ISBS Reviews
Movie Review: The Da Vinci Code
Wednesday, June 7th, 2006At this point, everybody basically knows what this movie is about, how it came from a best-selling novel, and all of the associated controversy, etc. So I’ll just get right to the point: I liked it. A lot.
Which is not to say I disagree with the vast majority of reviews out there – it’s very detailed, very hard to follow, and very slow moving at times. I just don’t see why this makes it a bad movie. In fact, having read the book, these are the very things about the book I enjoyed most. So the fact that the same traits exist in the movie doesn’t put me off, it meets my expectations.
At the end of the day, this is not a summer/popcorn movie. It’s a murder mystery wrapped in an Indiana Jones film, served on a bed of James Bond. It makes you think. If you’re the kind of person who has to go back in the book and re-read chapters to understand the backstory, the movie might be frustrating for you. If that’s the case, I suggest seeing it twice (Note to Ron Howard: please send the check to my home address), or renting the DVD when it comes out so you can pause and rewind to your heart’s content.
Ironically, the movie does a very clever job of bypassing some of the most tedious scenes in the book. [Don’t worry, I’ll avoid spoilers here, I promise.] The one that jumps out in my mind is a long scene in the book where the main characters go to a public library to research one of the story’s many riddles, running various queries through the library’s super-computer to eventually discover the answer. In the movie, they borrow a cell phone from a stranger, and use the phone’s web browser to find the answer on the first try.
The other thing about the movie that surprised me was the degree to which the main character, Dr. Randall Langdon (Tom Hanks) disputes the theories that have caused all the controversy in the real-life press. Other characters (most notably Ian McKellan’s Lee Teabing) advance the theories of Mary Magdalene as the wife of Jesus, etc., and Langdon rushes to point out that all of this is unproven theory. Teabing eventually wins the argument, of course, but Langdon is always in the background, shaking his head and rolling his eyes. Even when educating the overwhelmed and naive Sophie Neveu (Audrey Tautou), Langdon couches his explanations in phrases like “Some people claim…” and “The story goes that…” At one point, Neveu asks Langdon, “Do you really believe all of this?” and Langdon responds, “We’ve been sucked into a world where people do believe it . . . enough to resort to murder.” Some of this exists in the book, but it seemed much more prominent on screen. I would call it a nod of respect to the Catholic Church by director Ron Howard, but the Church has been so vocal about the movie before seeing it that I can’t imagine they’d acknowledge it at this point.
If I had to offer any criticism of the movie, it would be the lack of chemistry between the two main characters. These folks go through hell and back together (no pun intended), so one would naturally expect them to grow close to each other, worry for each other’s safety, rejoice in escaping a close call, etc. In the book, there’s even an undercurrent of sexual tension, with Langdon noting his attraction but putting it on hold while the actions swirls around him. In the movie, the two seem to be all business, all the time. At the very end, when the excitement is over, there’s a touching scene, but it comes across as the blossoming of a romantic interest, rather than the satisfying opportunity for the couple to stop, take a breath, and acknowledge their feelings for each other. After reading the book, I assumed the two would begin dating the very next day. After seeing the movie, I think he might wait a few months and then decide to ask her out for a casual cup of coffee. Opportunity lost, if you ask me.
To sum up: if you liked the book, I think you’ll like the movie. If you haven’t read the book, I think you’ll like the movie even more (my wife loved it), but only if you’re willing to put your thinking cap on and pay close attention.
Also, I heard that if you re-arrange the words in the closing credits, they form a quote from the New Testament.
(Just kidding).
Categories: ISBS Reviews, Movie Talk | Comments Off on Movie Review: The Da Vinci Code
Movie Review: United 93
Sunday, May 7th, 2006Wow.
It’s hard to find words to describe what I just saw. The most apropos concept I can come up with is INTENSE. From beginning to end, it’s intense. And uncategorizable (if that’s a word). It’s not a documentary and it’s not a dramatization. As other reviews have said, it offers no opinion and no sappy backstory. It has no point to make – it’s just telling you what happened, and what may have happened in the places where we can’t know for sure.
At least for me, the emotions began before the film even started. I started to doubt whether I really wanted to see it. Wouldn’t it be easier just to look away? Yes, but as I said earlier, I really didn’t want to do that. So I kept my seat…
As the film began, the first thing I was struck by was how normal everything was. People boarding the plane, going through security checkpoints, flight attendants and pilots talking to each other about their day & their plans for upcoming vacation time, maintenance folks fueling the plane, and so on. It’s normal, and yet ever so stressful to watch.
As the events begin to unfold, you get a stunningly clear view of the confusion, urgency, and best efforts of the people in the control towers, air traffic control headquarters, and military headquarters. This stuff isn’t dramatized. We know exactly what happened in those places, and according to the credits, more than half of the “main characters” on the screen were the actual folks who were actually there that day. In the space of a couple of hours, a normal Tuesday morning turned into their worst nightmare. Yes, some mistakes were made, but they all seem drastically beside the point. These people had no dress rehearsal for this – no advanced warning, no training. They followed their procedures as best they could, they maintained cool heads at all times, and while they didn’t prevent any planes from hitting any buildings, they did manage to land 4,200 aircraft in a matter of hours, shutting down U.S. airspace for the first time in history.
Then the movie focuses exclusively on the events inside the plane. Other reviews have called these folks heroes; the first people to live in a post-9/11 world; the first soldiers in the War on Terror. My impression was a little different – it was more like “They’re obviously going to fly this plane into a building. We have absolutely nothing to lose. So let’s try and do something.” No matter. What’s obvious is that in a situation where they all would have been completely justified crawling up in a fetal position and crying out the last few hours of their lives, they (like the folks on the ground) kept their heads about them, organized, and made an attempt.
Obviously, there are some very poignant moments. The one that caught my eye most was just before they rushed the cockpit: just about everyone on the plane is praying. The hijackers are praying in Arabic, and passengers are praying in Hebrew and English (the Lord’s Prayer). Each of the world’s major religions, all in the exact same situation, all praying to their respective Gods to help them out of it – one way or the other.
As I’ve said, I’ve attempted to learn as much as I could about what happened that day. Unlike a documentary, there is no omniscient narrator here. No one stopping the action to explain what was going on elsewhere at the time, no interviews with participants offering opinion or commentary. So while historical details need to come from other sources, this film gives you a sense of the emotion of the moment that a documentary would not. It offers a glimpse into how it might have felt to have been there. It’s showing you, not teaching you.
No one will ever know for sure exactly what happened on that plane. That said, this movie is so well done that I’m happy to accept it as fact in my own mind. The people on that plane were American heroes. Their last moments, by definition, are undocumented. And while we can’t document them for certain, I think United 93 can serve as a fitting tribute to their legacy.
God Bless Them All. May They Rest in Peace.
Categories: ISBS Reviews, Movie Talk | 4 Comments »
A Review: Billy Joel – My Lives, Disc 4
Tuesday, March 7th, 2006This is the fourth in my series of reviews of the “My Lives” Box Set from Billy Joel. Scroll to the bottom of this post for links to reviews of the other discs.
I can sum up my feelings on Disc four with one word: Meh.
This disc is basically representative of what Joel has been doing for the last ten years or so (except for his current tour which, not accidentally, harkens back to the previous 3 discs). It contains live versions of those songs that he most often performs live, a couple of benefit performances he’s given recently, and some of his more recent, classical music.
The live stuff comes primarily from his Millennium concert in Madison Square Garden (12/31/99). Don’t get me wrong – these are entertaining and energy-filled versions of the songs, but since the Millennium Concert has already been released on CD, none of it is new. The exceptions here are You May Be Right which comes from a Face-to-Face concert and is a great (new!) version of the song, and Los Angelenos, which sounds like it’s from an older concert and could very well be the version that was on Songs in the Attic (in which case, it’s out of place on this disc).
The benefit numbers include The Beach Boys’ Don’t Worry, Baby from a tribute to Brian Wilson, which may be the best track on the disc. He dedicates it to his daughter, Alexa, which is sweet when the lyrics are “Everything will turn out alright; Don’t worry baby,” but gets kind of creepy when he gets to “Oh what she does to me; When she makes love to me.” I guess we can give him a pass, since the song he wrote for her is much more appropriate. There’s also the September 11th tribute version of New York State of Mind, which is about as soulful as Billy Joel gets (and with good reason, of course).
Finally, there are three selections from Fantasies and Delusions. I have a great respect for those who compose (and perform) classical music, but I have to be in precisely the right mood to want to listen to it, and can’t honestly claim to ever enjoy it, so I’ll refrain from commenting further on these.
The disc also has a hidden track, containing a mock interview with Billy Joel (probably by someone in his band), which purports to be promotional material for Glass Houses, circa 1980. It’s basically Joel kidding around with his buddy, making fun of the concept of promoting an album. He plays a couple of joke songs, including one in the New Wave style that was hot back then (classic moment: he stops in the middle and says, “Oops – too many chords” and plays it again – all on the same chord). He also runs through potential promotional slogans for the album which I greatly enjoyed (examples: “People who live in glass houses shouldn’t listen to the Stones” and “People who buy this album shouldn’t get stoned.”)
So, to summarize: the box set was a nice dose of new Billy Joel material to listen to, which was refreshing for someone who’s been listening to the same old stuff for quite some time now. There are some great nuggets in there, along with a bunch of repeats from previous discs to fill out the mix. I think it’s a must-buy for the “rabid fan,” which is likely why they released it in the first place. The casual fans should probably stick with the studio albums, though, unless they enjoy rarities of any kind, in which case this is certainly a treasure trove.
I also feel obligated to note (for completeness’ sake) that there’s a DVD included in the box. When I get around to watching it, maybe I’ll post something about it too, but I’m assuming it’s just a collection of concert videos. The big exception there is the two UMixIt tracks at the end, which allows you to remix the songs (and even add your own tracks) if you play the DVD on your PC. At the very least, I look forward to isolating the piano part on these tracks and re-learning them on the piano based on what he’s actually playing, rather than what the sheet music says he’s playing. More to come on that front…
My other reviews:
Disc 1
Disc 2
Disc 3
Disc 4
Categories: ISBS Reviews, Words about Music | 3 Comments »
A Review: Billy Joel – My Lives, Disc 3
Monday, March 6th, 2006This is the third in my series of reviews of the “My Lives” Box Set from Billy Joel. Scroll to the bottom of this post for links to reviews of the other discs.
Disc 3 of the series basically showcases Billy Joel as a kick-ass cover band and movie soundtrack contributor. As a cover artist, Joel offers up the Isley Brothers’ Shout (recorded live at Yankee Stadium), two Elvis Presley tracks from the Honeymoon in Vegas soundtrack (All Shook Up and Heartbreak Hotel), Duke Ellington’s In a Sentimental Mood from the soundtrack of A League of Their Own, the Beatles’ A Hard Day’s Night (a staple of his Face-to-Face setlist with Elton John), Leonard Cohen’s Light As A Breeze, the Disney classic When You Wish Upon a Star, and two Bob Dylan tunes: To Make You Feel My Love and Highway 61 Revisited. It’s been said many times that Joel is quite an impressionist, and putting all of these covers on the same disc highlights that fact. He not only does a pretty good job imitating the voices (especially Presley and Dylan), but also has an uncanny ability to capture the style of the original tune while still providing his own take on the material.
As a soundtrack contributor, there are the songs mentioned above, but also a couple of originals: Why Should I Worry from Disney’s Oliver & Co. and Where Were You (On Our Wedding Day) from Runaway Bride, both of which, in my humble opinion, are good enough to have made it on their own as singles if they weren’t already part of a movie soundtrack.
The real gems on this disc, though, are the live (Yankee Stadium) version of I Go to Extremes and the alternate version of River of Dreams. In the former, Joel’s piano playing exceeds even his own high standards, particularly on the improvisational riffs near the end (over the years, these settled into a scripted few, including the one where he bounces down the keyboard on his backside), and some clever variations in the lyrics (“Darling I don’t know why I go for ice cream…”). The latter has a lot more featured piano than the released track, including a swing-style version of the Goodnight, My Angel theme right in the middle of the piece. In retrospect, they probably cut it down for timing so they could release it as a single, but this version is much, much more entertaining.
Motorcycle Song, a demo that eventually became All About Soul, and the unreleased You Picked a Real Bad Time are the only “rabid fans only” tracks on this disc. I liked Motorcycle Song because the lyrics are such obvious placeholders (they describe Joel riding his motorcycle around various Long Island highways), in much the same way that Allentown was originally written as Levittown (“Well we’re living here in Levittown; The grass is green the dirt is brown…”). You Picked a Real Bad Time is roadhouse blues in the spirit of Big Man on Mulberry Street, and while I like it a lot, it’s not as good as the released material.
The only original album cut on the disc is The Downeaster “Alexa”, the first track on the disc, which I’m sure is there because it has some sentimentality to Joel (“Alexa” is his boat, which he named after his daughter), but given the rest of the material, I think it sticks out like a sore thumb.
All in all, this was my favorite disc so far. The first two discs show Billy Joel, rock & roll hopeful from Levittown, hungry for success and working hard to prove himself to everyone. This disc shows BILLY JOEL – SUPERSTAR, spending some of his hard-earned capital to branch out in different directions, lend his name to smaller projects, and have some fun with the music, rather than trying to create the next classic rock song every time out.
I look forward to Disc 4…
My other reviews:
Disc 1
Disc 2
Disc 3
Disc 4
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A Review: Billy Joel – My Lives, Disc 2
Thursday, March 2nd, 2006This is the second in my series of reviews of the “My Lives” Box Set from Billy Joel. Scroll to the bottom of this post for links to reviews of the other discs.
For the rabid Billy Joel fan, Disc 2 will not be as exciting as Disc 1, primarily because it contains more album cuts that the rabid fan already has in his/her collection. The casual fan will be happier with it, though, since the album cuts are generally not obscurities, but songs that were released as singles and received some decent radio air play. Examples include An Innocent Man, Easy Money (which was the title song for a 1983 movie of the same name, starring Rodney Dangerfield and Joe Pesci), Modern Woman (which was on the Ruthless People soundtrack in 1986), and Baby Grand (the duet with Ray Charles).
Like Disc 1, this collection also includes some live performances, although Captain Jack sounds basically like the album version, and The Times They Are A Changin’ was already released on the Russian album. The golden nugget of the live tunes on this disc is I’ll Cry Instead, a Beatles cover that Joel did with Elton John at one of their Face-to-Face concerts. I always enjoy hearing Joel cover the Beatles – his attention to detail and his ability to do various musical styles (increasingly rare in today’s artists) make these versions good imitations of the original, but still come across sounding fresh and energetic.
The demo tracks on this disc are also interesting to the rabid fan. The End of the World eventually became Elvis Presley Blvd., which was released as the B-side to Allentown, back when records had B-sides. Elvis Presley Blvd. is also included, so you can hear how the lyrics went from intricate and cheesy to clever and catchy.
The Prime of Your Life eventually became For The Longest Time. This track is most interesting for the music, since he had very few words written when it was recorded (most of the track has him simply humming along). The music, though, is a very dense piano arrangement, and sounds very much like classical music. It’s funny to listen to the classical piano and hear the doo-wop in your head that it eventually morphed into.
Also of note is Christie Lee, his most explicit ode to Christie Brinkley (now referred to as “Ex #2”). The unreleased version is a swing number, but eventually became straight rock & roll when it appeared on the Innocent Man album.
There are other unreleased songs, including a version of Getting Closer with Steve Winwood (although Winwood never sings a note, so you wouldn’t know he was there unless you read the liner notes), and And So It Goes, which also sounds very much like the released version.
Then there’s the Roadhouse Blues number, House of Blue Light and the Beatles-esque Money or Love, both of which have nostalgic value to the rabid fan, but probably wouldn’t be appreciated by too many others.
All in all, I enjoyed Disc 2, but with a few exceptions, much prefer Disc 1. Stay tuned for more on Discs 3 and 4.
My other reviews:
Disc 1
Disc 2
Disc 3
Disc 4
Categories: ISBS Reviews, Words about Music | 2 Comments »
A Review: Billy Joel – My Lives, Disc 1
Wednesday, March 1st, 2006My posts about Billy Joel have been getting hundreds of hits (helped along, I’m sure, by Google and the fact that he’s touring), but people are clicking through, so who am I to not respond with more content?
First of all, a backhanded compliment to buy.com. I ordered My Lives on Saturday night, and chose Budget Shipping (5-7 days), which is free, as opposed to Standard Shipping (3-5 days), which would have cost me a few bucks. The discs arrived at my door Monday afternoon. So, first, wow – that’s incredibly fast service, especially given there was a weekend involved. But then, hey – good thing I didn’t pay money to have it delivered faster, since I got it within one day anyway.
That aside, on to the music (I’ve only listened to Disc 1 so far (1960’s – 1980), so I’ll post more as I go). Bottom line: this material is for the real Billy Joel fan. The ones who know all the songs, not just Greatest Hits 1 through 3. As one of those fans, I thoroughly enjoyed it. If I weren’t one of those fans, though, I think I would have hated it. Passionately.
The first two tracks are from The Lost Souls, Joel’s first band. I’ve heard him say on his college lecture tours that My Journey’s End was the first song he ever wrote, so here’s your chance to hear studio version of the first ever Billy Joel song. That said, the recording quality is awful (so much so, that I originally thought something was wrong with the CD). The quality improves as we move toward the 1970s, with a couple of tracks from The Hassles and one from Attila (a Jazz Ensemble and Heavy Metal band that Joel experimented with before going solo). The insert warns that the Attila tune, Amplifier Fire is loud enough to be scary, but I didn’t mind it in the least. There’s even a rather clever mixing technique in the middle, where the keyboard is vamping in the left channel and the drums are in the right, and then they gradually switch, then switch back, then switch again, etc. At the time, that was probably high technology. Today it’s so easy to do that folks don’t bother doing it, making it unique once again.
After that, we get back to what we all know as Billy Joel music. Piano-centric, melodically interesting tunes ranging from ballads to full-blown rock & roll. Basically, the songs can be broken down into three groups: album versions of lesser known songs, unreleased studio and/or live versions of popular songs, and unreleased demos.
For the rabid fan, the album versions are nice, but nothing new. For the more casual fan, I think they’d probably highlight why these songs were never hits (with the possible exception of She’s Got a Way, which is a gorgeous ballad no matter how you slice it).
The unreleased versions of popular songs will probably sound exactly the same to the casual fan, but to the rabid fan, they’re fantastic bits of musical trivia. The highlight for me was the unfaded version of Zanzibar, where you get to hear a whole lot more of that fantastic trumpet solo at the end. The reggae version of Only The Good Die Young is fun as well, although I’ve heard it before elsewhere.
The rest of the tracks (seven in all) are demos. These were never released and, in many cases, not even finished (he hums his way through verses he hasn’t written yet.) The best of these tracks are songs that were eventually released under different titles or with different lyrics. For example, Piano Man is there with an extended harmonica part, an extremely annoying echo effect on Joel’s voice, slightly different lyrics, and a different melody for the bridge (the “La Da Dah” part). There’s also These Rhinestone Days, which became I’ve Loved These Days, New Mexico, which became Worse Comes to Worst, and a version of Miami 2017 that remains a ballad all the way through. I thoroughly enjoyed these tracks for two reasons: first, the sparse arrangements show off Joel’s piano playing more than the final cuts, and second, because they give a fantastic insight into his writing process – how the music gets set first, and the words come gradually, often getting rejected and rewritten (sometimes scrapped entirely, sometimes tweaked only slightly). The other demos on the disc are songs that were never released under any title, including Only a Man, Oyster Bay and Cross To Bear. The rabid fan would be interested in these because they are, to most people, new Billy Joel songs, which is something we haven’t been treated to in a very, very long time. The casual fan will likely think of them as bad Billy Joel songs, lending no weight to the fact that the artist went on to do much more interesting things.
So, overall, I’m very pleased with Disc 1. Your mileage, as they say, may vary.
My other reviews:
Disc 1
Disc 2
Disc 3
Disc 4
Categories: ISBS Reviews, Words about Music | 1 Comment »
Concert Review: Billy Joel at Madison Square Garden
Tuesday, January 24th, 2006I’m train-blogging on my way home from the show. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I bought the tickets mostly out of nostalgia, since one of my first real dates with my wife was a Billy Joel concert in Philadelphia (December 18th, 1989, she reminded me tonight). Just over 15 years later, my expectations for the now 58-year old Joel were quite low. Then I saw a few setlists & realized that this was an oportunity to hear live performances of songs I’d never heard live before.
On that score, the show did not disapppoint. He sang Everybody Loves You Now, Stiletto, Zanzibar (with a truly kick-ass flugelhorn solo, followed immediately by an even more kick-ass trumpet solo – both by the same guy), Great Wall of China (dedicated to his ex-manager – if you don’t know why, go check out the lyrics), All for Leyna, and She’s Always a Woman in addition to the standard fare of Greatest Hits material.
As to the quality of the show, there’s just no getting over the fact that the man is getting older. Some of the harder rock tunes fell a little flat (like Pressure, Big Man on Mulberry Street, which slowed down dramtically as it went on, and All For Leyna, which was a nice concert rarity, but required so much concentration from Joel that he never once looked up from the lyrics tele-prompter or even ventured a smile). Other songs, though, he pulled off quite nicely, including Big Shot, You May Be Right, It’s Still Rock & Roll To Me, Angry Young Man and I Go to Extremes. He also sang all the high notes on Innocent Man himself, something he hasn’t done in years (my wife pointed out that his new-found sobriety might have been the enabler there).
UPDATE: A listen to Billy Joel – 12 Gardens Live reveals another reason – see this blog post for more.
Being a piano player myself, my favorite part of the concert is watching Joel’s hands on the keyboard, which I consider almost as educational as it is entertaining. Tonight’s seats, third row just behind & to the left of the stage provided a great view (nice job, Jason!). I was surprised to see that he’s changed his style of play significantly. He no longer bangs the living hell out of the piano like he used to. Now, it looks much more like the old cliche – “tickling the ivories.”. There were far fewer piano riffs/solos than there had been in years past, but what he did play sounded great, even if it wasn’t as dramatic as it used to be.
Also on a musical note (groan…), the band itself was a nice reunion. Rich Cannata and Tommy Byrne were back, so we got to hear all the original sax & guitar solos from the Turnstiles and Glass Houses days, not to mention some great horn section work by Cannata, Crystal Taliefero, and Mark Rivera on songs such as Keeping the Faith, Movin’ Out, and Only the Good Die Young. A surprise to me was the absence of Liberty DeVitto who, according to someone sitting in our section, had a falling out with Joel over a book Liberty’s writing that apparently goes into a little too much detail about Billy’s days of drinking and drugs. My section-mate claims that Liberty wasn’t even invited to Billy’s latest wedding. As the man says, “melodrama’s so much fun…”
Finally, there were those special concert moments that make the price of a ticket worthwhile. We had modern day commentary in the lyrics of Zanzibar:
Rose he knows he’ll never make the Hall of Fame;
And the Yankees grab the headlines every time.
…and a nod to his recent dalliances in Scenes from an Italian Restaurant:
A bottle of white;
A bottle of red;
Perhaps a bottle of Ginger Ale instead.
…and even some political commentary from the crowd during the Piano Man finale:
Now Paul is a real estate novelist;
Who never had time for a wife.
And he’s talking with Davy, who’s still in the navy;
(crowd screams much louder than the rest of the verse:)AND PROBABLY WILL BE FOR LIFE
All in all, the show did not disappoint. It was as nostalgic as I hoped it would be, but not in that awkward, “wow, things have really gone downhill” way that I had feared. With a few exceptions, Billy Joel and his band sounded fantastic and put on a high energy, entertaining show. Yes, he shuffles around the stage instead of running, and stops for a swig of water between every song (and occasionally during someone else’s solo). But no one else in the world can make that music sound that good, and on the whole, I’m glad he’s still doing it. Bravo, Billy, and thanks for the memories.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Came looking for info on Billy Joel and only got a concert review? Check out the I Should Be Sleeping Billy Joel FAQ! Inspired by Googlers like you!)
UPDATE: I see from my server logs that over 500 of you have read this review. God Bless Google! In any case, welcome to my blog. If you like what you read, please feel free to leave a comment and/or look around a bit.
UPDATE #2: Readership on this post is approaching 2,000 users. Glad you stopped by! If you liked what you read, please feel free to look around. Billy Joel enthusiasts might appreciate my reviews of the My Lives box set (Disc 1, Disc 2, Disc 3, Disc 4) in particular. Or, just check out the main page and go from there. Enjoy, all!
UPDATE #3: Well over 3,500 7,500 pageviews now. Good lord, this thing’s getting some mileage. Seriously, though – look around. Stay awhile. What’s your hurry? You just got here…
Categories: ISBS Reviews, Words about Music | 66 Comments »
Commander in Chief – A Review
Friday, September 30th, 2005Two years ago, my wife and I became so inundated with the number of primetime TV shows we were taping & watching later, that we instituted a “no new shows” policy. We would only watch the ones we were currently hooked on, and avoid all others, despite any rave reviews. This is how we escaped shows like CSI and Desparate Housewives. Last year, a couple of our shows went off the air, and we got a digital video recorder, which allowed us to watch while taping (so we didn’t have to wait until 10pm to watch The West Wing if the kids went to bed at 9:05). So, this year, we added a show to our repertoire – ABC’s Commander in Chief.
I was impressed when I watched it, and have grown more impressed the more I think about it. Obviously, a show about the first female President of the United States is going to deal head-on with the issues of feminism and sexism. That’s to be expected. What impressed me was the unique way the writers went about it in this case.
Only one character on the show (the Speaker of the House, played by Donald Sutherland) is a blatantly sexist man (in the traditional “male chauvinist pig” fashion), and his character comes off as a cruel, ignorant, assinine sonofabitch. He tells the new president (Gena Davis), who has assumed office after the death of the president, that her nomination as vice-president was just “theater,” and that we couldn’t possibly expect the world to accept a female president. When Davis mentions the whole “might invade another country once a month” problem, he misses the sarcasm entirely, and invokes menopause as the saving grace, insulting her age as well as her gender with “it’s OK – in a couple of years, that won’t be a problem for you anyway.” We all think the same thing: What a jerk!
So we’ve established that MCP’s are jerks. No shock there. What is fascinating is the inherent struggle the rest of the cast has as they trip over themselves to redefine gender roles, pronoun usage, and stereotypes. One of her aides calls her “Madame President” and “Sir” in the same conversation. Her husband, who was her chief of staff when she was vice-president, is referred to as “FLOTUS” (taking the POTUS acronym, made famous on The West Wing, and extending it into something right out of a Japanese garden), is asked to set the dinner menu for the White House, and is warned against participating in speech writing or spending too much time in the west wing. His chief of staff keeps warning him that Hillary Clinton did those things and they “didn’t go over well.”
In addition to the many levels of irony here, I was impressed by the writers’ willingness to define two kinds of sexism – the mean, ugly kind that is generally driven by ignorance or stupidity (or both), and the structural kind, committed by well-meaning folks who are being asked to adapt to a situation that goes against their long-reinforced instincts. This second kind of sexism affects both the men and women on the show, and takes the form of over-compensation almost as often as it takes the form of pure prejudice. We feel for these people; we don’t hate them the way we hate the Speaker of the House (who, by the way, should be the SOTH, no?)
This approach gives the writers a huge advantage. They are in a position to make the politically correct Hollywood point (men who treat women badly are evil), without allowing that message to hijack the show. They can simultaneously make a second point – that we all have preconceptions about how the world works, and when these preconceptions are shattered, well meaning people may act insensitively without actually being evil. More importantly, being able to explore both paths will allow them to keep the show interesting for a much longer time, which will keep me watching. And that, after all, is the point.
Categories: ISBS Reviews, Primetime TV | Comments Off on Commander in Chief – A Review