Movie Review: The Devil Wears Prada

The Devil Wears Prada: Torgo disapproves

I was about to say I never see Meryl Streep movies, then I looked it up. I've seen "Adaptation," "The Hours," "The River Wild," "Lemony Snickett," and "The Deer Hunter." So I guess I do see Meryl Streep movies.

Except the "The Hours," though, the ones I see tend to be comedies or horribly bleak and depressing yet amazing Vietnam movies.

"The Devil Wears Prada" is a bad movie. But Meryl Streep is fun to watch. I could have told you that before seeing it. Having just watched it, I can confirm that that's true.

Anne Hathaway is entirely uninteresting. Not only is she bland as an actress, but she's not even particularly attractive. I don't mean that as a sexist comment -- but I'd be more inclined to watch her then even if she displayed no significant talent (read: Angelina Jolie).

I've never seen her in a movie before and this one didn't make me want change that.

Stanley Tucci is here, which is nice. He plays a stereotypically effeminate somebody who is into fashion, which is less nice.

That's about all I have to say. Oh, and M-N liked the clothes.

Mid-term Book Report: You Remind Me of Me by Dan Chaon

You Remind Me of Me (the first 3/4ths): Torgo disapproves

So after "Tess of the d'Urbervilles" and "Winning," I've decided to sometimes write my reviews of books before finishing them, because sometimes the end completely changes how I feel and then my review is tainted.

I see that happening with "You Remind Me of Me."

I picked this book at random off the library fiction shelf. I wanted something that was contemporary American fiction. I felt like reading something closer to my present world.

That's always a gamble, I find. If I'm reading a classic, and I can't get into it, or it seems to suck, I'm inclined to stick with it because it's a highly regarded classic, so there must be some merit (except "War and Peace," which I've tried to read twice and failed. Also, "Lord of the Rings" -- tried once, didn't get past the prologue).

I'm becoming something of a grumpy reader of contemporary American fiction, apparently. All these writers seem to be English professors at mid-level colleges. Sure, I'd love to be an English prof who writes books over the summer or while taking a semester off. But their books too often feel like books written by college professors who are just aspiring writers and aren't particularly gifted at either field.

I don't know much about Dan Chaon. But I know I wouldn't want him as a professor. In this book, it's like he's showing off his literary skills while still being bland, formulaic, and immature.

There are distractingly named characters, like Gary Gray and Mike Hawk (say it out loud), and Chaon brings attention to his own "cleverness" in naming characters.

Also, like many contemporary American novels, Chaon tells his story out of sequence, as though that adds depth and purpose to a shallow and slight narrative. It doesn't.

The story is about a guy named Jonah (so named because his mother felt like a whale when she was pregnant -- get it? If not, don't worry, he devotes several pages to how clever that is). Jonah has a long lost half-brother named Troy (so named because his mother longed for names from ancient Greece -- and yes, I think we hear the origin story of every character's name, as though Chaon never taught a fiction class in which he needed to explain that you, the writer, should know these things about your characters, but we, the readers, don't give a crap and, in fact, are better off not knowing every mundane detail).

(Ok, worse still, Jonah's a Biblical reference, Troy is an ancient Greek reference. If there's a handbook for seeming like a high-brow writer, it says to name-drop from these two sources. But it probably also says to name-drop something less common, something a 2nd grader might not immediately get. Read Louise Gluck.)

So Jonah's looking for Troy, finds him. Troy's life sucks. So does Jonah's. Troy has a kid he can't see b/c he got arrested for being a drug dealer. Jonah is all scarred from being attacked by a dog as a kid. Flashbacks to their mom tells us her life sucked, too.

I'm about 300 pages in and this book can end one of two ways:

1) Bleak. There's nothing worse than boring books that end miserably. At least give us the hope that your characters will go on to do more interesting things.

2) Happy. Which would be a total sellout and contradict the tone of everything that's come before.

Yet I keep reading it. Oh well. Maybe the end will someone be great and I'll have to change my disapproval.

Movie Review: The Science of Sleep

The Science of Sleep: Torgo approves

The world's a better place for having Michel Gondry.

His music videos (The White Stripes, Bjork, Foo Fighters, etc.) and his movies (that I've seen: "Eternal Sunshine" and "Science of Sleep") are visually compelling. More than that, they're visually fun. He takes full advantage of special effects and even low-tech effects to make things that don't show off what he can do (like a Spielberg) so much as utilize special effects to convey theme and tone.

Whereas "Eternal Sunshine" uses splashier, computer-generated effects, "Science of Sleep" opts for stop-motion, simple cardboard and paper, and basic optical illusions. The effect is that this movie has an innocence and charm at its core.

When the lead (Gael Garcia Bernal) dreams his hands are huge, it's even the same props Gondry used in the Foo Fighters' "Everlong" video, so not only is it low-tech, it's recycled.

I feel like I appreciate "Science of Sleep" more for having seen "Dave Chappelle's Block Party," where Gondry was in front of the camera, going through the process of creating a film. I was more willing to go along for the wacky ride.

M-N isn't a huge fan of this one, though she likes "Eternal Sunshine." Her complaint is valid: the dream sequences intersect with the non-dream sequences so chaotically, especially during the first half, that it can be difficult to find an entry point. Plus, it's a tri-lingual movie, with Bernal a native Spanish-speaker, Charlotte Gainsbourg a Brit, and mostly everyone else being French. All three languages get jumbled, again, especially in the first half.

I studied all three of those language, so that helps.

But I find the first half bothersome, too. It's complicated by the final act, in which the dream sequences mostly disappear, and the basic love story at the movie's heart is left on its own. I wonder how developed that story truly is, and how much I care after taking so long to get a grip on the movie.

Ultimately, though, I'm always a sucker for stories about awkward, creative boys who fall for girls in creative, awkward ways -- that just speaks to me.

The World Has Turned And Left Me Here

Continuing with my new theme of post titles that are song titles I think are awesome, but don't necessarily relate in any way to the actual post, thereby making finding a post all the more tedious, even though who really spends there hours searching the records of Torgoland... here's a post about Boy #1.

Kids. Kids learn stuff. As a parent, I'm finding out now that kids learn stuff from watching things I have no idea they're watching.

The boy and I were eating dinner tonight while watching the Simpsons. Yes, it's true. Call DHS if you'd like. At least he was eating peas, carrots and rice (the boy loves his veggies and carbs).

It was the old episode where Marge notices Maggie imitating Itchy and Scratchy (beginning with an awesome Psycho shower scene tribute). Semi-dutiful parent that I am, when they showed an Itchy and Scratchy cartoon, I went and stood in front of the boy, blocking his view. But this is the episode where Marge protests the cartoon violence, so they show an awful lot of them.

Ok, I told you that story to tell you this one:

Later, I'm getting his pajamas out, post-bath. Rather, I'm going through the myriad pajama options while he rejects the first 4 or 5, as always, only to like the 5th or 6th (and I've tried just alternating between two when he's super-tired -- it works).

As I'm righting the footie of the pajamas, the boy licks his finger and then rubs one nipple. Then he licks his finger and rubs the other nipple.

Yeah, what the hell is that??

I didn't teach him that. I don't remember that happening in Curious George. The extent of his other tv watching includes Thomas the Tank Engine, Sesame Street, and that's about it. I know Elmo is evil, but this?

He's a silly boy.

Book Report: Winning by Jack Welch

Winning: Torgo approves

I didn't choose to read this book. It was homework. And it was ok.

I hate business books, generally speaking. They're like self-help books. They are self-help books, just about money instead of love or sanity.

Winning is very superficial and poorly written. If Welch had a ghostwriter, he or she wasn't very good.

My main gripes:

1) The exclamation point usage is out of control. The exclamation point to non-exclamation point ratio (or, "!:.") for any book that doesn't include dialogue that occurs during a rainstorm and/or Van Halen concert should be approximately zero to everything else. There's no need to shout. We're reading your book. We can hear you.

2) The examples given to back up his points are slight. Each argument is backed up by a story like this: "This policy is good because I knew a guy named Steve and it worked for him and he's rich now."

3) The logical construction of his arguments is weak. This follows with point #2. The problem is he often argues sideways or backwards, then qualifies his arguments by saying "I don't want to sound like a Pollyanna." Pollyanna is referenced about as often as some branches of GE.

But I approve of the book. Why? Because I think the theories are, mostly, good. He's a strong advocate for candor in the workplace. He argues that layoffs should never be a surprise, nor should negative performance reviews, because people should be as candid as possible and employees should always be aware of a company's financial status and they're own standing.

I doubt he fully lived up to that believe, but it's something noble and good and worth aspiring towards.

I also found myself thinking while reading that if I had brought any of his ideas, many of which are just plain common sense, to faculty meetings at a high school or non-profit org meetings, I would have been soundly shot down and laughed out of the room. This is why I quit CoPIRG (partly). No one I met with power in the n/p world or in education has any business sense. It's like they are worlds full of English majors (like myself).

So much more could be achieved and it could be achieved with much more simplicity of people acted with business sense instead of just following their often bad instincts.

I need to qualify that by noting about the final chapter on work/life balance. Here, Welch outs himself as a possible misogynist, as well as a horrible father/husband. He accurately points out that bosses don't want their employees to have outside lives, but his tone and style in this chapter is degrading and offensive.

It's just that one chapter, though. I think more activists and education administrators should read some basic business philosophy like this.

Everybody Knows This is Nowhere

I'm not sure how to feel about this, the George School getting a $128 million gift.

M-N and I spent a full day interviewing there before I took my current job. They wanted me to teach English and her to teach history, but she didn't want to teach full time, especially coming out of the school where she'd been teaching.

It's a decent school, somewhat run-down, that had been underpaying its faculty, so I'm glad they'll get better pay. I, of course, would welcome better pay. But I don't know that that would have been worth the sacrifice of doing something we didn't fully want.

It's kind of like your ex-girlfriend winning the lottery. It doesn't benefit you at all, you didn't really want to be with her, but it still hurts.

For the record, I'm accepting donations of any size.

The Mystery Nestor

Somewhere, I have no idea where, there's a person named "J Nestor" who bought a subscription to Entertainment Weekly a few months ago.

Now, I use aliases. Torgo is one. I have a few others I use when I call competitors of mine from work so I can get on their mailing lists, find out how the compare to us, etc. J Nestor isn't one of mine.

But I've been the lucky recipient of about a dozen issues of Entertainment Weekly this summer and fall.

I used to love EW. I read it when it was brand new in the early 90s and I was a pop culture junkie. I remember having aspirations of being a critic like Owen Gleiberman or Lisa Schwarzbaum. I remember being devastated when I was about to go see the movie "Congo" on opening day with my friend Fernando. We'd both loved the Michael Crichton book. That afternoon EW came in the mail and trashed the movie. So I knew going in it was going to suck. (It did.)

At some point I got something vaguely resembling a life and EW was no longer important to me. That was around 1997 or so.

Getting issues now, it's a little bit nostalgia, a little bit of having something light to read, and a little bit of sadness over how incredibly shallow and meaningless the magazine is.

My first clue that the magazine didn't take a shift towards the New Yorker (which is also shallow in many ways, foolish in its snootiness in others, but at least has some articles that challenge and stimulate) was on the letters page. Other magazines with letters pages may highlight one letter in a special box, as though that letter typifies a common response from readers, or is a particularly interesting one.

EW just extracts a sentence from one of the letters it runs on the same page, usually just below the box, so readers such as myself, who read everything on the page, often in sequence, read the same letter twice. And I'm not talking about five-paragraph, op/ed piece-style letters here. They take one sentence from a two-sentence letter.

There are things I like to read, like the current issue's interview with Eddie Vedder, talking about doing the soundtrack to Sean Penn's new film, Into the Wild.

But the usual attempt at "depth" is something like Stephen King's "last page" columns. I've enjoyed one King book (The Shining) and been disappointed in others I've read (The Green Mile, Shawshank, etc.). He's not a profound writer (and I don't think he'd claim himself as such). And his columns are usually pointless and superficial. The latest one is about him going on a trek across the Australian outback and, now that he's back, enjoying going to the movies again. That sentence is his thesis and is also the most interesting thing in the article.

So I read it, or at least skim it. But I can't imagine subscribing to it.

Even though I'm not much of a business person, I thoroughly enjoy Inc. Magazine, which I subscribe to through work. It's full of innovative ideas, clever people, and enough of an emphasis on making the world more green as both a moral choice and a sound business plan to keep me engaged. EW offers none of that. Nor does it aspire to.

I also read American Poetry Review and Sports Illustrated--both gift subscriptions, both of which I usually find something worthwhile in.

Sooner or later, I may just have to find this J Nestor and either get him or her the EW subscription, or warn J not to waste time with fluff.

For now, though, there is that cover story on Britney Spears I haven't read yet.

Book Report: Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy

Tess of the d'Urbervilles: Torgo approves

This book took me forever to read. In the beginning, Tess is at home with her parents and siblings in rural England. She speaks in dialect, things move slowly.

Over the next 400 pages, the book pretty much boils down to this:

Tess is raped by Alec d'Urberville, becomes a 'fallen woman,' falls in love with Angel Clare, but remains the 'fallen woman,' so things aren't easy.

Hardy has some fun with religion. Angel is the wayward son of a parson. His two brothers are parsons, too. But Angel is something of an atheist. Meanwhile, the rapist Alec converts after being scolded by Angel's father, only to be tempted by Tess into giving up his faith.

That last bit is amazingly topical for a book over 100 years old, set about 150 years ago. Alec blames Tess for tempting him by just being beautiful. It's the classic "Women wouldn't get harassed if they didn't dress like that" faulty logic. I didn't know that line was so old. Maybe it goes back to Eve.

As a cultural encyclopedia, the book is fascinating. It's a highly readable study of rural 19th century England, something I'd never consider myself the least bit interested in. But I kept going.

I came within about 30 pages of the end of the book when I thought to myself: I should stop reading now. I know it's a tragedy, let's see if I can predict how it will end. This is at the point where Angel has returned from Brazil and is on his way to reclaim Tess, while Alec has been wooing her with the promise of money for her destitute family.

I would have said this, perhaps: Angel will kill Alec, as his death was foreshadowed earlier, thereby separating Tess from Angel.

Or, Alec will kill Angel. Or Alec might kill Tess to keep Angel from having her.

If you haven't read the book, let me just say this: The edition I read didn't have a picture on the cover. I've since seen many covers depicting the hot farmgirl. That seems to be the standard. But many picture Stonehenge. If you saw that, you might think, "Stonehenge? What the hell does that have to do with anything?" You'd be correct for about 450 pages.

Two things I never would have predicted: Stonehenge and sloppy seconds. Both come out of nowhere and don't make it any less tragic, just more weird.

That being said (which is another title for this blog, I think, 'that being said'), I recommend the book. Though she's a stereotype bound by the ridiculous cultural biases of the time, Tess is a central, titular heroine in a book written by a man at a time when that was rare.

I did think throughout the book how foreign the idea is that if you discover your girlfriend was raped as a child, you can no longer marry her or even remain on the same continent with her. But maybe that isn't so foreign. Maybe I've just been in San Francisco too long.

The L Word: Seasons 1, 2, and sort of 3

The L Word: Torgo approved until Torgo disapproved

We started watching this online. Perhaps civilization has been advancing solely to reach this point, where we can watch tv shows on computers at our leisure, watching entire seasons (hell, entire series) on a whim.

I enjoyed Season 1 (S1). It's a melodrama, but a good melodrama, with interesting characters. Not just a show about lesbians, it's a show about relationships, at least during S1.

Alice, Dana and Shane emerge quickly as our favorite characters. This may just result from their being the funny ones. During S1, I could just watch these three for an hour and be content. Even Shane's wacky affair, predictable though it may be, is good viewing. Also, Dana's blossoming romance with Lara is so awkward and cute it's also fun to watch.

I like everyone else much less:

Jenny is annoying. She's a terrible writer, but that doesn't mean we should be subjected to her terrible stories.

Tim, in what becomes a long string of straight, male characters, is a total jerk. He has a constant look of rage.

Bette and Tina are dysfunctional like couples in real life, though Bette's issues and Tina's submissiveness grow tiresome.

All in all, though, S1 is a winner.

S2 gets more funky, but is still enjoyable (except for the season finale, which is wretched -- Gloria Steinem? What are you doing at this funeral having a discourse on feminism?).

The roommate/porn director thing is dumb all around. When he finally gets found out, Jenny keeps him there almost by just saying, "Well, your contract to be on the show runs through the end of the season, so you might as well stay."

The Tonya/Dana relationship is only saved by Alice. Alice and Dana are so funny together (especially while making the party favors) that Tonya's cartoonish, ridiculous personality is offset.

Sandra Bernhard shows up because I guess if you are an actual lesbian or a feminist you need to be a guest star. But she can't act and there's nothing I like less than bad actors playing writing professors in badly written scenes.

Though I dislike Helena Peabody intensely, it was nice to see Tina stand up for herself and against Bette.

In S3 everything goes to hell. Helena Peabody is inexplicably still around. Why? And why is she friends with Alice? But oh, Alice, why, why did you become so unfunny? Is it because you became friends with Helena?

Then there are the Public Service Announcements:

Jenny's new friend Moira serve as a "Boys Don't Cry" PSA of sorts. Dana's breast cancer is a PSA right down to dialogue out of a brochure. And while I agree with Bette's criticism of the Bush administration, she sounds like she's reading a NY Times Op/Ed piece instead of acting like a human being.

Shane becomes comic relief with Carmen, going to her sister's quincenera, which is great.

But I think we're giving up on the show for now.

It's weird to see the evolution of a show so quickly. Changes due to contract disputes (like Marina and Dana), studio/fan pressure (does that explain Moira?), things like that all take place over a few days instead of several years.

We got so caught up in this show for a week or so. Combine that with the neverending story that is "Tess of the D'Urbervilles" and I need to go reclaim my masculinity by shooting a lion or something.

A Perfect Day Elise

PJ Harvey has a song called "A Perfect Day Elise" -- I never got into the song (though I like much of her stuff). But I love the title.

I've been absent from blogging because work has been busy, home life has been crazy, and, well, that's reason enough.

But in the middle of all the chaos, we took a day last weekend and went to the beach. Not some fancy, elitist beach. No, it was Ocean Beach, our local beach with the odd, perhaps idiotic name.

Prequel (the older one -- I know the metaphor is flawed when even I forget which means which) had the most fun. He played in the sand for a while with his trucks and shovels. I convinced him to go to the water with a bucket. He was cautious about the waves, but eventually I got him to go in.

The thing is, for 6'3" me, the waves coming in and hitting my ankles, maybe my shins, are enough to knock over the 3' boy. So I was holding him by his arms when the larger waves came in and especially when they dragged out.

Then I spotted a sand dollar. A perfect sand dollar. I let go for a moment and went for it. Prequel, naturally, charged towards the incoming waves, got knocked over, and went completely underwater.

I freaked out a bit, but he was laughing about it after recovering from the shock.

But now I'll always remember him looking up at me from underwater with absolute terror, even though it passed in a moment.

Fortunately, his wise mother had a change of clothes, so while I tried to dry out, he flew a kite.

Then we went home.