporate imbecile whose only distinction is that he’s married to the boss’s daughter. Of course, like all heroes, he changes along the way.

“District 9” is a very smart movie with the transgressive power of such genre milestones as “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre” and “Re-Animator”. However, those movies’ shock and awe was concentrated in the realms of violence and sex, “District 9” has larger ambitions. It’s dark satire is aimed at the ongoing toxic relationship between the First World and the Third World, but having said that, it’s really entertaining.