The American Culture

There's good news and bad news for the TV networks in recent figures released by Starcom, a leading media buying agency. 

The good news is that the TV networks are making a substantial amount of money off of ads shown during online, streaming video releases of their programs. The bad news is that the writers want a slice of that rapidly growing pie.

While the TV networks argue with the Writers Guild over a new contract, with the main sticking point being the writers' demand for a share of revenues from online sources, the Financial Times reports that the networks are indeed already making a good deal of money from advertisements on web showings of their programs. The four majors are on track to bring in $120 million from such ads during the current year, the FT reports.

The networks have claimed that the potential revenues from online distribution are speculative at this point and hence they cannot give the writers a specific piece of it. The current news would seem to put the lie to that notion.

This is clearly a result of the general increase in ad revenue online. The FT story notes, "The total online video advertising market will be worth close to $1.3bn this year after doubling in size in 2006, according to Accustream, the digital media research company."

The FT story points out that media buyers actually find the online streaming video market highly attractive because viewers actually see the ads, as opposed to on television, where they are more likely to skip them by switching channels or skipping through them on DVRs:

Media buyers expect streaming revenues to increase because online video commercials have better recall rates than traditional TV advertising.

“You get 85 per cent recall [with web streaming] versus single-digit recall for TV,” [Starcom senior vice-president and video innovation director Tracey Scheppach] said. Syndication of online video commercials across social networking sites will also fuel future revenues, she added.

All of this is profoundly changing not only the financial structure of the media but also how we as consumers get access to information and entertainment. The writers' strike is a harbinger of how far-reaching the effects will actually be.

Posted by S. T. Karnick at 02:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

We're a week away from the opening of The Golden Compass, the new film based on the first volume of Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy, and the pre-release hype has crescendoed to a deafening roar. The central issue is whether the film will influence innocent tykes to become atheists, and whether that would be a bad thing if it happened.

Certainly Pullman has made it perfectly clear in all his public statements and in the trilogy of fantasy novels that yes, he is an atheist, and yes, he would very much like to see all religious belief done away with if such a thing were possible.

To forestall such a catastrophe, the filmmakers and studios have taken a twofold strategy. One, they removed all references to the Church, which were central to the book's meaning and effect, and two, they've trotted out Weitz and, especially, Nicole Kidman to emphasize that the people directly involved in the film are not anti-Catholic and would never try to slam the church.

Kidman, for example, has been widely quoted as noting that she was raised a Catholic (which suggests that she no longer is one) and would never be involved in a movie that was against religion. Of course, whether she is a good judge of prose narrative fiction is a valid question.

The film is not, director Chris Weitz tells Newsweek, an attack on people of faith; like the books, it tells a story "that attempts to rescue the religious spirit from its perversion into political power."

That may be rather too nuanced an argument to hold much persuasive power—and indeed it may be entirely sophistic. Anything that is inevitably perverted toward evil ends can hardly be a good thing, can it, and those who adhere to it cannot really be good, can they? Certainly most people would not think so.

The film's producer hopes that audiences will "pay no attention to the aggressive atheist behind the curtain" and instead urges audiences to concentrate on the film's surface glamour, according to Newsweek:

In any case, says Deborah Forte, the film's producer, "when you talk to young people who are passionate fans of the books, they only talk about the golden monkey, and the armored bear, and Lyra, and daemons."

Not surprisingly, some prominent American Catholics aren't buying this, as Newsweek notes:

Of course, that hasn't stopped Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, from accusing the film of being "bait" to lure children to the novels, where they will be ensnared by Pullman's "pernicious atheist agenda," Gordon reports.

The same is true among evangelicals. A detailed article on the Breakpoint website showed that the entire trilogy is much more explicit in presenting Pullman's anti-Christian, anti-Catholic agenda than the filmmakers are willing to admit, and that children drawn in by appealing golden monkeys and talking critters will get a strong dose of explicit atheism and God-hatred when they read the books. Even the first book makes this all quite clear, author Tom Gilson notes:

[T]he anti-Church, anti-Biblical elements of even the first book are plenty strong. The Church is presented as highly controlling and evil; and this is not some other-world, purely fantastical church with no connection to our own world. In Chapter 16 we learn of its “Vatican Council.” In Chapter 19 a character speaks of being “baptized as a Christian” in Geneva. Chapter 2 tells us the last Pope in this world was John Calvin, which in another context would be knee-slapping hilarious, but here contributes to the strength of the connection this fictional world has to our real one.

One of the prominent themes of the book is “Dust,” a mysterious “charged particle” from the sky. In the closing chapters of the book, the protagonist, Lyra, finally learns that Dust is “the physical evidence for original sin”. . . . Dust and the alethiometer—central symbols in this book—together send the clear message that truth is measured by the power of original sin. In the closing pages, Lyra decides that Dust is a good thing after all, and she determines to go on and defend this original sin against the Church. Thus we are ushered into the second book.

The themes become even more explicit, and Pullman's targets even more obvious, in the second and third volumes:

The second book is entitled The Subtle Knife. That happens to be the name of the one weapon that can kill God. The third book tells us that God is relieved to be killed. He’s a rather pathetic character, tired of all the responsibility, “half-crazed with age and infirmity,” in SparkNotes’ words. He had been rather mixed up about things all along, though. The Satan figure in the trilogy was the one who brought freedom to humans. God—and the dominating, violent, fearful church—fought against this freedom. Pullman cheers for their downfall. He has said so not only in his fiction, but also in interviews. The books, he says, are “about killing God.”

Gilson's conclusion is simple and direct:

This is certainly not a message we want our children to take to heart.

Scholastic, the publisher of the novels and financial partner in the movie, is pushing hard to get schools to place the trilogy in their curricula. This will surely raise serious objections.

And in trying to lure Christians and other non-atheists into the theaters, the filmmakers have managed to offend some of Pullman's most avid fans, as Reuters reports:

"The removal of their religious motivations makes the institution (Magisterium) incredibly bland, a mere band of thugs with a domineering power for no apparent reason," said fan site www.bridgetothestars.net in a broadly positive review.

Weitz is aware that if the second and third parts of the trilogies are adapted to film, the controversy will heighten, as the Reuters story reports:

"I still maintain that the people who are attacking these films and the books as kind of atheist recruiting posters are wrong, but life is going to become more difficult with them if and when we go ahead," he said.

The film may end up pleasing no one fully, but it's clear that it will bring more readers and attention to Pullman's books.

Posted by S. T. Karnick at 05:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

National Review Online has just published an interesting article praising FCC Chairman Kevin Martin. The thrust of the piece is that Martin, a Republican, has been better than a Democrat would have been. That's true, just as President Bush's compassionate conservatism is better than the Democrats' coercive progressivism, but just as with the President's agenda, "better than the Democrats" definitely does not mean "good".

The article's authors, Cesar V. Conda and Lawrence J. Spivak, make a good case for the  proposition that Martin does indeed favor markets in general, at least in the abstract, and they make the following argument:

Some free-market advocates are grumbling that the Federal Communications Commission under Kevin J. Martin has not held true to conservative principles, in particular in regard to broadband technology. They are wrong. Martin’s tenure as chairman of the FCC has been characterized by a consistent pro-entry/pro-consumer-welfare mandate, the very hallmark of economic conservatism.

Martin understands all too well that because telecommunications is a very expensive business and entry barriers remain high, responsible policy must provide an environment where firms have the incentive to invest and compete. For example, while Martin has adhered to the philosophy that there should be “competition first, then deregulation,” he also has recognized that legacy regulation (or regulations now on the books) can act as a barrier to effective competition and investment. For these reasons he has long espoused the notion that firms should be able to “invest their way out of regulation.

I am one of those free-market advocates who has "grumbled" about Martin, as regular readers of this site will be well aware, and I will continue to do so despite the valiant efforts of Conda, Spivak, and others. I agree that Martin is better than a Democrat FCC chairman probably would be, but that is not much of an accomplishment. The key problem is, as the authors write, “Martin has adhered to the philosophy that there should be ‘competition first, then deregulation.’ ”

Surely Martin knows that deregulation in itself enables increased competition. Yet he has moved to impose much greater regulation on the cable industry under the guise of creating more competition. Martin proposes to force cablers to charge customers on an "a la carte" basis rather than offer discounted packages of programming. He also wants to force cable providers to discriminate on the basis of race and sex in selling the analog space that is being vacated as programmers move to digital.

Martin says that is all intended to "promote diversity of information sources," but the actual effect of all of this would be to give cable customers fewer programs for more money, and to mandate racism and sexism, as Dave Kopel of the Independence Institute notes in a forthcoming article on the subject.

Fortunately, Martin had to postpone his scheme yesterday because the legal rationale by which he hoped to impose it was widely denounced as a fraud (see the last four paragraphs of the linked article). But he will return with it, you can be sure, because it does indeed fit his approach of "competition first, then deregulation."

Martin's desire to have the federal government micromanage cable television packaging is a direct outcome of his “competition first” approach and fully exposes the amount of authority to meddle such a notion gives the FCC or any other government agency.

Here's an alternative principle for you: The role of government is not to “promote competition” or any other such thing; it is to ensure that people and organizations do not do actual, observable harm to others. And the federal government’s role in regulating interstate commerce is first and foremost to ensure that the states don’t interfere in the market of providing goods and services across state lines. None of that is expressed in the idea of “competition first, then deregulation."

This is simply Big Government Conservatism in action, and free-market advocates are right to grumble about it, as are all people with common sense and a desire to make up their own minds about things such as how many cable TV channels they want to buy.

Posted by S. T. Karnick at 10:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

A very good movie series that has been unjustly overlooked since the cultural cataclysm that began after World War II is MGM's late-1930s/early '40s series of films starring Lew Ayres as Dr. Kildare. It's a pity, as the series has much to offer even today.

Ayres, then a very young contract player at what was the top Hollywood studio at the time, portrays the title character with the right blend of earnestness and humor, and Lionel Barrymore is excellent as his crusty but ultimately sympathetic mentor, Dr. Gillespie. Laraine Day is likewise solid as hardworking Nurse Mary Lamont, who becomes Kildare's love interest.

Nearly all the entries in the series were helmed by the undistinguished MGM contract director Harold S. Bucquet, but they are quite competently produced, written, and directed.

Each has a strong plot line that poses difficult moral conflicts for the young doctor, and the series consistently rings interesting changes on the themes of youth vs. experience, tradition vs. innovation, and duty vs. immediate self-interest.

As such, this series of films is well worth seeing, and Turner Classic Movies is providing an opportunity to do just that, as it's running several of the films tomorrow. Here's the TCM lineup:

Note: A 1960s TV series reprised the characters, with Richard Chamberlain starring as Dr. Kildare.

Posted by S. T. Karnick at 07:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Here's a good indicator of how the mainstream media look at the religion the great majority of Americans hold. The headline writer for E! News felt constrained to put the word prayers in scare quotes in the headline of a story on actor Dennis Quaid:

The article reported on a grave illness facing the newborn twin children of Quaid and his wife, and noted that the actor's representative had sent the following statement to E! News: "Dennis and Kimberly appreciate everyone's thoughts and prayers and hope they can maintain their privacy at this difficult time."

The word prayers deals with a phenomenon the editors at E! News find so foreign and dubious that they feel a need to encase it in what are called scare quotes, to ensure that readers do not think the publication endorses such a mad concept.

As the Wikipedia notes, the use of scare quotes "is often intended to provoke a negative association for the word or phrase enclosed in the quotes, or at least a suspicion about the appropriateness or full truth that might be presumed if the quotes were omitted."

Clearly the quotes were not being used as a means of attributing the word to Quaid, for two reasons.

One, it's perfectly clear that the headline is referring to Quaid's request, so no quotes should be used. Note that in the headline on the Nov. 26 E! News story, "Lost's Kim Pleads Not Guilty," the words not guilty are not enclosed in quotes.

Two, the headline does not refer to an actual quote from Quaid or even express an action attributed to him in the story! The use of the word prayers was by Quaid's representative, not Quaid himself.

That E! News thinks all sorts of very strange behaviors are perfectly all right and don't need to be enclosed in scare quotes, but thinks prayer is something it cannot risk its readers think it takes seriously, says a lot about that publication and what it thinks of its audience. It also reveals a lot about where our culture is today.

Update (11/27, 4:10 pm.): Interestingly, a couple of readers of the E! News article pointed out in the comments section the oddness of the use of quotes around the word prayers in the headline (although they did not know the journalistic significance of the use of such quotes, being non-journalists, and did not recognize that the word in quotes attributed to Quaid is not said by Quaid in the story), as I found out shortly after writing this piece. To see the readers' comments, click here.

Posted by S. T. Karnick at 04:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

The new Disney comedy Enchanted opened well over Thanksgiving weekend, earning over $50 million at the U.S. box office, finishing number one for the period.

It's a charming and amusing picture with some good meaning behind it and deserves success.

Finishing second, with a total take of $27 million, was This Christmas, a holiday comedy-drama with an African-American cast, which has received generally poor reviews.

Beowulf came in third, taking in $16 million between Friday and Sunday. The new action film Hitman was fourth, bringing in $13 million from Friday to Sunday and $21 million for the five-day period. Bee Movie is still buzzing along, in fifth place with a three-day take of $12 million.

Posted by S. T. Karnick at 11:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

There's an excellent mystery film on Turner Classsic Movies tonight at 7:00 EST: Green for Danger, directed by ace British filmmaker Sidney Gilliat from a novel by Christianna Brand, one of the great Golden Age mystery writers.

Set in an English hospital during World War II, the film features Brand's great detective, Inspector Cockrill, and is an excellent adaptation to celluloid.

Cockrill is an interesting, eccentric detective, and Alistair Sim brings his great humor and class to the role. This is an essential detective film.

Here's the TCM program info:

Posted by S. T. Karnick at 05:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Posted by S. T. Karnick at 01:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Critics of the past half-century have never had much use for MGM's Andy Hardy movie series of the late 1930s and '40s, but the films really do merit watching. The series of theatrical films starred Mickey Rooney as the title character, a teenaged boy who wants to get things the easy way and always finds out that doing the right thing always works out the best .

Guided by his wise and strong father, Judge Hardy, and his affectionate and hardworking  mother, Andy manages to muddle his way through girl trouble, money problems, car repairs, and the like, and learns something in each film.

Yes, the characters are solidly middle class—upper middle class, really—and the films don't wallow in an effort to plumb the depths of human evil, which make them entirely uninteresting to most critics.

Those very characteristics, however, are what make the films interesting and edifying for normal people. The problems that Andy and his family confront are the same types of troubles that beset most of us from time to time, and the family's way of binding together in a crisis and of attacking troubles by taking responsibility for their actions are exemplary, educational, and inspiring.

People who hate such things have serious defects, and we really shouldn't listen to them. So ignore the critics in this matter.

You can see for yourself on Thursday and Friday as Turner Classic Movies is playing what appears to be all of the Andy Hardy films during the daylight hours. Here's the schedule:

Posted by S. T. Karnick at 09:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

The rock supergroup Asia can be seen as either having brought progressive rock ideas to the masses or as having bastardized the form. The real answer is probably a good deal of both.

The group, started in the early 1980s with a lineup of writer-performers who were not just stars but also were truly gifted musicians: John Wetton (vocals and bass guitar, formerly of King Crimson), Steve Howe (guitars, Yes), Geoff Downes (keyboards, the Buggles, Yes), and Carl Palmer (drums, percussion, Emerson, Lake, and Palmer). After a couple of decent albums with some big radio hits ("Heat of the Moment," "Only Time Will Tell," "Don't Cry," "The Smile Has Left Your Eyes," etc.), the group disbanded in 1985.

They reformed in 1990, however, with John Payne taking Wetton's place, and has recorded sporadically since then and has toured extensively. Now the band has reformed again, with one of my favorite keyboardists replacing Downes: Erik Norlander of the Rocket Scientists.

Here's the announcement from the Asia website:

John, Jay and Guthrie are pleased to officially announce that the band lineup has finally been completed with the addition of keyboard wizard par excellence Erik Norlander. Erik's evocative synthesizer technique and style is reminiscent of the legendary Rick Wakeman, Keith Emerson and Jon Lord while still creating a very unique musical voice of his own.

Erik has stayed active with his own solo releases and his Rocket Scientists project, and he also produces, performs and writes with his wife, Lana Lane, for her highly regarded solo albums.

Vocalist John Payne adds, "We know that the keyboard position is extremely critical to this band and therefore much time was invested to find the right person and all roads lead us to Erik."

The band has commenced recording the much-anticipated album `Architect of Time' to be released in 2008.

Red Entertainment is currently booking worldwide tour dates.

For me this is news not because Asia is back at it again but because it will bring Erik Norlander to the attention of a much larger audience. I hope that it will boost sales of the Rocket Scientists releases and Norlander's solo albums and those with his wife, vocalist Lana Lane.

Posted by S. T. Karnick at 09:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

As noted earlier on this site, former Queen guitarist Brian May's earning of a doctorate in atrophysics is an impressive achievement.

The latest news regarding May is not nearly so good, although May himself is not at fault for it. The story reflects an unseemly lack of standards and a vulgar and grasping attachment to our modern-day celebrity cult. The news is that Liverpool John Moores University has named May its next chancellor.

The stated reasons for the move, as reported by Reuters, are entirely unconvincing. The university statement said that the board named May chancellor because of his artistic achievements and academic accomplishments:

in recognition of his contribution to the arts and for encouraging public understanding of science with his book "Bang! The Complete History of the Universe."

The university said it was a tribute to May, 60, that he had gone back to finish his doctorate after leaving his studies in his mid-20s to pursue a career in rock music.

"Not only is Brian an icon in his own sphere but he is a real academic star as well," said the chairman of the university's board, Sir Malcolm Thornton, in a statement.

"He perfectly embodies the 'can do' attitude of LJMU; he is going to be a great Chancellor for the students and a wonderful figurehead for the University."

"Figurehead" is right: a figurehead is an individual who holds a position of apparent power but is actually a catspaw for others. The board member's forthrightness is obviously unintentional.

The university's vice chancellor actually had the gall to denigrate the modern-day "celebrity culture," in his words, as if this action were not a vivid example of it.

Posted by S. T. Karnick at 12:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

One of my favorite movie detectives is Gay Lawrence, aka the Falcon, a gentleman-sleuth and adventurer who was featured in a series of RKO films during the 1940s. The character was first played by George Sanders, who brought his usual urbanity to the role.

The Falcon typically intervened on behalf of some attractive young damsel in distress, and an amusing aspect of the series is that at the end of each episode, just after the Falcon solves the crime, the female lead of the next installment of the series comes on the scene and asks him for his help.

The films have that fizzy, cheerful attitude we often find in classical Hollywood mystery films, but they range widely in locations and story elements, with the high-society sleuth traveling around the country to help attractive females get out of trouble, usually with the police providing much more of a hindrance than a help

The settings range from high society to the criminal underworld, but the Falcon typically remains unruffled and outsmarts the villains while staying a couple of steps ahead of the police. It's all great fun.

Interestingly, after a couple of years in the role, Sanders decided to leave, as he was becoming popular in "A" budget pictures. The studio cleverly replaced him with his brother, Tom Conway, who did an excellent job in the role and in fact appeared in several more Falcon films than Sanders did.

They really don't make them like this any more, as the saying goes, and I greatly wish they would. 

Fotunately, we can still see the originals. Turner Classic Movies is showing several Falcon films Monday beginning at 6 a.m. EST. They're well worth watching. Here's the schedule for tomorrow's TCM Falcon festival:

Posted by S. T. Karnick at 11:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

In addition to its considerable literary merits, Beowulf is significant as the first Christian epic poem. Composed some time in the eight to tenth centuries A.D. in what is now England, and set in Scandinavia in the fifth and sixth centurues, the poem, whose author is now lost to history (and which is probably taken from oral sources), tells of events in pagan times but explicitly places them in a Christian context and explains their meaning in thoroughly Christian terms.

Thus in addition to being a rousing adventure story and epic tale of civilizational struggle, the poem is a fascinating document of Europe's transition from paganism to Christianity.

The current film adaptation, directed in a stylized, full-CGI presentation by Robert Zemeckis from a screenplay by Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary, brings this element to the fore. The very first dialogue scene consists of Danish Prince Unferth (John Malkovich) giving a friend a rather garbled but basically accurate capsule description of the Christian doctrines of salvation and the afterlife—while the two urinate beside each other.

The scene is clearly not meant to mock Christianity, however—quite the contrary. References to Christian doctrines are sprinkled throughout the rest of the film, and Unferth ultimately becomes some kind of priest or holy man, though he doesn't lose his habit of beating his servants.

In addition, the screenwriters have altered the story line considerably in order to bring out the Christian implications even further. Grendel's mother, for example, is not a ghastly monster, as she is in the poem, but instead presents herself to Beowulf as a beautiful naked woman (played by Angelina Jolie) with shimmering skin, a very fetching tail, and spike-heeled feet. The film establishes that she seduced the previous king, Hrothgar, and will do the same again after Beowulf.

She is presented as something more than just a dragon; she's a being that cannot be killed but can turn good things to evil and draw much wickedness from human beings by preying on their vanity and foolishness. In short, she stands for Satan or some other very powerful devil.

This is made quite clear in the pivotal scene when Beowulf (Ray Winstone) first confronts the monster. She beguiles him and tells him that she can make him king, with all the power and the glory in the world, if he will only give himself fully to her. The scene ends abruptly, before we can see the warrior's reply, but moments later he is indeed king, as Hrothgar is dead by suicide after naming Beowulf his heir.

A Christian would recognize the beautiful monster's bargain as an analogy to Satan's offer to Christ, but Beowulf is a pagan and is thus taken in, eventually bringing on disastrous consequences.

Another fascinating set of changes the film makes is in the characterizations. In addition to the radical alterations of Unferth and Grendel's mother, the film changes several other characters to bring out certain modern parallels. King Hrothgar (Anthony Hopkins) is turned into a drunken, lecherous, manipulative old sinner whose wife, Queen Wealthow (Robin Wright Penn), despises him for his infidelities and refuses to sleep with him.

Hrothgar rules over a society of lazy, self-indulgent, drunken fornicators and adulterers, and he is quick to make any deal that will ensure that evil will stay away so that the party can keep going. That, of course, leads only to increasingly horrible killings and destruction.

These changes clearly characterize Hrothgar's court as analogous to the Clinton administration and point out that a people who indulge themselves and fall asleep to the perils around them are asking for trouble. Several dialogue lines make the point explicit. Just as President Clinton emboldened Muslim haters of America by ignoring or, worse, responding feebly to attacks on Americans and American property, so Hrothgar's choices bring on disaster.

It is very revealing, for example, that what draws Grendel from his lair and incites his attacks is the sounds of revelry from the mead hall, the Danes' Party Central.

Beowulf, his successor, declares victory over Grendel's mother far too soon, and his false claim of "mission accomplished" wins the loyalty of his people but dooms them to future catastrophes. Here, too, the relation to current events is quite evident.

These are not just parlor games of too-clever filmmakers. On the contrary, these story elements help viewers identify with the fantasy situations at the center of the narrative and, perhaps even more importantly, bring out the important issues that confront every society as it attempts to defend itself from a frequently hostile world.

Hence, on both the earthy and spritual levels this film version of Beowulf gets things very right indeed.

In addition, the dramatic transition from paganism to Christianity portrayed in the film (as in the poem) has a powerful, redemptive message for Americans and Europeans who believe themselves to be living in a post-Christian world: perhaps such a civilizational transformation and reformation can happen again.

All of this plays out in a highy dramatic series of events, with quetly tense scenes puncuating the grand, heroic action sequences. The filmmakers surely called on an immense amount of skill and ingenuity in putting it all together. The strange, unreal visual style takes a good deal of getting used to, to be sure, and some of the scenes are rather silly and overly arch. This film Beowulf is certainly not to be preferred over the original poem.

Yet if it is something of a bastardization, its thematic fealty to its source and its powerful presentation of those themes make it a very successful bastard indeed.

Posted by S. T. Karnick at 01:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Posted by S. T. Karnick at 05:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I'm not a comic-book/graphic-novel lover nor a hater. The form just doesn't grab me the way it does many other people.

I recognize it as a medium where a good deal of very interesting work is being done, however, so this recent USA Today article on Milton Caniff caught my eye. Caniff created several popular comic strips syndicated for newspapers, notably Terry and the Pirates and Steve Canyon, which started in 1934 and 1947, respectively.

As the titles suggest, the strips brought a pulp-fiction sensibility to what had been the funny pages.

Pulp fiction was strong on action and sensational situations but—unlike the Quentin Tarantino movie of the same name—was very wholesome in its values overall. Caniff brought this approach to the newspapers, and his work also reflected the rise of action movie serials. As the USA Today article notes:

Caniff brought a cinematic technique to his strips, with close-ups, panoramas and angled views of characters out of the corner of panels. He used the "chiaroscuro" artistic style to create black-and-white contrasting images.

Here are couple of examples from Steve Canyon:

The USA Today article says Caniff has been dubbed "the Rembrandt of the comic strip." Although that might mean the same thing as being called "the J. S. Bach of Zydeco music," I believe that it is meant as a very serious compliment.

The press release for The Complete Terry and the Pirates, Vol. 1 compilation book, published this past July, quotes Jerry Robinson as writing in The Comics:

In Terry and the Pirates all the storytelling techniques of the adventure strip fused and a classic style emerged. Caniff developed and integrated the narrative and its visual expression into a uniform aesthetic balance.

Long-form narratives had already been done in the comics for some time when Caniff started Terry and the Pirates, and strips such as Dick Tracy were in fact extremely popular. But Caniff does seem to have brought a combination of realism and expressiveness that appears to have been quite innovative.

Comparisons to Rembrandt seem to me more than a bit feverish in this instance, but
Caniff seems an artist well worth further investigation.

Posted by S. T. Karnick at 11:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (0)

Film directors Brian De Palma and Paul Haggis have attacked the media for not reporting enough on the negative aspects of the Iraq War, and said that they felt compelled to make up for that poor reporting by making their recent films Redacted (De Palma), which opens tomorrow, and In the Valley of Elah (Haggis), which opened a few weeks ago and crashed at the box office.

There has been no word yet on whether reporters will return the favor by making quality movies to compensate for the shoddy filmmaking behind the current crop of films opposing the Iraq War.

Posted by S. T. Karnick at 05:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Two very entertaining detective-film series are on display tomorrow on Turner Classic Movies. The day starts with the best Sherlock Holmes of the cinema (in my view), Basil Rathbone, starring in four Universal Sherlock Holmes films broadcast on TCM tomorrow morning from 6:00 EST until 11:00.

Co-starring Nigel Bruce as Dr. Watson, most of the Universal Sherlock Holmes films were set during then-contemporary times—during and just after World War II—and often included aspects of the war in their plots, as in Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon,which TCM will show at 6 a.m. tomorrow. The films also had about the same amount of melodramatic action as the original Conan Doyle stories typically provided.

The puzzles aren't exactly scintillating and perfectly fair-play, but the movies go along at a nice, snappy pace, and the actors give the central characters and their adversaries strong and even charismatic performances.

Speaking of charisma, Nick and Nora Charles, the central characters of MGM's Thin Man series of films (based on the novel The Thin Man, by Dashiell Hammett) have tons of it, as do the actors who portray them. The wealthy, sophisticated, glamorous, charming, hard-drinking, wisecracking Charles couple, played by William Powell and Myrna Loy, are classic movie characters, and the series lasted through six installments and more than a dozen years, from 1934 to 1947. Their dog, a wirehaired fox terrier named Asta, is an important character as well.

The first three installments in the series were written by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett, two very good writers, and the story lines for the second and third films in the series, After the Thin Man (1936) and Another Thin Man (1939), were written by Hammett, in addition to the first installment being based on his novel. The first four films in the series were directed by W. S. Van Dyke, who was known for his excellent pacing and ability to secure good performances from his actors. These films amply demonstrate those skills.

Turner Classic Movies has the first five Thin Man films scheduled for tomorrow, from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. EDT.

Nick and Nora Charles are known for their high-spirited, good-natured attitude toward life and for the cheerful way they approach marriage. Neither seems to find their union to be any kind of a burden, in contrast to common attitudes today. For years, in fact, Nick and Nora were characterized as an ideal married couple, and one can easily see why: they know each other's faults and accept them, but they also expect the best of each other and want to give the best they have. In addition, each of them has a strong (and sometimes wicked) sense of humor.

Most of the films in the series had surprisingly complex mysteries, and for a viewer to solve them in the course of these fast-paced films is probably all but impossible. But the strong mysteries help keep the plots going, very much in the manner of Erle Stanley Gardner's Perry Mason novels (and not so much iin the Perry Mason TV series).

The book and the success of the films inspired a popular radio series and a 1950s TV series starring Peter Lawford and Phyllis Kirk—plus countless imitators over the years. The Thin Man films are terrifically charming and a lot of fun. My favorites in the series are the first installment, The Thin Man (1934), its follow-up, After the Thin Man (1936), and The Thin Man Goes Home (1944).

By the way, Nick Charles is not the Thin Man of the film's titles, at least for the first two installments of the series.

Here's the TCM schedule for these two series tomorrow: 

Posted by S. T. Karnick at 11:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Edward D. Hoch's More Things Impossible: The Second Casebook of Dr. Sam Hawthorne (2006), reviewed by Mike Tooney
 

Dr. Sam Hawthorne, a New England country doctor in the first half of the twentieth century, was constantly faced by murders in locked rooms, impossible disappearances, and other so-called 'miracle crimes.' More Things Impossible contains fifteen of Dr. Sam's extraordinary cases solved between 1927 and 1931, including:

--Impossible murder in a house that whispers

--Poisoning by a gargoyle on the courthouse roof

--The case of the Devil in the windmill

--The houseboat that resembles the MARY CELESTE

--The affair of the vanishing Gypsies

--Stabbing in the locked cockpit of a plane in midair

--A ghostly pirate in a lighthouse

--And eight other ingenious riddles.

Edward D. Hoch is a legend of ingenuity in the world of mystery writing. Author of more than 800 short stories, winner of the Edgar Award, former President of the Mystery Writers of America, and contributor to every issue of ELLERY QUEEN'S MYSTERY MAGAZINE since 1973, Hoch is one of the great mystery writers of our time. As John Dickson Carr remarked, 'Satan himself would be proud of his ingenuity.'

I've read Satan (a third-rate hack); Hoch is much better.

**************************************************************************************

More Things Impossible: The Second Casebook of Dr. Sam Hawthorne (2006)
by Edward D. Hoch
Crippen & Landru
Short Story Collection: 15 Stories
Trade Paperback (1st Edition)
254 pages

CONTENTS:

Introduction by Edward D. Hoch (2 pages): The author notes that fans have their own favorites among his various series characters (Nick Velvet, Dr. Sam Hawthorne, Captain Leopold, Simon Ark), but he believes there are two reasons why Dr. Sam's popularity has not waned:

First, of course, is the eternal fascination with locked rooms and impossible crimes. When Fred Dannay, the legendary editor of ELLERY QUEEN'S MYSTERY MAGAZINE, suggested that all the Dr. Sam stories feature some sort of impossibility, I readily agreed. I've now [as of September 2005] published 68 of them, and I don't believe I've ever duplicated an idea, or a solution. In fact, I sometimes find it easier coming up with a new impossible crime for Dr. Sam to solve than a new valueless object for Nick Velvet to steal. A second reason for their continued popularity is that, taken together, they relate the life and times of my main character and tell the reader something of the world in which he lived. My previous volume of Dr. Sam stories, DIAGNOSIS: IMPOSSIBLE, began with the good doctor's arrival in Northmont in January of 1922 and carries up to September 1927. The present collection ... begins in the Fall of 1927 and ends in December of 1931....

I do enjoy writing about Dr. Sam Hawthorne and Northmont's impossible crimes, and plan to continue the series for as long as I, and my computer, hold up. In later stories Sam finally finds a wife, just as the nation plunges into the Second World War. His 68th adventure is set in September of 1943." (pages 9-10)

Now, a look at each of the individual stories:

1. "The Problem of the Revival Tent" (1978

--Time: Fall 1927.

--Problem: "'Didn't I ever tell you about the time I was almost arrested for murder?'  Dr. Sam Hawthorne began.... 'Can't blame the sheriff, though, 'cause it looked like I was the only one there when the murder happened. Just me and the victim, alone in a big tent.'" (page 11)

--"You're tellin' me the statue came to life and killed him?" (page 19)

2. "The Problem of the Whispering House" (1979)

--Time: February 1928.

--Problem: In a haunted house that whispers, Dr. Sam and a ghost-hunter witness the perambulations of a man who's been dead for nearly a day. "Terrible case," he admits

--"'This body is already cold and stiff.  He didn't die within the last half hour.  He's been dead for probably fifteen to twenty hours.' 

"'But that's impossible! We just saw--'

"I nodded.  'It wasn't a ghost that killed him, but it certainly seems to have been a ghost that walked into this room tonight.'" (page 33)

--"How about telling me instead how you could see a dead man walkin'." (page 35)

--"Some people don't like ghosts and other people don't like publicity." (page 39)

"I almost lost my life twice over, and I did lose my car!" (page 44)

3. "The Problem of the Boston Common" (1979) 

--Time: Spring 1928.

--Problem: A serial killer is poisoning his victims while they walk about on the street; the police know who he is but not what he looks like. Dr. Sam's task: Determine how he dunnit. "He was invisible only because nobody noticed him" [obviously a nod to G. K. Chesterton's brilliant Father Brown story "The Invisible Man"—SK] (page 60)

--"...don't walk across the Common....Three people have been murdered there, all in the early evening while it was still daylight. The killer seems to be absolutely invisible." (page 46) 

--"Are you going to solve the murders for them?"

"No, I'm here to attend a medical convention." (page 47)

--"Do you use a magnifying glass, Doc? Want to crawl around on the ground like Sherlock Holmes?"

"To tell you the truth I want to go back to my room." (page 47)


4. "The Problem of the General Store" (1979)

--Time: Summer 1928.

--Problem: A man is killed in his locked-down general store, and the only person there with the victim claims she's innocent--and has a head bruise that suggests she just might be. Sheriff Lens boasts, "I know who did it, though, and for once I've solved a locked-room mystery ahead of you, Doc!" (page 72) Yeah, right.

--"Even if he'd fired the shotgun with his toe--which he didn't--the barrel couldn't have been six feet away from his chest.  It was murder, no doubt about it." (page 66)

--"'...that woman's cold as a fish'....

"'Maybe she had a gentleman friend on the side,' I suggested.

"'Her? You kiddin' me, Doc?'

"'Stranger things have happened.'" (page 69)

<