Should I go see “Avatar”?

Here are the facts you should take into account in reaching your decision:

1. The reviews for Avatar say, pretty consistently, not so good plot, unbelievable technical accomplishments.

2. It is already the second most highly grossing film in history.

3. I have not spoken to anyone who regretted going to see it; one friend said it was the most amazing film he has ever seen.

4. I am very curious about the movie, to see what they have done, and how they have done it.

5. I do not generally like special effects/adventure movies.

6. For example, when everyone was praising Star Wars, I wanted to walk out of the theater (I only saw the first one).

7. For a second example, although I loved reading “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy, I wanted to walk out of the theater (I only saw the first film).

8. For a third example, last night, 29 years after its initial release (believe it or not, 1981 was 29 years ago), I saw on DVD “Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark”. Boring, silly, boring, silly.

9. When I was 10 years old or so, I did love King Kong, and I like all of the Star Treks, and I did like E.T.

What do you think?

Tunisia (2 cents)

We are getting ready for a trip to Tunisia in early May. We will be going with a group, led by a tour guide who specializes in tours of Tunisia for Jewish groups. We have met twice with the guide, who is an American, who has assured us that Tunisia is a very special place for a Muslim Arab country, a place of relative prosperity, joie de vivre, and tolerance. I wouldn’t say that I took what he said with a grain of salt, but I was certainly intrigued when he described Tunisia as a mid-East country that worked quite well.

Last week, much to my surprise, I came across a book by journalist Georgie Anne Geyer, published in England in 2003, called, simply, “Tunisia: a Journey Through a Country that Works”. Lo and behold, Geyer’s book repeated much of what our guide had told us.

Saying that Habib Bourguiba, Tunisia’s first post-colonial leader, and his successor Zine Ben Ali, had chosen to lead Tunisia away from radical religious law and sentiment, and, perhaps following the path of Turkey, to create a working society that provided to all of its residents, Muslim, Christian or Jewish, male or female, equal treatment and equal rights, and that had economic progress and political tolerance as central principles (barring religious or ideological extremists from subverting the democratic process for their own benefit).

As we travel in Tunis, and see the ruins of Carthage and various Roman cities, and as we see the Jewish community on the Island of Djerba, it will be interesting to see how all this works. Of course, as Geyer does make clear, everything is fragile, and there have been instances where the Tunisian model has been internally threatened. But so far, it has held. I assume it will be in May as it is now in January.

Collections, Man Ray, African Art and a Mexican Dinner, Along with a Hockey Game (25 cents)

I have been spending much of the otherwise slow week between Christmas and New Years starting a long term project – cleaning out (i.e., getting rid of) all the things in my house that I really don’t need any more, and organizing what will remain. Now that may sound impressive, but you don’t know how impressive it is until you see how much stuff I have (and, by the way, I have no doubt that I will fail to even come close to reaching my goal). One of the reasons that I have so many things is that I am by nature a collector. So, in addition to perhaps 10,000 books, there are hundreds and hundreds of LP records, and too many maps and postcards to count, and then there are shelves of stamps and stamp paraphernalia, and coins and foreign paper money (my favorite has to be a Greek bill from 1946 to the tune of 10 Billion drachmas) and, oh yes, my collection of a couple of hundred items from the St. Louis World’s Fair of 1904, and of course posters, and theatrical and concert programs, and sheet music dated before 1920, and many, many things having to do with Al Jolson, and Hard Rock Cafe t-shirts, and old newspapers with important headlines, and more and more and more.

Why do I mention this? Because we spent an hour this afternoon at the Phillips Collection here in Washington (an extraordinary private art museum) looking at its current special exhibit, which focuses on Man Ray and other photographers (including Stieglitz, Sheeler, Walker Evans and many I don’t know at all) who photographed African sculpture during the first half of the 20th century, introducing native African sculpture to much of the then contemporary art world and beyond, and helping legitimizing it as art, rather than simply artifact.

The fascinating thing about this exhibit is that the curators have not only brought into one place so many beautiful photographs, but they have also located the very pieces of sculpture that were the objects of the photography, so that you can see them together. Looking at the photographs certain helps you appreciate the sculptures, and vice versa. I thought the effect was remarkable.

The sculptures and the photographs both, whether they are now the property of major musuems or not, were all at one point, part of one or more collections. And this made me think: boy, I should start collecting African art, or at least books about African art. Then, I thought: I really better leave this gallery.

And we did, and went to supper at Rosa Mexicana which, although a chain, serves remarkably good food. I had simply chicken enchiladas in a spicy green tomatillo sauce that was first class. Well, also a vodka and some sweet potato fries to start, and a very nice espresso to end the meal. (Speaking of Rosa Mexicana being part of a chain, I am reminded of a family vacation some years ago in London, where we went to an Italian restaurant somewhere near the Warren Street Underground stop one day and the next day found ourselves in a very similar restaurant in Soho. I asked the waiter if the restaurant was a chain. “No”, he said, it was not a chain, “it is Italian”.)

Verizon Center is across the street, and we saw the Caps beat Montreal 4-2 in a game that was good because we won, but where neither team played anywhere near their best, but where, for the first time, I wore my new red Caps sweatshirt, so felt like I was part of the solution, not the problem. Rock the red, as they say.

Cadillac, Complicated, Trap, Turkey Mole, Flounder Vera Cruz, and Corn Beef Hash and Eggs.

The reviews of “The Solid Gold Cadillac” at the Studio Theatre in Washington were not overwhelmingly positive. Although the reviewer complemented Nancy Robinette, who starred as Laura Partridge, the show itself was found to be dated, silly, and somewhat shallow. Surprisingly, perhaps, the review of the play, when it first opened in New York in 1953, was very similar. Just substitute Josephine Hull for Nancy Robinette.

Two years after the play opened, a movie was made, transforming the Laura Partridge character from a woman in her, say 50s, to a woman in her mid-30s, and Judy Holliday played the role. As readers know, we rented the VHS (I have been told you can’t find it on DVD) of the film, and watched it, thinking it dated, silly and somewhat shallow. Today, we saw the stage performance at the Studio.

It is a somewhat silly play. Corporate executives hold a scripted stockholders’ meeting at which an unexpected series of rather naive questions from a small stockholder, mainly about the large increases in director salaries, causes some havoc. The meeting is adjourned, the stockholder is hired in a make-work position (in order to get her on the side of the company), but she continues to stir up a number of things, including retrieving the long term CEO from Washington, where he had resigned to take a government position,and allying herself with him in a battle to take the company back from current management. It is dated, silly an shallow, but the cast did a wonderful job, (especially, but not exclusively Ms. Robinette) and turned it into a very entertaining two hours.

Before the performance, I was talking to one of the understudies, and told him we had seen the film (he had not). He asked me at intermission how they compared, and I told him that the story line seemed to hold pretty true. Had he asked me the question at the end of the second act, however, I would have had a different answer, because the second half of the movie and the second half of the play were very different. Some of this had to do with the age of Ms. Partridge. In the movie, Judy Holliday and the former CEO/government official have a romance ending in matrimony. In the play, no such thing; they are simply business partners trying to take over the business. In the play, Partridge relies for much of her decision making on astrology; I don’t remember any mention of astrology in the film.

In fact, both the film and the play were weaker in their second halves, I thought. A lot happens and much of what happens requires more time and dialogue than the stage allows.

Would I recommend it? Yes, with a few reservations. But I would suggest seeing the movie before you go. It helps the context quite a bit.

Last night, we went to see the new Meryl Streep, Alec Baldwin, Steve Martin comedy, “It’s Complicated”. The movie really isn’t complicated, but it also isn’t comfortable. Baldwin and Streep have been divorced for about 8 years; Baldwin is remarried. The couple had had three children; Baldwin’s wife has a son by a previous relationship and would like another. Baldwin decides that he is still in love with Streep (who has been man-less since the divorce, half-regretting it, and half-feeling liberated. She meets nerdy architect Steve Martin, who had just gone through a divorce of his own, so all of a sudden there are two men in her life – her former husband whom she hate/loves, and her newly found architect friend. What happens? Well, it’s complicated. Let’s just say that getting divorced, getting remarried and eight years later deciding you want to start up things with your ex-wife is just not a very healthy idea.

We also saw, on DVD, a new Serbian film called (in English), “The Trap”. It was not perfect, but surprisingly good — A ordinary Serbian couple with a young son learns that their son has a serious heart defect and requires specialized surgery, not available in Belgrade. He will have to go to Berlin, and pay an estimated $26,000 euros out of pocket. Where will they get this money? They put an ad in the paper and get a response. He will be given a total of $30,000 euros if he simply kills the donors business rival. And he does. And things don’t work out as hoped for, or as expected. And I am not going to give it away, but suggest that if you want to see a good film that most of your friends won’t see, this would be a good choice.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about an interesting Philippino-American film involving a young California teenager returning to Manila for his father’s funeral, learning that terrorists of the separatist party of the island of Mindinao have kidnapped his mother and sister and are holding them as security for him performing a task for them (in this case, a terrorist task). The movie, Cavite, posed the same question as The Trap. Would you do something awful in order to save your family?

One more dilemma to avoid.

The foods in the title speak for themselves. But they are my treats so far for the new year.

Just a few thoughts about taste (4 cents)

Some time over the past year, I read Chris Bohjalian’s “The Law of Similars”, which I really enjoyed. Small New England town, homeopathic healer, a mysterious death, unanticipated love, psychological breakdowns. Over the past few days, I read a more recent Bohjalian book, “Skeletons at the Feast”, which I enjoyed much less. It’s a holocaust book, and an unusual one – a prosperous rural German family must leave its farm and trek westward to avoid the Soviet army’s vengeance, a mother, her young son, and her 17 year old daughter, along with a Scottish POW, who had been assigned to help out at the farm and who (of course) fell in love with 17 year old Anna; they meet Uri Singer, a Jewish concentration camp escapee, who goes about incognito as a German soldier, renamed Manfred; and then there is Cecile Fournier, a French/Jewish prisoner of the Germans in a work camp, shuffled from place to place. The conditions (for all of them) are terrible. I have read many holocaust novels and memoirs, and this one is nowhere near the best of the bunch. I thought that much of what I read (including the continual hopeful attitudes of the characters) to strain credulity. I would not recommend that you read this book.

But here is where taste comes in. Two members of my family have, on my recommendation, read “The Law of Similars”. Neither cared for the book very much. And if you look on Amazon, you will see that the readers give it only 3.5 (out of 5.0) rating. But if you look at “Skeletons” on Amazon, you will see that it is a 5.0 book and some of the reviews have praised it to the skies.

So, what is taste? And how do you know if a book is “good”?

I don’t mean these questions as silly. If you “like” a book, does it have any connection with it being “good”? And if the majority of people like a book and you don’t, is the book “good”? In other words, even if there is no such thing as an objectively good book, when can you put this adjective in front of it? Do you measure a good book by the number of people who like it? Or does it depend on who those people are? And what about books that people don’t seem to like when they are first written, but ten years later love? Etc. Etc.

Of course, these questions relate not only to books. Take theater, for example. I just saw Judy Gold’s “Mommy Queerest”, which I didn’t dislike, but which did absolutely nothing for me. I would not call it “good”. But audiences and reviewers love it! So, maybe it is good? I have seen most of Theater J’s productions over the past years, and could put together a year’s worth of shows from them that I would consider top rate. But these shows were not necessarily audience favorites, or the favorites of critics. So many people loved, for example, Motti Lerner’s “Pangs of the Messiah”, which I thought was somewhat trite, and many disliked “The Disputation”, featuring Theodore Bikel as Nachmanides, which I thought was absolutely first class. Would it be correct to call either of these shows, or both of them, “good”?

I remember years ago (50+), one night watching The Ed Sullivan Show with my grandmother. Connie Francis was on, and I thought she was awful, that she couldn’t carry a tune. I said so, and my grandmother looked at me and told me that I was completely wrong and she couldn’t believe that I thought that. “Why?”, I asked her, “what is so hard to believe about that?” Her answer was simple: “Everyone likes Connie Francis. She’s a star.” Already, I was confused. Does that fact that everyone likes her make her good? How could anyone like her? If everyone but me likes her, what does that say about my taste?

I also remember a TV episode of about the same time (I don’t know what the show was), where Mickey Rooney played the role of a very ordinary guy, so ordinary that he knew what TV shows and personalities would become audience favorites and which would not. He was hired by a network that previewed every show for him. Some he would bless, and some throw on the scrap heap. His opinions made absolutely no sense to the TV executives, but they were always correct. Until one day, they weren’t any more, and he was just like everyone else. The show did not explain what happened to Rooney’s unique talent, but again it raised the question: is something objectively good? do you measure it by how it is received by the bulk of its recipients? and is there a way to determine who has “good taste” and whose taste is either idiosyncratic or bad?

And of course, there are underlying questions. How much are people influenced by the opinions of others? And are some more likely to be positively influenced and others more likely to develop contrarian positions? And, finally, are the elements of the analysis the same if you are dealing with politics, or religion, rather than literature or entertainment?

A question to start the new year with.