Ehkzu Artzu

Jackie Evancho--beloved by fans, ignored by Grammies, sneered at by pop critics, reviled by classical critics

2012-01-13T18:54:00.000-08:00

I can't recall when someone so genuinely nice and talented has been the target of so much negativity by the cultural establishment.

Here's the kid (bottom right BTW) who Billboard Magazine ranks as the #1 classical artist in America, the 10th best-selling recording artist across all genres, who had the second-best-selling CD of the year among classical crossover/"vocalist" artists, and whose PBS special "Dream with me" is apparently the most pledge-producing concert of any that PBS stations have ever used for their pledge drives.

You'd think all that would at least get her some attention from the mainstream press.

Well, the New York Times deigned to take note of her existence belatedly. Toward the end of last year it sent a stringer who specializes in reviewing hip hop and rap to a live concert she gave in New York. You can imagine what he had to say.

Then the Washington Post one-upped the NYTimes: last week it had a classical music critic "review" her. As far as I could tell he based his musical analysis on the first time she ever appeared on TV, 16 months ago, singing for 90 seconds. From that he concluded that she was an abused, sexualized child who's being forced to sing music she shouldn't be singing in a horrible technique that's guaranteed to destroy her voice--which he grudgingly conceded had some strengths--and wrapped it up by likening her to Jon-Benet Ramsey!

He got a ton of very angry comments. He responded by doubling down on everything he'd said in a podcast on New York public classical station WQXR-FM, with several classical doyennes nodding their heads in agreement.

Nobody else this side of the Taliban thinks her clothing would be inappropriate for performing for the President of the United States and his family or the Emperor of Japan and his family--both of which she's done.

Nobody who isn't seriously warped in the head would think her choice of clothing or music--opera arias, show tunes and slow to midtempo pop numbers--puts her in league with all those miniskirted Beyonce wannabes out there.

And anyone who accuses her parents of abusing her--which the WaPo "critic" stated as a proven fact--had better hope that they're too small to draw the Evanchos' attention, because that falls well within the boundaries of our country's defamation laws.

Moreover, the doom predicted for her voice is not shared by any of the otolaryngologists who examine her regularly, nor by the voice coaches who work with her, nor by concert schedulers who'd love to have her perform more often and more often during her concerts, but are frustrated by Jackie's parents' insistence that the health and longevity of her voice come first.

My point here isn't to defend her and her family, however. Anyone who Google/Wikis/YouTube's Jackie Evancho for less than an hour will know that these critiques aren't just rubbish, but appallingly ignorant rubbish--appalling because I'd expect far higher standards of journalism from such eminent media sources and from the critical establishment.

My point is to show how, when confronted with someone who doesn't fall within the neat categories critics use to slice and dice reality, they reject the someone rather than revise their categories--or admit, even to themselves, that those categories don't accommodate the rare interpretive musical genius who comes along perhaps once or twice a century. Interestingly, many fans of the genres these critics champion love Jackie's music. It's the critics who don't.

Thus to a parochial rap/hip hop critic she's a lousy rapper. To the classical snob she's a lousy operatic soprano. To many classical music teachers she's a parvenu from petit bourgeoise parents who has been the curse of them, now that they're being besieged by children and parents dying to have their kid trained to become the next Jackie.

And those teachers can't tell those kids and their parents the truth: "I don't know how to teach anyone how to sing like Jackie Evancho, because nobody knows how she does it, and even she can't explain how she does it; and even if anyone could explain it you'd have to be a musical genius yourself to follow in her path. I can teach you how to sing well, and safely, but you'll never even get in the same ballpark as Ms. Evancho."

So instead of saying that they say "Jackie Evancho is a bad opera singer who's destroying her voice rapidly, so I shouldn't and won't teach you how to sing like her."

Never mind that just because someone sings the occasional aria doesn't make her or him an opera singer; opera singing is a technique that can be used with any kind of music, just as any kind of opera music can be sung non-operatically. Never mind that Jackie, her parents, and her label have never claimed she was an opera singer, do not now, and say she has no plans to sing in operas or to sing operatically in the future, making the opera snobs' criticism about as relevant as saying she's a lousy Tuvan throat singer. And never mind that one of the most prestigious voice doctors in America just declared her vocal cords "pristine." These bozos know what they know...or they feel compelled to believe they do.

I'm not claiming that everyone should love listening to Jackie Evancho. Some never will. What I am claiming is that the music critic establishment is failing--grossly failing--to live up to what should be its mandate: to match listeners with music.

Instead they're trying to game the system by trashing the work and family of an artist who works in a hybrid area, neither purely classical nor purely pop. They don't understand singers who don't fit in their neat little cubbyholes. They don't understand children when the children are geniuses. They don't understand their job, which should be serving their readers. And they don't understand how you don't get to defame people's characters with no other reason than their prejudices and Lindsay Lohan.

So here's an extremely nice, polite. well-behaved, studiously diplomatic 11 year old girl who is unintentionally bringing out the worst in a significant chunk of the arts world's establishment.

Speaking as a sociologist, I find it fascinating. She's a regular Rorschach blot, given all the putrefying nonsense a lot of self-appointed experts are saying about her (when they bother to notice the she exists at all), 90% of which is false, and obviously so.

The only critique I've heard that sticks even a little is that her backup arrangements tend to be overblown--gilding the lily--sometimes burying her exquisite voice in a wall of sound filled with clashing cymbals, swooning strings, harp arpeggios, horns horning in etc. Hopefully that will diminish as she grows older and gets more artistic control over her products. But even with the WOS productions a majority of music lovers will find her CDs and especially her DVDs well worth having.

The Descendants--no spoiler review

2012-01-04T16:01:00.000-08:00

This is a great family film that's R-rated. In it, even little kids say words that would have had my grandmother beating them with a stick for uttering. And yet, honest to Pete, in every other respect it's a wonderful family film that endorses family, integrity, good parenting. In every other respect besides language it's a PG-13 film.

And it's a really good movie by cinematic standards, wholly apart from the values it promotes. I once heard that casting was 80% of a movie. If so, "The Descendants" wins big time because the casting is flawless. George Clooney sinks into his character--which is tough to do when you're such a big star (and you look like Jay Leno's handsome first cousin). You really see him as his character, and his voiceover narration actually works, unlike many voiceovers.

But the first class casting extends down to the smallest parts--the sign of a fine movie. And the second role, the hero's rebellious daughter, is played with real distinction by Shailene Woodley, previously only known as the lead in the CW network's teen soaper/weekly abstinence infomercial "Secret Life of the American Teenager."

The film is set entirely in Hawaii--mostly in the Oahu of those who live there and have lived there for generations, in a suburban lifestyle that looks very much like mainland suburbia except that even the wealthiest families in the fanciest get-togethers are all barefoot. It's pretty cool, really.

Hawaii is one of the best pieces of casting--casting because it comes one of the main characters, providing a backdrop for the human players who are all--hence the title--the descendants of haoles from the mainland and local Hawaiians who intermarried.

One character who has precious screen time is Matthew Lillard, who I only knew of from his role in the Scooby Doo movies--that is, as a rubber-faced buffoon. But here in a small role he does a great job portraying a quasi-slimeball who isn't quite as bad as we're led to think. And Judy Greer, playing the character's wife, does an equally great job with a small role.

The cinematography is competent if not cutting edge. It's aided by being set in Hawaii. Hard to lose with that one. I've been there several times, and the film really took me back. I could smell the warm, humid air and how it makes the main character (Clooney's) sweat when he runs for a while.

This film has gotten rave reviews from the critcs and from audiences. You will do yourself a favor if you see it based on those and this, without trying to find out all the details of the movie. You can get the whole plot easily enough, since most reviews tell the whole story most of the time. I'm trying to help preserve some element of surprise for you here, while still telling you whether you should see it, and whether in a theater or not.

As for that, my rule of thumb is to only see 3D films in theaters rather than on my 46" flat screen home theater. This film isn't 3D, but I happened to see it in a theater. Some people I saw it with thought the Hawaiian setting was enough to justify seeing it in a theater. I dunno, but that is an argument for it. But I don't think you'll feel bereft if you wait for the DVD.

The same evening we saw "How to tame your dragon" on a home theatre, and it made us greatly miss how great it had looked in a theater in 3D, BTW.

The measure of a film, for me, is whether it sticks with me. This has. The characters are so richly drawn, and the actors convey their characters with so much good acting and not all the talkiness that screenwriters like to put in everyone's mouths. I'm talkative myself, but most people really aren't, and I felt the screenwriting here was true to the characters' characters.

Need anything more to decide whether to see it? Well I should add that it's a dramady that moves deftly between comic and very serous moments. At the end, you won't feel devastated. Actually, you'll have trouble not smiling--the kind of warm smile I often give my wife of 30 years after a moment of shared understanding. The film is sophisticated in its characterizations without being at all arch or pretentious. It's an honest movie with a lot of heart, yet without hiding any of the characters' flaws--or, in the case of the more or less bad guys--strengths. Ultimately it has no saints or devils. Just a bunch of people, connected in various way, doing the best they can...in Paradise.

Should little girls sing opera arias written for men?

2012-01-03T20:18:00.000-08:00

re: Jackie Evancho singing “Nessun Dorma”

I see many opera lovers conflating performing an aria in concert with performing it in an opera. These are distinct modalities, and in fact people who sing in operas can encounter aesthetic difficulties when they do arias in concert–when they fail to grasp the difference, unlike Jackie Evancho, who understands it perfectly.

Thus when Ms. Evancho sings “Nessun Dorma” as a concert piece, she isn’t trying to portray Prince Calaf, madly in love with with the eponymous psychopathic princess of the opera. In the context of the opera, whoever’s playing the Prince must, of course, sing in character, and the aria, which is a soliloquy, sets the stage for the dramatic scenes that follow.

If the aria is only aesthetically valid when it’s doing that, then it shouldn’t be sung in concert by anyone–even a Corelli or a Domingo.

But this shortchanges Puccini’s genius as a composer. Of course the music stands on its own. Honestly, the opera needs it more than it needs the opera, whose libretto is the most problematic of Puccini’s operas, uncomfortably mixing a fantastical fable of a story with Puccini’s profoundly verisimo musical style. Maybe that’s why he died trying to finish it after two years of struggle.

Outside the opera the lyrics are poetic but about as meaningful as one of Bob Dylan’s lyrics. When Jackie sings this aria, she recontextualizes it for the concert hall, without the story–which isn’t there, since it’s the aria, not the opera, that’s being performed after all.

When Jackie sings it, it’s a song of great yearning and great will to achieve one’s dreams and aspirations.

And actually I find that to be a better fit with the music than Prince Calaf’s declaration of love for someone who is plainly a dangerous nut case any sane man would run from as fast as he could. Really, you’d be safer with the Queen of the Night. Every night you’d have to frisk her for knives and ice picks before you went to bed.

I should add that many people have sung this aria, man and woman, opera singers and otherwise. Aretha Franklin has done it, probably marking the nadir of her career–but not because she’s a woman. Because she sang it really, really badly.

Whereas, given the concert setting and not the operatic one, little 11 year old Jackie Evancho sings it as well as I’ve heard it sung–in concert.

For all the harrumphing about the lyrics, you’d think she was reading from the Kama Sutra. “Nessun Dorma”‘s lyrics are fine, given that this child is assuming the persona of the storyteller, not the person the story is being told about.

And when it comes to authentically expression powerful longing and equally powerful will–who can legitimately say they have more of either than her? What were the rest of us doing at age 11? She is, like most geniuses–which she is, obviously–highly driven. Which means that what she feels and what she wants to do with her time is not like what you cute little niece feels and wants to do with her time.

I find a lot of the naysaying I read here and elsewhere stems from a profound lack of understanding of human genius. Well, that’s to be expected. Geniuses are exceedingly rare, and many of us go through our whole lives without ever meeting one in person.

And they exemplify the unfairness of nature. You may have labored twenty years, diligently, to master something, and have a genius waltz in and say of your work “And then it just repeats…right? What if we tried this?” and proceeds to invalidate your entire career.

Lots of people tackle “Nessun Dorma” because it isn’t just a great aria in “Turandot”–it’s also a great song. And a lot easier to pop out of the opera that something from Wagner’s multi-hour songspiels, I might add.

Hugo--a great film for certain people of all ages

2011-12-19T15:55:00.000-08:00

Few read reviews to find out whether the reviewer liked the film. They want to know whether THEY will like the film--to decide whether to see the movie or not, and whether to see it in the theater or wait and see the DVD (or the download). That's the task I'll take on here.

As the Rottentomato website has already shown (it assembles and correlates scads of reviews from the press and the web, along with reader responses), the critics adore this film, the audience somewhat less so.

Part of this has to do with managing expectations. The marketing presents Hugo as an Avatar-ish 3D fantasy with a C3P0 (StarWars)-type flying robot. this is actively misleading, though that's not the director's fault.

What Hugo is, is a fable--not a fantasy--that's part tween adventure and part infomercial for the preservation and viewing of old silent movies. Most importantly--and this is a point that hasn't been made by most reviewers here and elsewhere--it's a film about ex-magician/early filmmaker Georges Meliés that Scorsese made, to a degree, IN THE STYLE of a Georges Meliés movie. That's part of the homage.

Thus "Hugo" contains a lot of adventurous running-around, a brilliant exploitation of the best 3D filmmaking technology extant, and a leavening of slapstick elements--particularly from the surprisingly restrained Sascha Baron Cohen.

It's a fable based on real events in the early history of movies. "Sleepless in Seattle" was a fable with no fantasy elements other than its happy-ending-inevitability, which you feel from beginning to end. That's the essence of a fable, not whether it has fantasy elements or not. A fable is a kind of ritual that reaffirms the tribe's values and faith in its vision of life.

Hugo reaffirms faith in goodness--that even in many apparently hard-hearted people there's an ember that can be fanned into life by the right person. The movie's vibe from its first seconds tells you that you are riding towards a happy ending.

Two Russian intellectuals that I saw the movie with hated that fact. They think a movie is unrealistic unless everyone's doomed, and if you'd grown up in the Soviet Union that was probably realistic. Especially since Soviet-era fable-movies did guarantee a happy ending--"happy" as defined by Soviet ideology at least. So for my friends. fables aren't just false, but evil State Propaganda. And a lot of Americans who fancy themselves intellectual have a similarly jaundiced perspective about Hollywood's addiction to guaranteed by hook or by crook happy endings.

I think this issue stems from not understanding the ritual validity of fable. I love realistic movies without this guarantee of happy outcomes, but I also love a good fable. I'm certain of my spouse's love for me and of my love for her. I'm certain of our relationship with our closest friends, as they are of us reciprocally. I'm certain of the law-abidingness of my society (especially compared to the third-world countries we've traveled in). Predictable good outcomes are, within reasonable constraints, reasonable to believe in, in many ways.

So "Hugo"'s ultimate predictability is a valid artistic choice. It's not a spoiler to say this because you know it from the start and you should know so you don't confuse this with a Sundance-type art film where everyone is confused and faces an uncertain future, usually alone. I apologize for "Hugo" not being a slit-your-wristsathon. I also like such films, and they usually set your expectations from the start as well, for that matter.

So who will enjoy "Hugo" ?
1. Bright tweens. It stars a pair of bright tweens, so this is a natural. Many younger kids will like it as well--it's visually a treat, and it is based on a kids' story. But duller/much younger/Disneyfied kids who want nonstop action and/or the relentless cheerful action of a Disney film will probably find their attention wandering in places.

2. Everyone who's interested in the history of filmmaking--particularly right at the beginning.

3. Everyone who's interested in modern filmmaking. This does represent the absolute state of the art in 3D cinematography--where its 3Dness is integral and almost taken for granted, not tacked on, not poke-you-in-the-eye, not several layers of 2D images.

4. Everyone who's interested in good fable direction/screenwriting/acting. This is not to say anyone involved in this project can't do naturalistic films or fantasy films, or, in the case of Chloe Grace Moretz, naturalistic fantasy films ("Let me in"). So no negatives are proven here. That said, I believe the casting was spot on for the major and minor roles. This is one area where Scorsese didn't copy the stagy mugging of Meliés' films (except during re recreations of those films). The large, intent close-ups of the major characters really exposed their acting chops, and all came through. The boy, who I'd never seen before, kept it subtle, as well as the other juvenile character, Isabelle (played by Moretz). The young actors in many youth-oriented films tend to mug--again, Disney movie style--and kids who expect that need to be prepped by their parents to look for more lifelike acting here.

Who won't love it?

1. It's not a Selena Gomez/Demi Lovato/Disney vehicle. It's nothing like Lindsay Lohan's wonderful "Parent Trap," one of the best of the normal good-quality kids' film. It too is a fable, but it isn't overlaid with all the stuff about film history and suchlike. "Hugo"'s ideal kid audience is going to be like Isabelle in the move--sweet, bookish, curious, and not locked into peer culture as the source of everything that could possibly be of interest to one.

2. People who don't like the fable genre. The film embeds pretty naturalistic performances and note-perfect sets showing a Paris train station circa 1931, where most of the action takes place within a non-naturalistic film fable. There are lots of non-fable films. See one of those unless you really do want to see state of the art 3D cinematography and want to ratchet up your suspension of disbelief in order to watch this.

3. People with zero interest in film history. This is where a lot of movie critics err. Of course nearly all of them are fascinated by early film history. But this film verges on being a high quality 2 hour infomercial for film preservation, and you know, reading this, whether such prolonged self-regard on the part of the filmmaker towards his medium will fascinate or annoy you.

4. Adults who don't like films starring children. I detect this bias in people who criticize the performances of "Hugo"'s two junior leads, who are both exemplary. Also, I hadn't seen the boy before, but I have seen Moretz costarring in the grim, critically acclaimed "Let Me In," in which she portrays--with almost no dialogue and almost no special effects--a bloodthirsty (literally) yet profoundly conflicted child vampire, and in which those averse to sunny endings will get their wishes more than satisfied. And in which her appearance and performance have been compared favorably to a very young Ingrid Bergman. That is, she has gravitas. Of people in her age bracket, the only other actor I can think of who has that is Hailee Steinfeld (True Grit).

My point here is that Moretz's acting chops are now an established fact. She has a far less complex character to portray in "Hugo," yet even in Isabelle's wide-eyed pre-ingenue role she infuses her character with a kind of luminosity that holds its own even when she's sharing the screen with great adult actors like Ben Kingsley.

5. Adults who only want to see heavily plot-driven films. It's not like "Hugo" is one of those kaleidoscopic non-narrative films. It tells a story, to be sure. But besides the child-centered narrative there's a biopic about Georges Meliés (and his wife) here, told in flashback, along with excursions into film history. Some people will find that as rich as a multicourse meal; others will be annoyed by "Hugo" not being propelled by a singular narrative drive. Such people will sit there saying "All right, Scorsese--get to the point!"

6. Those who are really reluctant to pay to see the film in a theater, even if they're eager to see it on DVD. I agree with this feeling nearly all of the time. However, some films are so visually huge--and, especially, if they're 3D and do that well--you need to bite the bullet and see it in a theater, if only to compare what it's like in a theater in 3D with what it's like on your flat screen TV at home in 2D. Hey, you can always see it in a bargain matinee, as we did. But we'll probably get the DVD when it comes out as well, because it both makes and recalls film history.

USA's crime dramas play it safe on abortion

2011-07-18T19:20:00.000-07:00

My spouse and I like "In plain sight." The protagonist is a tough-as-nails woman in her 40s who's a federal marshal in the witness protection program. People swear in the show, and many of the witnesses being protected are lowlife scum. So the Disney Channel USA ain't. Nor is "In plain sight" an outlier in the USA group of popular dramas-with-a-splash of humor/quirkiness.

So recently the heroine of "In plain sight" got pregnant after a one night stand. Chances of a future with the knocker-upper: nil. She's in Albuquerque New Mexico BTW. Oh, and the heroine appears to be pugnaciously unreligious. She does not and does not appear to ever have had a stable love life, nor is one in the offing. Recently she and a boyfriend broke up, with it seeming like she just couldn't handle marriage commitments.

Now in real life a woman like that in that situation would get an abortion in all likelihood. She might have the child and put it up for adoption. She even might raise the child as a single mother. But the 80% probability is abortion--especially given the risk of severe birth defects in a relatively late-in-life pregnancy.

But in the TV show abortion never came up, never was mentioned, never was rejected. It was as if there was no such thing as abortion--that if you're pregnant you WILL have the baby. The absolute only decision considered on "In plain sight" was whether to raise the child or give it up for adoption.

This is fundamentally dishonest. I'm not arguing that the screenwriters should have had her get an abortion. I'm not arguing for or against abortion. I'm arguing that in a show that purports to be gritty, realistic, confronting all sorts of gutwrenching issues, the fact that abortion was never so much as mentioned, when a majority of Americans approve of abortion under varying restrictions in poll after poll, just shows how terrified Hollywood is of the far Right.

It's ironic that the far Right continually fulminates about Hollywood being a latter-day Sodom and Gomorrah even as Hollywood actually tiptoes about the far Right's most hot-button issue.

Name me one scripted TV show in recent years where abortion was even considered, much less done.

I'm not including Lifetime Channel weepers where the lady gets an abortion and is Ruined by her Sinful Choice. Just regular channels that show regular scripted dramas.

Homosexuality is now presented as perfectly normal, as in "Modern Family." But abortion appears to be the Mount Everest of challenges for Hollywood.

Review of "Ombra mai fu" MP3 by Jackie Evancho

2011-05-26T00:40:00.000-07:00

For me, the first time I heard Jacqueline Marie Evancho sing was like my first scuba dive in Indonesia.

Before I heard Ms. Evancho, I’d heard thousands upon thousands of singers, singing everything from opera arias to Tahitian war chants to headbanging rock & roll to Jazz standards to avant-garde music that didn’t even have a melody to bluegrass to country to Black gospel to Argentine tango to rap to everything you see on MTV today to…well, you get the picture. I’ve been around, musically speaking.

Likewise with scuba diving. Before Indonesia I’d gone on hundreds of dives around California, Canada, the Sea of Cortez, the Caribbean, Hawaii.

But all this experience didn’t fully prepare me for Indonesia. On our first dive there, near Bali, I backrolled out of the boat, waited for my wife to join me, and then we descended into a coral reef universe with so many—and so many kinds of—fish, coral, critters, in all the colors of the rainbow and more—that I was overwhelmed. And even now, 12 years after that first dive, I’m still overwhelmed by diving there.

Same goes for Jackie Evancho. For me, as a veteran diver and veteran music lover, she is my Indonesian coral reef—a neverending source of awe and profound joy.

In this review, I’ll explain why many people are entranced by Ms. Evancho—both as a performer and as a human being; why some others are not; how to listen to her singing; what her performance of this particular song means; and what this song means as a guide to whether you should buy the album it’s part of.

Ms. Evancho defines herself as a “classical crossover” singer. Other CC singers include Josh Groban, Andrea Bocelli, Charlotte Church, and Sarah Brightman. CC performers choose music from the worlds of pop, classical, folk and other genres, but always sing it a “classical” manner. Not operatic—classical. There’s a big difference.

Opera singers are trained to make themselves heard over a pit orchestra, all the way to the folks in the nosebleed seats. The techniques needed to do so give their voices a sort of trumpet-like quality that opera lovers love. I love it myself, but that’s not what Ms. Evancho sounds like even when she’s singing opera arias. She always performs with a microphone, enabling her to sing with a more intimate kind of sound. I love that too.

Which is part of why those who are entranced by her singing get drawn to it—she always sounds like she’s singing to you personally. This sense of emotional connection between you, the song, and her, is something many singers, however skilled, can’t seem to achieve. Often it’s because they embellish their singing so much it draws attention from the song to them—as if the lyrics are “Look at me singing! Aren’t I great?” Ms. Evancho never does that. She’s possessed by the music, not the other way around.

What she does do is draw people to her music—even people who don’t normally listen to classical crossover—even some who don’t even listen to music normally. Disabled vets have said that the only time they aren’t in pain is when they’re listening to her. Her effect can be that powerful. At the same time music lovers like me marvel at her richness of tone, perfect phrasing, refined use of portamento, subtle passagio, perfect vibrato, and effortless, soaring high notes.

Phrasing is the difference between a metronome and a storyteller. Frank Sinatra is a master of phrasing. He and Ms. Evancho never sacrifice the meaning of what they’re singing to a steady beat. They both use little hesitations and advances and fermatas (holding notes) to ensure that the poetry gets its voice.

Portamento is those little embellishments that are so annoying when American Idol singers overdo it, or when people without great pitch sense use it to pretend they’re being stylish when in fact they’re using it search around for their high notes.

Passagio is the shift between different kinds of voice as you go from low to high and back. Yodeling is exaggerated passagio, and charming then; it’s also used by great pop singers like Sarah McLachlan. But normally—and especially in classical music—you want it to be seamless, and that’s what Ms. Evancho delivers. She has some of the best passagio in the business.

Vibrato is that shimmering effect you hear as a voice ripples up and down quickly but not too quickly. Skilled string players achieve a similar effect on violins, cellos etc.—you see their fingers wiggling as they touch the strings on the instrument’s neck to get the effect.

And those high notes are what mark a great soprano. Never screechy, never sounding like they just stepped on a cat. Instead, the effect of looking up and seeing a seagull floating in the sky far above you.

But what really matters is that Ms. Evancho uses all these tools of her trade in the service of carrying you off with her into a soundscape that evokes our deepest feelings. As with all great performing artists, you don’t see the years of relentless work she’s poured into honing her craft. You just get the result.

And it doesn’t hurt that she’s an admirable human being as well—possessed of towering ambition and drive, yet at the same time devoted to family and friends, unfailingly thoughtful and polite in interviews, and a Humane Society spokesperson on behalf of decent treatment for animals. She believes she has a gift—and does she ever—but she also believes that such a gift carries responsibilities with it. She’s too grounded to play the diva and live in a bubble of sycophants.

Yet despite her talent and personal rectitude, she has detractors, some of whom felt the need to put their two cents’ worth in this review thread.

The detractors are easy to understand, and fall into several groups. But all of them suffer from being prisoners of their categories. That is, Ms. Evancho’s existence challenges the framework these people use to navigate their way through life. However, instead of changing their framework to accommodate her reality, they deny that she is who she is.

And who she is…is an interpretive genius. I’m not being hyperbolic. I founded the gifted student program at a public school I taught at a long time ago, and I’ve come to recognize genius when I see it. And I know that a lot of people can’t handle genius—they have to explain it away, attribute it to environment or training…anything to avoid the fact that we are not born the same.

Nor are geniuses. Her teachers say she’s intelligent, but she isn’t necessarily an actual genius at anything besides singing. That’s where she’s revealed it, and if you look at the YouTube videos of her earlier performances, you can see this at work even when she was just eight years old, singing “O mio Babbino caro” acapella in her living room.

Note that this is the first time I’ve referred to her age. She turned 11 in April. This leads many to categorize her as a child singer, or a child soprano.

She is not. She’s a vocalist who is a child, but she is not a child vocalist. This is not semantics. Her fans are not, by and large, fans of the category “child singers.” She hasn’t sounded like a child singing since about midway through her 10^th year.

I’ve actually tried this on friends who haven’t heard of her. I’ll play an MP3 with no visuals and ask them to describe her. One said she sounded like the Greek chanteuse Nana Mouskouri when she was in her 30s. That’s a typical response.

Moreover, Ms. Evancho doesn’t consider herself a “child singer.” She sees herself as competing with her peers—Josh Groban and the like—and to be judged by the same standards you’d use to judge any other vocalist.

I said she had towering ambition. Lucky for her, she has talent to match.

One of the more amusing kinds of naysayers are the ones who say “she’s good…for a child. I’ll wait until she’s mature.” These are people who hear what they think—that is, the actual sound reaching their ears goes through a “category filter” so that what reaches their mind fits their biases.

The Amazon.com forums for Ms. Evancho include a fair number of musical sophisticates, and articles about her include a fair number of university voice teachers and the like who all agree that she has a sound and a talent that perhaps comes along once every 50 years or longer.

One of those giving her faint praise said one should look for perfection elsewhere. But then he made it clear that what he meant by “perfection” was “absence of errors.” This is a shallow definition. And it’s why beauty contest winners are so often kind of boring looking, while famous actresses almost never look like beauty contest winners. If you’re a man, who would you rather look at—Scarlett Johansson or Miss Nebraska? See?

That’s because real perfection has little to do with “absence of mistakes.” It has to do with the kind of magic—the passion, the intensity, the ability to connect with people—that only a few have. Ms. Evancho is one of them.

The most offensive of the naysayers are the ones who can’t believe that Ms. Evancho is doing what she wants to do. They accuse her parents of child abuse and her voice coaches of sacrificing her voice for quick fame. This would be serious if it had an iota of truth to it, but in fact her parents, if anything, are holding her back some, trying to give her some childhood in between performances. And her parents and voice coaches have mandated that she only do songs that won’t hurt her voice, and in a manner that won’t hurt it.

Such naysayers can’t grasp how different Ms. Evancho is from the 11 year olds they know. She is living the life she wants to live. Telling her to play with Barbies and sing “Mary had a little lamb”—now that would be child abuse where she’s concerned. And probably sexist to boot. Would they have said the same thing to Mozart when he was 11 and already composing symphonies and performing around Europe?

Another type of Jackie naysayer is people who identify with a type of music as representing them tribally—and feeling that liking anything else is tribal treason. For some who are young and see themselves as ‘not my parents,” if the singer isn’t on MTV they’re out. That was the problem with the critical reviewer here who said Ms. Evancho’s music was boring and all the same. What he was really saying was “if it’s not rock and roll fuggedaboudit.” Opera snobs may say the same. Some of them are aghast that she sings arias meant for men, or sings arias at all—or if she does, they want her to sing innocuous ones.

They don’t realize how serious an artist Ms. Evancho is. She does some light stuff—such as “When you wish upon a star” but even then she infuses it with a depth I certainly never knew was there to be mined.

In the case of this song, “Ombra mai fu,” you can look it up on Wikipedia if you want to know what the lyrics say and what it’s from. I have. But I don’t think that’s necessary. What’s important is right there—its gravitas, the way Ms. Evancho infuses is with such banked passion, proving once more that a whisper can be louder than a shout.

One faint-praising reviewer mentioned how Ms. Evancho couldn’t do the requisite trills yet, and faulted her for it. I’ve heard this aria many times, usually with the trills (Cecilia Bartoli is a great example of doing it the traditional way). But honestly I prefer the sparer, cleaner rendition Ms. Evancho gives it. I believe her version has the most oomph, actually.

Also, notice how the introduction goes on for quite a while, pauses, and then the singer has to hit her rather high starting note out of nowhere. And Ms. Evancho punches it, demonstrating her acute pitch sense and the rich, buttery tone she achieves even in the high soprano sky.

As for how to listen to her singing—I think you’ll gather by now it’s to listen to it as a voice without reference to the age of the person producing that voice.

And finally, as a guide to whether to buy the CD…this is the most classical-sounding cut on the CD. The most pop-sounding one is “Angel,” which you can hear at lower fidelity on YouTube. For this album I’d say “Angel” is more representative of the album overall than “Ombra mai fu.” Only a few of the songs, like the latter, are totally classical. Whereas more are drawn from the pop world—though she still performs them classically.

Thus if you listen to Sarah McLachlan’s “Angel” it’s a lot more country-sounding, full of yodeling passagios and if I recall right a pedal steel in the background. Ms. Evancho performs it in a more straight-ahead fashion. I’m not saying either is superior—for me they’re so distinct I ‘m glad both renditions exist.

Whereas with “Ombra mai fu” I now just want to listen to Jackie’s version, which for me has set the standard for this piece.

Ms. Evancho is, at the age of 11, one of world’s leading interpreters of classical crossover music. She doesn’t do jazz, or blues, or gospel, or Japanese folk songs for that matter. So it’s not like I don’t listen to anything else, because I love everything else. But for the kind of classical-sounding, quietly passionate, aspirational/yearning music Ms. Evancho specializes in at present—there’s none I’d rather listen to.

I’ve already pre-ordered the CD. I strongly recommend that you do so as well.

Text of interview of Jackie Evancho by Ms. Winfrey

2011-04-23T21:15:00.000-07:00

I don't think this video of this interview is available online, thanks to Oprah's lawyers, but here's the text of Jackie with Oprah Winfrey, done on October 20, 2010.

Normally I'd edit out the verbal bobbles found in everyone's everyday speech--but I thought Jackie's fans being who they are, they'd want a fairly exact transcript. So this is it:

[Aftter running clips of her America's Got Talent appearances and after her singing Pie Jesu live]

Oprah: So that was, uh, 10 year old Jackie Evancho with her powerhouse voice on America’s Got Talent. [to Jackie] You have had quite the summer young lady.

Jackie: Yeah, I have [giggles]

Oprah: So I had the pleasure of meeting Jackie at my house—she was kind enough to come to my house a couple of weeks ago, when all of my girls from South Africa were over, uh, looking at colleges, and you sang there, and at the end of, of singing, you said something that I was so impressed with you said you recognize that your voice was a gift from God.

Jackie: mmm-hm.

Oprah: Yeah. When did you know that?

Jackie: Um, well I I’ve always known that. And I say three prayers every night to make sure that God knows I thank him so much.

Oprah: Really.

Jackie: mmm-hm.

Oprah: That’s great.

[Oprah takes Jackie’s hand briefly as audience applauds]

Keep that up, will ya? ‘Cause God loves appreciation.

Jackie: [giggles]

God loves appreciation so--When you were doing America’s Got Talent and the world was just getting to know you a little bit then, were you just out of your mind nervous?

How would you calm yourself every time?

Jackie: Well, I didn’t. The adrenaline helped me to realize that you’re on a big stage and you just have to deal with it. It just helped me to usually get this through.

Oprah: Really.

Jackie: hm! [nods]

Oprah: So Jackie has been on tour with America’s Got Talent for the past few weeks and. We caught up with her between shows back in her home town of Pittsburgh, hanging out with her two brothers and her little sister Rachel, who’s the cutest thing. Take a look.

[video of Jackie & family at home]

During video, Jackie says: It’s like you’re the only person in the whole world when you’re on stage. You’re standing there. This is the moment. And you’re gonna shine.

Mike: The moment Jackie steps off the stage, it’s back to Jackie being one of my four children. She’s not treated any differently…

Jackie: We have a lot of animals. We have about 28 pets.

When I’m at school, everything is really normal.

[in classroom of Mrs. Yannotti, Grade 5]

I love learning things—‘cause that’s fun.

Mrs. Yannott: Jackie’s a great student. She’s just what you see on TV. She’s always poised, but she’s just your average typical fun energetic fifth grader.

Callie [Jackie’s friend]: What I like about Jackie is that she’s very kind and sweet, and she’s nice to everyone.

Jackie: What makes me happiest is being with my family being able to play with my friends and being able to SING is really fun too.

[end of video]

[applause]

Oprah: Wow. Great.

Jackie: [giggles]

Oprah: So how are all the other kids treating you after this big summer you had? How how was it going back in were you a little nervous going back into fifth grade?

Jackie: Definitely I was definitely really nervous. But. You know. I always say to myself “Jackie you’re just a normal kid you know?” So you just have to act like—you kn-- you just have to act like these COMMENTS are normal. ‘Cause you have to get used to it.

Oprah: Yeah. Unh-hunh.

Jackie: So um when I go to school--I’m always happy—because--it’s a normal kid thing.

Oprah: It’s a normal kid thing. And how’s fifth grade treating you?

Jackie: Oh it’s working out great. Ah…

Oprah: What do you love? What is what is your favorite subject?

Jackie: Writing. I love writing.

Oprah: Writing. So do you write, uh, like, stories, poems, what?

Jackie: I write almost everything actually Songs, poems, stories, and stories out of every genre too.

Oprah: “Out of very genre too.” But of course you do.

[audience laughs]

Is there any singer uh is there any singer you would you know you have a desire to, to, like do a duet with, or sing with—is there somebody?

Jackie: There’s several actually. There’s Josh Groban,

[name tag appears onscreen saying:

JACKIE EVANCHO

World’s Youngest Opera Singer]

Oprah: Josh Groban, that’d be good...

Jackie: Charlotte Church,

Oprah: Charlotte Church

Jackie: Andrea Bocelli,

Oprah: Andrea Bocelli

Jackie: and--this girl isn’t really my kind of type of singing

Oprah: Yes?

Jackie: But it’s Lady Gaga.

Oprah: Lady Gaga.

[audience applauds as Jackie giggles]

Oprah: Different genre

Jackie: Exactly [giggles]

Oprah: Different genre...different genre but I I I’d like to see it for a day …just the, the two of you…yeah. But all of those’ll be great people to sing with. Jackie is releasing four songs on a new CD called “O holy night” with a bonus DVD too. And it is out November 16. I’m gonna go pre-order that. I’m not even gonna ask you to give me one for free. I’m gonna I’m really gonna pre-order that because yours is the voice I wanna hear in my house this Christmas.

Jackie: Thank you.

Oprah: Thank you so much. Jackie Evancho [applause]

Great. Wow. Thank you. We’ll be right back. [getting up to hug Jackie, who reciprocates] I’m gonna pre-order that CD.

Pre-review of Jackie Evancho's "Dream with me" CD due out June 14

2011-04-12T16:00:00.000-07:00

Scan the audience while Jackie Evancho is singing and you'll see maybe a quarter of them have tears streaming down their cheeks—with the rest not far behind.

This is not because she's a child. She isn’t a “child singer” anyway. She’s a singer who happens to be a child. Nor is it because she’s singing a sad song. Her magic works whatever the song.

Nor does it matter what you normally listen to. Jackie’s devotees include fans of opera, classical music, classical crossover, pop, rock, country, heavy metal, world music, easy listening…even people who don't care about music--except for Jackie's.

The diversity of “Dream with me”’s selections reflects her fans’ diversity. And she finds new depths even in songs you think another singer owns.

In performance, you see a happy child walk quickly onstage. But as she opens her mouth to sing, she becomes Orpheus…until the instant the song is done, and the child reappears, smiling, waving with both hands.

Even the experts can’t fully explain how she does this, because she’s outside their previous experience. They start by talking about the richness of her voice. I played "Angel" from this album for a friend who'd never heard of her. He said he pictured a woman in her mid-30s who looked like Nana Mouskouri, until I showed him what she looked like. His jaw dropped.

And the experts have marveled over Jackie's mastery of her instrument--of how she maintains a full, consistent tone throughout her range. Most singers have audible transitions. They also marvel at her portamento—the way she works the notes and the melodic line (without overdoing it).

They marvel over her musical intelligence. She is a serious singer. She doesn't just want you to admire the beauty of her voice; she wants to take you somewhere.

Here’s a child with a happy upbringing who sings convincingly about things she’s never experienced herself, because she's able to find the profound universals in whatever she sings about.

So when she performs "Lovers," from the Chinese movie "House of Flying Daggers," she sings about the longing in romantic love that it shares with other kinds of love-- the longing you can feel when any kind of love is denied you.

The movie’s sound track uses the formidable mezzo Kathleen Battle, who does a beautiful job with it. But Jackie’s version is even better.

You can hear many of the songs from the new album on YouTube, mostly in low-fi audience recordings. They’ll whet your appetite for this album.

As will accounts by those who have worked with her on “Dream with me.” They marvel at her professionalism—how she instantly grasps what producers tell her; how dedicated she is to recording the best performance possible.

This professionalism extends even to interviews, where she’s invariably thoughtful and diplomatic—yet so quick on her feet she never sounds rehearsed. She’s confident but never cocky, friendly but never gushy.

Sometimes a great performer’s offstage antics detract from your appreciation of her performances. But with Jackie, the more you know about her as a human being, the more you appreciate her in performance.

The only danger in getting this CD is that it may make you dissatisfied with listening to other singers, as many fans now say.

People gush over performers all the time. This is different. Listen to anything she’s done—right back to her “O mio babbino caro” at age 8--and you’ll know. And you’ll pre-order “Dream with me” so you can get it as soon as possible.

Jackie Evancho's 11th birthday is today

2011-04-09T11:50:00.000-07:00

Jackie Evancho is not a child singer. She's a professional singer who is a child. If you haven't heard her, try this appearance on the Today show from last Novembrer 9. There are hundreds of clips of her on YouTube--some with over 7 million views.

I wrote this to commemorate her 11th birthday, which is today:

The 100^th day of 2000 was what journalists call a slow news day. There were presidential elections in Greece and Georgia. The British version of the Oscars ceremony was held. “Topsy Turvy” didn’t win Best Picture, though this unconventional account of Gilbert & Sulivan’s creation and production of “The Mikado” rivaled “Amadeus” in its account of how artistic creativity flows from inspiration to actual production.

And “Buena Vista Social Club”’s inexplicably didn’t win, despite its graceful and haunting sound track, which will be remembered long after CDs of the music from winner “American Beauty” are in the nickel bins at used CD stores. “Buena Vista Social Club” is a documentary about legendary American guitarist Ry Cooder almost singlehandly reviving the long-vanished careers of a group of elderly Cuban musicians.

In North America, football and hockey teams had games here and there, with winners and losers, but I don’t care. My wife and I almost certainly went to church on that April Sunday, enjoying the balmy spring weather here, with a high of 64°, low of 51°, clear skies, gentle breezes.

Elsewhere it wasn’t so nice. I’ve been in half of our nation’s states plus Puerto Rico, but not Pennsylvania (except from 40,000 feet). However, the Farmer’s Almanac filled me in on conditions for that day. Richland Township, near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, got whacked by a surprisingly cold day of drizzle and wet snow, considering that it was April already, and Saturday had started out nice. But the next day only got to a high of 39°, low 26°. A little over half an inch of water in various forms, including ice pellets.

Kind of a miserable day (at least by California standards) to be having your second child, but Mike and Lisa Evancho did anyway. And I’m sure that when Lisa was holding Jackie in her arms for the first time that day, the fact that that little face would become, eleven years later, possibly the most recognizable face of any child that age in America—that the sounds coming out of that teeny mouth would be transfixing millions of rapt listeners instead of just that infant’s mommy and daddy—those facts had to be the last thing that might have crossed their minds. It wasn’t even the mysterious magic of your first child, where you don’t know the drill yet. Joy, yes, of course. Relief too, and not a little. Two arms, two legs, right number of fingers and toes, breathing like a champ. Whew! Still, they had been there before.

And over the next seven years, did she ever give them an inkling of the fact that she was more than just a beautiful, cheerful, joyful, thoughtful little girl? Was there ever a hint of the interpretive genius within—the one that materializes instantly when she opens her mouth to sing, then dissolves back into the happy child the instant she stops…that pair of transformations that has by now been marked by literally millions of astonished viewers?

Have Mike and Lisa ever rummaged through their memories, or asked the grandparents and the other relatives, when and whether they noticed any hint of what was slowly coiling up within this child—some comment she’d make that gave them pause, but only for a moment? Some sign? Portent? Anything? At least a sign of not having a problem with stage fright—of loving to perform for others? Of course a lot of people love to perform who really, really shouldn’t. And, for some, vice-versa. It’s a happy confluence of traits when a Jackie comes along with both.

Of course it’s hard to reflect on past years when the present has become a tornado. But the biographers are coming. I’d wager the Evanchos have already been approached by reputable publishers wanting to chronicle Jackie’s life and times. This may seem absurd on the face of it—but not to those who’ve heard her. (By “heard” I don’t just mean having been exposed to her singing, of course; I mean “heard.”)

And now she’s 11—in the prime of her life (that’s a mathematical joke)—and her prior prime was when she first started singing seriously. And her next prime will be the target of the saying “The worst two years in a woman’s life are when she’s 13—and when her daughter is.” But it’s hard to believe that Jackie won’t be the exception to that warning.

Because while she may seem too good to be true to cynics, I get the very strong feeling that it’s true that she’s just that good.

Happy birthday.

Gimme an Emmie!

2011-04-02T07:52:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday my wife & I watched the Gray's Anatomy Musical. Seems like many long-running TV shows do a musical episode sooner or later. Often this is a Very Special Episode designed to garner support for one of those TV awards. Which is why I call this Gray's Gimme an Emmie episode.

It didn't work for us. For one thing, the premise was weak, because it was presented, more or less, as one of the characters, badly injured in a car accident, imagining that she and others were singing.

But they broke that conceit by having singing going on outside the injured person's POV (point of view). Making it a collective fantasy, same as in the traditional Hollywood musical. (see the song "Till there was you from...what was it, DamnYankees?).

They used original music which was rock-y rather than Broadway-y...and forgettable. It looked like the actors did their own singing, with lots more singing assigned to the better singners, led by Sara Ramirez, who came to Gray's from a leading singing role in the Broadway musical spoof "Spamalot," in which she excelled. So there was nothing wrong with her voice. It was just what she was given to sing, and how.

When "Scrubs" did its musical, the conceit came from a patient with some brain disease that caused her to hallucinate that she and everyone else was singing, and it stuck to her POV, and the music was better--that episode worked. It also had some humor, while "Gray's" was strictly dramatic--which also failed to utilize Sara Ramirez' formidable musical comedy skills.

Earlier, the "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" musical, also using original music, also mixing humor and drama, was wonderfully successful. It this fantasy show the conceit was a Broadway demon who magicks everyone into singing--and their song reveals what they've been hiding from everyone else. So the episode doesn't just comment on everyone's situation, as "Gray's'" does--it drives the plot forward for the whole season, it doesn't violate POV, it's musically good, and, since one of the characters had summoned the demon for selfish reasons and not realizing the demon was demonically dangerous, so there's also the underlying moral of a cautionary tale about the Law of Unforseen Consequences. "Gray's" stays shallow.

Probably the father of all TV musical episodes is "The Singing Detective" by Dennis Potter, shown on PBS. That was truly a-ma-zing. Look it up (not the crummy American remake, though).

Worst moment at the Oscars

2011-02-28T13:41:00.000-08:00

The worst moment at this Oscars awards show--and every other Oscars awards show ever, past, present and future: when the winner pulls a piece of paper out of his or her pocket and unfolds it.

Tangled--no spoilers review--see it before it leaves the theaters!

2010-12-28T00:01:00.000-08:00

We saw "Despicable Me" in 2D a few night ago, and it made me determined to see "Tangled" in 3D before it left the theaters.

I was right. The animation is so textured, so fine-grained, so exhiliratingly believable, I had to focus to deal with the story. And the story was written by the guy who wrote "Bolt," and this is comparably good, so if you liked that seeing this should be a no-brainer decision. And the animation and 3D qualities are even better--and Bolt was really good that way.

So without giving anything away, here goes:

1. Story: Kids can get it but adults (most adults at least) won't be sitting there drumming their fingers. It's generally light-hearted but has some really serious moments.
Remember, Disney started off "Bambi" with his mother being shot by hunters. So don't think "Disney" automatically means fluff.

2. Music: generally forgettable, though not sappy or annoying--just not great. One song reminded both my wife & me of Ursula the witch's song in "Little Mermaid,"

3. Characters / character development: satisfying. Adults will see what's coming, generally, but that's not always a bad thing. Art stems from ritual, which by definition repeats tribal themes. The heroine is a spunky young lady who learns yada yada, the hero is a Player who learns yada yada, The sidekick is a small lizard that thankfully doesn't speak but is quite expressive--not to mention being color-coordinated for each moment. Ditto a horse (only without the color coordination). The villain is less interesting but works OK.

4. Visuals: stunning, stunning, stunning. The literati disdain such superficialities, but that's kind of silly. Emotional nuance counts, but sheer exuberant human and natural beauty do too. The humans are rendered in a stylized manner, with giant eyes like you might find on a nocturnal mammal or a Japanese anime (though it doesn't have the look of Japanese anime).

You can really see the leaps animation has made even in the last year. This isn't as spectacular as Avatar (what is?), but hair and swirling layers of clothing are even better (and the characters are more likeable, BTW).

And I'm not just talking about the action setpieces. There's moment with flowers floating on a lake that's quietly gorgeous, with the water actually waterlike.

5. Language: colloquial American English, which is anachronistic, but in keeping with the movie's vibe. It lends to a certain knowing quality to the film.

I think my favorite anime is still "Spirited Away" but this was, well, spirited in its own right, and exuberantly American in its feel, despite not being set in America (it's a very au courant retelling of the fairytale of Rapunzel).

This got 93% Tomatometer Top Critics rating from Rottentomatoes.com. I don't know of any second-rate movies that got such a high ranking.

This is a perfect holiday film to bring the extended family to, as long as you bear in mind the serious/scary elements--some kids will treat these with aplomb, while others the same age will not. Forewarned is forearmed.

Finally, when we get the DVD in 2D at least we'll be able to see it remembering how cool it was in 3D. So until we all have 3D TVs, this must be seen in a theater to get the real film. The DVD will be an echo of this.

So You Think You Can Dance--the live show

2010-11-11T12:42:00.000-08:00

Did you know "reality shows" have screenwriters? This came out during the screenwriters' strike. Maybe that helps to account for the histrionics in so many of these shows.

I watched the first season of Survivor, but that was that. It soon became apparent that the goal of the show was to find the most soulless, manipulative backstabber in a group of soulless, manipulative backstabbers and then reward that person for his or her soulless, manipulative backstabbing.

I would want to watch this why? These are all people I wouldn't let into my house, frankly.

Then there's the talent shows. These go back to the days of radio.

Here we get to see some people with real talent at something or other, in amongst people without that talent--usually spectacularly so--who appear to have no reality feedback mechanism in their brains, such that anything negative the judges or the audiences tell them just rolls off their backs.

This phenomenon is related to that bogus enterprise known as the employee performance self-review. It has been found that in these reviews, the worse the employee, the higher the self rating. Top employees tend to be very self-critical, OTOH.

The actually skilled performers on such shows can be quite good. But their natural skills can be swamped by other factors. In American Idol, even few of the top ranked performers sing anything like rock & roll. It's more of a squishy teen pop with gospel licks in all the wrong places.

How many of the show's top ranked performers have actually gone on to make a real name for themselves? Kelly Clarkson has proven to be a real rocker. That's about it in my book. Adam Lambert, the latest, behaves so narcissistically I don't enjoy watching him perform, even though he has a beautiful voice. I sympathize with the fact that his videos can't show his real love objects, and this makes things kind of awkward. But I'm not objecting to his homosexuality--I'm objecting to his self-absorption. And his goofy costumes...

Then there's America's Got Talent, which mixes genres, so one minute you may be watching something grotesque--a raunchy octogenarian comedian, a guy who flosses in one nostril and out the other, and the next you could be seeing extraordinary athleticism or artistic talent.

For shows like this, a DVR is the only answer. Then I can fast-forward through all the lame/ewwww! moment acts and just watch the good ones. Is that worth the trouble? I was for me, becasue that's how I found out about Jackie Evancho (see my review farther down in this blog).

Which brings me to "So you think you can dance." SYTYCD is my spouse's and my favorite reality show. The judging is generally constructive and supportive of real talent, and the performers, though competing against each other, keep it collegial. And there's some outstanding dancing on the show. In fact the show has genuinely helped promote dancing--in many forms--in the eyes of the public, and it has helped dance studios as dancers become inspired to cross-train in different dance forms.

So we thought we'd go see SYTYCD's live show. We'd done something like this earlier when we went to an Ice Skating traveling show featuring America's top skaters. That had been disappointing--they were dots on the ice as seen from our nosebleed section seats, and the skater we'd most wanted to see--Emily Hughes' older sister--was a no show.

This time we spent a lot more on the tickets--they cost $168 for the pair of us--for tier seating about halfway between the orchestra section and the nosebleed seats.

Turns out it still wasn't close enough. The dancers weren't dots, but they weren't really close enough to make out their expressions except on the grainy Jumbotron screen images above and flanking the dancers. I had binoculars but then I could only see one dancer at a time.

Part of the problem was that we'd seen all the routines on our big screen TV at home, so I guess we were a little spoiled about the view.

I conclude that if you want to see a live show of something you've seen on TV, either pop for the high price of pretty close seating or stay home.

And as far as SYTYCD goes, we have other reasons to stay home. It was fun to see the dancers we'd seen on TV, only live. And all the dancers served as the hosts introducing the acts and the dancers, which was also good. The only downside here was a tendency--especially by Dominick--to introduce acts in that annoying chanting style Oprah uses to introduce acts--AND HEEEEEEEEREZZZZZ....ALLLISON!!!!!!!!! Maybe I'd have like it better if I were a 13 year old girl, but as an adult it seemed both hackneyed and childish.

They pretty much only did routines we'd already seen on TV, and since they weren't competing any more, my spouse and I both got the feeling that they did the routines a bit less intensely.

Worse, they showed stuff on the Jumbotron instead of live dancing way too much. They had a long intro, a whole routine by a dancer who wasn't there, and lots of other bits, all of which we'd already seen, only in HD on our home big screen TV, instead of on these distinctly lower-rez Jumbotron screens--and we didn't have to pay $168 for that. So we felt a little ripped off. And we both came to that conclusion before we talked with each other about the show as we were walking to our car.

But worst of all for me at least was the sound level--the sound system was so cranked up that even when the dancer/hosts were just talking it was too loud for comfort. Then during the dances, the bass was pumped up so much it made my aorta resonate.

OK, maybe not, but it was making my flesh throb. If OSHA inspectors were visiting an industrial facility with sound at that level they'd require all the workers to wear ear protection. Here's a handy rule of thumb: if you experience ANY hearing loss at the end of a concert, and/or any kind of whooshing or tinny sound in your ears, and you recover in a few hours or a day--you have now experienced a small but permanent hearing loss. It seems to come back all the way, but audiologists will tell you it doesn't--not completely.

And that was what the sound level of this show would have done if I hadn't stuck my fingers in my ears most of the show. In all fairness, however, my spouse, who didn't plug her ears, says she didn't experience any hearing loss right afterward. So maybe I'm being overly sensitive. Back in the army I damaged my hearing by taking the marksmanship exam without ear protection, making me nearly deaf for about 24 hours, so I've been sensitive about this stuff since then.

But whether it was damging to the hearing or not, I found the sound level extremely uncomfortable.

One other note about the show: the audience was 90% female. I'm not kidding. It was like going to a cage wrestling match, only in reverse. Any males there get drowned in the estrogen.

And they loved the guy-on-guy dance routines--standing ovations! It wasn't quite like being a fly on the wall at one of those women-0nly Chippendale's male stripper performances, but the male dancers definitely felt the luv.

Afterwards my spouse said she was glad to have seen it once, but didn't feel a desire to go again.

We had a basis for comparison: we saw the Australian show Circus Oz a few weeks earlier. It cost less than half as much as SYTYCD's live show and we left it feeling much more entertained.

TV's best family values show airs at 10pm. Huh?

2010-10-29T19:44:00.000-07:00

The TV show parents should watch with their teenage children and discuss afterward airs at 10pm on Tuesdays. Why? Easy. Parenthood is actually realistic, by and large. It's not a soap opera. Problems are not exaggerated to goose the ratings. There's a paucity of sex and violence. There's character development instead. And, to put it simply, quality--quality of casting, of execution, of dialog, of plotting.

The shows aired at 8 are, by and large, the sorts of shows that I'd call frothy (with strong exceptions such as House).

Yet the Parents Television Council doesn't recommend the show. Turns out their concerns are entirely negative--they don't care if the show models constructive family problem-solving. They don't care if the show offers positive role models. All they care is whether sex, violence or bad language are used/alluded to. So by that gauge they've give a rave review to a show that just had people reading innocuous passages from grade school primers.

Of course no one could stand to watch such a show. Nor would it offer any kind of role modeling--of guidance. But if innocuousness is the only value, as the PTC's ratings enshrine--my imaginary show would get a big thumbs up from fools like the PTC's staffers and all the foolish parents who think guiding their kids only means steering them away from thinking about issues they don't want to think about.

On the other hand, the blog "Connect with your teens through pop culture and technology" lists Parenthood in its entry "20 best shows for parent teen bonding."

Having no children at home, I watch Parenthood with my spouse because it's actually good. How many shows have you wanted to like but for the fact that they frequently descend into soap opera, even if they have a good premise and good castingl--possibly at the instigation of the networks' suits? I feel that way about Grays Anatomy, for example, which is a good show at its core, but which constantly channels "The Young and the Restless" because it doesn't trust the audience to stick with it if it were more realistic.

Lastly, I recommend using ratings of Parenthood as a bellwether--as a way to see whether a parenting/media watch organization really has our children's best interests at heart, or is just serving some backward ideology.

Jackie Evancho--a ten year old who sings like someone twice her age

2010-08-19T15:32:00.000-07:00

I'm sure most people today who know something about Jackie Evancho do so because they saw her perform on America's Got Talent. I'd never heard of her before, until my wife directed me to the YouTube of her AGT performance. I sure have now, though, and I wrote this essay as a review for the Amazon.com listing of her first album.

I will buy this album when more are made.

That said, you should realize that you won't be hearing the soulful adult voice soaring out of a ten year old child's mouth that astonished viewers on AGT. This is her voice a year earlier. Here she sounds like a gifted child--an extraordinarily gifted child with near-perfect pitch, one of the best vibratos I've ever heard in anyone regardless of age, and an exquisite musical sensibility--but a child for all that.

So if you'll only be satisfied with what you heard on AGT, wait for her next album. But if, like me, you've become a diehard fan in the two minutes she sang on AGT; if you've gone to YouTube and listened to everything else she's done--then you'll want to make the small investment needed to get this historical record of where a great star of the future came from.

What we really need is a DVD of her performing. Then you could see something that isn't fully brought across by just an audio track--which is the fact that she's "inside the music." Meaning that she isn't just singing--she's channelling the composer's soul from deep within the essence of the piece.

I don't want to go too far with this. Evancho has the strengths and weaknesses of a happy childhood with what appear to be great parents and siblings--surrounded by love and acceptance. Compare this with, say, Christina Aguilera, another very talented singer, who first started singing in her bedroom to try to drown out the screams of her mother as her drunken father beat her mother (and then deserted them when Aguilera was still young). Aguilera at age 8 was a growly blues singer with a very adult understanding of pain and loss.

What Evancho does understand, though, is soulfulness. Some call her a spinto soprano, which soprano Rosalind Plowright has described as someone with the timbre of a lower register. That is, Evancho hits really high notes effortlessly--and without having to slide up to them to find the pitch. She just nails them. Yet her vocal texture is that of a contralto--dark and rich, like a night-blooming flower. It's the difference between Placido Domingo, a tenor with the timbre of a baritone, and Pavarotti, a pure tenor.

This gives Evancho the feeling of someone who isn't just a musical athlete, producing the notes perfectly but not necessarily much more than that--and delivering a feeling with the notes that makes you want to stop in your tracks and think/feel about what's really important in life.

Another vote for a DVD is that if you can imagine Joe Cocker as a 10 year old girl, you'll get a feel for the curious facial and gestural mechanics of her amazing musical production. But this is part of her being inside the music. If she were an athlete I'd say she was in the zone--in a place where the world, the audience disappears, and it's just you and the art you're embodying, where you become a window between the audience and powerful artistic experiences.

I should add some response to the many comments I've seen elsewhere that assume she was lip-synching either herself or someone else, or that her parents are pushing her, yada yada. I understand where such cynicism comes from. I was raised by a drunk and a deadbeat, with a family life a lot closer to that of Christina Aguilera than of the Evancho household.

Being forced to grow up in a corrosive environment can easily make you cynical. But I grew to realize that my experiences were not universal, and the goodness I failed to find at home does exist in others' homes--and I'm certain that this is true of the Evanchos. I don't think they're pushing her at all. If anything, I think they're trying to make sure that someone as driven as she is is NOT pushed. And that she doesn't do a Janis Joplin to her instrument.

And though I'm not a vocal coach myself, I'm pretty sure she isn't straining or overdoing it. She's just better than the rest of us. Her whole life people are going to be attracted to her because she's so extraordinarily talented, as well as beautiful, and charming. Some people just get all the goodies when the genetic dice are rolled, and she's one of them. You can either admire that or become envious. I prefer the former. You'll live longer if you go that way, BTW.

Bottom line: buy this album, even though it's an earlier stage of her development. Her family isn't rich. Her dad has some kind of security camera franchise in Pittsburgh, so they're not poor either. But she needs the best vocal coaches that can be found to protect and develop her instrument properly, and supporting someone like her is something Jews call a mitzvah--a Good Thing. Do it.

Followup note: I just read a good explanation of how she does it on an EW.com comment thread:

Pericon
Fri 10/08/10 1:28 PM

...Jackie, together with her abundance of natural talent is practicing elements of the Bel Canto technique of singing. That “creepy” sound you hear is the result of singing with the full strength that proper breathing and breath control provides. Watch her breathing in her AGT videos- her dress actually raises up four inches off the ground, no small feat for someone only about 4 foot tall. Then notice how her shoulders don’t rise nearly so much. Her diaphragm harnesses all that air into her very core. Pop singers sing with their mouths and upper chest only which results in a thin, tight sound. Controlled diaphragmic breathing allows Jackie to project her voice resulting a rich and full sound. Diaphragmic control also allows her to fully relax her upper cavity which allows her to hit very high notes effortlessly. Pop singers have to do the opposite which means tightening their throats and straining their vocal cords, limiting the fullness of sound and damaging their voice. This is why a pop singer’s voice fails after a relatively short career while an opera singer can astound audiences for decades. There is nothing “creepy” about Jackie’s ability or the amazing sound that she produces. It has everything to do with what Bel Canto (beautiful singing) is all about.
Jackie still has much to learn, much more technique to master and her body is still developing. Still, we are witnessing the very beginning of what might well be the finest vocalist of our time.

Here's another addendum from another thread that addresses her high end:

Jackie is indeed singing in a falsetto register when vocalizing many of the higher notes which she sings. She has simply learned how to “blend” the modal and falsetto registers in such a way as to all but eliminate the “passagio” (break) which would normally be perceivable by the human “ear” when she transitions from modal (chest voice) to falsetto (head voice). This is not impossible, but it is an extremely rare attribute. You are also correct in that normally falsetto voice is much more limited than its modal voice counterpart in both dynamic variation and tonal quality. Once again Jackie appears to have the very rare ability to vocalize in the falsetto voice register with nearly as much tonal quality and dynamic variation as she employs while vocalizing in the modal register. Also, as you point out, she seems to do these things effortlessly, which leads me to believe that she wasn’t necessarily “coached’ in that direction in order to achieve these amazing feats, but that she may have actually been born with this remarkable ability. Much like many of the world’s greatest painters, vocalists, composers, athletes, etc., some people have “it” and some people don’t. No matter how hard a five and a half foot tall man who can only jump a few inches off the gound trains, he will never become a legendary basketball player. It is much the same case with Jackie, except just the opposite. Jackie has innate vocal abilities which have only been present in a miniscule number of people throughout the history of the World. How far she decides to develope these remarkable abilities is up to her, up to her, but the sky is pretty much the limit for this ten year old “mega-prodigy”!

And here's what I added to the EW.com thread:

I know enough about music to hear every shortcoming in Jackie Evancho's AGT performances--more than even her critics in this thread have mentioned, actually. She jumped the gun on her entrances several times in her Ave Maria, for example. And at the end of her Time to Say Goodbye she couldn't hold the last note, sort of squeaked and then clamped her lips shut to keep more odd noises from escaping.

But. I will buy every album she ever records--especially if she can keep the record company from overproducing her--and I'd buy her Prelude to a Dream too if her father has the good sense to re-release it.

Why? Because she already has true greatness, and it transcends her tiny gaffes completely. This doesn't show particularly when she isn't performing. Then, she just appears to be an unnaturally nice person who, as Mariah Carey's husband (?!) frequently pointed out, "always says the right thing."

But when she starts to perform she becomes a vessel for her art, effortlessly wringing all the depth out of it that's there, and then some.

Of course it helps that she's pretty. This is entertainment, after all, and attractive entertainers trump ugly ones, all else being equal. That's not "fair" but "fair" isn't an inherent quality of nature.

But what helps most is that she never commits what I call the "Barbara Streisand Sin" of looking as if she's thinking "watch me sing. Aren't I wonderful?"

For example, I saw Adam Lambert singing "The Prayer" in a duet with some young lady. She sang to him and he ignored her, directing his gaze exclusively to the audience, increasing his volume so they didn't blend at all and you mainly heard him. This has nothing to do with his gender preferences, but everything to do with his maturity and humanity as a performer.

I predict that Evancho will never do that, no matter how famous she becomes.

That's why I said she's a vessel. It's not just the pipes, or the training, or the wholesome attractiveness of the total package. It's that she understands, even at 10 years of age, the inner nature of art. And she communicates that in performance.

Nobody taught her that. Nobody can teach you that. She just has it. And it will take her around the world and into the hearts of many millions of people. She won't just be admired--she'll be beloved, because she embodies not just an extraordinary talent, but our highest aspirations.

When I watch her perform I want to be a better person.

Lost finale

2010-03-09T18:35:00.001-08:00

So many words have been written about the "Lost" finale and the series itself.

Did it make sense after all? Sort of.

But nobody--to my knowledge--has said what actually made the show special:

We got to see beautiful Hollywood actresses without makeup (or as close to it as one could wish for). In most shows the women look like Mary Kay spokespeople, or the average Texas woman (Austin excepted). On "Lost" they looked real.

And the female lead, Kate (Evangeline Lily), also let us watch a Hollywood star who didn't act like a Hollywood star, on or off the screen.

Most professional actors are empaths without much in the way of other career options. Lily seems different--seems as though she could and may choose to do something else and walk away from Hollywood without a glance backwards.

In other words, we need them, and most of them need us. I don't think Lily does, however, and that makes her more interesting.

Howard Stern dissed Gabourey Sidibe

2010-03-09T16:32:00.000-08:00

Howard Stern criticized Oprah for giving Gabourey Sidibe unreal expectations of her future in Hollywood. This provoked a storm of criticism of Stern on various websites' comment threads.

But.

Howard Stern’s character or lack of it is irrelevant to whether Gabourey Sidibe is too big to get work in Hollywood.

The real question should be whether she’ll live long enough to have a real Hollywood career.

If you compare Ms. Sidibe to big (in both senses) Hollywood stars like Queen Latifah and Mo’nique, you’ll see she’s in another category. They’re big, handsome women. Ms. Sidibe is morbidly obese. If she remains at her present weight she will almost certainly die of a heart attack before middle age—as happened to other talented celebrities like Mama Cass Elliott and several morbidly obese male comedians.

Humans perceive morbidly obese people as unattractive, because we’re genetically programmed to be attracted to healthy people. Duh.

People like Ms. Sidibe rarely look the way they do because of a “hormone imbalance.” It’s because they have an eating disorder—a mental illness that’s the mirror image of what anorexics like. Karen Carpenter had, and just as life-threatening.

Any true friend of Ms. Sidibe should urge her to get into therapy--to honestly confront her life-threatening mental illness. Her bravado on the red carpet showed evidence of the kind of denial anorexics show, and the support Oprah’s giving her makes Oprah an enabler.

An old Chinese saying goes “He who eats more than he needs digs his grave with his teeth.”

Her true friends need to tell her that.

Avatar--no spoilers review

2010-01-02T21:51:00.000-08:00

I just saw "Avatar" with three other veteran science fiction fans--two middle aged couples.

Someone had described it as a film you have to have seen in order to be able to talk with anyone under 40. I suppose that's so, unless you have the sort of prosaic mind that can only relate to movies about people who look and act like you in places much like what we see around us.

I'm not sure it's a great movie. But it is great fun, as long as you don't think too much. And a bit moving, as long as you don't feel too much. And it redefines what you can put on a screen (if you've got his $300M budget)!

To me the most important aspect is facial animation. One of our group was underwhelmed by it--by how they'd been able to instrument the live actors' faces and transmit their expressions to the animated characters you see onscreen. Our friend had heard such glowing reports of it that perhaps he expected too much. He said he'd seen better facial expression animation in other films. But the rest of us thought it worked well and looked great. Perhaps it's that none of the actors were showing a lot of nuance--whether that's the acting, or the direction, or the limits of facial expression animation today, I don't know. But the animated characters definitely looked like the live actors.

In some ways it's like a cross between a traditional fantasy movie and a traditional science fiction movie, with a hint of sci-fi explanations for the sorts of things that are normally explained magically.

The forest scenes on the alien planet reminded me of the forest scenes in Hayao Miyazaki's great (non-computer) animated film "Princess Mononoke." If you haven't seen this film, I'd strongly recommend seeing it after you see Avatar.

The military scenes reminded me--less so--of "Starship Troopers." That, too, would be interesting to see after "Avatar."

I'm an educated layman when it comes to military technology, biology, exobiology, cinema, and Cameron's films--I've seen "Abyss," "Aliens," "T1," "T2" & "Titanic." And enjoyed them all. I know what to expect from Cameron. Unfortunately, I know enough about those subjects to know when Cameron was going for an onscreen effect and defying logic and what we know about those subjects. I'm also a veteran scuba diver, and I saw where he borrowed from underwater scenes I'm familiar with. Only sometimes the transplant needed anti-rejection drugs so I'd stop thinking about how he was borrowing cool images without thinking through what kind of sense they might be making. Still, Cameron's better than George Lucas and many others in terms of borrowing images more than real ideas.

Yeah, I know I'm a voice in the wilderness on this subject.

My biggest complaint is the same one I have about most Hollywood sci-fi--more fi than sci, and not always understanding that a whisper can sometimes be more powerful than a shout. Cameron puts all the money onscreen.

And speaking of screens--we saw it in a big Imax theater, on the far side, about halfway back. This was because we got there half an hour before showtime. Mistake. It wasn't awful to see it to the side like that, but it was definitely suboptimal. You'd see this best in an Imax theater from the back row as near to the center as you can get. Everyone in the audience who wasn't near that spot got less for their money.

The 3D was very, very good. This was, as I recall, "RealD" or some such. It used inexpensive 3D glasses with what looked like mylar lenses. I had some annoying reflections from the bottoms of the big lenses, though they didn't directly interfere with the screen image.

Later I want to see it once more in 3D on a non-Imax screen. Again, not necessarily because it's better than lots of other films with more intelligent screenplays, more nuanced acting, etc.; but because I want to see this cutting edge cinematic technology at work on a wide screen in 3D--and with me sitting in the exact middle and pretty far back.

So did the animation look real, or did it still look like animation--especially in the scenese that combined animation with live action?

Close. Not quite. Not yet. But we're getting close.

You can read dozens of reviews of Avatar that tell a lot more about the story and whatnot than I did here. Avoid em until you've seen it. You'll enjoy this film more if its surprises actually surprise you.

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I just saw "Avatar" for the second time, under very different circumstances--nearly empty theater, on a conventional big screen instead of IMAX, using the Real3D system and glasses.
The theater being nearly empty, we got to sit it the right place this time. Huge difference being able to sit smack in the middle of the theater.

But also--I think I liked it better on a conventional wide screen than on IMAX. I can't say this for sure, since our seating was so crappy for the IMAX showing. We've seen other IMAX films, and always found that we only enjoyed the viewing if we were sitting in the back row in the middle, or nearby. This is a hard one to universalize, though. You may prefer the IMAX version. I will say they make for a distinctly different viewing experience, so you shouldn't just flip a coin. You'll probably prefer one over the other. Think it through.

As for Avatar itself--my spouse and I enjoyed it the second time around. The visuals are so spectacular, from the very first shot to the last, and so real-seeming, that they quite overcome the formulaic plot. As my Russian friend said, you could always tell what was coming.,

I told her that this isn't always bad, though. Some films are more like rituals, where unpredictability isn't what people are looking for. This is one of those films.

So don't let smartypants friends dissuade you from seeing it because they have objections to the screenplay. They're probably right, but if they weren't noticing what they were seeing in order to criticize the uncreative narrative--then they've got a real problem.

Some people regard works of art for what's missing. Someone wants said music lovers listen to music, while audiophiles listen to problems in microphone placement.

"Avatar" has strengths and weaknesses. Most of the complaints about its weaknesses are probably true, but the strengths are so off-the-hook strong that they make it not just worthwhile but necessary to see the film, and see it in a theater, in 3D.

Speaking of which we saw it this time with the Real3D glasses. I wear eyeglasses, and these fit over them comfortably. I was happy with the 3D experience they provided.

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What follows are some further comments that you should probably wait to read until you've seen the film, though it doesn't have plot spoilers.
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Here are the storytelling risks Avatar could have taken:

None.

Unless Bill Gates whips out his checkbook, a $300M film must be a blockbuster to make a profit for all involved.

That's impossible for a film that just shows domestically. It has to be a world blockbuster. It has to be PG-13 for all those conservative countries, and it has to have an easy to follow good guys/bad guys plot for all those lower middle class moviegoers in Lahore and Belo Horizonte and, and, and.

Of course Princess Mononoke was vastly deeper. It could make a profit on domestic Japanese sales alone. Ditto various Japanese anime series.

Ditto, for example, the scariest, most morally complex vampire film ever, the Swedish shocker "Let the right one in." Which had virtually no special effects and no name stars...and which, I'm sure, could make a profit from domestic Swedish sales alone.

And ditto another film you could compare Avatar with, the Finnish/Russian collaboration "Cuckoo."

OTOH making the Na'vi look/act so much like us might have shown a lack of imagination or simply needing to make the film fly in the world market, but it made sense biologically. Actually I objected (on scientific grounds) to the Na'vi being as different from us as they were: erect bipedal hominids aren't going to have tails. Nor blue skin. And the huge yellow eyes--you'd see that in a nocturnal animal, while the Na'vi were diurnal. The hairy USB port thing was magic with a sci-fi gloss.

I say this because sci-fi fans generally suffer from what I call the "Star Wars Cantina Syndrome." They assume aliens will look/act alien unless proven otherwise, as in Arthur C. Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama, where everything to do with the aliens was at all times inexplicable.

But science has a great rule of thumb principle called the Assumption of Mediocrity: we assume what we see and know is par for the course unless proven otherwise.

Moreover, you can see the convergent evolutionary forces throughout nature--and I've seen nature at its wildest, most diverse and fanciful, because I'm a veteran scuba diver who has dived from Indonesia to Canada to the Caribbean. It all seems like a hurricane of life forms at first, but later you discover there's a reason for everything.

And erect bipedal hominid is the ticket for a dominant tool using terrestrial lifeform.

The hexapedal animals, pollen sucking horse equivalents and other stuff was a lot less likely. Didn't interfere with repaying that $300M investment, but it lessened my own buy-in. One of most powerful evolutionary forces we've seen is the one forcing down the leg count on terrestrial animals above the scale of one with an exoskeleton.

If you want to see a fairly recent sci-fi film with an actually interesting plot/characterizations/moral complexity, see "Serenity."

There's no use to watching Avatar and thinking about how it should have been adapted to the viewing desires of an educated minority. As others have said, just wait for the technology Cameron pioneered to become available at a lower cost.

Then it will get very exciting. But for now and forever, the most cutting edge huge-budget films will always be lowest common denominator crowd pleasers.

Except, of course, for "2001." I'm still amazed Kubrick was able to get that financed.

Glee: new TV show--no spoilers review; B+

2009-09-19T13:27:00.000-07:00

"Glee" is a new dramedy about lovable losers making it in a typical American high school by banding together in a show choir.

So the show's title should be "Show choir" if accuracy mattered most. But that's not a high concept title, so "Glee" it is.

So--should you give it a whirl?

Yes if you love music--especially pop/rock choral harmony/Broadway stuff. Most of the singing cast--including nearly all the leads--appears to have been chosen for their pipes. Go to YouTube and search on "Don't Stop Believing Glee." If it knocks you out, watch an episode, each of which has several similar numbers. But "Don't Stop Believing" is their best so far, I think, and it should tell you whether you're in the target audience or not. I love Journey's original and their current redo as well, but Glee's version is very strong, and stands in its own right. The performance that goes with it is cute as well.

Moreover, several cast members have lead singer-class voices, while others are good but not so good that it seems out of keeping with their characters. Their teacher is also a very good singer. And so are several of his teacher peers (think of the quartet in "Scrubs" that livens up that show's proceedings frequently).

I should add that the soundtrack for the show is entirely a capella choir-sung. It's fabulous--by far the best of any current show on TV. I actually like "Smallville's" close-to-grand opera sound track, which is the polar opposite of the light-hearted, unique sound of "Glee." Both achieve their goals.

I do have quibbles with some of the numbers--they cover Amy Winehouse's "Rehab" in a way that's appropriate to people who've never needed rehab, so it's right for the story, but in no way captures Winehouse's authenticity. They cover Rihanna's "Give the boy a hand" in a way that I don't think matches the lyrics--and Rihanna's own performance of the song is so nuanced and compelling they needed a boatload of chutzpah just to tackle it. Their version isn't bad, mind you. It didn't make me cringe. But I would have liked it better if I weren't familiar with the original.

And yes if you miss "Pushing Daisies." This isn't a fantasy show, but it partakes of the loopy, broad-yet-touching humor of that show (and "Glee" does have fantasy sequences). Also yes if you love the new Toyota ads with the a capella, wordless sound tracks and the hordes of dancing children dressed as flowers and clouds and rivers with whitecaps.

I know, the plot concept is hackneyed. But as with most everything, execution counts, and this is executed well. It's both uplifting and snarky--a great combo in my book. And the love triangle that's a key plotline is morally complex--none of the three are a "good guy" or a "bad guy." They're like us. That's a breath of fresh air for a Hollywood series. So it's also broad humor and moral complexity.

Also yes if you like to see characters who don't all come out the CW network's gorgeous cookie cutter casting bucket. I love looking at beautiful people--after all, I'm genetically programmed that way, just as you are--but if the character is supposed to be not beautiful, it doesn't cut it to just take someone beautiful and do up their hair in a severe bun and park a set of thick glasses on them, all in preparation for the slo-mo sequence later on when the specs come off and the hair comes out to play in glamorous head-tossed shampoo commercial swirls.

Here the fat black girl is--who knew?--fat and black. The overdetermined female lead singer of the choir has the Broadway look--not pretty enough for the unforgiving lens of a movie camera, but fine seen at a distance on a stage, given great pipes and the ability to project, and that she's got in spades. The cripple isn't a cripple, but that doesn't show, and he's certainly geeky enough. All the adults in the triangle are attractive enough but not in Brad Pitt/Jennifer Aniston territory (nor, as I said, in CW territory).

OTOH, if you don't live for music and find broad comedy exasperating and are a stickler for plot consistency, maybe you won't like it. It's a little over the top, just as show choirs are. And it ain't Shakespeare, nor does it partake of the ashcan school of downbeat realism that produced, for example, "Homcide: Life on the Streets"--which I also loved.

A lot of comedy is about people being publicly humiliated, and a little of that goes a long way for me. This has a touch of that, but it's focused more on people with problems actually trying to solve those problems as best they can. It doesn't solve things magically--there's lots of struggle here. But at least it's not hopeless. I'd call the show big hearted.

I hope this tells you whether you should watch an episode of "Glee." Or at least listen to the YouTube clips. And I also hope this review doesn't spoil any surprises for you, which I think should be a critic's first principle (like Asimov's Laws of Robotics).

Don't stop believing...

2001: a great movie in Cinerama--troubles on TV

2009-09-18T14:04:00.000-07:00

The movie "2001" exemplifies the problems with watching on a TV set a movie made to be seen in a movie theater.

Honestly, many if not most movies made today are designed to look good on a TV screen. "District 9" comes to mind.

It's easy to tell if a movie was made to be watched easily on a TV: it's shot in mostly medium and close-up shots. We watched "District 9" in a theater and it felt like half the time I was looking at gigantic 20 foot high heads. I would have preferred it on our widescreen TV at home, in fact.

But 2001 is the exact opposite. It was made purely to be seen on a Cinerama screen, without no compromises and no thought to future DVD sales.

Imax screens are--traditionally at least--53 feet high by 72 feet wide. Cinerama is 33 feet high by a whopping 89 feet wide, on a screen that curves around you, so if you sit in the right place it occupies 146 degrees of your field of vision.

To get that experience at home you'd have to sit less than two feet from your big screen TV, then break it out of its frame to wrap it around you. And of course you'd have to have at least a six-speaker home theater system to go along with that.

This isn't possible. So what we're left with is watching a film that was magnificent in Cinerama looking like a miniaturized shadow of its former self.

"2001" moves at a stately pace. If you're sitting in a Cinerama theatre, surrounded by the film, you don't notice the passage of time. On a TV screen you're looking at it through a peephole, and what was magnificent can now seem tedious. Without that immersion we wind up looking in vain for the plot (it has one, but it proceeds slowly), unable to fully appreciate the atmospherics.

So if you've tried to watch "2001" on your big screen TV at home and wondered why it was so praised--that's why.

It also violates movie reality with real reality: that is, astronauts in "2001" talk like the highly emotionally stable engineers they are instead of with the emotive theatrics of Actors, as you see even in otherwise excellent films like "Apollo 13." Program managers speak with the kind of administrative CYA doublespeak the real ones use. So viewers accustomed to the more emotionally-charged line delivery of most movies find that it falls flat in "2001."

Current movies also tell you what's happening with the lighting and sound track at all times, then warn you what's about to happen the same way. It's nearly impossible to be actually surprised in a normal Hollywood film because of this. If you heard only the sound track of a standard Hollywood film, you could probably describe what's being seen.

But in "2001" the sound track is part of the movie, not a set of acoustic instructions, bobastically delivered, as to what you're supposed to think and feel at every second. Late in the film whole sections have almost no music, in a setting so quiet you can hear people breathing.

Lastly, in "2001" some visual tropes were introduced that now can seem cliched--a little like watching a Shakespeare play when the actors recite now-well-known lines like "To be or not to be--that is the question." It's hard to imagine the impact such lines had the very first time an audience heard them.

Thus the Stargate is now something found---and often done much better visually--on the cheesiest SyFy channel TV movies. But I saw it in Graumman's Chinese Theater first run, on that gigantic wraparound screen, and I'd never seen anything like it in my life--and I'd seen a lot of films, and it was...stunning. Stunning in a jaw-dropping kind of way I've rarely experienced since then, Michael Bay's hackneyed big-budget efforts notwithstanding.

I'm not saying not to watch "2001" on a big screen TV. I'm just saying you need to take into account what I said here, and try to let you mind make up, as best it can, for what's missing onscreen (and that includes about half of the outboard two of the three screens that comprise a Cinerama "screen").

The screen image included here is a case in point. In Cinerama, in a theater, this spaceship glided across the screen in the dim sunlight found near Jupiter. Kubrick photographed the model in a studio in that level of light--a difficult, time-consuming, costly task. But the result is more like what it would really look like than any movie before or since.

Yet at home, with a few lights on, you can hardly see the ship. It wasn't lit for viewing in a lit room--only in the level of darkness you find in a movie theater. And if you don't have a superb image on your home TV, you'll miss the exquisite detailing of the image.

See why it's so hard to watch this now? At least--if you agree with my analysis--you can understand why you didn't like it anywhere as much as those who'd seen it in Cinerama.

There are a few Cinerama theaters left in the world. You could always Google them, get their schedules, and schedule a vacation there when "2001" is showing.

Well, it's a thought...

Tennis: Deep Thoughts on the U.S. Open

2009-09-15T15:11:00.001-07:00

In his blog, Jim Fawcette discussed what the tennis players did at the U.S. Open, the last big tournament of the season. You can read it at
http://www.fawcette.net/2009/09/thoughts-on-us-open-2009.html .

I added this note:

But what about the important stuff--like their costumes?

Who can forget Sharapova's supremely stylish outfit compared to Clijster's utilitarian garb (good thing Clijsters is such a joy to watch playing)?

Curious that the men's final looked like a funeral, with two men in black as the pallbearers--er, players. We need a gay player dressed like a butterfly. Is there any rule against a man wearing a skirt?

But speaking of skirts, Caroline Wozniacki was the girliest of the women, wearing a Stella McCartney outfit that appeared to sport two skirts at once. With her dangly earrings and ponytail, she wouldn't have looked out of place at a high school dance if she'd just swapped her tennies for heels.

Her semifinal opponent, Yanina Wickmayer, gets my vote for costume of the US Open, though: she was the only woman I saw who didn't wear a skirt over her shorts. Every single woman's player wears shorts, but every single other one adds a skirt. Why? It's an anachronism. Wickmayer's outfit was stylish, color coordinated, sleek looking, avoiding the poles of Clijsters' utilitarianism and Wozniacki's estrogen on parade. Wickmayer looked like an athlete who's a woman instead of a woman who's an athlete. Props to her.

And props to the Gullickson, the hitherto unknown titan of touch who spearheaded her team's win in the mixed doubles finals. She may be too portly for singles, but she's still amazing to watch--and I think the only unseeded ultimate winner in the Open.

Lastly, I appreciated Del Potro's understated humor on the court. Nothing like Djokovic's mockage, but still a nice touch in a match that was even a marathon to watch, much less play. Fed wasn't funny at all, in contrast to his between the legs winner in the semi, which was both amusing and stunning.

The only other humor I saw was Serena joking about her foot fault imbroglio at the MTV Video Music Awards, where she was a presenter Sunday evening.

I'm sure the diminutive Japanese female linesman she'd threatened to assault found Serena's comedy moment a real knee-slapper.

Serena Williams, Kanye West, Joe Wilson--3 of a kind

2009-09-14T11:18:00.000-07:00

Back in the day I worked in a juvenile hall for a month. It was a tough job (which I ultimately failed at), because the kids there mostly suffered from a lack of impulse control and a lack of empathy for others.

It's not that these kids were mean, exactly. It wasn't that they were sadistic. It's just that other people were...kind of...shadows for them. Their own needs and feelings occupied, like, 99% of their consciousness.

The pity is that you don't have to go to juvie to run into people like this. You can visit the Congress of the United States while the President is addressing them--you can go to the U.S. Open tennis tournament Womens' Singles semifinal--or the MTV VMAs.

But what I really take away from the VMAs is how classy Beyonce is. Kudos to her for giving up her piece of the limelight to let Taylor Swift finish the acceptance speech Kanye West ruined for her.

And kudos to Taylor Swift. Her stuff isn't deathless, but it's heartfelt, and she's obviously a good kid. Hope she gets a song to write out this. I just wish the linesman terrorized by Serena could do the same.

Vampire Diaries Pilot review--some spoilers but it doesn't matter

2009-09-12T11:10:00.000-07:00

Gorgeous actors, gorgeous production values, like all CW shows.
Paint by the numbers plotting. Buffy/Angel had humor, irony, drama, swoony romanticism. This has all of that--except for the humor, irony, and drama.

Now if only someone would base a TV show on the stunning Swedish vampire movie "Let the Right One In." It was made on a smaller budget than the Vampire Diaries' pilot, I'd wager. Yet it will make chills run up your spine...and you'll still be thinking about it a month after seeing it.

Vampire Diaries, by comparison, is product.

Oh, and the magic walk-around-in-daylight ring? What a cheap shot. Talk about eliminating anything that might make the story complicated. And the idea was used in Buffy first anyway, though there it did become complicated. So I guess there's still hope.

But thus far "Vampire Diaries" goes where many have gone before.

I plan to watch a few more episodes, but I don't have a lot of hope. Still, "Dollhouse" got better.

BTW: the crow that keeps appearing in the show, that everyone in the show refers to as a crow? It's a raven. Bigger bird, bigger, heavier beak...raven. Crows are smart, ravens are smarter. More trainable. Fine. Just call it a raven then. Guess they decided "raven" was above the pay grade of the target demographics' vocabulary.

How are actors like roofers

2009-09-04T13:25:00.000-07:00

There are three categories of American workers who generally have just a high school education: Unskilled laborers, tradesmen...and actors. I'd include professional athletes, but many do have a college degree--just without the education that's supposed to go with a degree.

So you'll see an actor who's, say, 30 years old, is a multimillionaire, has traveled the world--and knows about the same as the guy who's working on your roof.

Their education is a fly in amber, fixed forever at what we all knew at the age of 18.

That's why their opinions often sound so ludicrous. Not just politically. Everything. They know a huge amount about the craft of acting, and often a lot about the ancillary professions--hairdressing, lighting, camerawork, etc. But otherwise...well, watch the late night talk shows and you'll see what I mean. Oftentimes it's not expressed in politics so much as in weird personal tics--a fear of flying, or obsessions with something or other, ideas they picked up from the 'Net when they lacked the intellectual tools to sort the solid ideas from...how can I put this nicely...chaff.

With exceptions, of course. For example, Natalie Portman has a BA from Harvard. I'm guessing offhand that people with deep educational or life experience run about 10% of the actors you see on TV and movies.

This is not a swipe at actors' generally liberal leanings. Except that if the left tends to be mindless and the right, heartless, it makes sense that an uneducated empath would lean left.

But when I do find that an actor does have a real education I'm always impressed, and I pay extra attention to those. It's not so much that they turn into Republicans, as that the reasons they give for their beliefs make more sense. Ben Affleck, for example, can hold an intelligent discussion about politics. I doubt Barbra Streisand can.

This problem with education is compounded by situational narcissism--skewed thinking resulting from being surrounded by bootlicking sycophants. That plus the gypsy life of movie actors makes it hard for them to pursue formal education--halfway through the semester your agent calls with a chance to work for Woody Allen on a pic that could win an Oscar. What would you do?

District 9--see it on DVD--no spoilers review

2009-08-30T00:56:00.000-07:00

District 9 is a relatively low budget sci fi thriller set in South Africa that's had generally positive reviews by the critics--especially compared with Hollywood's usual crop of conceptually stale by-the-numbers summer action thrillers.

However, my wife found the violence and language too off-putting for her. I didn't mind that, but after seeing it in a theatre and going home and reading a bunch of reviews on the Rottentomatoes website, I was surprised to find that not one of them mentioned that this film was designed to be watched on a big screen TV at home.

To wit: it uses 16:9 big screen TV formatting rather than the normal movie theater widescreen ratio. And it's filled with tight close-ups and medium-range shots, which again optimizes it for TV viewing. Something like "Master and Commander" was great in a theatre, with beautiful, crisp, cinematography and shots that really exploited the movie theatre scale and format.

I'm not complaining about the director's choosing to optimize this film for DVD. Many films are, and that's fine. It's a good format, and I've enjoyed watching many films on our 46" Samsung LCD TV.

I am complaining about all those movie critics missing this fact, which was glaringly obvious in the first 5 minutes. If I'd known this I would have waited for the DVD.

BTW some critics didn't like the performance of Wikus, the central character. I thought he was fine, though, and so did my wife, and both of us are film buffs who love Kurosawa and other high art directors. He plays a doofus who's hamming it up for the documentary crew. But the actor isn't hamming. It's the character who is.

Some of these critics really should be working in a shoe store or something.

As sci fi films go, this isn't as fully realized as, say, "Serenity." OTOH the script is vastly better than anything George Lucas ever "wrote."

Really this is in the old Hollywood B movie tradition, with both that tradition's faults and virtues. It's gritty, downbeat, morally complex (think Todd Browning's "Freaks"), with an efficient plot and some very effective, somewhat grainy (purposely so) visuals. The image of the giant floating spacecraft is iconic.

So I'd say see it on your wide screen at home when it's released on DVD, or if you do go to a theater, sit farther back than you would normally; warn those with queasy eyes and ears to leave the room; and don't expect one of those everything-neatly-tied-with-a-bow endings.

Ponyo review: see it--on DVD, in Japanese, with subtitles

2009-08-15T01:36:00.000-07:00

Few films even start to get at what my spouse and I experience in the ocean when we're scuba diving. But this does, a little. And the scene of the trawler scraping everything off the seabed should be made into a clip and distributed to every organization trying to save the sea from human depredation.

As for Ponyo--we liked it. Little kids will adore it. It's not as sublime as Spirited Away, but what is? It would make a great companion piece to My Neighbor Totoro, though, which is still pretty great company.

We're glad we saw it.

But--we saw it on our big screen TV, in Japanese, with English subtitles, on what appeared to be a legit DVD from Taiwan (if that's not an oxymoron.

So this is a preview of the DVD that will be shipped to American audiences, no doubt in a few months.

I say wait for the DVD. As other reviewers have noted, dubbing is an abomination in general, and that's true even for an anime where the mouths are rarely drawn closely enough for the different facial movements for different languages show. But still, it's a Japanese film, and even though everyone looks Caucasian, they act Japanese in every way. You really won't see the movie unless you see it in Japanese with English subtitles.

Just wait. I know it's hard if you're a Miyazaki fan, but do it anyway. Vote with your dollars for original language with subtitles.

While you're waiting you can always get the Swedish live action film about a pair of 12 year olds, titled \"Let the Right One In.\" It's out on DVD. (Just kidding--this is so not a film for little kiddies, and it's as dark as \"Ponyo\" is full of light. But I enjoyed both greatly.)

----------------------

I posted that review on Amazon. It got a critical reply that said Miyazaki wanted us to see his films in theaters (necessarily dubbed, I think), and that we should support filmmakers we like through providing box office receipts. I said:

These are serious objections to what I said. I'll address the dub/subtitle issue, then the theatre/home issue.

1. Dub vs. subtitles: C.Moon urges deference to Miyazaki's desires that we see the film in a theater. But I'm sure Miyazaki also wants us to hear what he put on the sound track (at the price of having subtitles, I acknowledge).

I don't speak Japanese, but I know something about linguistics. English is something of a classless language, though to be sure all our dirty words come from the Angles and the Saxons who the French knights ruled over after 1066 AD, while most of our hoity-toity words came from those French masters. But Japanese is a stack of languages, each calibrated to your social class and that of the person you're talking to. For example, "I" in Japanese is watakushi, watak'shi, wata'shi, or boku, each variant successively more informal.

Likewise, while Americans behave differently depending on whether we're carousing in a bar or attending church, our body language doesn't differ as much as the Japanese culture mandates. For example, the angle with which you bow and the associated body language conveys important meaning about what you believe your social status to be relative to the person you're bowing to.

If you're listening to a Japanese movie in Japanese, you can see how their class-conscious spoken language and their class-conscious gestural/facial/body language go together. It goes way beyond lip-synch (which as I said isn't a problem with nearly all animation; not yet at least--someday I expect it will). Also, another review pointed to the care with which Japanese voice actors are cast, and their status in the Japanese arts. They are not an afterthought, and their work is generally serious and nuanced. And after you see a few dozen Japanese movies in Japanese, these nuances will start to come through. You might even consider getting one of those little Lonely Planet pocket guides with a phrasebook etc., or the like. This small investment will pay off handsomely.

Perhaps Disney picked the best American voice actors imaginable (though I get the impression they hire Big Names to goose box office, rather than necessarily the best in the business). But say they did. And also say that subtitles are also challenging to do. They'll never get all the nuances; it's just not possible. So either way you're viewing the movie through a filter that reduces your access to the total movie. You must pick your poison, and I could make an argument either way. It's not anywhere near as clearcut an issue as it with live action films, where I find the dubbing intolerable (except when it's intentionally used for humorous effect, a la Mystery Theater 3000).

I opt for subtitles, and in doing so I hope I'm pushing the distributors and the film makers to take subtitling seriously and do as good a job as possible.

The theater is a great place to take your young children to see Ponyo. I don't have children, however, and for me (except for a few "2001" ish films or ones in 3D) I've found viewing them at home provides a better viewing experience. However, that's only been true since I bought (through Amazon) a 46" 120Hz LCD screen TV coupled with a 6-speaker home theater.

Conversely, you can't see "2001" in a theater, even in a revival, because it requires Cinerama, which doesn't exist any more. And even for other films, the screens have gotten smaller and smaller. And the audience courtesy seems to have diminished correspondingly, with some people chattering with each other throughout the film.

We don't even have Blu-Ray, but the upconversion qualities of a modern DVD player, coupled with a screen this big in a smallish room (we live in a condo), the angle of view subtended by the screen from your eyeball is comparable to a back-row seat at the average cineplex.

And I can control my viewing environment far better than the theater viewer can. I actually find the bright neon EXIT signs somewhat distracting, for example. This TV replaced a 32" Sony Trinitron CRT TV, and I certainly agree that watching movies through that was grossly inferior to seeing a movie in a theater. I've heard, BTW, that the biggest regret big screen TV buyers have is that they didn't buy a big enough one. They went cheap and lived to regret it. I don't believe anything smaller than our 46" unit would be competitive with the theater experience, regardless of room size. Absolute scale matters.

The challenge is teaching the people you're watching it with to take the viewing experience seriously and not treat it as you might, say, like watching a lightweight sitcom.

It also lets fidgety children move around some and go to the bathroom, if they need to, without forcing you to miss 5 minutes of the film.

So though I laud C. Moon's desire to support Miyazaki with theater sales, I'm also supporting Miyazaki with DVD purchases, and with that support I'm also supporting making the DVD product as high quality as possible and not an afterthought. Interestingly, the price for a recent, non-BluRay DVD is pretty comparable compared to tickets for two.Miyazaki's movies deserve to be taken seriously. C. Moon and I agree on this. Where we differ is in what "taking serioiusly" consists of.

C. Moon and I went another round, with him pointing out the the DVD I'd watched was most likely a bootleg, the idea of writing film distributors and asking for a subtitled version for specialty theaters/late night viewings, and more about home vs. theater, with C. Moon alluding to watching films on a 5 ft. projection screen. I said:

Spinoza defined freedom as arranging your chains as comfortably as possible.

I think that's germane to the topic of seeing movies in theaters vs. on DVD. Actually Hollywood did figure out how to get film buffs like me back into theaters: 3D. It won't be possible in homes for years, and probably never on my own $2K investment.

We've seen "Bolt" and "Up" and in both the 3D was sublime--a far cry from "Bwana Devil" of the '50's with it's poke-you-in-the-eye crudity. Now try to imagine a 3D Miyazaki film.

As for bootleggery--like you I'm sure, I won't knowingly buy a bootleg DVD, nor allow my own DVDs to be copied for someone else, neither for money nor for free, unless they're out of print.

The Ponyo I saw was brought here by some friends who bought it in Taiwan while they were visiting relatives. They're holy rollers (hence honest I hope), and the packaging looked legitimate to my superficial inspection, but I know what percentage of Asian DVDs are boots (nearly all). It could only be played on a region-free player, however, since it wasn't region 1. So perhaps it is legit, else why do a bootleg with region copyright protection? I hope that's the case.

And the downside was that the friend's player didn't have the upconversion capabilities of my player. So I'll have to see it again when the American DVD is released.

I have a wish for DVD I hadn't mentioned--the hope that miniseries will someday be released straight to DVD, perhaps with TV airings of their pilots. So many shows I've loved have been cancelled (Wonderfalls, Dead Like Me, Pushing Daisies, Firefly, Life, to name a few) prematurely. Perhaps if DVDs become more accepted such series can continue on DVD. For example, DVD sales of Firefly were robust enough to justify a feature-length sequel in the theaters (which did a miniscule fraction of the business of a Star Wars film, despite being vastly better by any measure).

As for projection TVs--I think they're terrible. All that I've seen at least. Dim and grainy. My TV has true 1080p resolution and great contrast and saturation. It's really a different ballgame than any projection TV I've seen.

I do understand the argument for an immersive experience. That's why I saw "2001" 13 times in a Cinerama theater in San Francisco--not because the story itself was that great, but because at the time it was best way to experience deep space. I think it was far better than IMAX, which usually feels like sitting in the front row of a theater, even if I'm all the way back. And the form factor--pretty much square--is inferior to Cinerama's. Sigh.

"2001" is the most immersive movie I've ever seen. "Apollo 13" was good, too. "Lawrence of Arabia" of course. Perhaps Kurosawa's "Kagemusha" and "Ran." "Saving Private Ryan"'s first half hour. "Grand Prix."

Actually the most immersive experience most humans can have is scuba diving, which my spouse and I do. That's one reason I liked Ponyo so much, as my review noted. And no, I don't mean it's because you're immersed in ocean. It's the visual universe you experience underwater. Beyond amazing. We go diving in Indonesia pretty much every year, and I recommend it for any Miyazaki fan. His reverence for nature and appreciation of stillness dovetail perfectly with what we've experienced.

OTOH I can't immerse myself in a nice big theater when yahoos are talking around me. You can avoid that to some extent by going to the first matinee, but it's still a crapshoot. In an ideal world I'd have a wall-sized screen in our home or have the wherewithal to book a theater. I saw Jurassic Park that way (one of the computer companies involved had booked the theater and I got invited). That was pretty cool. And we certainly loved seeing "Bolt" and "Up!" in a theater.

Theater vs. home theater--from a viewer's perspective, each is better than the other. Pick your trade-offs.

If you want a truly cool theater experience, I recommend the movie theater in Casino Point in Avalon on Catalina Island, near LA, which is a fully restored Art Deco movie palace; the Stanford Theater here in Palo Alto, also fully restored (only shows old films though); and the Sony Metreon in San Francisco, which has 3D/Imax capabilities, and the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley, with fab projection facilities and an endless repertoire of art/foreign films. I practically lived there when I lived in Berkeley.

It's only in the last two years that home viewing became competitive with good theater viewing. If you haven't tried a state of the art LCD big screen--it's time. I realize the studios mostly make decisions based on theater box office, but I think this new technology is so good that this will change soon. Especially since with Amazon and whatnot it's possible to have discussions like this about movies--we aren't so dependent on mainstream promotion to decide what to see.

As for subtitles--not for a kid film in a theater, of course. Late night showing is an interesting idea. Reminds of those Rocky Horror Picture Show midnight showings that went on for decades. Would we all go dressed as anthroporphic fish?

BTW subtitles are a must for the hearing-impaired. We have a nearly deaf friend who always needs them even for movies in English. So for her our home theater is 100% preferable to a movie theater.

One last note--films can be immersive in ways other than visual. The French film "Ponette" immerses you in the inner world of 5 year old children--a remarkable achievement. Visually it looked made for TV, but that didn't matter a bit. Or the documentary "Born into Brothels" which will rip your heart out and squish it into little red bits, despite, again, being visually unpreposessing. Or another French film, "Water Lilies," which immerses you in the obsessions that can swamp the mind of a teenager (I wrote a review of in in Amazon--check it out). Or "Groundhog Day" the first Zen Hollywood comedy, which immerses you in time itself as a human dimension, or "Lost in Translation" which immerses you in stillness and unspoken longings. Or the art museum segment of Kurosawa's "Dreams," which immerses you in Van Gogh's head, or, similarly, "Being John Malkovitch"--I'm thinking of the Malkovitch Malkovitch restaurant scene.

Review of the vampire movie "Let the Right One In"

2009-08-13T16:11:00.000-07:00

Reviewers like to tell you whether a movie is good or not, and whether they liked it or not.

But you want to know whether you'd like it...or not. Why should you care what I think, unless you know our tastes are the same? And you certainly don't want all the surprises in the film ruined for you.

So I'll try to help you decide whether to see this or not, without spoiling anything.

"Let the Right One In" is, above all, a serious movie. The concept, the plotting, the cinematography, the casting...everything serves a serious purpose--something like a meditation on what it means to have to take others' lives to keep your own...and what it means to know someone in this position. Of course none of us are, or know, vampires, but at the deepest level we have all taken advantage of others to help ourselves in some way at some time. Except my spouse, who's a saint, of course, just in case she reads this!

There's also the moral complexity that comes with the fact that many people who do great wrong to others often have a tender side. The family man who's a serial killer, the concentration camp commander who's a great father to his own children, the poet/dictator. Others are just monsters 24x7, but most have some redeeming traits. And such people are far more interesting than the Leatherfaces of the world. Even Saddam Hussein wrote poetry and doted on this children.

There is enough violence in "Let the Right One In" to justify an R rating, but none is gratuitous, and much is off-screen, in the manner of a good Hitchcock suspense movie, rather than some gorefest. The blood you see is there for good reasons, not just to shock you or titillate you.

It was done on a low budget by Hollywood standards. The sparse special effects are good enough to advance the plot but they aren't going to wow you by themselves. The actors are not Hollywood-beautiful, though I think the casting is perfect.

The main characters are children--more or less--but it's not a film for children (unless they're unusually deep children, if you know what I mean).

It's also not a film for those whose moviegoing expectations are entirely based on big-budget Hollywood movies.
I'm not criticizing such movies--I've seen many & loved many--but this ain't that.

In particular, many moviegoers want everything explained. This film doesn't do that. It explains nothing, actually. Not because the director wanted to keep you in the dark...but because a lot in life goes unexplained. Someone cuts you off on the freeway, nearly killing you, then vanishes into the night. You never know why he did that, and you'll never learn why. There were reasons, but you're not privy to them.

That's what this film delivers. Mostly you see things through the perspective of a 12 year old boy, and rarely know more than he knows. And the children in the film don't deliver long speeches explaining what they're up to, why they're the way they are, yada yada.

One reviewer hated this film because nothing is explained. He couldn't accept the fact that not all kids are highly self-aware extroverted, eloquent chatterboxes. "Where did you go?" "Out." "What did you do?" "Nothin'."

These kids are average kids in non-average circumstances. So are the adults and other kids around them.

You might also be disappointed if you're looking for a hero to a admire and a villain to boo. This film has neither.

I loved the TV series "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Angel." Those have heroes, and their stories are the stories of the hero's journey. Their central characters are physically beautiful, their dialog is witty and knowledgable and often poetic. And the production values (after Buffy's first two seasons, which were shot in grainy 16mm) are great for late '90s TV. However, "Let the Right one in" is really, really different from these shows, and I'm sure it's equally different from Twilight.

Actually, it's a gritty, realistic vampire film, oxymoronic as that may sound. The closest equivalent to it that I can recall is the underrated Jude Law film "The wisdom of crocodiles." Or, more distantly, the Japanese TV anime show "Vampire Princess Miyu."

Finally, a word about the casting. The 12 year old boy is the whitest white boy I've ever seen this side of an albino. He perfectly embodies the quirky loner he portrays. The girl is also perfect, and while she's not Hollywood-pretty by any stretch, she has huge, hypnotic eyes--almost like the kids in those wretched Keane paintings you see at tourist art galleries, next to the clowns and seascapes. I couldn't think of any child actor today or earlier who could play this crucial part better. She's as well suited to this part as Peta Wilson was to playing La Femme Nikita in the eponymous TV series.

The working-class Swedes around them look the part perfectly as well.

The film isn't set in any beautiful urban setting, like you'd find in downtown Oslo or Gothenburg. It's set in a sea of utilitarian apartment blocks in a nondescript town, with the action taking place entirely in a Swedish winter. It's the beauty of bleak.

I loved this film myself, but I don't want you to get it or watch it unless what I've said here suits you. If you do buy it, please manage the expectations of those you see it with. The pace is generally slow by Hollywood terms--necessary to generate the needed atmospherics. However, the story is linear, and ultimately not obscure at all except for not explaining how the people you see got there in the first place. So it's not hard to follow at least.

It has now been several days since I saw this with my brother, who had the same feelings about it as I did. The film has stuck with me. You know how some films you see then forget the instant the screen goes dark? This isn't one of those. It's haunting. I didn't actually figure out the true nature of the two central characters' relationship until the next day, after the film had percolated through my brain for a while. I won't say what that is, since I promised no spoilers. But it will send chills up your spine.

And here's one moment to look for. You know how vampires can't enter your home unless you invite them in? (hence the title of this movie BTW) Watch what happens in this movie when that rule is tested. You'll remember this scene for the rest of your life, and I'm not talking about gore.

The new real problem with TV

2009-05-09T13:50:00.000-07:00

The new real problem with TV is as follows:

1. Shows live or die by ratings.
2. Viewers who watch shows on their DVRs aren't counted in the ratings.
3. The smartest viewers looking for the smartest shows mainly watch them via DVR now.
4. So there's now a dynamic pushing down the collective IQ of successful shows.

This won't go away. Yes, there are smart shows with great ratings, such as "House." But many other critically acclaimed shows--especially in genres such as science fiction or fantasy--die before their time. Consider "Pushing Daisies" and "Dead like me."

We need a way for the interested parties to make a profit from showing good shows that don't attract non-DVR types.

Some possibilities:

1. Pay channels like HBO. This is already happening, and certainly HBO has been successful. However, I don't see it doing much scifi.

2. Miniseries released directly to DVD, possibly backed by a free digital channel that airs pilots to the series. It has become vastly more cost-effective to produce TV shows with satisfying production values. Miniseries could beget more if they're successful, as is true for novel series like the Horatio Hornblower books.

3. TV channels need a piece of the action in DVD sales of shows they air. Many TV shows are successful on TV but not on DVD--those are the kind that DVR owners tend not to watch. OTOH Buffy was never that successful on TV, yet its DVD sales continue strongly, six years after the show wrapped. TV channels will be more inclined to make longer-term investments if they can profit from it.

Otherwise we'll just get sitcoms, routine police procedurals/hospital shows, and tarted-up evening soaps.

Terminator Sarah Connor Chronicles + Dollhouse

2009-04-11T12:27:00.001-07:00

The April 10th installments of these series (Terminator's was the season finale) both delivered satisfying complexity. Terminator has gotten more interesting than the movies were--and I liked T1 & T2 a lot. Dollhouse is finally achieving what Whedon and Dushku both promised in interviews: that from the 6th episode on things would get interesting. They have, and it is. In both series we're getting fascinating plot arcs.

This means new viewers are going to get lost. So get the first seasons of both on DVD and watch them before tackling what's going on now. It'll be worth your while.

"Parks & Recreation" review

2009-04-09T23:24:00.000-07:00

"Parks & Recreation" isn't a remake of "The Office"--it's a remake of Akira Kurosawa's 1951 classic drama "Ikiru." I don't have inside knowledge--I've just seen most of the classic movies. "Ikiru" wasn't a comedy--in it, the midlevel bureaucrat Amy Poehler plays discovers he has 6 months to live--but the plot of trying to build a little park against all odds, in general and in detail--that comes straight from "Ikiru." I'm a little dismayed none of the reviewers thus far have noticed this. It's not like "Ikiru" is an obscure film to film buffs, many of whom consider Kurosawa to be the greatest movie director of all time.

Doesn't mean "Parks & Recreation" is destined for greatness. Depends on execution. And a lot of the humor is pretty broad. But it may get there. Steal from the best, I say.

Actor to look for while Amy Poehler is cheerfully mugging her way through her scenes is her smarter sidekick, played by Rashida Jones, the anti-Jim Carrey of comedy. Understated, subtle. Great work.

3D is dragging me back to the cineplex

2009-04-06T20:21:00.000-07:00

For years I've gotten more and more disenchanted with going to the movies. Pushing me away from the theater: the rudeness and piggishness of many patrons, the shrinking screens (anyone remember Cinerama? It put Imax to shame), the tickets costing the same as a recent DVD (if two people go).

Pulling me toward home: our 46" Samsung 120Hz HD TV, plugged it into our home theater, with an upscaling DVD player (still waiting for Blu-Ray prices to come down).

Plus the fact that the best TV shows have something no movie, no matter how sublime, can match: as many as 200 hours or so to tell your story in. Comparing that to a movie is like comparing a haiku to Tolstoy.

Back in the 50's, movie theaters lured people from their new TVs with big screen extravaganzas, and that still can work, but many movies are made for TV viewing--just look at how much of the movie is done in medium and close-up shots. I see no reason to slog to a theater for that.

Enter 3D. We saw "Bolt," which I thought would be just OK. It was actually quite good--and the 3D was superb. Rich and deep. And our TV apparently can't support any of the home 3D technology in the works. Nor, probably, will most TV sets.

So it's back to the theater--for the best 3D movies at least.