Conspiracies & Conspirators

For all the current readers of Critics at Large, we've resurrected the Luna Sea Notes website to publish previous C & L posts. The idea is to introduce readers to pieces they may have missed from earlier in our incarnation. Since we now have a huge body of work to draw from, the goal is to post articles that may also have some relevance to events of the day.

A year ago while reviewing the political thriller Fair Game, Susan Green decided to go further than merely telling us whether it dealt fairly and accurately with the Valerie Plame controversy. She took us then with an apt precision inside the appeal of conspiracy thrillers and political conspiracy.

Separating Paranoia From Heightened Consciousness: Doug Liman's Fair Game

http://www.criticsatlarge.ca/2010/12/seperating-paranoia-from-heightened.html

Conspiracies are as old as the dawn of civilization. They consistently intrigued Shakespeare. Bye-bye, Julius Caesar. Tough luck, Macbeth. Some speculate on the true identity of the Bard himself; Roland Emmerich’s Anonymous, due out in late 2011, will address this controversy. But, in the modern era, the very notion of a conspiracy theory gained credence immediately after the November 1963 assassination of John F. Kennedy. We have not been the same since. Nowadays, everyone’s suspicious of everything. On the lunatic fringe, there are the Truthers (Who really attacked the World Trade Center?), the Birthers (Where was Obama actually born?) and, a cherished chestnut, People Who Suspect the Fluoridation of Water is a Communist Plot.

Yet, for those of us with more reasoned fears, it’s often difficult to separate paranoia from heightened consciousness. To quote Kurt Cobain, who must have borrowed it from Joseph Heller’sCatch 22: “Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after you.” That certainly is the case for Joseph Wilson and his wife Valerie Plame in Fair Game, a sympathetic biographical film tracing the D.C. couple’s nightmare at the hands of the vindictive Bush administration. Although unseen except in genuine news footage, the chief perpetrators are Karl Rove and the even more powerful Dick Cheney (On a Baghdad battlefield, this contemporary Richard III might plead: “A heart, a heart. My kingdom for a heart!”). But the Central Intelligence Agency — where Plame is an undercover operative until exposed for devious purposes — comes across as a bastion of back-stabbers.

Outsider Heroes

For all the current readers of Critics at Large, we've resurrected the Luna Sea Notes website to publish previous C & L posts. The idea is to introduce readers to pieces they may have missed from earlier in our incarnation. Since we now have a huge body of work to draw from, the goal is to post articles that may also have some relevance to events of the day.

Besides being one of the best young television critics writing today, Mark Clamen also seeks out TV programs not immediately available on cable or network. Because he's web savvy as well as being a smart reviewer, he finds online interesting international dramas and comedies that often give him a leg up on certain shows before the general audience has caught on. His sharply observed piece on Misfits is one such perfect example.  

Misfits: I Don’t Think We’re in Smallville Anymore

http://www.criticsatlarge.ca/2010/11/misfits-i-dont-think-were-in-smallville.html#more

Two weeks ago, Misfits began its much anticipated second season. When the show premiered last fall in the UK on Channel 4, it was nothing short of a phenomenon. This past June Misfits surprised everyone, including the show’s young stars, when it won the BAFTA for Best Drama, beating out BBC favourites Spooks (aka MI-5 in North America), Being Human, and Jimmy McGovern’s exquisitely powerful The Street. Part teen drama, part science fiction, part inner-city portrait, the premise of the show is deceptively familiar: five young delinquents suddenly find themselves with superpowers. We’ve all seen comparable stories before, be it on Smallville, Heroes, The X-Men, or more recently, this season’s No Ordinary Family on ABC. And while on paper Misfits might bear a passing resemblance to these more conventional offerings it has very little in common with any of them. The series is intelligent, darkly comic, intensely suspenseful, and always extraordinarily fun. Think of it as Heroes meets The Breakfast Club, with a large dash of Trainspotting.

Angst & Ecstasy

For all the current readers of Critics at Large, we've resurrected the Luna Sea Notes website to publish previous posts. The idea is to introduce readers to pieces they may have missed from earlier in our incarnation. Since we now have a huge body of work to draw from, the goal is to post articles that may also have some relevance to events of the day.

When you run a publication, especially an arts publication, there are often plenty of tributes to important people when they go to spirit. Sometimes rather than writing the standard obituary commending that individual's life, it's more refreshing to examine what their role was in the culture and whether their inheritors grasped the meaning of the late artist's work. These are the questions Kevin Courrier sought to explore when he wrote a piece about author J.D. Salinger a month after he died.

J.D. Salinger's Cultural Exchange

http://www.criticsatlarge.ca/2010/02/jd-salingers-cultural-exchange.html

J.D. Salinger in 1959 (photo by Lotte Jacobi)

I'm glad that I read J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye outside of any high school English class. Due to that fluke of good fortune, I was free to dip into Salinger’s tale of adolescent frustration without all the mythical baggage that comes with it. There's no question that his first novel had an indelibly profound impact on young readers (including very disturbed ones like Mark David Chapman). But the book’s influence also extended to movies as well (most notably in both The Graduate and Rushmore). But Salinger’s novel examined teenage misery with an acute eye. He didn’t enshrine his protagonist Holden Caulfield’s world view; rather he revealed that, in the world of ‘phonies,’ Holden was just as culpable as anyone he criticized. The Graduate (1967) and Rushmore (1998), in their blatant attempt to win over the outsider adolescent fringe of two very different generations, chose to pander to youthful narcissism instead. Both movies dubbed their rebel heroes as vulnerable, but they were largely self-righteous. They made dubious claims, too; since the adult world is automatically corrupt, by extension, it also corrupts its young.

The Paradox of Nostalgia

For all the current readers of Critics at Large, we've resurrected the Luna Sea Notes website to publish previous posts. The idea is to introduce readers to pieces they may have missed from earlier in our incarnation. Since we now have a huge body of work to draw from, the goal is to post articles that may also have some relevance to events of the day.

For many of us, the television shows we discovered when we were young continue to have an enduring effect on our lives. When people write about those shows, however, they often tend to cure it in nostalgia. Andrew Dupuis, on the other hand, when discussing The Twilight Zone, cleverly called into question the appeal of nostalgia. 

The Future of Nostalgia: Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone

http://www.criticsatlarge.ca/2011/07/future-of-nostalgia-rod-serlings.html

Whenever a film, television show or book captures something genuine and unique it runs a risk. Like most classic art, it carries an unfortunate weight as it becomes ingrained in popular culture –  we parody it to tame its power over us. To do that, we usually dilute it. In attempting to recapture its magic, to hold it dear, we ironically tame what attracted us to it in the first place. Nevertheless its power still remains because the work exists independent of time and our need to possess it. One such example of this paradox is The Twilight Zone. It wasn’t just great television, it was one of the most indelibly imaginative programs created. You couldn't tame its power.

Rod Serling.

Chances are if you haven’t seen a single episode of the original series (that ran from 1959-1964), you've likely come across some reference to a parody of it over the past fifty years. The Twilight Zone has been referenced in everything from Leave It To Beaver to Seinfeld and The Simpsons. I'm remembering, in particular, an episode of The Simpsons where Bart is the only boy who can see a gremlin on the side of the bus. That episode cleverly parodied The Twilight Zone thriller originally immortalized by William Shatner in "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet." But homage is a tricky mistress. The Twilight Zone didn't have any recurring characters outside of its creator and host Rod Serling, who acted as the connecting thread. Without any discernible characters then, the show relied on the surprises from their dramatic twists at the end. Serling’s stories essentially focused on real people in extraordinary circumstances. He illustrated men and women who were awarded a second chance to rise up, or fall further into the doldrums of their lives. These stories reached an audience fifty years ago and – in spite of the many parodies – they haven’t missed a beat since.

Con Artists

For all the current readers of Critics at Large, we've resurrected the Luna Sea Notes website to publish previous posts. The idea is to introduce readers to pieces they may have missed from earlier in our incarnation. Since we now have a huge body of work to draw from, the goal is to post articles that may also have some relevance to events of the day.

Mari-Beth Slade normally doesn't review movies for us but she wanted to tackle this one. It made sense. Mari-Beth is one of those rare folks from a marketing background who questions rather than simply markets. Morgan Spurlock had already made a name for himself exposing the detriments of eating at McDonalds in Super Size Me. But, in his latest film, Mari-Beth astutely sensed something a little more self-serving at work.

The Most Boring Movie Ever Watched: Morgan Spurlock’s The Greatest Movie Ever Sold

http://www.criticsatlarge.ca/2011/06/most-boring-movie-ever-watched-morgan.html

Disclaimer: I fell asleep during this movie. Granted, it was the late movie on a Tuesday night after a full day of work, a softball game, and endless errands. It’s also not the first time I’ve turned the cinema into my personal napping studio. But still, after Super Size Me (2004), I had grand expectations for Spurlock’s next documentary. I’m not a cinephile or a film connoisseur. I’m just an ordinary moviegoer hoping to learn something and be diverted for a few hours. Super Size Me confronted us and demanded that we reconsider the consequences of every empty calorie we consume. I hoped for a similar challenge with POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold. I expected Spurlock to ask the tough questions about product placement, selling-out and the effect advertising has on rampant consumerism.

The Mono Variations

For all the current readers of Critics at Large, we've resurrected the Luna Sea Notes website to publish previous posts. The idea is to introduce readers to pieces they may have missed from earlier in our incarnation. Since we now have a huge body of work to draw from, the goal is to post articles that may also have some relevance to events of the day.

In the last few years, the release of The Beatles catalogue in its original mono, as well as Bob Dylan's first eight albums, encouraged John Corcelli to enter into the discussion which his usual candid clarity.

One Brain, Two Ears: Stereo vs Mono

http://www.criticsatlarge.ca/2010/11/one-brain-two-ears-stereo-vs-mono.html

There's a rather humorous video on YouTube making the cyber-rounds as of late. It's called "Bob Dylan Wants You to Embrace Mono" put out by Columbia Records to promote their new release of the box-set Bob Dylan: The Original Mono Recordings, which contains the first 8 albums by Bob Dylan in mono. The movie is presented as an educational film from the 1960s using a ton of archival footage of teenagers at play. In between, a pseudo-professor talks about recorded sound and how the brain is tricked into hearing things in mono as opposed to stereo, which, it is suggested, is bad for your brain (click here for the video). The argument is good one as we come to terms with technology and the ever-changing marketing of music around the world. But what appears to be a commercial, corporate gimmick to sell more CDs has real value when assessing how we hear music and what the new technology has granted us regarding the quality of those sounds.

Yuletide Tunes

For all the current readers of Critics at Large, we've resurrected the Luna Sea Notes website to publish previous posts. The idea is to introduce readers to pieces they may have missed from earlier in our incarnation. Since we now have a huge body of work to draw from, the goal is to post articles that may also have some relevance to events of the day.

Everyone has their favourite Christmas songs - from traditional to Elvis - but Susan Green opened the field to include some other tracks that should bear consideration on your playlist. Merry Christmas to all - and to all, a good tune.

Listening: A Retrospective Soundtrack To Live By

http://www.criticsatlarge.ca/2010/12/listening-retrospective-soundtrack-to.html

As the troublesome decade draws to a close, people are compiling their top-ten lists for various art forms. I’d like to think back instead on a half-century of popular music that was able to, as a traditional gospel line suggests, “rock my soul in the bosom of Abraham.” Each tune has stuck with me. Not every one of the past 50 years is represented; some supplied multiple selections -- I could barely escape the 1960s, in fact. It wasn’t easy to choose from among so many worthy contenders. My apologies to the Supremes, Ray Charles, the Beach Boys, Etta James, Elvis Presley, Elvis Costello, the Grateful Dead, Jackson Browne, The Kinks, Led Zeppelin, Elton John, Mark Knopfler, Jesse Winchester, Bonnie Raitt and countless others. Disco and hip-hop aside, these are a few of a nostalgic Baby Boomer’s highly subjective favorite things:

Film Noir In Denial: Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life

For all the current readers of Critics at Large, we've resurrected the Luna Sea Notes website to publish previous posts. The idea is to introduce readers to pieces they may have missed from earlier in our incarnation. Since we now have a huge body of work to draw from, the goal is to post articles that may also have some relevance to events of the day.

Last Christmas, Kevin Courrier decided to poke holes into one of the holiday season's most sacred of cows: Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life. Long a Yuletide family staple, Courrier insisted that the picture, far from being a warm, embracing of the human spirit, was actually a film noir in denial.

Is it Such a Wonderful Life?

http://www.criticsatlarge.ca/2010/12/is-it-such-wonderful-life.html

Back in December 1990, on the CBC radio show Prime Time, host and film critic Geoff Pevere and I decided to re-assess the popularity of Frank Capra's Christmas favourite It's a Wonderful Life (1946). We felt that it was ample time to examine why this particular movie had become such a holiday classic. Neither of us actually hated the film, in fact, we thought some of the small town neurosis that David Lynch would expertly dissect years later in Blue Velvet (1986) had its roots in It's a Wonderful Life. But we were baffled that audiences over the years had viewed this movie as an uplifting and heart-tugging affair. To us, there was something much more unsettling lurking in this material, a looming shadow that the picture ultimately sought to avoid. So we decided to head right for the darkness. Someone should have warned us.

Stieg Larsson's Nightmare Sweden

For all the current readers of Critics at Large, we've resurrected the Luna Sea Notes website to publish previous posts. The idea is to introduce readers to pieces they may have missed from earlier in our incarnation. Since we now have a huge body of work to draw from, the goal is to post articles that may also have some relevance to events of the day.

Since Shlomo Schwartzberg is today reviewing the David Fincher version of The Girl With the Dragan Tattoo in Critics at Large, We thought we would revisit his review of the first two books in Stieg Larsson's trilogy. In this piece, Shlomo builds an intelligent and compelling argument for their merit.

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo & The Girl Who Played With Fire: Stieg Larsson’s Masterful Mysteries

http://www.criticsatlarge.ca/2010/07/girl-with-dragon-tattoo-girl-who-played_03.html

Not since the Harry Potter novels has a series of books so connected with such a wide variety of readers as the Stieg Larsson mysteries have. Last week, on two successive days, I saw a different person, one male, one female, on the transit system reading The Girl Who Played With Fire, the second in the late Swedish writer’s ‘Millennium’ trilogy. Over the last month, I’ve noticed at least half a dozen folks with eyes glued to that book and several more dipping into the first one in the series, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. Considering how few people read at all while taking transit or are content just skimming the free subway newspapers, that’s a pretty impressive statistic. Wondering what’s so great about the Larsson oeuvre? Lots, actually.

Love's Closure: Johanna Adorján’s An Exclusive Love

For all the current readers of Critics at Large, we've resurrected the Luna Sea Notes website to publish previous posts. The idea is to introduce readers to pieces they may have missed from earlier in our incarnation. Since we now have a huge body of work to draw from, the goal is to post articles that may also have some relevance to events of the day.

Laura Warner began writing for us back in January and she often miraculously finds that connecting tissue between personal memoir writing and reviewing. In this piece from last spring, the borderline between that connecting tissue of memoir and reviewing is seemless.

Together Again: Johanna Adorján’s An Exclusive Love

http://www.criticsatlarge.ca/2011/04/together-again-johanna-adorjans.html

Johanna Adorján launches An Exclusive Love 

On the evening of October 13th, 1991, dressed in their best night clothes, Vera and István, crawled into bed for the last time. Holding on to each other’s hand they waited for the end to come. A note lies on their bedside table: “We have lived together, we are dying together. We loved you very much. Mami.” Lived they had. Married nearly fifty years, the Jewish Hungarian couple survived the Holocaust and fled their motherland during the 1956 uprising in Budapest. Making a new home for themselves in Denmark, they continued raising their family and living life to the fullest until the end.

So begins Johanna Adorján’s account of her grandparents’ lives and death in An Exclusive Love: A Memoir, translated by Athena Bell (Knopf Canada, 2011). The author was 20-years-old when her grandparents took their lives in their Copenhagen home. Her 82-year-old grandfather, a former orthopaedic surgeon, was slowly losing a battle with heart disease. His wife, a still vibrant 71-year-old, refused to carry on without him. Sixteen years after their death, Adorján began her quest to reveal how and why this fateful decision was carried out.

Elementary, My Dear Holmes (Part Two)

For all the current readers of Critics at Large, we've resurrected the Luna Sea Notes website to publish previous posts. The idea is to introduce readers to pieces they may have missed from earlier in our incarnation. Since we now have a huge body of work to draw from, the goal is to post articles that may also have some relevance to events of the day.

Since yesterday we ran David Churchill's piece on the Guy Ritchie Sherlock Holmes from 2009, it's only fair to also include the excellent review by Mark Clamen of the BBC version of Sherlock which successfully brought the famous sleuth and his sidekick into modern times.

Sherlock: The BBC Brings Us Holmes Again

http://www.criticsatlarge.ca/2010/07/sherlock-bbc-brings-us-holmes-again.html

Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman as the new Holmes and Watson

Every once in a while, a television series comes along and surprises you. Sometimes it’s because a show is so stunningly original that no precedent could have prepared you for it (e.g. HBO’s Carnivaleand FOX’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer). But other times, it’s because a road has been so well-trodden that you go along for the ride, but honestly don’t expect to see anything new there. This past Sunday, BBC One broadcast “A Study in Pink” the first episode of Sherlock, a 21st century re-imagining of the celebrated Arthur Conan Doyle character. Benedict Cumberbatch (BBC’s The Last Enemy, Creation,The Other Boleyn Girl) stars as the titular Holmes and Watson is played by the more recognizable Martin Freeman (Tim in BBC’s The Office, and Arthur Dent in the 2005 film adaptation of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy). The series is the brainchild of Steven Moffat (Doctor Who, Jekyll,Coupling) and actor/writer Mark Gatiss (The League of Gentlemen, Doctor Who). Moffat has a long history of critical and popular success on the BBC, and it is possible his career has recently reached a new height. In addition to this new series, this past year he took on the helm of BBC’s flagship series,Doctor Who. Given the numerous imaginings of Holmes available on television and film, one might be forgiven for thinking we need a new Sherlock Holmes series as urgently as we need a new brand of vanilla ice cream. Fortunately, this is one instance when that persistent gap between what we believe we need and what we get works decidedly in our favour!

Elementary, My Dear Holmes (Part One)

For all the current readers of Critics at Large, we've resurrected the Luna Sea Notes website to publish previous posts. The idea is to introduce readers to pieces they may have missed from earlier in our incarnation. Since we now have a huge body of work to draw from, the goal is to post articles that may also have some relevance to events of the day.

With the new Sherlock Holmes sequel in theatres this Christmas, we thought it might be useful to go back to David Churchill's review of the previous Holmes back in 2010.

Joel Silver's Sherlock Holmes

http://www.criticsatlarge.ca/2010/01/joel-silvers-sherlock-holmes.html

Guy Richie may be listed as director of Sherlock Holmes, but the most important credit is probably 'Producer: Joel Silver'. Silver - producer of Lethal Weapon (and its sequels), Predator (and its sequel), The Matrix (and its sequels) and Die Hard (and its...you get the idea) - has a reputation for having writers 'design' action sequences for his movies and then, when the script doesn't work and the movie isn't made, stripping those sequences out and using them in ones that end up being produced.

Those thoughts went through my head in the days following my viewing of Sherlock Holmes.This isn't a movie I hated, because the whole cast (except Mark Strong, as the dullish villain) are uniformly ... well, excellent isn't the word. Entertaining, fits better. It's just that after I saw it, I found myself thinking, 'yeah, that was okay,' but I just couldn't put my finger on why I wasn't particularly taken with it.

Remembering Christopher Hitchens 1949-2011

For all the current readers of Critics at Large, we've resurrected the Luna Sea Notes website to publish previous posts. The idea is to introduce readers to pieces they may have missed from earlier in our incarnation. Since we now have a huge body of work to draw from, the goal is to post articles that may also have some relevance to events of the day.

Rather than write a new appraisal of Christopher Hitchens, the outspoken iconoclast who died this past week, it seemed fitting to re-print Shlomo Schwartzberg's very fine review of Hitchens' memoir. Within it, Shlomo captured perfectly what made Hitchens such an essential voice.

Hitch-22: An Iconoclast Looks Back On His Life (So Far)
http://www.criticsatlarge.ca/2010/10/hitch-22-iconoclast-looks-back-on-his.html

Christopher Hitchens

Hitch-22: A Memoir (McClelland & Stewart), the entertaining and enlightening ruminations of controversial writer Christopher Hitchens, is quite a gentle book, even though the British-born, American writer has plenty to be angry about. I met him at a book signing in Toronto a few years ago and he came across as a kind man. But those folks, maybe the majority, who see Hitchens solely as the rabble-rousing provocateur, who’s as apt to tell his adversaries to fuck off as he is to spout bon mots, will glean from Hitch-22 that his combative public image and persona is more removed from the genuine article than they’d think.

It’s not that Hitchens doesn’t stand up for what he believes or goes against the grain. He certainly does. But Hitch-22 is largely a reflective, soft-spoken book wherein he (mostly) sets the record straight on his life, including his famous friendships and his adversarial politics. It’s the latter he's become best known for, particularly from the days right after 9/11, when he rejected the left’s moral equivalence between Osama bin Laden and George W. Bush and their justification for the terror attacks on America. He came out in support of the Iraq war and the toppling of Saddam Hussein, which led to Hitchens being ostracized by the anti-war left. While he's not necessarily embraced by the right, who are suspicious of his anti-religious diatribes and criticism of past American foreign policy, Hitchens is determined (as always) to stake out territory as an iconoclast who thinks solely for himself.

Remembering Vaclav Havel 1936-2011

For all the current readers of Critics at Large, I've today resurrected the Luna Sea Notes website to publish previous posts. The idea is to introduce readers to pieces they may have missed from earlier in our incarnation. Since we now have a huge body of work to draw from (718 pieces to date), the goal is to post articles that may also have some relevance to events of the day.

Hence we begin today with a post Kevin Courrier wrote back on May 10, 2010 on Vaclav Havel's book The Art of the Impossible as a tribute to the Czech playwright and President who died today at the age of 75. Tomorrow a tribute to the recently deceased journalist Christopher Hitchens by Shlomo Schwartzberg.

Democratic Vistas: Vaclav Havel's The Art of the Impossible
http://www.criticsatlarge.ca/2010/05/book-vaclav-havals-art-of-impossible.html

A friend of mine earlier in the year lamented that the euphoria over Barack Obama’s election victory seemed to have waned since that thrilling November evening. While I could acknowledge some truth in what he said, fully sensing that the party fizz had flattened somewhat, I also detected something much more urgent in his comment. I suspect that beyond the historical implications of Obama’s win, as well as the ripe possibilities and hopes that it raised, there was also a utopian element at work in my friend’s expectations. It was as if his hatred of George Bush had been so intense that the love of Obama was, to some degree, just the other side of that coin.

For many, especially on the left, Bush had made America the scourge of the planet which meant that (after Obama won) the world would soon be spinning on its proper axis again. The belief seemed to be, with Obama in the White House, that the violent insurgents in Iraq and the Taliban suicide bombers in Afghanistan would now put away their toys and play nice. But the world hasn’t changed in that manner and the zealots haven’t gone away. (Neither has the right-wing version currently propping up the Tea Party.) I do think that Obama sensed the unreal expectations being heaped upon him which is why he underplayed the significance of his election. He knew that the world he was about to confront was the same world that the previous President confronted. Their approach to it might be radically different, but (unlike Naomi Klein) he understood that the irrational ideologies threatening democracy were not solely the product of American corporate power. (In saying so, I'm also not forgetting the economic mess the previous administration left for Obama to clean up.)