Star Trek : Voyager

Sci-fi enjoying a second life on Netflix and aging well

 

With Netflix Canada recently posting all the Star Trek series, Trekkies have been enjoying some true 90's nostalgia with the Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and Voyager.  I was drawn back  to Voyager, and a recent episode in particular reminded me what I used to enjoy so much about this program.

Voyager follows the progress of a lone Federation ship trying to get home after being thrown across the Galaxy by a particularly inconsiderate but powerful alien. For it's time Voyager was noticeable straight-away for its' female captain, and notable other characters including a holographic doctor and a rescued Borg drone. Like most star treks of the 90's, the special effects and tone remain remarkably relevant even 20 years later. It's worth pointing out for example that the ipad-like devices that crewmen use on Federation ships were nowhere near to us in 1996. The nano-probes that often featured in Borg episodes remain a tantalising possibility in medicine. Star Trek was visionary in its inspiration for much future tech, not just high-level theory about worm-holes.

More pertinently, like most Star Trek productions, Voyager consistently tackled relevant and difficult  issues in society,  usually in a provocative and humane manner. It was the idealism, optimism and intelligence of Star Trek that drew in most viewers, and I suggest will continue to do so as the world undergoes further growing pains. Here's hoping to a future that one day contains something like the Federation, when we have conquered poverty, division, and left the likes of Putin and Trump long behind !  

In 'Critical Care' (season 5 episode 7), a little slower and more thoughtful episode,  the ship's holographic doctor is stolen ( or rather kidnapped ; he is a sophisticated A.I) . In perhaps a take on human trafficking, he is forced into service in a highly stratified society. As ever, Roberto Picardo puts in an entertaining performance as the opera singing and paradoxically emotional hologram. Soon realizing that this society rations medical care according to a computer algorithm that determines 'usefulness', the doctor aims to shake things up. The analogy to 90's America could not be more obvious. Hilary Clinton, the First Lady at the time, was trying (and failing)  to bolster health care for the less fortunate in society.The doctor seeks to equalize the situation in a more mundane way. Given duty on the top floor, where the elites use resources on youth restoring treatments, the doctor fudges patient records in order to sneak life-saving drugs downstairs. The theft and deception seem obviously justified. Should the American health care system now consider how many surgeons perform cosmetic surgery as opposed to life-saving treatments ?

At first it seems the doctor is making a difference. A promising youth is saved and a local doctor converted to the subterfuge. It isn't long however before the supervisor, an economizing bureaucrat, busts up the doctors schemes.  The promising youth of earlier dies, and it turns out the doctor is partly responsible. The rations allocated to the lower floor have now been exhausted. Has the doctor just made things worse?  The defence given by the supervisor is almost persuasive. A water engineer is responsible for providing thousands with drinking water ; surely, with limited resources,  their medical attention should take priority ?  At first, the idea of being reduced to a mere number ( a 'Treatment Coefficient' ) and treated accordingly seemed abhorrent, but the supervisor's defence sows some doubt. In true Star Trek fashion, Voyager offers no easy answers, only provokes thought and suggests these are issues worth considering. The death of the young man downstairs though, perhaps hints that we should treat everybody  equally because of our potential. If Star Trek was about anything, it was about potential, of both individuals and all intelligent life.

Eventually the Doctor concocts a plan to strong-arm the supervisor into allowing the care of lower status patients, but it's an unsatisfactory solution ; ethically dubious, and no long-term answer. Finally, inevitably rescued by Voyager ( dealing with their own slightly morally dubious interrogation of the Doctor's thief - is mild torture to rescue a valuable innocent justified ? ), the Doctor asks Torres the engineer to check his program. It turns out he is functioning perfectly, and his morally questionable action to harm an individual to save others seems to be an evolution of his A.I. More questions are raised ; how might A.I eventually evolve beyond its' original programming, and should a moral decision ever involve sacrificing an individual to save the majority ? Is it true indeed, that "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few"? 

If you're a 'young-un' who never caught Voyager first time round, it's worth a look. It dodged the stumbling of the Next Generation in Season One, and did not degenerate into the drawn out war that made Deep Space Nine a bit of a drag in the end. Voyager was an  interesting vehicle for exploring some of the challenges of gobalization, clashing cultures and the rise of technology in society. Perhaps it's nostalgia from me, who watched this during my university years, but the series seems to be aging well. 

Film Review: Star Trek Beyond

Star Trek Beyond : Into Lightness ?

Latest Star Trek offering will please fans of the original series, but may lack the complexity and darkness that won over newer converts

IMAGE FROM DEADLINE.COM

 

Star Trek Beyond is  a pleasing summer blockbuster ; well paced and well acted with the high level of special effects you would expect from a Star Trek movie. It also explores character development in a feel-good way that fans of the original series will appreciate ; in particular the relationship between Bones and Spock. Spock especially is given some major character developments and this almost feels more his movie than Kirk's.

The basic story is simple enough ; the crew of the Enterprise are trapped beyond the help of Starfleet on a remote planet. They are at the mercy of  a villain, Krall, who seeks to retrieve a weapon of mass destruction which Kirk earlier stumbled upon. Enterprise is grounded, and the crew seem only to have one main ally on the ground, the resourceful Jayla ; a young alien who has likewise been stranded on the planet long ago and learned to survive on her wits. She is almost the space version of the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. On their journey to save their crewmen, Kirk and co will of course bond and learn more about themselves and each other.

There is an old joke about the original series ; if an unknown actor beams down to the ground in a red shirt, they're gonna get it . Other than that though, you always knew the core of original characters were going to be safe. This film returns to that tradition, and in the oftentimes hectic action more than a few 'red-shirts' bite the dust, especially in the initial attack on Enterprise. This is not in itself necessarily a problem, and has a practical necessity. Star Trek doesn't have a huge cast like Game of Thrones ; it actually needs to keep its core of main characters alive whilst trying to maintain a suitable aura of danger. This does however create a slight air of un-believability about it all that nags at the fourth wall. An example might be Lt. Uhora defeating with ease an enemy soldier in hand to hand combat. How exactly does she elbow a helmeted soldier unconscious without hurting her elbow ? Create an imaginary fantastical universe by all means, but within that universe stick to the bounds of believability.

In Into Darkness,  one pivotal scene involves a savage attack on Starfleet headquarters. A main character, Kirk's mentor, is mortally wounded and dies unpleasantly. The scene has all the feel of how you might imagine a modern terrorist attack feels, much like Khan's earlier bombing of the fleet 'archives' in London. The action scenes have a gritty realism despite their futuristic setting.  Meanwhile, in Star Trek Beyond, Kirk's initial reaction to a dead crewman seems to be mainly  disgust at their walnutty appearance ( they have been drained by the enemies vampiric like technology )  - but hey, it was just  a 'red shirt' after all.

None of this is to suggest that the action scenes in Star Trek Beyond are not impressive. Director Justin Lin, of Fast and Furious fame, delivers the spectacle you might expect. The camera movement can sometimes be annoyingly choppy, but the first battle of the Enterprise is particularly impressive in terms of its scale and speed. Krall's bee-like craft make short work of the Galactic class starship, and Krall himself is  a fairly imposing villain, with his character giving more than a nod to Darth Vader. But it is often the slow, tense micro-scale that an audience can connect with and feel more acutely. Remember Into Darkness, when Lt. Uhora on Kronos was lifted off the ground by a Klingon, who then threateningly and slowly withdrew a jagged knife from his boot ? The technological and futuristic setting was the background, not the focus of the moment. Such a slow, tense and simple scene can convey more genuine terror than a Starship being frenziedly torn apart by a fleet of CGI enemy ships. 

The Science element of this latest installment has also fallen a little to the more Fiction element. The nature of the weapon of mass destruction is only vaguely hinted at. Challenging problems are overcome with the flip of a few switches and some wires hurriedly plugged into various outlets. This is what I mean by very much the sixties original series feel as opposed to the physics heavy theory of the Next Generation that even inspired new technological design.

More seriously perhaps, the  morality questions of this installment are also much simpler ; the distinction between good guys and bad guys is almost annoyingly stark. There are no real moral dilemmas to be dealt with here ; in fact a potentially interesting one is discarded when we discover one particular character is a baddy anyway. We are in no doubt here that the Federation are all good guys, and the bad guys have no redeeming qualities. Only the loyalty of a lieutenant hints at any real depth to the main villain.

On the plus side this installment is, as promised, more fun. There are more laugh out loud moments, and the conflict between the crew is largely absent. Even Kirk's own internal struggle is pretty minor and dull ; does he give up spaceflight and become a vice-admiral? Problem is, those conflicts on the 'good guy ' side actually made the franchise more interesting. 

Ultimately your opinion of Star Trek Beyond may depend a lot on what you want in Star Trek ; a more space opera type of escapism with a lighter touch and gentler humour, or a more nuanced and realistic vision of what the future might look like with some nagging political and moral questions that stay with you long after the film. 

At the risk of sounding patronising, which is probably my de-facto voice anways, I'm going to summarise this as Star Trek for Kids, in stark contrast to the more disturbing and cerebral Into Darkness. It's an enjoyable and visually impressive film, and the actors did the best with the plot they were given. 

7.5 / 10

Film Review : Spectre ( James Bond )

'Spectre ' by Sam Mendes ( 2015)

Images Courtesy of Columbia Pictures

 Daniel Craig Hemmed in by 'Playing it Safe'  Scriptwriting

When I was a spotty faced youth in college, I studied History. Sometimes, at least. A fellow undergrad and buddy explained to me how he chose his history courses ( It wasn't easy deciding what to focus on - the intricacies of the wool trade in the thirteenth century, or fourteenth century farming methods ?) .
" Yeah" he explained " I just choose the courses that are closest to what I studied in high school" .
" Really ? " I asked ; " Isn't that kind of boring ? Don't you want to study new stuff ?"
" Nah" he replied : " This way I just have to rehash my old high school essays, which are already good,  and then I'm passing easy, with time to kill."
I kinda feel like that is what Sam Mendes has done with Spectre.

The appeal of Daniels Craig's Bond, at least to me, was the dark realism of what we imagined spy work was really about. When Bond contemplated  his first kill in Casino Royale, and later almost had his man-bits smashed off with a rope in a  torture scene, we knew were dealing with a fresh, if somewhat unsettling take on the debonair British spy. It was chilling, but exciting, and rang true. This was Bond post 9-11 ; he was a thug with high tech skills, who radiated menace in a world of no mercy. But, in an apparent homage to the old Bond traditions, Mendes now plays it safe in Spectre. Consequently he somewhat loses the unique appeal of Daniel Craig's Bond that was such a breath of fresh air in Casino Royale.

 

A small detail in the opening action is perhaps a  hint of things to come. As Bond inadvertently collapses a building, he flees a wall that tumbles towards him. In Casino Royale, he would have run faster and made it out of there unscathed. In Skyfall, he would have slipped and twisted an ankle with dark but interesting consequences. But in Spectre, he plops nonchalantly onto a sofa that has fallen with him. It' s a telling metaphor for what is to come  ; some chuckle-level humour is substituted for breathtaking danger. Bond is never quite up to it, and yet we never feel he is in real danger either. In Skyfall the consequences of being an aging spy were laid bare and grim ; in Spectre they are politely ignored. Bond breezes airily through the danger of the movie, only really fighting for his life in one scene (  reminiscent of Connery and Shaw's classic train fight in From Russia With Love ). It's a promising slug-fest that is thrown away at the end. David Bautista's henchman had a promising introduction, and should have been sent off with a more intimate and brutal end. Eyeballs for eyeballs, me thinks. But Craig's character now seems unable to summon the dark, cool rage that would have kept Casino Royale's Bond alive. This was always part of the problem inherent though in Craig's Bond. The menace was in no small part due to physical presence and attitude ; difficult to maintain in late middle age. In Skyfall this was confronted head-on and dealt with effectively. In Spectre, Mendes tip- toes unsatisfactorily around the issue. Bond has transferred an inch from his arms to his belly, and the response is to scale down the effectiveness of most of the villains. The latter part of the movie is guilty of  'storm-trooper syndrome', as Waltz's henchmen can't seem to shoot fish in a barrel.

The story of the film revolves around the organisation Spectre, who it turns out is behind all the previous machinations since Casino Royale ( a stretch, and sloppy plot writing, or at least uncomfortably contrived ). In a plot akin to Quantum of Solace ( not a good sign ), Bond must penetrate the shadowy organisation that is threatening to take control of the worlds spy agencies. The problem is, the implications of Spectre actually winning are not really made menacing enough. Bond is not be killed by Spectre, but instead... fired by them, as the 007 program will be closed down in a menacing merger. Oooh ! Corporate callousness and job insecurity ! Shiver ! Will Bond survive without dental benefits ? He is British after all ! A '1984' scenario is only hinted at, as is Spectre's amoral involvement in the sex trade and human trafficking. It's all rather vague and never really made real and concrete to the viewer. At least in The Winter Soldier the war machine was going to proceed immediately to liquidate liberals and opposition with some really big guns. Or even in Skyfall, Bond actually met a victim of human trafficking, and the personal tale of revenge felt more real from Javier Bardem.

Christoph Waltz is part of the problem here ; his villain in Spectre is far less frightening than the Nazi of Inglorious Basterds. His personal connection to Bond is revealed with as much passion as the reading of a menu in a cheap restaurant. Perhaps the scriptwriters needed to think back to what made Le Chiffre so chilling in Casino Royale ; the man swung a low tech rope to devastating effect. Waltz meanwhile, in the formulaic 'Bond trussed up' torture scene, directs needles with a laptop whilst wearing slippers. He seems disconnected and mildly bored . So was I. The effect is of a slightly uncaring dentist. Perhaps it was intended to be reminiscent of Dr Mengele, but it falls flat. When Bond jokes that he would prefer death to listening Waltz anymore, you can hear some seriousness in Craig's voice and tend to agree with him. He really does seem a little less excited than in previous outings.

The dentist will see you now.

Throughout this film, we constantly feel like we have seen this all before. Exotic locations, bad guy headquarters, car chases, etc. Its pleasant, it's comforting, it's safe. Even the soundtrack is 50 % Skyfall, as if Mendes was afraid to venture beyond the confines of any previous Bond film. The theme seems to be a mix and includes that of Skyfall ; that 'the old ways are sometimes the best' ; but it's clumsily handled and lacks focus. There are few memorable quotes in this outing. The one original direction Bond is taken in is a strange one for the character ; his journey to potential normal family man. We almost went here before with Timothy Dalton, and it was not good ( Sorry, Timmy, I love you in everything else ). Towards  the end, Bond and Madeleine, the main heroine, even feel more like a couple on holiday than agent and tag-along.

 Nobody watches Bond films for this " I'm just like you" stuff. Callous as it sounds, we don't really care about Bond as a character that much. He knew what he signed up for, and we wanted to see him do a job, not become a rounded character. If anything we were more interested in what it took to do such an extreme job, and how it might change a man. In Casino Royale we sang with relish : "The coldest blood runs through my veins, you know my name ".


The film ends with Bond picking up his Aston Martin, as if to reassure us that he really still is the dangerous Bond of  (relative Craig ) old. Unfortunately, I'm not convinced. The bar was set high in Skyfall, and it was always going to be difficult to reach it again. By all means go see Spectre ; it's a competent Bond film, as exactly as it was supposed to be, and no more. It's a good film , but it could have been great if the writers had taken more risks.

TV : True Detective Season Two ( episodes one and two )

 An unpromising start

It would be hard indeed for a TV show to live up to the first season of True Detective. Harrelson and McConaughey had something special as the odd duo tasked to solve what looked like a troubling occult murder.  Harrelson was an interesting character in his own right, even if McConaughey did steal the show. The setting of the South added to the tension and mystery. The flashback aspect of the first season helped too ; what the hell had the case done to Rust to send him off the rails so and turn him into an alcoholic hippy? Had it in fact screwed him up to the extent that he was now a copycat killer, as the next generation of detectives seemed to be implying in their interrogation ?

Season Two looks at three different cops from three different jurisdictions tasked to investigate the murder of a corrupt city official north of L.A ( perhaps here is a problem straight away - how much do we care about the murder of such a man, compared to the innocent young women of season one ? ) . Vince Vaughn is the criminal overlord Frank Semyon. He has his hooks in one of the cops, Ray, played by Farrell. Rachel McAdams and Taylor Kitsch play the other two troubled officers.

Blank expressions says it all right now. 

(Image Courtesy of Parliament of Owls and Passenger)

Right now, Season Two doesn't seem to be trying very hard to outdo it's predecessor and keeps it's cards close to it's chest. To be fair, so did Season One at first. But whereas Rust was a mysterious character whom we wanted to know more about, that intrigue is not created in Season Two. Colin Farrell does a great job, and is particularly interesting with how he deals with his son being bullied at school ( needless to say, it does not involve a polite sit-down with the Principal ) . But on the whole he cannot compare to Rust in terms of uniqueness. For all intents and purposes, Farrell plays just another corrupt cop, albeit with an interesting story of how he became corrupt in the first place. Since this is revealed early on, we don't really want to know that much more, even if he has our sympathies.

Vince Vaughn right now is the weak link letting the show down, and to be fair his character and writing are largely to blame. The scene where his henchmen beat up an investigative journalist is particularly telling. Vaughn approaches the man afterwards and is the exact opposite of menacing. Sometimes an actor can convey menace even when polite, and it creates a scarier effect. Not here. This could be Vaughn from Old School or Anchorman. It's a particularly badly written and acted scene and shakes your faith in the series. Vaughn really needs a scene where we become convinced of how and why he came to be the boss of a criminal empire. Right now, he's coming across as the stressed boss of a donut shop, and not one the employees particularly fear either. When he sends Farrell on another errand in episode two, you almost get the sense Farrell agrees not out of fear, but because Vaughn is boring him to death.

Kitsch's character has a touch of the mystery we crave, with  his attempted suicide and sexual demons, but again they are not particularly unique. Likewise, Rachel McAdams struggles with family issues and alcoholism, ( indeed everyone in southern Cali seems permanently drunk ) but given this is near LA it seems pretty standard stuff all things considered ( No offence angels ). So your dad is a weird hippy cult leader ? Well, it is California. Your sister does cam porn ? Again, not the intriguing and more unsettling demons that Rust and Harrelson investigated in Season One. Indeed the writing seems to have used alcoholism  as an excuse not to create realistic characters but instead prop up drunk caricatures. Problem is, drunks are boring when you are sober and watching TV.

There is some vestige of greatness from the first season ; the amospheric music has returned and at times provides a haunting soundtrack. But even here, what was previously an omniscient background theme has become an exposed, lone broken looking woman in a bar ( Lera Lynn ), as if symbolising the decline of this series and the lack of mystery.

Yet, episode two does end with a nasty shock, and hints at greater things to come. The director Justin Lin now hands over to William Friedkin. But with some badly written scenes and a particularly poor leading character in crime boss Semyon, it will take extraordinary skill to get this up and running to Season one standards.

There is yet one direction this show could go in order to improve ; backwards. Season One quickly took us back to the past and focused there. Perhaps if season two does the same it may yet impress us. The three cops at least may have pasts that are worthy of our attention.

It's Nonsense of course, apparently everything is. But is it Delightful Nonsense ? Book Review : Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut

Too preoccupied with being witty to heed it's own message.

Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut ( 1963 )

I'm going to warn people here that I'm not the greatest fan of Kurt Vonnegut. If you're reading this because you want some sort of confirmation bias for your own tastes, then turn away now.

Sure, Vonnegut's witty. Much of his dialogue between characters is particularly funny and shows great comic timing. He has mostly interesting things to say. His writing is okay ; although I think from video that I've seen  he was actually a better speaker and performer than author. I'll preface this by saying I have only read two of his books ( Slaughterhouse Five being the other one  ). But on the whole I find the man curiously over-rated and his popularity a little baffling. Some of this no doubt comes from my slight disdain for Postmodernism and Vonnegut's pessimistic take on that. More on that later.

Cats Cradle is the tale of a journalist, Jonah, who finds some strange coincidences driving him to the Carribbean island of San Lorenzo ( modelled on Haiti perhaps, complete with a dictator called 'Papa' and American Aid that focuses on military assistance rather than heath or education). Jonah originally started out writing a book about the day the bomb was dropped on Japan, but his investigation of the Hoenikker familyleads him down a strange path ( Felix Hoenikker is the oddball scientist most responsible for the invention of the deadly device ). Eventually he ends up on San Lorenzo with Felix's children ; Frank, Angela, and the charming midget Newt.  The scene is set for a farcical and tragic conclusion as the deadly legacy of Felix unravels.

Much of this book is flavoured by Vonnegut's fear of science after seeing what the A-bomb did. In particular he seems to harbor a fear of 'pure research', believing it is irresponsible because it can lead to literally Earth threatening consequences (such as when the atom was split). It's this rather one-sided view of science that makes me bristle a bit against Vonnegut. I can see him reclining comfortably in his heated apartment, enjoying his booze and cigarettes, and railing against the dangers of the scientific method.

To be fair, it's not just science that is in Vonnegut's sights. Religion is the other big target, as Jonah also investigates the mysterious new religion that is Bokonism. By degrees, this Faith ( or rather lack of ) is revealed to us as Jonah recounts how he ended up on San Lorenzo as a devout 'Bokonist'.

In fact, any kind of institution seems to be on the table for Vonnegut. Though the book is not written in a very Postmodernist style per se with regards to structure, the ideas and philosophy are very much so. Country, patriotism, family ; any kind of bond that a politician or religious leader ever appeals to is roundly mocked in this admittedly effective and biting satire. Urbanisation ( " Illium was an ugly city. But then aren't they all ?" ) and capitalism are in for it too ( the Crosbys attempting to set up a bicycle factory in San Lorenzo are well lampooned ). Indeed, even the idea of Love itself is mocked for it's unhealthy tendency to exclude the un-Loved. Bokonism calls such foolish attempts to group humanity 'Granfallons' . Instead it asserts that chance or some strange sort of fate throws people together in a 'Karass'. That's what happened to Jonah, and that's how, after abandoning his book on Felix Hoenikker, he nonetheless finds himself coincidentally assigned on a magazine job to San Lorenzo where he meets the Hoenikker children ( Newt and Angela ) on the plane no less. Here we also find out the truth about Bokonism, and how " a religion founded on lies can be so useful."

Science and religion are perhaps the main targets here because they purport to tell 'Truth'. And perhaps Science is the premier target in Cats Cradle because it purports to discover truth with Knowledge, yet this knowledge has awesome destructive power. Science seems to believe it is better than religion, but are people putting their faith in another False Prophet ? Vonnegut gives us the impression with Cats Cradle that too many people are treating science like a God. We're being duped as badly as the Russians were with Stalin's Communism. Truth as a goal, in all it's many forms, is Vonnegut's real enemy behind all these thought systems. Human society yearns for Truth and 'answers' in various forms but it usually ends badly. If the Truth does exist at all, it's not useful or nice. Better instead to 'live by the Foma ( lies ) that make you happy'.  So rather than become a nihilist ( because that seems too close to pointless violence, as Jonah discovers when a Nihilist nails his cat to his fridge ), Jonah is ready to become a Bokonist.

It turns out that before Dr. Felix Hoenikker died, he invented a potentially world destroying crystal (?) called Ice-Nine. Ice Nine has the potential to turn all of the worlds water to ice at room temperature. Including the water that is in our bodies. Much of the message here seems to dwell on the fact that Felix discovered this world-killer simply for the fun of it (  although he was prompted in that direction by a marine who complained of always having to slog through mud ). Worse is what happens later when Felix's children get hold of Ice-Nine. The implicit message is that, perhaps instead of perverting the natural world for curiosity's sake, we should all just focus on being nice to each other, or at least not killing each other. That would be a start. Whilst Bokonism intimately connects people through ceremonies ( such as the rubbing of the souls of the feet together) , Dr. Felix Hoenikker is so disconnected from people that he once absent -mindedly tipped his own wife after she served breakfast. This indifference of scientists to other people  and the potential consequences of their work is also highlighted when Dr Breed, crucial in making the Atom bomb, shudders when recounting a serial killer who murdered twenty six people. It's his reaction that is particularly telling. "Can you imagine ?" he exclaims "Twenty six people ! " Yet Breed is utterly oblivious to his own status as a murderer on a God-like scale.

Yeah, I get it. Vonnegut wrote Slaughterhouse Five and went through a really tough time in World War Two with the bombing of Dresden ( Vonnegut was a POW there and saw the city reduced to rubble by Allied firebombing ). So did my Grand-dad. Then he came back like millions of others and did his best to build a better world, instead of whining about what had already been done. Perhaps Vonnegut was too much a victim of his own time and circumstances ; too sensitive and plagued by alcoholism and mental health issues. Then again maybe my Grand-dad and others just couldn't write like Vonnegut.

Admittedly 1962 saw the Cuban missile crisis and the World has never come so close to The End. In times like that maybe you just have to hold your nerve and wait for the danger to pass.  Hope is suspended but does not have to permanently abandoned as it seems to have been in Cats Cradle. Yes, there's a form of Hope in Bokonism, but it's delusional and aware that it's delusional. These 'bittersweet lies' are designed to comfort, but there is no real Hope. The German doctor to Papa is a case in point. He spends his spare time working at the  Mission hospital, trying to atone for his sins during the Holocaust. But what would Vonnegut have such people do ?  They can't take the Holocaust back. Yeah, a Nazi can't ever really make up for it, and he should face justice. But he's also better than those who chose to live it up in Argentina instead. Vonnegut dismisses him as beyond redemption. It's a cautionary warning to us all perhaps, and I agree with the sentiment ; I'm no fan of apologists for Evil. But it all adds to the sometimes overwhelmingly cynical and dreary tone of the book. Sometimes the humour just isn't enough to balance out the moroseness.

I had to read Cats Cradle a few times for it to stick. Vonnegut's writing could afford to be more descriptive ;  it's a bit minimalist for my taste, although the style works well for the the humorous conversations. The conversation between Jonah and Julian Castle, the hotel owner, made me laugh out loud. Some of the characters are a little crudely drawn. The plot is somewhat chaotic, with many characters thrown in that we meet only once ; but then such is the Postmodernist style I guess, and such is the message. Life itself is chaotic, and it's pointless to try and understand. People, come in and out of your life. Stuff happens. Nobody really knows what's happening. As Bokonon himself says : "Pay no attention to Caesar.  Caesar doesn't have the slightest idea what's going on."

On the whole, though Cat's Cradle is generally an amusing read with some laugh out loud moments, I just found Vonnegut's story a little too pessimistic. Whilst much of the message seems to be : 'Just be nice to each other ' and 'stop worrying about Truth or Knowledge', there is also a strong vein of fatalism ; that life is pointless and meaningless. Yet clearly science has relieved much suffering. Science is quantifiably superior to Religion ( remember that whole 'The World is Flat' debate, and pretty much every one since  ?) yet Vonnegut thinks the A-bomb cancels all that out. Science is not to be crudely characterised as 'magic that works' ( the insinuation from Papa here is that it can be used like black magic e.g to abuse power ) but science is also medicine and arguably knowledge that can make us more humane. Ask the victims of the Salem witch-hunts. Have we really just replaced superstition with something worse, because it is so much more powerful ? It's a lot easier to be kind and love one another with advanced medicine and agriculture. Plus, the Knowledge that when my kid died it wasn't my neighbour throwing a curse could stop me lynching them ( Just an analogy, I don't have a kid. Or a neighbour  ).

Vonnegut initially studied BioChem at Cornell before switching to writing. He was clearly a bright chap. Perhaps if he had persisted with science he could have done something useful with it. He needn't necessarily have found himself working at a Germ Warfare division as seems to be implied with Cats Cradle. We did also eradicate smallpox and pretty much polio. Again, maybe the guy was just too much a victim of his time ; World War Two and the Cold War at it's height were the depressing backdrop here.

I think we can all agree with Vonnegut on some points; there is indeed no point or meaning to life that can be 'found'. Religion is utterly redundant in this respect, and scientific discoveries do not tell us what we should do with our time on Earth. Prophets don't  know the Truth. Scientists can tell us it's something to do with 'protein' ( as Vonnegut satirizes it ) but that doesn't change our lives ( again, at least according to Vonnegut ) . Newt Hoeniker sums it all up when he comments on the title of the book.  He points out that the Cats Cradle toy with strings is confusing, just like life  : " No wonder kids grow up crazy....No damn cat, and no damn cradle".
But that means you can make your own meaning of life up. And it doesn' t have to be apathetic fatalism like Bokonism. Perhaps Bokonism hints at this in it's creation story, though sadly it's a little overshadowed by the rest of the novel  :

God said, "Let Us make living creatures out of mud, so the mud can see what We have done." And God created every living creature that now moveth, and one was man. Mud as man alone could speak. God leaned close to mud as man sat, looked around, and spoke. "What is the purpose of all this?" he asked politely.

"Everything must have a purpose?" asked God.

"Certainly," said man.

"Then I leave it to you to think of one for all this," said God.

And He went away.” 

Here is the real Humanist message of the novel that unfortunately gets a little lost in the overwhelming pessimism ( Vonnegut was the honorary  President of the American Humanist Association ).

It's no accident perhaps that this book seems to be popular with angst-ridden twenty-somethings who rail against 'the system' and how authority can't be trusted. The realisation that the people in charge of the world are  actually idiots is indeed an unsettling one. I think we all felt that way a bit when George W Bush was elected, and we discovered that somehow Condeleeza Rice has a PhD. But it doesn't have to be that way forever. Maybe according to Vonnegut, because of human nature it will be that way forever. I disagree, and admittedly it's coloured my bias against the tone and message of what, for many, is a much loved novel.

Ok, Vonnegut, people stink. A lot of the time. But you could also say "Right on, let's get up and do something constructive". Foot-mingling ( Bokonist style ) might be a start, but you could do a lot more. Maybe one day we will destroy the world with technology. If Vonnegut's message is that we need to be mindful of this, I'm on board. But I refuse to be depressed about it and wait for it to happen. This for me is the biggest failure of the book ; a key message seems to be : 'Life Sucks and you can' t change that ; so therefore try and laugh and enjoy the absurdity of it all'. Unfortunately Cats Cradle puts a bit too emphasis on the former rather than the latter. It is a lot easier to be cynical and pessimistic than it is to be genuinely funny. I'm afraid Vonnegut has proved this here. His reputation for humour and intelligence seems much overblown.

Life is indeed short and precious. Too short and precious to dwell too much on books like this. If life is meaningless, then literature should at least be entertaining and enjoyable, and Cats Cradle falls down a little bit on on it's own message here. We made it through the Cuban Missile Crisis. Maybe we 'll keep on making it. Unlike Vonnegut, I'm hopeful. But then I guess I've had an easier life.

For those new to Postmodernism I recommend instead the brilliant 'Immortality' by Milan Kundera ( Review to follow ) or perhaps a well known book by Vonnegut's good friend Joseph Heller : 'Catch-22'.

Key Quote ( from the Books of Bokonon ) : 'The Fourteenth Book is entitled, "What can a Thoughtful Man Hope for Mankind on Earth, Given the Experience of the Past Million Years?" 
It doesn't take long to read The Fourteenth Book. It consists of one word and a period. 
This is it: "Nothing.” '

Image and Quotes courtesy of Dial Press Trade Paperbacks.

Film Review : Unforgiven by Clint Eastwood ( 1992 )

The Best Western ever. Or is it ?

Film Review :  Unforgiven by Clint Eastwood ( 1992 )

Unforgiven has been called an 'anti-western'. This truly great film seeks to overthrow some of the myths of the Wild West. It does so in convincing and masterly style.

Clint Eastwood plays William Munny, an old reformed hell-raiser turned pig-farmer, struggling to raise two kids alone. When a young gunslinger, The Schofield Kid,  ( Jaimz Woolvet )  tracks him down, the prospect of a semi-righteous mission with a big pay-off seems enticing. Munny lives in poverty. His pigs have the fever. But what will be the consequences of resurrecting the terror that was once William Munny ?

Eastwood decides to accept the offer, and along the way picks up his old partner Ned ( Morgan Freeman ). The three men are headed to a small armpit of a town to avenge (and of course be paid for the task ) the mutilation of a prostitute by a cowboy customer. But the town Big Whisky has a Sheriff, an old hell-raiser himself by the name of Little Bill, magnificently played by Gene Hackman. Little Bill has already dealt with the issue in his own way ( unsatisfactorily ;  hence the bounty put on the offending cowboys by the prostitutes ) and he wants no vigilantes in his town. Thus the stage is set for an epic confrontation. Except it isn't really epic in the traditional sense. Before Munny, Ned and the Kid arrive, Little Bill has already met and dealt with 'English Bob' and exposed some of the old myths of the West. When English Bob loses his cool, his Queen's English disappears and his true working class slang splutters forth. " You're all just a bunch of bloody savages ! " he rails. Indeed Bob, all of us are. Before the movie is done, more facades will be exposed.

Little Bill is on a mission to tell the truth of what the Wild West was really like ; dictating memoirs of some sort to a writer ( well played as a slippery hack by Saul Rubinek ). Problem is, Bill may well find that his own version of events will itself be overturned.

Little Bill. He ain't so little. And he's got back-up.

The first encounter between the vigilantes and the cowboys tells you this will not be your usual western. It's awkward, painful to watch, and has the ring of truth. Nobody dies well, or kills well for that matter.Until the grand finale, myth after myth is taken down. The young Schofield Kid is the foil by which many of these myths fall, both as an agent and witness. At first he finds Munny does not remember, or will not remember , the deeds of the old days ( Munny asserts that he was simply drunk all the time ). Later, after some killing has been done, he confesses to Clint : " It don't seem real." Woolvet, by the way, is outstanding as the Kid, proving sometimes good things do come out of Hamilton, Ontario. You would have pegged him to go on and be a star, but it didn't happen. Nothing in this film quite turns out the way you expect it, and most of the time that is a good thing, but not here.

Who ? Jaimz Woolvet. Whatever happened to this guy ? 

This is a performance by Eastwood as actor and director that matches Million Dollar Baby and Gran Turino. Eastwood as Munny is a grizzled old veteran paying for the sins of his younger days, maybe both as a character and an actor.  It's as if Clint is making up for all those moments in earlier action movies that made killing look easy and glamorous. This isn't Dirty Harry in a suit in shiny San Fransico ; this is Munny in an old raincoat looking like crap and covered in pig-shit. But it's real. Hackman and Freeman are on fine form and complement Eastwood brilliantly. This trio of titans are in their prime as actors. The supporting cast is excellent too, particularly Frances Fisher as the de-facto leader of the prostitutes. The filming was done in Alberta, and the bleakness of the landscape adds to the harsh truths of  the film.

There's mud in yer eye.  Other one too.

The final showdown captures all the brilliance and message of the film ; it's tragic, farcical and messy, just like real life.
Yet all myths have a grain of truth, and William Munny is here to remind us of that truth.
Amen to that.

Memorable Quote : "Deserve's got nothin' to do with it."

Images courtesy of Warner Bros.

Film Review : Interstellar by Christopher Nolan ( 2014 )

"We were never meant to stay"
 

Film Review : Interstellar by  Christopher Nolan  ( 2014 ) 

We have high expectations of Christopher Nolan. By and large, he delivers yet again in Interstellar.

It is perhaps 30 years into the future. The Earth is dying. We gather that crop failures have drastically reduced the population. There is peace on Earth at least, but humankind is struggling as crop after crop seems to die permanently due to blight. Declining biodiversity and climate change have taken their toll. Our days are numbered.

Matthew MaConaughey plays an ex-astronaut turned farmer, struggling to adapt to a world that appears to have given up on space exploration and is instead pre-occupied with putting food on the table. As his father-in-law tells him : " You're not meant for this world, Coop". Prophetic words.

Life seems to be about coping with corn farming in Nebraska, until one day that is, when a strange anomaly appears in his daughters bedroom. Murphy, his girl, asserts her room is haunted by a ghost, but Cooper recognises a gravitational phenomenon. Ironically, it turns out that Murphy is more right than she knows.

Through a strange turn of events Cooper once again finds himself flying for NASA. Their mission : to use a discovered wormhole to find a viable planet in another solar system.

I'm not going to give too much away ; it's difficult to review such a film without spoiling it. But at least I can say Interstellar is a visual spectacular. Alien landscapes, space phenomena, craft and various gadgets that will delight sci-fi fans. The soundtrack is suitably epic ; but then most scores by Hans Zimmer are. Okay, occasionally it sounds like he passed out on the organ, but for the most part the soundtrack matches the grandeur of the vision. The robots TARS and CASE are a particular treat, playing surrogate Man's Best Friend. With their sense of humour, loyalty and capabilities they give the actors a run for their money.

Not to say Anne Hathaway and MaConaughey do a bad job either as the lead astronauts. Both actors are as reliable as ever, and the supporting cast are solid. Back on Earth, Casey Affleck, Michael Caine, John Lithgow and Jessica Chastain as a grown-up Murph all do a good job. It's great to see Lithgow continuing to grow into a great actor. He's come a long way since Bigfoot and the Hendersons. Murph's character is irritating at times perhaps, unable to understand why her father left her in order to try and save the rest of Earth. Chastain plays her as perpetually crestfallen, and maybe doesn't display the greatest range as an actress. You want to ask her : "Hey are you playing depressed scientist, or glum-faced analyst from Zero Dark Thirty ?". To be fair, maybe there's not a lot to be done with the role. You can't tell her " Cheer up ! It's not the end of the world ! Oh, wait..."

 

Most of the plot is actually based on real theoretical science, as top physicist Kip Thorne was a close advisor. There is plenty of intellectual meat here for cerebral sci-fi fans. Whilst the effects of gravity on slowing down time are believable, some of the later events that tie up the plot are less so. But hey, science will only take you so far in a movie, and at some point the fiction part has to take over.

Regardless of whether you  find the plot resolution satisfactory, Interstellar is an epic ride and one that is well piloted by Matthew MaConaughey. Boy, I am glad this guy gave up romantic comedies. Anne Hathaway too, for that matter !

Forget Gravity with Sandra Bullock. Aim higher, reach for the stars.

Image courtesy of Paramount Pictures