What Brown Can Do For You
I do not know that I have anything unique or profound to say about Scott Brown's victory as a political issue. But as many of you know, I am feverishly trying to finish edits on a book that deals with the interface of Christianity, America, and economic issues. So, on that basis, and on basis of my own research into these things, here is my read.
Americans are, and have always been, a compassionate people, a fair people, and a sober people when it comes to matters economic. Those commitments have led Americans sometimes to take odd stands on matters politic. So, when the Industrial Revolution resulted in many moving to the cities, cities that were then over-crowded with under-employed and hungry people, some Americans embraced socialism, or at least some mild version of it. But the numbers who accepted hard-core Marxism were always very small in comparison. A greater number embraced the Social Gospel (which was not Marxist), and still even larger numbers embraced various forms of sacrificial compassion. Americans have not been, by and large, extremists on these issues. So, in recent months, as they have perceived that the federal government was moving in the direction of greater forced redistribution, their instinct to compassion, which is still very much there, has raised a red flag out of fear that "compassion" can sometimes be used by politicians as a stalking horse for other political ideals.
Americans are a fair people. This has led significant numbers in the distant past to embrace unionism. But, being fair, they also began to recognize when unions themselves began to use strong-arm tactics and to ask for special benefits and exemptions. In the recent debates over health care, the Democrats in Congress indicated a willingness to exempt unions from some of the restrictions on health care that everyone else would bear--everyone else except Congress (and the unions). Somehow, THAT does not seem fair! If politicians cross that fairness line, they are in deep trouble in America.
Americans are a sober people when it comes to economics. Not everyone, of course, but most Americans know what it is like to keep a family budget. It was a great American who said, "A penny saved is a penny earned." They understand pinching pennies so that you can later be able to splurge on a family vacation or buy a nicer car. But they know that you have to pinch pennies to get there. The last year has been nothing but one huge spending spree by the federal government, with cap and trade, health care reform, and green concerns running rampant over everything. We are spending like the drunk at the bar who pulls out his American Express Card and says, "Give everyone whatever they want." Some time later, when the hangover wears off, somebody has to reconcile the bill, and normal people can't rob a bank, print money on their computer, or just blow it off. At some point, somebody was going to walk to the bartender and say, "That's enough." This time, it was the voters in Mass who did that.
Do you know who won this election? The American people. I don't care if it was a Republican or a Democrat, quite frankly. In the last administration, drunken spending was too often the case. Why can't we return to the promises and the platform of 1994? When the government shrinks and spends less and is more concerned about balancing budgets than breaking them, we all win. I have six grandchildren. The burden that is going to be placed on them is already immense. Maybe, just maybe, because of what happened in, of all places, Massachusetts, that burden will be barely bearable.
Chad Owen Brand
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Sunday, January 3, 2010
INTERLUDE ON SHERLOCK HOLMES
INTERLUDE BLOG ON SHERLOCK HOLMES
I know I have been promising to finish the blog on American Evangelicalism and the Economy, and I will have a second installment up tonight or tomorrow, but this has been an unusually active weekend for Tina and me on the movie theater front, and the second film we saw was Sherlock Holmes. I want to share a few thoughts on that.
Someone said about Augustine that he was like a guy who had spent too much time reading and rereading too few books. (That is not my comment on Augustine, by the way.) One might have made a similar comment about my reading practices when I was a teenager. Though I did read hundreds of books from age 13 to 18 (actually, probably between 1,200-1,500 altogether in those five years--my dad was always complaining that I read too much), I was also guilty of reading some books over and over again. Among my favorites were Tolkien's four volumes (which I read four or five times in that period, and I have now read 25 times), Asimov's Foundation Trilogy (which I think I read three times in those five years), Cooper's The Pathfinder ( a couple of times), Zane Grey's Riders of the Purple Sage (three or four times), and Arthur Conan Doyle's The Complete Sherlock Holmes (three or four times at that time and several times since). There were several other science fiction books that I read more than once, but the books above were the biggest impact on me during those mid-teen years. I also read the Bible through several times during my years 17-18.
When you read the same texts over and over again, you create your own mental image of what that world is like, how the subjects speak, how to pronounce the names (especially a challenge with Tolkien), and the actual look of the location of the events (the old west) or even of the building where these events occurred (i.e., 221 B Baker Street). So, when one of these stories is finally presented in film, you can have a tendency to hate the film because it gives a different mental image of how that "world" looks than the one you have envisaged. That was a barrier to me when the Lord of the Rings films appeared a few years ago, though I was pleasantly surprised at how much of it was similar to my own imagined understanding, though I did not like the departures from the script (Tolkien's) that happened repeatedly in those films.
With Sherlock Holmes and the new film starring Robert Downey, Jr. the situation was different. There have been previous attempts to capture Holmes, dating back to "The Hound of the Baskervilles," in 1939 (what a magic year for film), starring Basil Rathbone as Holmes and Nigel Bruce as Watson--still one of my favorite films. There have been several other, not very notable, attempts in recent decades to capture the Holmes essence. For me, the only one who really "got" Holmes was Rathbone. Even now, when I read "The Adventure of the Copper Beeches," or "Silver Blaze," for instance, I can see in my mind's eye Basil Rathbone, curved pipe held in right hand, deep in thought in his big shabby chair there in London. He and Bruce collaborated on fourteen SH films in fourteen years.
I expected to be disappointed by Downey, Jr. I have never liked him very much as an actor. I am not even sure I know why. I just thought him to be unremarkable. (I have not see Iron Man yet, though I am planning to very soon.) I was surprised. I really liked him as Holmes. Let me go through the downs first and then the ups.
The story plays fast and loose with the person of Holmes created by Conan Doyle. Though he fancied himself something of a boxer, he is not an "Extreme Fighter" in Conan Doyle's novellas and short stories. But he is here. Several times in the film he is engaged in serious fisticuffs that would have made Steven Seagall or Mel Gibson proud. At first the Victorian hackles on my neck rose and I wanted to say to my wife, "Let's get out of here--this is not Holmes." But I didn't, and I will tell you why in a minute. Then there is Irene Adler. She figures heavily into the film, and figures as someone with whom Holmes had apparently had a liason in a hotel. Hmm, Adler is in the stories, but she is a character in only one of the short stories ("A Scandal in Bohemia"), and there is absolutely no hint of anything romantic between Holmes and Adler. Doyle's portrait of Holmes is of a rather stuffy Victorian bachelor when it comes to anything resembling romance. He admired Adler, but only her mind. I think that even if she had remained in London and been featured in other stories, that their relationship would have been, specifically, Platonic. Plato believed the philosopher-kings (or queens!) would have no need for or interest in romance and marriage, hence the term, "Platonic relationship." If anything, Holmes would have qualified for philosopher-king in a different political world.
These are the two most egregious departures from the "historical Holmes" (if you can have a "historical" figure who was fictional). So, what of it? My response? No Big Deal! New looks at older figures almost always have to go through some kind of metamorphosis. That is especially true if you want to make any money on the art. I don't think that most twenty-first century Americans would be interested in a film that recaptures the essence of Holmes himself. We live in a time when detectives get in fist fights--all the time. We live in a time when crime-fighters have a woman on their arm--a beautiful woman. If anyone is going to sell Sherlock Holmes at the box-office today, it would have to be something like this new Holmes. I did not say that I like it; I merely acknowledged that this is the nature of the case. So, no big deal! I like the movie, and I am about as fussy a curmudgeon as you will find on the Holmes image.
OK. Now to the positive. I really liked the film, and I really, really liked Robert Downey, Jr. He is better as a middle-aged Londoner than as anything else I have ever seen him play. He really has captured the essence of Holmes more than anyone, with perhaps the exception of Rathbone. And that is good, since it appears there will be a sequel. He captures the heart of the Holmes, who sometimes uses drugs when he does not have a case to work on, whose habits are less than tidy (the film may have overplayed this element), but who strikes to the heart of any situation with his incredible attention to detail and his decisive intellect. Downey, Jr. nailed that! He also captures Holmes's wit. Sherlock Holmes was often a funny guy! At least, he appreciated humor. He was not slapstick, but he was humorous in a very British way. This new Holmes does that even better than Rathbone did.
Other strengths? Dr. Watson! I have to say that I love Nigel Bruce the actor, but I always thought that he only portrayed one side of the Dr. Watson in the stories--as the foil for Holmes's intellect. I felt he was too bumbling and dim-witted. Watson in the stories usually does not grasp the situation as Holmes does, but he had been a doctor in the British Army in Afghanistan, and he is sharper than the image depicted by Nigel Bruce. But Jude Law gets it! He is great. Also, the sets, the photography, the directing were all magical.
I want to see this one again. With all the caveats I throw in to the mix above, it is still one of the best nights at the theater we've had in a while.
Chad Owen Brand
I know I have been promising to finish the blog on American Evangelicalism and the Economy, and I will have a second installment up tonight or tomorrow, but this has been an unusually active weekend for Tina and me on the movie theater front, and the second film we saw was Sherlock Holmes. I want to share a few thoughts on that.
Someone said about Augustine that he was like a guy who had spent too much time reading and rereading too few books. (That is not my comment on Augustine, by the way.) One might have made a similar comment about my reading practices when I was a teenager. Though I did read hundreds of books from age 13 to 18 (actually, probably between 1,200-1,500 altogether in those five years--my dad was always complaining that I read too much), I was also guilty of reading some books over and over again. Among my favorites were Tolkien's four volumes (which I read four or five times in that period, and I have now read 25 times), Asimov's Foundation Trilogy (which I think I read three times in those five years), Cooper's The Pathfinder ( a couple of times), Zane Grey's Riders of the Purple Sage (three or four times), and Arthur Conan Doyle's The Complete Sherlock Holmes (three or four times at that time and several times since). There were several other science fiction books that I read more than once, but the books above were the biggest impact on me during those mid-teen years. I also read the Bible through several times during my years 17-18.
When you read the same texts over and over again, you create your own mental image of what that world is like, how the subjects speak, how to pronounce the names (especially a challenge with Tolkien), and the actual look of the location of the events (the old west) or even of the building where these events occurred (i.e., 221 B Baker Street). So, when one of these stories is finally presented in film, you can have a tendency to hate the film because it gives a different mental image of how that "world" looks than the one you have envisaged. That was a barrier to me when the Lord of the Rings films appeared a few years ago, though I was pleasantly surprised at how much of it was similar to my own imagined understanding, though I did not like the departures from the script (Tolkien's) that happened repeatedly in those films.
With Sherlock Holmes and the new film starring Robert Downey, Jr. the situation was different. There have been previous attempts to capture Holmes, dating back to "The Hound of the Baskervilles," in 1939 (what a magic year for film), starring Basil Rathbone as Holmes and Nigel Bruce as Watson--still one of my favorite films. There have been several other, not very notable, attempts in recent decades to capture the Holmes essence. For me, the only one who really "got" Holmes was Rathbone. Even now, when I read "The Adventure of the Copper Beeches," or "Silver Blaze," for instance, I can see in my mind's eye Basil Rathbone, curved pipe held in right hand, deep in thought in his big shabby chair there in London. He and Bruce collaborated on fourteen SH films in fourteen years.
I expected to be disappointed by Downey, Jr. I have never liked him very much as an actor. I am not even sure I know why. I just thought him to be unremarkable. (I have not see Iron Man yet, though I am planning to very soon.) I was surprised. I really liked him as Holmes. Let me go through the downs first and then the ups.
The story plays fast and loose with the person of Holmes created by Conan Doyle. Though he fancied himself something of a boxer, he is not an "Extreme Fighter" in Conan Doyle's novellas and short stories. But he is here. Several times in the film he is engaged in serious fisticuffs that would have made Steven Seagall or Mel Gibson proud. At first the Victorian hackles on my neck rose and I wanted to say to my wife, "Let's get out of here--this is not Holmes." But I didn't, and I will tell you why in a minute. Then there is Irene Adler. She figures heavily into the film, and figures as someone with whom Holmes had apparently had a liason in a hotel. Hmm, Adler is in the stories, but she is a character in only one of the short stories ("A Scandal in Bohemia"), and there is absolutely no hint of anything romantic between Holmes and Adler. Doyle's portrait of Holmes is of a rather stuffy Victorian bachelor when it comes to anything resembling romance. He admired Adler, but only her mind. I think that even if she had remained in London and been featured in other stories, that their relationship would have been, specifically, Platonic. Plato believed the philosopher-kings (or queens!) would have no need for or interest in romance and marriage, hence the term, "Platonic relationship." If anything, Holmes would have qualified for philosopher-king in a different political world.
These are the two most egregious departures from the "historical Holmes" (if you can have a "historical" figure who was fictional). So, what of it? My response? No Big Deal! New looks at older figures almost always have to go through some kind of metamorphosis. That is especially true if you want to make any money on the art. I don't think that most twenty-first century Americans would be interested in a film that recaptures the essence of Holmes himself. We live in a time when detectives get in fist fights--all the time. We live in a time when crime-fighters have a woman on their arm--a beautiful woman. If anyone is going to sell Sherlock Holmes at the box-office today, it would have to be something like this new Holmes. I did not say that I like it; I merely acknowledged that this is the nature of the case. So, no big deal! I like the movie, and I am about as fussy a curmudgeon as you will find on the Holmes image.
OK. Now to the positive. I really liked the film, and I really, really liked Robert Downey, Jr. He is better as a middle-aged Londoner than as anything else I have ever seen him play. He really has captured the essence of Holmes more than anyone, with perhaps the exception of Rathbone. And that is good, since it appears there will be a sequel. He captures the heart of the Holmes, who sometimes uses drugs when he does not have a case to work on, whose habits are less than tidy (the film may have overplayed this element), but who strikes to the heart of any situation with his incredible attention to detail and his decisive intellect. Downey, Jr. nailed that! He also captures Holmes's wit. Sherlock Holmes was often a funny guy! At least, he appreciated humor. He was not slapstick, but he was humorous in a very British way. This new Holmes does that even better than Rathbone did.
Other strengths? Dr. Watson! I have to say that I love Nigel Bruce the actor, but I always thought that he only portrayed one side of the Dr. Watson in the stories--as the foil for Holmes's intellect. I felt he was too bumbling and dim-witted. Watson in the stories usually does not grasp the situation as Holmes does, but he had been a doctor in the British Army in Afghanistan, and he is sharper than the image depicted by Nigel Bruce. But Jude Law gets it! He is great. Also, the sets, the photography, the directing were all magical.
I want to see this one again. With all the caveats I throw in to the mix above, it is still one of the best nights at the theater we've had in a while.
Chad Owen Brand
Saturday, January 2, 2010
INTERLUDE BLOG ON AVATAR
AVATAR
This is an interlude in my series on "Economics in the Church since Smith," but it is timely and so I decided to break up my series to offer my comments on the film, Avatar. I don't have a lot to say that others have not said, but maybe one or two new comments.
First, let me say that I enjoyed the film very much. It was entertaining, it was a generally good story, a little predictable, perhaps, and even more so for those who have followed Cameron over the years (and who has not?). Most of the characters were compelling, though not all of them, and the film kept me interested the whole way through. So, I enjoyed the film, and I feel the need to say that first, because next I am going to offer some criticism.
The movie was clearly political, far more political than Cameron's earlier films. Not only is that clear from the film itself, but Cameron himself has said so on more than one occasion. It is anti-human, or at least, anti-most humans. The little bit at the end that says, in effect, the Navi decided to allow a few aliens to remain on their planet is a punctuation to that. But the film is filled with anti-most-humans sentiment throughout. Of course, what it is against is about as interesting and surprising as the fact that the Canadian-born producer will make money on this venture. It is anti-military, anti-non-green, anti-American (at least Bush and Reagan's America), and anti-Custer.
And I have to say, that is fine with me. Film makers have the freedom to promote whatever agenda they might have in their films, and we, the movie-going public, can buy it or not--literally or figuratively. The problem with the film for me was that the people Cameron likes are portrayed in a sensitive, sympathetic, and realistic manner, but the ones he does not like in the film are, generally, not portrayed in this manner. Colonel Quaritch is the best example. Cameron clearly wants us to hate him, and we do. All of us hate him. But that is just the problem. No one is that monochromatic. I lined up and waited for two hours the night Star Wars debuted. We hated Darth Vader, but we sensed that there was another part of his story that we did not yet know about. So, we could hate him, but in a way kind of "bracket" that hate. No one can bracket their hate toward the Colonel. He's just a bad guy. The same is true, but to a lesser degree of Parker Selfridge, the "head" of the project. Sully, Neytiri, and Dr. Grace, on the other hand, are complex individuals with mixed emotions, conflicting commitments, and polychromatic personalities. I think Cameron could have done a better job depicting the Colonel and Parker. But maybe he could not bring himself to believe that such persons really are more subtle than he thinks they are. Maybe Cameron should live in the real world for awhile and have lunch with some real military people and even play cards with a few Republicans.
Some have noted that this film is similar to Dances with Wolves. I see the similarity, but I don't care about that. If someone came up with a completely new genre it would probably be a bad film. Someone once said there are only 17 Country and Western songs out there, and that the really creative person is the one who finds a way to repeat one of those songs in a new and fresh way. I agree with that.
Oh, and by the way, the ending leaves everything wide open for a sequel. What? A sequel to a James Cameron film? No one would ever expect that!
I liked the film. I will probably watch it again. But I am not going to drink the KoolAid.
Chad Owen Brand
This is an interlude in my series on "Economics in the Church since Smith," but it is timely and so I decided to break up my series to offer my comments on the film, Avatar. I don't have a lot to say that others have not said, but maybe one or two new comments.
First, let me say that I enjoyed the film very much. It was entertaining, it was a generally good story, a little predictable, perhaps, and even more so for those who have followed Cameron over the years (and who has not?). Most of the characters were compelling, though not all of them, and the film kept me interested the whole way through. So, I enjoyed the film, and I feel the need to say that first, because next I am going to offer some criticism.
The movie was clearly political, far more political than Cameron's earlier films. Not only is that clear from the film itself, but Cameron himself has said so on more than one occasion. It is anti-human, or at least, anti-most humans. The little bit at the end that says, in effect, the Navi decided to allow a few aliens to remain on their planet is a punctuation to that. But the film is filled with anti-most-humans sentiment throughout. Of course, what it is against is about as interesting and surprising as the fact that the Canadian-born producer will make money on this venture. It is anti-military, anti-non-green, anti-American (at least Bush and Reagan's America), and anti-Custer.
And I have to say, that is fine with me. Film makers have the freedom to promote whatever agenda they might have in their films, and we, the movie-going public, can buy it or not--literally or figuratively. The problem with the film for me was that the people Cameron likes are portrayed in a sensitive, sympathetic, and realistic manner, but the ones he does not like in the film are, generally, not portrayed in this manner. Colonel Quaritch is the best example. Cameron clearly wants us to hate him, and we do. All of us hate him. But that is just the problem. No one is that monochromatic. I lined up and waited for two hours the night Star Wars debuted. We hated Darth Vader, but we sensed that there was another part of his story that we did not yet know about. So, we could hate him, but in a way kind of "bracket" that hate. No one can bracket their hate toward the Colonel. He's just a bad guy. The same is true, but to a lesser degree of Parker Selfridge, the "head" of the project. Sully, Neytiri, and Dr. Grace, on the other hand, are complex individuals with mixed emotions, conflicting commitments, and polychromatic personalities. I think Cameron could have done a better job depicting the Colonel and Parker. But maybe he could not bring himself to believe that such persons really are more subtle than he thinks they are. Maybe Cameron should live in the real world for awhile and have lunch with some real military people and even play cards with a few Republicans.
Some have noted that this film is similar to Dances with Wolves. I see the similarity, but I don't care about that. If someone came up with a completely new genre it would probably be a bad film. Someone once said there are only 17 Country and Western songs out there, and that the really creative person is the one who finds a way to repeat one of those songs in a new and fresh way. I agree with that.
Oh, and by the way, the ending leaves everything wide open for a sequel. What? A sequel to a James Cameron film? No one would ever expect that!
I liked the film. I will probably watch it again. But I am not going to drink the KoolAid.
Chad Owen Brand
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