Another Blockbuster Hits the Dust

It’s time for another blockbuster-bust movie post, unfortunately. K and I hit the big screen today for the matinee showing of Harry Potter and the Goblet of fire. I must say that I’m not a fan of the Rowling novels. I found them incidental and wonderfully upholstered mildness.

This is the second Potter film I’ve seen, and I can’t even remember the first. Anyway, if I hadn’t been there today with my daughter, I would have quit the place after the first thirty minutes. I actually look forward to these big-movie drives to the theater just to be with K, who makes it all worth it.

But to it all.

The Goblet of Fire should have used the storytelling technique of irrevocable decision as the driving force behind the conflict. The problem is that the bad guy, Voldemort, wants back into the world to continue doing his evil (part of which has do with killing Potter), yet this inevitability plays practically no explicit role in the story, even though it should’ve been written as the inevitable conclusion of several irrevocable decisions, traps, and setups that actually compel this unlucky ending. The plot is driven by a contest made up of three parts. Harry Potter must participate in this contest between three rival schools (will he survive them–even the novel never leaves this in doubt) and it is the outcome of this contest and the other conflicts in the film that should lead to Voldemort’s return in full presence and form. Problem is, I couldn’t tell how they were connected (despite the motif of 3s in the film) until the end when the new professor of the Defence against the Dark Arts is revealed as an evil agent and rounds up the connections for us. My reaction: I just didn’t care enough to care.

Why not? Many heroes must make the ethical choice on the journey to proving themselves. But in this story, Harry isn’t given the opportunity to make any. Potter is entered into the Triwizard Tournament unknowingly by Alastor Moody. This entrance is against the rules, but the “absolute” rules also prevent Potter from bowing out. His heroism is therefore mechanical, routine, and without ethical problem.

I must say that I left the film wondering why Voldemort’s presence is such a bad thing (there’s a difference between bad and supposed to be bad) and how all the tendrils of the story actually matter to the core story which I couldn’t really describe. As Ebert puts it

Hogwarts School and indeed the entire structure of Harry’s world is threatened by Voldemort’s return to something approaching his potential powers, and the film becomes a struggle between the civilized traditions of the school and the dark void of Voldemortism.

The film depends on a lot of backend for consistency, but I didn’t feel this conflict between civilized tradition and Voldemortism. First of all, this Voldemortism has very little shape in the Potter series as a whole and is hard to grasp in this film as something looming or sinister. I never feel that anyone is ever really in danger. What is the threat?

Rowling’s world is made for digital manipulation, from the talking school interiors and dizzy steeples to the mirked woods inhabited by dragons and giants, and the digital work was certainly splendid. But it made for a film where appearence and tricks dominate. Characters and story fall flat and I’m left wanting something else. Maybe characters who experience danger and are humbled by it, who despair at their limitations yet learn to live with them. Maybe a story that confronts lifeworld thresholds with real consequence.

Otherwise the question stays: so what?

Classic Munro

This quote, a well known one, by Alice Munro just kills me.

I guess I’m a kind of anachronism… because I write about places where your roots are and most people don’t live that kind of life any more at all. Most writers, probably, the writers who are most in tune with our time, write about places that have no texture, because this is where most of us live.

I don’t buy it, but I sense the question of change here, like watching 24 hour news and thus washed over by the “present.” Texture must be sense, the sense of space and the suitability of being in it. I don’t buy it because I wont necessarily live where my son or daughter “will” live. Munro’s stories draw me because they pull at the notion of memory from many directions. The recall the smaller elements of experience. These become vast.

Where are the Brains?

I picked up a copy of Time’s recent The Most Amazing Inventions of 2005 to skim through during a dinner of tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. I think the hook is actually mistitled or maybe I just haven’t a clue why these are the amazing inventions. Here are a few examples, along with those “catchy” short descriptions:

The Cool Cat: “The notion of a robot as home companion is nothing new, but iCat adds a human dimension to the job: an expressive face. Praise her and she will beam.”

Nuvo: “Tired of coming home to an empty nest each night? Try Nuvo. This 15 in., two-legged bot can dance, talk, play music, tell time and even shake your hand.” Even? For $7000.

One of the promising items is a suit that can assist those who need it to walk and lift. Very promising.

The Self and the Stone

It may be that there is a rather large stone on the horizon, a small black thumbs-up against glazing sun-down purple and orange (those southwestern sunsets never leave you). Perhaps there are runes on what may be a monostone, some message that points to secrets, but about what? The quest would be to cross the space between and check it out. In Alaska, a crew and I seeking a shortcut out from somewhere tore into the thorns and extended our packing time by perhaps a few hours more than necessary. No birds that day, just some odd stomping behind some high trees.

“Make sure you hit him in the chest,” one of my partners said, handing me the rifle brought for protection against grizzly bears. “Just in case. We’re counting on you.”

That’s the way shortcuts workout sometimes. Not always, but sometimes.

Reading this post by Daniel Green got me thinking about the horizon and other metaphors for knowing or wanting to know. Susan Gibb at the moment is all over The Body Artist on her quest. In an unrelated post (maybe), she writes:

Down by the river, trees naked gray their hair fell out with autumn chemotherapy, revival and survival. Leaves in golden curls on grass no longer green. Centuries of mowings, leaves, and people turned to earth.

The Ditch of Childhood

Brenda Hillman’s poem Arroy on hand at The Missouri Review is nicely rendered. Here’s a small taste:

Now she sees the dry ditch
as it is:
the glint of litter,
chrome of the abandoned fender,
how all things unloved, rushed, pushed out
to the great sea against their will survive,
and sees behind the broken feldspar
the expert shabbiness of daily life.

I like this terrain, this narrator, and this child about to step into the world.

Kansas and Science Standards

Standard 3 under Life Science of the new Kansas science standards goes like the following block. Those familiar with the writing of institutional academic standards will recognize the outcomes language. Read it this way:

The student:

understands biological evolution, descent with modification, is a scientific explanation for the history of the diversification of organisms from common ancestors.

The specified standards that accompany this go

1. a Biological evolution postulates an unguided natural process that has no discernable direction or goal.

and

f. The view that living things in all the major kingdoms are modified
descendants of a common ancestor (described in the pattern of a branching tree) has been challenged in recent years by:

i. Discrepancies in the molecular evidence (e.g., differences in relatedness inferred from sequence studies of different proteins) previously thought to support that view.

ii. A fossil record that shows sudden bursts of increased complexity the Cambrian Explosion), long periods of stasis and the absence of abundant transitional forms rather than steady gradual increases in complexity, and

iii. Studies that show animals follow different rather than identical early stages of embryological development.

Standards writing is a delicate process. One of the hardest things to do is to adhere to a standard for standard writing because the standards reflect a host of institutional values, expectations, and the realities of a given area of study. I believe that outcomes should reflect a respect for students. What I read in the above is an almost unbelieveable cynicism, ignorance, and disrespect for real debate.

Biological evo postulates unguided:

challenged in recent years

previously thought

Huh?

Kafka and the Critics

Many of the readers of this weblog know that I am huge fan of Franz Kafka. I’m also a huge fan of Milan Kundera partly because of the way he writes about Kafka and Musil. Thanks to Daniel Green’s link to a review of Roberto Calasso’s, I shall be purshasing K.

I’ve always avoided most writing about Kafka. I just don’t find a lot of literary criticism interesting in the first place. Because of this, I don’t know if I would make much of a graduate-level professor (but I do remember many of my own professors, themselves critics, confessing to their own disdain for overt politics and the influece of certain criticism on their personal enjoyment and excitement for whatever they read). I don’t really need anybody writing to me about what’s wrong with Kafka’s Ks, his novels, Kafka himself, Max Brod, Milton, or any other author, and I hope that Calasso’s reading doesn’t prove out as apologia.

What I like is interesting and insightful writing about writing as thought and play in whatever form. Is Kafka an excellent novelist? I have no idea. Do Kafka’s novels make me sit back and go wow? Yup. Just like Marquez. Just like Alice Munro. Wow is not a litcrit term, though.

Money and Learning

Looks like the next deficit reduction go-round will include further cuts to student loans. In the context of this article, such a decision won’t be good news for college students. Most of the students I work with plan on seeking bachelor’s degrees after completing the associates. After leaving with degrees or quicker tranfer they will, of course, have to pay more than what they’ve become used to paying. What does a tuition crisis mean for students and their families and the intellectual health of a country? Doom in the clouds. But what to do? What is the economic dynamic of access to knowledge and knowledge creation?

I’ve seen lots of people squander their time at the college. Another form of waste. They pay for something they don’t really want. These students could do lots of good with their time. But is doing good reserved only for classroom work and furture study? Of course not.

What will happen if the idea behind a college-bound future becomes less important or less affordable. I see this as similar to the health care question, where relatively common hospital procedures are pretty much out of everyone’s price range. Will people simply stop seeking out care?