Roger O Green

MOVIE REVIEW: Interstellar

In Interstellar, reading the dust, literally, Coop makes a startling discovery and eventually flies off into a mysterious rip in the space-time continuum.

Now THAT’S how I like to see a movie: knowing almost nothing. I’d heard Interstellar had gotten some decent reviews and that it ran almost three hours (actually 166 minutes).

In Albany, it was playing both at the Spectrum, only at noon, and at my neighborhood Madison Theatre, at 3, 6 and 9:35 p.m., on the last Tuesday of 2014. If you knew my spouse, you’d know the latter was totally off the table, even though she didn’t have to work the next day.

The Madison at 6 it is. They show no previews, so the patrons haven’t figured out that when the overlay comes on that says the title, it’s time to be quiet.

There’s Matthew Matthew McConaughey playing Coop, a farmer in a near-future United States which is about to experience some nasty combination of the Ireland potato famine of the 1840s, as crop after crop fails; and the Oklahoma Dust Bowl of the 1930s, with precautions against the dust a way of life.

Coop is widowed with a couple kids, easy-going 15-year-old Tom (Timothée Chalamet) and Murph (Mackenzie Foy), an intense, intelligent 10-year-old girl. The kids have limited prospects, limited dreams in the new economy, epitomized by one sentence from Coop: “We used to look up to the sky and wonder about our place in the stars. Now we just look down and worry about our place in the dirt.”

In the early part of the film, the most chilling dialogue takes place between Coop and a pair of “educators” (David Oyelowo, Collette Wolfe) who have criticized Coop for letting Murph read unauthorized books rather than the revisionist history.

Reading the dust, literally, Coop makes a startling discovery, after which he leaves his two kids in the care of his father-in-law (John Lithgow) and eventually flies off into a mysterious rip in the space-time continuum with Brand (Anne Hathaway) – daughter of a noted scientist (Michael Caine) – and with others in a desperate effort to save the earth’s inhabitants.

It goes on like that, space travel, with much talk about time and gravity and how it affects all the other dimensions, and some occasional action, both in space and on the home front.

Interstellar also stars Casey Affleck, Matt Damon, and a whole lot of other folks, with essentially a cameo by Ellen Burstyn.

Then I realized I have no idea how to review this movie, at least without a lot of spoilers. So I am going to cheat and paste reviewers’ observations:

*As a singular movie-watching opportunity, it’s undoubtedly worthwhile. – Christy Lemire (negative review)

*Having set out to be a journey into what can hardly be depicted at all, Interstellar must find oblique ways of suggesting further imperceptible dimensions of the real. It is worth the journey to see what [director and co-writer Christopher] Nolan has constructed as a model of the unknowable. – Geoffrey O’Brien (positive review)

*A combination of spectacular special effects, marginal physics, and grindingly slow treacle. – Ron Wilkinson (positive review)

*Interstellar may be a preposterous epic, but it is an epic nonetheless. – Christopher Orr (positive review)

These are all accurate assessments of my feelings. I will say that Jessica Chastain as the grown-up Murph is very good. I thought the third hour was better paced, and more interesting, than the second, which could have used a 10-minute edit.

Bottom line: I’m glad I saw it, I wouldn’t watch it again, and I’m unsure whether to recommend it. The Wife liked it much less than I, but she was more confused by the science, or pseudo-science, while I didn’t worry greatly about the details.

I do think this will look worse on home video because the viewer will quite possibly get bored and give up on it.

Elvis Presley would have been 80

I like the historical reference in the Elvis song: “No such zone.”

As I’ve noted before, my father really hated Elvis. He resented this white artist stealing/exploiting/ profiting from performing black music. (But then half of the musicians in the ’50s and ’60s from Pat Boone to Led Zeppelin “borrowed” from black music). So I never owned any Elvis music as a child or teenager. Still, I did like some of his songs. So I watched the ’68 “comeback special” and became grudgingly, a mild fan.

I’ve written about Elvis a few times. But I never pegged my favorite songs because he would have turned 70 after I started this blog. The chart action refers to the Billboard (US) singles charts.

12. Blue Suede Shoes (#20 in 1956)- great song by Carl Perkins, but I prefer his original, which might have made Perkins a bigger star if he hadn’t gotten into a serious car crash.
11. Are You Lonesome To-night? (#1 for 6 weeks in 1960) – I’m not that fond of songs that involve people talking. This is one exception, mostly because “You know someone said that the world’s a stage And each must play a part” always cracks me up. “Someone” said? That was Billy Shakes!
10. All Shook Up (#1 for 9 weeks in 1957) – particularly love the vocal delivery: “Well-a bless-a my soul”

9. Suspicious Minds (#1 in 1969) – Elvis in his comeback mode being relevant.
8. A Little Less Conversation – with JXL (#50 in 2002). I had never heard the original from the 1960s, which was a minor hit.
7. Don’t Be Cruel (#1 for #11 weeks in 1956 with Hound Dog) – the opening guitar lick and the backup singers make this for me.

6. Love Me Tender (#1 for 5 weeks in 1956). There’s a traditional song called
Aura Lee from which this tune was stolen; at some level, I appreciated the audacity of that.
5. Return to Sender (#2 for 5 weeks in 1962). This is the period I really started discovering Elvis. And I like the historical reference in the song, “No such zone”, just a year before ZIP Codes were implemented for delivering mail in the United States.
4. Little Sister (#5 in 1961). I might have heard a cover of this first and tracked it back to the original.

3. Heartbreak Hotel (#1 for 8 weeks in 1956) this is SO much a blues piece. Listen to the guitar line.
2. Hound Dog (#1 for #11 weeks in 1956 with Don’t Be Cruel). Poor Elvis got to sing this to an actual hound dog on Steve Allen’s show. I always appreciate a great cover, and this take on Big Mama Thorton’s song is transformative.
1. Jailhouse Rock (#1 for 7 weeks in 1957). I’m sure my affection has as much to do with the choreography from the movie as the song’s appeal.

Looking for the reset button

Had a really good time during the Christmas/ New Year period, which I will write about soon. Temporarily forgot about the backlog at work- more on that down the road.

Already sad about the death of Mario Cuomo, which I wrote about, I did get a bit irritable about some of the commentary from the political left that his actions didn’t always match his rhetoric. As this article suggests, Cuomo knew that politics is the art of the possible. Or as Cuomo put it: “We campaign in poetry but we govern in prose.”

Then, when I got back home, I hear of the death of fellow choir Jimmy Rocco, who I knew and liked; wrote about THAT.

I’m sitting in church Sunday listening to the joys and concerns, when someone noted the sudden death of Sonny Hausgaard on January 3. Did I hear that name right? Yes. Sonny was a member of the board of the Friends of the Albany Public Library, over which I preside. His wife was a friend of one of our church members. This is the first time I looked in the newspaper obits and saw TWO people I knew personally.

Also, I was musing over the death of Edward Brooke on January 3, “the first African American elected to the U.S. Senate by popular vote and the first Republican senator to call for the resignation of President Nixon over the Watergate scandal,” who died Saturday at the age of 95. “Upon his arrival in Washington, Brooke automatically achieved a number of social firsts, according to his memoirs, integrating both the Senate swimming pool and the Senate barbershop.”

More significant, for black people across the United States, he became “their” unofficial senator when he took office in January 1967. When their own representatives were unresponsive, often because of the vestiges of racism, they well might contact the junior senator from Massachusetts.

I was also saddened, far more than I expected, by the passing of Stuart Scott, the ESPN anchor who brought a “hip hop attitude” – ESPN’s words, not mine – to sport commentary. He was only 49 when he died on January 4. Watching a bunch of grown black men, usually, former athletes such as Cris Carter and Keyshawn Johnson, holding back tears, saying that Stuart let them know they had a role model so that they could be themselves, was surprisingly affecting. I had not realized that this was Scott’s THIRD bout with cancer, going back to 2007.

Instead of dealing with stuff I should have been addressing – paying bills, ABC Wednesday stuff, Black History Month organizing at church, Olin reunion, library lobby day, etc. – I was e-mailing the Friends to make sure they knew of Sonny’s death, planning to take off Wednesday morning (today) for Jimmy’s funeral, and in general, feeling more than a little discombobulated.

I may just throw the first week of 2015 on the 2014 bonfire and start anew. Perhaps I need to look at those good news sites Arthur was talking about, but suddenly I haven’t got the time. Hmm, feel like I’m crankier lately in this blog; this Alberta clipper cold snap (blame Canada!) we’re currently experiencing does NOT help.
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Bess Myerson died back on December 14, though it wasn’t revealed until recently. I knew her best as a panelist on the game show I’ve Got A Secret, but she came into prominence as the first Miss America who was Jewish. She wouldn’t change her name to something less “ethnic”; I always admired that. She had later difficulties in NYC government and in her personal life, unfortunately.

Z is for the Rosamond Gifford Zoo

The Rosamond Gifford Zoo in Syracuse celebrated its centennial in 2014.

This is probably the third time I used zoo, but at least it’s a different one.

This past Veterans Day, the family visited the Rosamond Gifford Zoo at Burnet Park in Syracuse, NY. We were in the city for a conference my wife attended, and just before we left town, we followed the most convoluted Mapquest directions to get to this site that provided a great view of the city.

The admission price for the three of us was $20; actually 12.5% less than that with The Wife’s AAA membership. If we had gone NEXT year, I’d be a senior citizen (ack!) and would be charged $5 rather than $8.

As it turns out, the zoo was celebrating its centennial year:

The… Zoo has had a wild adventure of growth and improvement over the last century. Once just a small four-acre facility, the zoo is now home to approximately 700 animals (more than 240 species) spanning 43 acres.

You can read about the animals. As is always the case, there may be a a few animals not available. The small enclosed animals looked fine. I did wonder if the lions would have preferred a larger space, as the tigers, foxes, and elephants had.

I imagine if we lived locally, we might visit a few times a year.

ABC Wednesday, Round 15

Ununited States

These first person shooter games might have some effect on the cognitive understanding of life for some people,

Jaquandor asks:

How do we solve the police brutality problem? To what extent is it a part of a larger problem with our society, indicating a deep and abiding devotion to punitive violence? I see police brutality as another facet of the problem that leads to our awful prisons and our enormous prison population.

First, I need to note the killing of two New York City police officers on December 20. It was correctly described as an assassination, and I mourn their deaths.

At the same time, I believe the remarks of Rudy Guiliani, blaming their deaths on President Obama as amazingly irresponsible, as well as untrue. The problem of excessive force by the police exists in a small, but a significant number of cases. And it’s not “anti-police” when New York City mayor Bill de Blasio, who is white but married to a black woman, instructs his children, and especially his son with the great ‘fro, in specific ways to cautiously and politely deal with the police.

Others, including former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik, who had some legal problems of his own a while back, suggested that the shootings were ultimately encouraged by de Blasio and the Rev. Al Sharpton, and that “they have blood on their hands.” He told Newsmax: “The people who encouraged these protests — you had peaceful protesters who were screaming ‘kill the cops’ — the so-called peaceful protesters. Who was encouraging these protesters? De Blasio, Sharpton, and other elected officials and community leaders. They encouraged this mentality. They encouraged this behavior.”

Anyone who has ever been to a protest – I have attended more than a few in my time – knows that there are occasionally outliers at these events, people whose positions don’t jibe with the organizers’ intents. So would it be better that such Constitutionally-protected demonstrations be quashed?

That, BTW, was what the Tea Party folks said when a couple people killed two Las Vegas police officers in June 2014, that those cop killers, who had rallied with Cliven Bundy, along with people who POINTED GUNS at law enforcement officials, did not represent the movement.

Jon Stewart got it right when he said one can grieve the loss AND worry about the police overreach; they are NOT mutually exclusive.

To the question: I should note that not all of the excessive violence is directed toward young black males. For instance, the TX SWAT team beats, deafens nude man in his own home, lies about arrest; judge declines to punish cops or DA. There seems to be a need by some police to quash all possibly illicit behavior. If Eric Garner WERE selling individual cigarettes in Staten Island, it certainly wasn’t a felony.

I’m not sure of the cause of ALL the violence. I once posited on someone’s website the theory that these first-person shooter games might have some effect on the cognitive understanding of life for some people, but was told by gaming experts that there’s “no relationship.” Maybe, maybe not. I’ve wondered about this at least since Vietnam when one could drop the precision bombs without having any discernible understanding. And now war can really tidy, with people in the middle of the US dropping bombs on people half a world away; looks very much like a video game to me.

I AM convinced that the tremendous rise in the prison population, mostly for non-violent drug use, which I wrote about extensively, is a major contributor. Prison is, I’ve been told, a great school for becoming a better criminal.

Surely the militarism of the police, with all that post-9/11 money doled about by the federal government has led to a war zone mentality. But even in Afghanistan and Iraq, the military had a plan of engaging with the communities, whereas in the urban centers of the US, some of the residents feel like the police are an occupying force.

Maybe all the things that keep us disconnected from our surroundings – surburbia, synthetic food, our personal electronic devices, the bile that comes from commenting anonymously on social media – matter. SOMETHING is fueling a general rage – road rage, online rage.

Bottom line, though: the anger in the community is not just that there are excessive uses of force. The problem is that there appears to be lack of accountability for the actions. I’ve heard the body cameras for police will be a solution. But there WAS footage of Eric Garner dying. Police video would have not likely change the “no indictment” outcome. Did you see that the Ferguson prosecutor allowed witnesses that were “clearly not telling the truth” to the grand jury?

It may be that guns make police less safe, their jobs more difficult and communities less trusting. Or maybe it’s just the human condition.

This is a long way of saying, “Makes me wanna holler, throw up both my hands.”

Uthaclena wonders:

Okay, here’s one of my ponders: can the United States survive as a united entity? SHOULD it be a united entity, or would it be better off broken up so that the racist, theocratic barbarians can abuse themselves and leave the rest of us alone?

There are lots of precedents in the 20th century suggesting that this is a terrible idea. The creation of the state of Israel did not lead to peace in the Middle East. I learned from watching the Sanjay Gupta episode of the PBS series Finding Your Roots when the subcontinent was divided in 1947, there was massive dislocation, with millions moving to Hindu India or Muslim Pakistan, needing to abandon their historic homelands; moreover over a million people were killed in clashes. The eastward shift of Poland after World War II was also a hardship for about a third of the country.

How would this work anyway? The redneck in rural Pennsylvania or downtown Cincinnati moves to Alabama or Utah? That flaming liberal in Austin, Texas goes to New York City? Where do you put purplish states such as Iowa and Colorado?
How would the infrastructure be organized? Will I need a passport to visit the Grand Canyon? How do you split the federal government and its various jurisdictions?

More basically, the whole bloody Civil War was fought, in part, to keep the Union intact; the splinter would make that sacrifice in vain. Moreover, Lincoln’s rationale for not allowing the breakup of the Union is that there was no mechanism in the Constitution to do so; ipso facto, it ought not to be done.

In any case, I don’t think people are that binary. Sure there are your “racist, theocratic barbarians”, but most of the rest of us are in the spectrum. And subtle racism shows up in the mainstream media, which many people buy into. I noticed this piece on 60 Minutes how Tom Coburn (R-OK) got along with Barack Obama (D-IL) when they were both freshman Senators in 2005, and even enacted legislation together where they could find common ground.

Just not feeling this divided nation thing.

Then Dan Van Riper jumps in:

Well, I’ll ask a more pointed version of Uthaclena’s question. With all this subtle propaganda from above calling for the USA to break up, do you think that the United States will survive intact as a nation by the end of this decade? (I suspect not, and I hope I’m very wrong.)

Let’s look at the people who could actually pull off this coup. I mean other than the 99% if they could get their act together.

1) The armed forces. I suppose they COULD be mobilized if they were conned into thinking that it was for the greater patriotic good. But it’s not like the Egyptian army, an entity unto itself, that could make or break the government.

2) The police. Too decentralized. Not like the corrupt Mexican police. Although it COULD happen in a few places, despite efforts by the brass. And I’m really unsettled by the recent US Supreme Court ruling that police officers are permitted to violate American citizens’ Fourth Amendment rights if the violation results from a “reasonable” mistake about the law on the part of the police.

3) Some right-wing coalition. It is true that there are more hate groups under Barack Obama than ever, that there are 41 states that have an active chapter of the Ku Klux Klan, and that there are anti-government types such as alleged cop-killer Eric Frein out there. Can they work some loose affiliation with the Clive Bundy supporters and disrupt things? Maybe.

My feeling, though, is that at least some of these groups will dissipate somewhat when Obama leaves office because the myth of the terrible black Kenyan sticking it to the white man won’t be sustainable anymore.