I don't like the idea of using a blog solely for the purpose of personal narrative. To me, a web log should be an outlet to explore ideas and practice the skill of persuasive or argumentative writing. You should always have a point, and you should arrive at it rather quickly in a decisive and satisfying manner.
Of course, sometimes we break the rules to prove a point, or to do something we couldn't possibly have done if we allowed ourselves to become prisoners of habit.
So, I feel the need to explain the reason for the lack of posting on this blog over the past couple of weeks. And the only way I can do that is to destroy the persona and speak to you, the reader, as plainly as I can. Part of the reason I haven't posted here has been technological constraints. My internet service was just hooked up yesterday here in Columbia and I'd been mooching bandwidth from the neighborhood Hy-Vee. You can only refill your coffee cup so many times before that kitchen attendant starts to wonder if maybe you're a transient beatnik poet who's decided to fuel his next cross-country masterpiece with Caribou and crab rangoon. I blame my long hair more than anything.
But I could have posted at Hy-Vee or any other free wi-fi spot I happened to stumble into over the past several weeks. The real reason I didn't post was much more complicated than that. This isn't where I thought I'd be four or five years ago. And, to be honest, it extends beyond the whole Kansas fan selling his soul conundrum. If it was just that, I'd have torched my new student I.D. card with the giant Bengal tiger staring me down and strutted down Broadway with my KU National Champions '08 shirt a long time ago.
No, this is more of an existential concern of mine. I know I want to be a journalist. I'm excited that I have a skill set that I believe will prove useful in informing the public and serving a basic civic function within a democratic society. I know all of that. I knew that when I applied here last fall, and when I made plans to attend here last spring.
Proust said that the individual is never whole or unified, but merely a succession of selves throughout time. The idea implies progress--or, at the very least, some sort of constant evolution in our personality and consciousness. Sometimes, when I find myself in a place I never thought I'd be, doing something completely different than what I've done before, I can't help but wonder if that succession of selves must always build toward something, or if we float around on the whims of a moment and where we end up, be it pre-ordained by a benevolent force or not, is unquestioningly what we are meant to do.
Tomorrow, I officially begin my education at the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of Missouri. I'm excited, nervous, but most of all curious.
It's hard to write about video games, TV and what kind of violent circus is being held in the Kansas City Chiefs locker room with all that floating around in your head. But I promise to try. Stay tuned to the Shallow End, it's going to be an interesting fall.
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Saturday, August 6, 2011
Sticky Floors and Salty Popcorn-"The Fighter" Review
The Fighter does several things a great sports movie needs to do. It introduces us to a down-on-his-luck journeyman with one last legitimate shot at glory. Mark Wahlberg deftly steps into the shoes of Mickey Ward, a welterweight who has been used one too many times as a "stepping stone" (read: fighter pulverized by others en route to their own title shots) by his overbearing family. Ward's mother and manager, Alice (Academy Award-Winning Supporting Actress Melissa Leo) has a little trouble releasing the umbilical cord, and proves completely inept at getting her younger son into a fight that will allow him to rise in the ranks of his weight class (can someone please draw me a diagram that explains who is the champion of the world in boxing in a weight class anymore? It's like trying to figure out what "spending cut triggers" mean). Meanwhile, Mickey has to deal with his older brother Dicky (played with heart-rending pathos by Skeleto-ahem-Christian Bale), a crack-addicted former fighter himself whose unwillingness to let go of the past (he "knocked down" Sugar Ray Leonard in the late 70s) is only surpassed by his inability to be counted on when Micky needs him.
Add to this bubbling cauldron of familial dysfunction the presence of local law enforcement as Mickey's new trainer after Dicky lets him down for the final time and goes to jail, and a love interest (Amy Adams) with her own thoughts on how Micky can reach the top, and you have the perfect recipe for disaster. Which is precisely what happens about an hour into the movie. Then, a metaphoric cake delivered to his old crack buddies by Dicky himself and one porch-top confession of guilt later, and everyone is back behind Micky again as he fights for the unlikeliest of titles against a far superior foreign fighter.
Is all this sounding familiar? That's because it is. The crack addiction angle with Dicky is perhaps the most interesting and emotionally-realistic part of the film, and undoubtedly as the credits roll the audience gets the sense that Dicky's sobriety is a much more significant accomplishment than David O. Russel's titular hero. It's unsurprising, as a result, that Mark Wahlberg didn't get the dap most that he deserved for portraying Mickey. The movie never really seems to be about him exclusively, even when that last triumphant punch is inevitably thrown. This is no fault of Wahlberg's-the character quite simply goes through most of the movie without a spine. When he finally does develop the backbone to stand up to his brother and mother, it is the actions of others that allow a peaceful resolution and all of his loved ones standing in the corner behind him. "The Fighter" is less a testament to the resiliency of an unsung warrior (even though the obligatory training montage in the middle of the film wants to force you to think otherwise), but more about the wily-nily Cinderalla story that emerges as a result of forces beyond Mickey's control.
The Fighter is an excellent sports movie. It is also a stylish and endearing journey down a well-beaten path, with lots of pretty performances to look at. This "based on a true story" feature somehow still winds up playing out like a Disney miracle (with a larger portion of drug use and language than another Mickey would find acceptable), and less a true character exploration of the titular hero. We should expect more from Oscar-nominated motion pictures.
Verdict: 3.0/5 stars
Add to this bubbling cauldron of familial dysfunction the presence of local law enforcement as Mickey's new trainer after Dicky lets him down for the final time and goes to jail, and a love interest (Amy Adams) with her own thoughts on how Micky can reach the top, and you have the perfect recipe for disaster. Which is precisely what happens about an hour into the movie. Then, a metaphoric cake delivered to his old crack buddies by Dicky himself and one porch-top confession of guilt later, and everyone is back behind Micky again as he fights for the unlikeliest of titles against a far superior foreign fighter.
Is all this sounding familiar? That's because it is. The crack addiction angle with Dicky is perhaps the most interesting and emotionally-realistic part of the film, and undoubtedly as the credits roll the audience gets the sense that Dicky's sobriety is a much more significant accomplishment than David O. Russel's titular hero. It's unsurprising, as a result, that Mark Wahlberg didn't get the dap most that he deserved for portraying Mickey. The movie never really seems to be about him exclusively, even when that last triumphant punch is inevitably thrown. This is no fault of Wahlberg's-the character quite simply goes through most of the movie without a spine. When he finally does develop the backbone to stand up to his brother and mother, it is the actions of others that allow a peaceful resolution and all of his loved ones standing in the corner behind him. "The Fighter" is less a testament to the resiliency of an unsung warrior (even though the obligatory training montage in the middle of the film wants to force you to think otherwise), but more about the wily-nily Cinderalla story that emerges as a result of forces beyond Mickey's control.
The Fighter is an excellent sports movie. It is also a stylish and endearing journey down a well-beaten path, with lots of pretty performances to look at. This "based on a true story" feature somehow still winds up playing out like a Disney miracle (with a larger portion of drug use and language than another Mickey would find acceptable), and less a true character exploration of the titular hero. We should expect more from Oscar-nominated motion pictures.
Verdict: 3.0/5 stars
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Saturday, July 23, 2011
Why Roger Clemens Mistrial is Good for the American Sports Fan
As a preface to this argument, I'd like to mention I've spent the past week at the Institute for Humane Studies' summer seminar on Liberty & Society. While there, I learned a great deal of economic and political theory that has been burrowing its way into my brain and worldview over the past several days. This essay is an attempt to synthesize some of those concepts with a familiar topic. Feel free to punch holes anywhere you see fit.
Boy, the justice system just can't catch a break this month, can it? First, we let a clearly-guilty murderer off the hook for the death of her infant daughter, and just a few weeks later federal prosecutors gloriously blunder the perjury case of Roger Clemens. We're talking Mike McDermott after 48 hours on a poker run-levels of incompetency. Howard Bryant, of ESPN.com, reports an attorney familiar with the workings of the federal court and judge who presided over the case called the mistake of producing disallowed evidence "a colossal" and "total screw-up." Like Barry Bonds, Clemens' numbers post-40 defy description. A record of 61-33, ERA totals routinely hovering around 3.00 (including a mind-numbing 1.87 in 2005 with Houston), and a K/BB ratio (around 3.00 as well) that makes Luke Hochevar (1.50 this year) look like a straight-out-of-penal-league Rich Vaughn. If anybody could be proved to be juicing, it had to be Clemens, right?
So thought the government. The Congressional hearing on steroids in baseball in 2005 was ostensibly conducted (as Rep. Henry Waxman suggested) to address the public health concern of America's children using steroids. By publicizing the proceedings and subpoenaing the biggest names in the sport, the committee and the media instead sensationalized the issue to construct a kind of kangaroo court against baseball, with several big-name players being brought before the committee and ducking questions by invoking their Constitutional rights (or, in the case of Rafael Palmeiro, offering themselves as sacrifices to the Ironic gods). George Mitchell's 2007 report to Congress was requested by baseball commissioner Bud Selig after the release of Game of Shadows, an investigative look at steroid use in baseball in the late 90s and early 2000s, was published in 2006 by Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada. In effect, Selig "passed the buck" on his obligation to keep baseball clean to the federal government, allowing political agents to use the platform to further their interests (and attain fame) and spend taxpayer dollars in the defense of what became a kind of public good in the aftermath of the scandal.
The government's involvement, as requested by Selig, was based on several assumptions. The first is the aforementioned link between steroid use by professionals and among the nation's children. The reasoning, of course, was that America's youth baseball players would need to begin using human growth hormone to keep up with their peers early on. This approach assumes a public smear campaign of baseball's venerated stars would be more effective in limiting steroid use than policies of individual athletic associations and schools. The government, in this instance, becomes the whistle-blower. I do not argue that perhaps a whistle-blower was necessary in the issue of drug use among the nation's young athletes. What I am arguing is that perhaps the federal government was not the most effective agent in doing so. Certainly, this appears to be the case in the bungling of the federal perjury cases against Bonds and Clemens, which have resulted in merely one minor conviction against Bonds despite the exorbitant amounts of taxpayer money spent in trying the cases.
Second, the government's involvement as a protectionist agency indicates that the American people wanted baseball to be clean. Such an argument is based on the moral presumption that our athletes and athletic contests should somehow uphold the values we would like to see reflected in society: honesty, integrity and fairness. In actuality, sports are a product served to a consumer base that generally acts with little (if any) of these ideals in mind. Tavi Sojo's Bleacher Report study "The Effects of the Steroid Era on the 2008 Baseball Season" comes to the conclusion that the fans simply didn't care about truth and fairness, as long as balls were flying out of the park. In 2003, the BALCO controversy broke and so began the now 8-year period of steroid skepticism that lingers in almost all media coverage of baseball (just ask Jose Bautista). Yet, fan attendance from 2004-2007 continued a climb to unprecedented levels. However, policies instituted by the findings of the Mitchell Report drove home runs down and pitching and defensive statistical categories up in 2008, according to Sojo's numbers research. As a result of these developments, average attendance dropped for the first time in five years. That trend has continued through 2010, though of course it's important to remember that the recent economic downturn has probably also impacted attendance figures. Having said that, it doesn't appear as though "making the game clean" has had any significant impact on the number of people coming out to the park each night, and potentially drove away fans looking to see the long ball more often.
This, of course, gets at the heart of the third and most important assumption from an economics standpoint that led to government intervention in rules-making in Major League Baseball: that fans simply do not act rationally, and that in their love of offense they were driving players to harm themselves through the use of banned substances. The government, in this scenario, had to step in to protect the players from themselves and the voracious demands of power from growing numbers of baseball enthusiasts. I will refer to this presumption as "The WWE Effect." Quite simply, the fear follows the line that, if players continued to respond to the desires of fans who want to see 600-foot home runs, they were going to wind up looking like Triple H or Mr. Perfect instead of, say, this. In effect, government intervention becomes a safeguard against an arms race or, say, housing bubble in which the human cost would be seen in debilitating physical handicaps for players later in life who used PEDs during their playing days. Government, it could be argued, would speed up the process of demonstrating the dangers of these drugs by dragging the names of the players using through the mud and encouraging fans that they were "harming the game" to save themselves from physical issues later in life.
Boy, the justice system just can't catch a break this month, can it? First, we let a clearly-guilty murderer off the hook for the death of her infant daughter, and just a few weeks later federal prosecutors gloriously blunder the perjury case of Roger Clemens. We're talking Mike McDermott after 48 hours on a poker run-levels of incompetency. Howard Bryant, of ESPN.com, reports an attorney familiar with the workings of the federal court and judge who presided over the case called the mistake of producing disallowed evidence "a colossal" and "total screw-up." Like Barry Bonds, Clemens' numbers post-40 defy description. A record of 61-33, ERA totals routinely hovering around 3.00 (including a mind-numbing 1.87 in 2005 with Houston), and a K/BB ratio (around 3.00 as well) that makes Luke Hochevar (1.50 this year) look like a straight-out-of-penal-league Rich Vaughn. If anybody could be proved to be juicing, it had to be Clemens, right?
So thought the government. The Congressional hearing on steroids in baseball in 2005 was ostensibly conducted (as Rep. Henry Waxman suggested) to address the public health concern of America's children using steroids. By publicizing the proceedings and subpoenaing the biggest names in the sport, the committee and the media instead sensationalized the issue to construct a kind of kangaroo court against baseball, with several big-name players being brought before the committee and ducking questions by invoking their Constitutional rights (or, in the case of Rafael Palmeiro, offering themselves as sacrifices to the Ironic gods). George Mitchell's 2007 report to Congress was requested by baseball commissioner Bud Selig after the release of Game of Shadows, an investigative look at steroid use in baseball in the late 90s and early 2000s, was published in 2006 by Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada. In effect, Selig "passed the buck" on his obligation to keep baseball clean to the federal government, allowing political agents to use the platform to further their interests (and attain fame) and spend taxpayer dollars in the defense of what became a kind of public good in the aftermath of the scandal.
The government's involvement, as requested by Selig, was based on several assumptions. The first is the aforementioned link between steroid use by professionals and among the nation's children. The reasoning, of course, was that America's youth baseball players would need to begin using human growth hormone to keep up with their peers early on. This approach assumes a public smear campaign of baseball's venerated stars would be more effective in limiting steroid use than policies of individual athletic associations and schools. The government, in this instance, becomes the whistle-blower. I do not argue that perhaps a whistle-blower was necessary in the issue of drug use among the nation's young athletes. What I am arguing is that perhaps the federal government was not the most effective agent in doing so. Certainly, this appears to be the case in the bungling of the federal perjury cases against Bonds and Clemens, which have resulted in merely one minor conviction against Bonds despite the exorbitant amounts of taxpayer money spent in trying the cases.
Second, the government's involvement as a protectionist agency indicates that the American people wanted baseball to be clean. Such an argument is based on the moral presumption that our athletes and athletic contests should somehow uphold the values we would like to see reflected in society: honesty, integrity and fairness. In actuality, sports are a product served to a consumer base that generally acts with little (if any) of these ideals in mind. Tavi Sojo's Bleacher Report study "The Effects of the Steroid Era on the 2008 Baseball Season" comes to the conclusion that the fans simply didn't care about truth and fairness, as long as balls were flying out of the park. In 2003, the BALCO controversy broke and so began the now 8-year period of steroid skepticism that lingers in almost all media coverage of baseball (just ask Jose Bautista). Yet, fan attendance from 2004-2007 continued a climb to unprecedented levels. However, policies instituted by the findings of the Mitchell Report drove home runs down and pitching and defensive statistical categories up in 2008, according to Sojo's numbers research. As a result of these developments, average attendance dropped for the first time in five years. That trend has continued through 2010, though of course it's important to remember that the recent economic downturn has probably also impacted attendance figures. Having said that, it doesn't appear as though "making the game clean" has had any significant impact on the number of people coming out to the park each night, and potentially drove away fans looking to see the long ball more often.
This, of course, gets at the heart of the third and most important assumption from an economics standpoint that led to government intervention in rules-making in Major League Baseball: that fans simply do not act rationally, and that in their love of offense they were driving players to harm themselves through the use of banned substances. The government, in this scenario, had to step in to protect the players from themselves and the voracious demands of power from growing numbers of baseball enthusiasts. I will refer to this presumption as "The WWE Effect." Quite simply, the fear follows the line that, if players continued to respond to the desires of fans who want to see 600-foot home runs, they were going to wind up looking like Triple H or Mr. Perfect instead of, say, this. In effect, government intervention becomes a safeguard against an arms race or, say, housing bubble in which the human cost would be seen in debilitating physical handicaps for players later in life who used PEDs during their playing days. Government, it could be argued, would speed up the process of demonstrating the dangers of these drugs by dragging the names of the players using through the mud and encouraging fans that they were "harming the game" to save themselves from physical issues later in life.
Warning: "Aviator" reference- "Way of the future..."?
But was the government campaign even necessary? Before charges were even brought against Barry Bonds, his appearance in Game of Shadows led to massive protests against his campaign to break the all-time home run record. When Bonds did eventually break the home run record, it was under a cloud of suspicion that dwarfed the achievement compared to the euphoria that ensued when Hank Aaron topped Ruth's record. Perhaps as many people attended the Bond's home run game as Aaron's, and certainly the amount of money Bonds made in his playing career towers over Aaron's career earnings. But baseball has a traditional element to its marketplace that could have just as easily attained the same (or better) outcomes preventing youth usage of steroids as government involvement. Fans may act irrationally with their money, returning to a sport as a method of release after, say, a protracted strike (or lockout) that resembles, to them, an argument between millionaires and billionaires. But the dependency of sport on the fan encourages minor rule changes, better television deals and increased levels of comfort at modern stadiums. The sports we watch today are better covered, more competitive, and provide higher levels of entertainment than the sports of fifty years ago. The same will be true in another fifty years, as long as government gets out of the way. Perhaps the most recent governmental blunder in the handling of the Roger Clemens' perjury case will make fans realize we don't need the federal government to install order in the games we are passionate about-we can do it ourselves.
Friday, July 15, 2011
Sticky Floors and Salty Popcorn-"Cedar Rapids" Review
In many ways, Miguel Arteta's "Cedar Rapids" (the follow-up to his moderately successful adaptation "Youth in Revolt") bears a striking resemblance to its metropolitan namesake. Featuring several big-name comedy actors (and starring current hot commodity Ed Helms) indicating the potential for a mainstream "big city" hit, in its cinematography and willingness to shift tone and play it blue when necessary, "Cedar Rapids" very much embraces its indie origins. In the first ten minutes, we're treated to awkward sex between Tim Lippe (Helms) and his favorite grade school teacher (Sigourney Weaver) and an auto-erotic asphyxiation death suffered by Lippe's idol, Roger Lemke (Thomas Lennon, channeling Lt. Dangle at his awkward best during his brief time on-screen). The "tragedy," as Lippe believes it to be, forces Lippe to attend an annual insurance conference in Lemke's stead held every year in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Leaving home for the first time ever, Lippe is thrust headlong into into the dangerous world of Midwestern insurance sales politics, and before the film ends Helms' misguided hero has found himself dabbling in adultery, illegal drug use, prostitution solicitation and some impromptu insurance-inspired karaoke.
All of this is handled to perfection by Helms, who has had more than his fair share of experience playing the naive straight man over the past several years on both TV (The Office's Andy Bernard) and the silver screen (Stu in both Hangover movies). In fact, none of the performances here are anything we haven't seen before. Reilly plays the same over-the-top, obnoxious blowhard we've seen in Talladega Nights and Stepbrothers. Stephen Root and Kurtwood Smith each portray fat cats of the industry willing to bend the rules to make a quick buck, placing them squarely in the camp of conventional comedy foils. Indeed, much of the criticism for "Cedar Falls" seems to be with its predictability. The story arc follows a pattern you can anticipate reasonably well in the first several minutes, with the naive hero finally spreading his wings and understanding what we wants out of life once he broadens his horizons. Think "Mr. Deeds" on a much smaller scale without the obligatory Steve Buscemi cameo.
Underneath this layer of conventionality, however, lies a chemistry between the four main characters (in addition to Lippe and Ziegler, the gang includes Isiah Whitlock Jr. as Ronald Wilkes and Anne Heche as Joan Ostrowski-Fox) that makes the predictable story worth watching. Helms captures just the right amount of believability out of the hopelessly-lost small town boy to anchor the film, and we can't help but cheer for him, even as he's bemoaning the loss of a life we know he's not happy living. Whitlock, in particular, shines as a jovial roommate and fellow salesman to Lippe, who is horrified originally to be sharing a hotel room with an "Afro-American" gentleman. The rapport that builds between the four stars can be seen most acutely in the shorts that accompany the final credits. If anything, Cedar Rapids is guilty of establishing relationships it doesn't ultimately explore. At the end of the film, we get the sense that these characters love and care about each other, but we're deprived of seeing how those relationships turn out down the road.
Maybe that's the point, though. "Cedar Rapids" is a film that explores familiar territory, giving us a main character hopelessly inept who finds himself on a voyage beyond the confines of his ordinary life. We see an evolution in Helms' Lippe, but one that Arteta makes sure in the final scene not to let reach too far. The film, thus, preserves the down-home simplicity we like to believe still exists in middle America. Bucking no trends and forging no paths that haven't been worn several times before, it does make for a nice hour and a half distraction showcasing the talent of several of today's established and up-and-coming comedic actors. Like a nice trip to a sleepy metropolis in the Midwest, populated by chain restaurants and all the excitement of a hotel swimming pool, we take comfort from knowing what to expect in "Cedar Rapids" and having it delivered in a nice, simple package. ("Hey, Timbo, did you just make a dick joke?")
Verdict: 4/5 stars
All of this is handled to perfection by Helms, who has had more than his fair share of experience playing the naive straight man over the past several years on both TV (The Office's Andy Bernard) and the silver screen (Stu in both Hangover movies). In fact, none of the performances here are anything we haven't seen before. Reilly plays the same over-the-top, obnoxious blowhard we've seen in Talladega Nights and Stepbrothers. Stephen Root and Kurtwood Smith each portray fat cats of the industry willing to bend the rules to make a quick buck, placing them squarely in the camp of conventional comedy foils. Indeed, much of the criticism for "Cedar Falls" seems to be with its predictability. The story arc follows a pattern you can anticipate reasonably well in the first several minutes, with the naive hero finally spreading his wings and understanding what we wants out of life once he broadens his horizons. Think "Mr. Deeds" on a much smaller scale without the obligatory Steve Buscemi cameo.
Underneath this layer of conventionality, however, lies a chemistry between the four main characters (in addition to Lippe and Ziegler, the gang includes Isiah Whitlock Jr. as Ronald Wilkes and Anne Heche as Joan Ostrowski-Fox) that makes the predictable story worth watching. Helms captures just the right amount of believability out of the hopelessly-lost small town boy to anchor the film, and we can't help but cheer for him, even as he's bemoaning the loss of a life we know he's not happy living. Whitlock, in particular, shines as a jovial roommate and fellow salesman to Lippe, who is horrified originally to be sharing a hotel room with an "Afro-American" gentleman. The rapport that builds between the four stars can be seen most acutely in the shorts that accompany the final credits. If anything, Cedar Rapids is guilty of establishing relationships it doesn't ultimately explore. At the end of the film, we get the sense that these characters love and care about each other, but we're deprived of seeing how those relationships turn out down the road.
Maybe that's the point, though. "Cedar Rapids" is a film that explores familiar territory, giving us a main character hopelessly inept who finds himself on a voyage beyond the confines of his ordinary life. We see an evolution in Helms' Lippe, but one that Arteta makes sure in the final scene not to let reach too far. The film, thus, preserves the down-home simplicity we like to believe still exists in middle America. Bucking no trends and forging no paths that haven't been worn several times before, it does make for a nice hour and a half distraction showcasing the talent of several of today's established and up-and-coming comedic actors. Like a nice trip to a sleepy metropolis in the Midwest, populated by chain restaurants and all the excitement of a hotel swimming pool, we take comfort from knowing what to expect in "Cedar Rapids" and having it delivered in a nice, simple package. ("Hey, Timbo, did you just make a dick joke?")
Verdict: 4/5 stars
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Change in the Sofa-The Return of Curb!
The dog days of summer are here. Along with that unbearably uncomfortable, sweltering heat reverberating off the pavement comes a return of the unbearably uncomfortable Larry David. Season 8 of the universally-acclaimed HBO series starts with a cold opening that finishes the scene that concluded Season 7. Just as it seems Cheryl (Cheryl Hines) and Larry are about to reunite over the "Seinfeld" reunion show, Larry notices Cheryl's absent-minded habit of placing beverages directly on tables without a coaster. Insisting that Cheryl phone Julia Louis-Dreyfuss to inform her that it was Cheryl's fault Julia's oak table got ruined at a party, Larry makes good on the self-sabotage we all saw coming. Cue "Frolic," and curtain-up on a new installment of first-world problems at their finest.
"The Divorce," of course, deals with the final legal separation of Larry and Cheryl begun in Season 6. The chemistry between Larry and Cheryl Hines is still clearly apparent on-screen, however, leading to a very amusing exchange in the couples' bedroom as they're arguing over who gets to keep some candlesticks. "Any time a woman is in this bedroom, I figure I have to ask," Larry explains after an unsolicited request for some break-up sex. The episode also features the return of several of the colorful ensemble cast, and each of the principals gets a decent amount of screen-time in the first episode. Susie (Susie Essman) gets a shot at Jeff (Jeff Garlin) about even thinking about a divorce ("I'll have your balls thumbtacked to my wall!"), Funkhouser (Bob Einstein) gets on Larry's case about convincing his wife to join him on a business trip to London ("You are a colossal prick, you know that?!"), and Leon once again steals the show when asking about Funkhouser's sex life after he decides to get a divorce on Larry's advice ("You ran that ass into the ground, didn't you? Like a rental car?"). The episode gives all of the ensemble cast a chance to shine for a moment, illustrating just how well-developed these characters have become over the past several seasons and how dynamic and hysterical their improvised exchanges can still be under the well-trained pen of David.
"The Divorce" continues the Curb tradition of introducing a conflict that will likely last throughout the season, while still focusing on one or two major societal issues that form the basis of the comical adversity present throughout the self-contained episode. Gary Cole does a spirited turn as Joe O'Donnell, the fictionalized version of Frank McCourt, current embattled owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers. In the Curb universe, Larry once again borrows from reality, referring a "more kosher" lawyer to O'Donnell than his current fake Jewish lawyer, who subsequently loses the team in O'Donnell's own divorce negotiations because of ineptitude. O'Donnell, of course, blames Larry, and punches him out before he can interrupt his own divorce arbitration with Cheryl. Larry subsequently loses his home, setting up the move to New York that will occur later in the season.
Also included in this week's episode were verbal instructions to a pre-teen about use of a tampon ("There's an inner-tube and an outer-tube!"), a discussion of the legality of buffet-sharing, and the ethical ramifications of canceling one's Girl Scout cookie order ("Actually, I find them abhorrent. But come on in!"). "The Divorce" may have come at a time when summer-time TV doldrums have lulled me into a state of low-expectations (I'm living on re-runs of "The Wire" and Thursday nights on FX with "Wilfred" and "Louie" exclusively at the moment), but tonight, it seemed like a welcome return to form for a show that has consistently performed at a high-level for a decade now. I cannot wait to see where Funkhouser's bachelor-hood and Larry's new digs take him next week. Bravo.
Verdict: 4.5/5 stars
"The Divorce," of course, deals with the final legal separation of Larry and Cheryl begun in Season 6. The chemistry between Larry and Cheryl Hines is still clearly apparent on-screen, however, leading to a very amusing exchange in the couples' bedroom as they're arguing over who gets to keep some candlesticks. "Any time a woman is in this bedroom, I figure I have to ask," Larry explains after an unsolicited request for some break-up sex. The episode also features the return of several of the colorful ensemble cast, and each of the principals gets a decent amount of screen-time in the first episode. Susie (Susie Essman) gets a shot at Jeff (Jeff Garlin) about even thinking about a divorce ("I'll have your balls thumbtacked to my wall!"), Funkhouser (Bob Einstein) gets on Larry's case about convincing his wife to join him on a business trip to London ("You are a colossal prick, you know that?!"), and Leon once again steals the show when asking about Funkhouser's sex life after he decides to get a divorce on Larry's advice ("You ran that ass into the ground, didn't you? Like a rental car?"). The episode gives all of the ensemble cast a chance to shine for a moment, illustrating just how well-developed these characters have become over the past several seasons and how dynamic and hysterical their improvised exchanges can still be under the well-trained pen of David.
"The Divorce" continues the Curb tradition of introducing a conflict that will likely last throughout the season, while still focusing on one or two major societal issues that form the basis of the comical adversity present throughout the self-contained episode. Gary Cole does a spirited turn as Joe O'Donnell, the fictionalized version of Frank McCourt, current embattled owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers. In the Curb universe, Larry once again borrows from reality, referring a "more kosher" lawyer to O'Donnell than his current fake Jewish lawyer, who subsequently loses the team in O'Donnell's own divorce negotiations because of ineptitude. O'Donnell, of course, blames Larry, and punches him out before he can interrupt his own divorce arbitration with Cheryl. Larry subsequently loses his home, setting up the move to New York that will occur later in the season.
Also included in this week's episode were verbal instructions to a pre-teen about use of a tampon ("There's an inner-tube and an outer-tube!"), a discussion of the legality of buffet-sharing, and the ethical ramifications of canceling one's Girl Scout cookie order ("Actually, I find them abhorrent. But come on in!"). "The Divorce" may have come at a time when summer-time TV doldrums have lulled me into a state of low-expectations (I'm living on re-runs of "The Wire" and Thursday nights on FX with "Wilfred" and "Louie" exclusively at the moment), but tonight, it seemed like a welcome return to form for a show that has consistently performed at a high-level for a decade now. I cannot wait to see where Funkhouser's bachelor-hood and Larry's new digs take him next week. Bravo.
Verdict: 4.5/5 stars
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Where the heart stops and the brain begins...
Two news stories this week emphasized the role the emotional appeal has in the creation of a narrative for public consumption. The first, of course, was Tuesday's verdict in the Casey Anthony murder trial. Immediately following the jury's announcement of a not guilty decision, the social media universe exploded with reactions of anger, shock, and puzzlement.
Casey Anthony Verdict Reading (courtesy of ABC News)
Perhaps the most amusing response came from Kim Kardashian, who tweeted, "WHAT!!!!???!!!! CASEY ANTHONY FOUND NOT GUILTY!!!! I am speechless!!!" Many fellow users distilled the irony that was dripping from Ms. Kardashian's < 140 character response, including user HaHaWhitePPL, who succinctly responded, "So was Nicole Brown Simpson's family when your dad got OJ off."
What Ms. Kardiashan's enthusiastic use of punctuation illustrates is the American public's willingness to attach itself to the sentimental or emotional angle of a story that completely precludes them from approaching the issue with a semblance of objectivity. A little girl died meaninglessly. This we know. As human beings, we attempt to fill in the rest to fit our subjective image of the world around us. We simply do not want to live in a world where an evil that could allow that to happen can go unpunished.
Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote in 1963, "When our most tireless efforts fail to stop the surging sweep of oppression, we need to know that in this universe is a God whose matchless strength is a fit contrast to the sordid weakness of man." Somewhere, in the aftermath of the Casey Anthony verdict and a deep-seated desire to see our own justice fulfilled through the courts, we forgot about this. That is the power of the media narrative. It can inspire charges of a complete failure of a legal system (despite the fact that there was no physical evidence linking Casey to the death of her child) built to defend against the fallibility of human reason. The jurors in the Casey Anthony case did exactly as they were supposed to do (and something no one who digested the daily news media coverage of the trial, with its bombardment of innocent images of Caylee)--dispassionately examine the evidence and render a verdict based on the arguments presented. That's a success--not a failure--of the American legal system.
Today, British tabloid News of the World announced Sunday's issue would be the last of the publication, which has enjoyed 168 years of uninterrupted circulation. In those 168 years, the tabloid has come under fire for numerous reasons, including clandestine investigative reporting schemes hatched by Mazher Mammod, who's been investigated on two separate occasions by the Attorney General. What ultimately closed down the operations of the tabloid, however, was the extension of a phone hacking controversy to the case of a 13 year-old missing girl whose body was found murdered.
"The revelation this week that victims may have included the murdered girl, the families of terror victims and of British troops killed in Afghanistan and Iraq, raised the scandal to a new level," states the CNN story. Loss of advertising revenue and support from high-ranking government officials and interest groups following the revelation of the extent of the phone hacking doomed the tabloid.
I don't mean to belittle the lives of the two young girls lost meaninglessly in these two stories. What should be clear is that, as a culture, we attach special significance to narratives that play upon our emotional weaknesses as human beings. Both newsmakers and reporters are aware of this. To be discerning consumers of their product, we should be, too.
Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote in 1963, "When our most tireless efforts fail to stop the surging sweep of oppression, we need to know that in this universe is a God whose matchless strength is a fit contrast to the sordid weakness of man." Somewhere, in the aftermath of the Casey Anthony verdict and a deep-seated desire to see our own justice fulfilled through the courts, we forgot about this. That is the power of the media narrative. It can inspire charges of a complete failure of a legal system (despite the fact that there was no physical evidence linking Casey to the death of her child) built to defend against the fallibility of human reason. The jurors in the Casey Anthony case did exactly as they were supposed to do (and something no one who digested the daily news media coverage of the trial, with its bombardment of innocent images of Caylee)--dispassionately examine the evidence and render a verdict based on the arguments presented. That's a success--not a failure--of the American legal system.
Today, British tabloid News of the World announced Sunday's issue would be the last of the publication, which has enjoyed 168 years of uninterrupted circulation. In those 168 years, the tabloid has come under fire for numerous reasons, including clandestine investigative reporting schemes hatched by Mazher Mammod, who's been investigated on two separate occasions by the Attorney General. What ultimately closed down the operations of the tabloid, however, was the extension of a phone hacking controversy to the case of a 13 year-old missing girl whose body was found murdered.
"The revelation this week that victims may have included the murdered girl, the families of terror victims and of British troops killed in Afghanistan and Iraq, raised the scandal to a new level," states the CNN story. Loss of advertising revenue and support from high-ranking government officials and interest groups following the revelation of the extent of the phone hacking doomed the tabloid.
I don't mean to belittle the lives of the two young girls lost meaninglessly in these two stories. What should be clear is that, as a culture, we attach special significance to narratives that play upon our emotional weaknesses as human beings. Both newsmakers and reporters are aware of this. To be discerning consumers of their product, we should be, too.
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