Elysium

The movie is one long, screeching attack on America.  Max (Matt Damon) is a former car thief who is now working at a robot manufacturing center.  He manages to get a lethal dose of radiation and has only 5 days to live.  Well, he has had this life long dream of getting to Elysium (read America), an Eden-like space station where all the rich people live and greedily keep the good healthcare for themselves.  Max knows Spider, a coyote-like criminal (he smuggles non-citizens onto Elysium) who could get him there so he can be cured.  Earlier in the movie, we saw the shuttles launched from the slums of Los Angeles, one of which landed on Elysium.  Spider has a hair-brained scheme to steal billions from an industrialist, who is evil-incarnate (see, he's a capitalist and rich, so he must be really evil and bad and icky).  Protecting Elysium from illegal immigrants is Delacourt (Jodie Foster), who runs Homeland Security.  Really?  Not Elysium Security?  No, it's Homeland Security, just in case you missed the hammer blows of a political message so far.

The setting, though well done, can't possibly exist.  Spider has a seemingly endless supply of shuttles that can fly into space but lives in a slum.  You know, those things can't be cheap.  He has an impressive computer array with pristine monitors in the middle of a rundown slum.  You know, that isn't cheap either.  He couldn't spend a bit on some paint, maybe some nicer furniture.  One of his lieutenants does brain surgery on Max and also goes on the mission as a gunman.  If this thug can do brain surgery, how is there such a healthcare problem?  At one point, several shuttles are headed toward Elysium, filled with illegal immigrants.  The ONLY method for stopping them is to destroy the shuttles.  Really?  It's either let them land or kill them all.  Wow, let's not make the choice too stark there.  Of course, our Homeland Security Leader blows them up and is disappointed one got through.  Evil-incarnate, don't you know.  Max gets onto the station and, thanks to the effects of his brain surgery, is able to reprogram the computer system ("What are you doing, Dave?") to view every single person on Earth as a citizen of Elysium.  Suddenly, all those robot soldiers/police that seemed nowhere to be found while Max was penetrating to the central computer system are bullying the snooty Elysium citizens and providing free healthcare to the people back on Earth.

The message that is pounded again and again is that the United States should have open borders that offer immediate citizenship and free, universal healthcare.  Oh, and capitalism is bad and mean and yucky.

Going on a tangent, Matt Damon is a resident of "Elysium" who - though crying from the rooftops that public schools are the best and should be supported with more tax dollars - is sending his kids to private school.  His actions seem to be in opposition to his words.

Is it Better to Lie or Tell the Truth?

There have been comparisons of late between Anthony Weiner and Bill Clinton on account of the handling of sex scandals and the actions of their respective wives.  How is it that Bill Clinton had real affairs and is now a beloved (by Democrats) former president while Weiner swapped dirty pictures online and is provoking disgust from those same Democrats?  Weiner kept doing it after he got caught but so did Clinton.  Hillary stood by her husband - Tammy Wynette-like - and Huma has done the same for Weiner.  Why should voters who want stand-by-your-philanderer Hillary as their next presidential nominee at the same time have a problem with stand-by-your-pornographer Huma?  Isn't sex something just between the married couple?  I seem to recall it was not really lying if you lied about sex.

There are two points.  One, Bill Clinton has charisma while Weiner doesn't.  Two, Bill Clinton never admitted it while Weiner did.  This is interesting because Weiner, after repeated and ever more embarrassing denials finally told the truth.  To this day, Bill Clinton has not changed his story about not having sex with that woman, Miss Lewinsky.  Everyone knows it's a lie but as long as he denied the truth, partisans could defend him and claim the Republicans or Ken Star or a Vast Right Wing Conspiracy were on a witch hunt.  Once Weiner came clean, he could not be defended.

Politically, Bill Clinton did the right thing.  He lied and stonewalled until everyone got tired of the story.  It is an interesting lesson.  Lying saved Clinton while telling the truth is likely to sink Weiner.  Of course, there was photographic evidence against Weiner, so he could not realistically take Clinton's route to success.

The Political Tower of Babel

I was listening to EconTalk and the guest was Arnold Kling (PhD Economics).  Kling has recently written a book - more of a long essay since it is only 53 pages - titled The Three Languages of Politics.  He posits that Progressives/Liberals view the world as Oppressed vs. Oppressor, the Civil Rights movement being a classic example.  Conservatives see the world from a Civilization vs. Barbarism perspective, the War on Terror being a prime example.  Lastly, Libertarians look at the world based on Freedom vs. Coercion; government is coercion and should thus be used sparingly.

This three axis idea is surprisingly enlightening.  I've often found myself at odds with Conservatives on what seemed obvious questions.  I look at the Drug War as a needless exercise of government force whereas Conservatives look at drug use as a failure of civilization.  Liberals often look at the Drug War as oppressive against minorities.  What about immigration?  I am of two minds on the subject though Libertarian orthodoxy would argue against government using force to keep people within certain boundaries.  Conservatives look at uncontrolled immigration and see a forthcoming collapse of civilization - note how often tales of violent illegal immigrants are told.  Liberals see rich whites trying to keep poor people of color in squalor.  I've heard the arguments from each perspective hundreds of times and usually rejected those that didn't address Freedom vs. Coercion.

Kling proposes that one should try to argue on the axis of those you wish to convince.  Thus, if a Libertarian wants to debate a Conservative on the drug laws, he should frame his argument on the Civilization/Barbarism axis.  I can see how it would be difficult to argue that drug use is civilizing rather than a decent into barbarism.

 

Here is a link to the episode of EconTalk where Kling discusses this:

 

http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2013/06/kling_on_the_th.html

 

And here is the link to Kling's book:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Three-Languages-Politics-ebook/dp/B00CCGF81Q/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1375062531&sr=8-1&keywords=kling

The Roots of English

I listen to podcasts during my commute to and from work.  Mostly I was listening to Econtalk with Russ Roberts, which I highly recommend.  However, while looking for something else to get some variety, I came across the History of English podcast.  I started listening and am truly impressed with the scope and depth of the series.  It covers the Indo-European foundations, the Latin, Greek, French, and other influences, and gives a considerable amount of history of Western Civilization.  Intermixed with all this are word derivations that baffle the mind.  For example, both the English word 'black' and the Spanish word for white ('blanca') come from the same Indo-European word.  How can a word for white in one language and black in another come from the same source?  The podcast explains it.  This is one part linguistics and one part history combined into wonderful lectures on the origins of our language.  Outstanding podcast and highly recommended.

http://www.historyofenglishpodcast.com/

Battleship

Our story opens in 2006. Astronomers have discovered a ‘Goldilocks’ planet that is not too far nor too close to its sun and thus might be inhabitable by humans. The powers that be decided to send transmissions.  Meanwhile, Alex Hopper (Taylor Kitsch) is celebrating his 26th birthday at a bar with his older brother, who is trying to convince him to join the navy.  A girl enters the bar and Alex, who is the personification of a screw-up, decides to woo her.  Thus follows an uproariously funny quest for a chicken burrito.

The story resumes in 2012. Alex is now in the navy and dating the beautiful girl, who happens to be the admiral’s daughter. The admiral (Liam Neeson) is not fond of Alex. Amidst this soap opera, five alien ships soar toward Earth. One is destroyed when it hits a satellite on reentry but the other four arrive intact in the Pacific Ocean, just south of Hawaii. Three destroyers are sent to investigate. Of course, Alex is on one of the destroyers.

The aliens prove tentative in their actions and prove willing to not destroy a vessel that doesn’t engage them. Their weapon of choice is a large peg-like explosive that tumbles through the air and then drills into a vessel before exploding; it looks suspiciously like the pegs in the Battleship game. Also of note, radar doesn’t work so all shots against the enemy must be ‘guesses.’ This proves particularly familiar when the destroyer fires at buoy markers on a grid. Nice touch.

It soon becomes clear that the aliens are trying to secure the very system that sent the signals to the ‘goldilocks’ planet, presumably to request reinforcements. Can our heroes prevent more alien vessels from arriving?

 

There are some annoying features. For some reason, Lt. Hopper and Petty Officer Raikes (Rihanna) are assigned to every task. The two take a small boat to investigate the alien platform, later they are stalking the halls of the destroyer with M-16s in search of an intruder, and Alex examines a dead alien. Later, he is involved in moving ordinance through the ship. There are personnel for each of these jobs. Granted, the director wants his stars to get a lot of screen time and Alex and Raikes staying at their posts would seriously limit their action potential.

The aliens are pretty inscrutable. They had the firepower to blast a ship out of the water with little trouble but wouldn’t engage (mostly) until fired upon. If this is an invasion force, why not attack from orbit? It is learned that the alien communications ship was destroyed by hitting the satellite, parts of it crashing into Hong Kong. Why couldn’t these guys steer around the satellite? The movie ends with the potential for a sequel in which the alien thinking might be explained. Or maybe not.

The movie is amazingly entertaining and far exceeded my expectations. It is funny, action-packed, and engaging. It is great popcorn fun. I’m surprised it didn’t become a blockbuster.

The Lone Ranger

The movie opens in 1933 where a young boy dressed as the lone ranger (the radio series debuted in 1933) enters a tent that claims to have the wonders of the Old West. There, he encounters Tonto. The wizened old Indian tells the true tale of the Lone Ranger.

The movie is often fun but just as often absurd and irritating. As with the last Lone Ranger movie (1981), this one takes place near Monument Valley which was apparently part of Texas in 1869, not Utah. Maybe it moved since then. Yeah, it is a staple location in Westerns but I find it bothersome nonetheless.

There are two great faults with the movie. First, the action is so extreme that it is more likely to induce eye-rolling than thrills. Of course, this is all being told from Tanto’s point of view and he may be exaggerating in his telling; that might work in a book or with some voice narration but it didn’t fly here. Many of the stunts had to be done with CGI. Second, Armie Hammer was an embarrassment as the Lone Ranger. He comes across as a complete buffoon, an incompetent who should have died shortly after we meet him. He is always a fish out of water and often rants at Tonto. He is repeatedly humiliated by the script and rarely looks like a hero. Again and again, he survives through dumb luck. In an homage to the original series, the only times he actually hits a target, he shoots the gun out of their hand. See, the Lone Ranger doesn’t shoot to kill. However, he fires scores of bullets in the finale but never hits. Was he intentionally missing?

The movie runs afoul of history. It is widely known that the railroad finally connected the east coast to the west coast in 1869. There is a famous photo of the event. In this movie, the joining takes place in Colby, Texas, rather than Utah. Really? You know the transcontinental railroad didn’t even pass partially through Texas? Apparently not.

Now for the just plain silly. Red Harrington, who runs the whore house, lost her right leg in an untold backstory. Apparently, Butch Cavendish was the culprit. So, she now has a prosthetic leg made of ivory that has a built-in shotgun. Sure, that was common in the Old West. Just a few miles east of where the railroads meet, there turns out to be two parallel tracks that zig and zag through the woods, which proves to be ideal for a two train chase finale. Sure, why not. Our heroes rob a bank and steal a wagonload of explosives. Of course, the part where they carry it all out to a wagon (which they did not have), load it up, and then drive away, all happens off screen. So, two men did this labor intense robbery in broad daylight in the Old West where most citizens had guns? I’d like to have seen that. Tonto discovers a secret railroad track in Comanche territory. Huh? It’s really hard to build a secret railroad. Silver the Flying Horse. Yes, somehow, Silver finds his way onto rooftops and even into a tree. Racing across the roof of a train was a bit much too. Oh, and when Silver licked scorpions off the Lone Ranger’s face and ate them, that was pretty strange too. At one point, our heroes are sitting at a campfire when several rabbits scoot nearby. Tonto tosses them a part of the rabbit that is cooking over the fire and the rabbits bare their fangs and devour it! What? I was hoping to see a Western but instead found a Fantasy film set in the Old West.

 

I did enjoy Johnny Depp as Tonto. He is a more developed character than the Lone Ranger and more sympathetic as well. All too often, he proves to be correct in his assessment of the situation and is constantly foiled by the naïve Lone Ranger. Really, the movie should have been called Tonto. His scenes as an old man talking to the young boy were some of the best in the movie. My biggest issue with Tonto was that he changed his mind about the supernatural at the end of the movie. Always he is saying that the evil of the Wendigo (Butch Cavendish) explained the bizarre happenings in nature (e.g. the carnivorous rabbits) but at the end, he proclaims that he was wrong. Huh? Then what explains the cannibal rabbits?

As mentioned, it could just be that Tonto – as narrator – gave himself more credit than he deserved and spiced up the story with tales of flying spirit horses and fanged rabbits. I’d rather have seen it played straight and not made a fool of the Lone Ranger. Wait to see it on Netflix.

Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter

The movie follows Abe’s life fairly accurately though it adds some ludicrous vampire stuff along the way.  It opens in 1818 when Abe’s father runs afoul of Jack Barts, his employer.  Barts fires him and demands that Mr. Lincoln pay the debt he was working off.  Lincoln declines and Barts says he can get paid in other ways.  That night, Abe witnesses Barts biting his mother who dies shortly thereafter (Abe’s mother really did die in 1818).  The story follows his move to Springfield, his time as a shopkeeper, a country lawyer, an aspiring politician, and finally president, all true.  There is also his courting of Mary Todd.  It ends with his leaving for Ford’s Theater.

 

These are not your traditional vampires.  First, they hang out in the daylight with nothing more than sunglasses.  They have the ability to turn invisible.  Also, they are killed by silver, supposedly because it is related to mirrors where they have no reflection.  Okay, that’s a bit odd.  When they vampire-out, they have a maw full of jagged teeth and their face is grayish with veins standing out.  Not pretty vampires.  Also, it turns out that the vampires love slavery in the South because it provides an easy source of blood with no recriminations for killing humans.  Lastly, vampires are incapable of killing other vampires; “Only the living can kill the dead,” the lead vampire explains.

 

Abe is on his first vampire-killing mission and flubs it.  He finds himself hanging from his ankles in a basement filled with corpses also dangling by their ankles and drained of blood.  He is unable to reach his silver axe which is just beyond his reach on the floor.  Curses!  If only he could cut himself free.  Then the vampire arrives and ties his hands behind his back and is about to cut Abe’s throat to drain his blood into a bowl when Abe’s knife slips out of his waistband (why didn’t he deploy that while his hands were free?).  He catches it in his teeth, slices the vampire, manages to bend so that he cuts the rope holding him aloft – physically impossible by the way – and then frees his hands before hacking the vampire with his axe.  Abe goes to the trouble of burying the vampire in the forest but no mention is made of what happened to all the corpses and bowls of blood in the basement.

 

In another fight, Abe battles a vampire in the middle of a stampede of horses.  They jump from horse to horse – standing, mind you – and have at each other.  Professional riders have a difficult enough time standing on a bareback horse but jumping from one galloping bareback to another in the midst of a stampede is a recipe for suicide.  This wasn’t cool, it was just stupid.

 

It is the Civil War and Abe is President.  The first day of Gettysburg went badly because a horde of vampires were in the southern army.  The only hope is that silver can be delivered.  So, in one day, Abe has every ounce of silver confiscated, melted down, molded into silver bullets, cannon balls, and bayonets.  The issue is how to get it to the troops.  Abe and two of his most trusted advisors get on a train and head for Gettysburg.  However, they are just a distraction.  The real equipment is being marched to Gettysburg at night.  Sigh.  As the distraction, the train is assaulted by a horde of vampires.  The train finally plunges into a ravine but Abe narrowly survives.  Of course, the vampires are routed on the second day of Gettysburg.

 

At one point, the vampires get at Abe by killing his son Willie.  Abe had 4 sons, only one of whom is ever shown here.  Willie died in 1862, when he was 12 years old.  For some reason, a 7 year-old actor plays him.  In 1862, the Lincoln’s youngest son, Tad, was 9.  Tad doesn’t appear in the film.

 

Abe’s chosen weapon is, unsurprisingly, the axe (he is famed as a rail-splitter).  His is a special axe.  Not only is the blade coated in silver but the handle houses a gun.  This comes as a bit of a surprise when he is fighting Jack Barts and finds himself on the wrong end of the axe.  Well, just deploy the trigger and blammo!  Sigh.

 

The CGI is terrible, the worse so because it is so plentiful.  The stampede of horses was probably the low point but there was also the thick fog fight on top of the train.  Of course, every time the fangs came out, they looked almost cartoonish.  These guys can’t close their mouths without stabbing themselves with their teeth.

 

Now for the funniest (or saddest) thing of all:  Ever since it became a requirement in films to have the women be in the thick of fighting (e.g. Maid Marion was a warrior in Robin Hood, Guinevere was a warrior in King Arthur, Alice fights the dragon in the recent Alice in Wonderland, Snow White was a warrior in both recent films, etc.), I have parodied the trend by saying Mary Todd Lincoln, Warrior First Lady!  Well, my joke has come to pass.  Yes, after delivering the silver to the Union forces at Gettysburg, Mary Todd Lincoln faces off against a vampire, dispatching it like she’s an old pro.

 

The movie fails because of its scope.  Had it limited itself to an incident in Lincoln’s youth where he found himself fighting a nest of vampires in the backwoods of Illinois, that would have required less suspension of disbelief than that the South was harboring hordes of vampires that took an active role in the Civil War.  The movie proposes that the absence of a single journal that Abe had kept through the years explained why we modern folks are unaware of the true story of Lincoln.  Sigh.

 

Lastly, it is played too seriously.  The story is silly and yet all the actors play as if this is high drama.  If it had had some campiness to it, it might have played better.  All in all, disappointing.