A Big Story Causes Major Stress in The Paper

When I was in college, I worked on the campus newspaper, first as a staff writer and eventually as the editor of the news section. Since then, I have written regularly for two other newspapers. Hence, I can relate somewhat to the stress exhibited in the 1994 Ron Howard movie The Paper, though none of my stories has had such high stakes as the one main character Henry (Michael Keaton) is trying to break.

This movie, which was written by brothers David and Stephen Koepp, takes place over the course of one very hectic day. Two lower-class black teenagers stand accused of murdering a white businessman. The audience knows it isn’t true, but Henry and his fellow reporters can only guess in pursuit of the truth. It would be easier to assume guilt, but if they can uncover a conspiracy and help clear innocent young men in the process, surely that’s worth the extra hassle, right?

This movie shows all the stresses that go into putting together a daily newspaper and the toll that it takes on the most dedicated reporters. Henry is one of those, a workaholic whose commitment to a newspaper that hasn’t always treated him very well frustrates his wife Martha (Marisa Tomei), a former reporter on the verge of giving birth, though she helps him pursue his story, as does cheerful renegade Michael McDougal (Randy Quaid), despite the displeasure of bulldoggish Alicia Clark (Glenn Close), the second-in-command who just wants to go to press on time since expensive delays could sink the struggling newspaper.

There’s a manic quality to the movie that made it hard for me to follow at first. It’s loaded with characters, many of whom are played by A-list actors. There are also several New York City personalities who turn up as themselves, and Howard’s parents, wife and brother all get cameos. This turns the movie viewing into a fun game of Spot the Star but distracts a bit from the plot, at least initially, though I found it easier to get into once I’d been watching for a while.

The tug among strong forces like integrity, business savvy and family makes it compelling as the characters face very difficult choices, while the sometimes absurdist solutions keep the laughter coming. Meanwhile, side stories add to the more serious overtones, particularly the quest of ailing editor-in-chief Bernie White, played by the always-excellent Robert Duvall, to reconcile with his estranged daughter.

The movie is rated R with good reason, particularly when it comes to language and violence. I wouldn’t recommend it for younger audiences, but high schoolers considering careers in journalism might want to have a look and see what they might be getting into. This movie shows the intense frustration that can arise from working in the newspaper business. However, it also celebrates the exultation of a job well done.

Aspiring Artists Should Not Take Lessons From Bucket of Blood

One day several months ago, my parents and I returned home to find my brother Nathan's head on the porch. We had scarcely recovered from our shock when we encountered Nathan's head again, this time attached to his shoulders, as he explained that this eerily lifelike bust was a school project he'd finally toted home from college. Over the next few months, he painted it and left it out on the deck to be weathered by the elements, creating a rugged representation of himself that took first place in the sculpture division of Panorama, an annual Erie art show.

Nathan is a sculptor. Walter, the main character in cheesy 1959 horror flick A Bucket of Blood, is not.

The film, written by Charles B. Griffith and directed by Roger Corman, stars Dick Miller as a nondescript waiter who's tired of feeling like a nobody. When he accidentally kills his landlady's cat, it seems like one more stroke of bad luck for a guy who can't catch a break. Then, something unexpected happens. Some bohemians from the café where he works spy the cat which he has encased in plaster as a cover-up and deem him a great artist. He begins receiving accolades - and demands for a follow-up piece.

The low production values and absurd premise help make this movie too silly to be scary, which is the only way I can stomach horror. Walter is actually a sympathetic protagonist, at least at first, but his lust for acceptance and acclaim brings out the worst in him. The movie also seems to critique the pretentiousness artsy types sometimes possess. Here, they all latch onto this hip new artist with his hyper-realistic sculptures, and one gets the impression that most of them think his work is cool simply because the others do.

While most of the beatniks are presented in a shallow light, Carla (Barboura Morris) has more depth, and she relates to Walter as a friend rather than a commodity - or an oddity. While she may be one of Walter's most ardent supporters, she is also one of the first to realize that something about this "artist" is amiss. Unfortunately, by that time, he has set his sights on her, and he has grown used to getting what he wants. Is her sweet spirit about to be rewarded with a taste of terror?

The story and main characters are engaging, and I also love the wry spoof of the contemporary counter-culture, particularly through the out-there Maxwell (Julian Burton). As a Glenn Yarbrough fan, I was tickled to hear a folk song performed by a man with a remarkably similar style; a bit of research informed me that he was Alex Hassilev - and he'd been in a band, the Limeliters, with Yarbrough.

If I could stomach this movie, I reckon most squeamish folks wouldn't have a problem with it. It's more goofy than grotesque, and it may make you appreciate the true artists in your life all the more.

Clark Griswold's Christmas Vacation Is Laced With Disaster

My boyfriend Will and I immersed ourselves in a multitude of Christmas movies this past holiday season, and since we watched some of them alone and some with my parents or a friend, a couple flicks got covered twice. One of those was the wacky 1989 classic National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.

Along with A Christmas Story, this is the movie I most often see referenced by people whose stomachs turn at the steady trickle of treacle provided by so many holiday films. I’m a sucker for sap, so I never mind, but I can see how this movie written by John Hughes and directed by Jeremiah S. Chechik would appeal to those who consider Christmas primarily a hassle.

As he does in several other movies in the series, Chevy Chase stars as lovable schmuck Clark Griswold. Clark just loves Christmas, and he’s over-the-moon excited that he finally gets to host a big celebration of his own. His level-headed wife Ellen (Beverly D’Angelo) and embarrassed kids Rusty (Johnny Galecki) and Audrey (Juliette Lewis) aren’t so thrilled. Not only do they have to deal with his impractical extravagance, they must navigate the inconveniences posed by two sets of grandparents and an uninvited redneck cousin.

I’m always one to cringe at wanton mayhem, so I’m not wild about all the destructive sequences in this movie, though some of them do make me laugh. As an animal lover, there is one scene in particular that I find distasteful, and as obnoxious as they are, I do feel a little sorry for the neighbors played by Nicholas Guest as Seinfeld’s Julia Louis-Dreyfus, as they most often fall victim to Clark’s tinkering. From the oversized tree and the malfunctioning lights to the super-powered sled and the Christmas Eve hostage crisis, just about every mishap in this movie is a result, directly or indirectly, of Clark’s tendency toward excess.

Yet it is that youthful enthusiasm that makes him such a lovable character. Clark adores his family and still finds Christmastime magical. He wants everyone to share in the joy that he feels. As his big plans go further and further off the rails, he goes off the deep end, but it’s hard to imagine how anyone could do otherwise in that situation. Hence, while almost everything goes wrong in this movie, it doesn’t really feel like a cynical response to Christmas.

Clark’s heart is as expansive as his yard display, as the scenes he shares with little Ruby Sue (the adorable Ellen Hamilton Latzen) show especially well. Similarly, Randy Quaid brings a lot of sweetness to the role of Ruby Sue’s loose cannon of a dad, Eddie. He may cause everyone a heap of headaches, but in a pinch, he’s an awfully loyal friend.

I wouldn’t list this movie among my Christmas favorites, but it definitely has its own oddball charm, and I’ve little doubt that I will check in with the Griswolds during Decembers yet to come.

Not Quite Proof of Heaven, But An Intriguing Account

Back in October, I paid a visit to my grandparents. While I was there, we watched an episode of Katie Couric's talk show in which she invited guests who reported having had near-death or mystical experiences, and my grandpa lent me a couple books collecting stories of people who believed they had gotten a glimpse of a deeper reality. The theme seemed to permeate my visit, so I was intrigued when one of the first things I saw upon my return home was my dad's latest Newsweek, the cover of which pointed to an excerpt of a book written by a neurologist claiming Proof of Heaven.

I read the excerpt and decided to order the book by Dr. Eben Alexander. After all, not only did it feel like kismet after I'd encountered the subject so much at my grandparents', but accounts of that type have always fascinated me. Alexander's is particularly interesting because he approaches it from a scientific perspective. While the book is mostly written in layman's terms, it is informed by his years of study and skepticism. It attempts to reconcile faith and science in a meaningful way, though he uses very little specific religious terminology throughout the book.

I found Alexander's style accessible and enjoyable, albeit a bit hard to follow at times as he tends to follow a very nonlinear format. He spends a lot of time discussing his conflicted feelings about having been adopted and the emotions that swirled up in him when he first made contact with his biological family. He also discusses what was happening in the hospital while he was in a coma brought on by a particularly nasty form of meningitis, and he talks about the impact that his experience while in the coma had upon his life. What he doesn't really discuss in great detail is the experience itself. That part of the account is moving but brief, and the book includes few details that weren't covered in the excerpt.

What Alexander does share is intriguing, particularly as he ties it in with quantum physics and the idea that sheer materialism offers a deeply limited view of the cosmos. His description of love as the very fabric of the universe is moving and comforting, and I was particularly interested in his immersion in an almost tangible harmony and how that enriched his experience when he returned church after a long absence. He notes that he is an Episcopalian but that prior to his experience, the religious conviction he once felt had dimmed considerably. I would have been interested in hearing more about how he viewed his renewed childhood faith in light of what he believed to be a close encounter with the divine.

Despite the audacious title, the evidence Alexander offers is still something that can't be corroborated except to the extent that his medical records clearly indicate that part of his brain shut down during his coma. It's also not among the most detailed NDE accounts I have read. I think the book promises more than it delivers in terms of recounting the actual experience and uses repetition and rumination to mask the fact that the meat of the story is only maybe three or four chapters. Nonetheless, it does offer a specific viewpoint that makes it an unusual offering in this particular niche. While it's more anecdote than evidence, it opens up the conversation in an interesting way and is well worth a look for those who are drawn to these types of accounts.

It's Not Quite Pitch Perfect, But Still An Enjoyable Movie

My friend Libbie and I have watched GLEE together many times, so the 2012 movie Pitch Perfect seemed like a natural movie choice for a recent girls’ night in. This Jason Moore-directed comedy based on the book by Mickey Rapkin is set on the campus of a college where some of the students take music very seriously. The primary focus is on the Bellas, a girls’ a cappella group struggling to rebound from a disastrous national performance the year before.

While the movie zeroes in on various students at different points, the central character is rebellious freshman Beca (Anna Kendrick), who dreams of being a music producer. It takes a lot of persuasion to get her to join the group, but once she does, she becomes a major source of energy and innovation, much to the displeasure of controlling group leader Aubrey (Anna Camp), whose mishap necessitated a fresh approach this year.

Brittany Snow is quite charming as Aubrey’s best friend Chloe, the only other returning Bella and the one who quickly recognizes Beca’s skill as a vocalist. Easily the sweetest of the bunch, she is much easier to take than Aubrey, whose obnoxious attitude usually cancels out sympathy for her unfortunate tendency to throw up when nervous. This running gag is probably my least favorite aspect of the movie, since they go to great pains to make the barf as absurdly exaggerated as possible, a la Airplane. The result is too gross to be funny, at least to me.

While none of the other humor is that grotesque, I did find a lot of it too low-brow or catty to really make me laugh, but there are some genuinely funny moments, particularly involving Australian breakout star Rebel Wilson as self-assured vocalist Fat Amy and Hana Mae Lee as the quiet, creepy Lilly. The film also has some sweet moments of blossoming friendship among fellow outcasts, as well as the slow-building romance between Beca and movie enthusiast Jesse (Skylar Astin), whose uber-geeky roommate Benji (Ben Platt), avid magician and collector of Star Wars memorabilia, is probably my favorite character in the movie.

Of course, given the theme of the movie, there’s a lot of singing here, and most of it is quite good despite the fact that there are a couple of songs we hear ad nauseam. A rivalry between the Bellas and the all-male Treblemakers, of which Jesse is a part, adds drama to the movie, and it’s fun to hear the arrangements that they come up with. As a penner of filksong lyrics, I was also fascinated to hear Beca discuss the process of creating mash-ups, which similarly involves finding the common ground between two seemingly unrelated things and fusing them together. In the case of mash-ups, both song theme and chord progressions come into play, often with very creative and pleasing results.

A cappella music and choral groups in general have experienced increased popularity in recent years thanks to shows like GLEE and groups like Straight No Chaser, and those who get a kick out of those tight-knit harmonies might want to give this movie a try, though they should be warned that much of the comedy is crude, albeit only at a PG-13 level. Additionally, it definitely feels informed by GLEE, but it’s hard to say whether it spends more time celebrating or mocking the spirit of that show. There’s certainly a tongue-in-cheek tone to the movie, but at its most earnest, it demonstrates the power of music to unite even the most different of individuals.

Open This Little Book and Find a Reading Rainbow

My friend Dan shares my love of great picture books, so when he finds one, he always makes a point of alerting me. This year for Christmas, he gave me Open This Little Book, a simple but clever book written by Jesse Klausmeier and illustrated by Suzy Lee.

The first thing I thought of when I read through this fun book was Cloud Atlas, as it has a similar recursive structure, albeit with much simpler contents. Indeed, there is very little text in the book except at its very heart. Nonetheless, there is enough there to give kids the gist of the idea and hopefully inspire not only further reading but further writing as well.

While Klausmeier is a first-time author, Korean artist Lee has received many accolades for her work, and it is the visual component of this book that is so striking. It begins after the title page, when we see a purple paperback book resting comfortably inside the larger hardcover. This interior book is slightly smaller, leaving a mostly-white border around it where the book returns to full-size at the end. Its cover is less complex but still incorporates most of the same elements as the cover proper.

The title is an instruction. Open the book, and you’ll find another, still smaller, book inside, this one entitled Little Red Book. Inside that is Little Green Book, which contains Little Orange Book, which houses Little Yellow Book, which conceals Little Blue Book and, finally, Little Rainbow Book. Each book introduces another character, and the two illustrations inside it show that character holding the next book in line. For instance, Rabbit, who first appears in the orange book, holds the yellow book in his paw.

The use of color in the book is wonderful. Each book has a solid color outline on the inside to which the next book reaches, so when you get to the middle you have very defined white, purple, red, green, orange, yellow and blue boxes. While the order is not quite that of the rainbow spectrum, the basic colors are there, and it’s very pleasing to the eye.

Additionally, the color subtly enforces the idea that every book we read expands our knowledge. The first illustration inside the purple book is black and white except for the red book. In the next illustration, however, red is used extensively, while the only other color is green, which is only used to show the book Ladybug is reading. This continues, with each book incorporating more colors.

When they double back on themselves, each of them closing his or her book in turn, the illustrations on the right-hand side of the books are drenched with color. Rabbit now has a yellow umbrella; Ladybug is surrounded by leafy greenery. Their worlds are brighter because of what they have gained by reading.

That message is more overtly stated at the very end of the book as well, since it explicitly instructs children to open another book after they have closed the last of the mini-books. The final illustration is a joyous celebration of the wonders of reading, with all of the book’s characters and many others happily sprawled around a beautiful bookcase fashioned out of a pair of entwined trees. That design emphasizes the sense of connection that runs through the book (or, rather, series of books). Stories are something we share with each other.

This book is a delight to peruse, and I can easily picture some children wanting to try creating a book like this themselves. I’m certain my artistic brother would have enjoyed such a task had he encountered such a book as a kid. Children might also have fun identifying all of the animals featured in the final picture and imagining what each of them could be reading.

As someone who grew up with both Star Trek: The Next Generation and Reading Rainbow, I was intrigued by Klausmeier’s decision to dedicate the book in part to LeVar Burton. She offers no explanation, but I suspect the latter show has something to do with it. After all, she, too, is telling reader to take a look in a book, and in this case, the contents are colorful indeed.

Christian Bale Suits Up for the First Time in Batman Begins

When The Dark Knight came out in 2008, one of the reasons I was interested in it despite the violence the trailers portended was that I’d seen part of Batman Begins and liked it. This month, I watched the first movie in Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy and realized just how little of it I’d actually seen. Nonetheless, I did find it an enjoyable movie, much more so than the second.

Batman Begins is like The Dark Knight Rises in that it spends a lot of time getting into the head of Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale). While the focus of The Dark Knight is a bit different, these two movies make natural bookends. We see several flashbacks to Bruce’s childhood, during which he is tormented with anxiety over the bats that live in a cave on the grounds of Wayne Manor. This terror ultimately has deadly consequences, leading him to revisit it as an adult and use it to face more monstrous villains, including an unlikely but terrifying foe who preys on people’s deepest fears.

Batman is a dark superhero forged through tragedy, and we see a lot of that brooding angst here. However, we also see the strength of his moral principles, which were instilled in him by his parents. While he struggles with a desire for revenge, his refusal to become a bloodthirsty vigilante plays an important role in his development, particularly in regard to Ducard (Liam Neeson), the martial arts master from whom he receives extensive training during a lengthy absence from Gotham City.

The movie is very action-packed, with numerous explosions and altercations, but it also has quieter moments and bits of humor sprinkled throughout as welcome seasoning. Michael Caine is magnificent as his faithful butler Alfred, a father figure and devoted friend with a wry sense of humor, and Morgan Freeman is similarly enjoyable as inventor Lucius Fox, who provides Batman with all of his nifty gadgets. Meanwhile, Gary Oldman brings dignity and warmth to the role of kindhearted Jim Gordon, one of the few cops in Gotham City who is truly concerned about justice.

The screenplay by Nolan and David S. Goyer does a great job of establishing the complexities of Bruce’s motivation and the darkness of the city he aims to protect. The scenes in his childhood and early adulthood are particularly effective at making him sympathetic despite his aloof manner and tendency toward darkness. As childhood pal Rachel Dawes, Katie Holmes helps drive home the distinction between his noble aims and his sometimes excessive methods.

While I’m much more of a Superman fan, Nolan and these talented actors are very effective in bringing a unique vision of this iconic character to the big screen.

The Homecoming Introduces the Waltons to the World

Growing up, I watched The Waltons occasionally, though never enough to feel a deep sense of familiarity with the characters. Still, I found the homespun charm of the show endearing and was intrigued when my boyfriend Will suggested watching The Homecoming, the movie that started it all.

The television movie features the same cast of children as the series, along with the same grandma. The most noticeable cast difference is that Olivia Walton, the mother of the large family, is played by Patricia Neal. Aside from John-Boy, who is portrayed by gangly, lovable Richard Thomas, Olivia is the character given the most attention as she struggles to mask her anxiety over her husband’s late return from an out-of-town job on Christmas Eve.

Like many Christmas movies, this is a heartwarming tale of family togetherness. The hardscrabble setting of a farm during the Depression makes the economy a major source of conflict. These are good salt-of-the-earth people who must work tirelessly and support each other in order to survive. While the driving concern in the film is why John is late and whether he is all right, it also deals with the children’s individual fears and frustrations, particularly John-Boy’s desire to strike out on his own and become a writer and Mary-Ellen’s (Judy Norton) teen angst.

The heart of the special is in the family, particularly the close-knit but chaotic ensemble of the seven children. While the Waltons are simple people trying to scrape out a living, they still have hopes and dreams, and the children have plenty of silliness in them. Kami Cotler is particularly adorable as the tiny Elizabeth, whose innocent remarks rarely fail to elicit laughter.

The movie also deals with various other members of the community, the most colorful of which are the mildly batty Baldwin sisters Mamie (Josephine Hutchinson) and Emily (Dorothy Stickney), elderly spinsters who sustain themselves by selling their father’s famous bootleg whiskey. One of the best scenes in the movie involves John-Boy and vivacious preacher Hawthorne Dooley (Cleavon Little) attempting to coax a favor out of these feisty ladies. Hawthorne, incidentally, is strikingly contrasted with a sanctimonious missionary whose attempt to minister to the local children is both comical and nightmarish.

Anyone who enjoyed The Waltons should have a look at this movie that launched the series, even if it is a bit odd to see some of the familiar characters played by different actors. The spirit of the series is certainly present in this tale of individuals in hard times doing what they must to make it and helping each other to do the same. Based on the author’s own childhood experience, this wholesome yarn is ideal for cozy Christmastime viewing.

Santa Finds Some Unexpected Helpers in Oh, What a Christmas!

In Jerry Pallotta’s Who Will Guide My Sleigh Tonight? Santa runs through all sorts of trials with different animals before settling on the perfect creatures to pull his sleigh. In the more recent picture book Oh, What a Christmas!, Michael Garland posits a scenario in which Santa already knows which animals work best but must resort to using different species due to an accident.

Garland is a longtime illustrator, and it is his lavish artwork that drives this silly but sweet tale. The story is told with simple narration in a couple of paragraphs per page. Particularly noteworthy phrases like “BIG, FAT, JOLLY RED SKYROCKET” and onomatopoeia like “THUD! STOMP! THWACK!” jump out at the reader in extra-large print and capital letters. Santa speaks from time to time, usually peppering his dialogue with “ho”s, but the reindeer are silent, as are the animals that come into the story soon afterward.

The book consists mostly of full-page illustrations and two-page spreads filled with vibrant colors and intricate shading. The tale begins with Santa and his reindeer embarking on their Christmas Eve ride, only to have a straightforward night thwarted when the harness breaks, causing the deer to be separated from Santa and the sleigh to crash. Santa lands near a barn, and it is there that he finds his replacements: two sheep, two cows, a horse, a pig, a goat and a hound dog. The main fun of the story is seeing these ordinary animals in the extraordinary situation of guiding Santa’s sleigh.

The animals have a fairly realistic look to them while still being slightly cartoonish, particularly in their eyes, which are large and white with small black pupils, each with a pinprick of light in it. Santa, too, has such eyes, along with rosy cheeks and a bulbous nose. His beard and mustache are silky white, and his suit looks quite cozy. Santa is very jolly-looking, while the animals spend much of their time looking gently confused. Some of the facial expressions are quite comical.

As stories go, this one isn’t too complicated, but it is sweet, since it allows a ragtag team of farm animals to do something amazing and to help Santa out of a jam. There’s a general sense of goodwill about the tale and a warm glow in several of the illustrations that would feel at home in a Thomas Kinkade painting. For young children who enjoy animals, this book offers a fun twist on a Christmas tradition.

A Bad Kitty Christmas Is a Good Christmas Book

I imagine that most cat owners have entertained the thought that they have a bad kitty. After all, cats have an independent attitude and a knack for getting into mischief, and the holidays often bring out the worst in them since there are so many opportunities to cause trouble. That is certainly the case in Nick Bruel’s A Bad Kitty Christmas, one of several books featuring a scraggly black car with a tuft of white fur on her chest and a sometimes-surly disposition.

This charming story is told through rhyme. It begins and ends as a parody of A Visit From St. Nicholas, but it’s a much longer narrative than that classic poem, and Santa Claus isn’t involved at all. Instead, this is the story of a mischievous kitty who makes a colossal mess, gets soundly scolded and decides to run away en route to the big family dinner. Along the way, she comes to realize how nice it is to have a home, even if people can be frustrating sometimes.

One very neat thing about this book is that it is an alphabet book, but instead of going through the alphabet once, as most books of that type do, it does so several times, and it is integrated organically into the story. The first time around, we get an alphabetical list of all the damage Kitty has done to the house, with one noun and one passive past tense verb in each short sentence. Each time the sentence’s star letter is used at the beginning of a word, it is in red and extra-large.

The second time, the featured letter is blue, and instead of a sentence per letter, it’s only a word or phrase, so this alphabet only takes up two pages. It lists all of the animals the ravenous Kitty wants to eat, and some of them are quite unusual, so there is an educational element to this one beyond the alphabet as children can learn about such creatures as cormorants, ibises, narwhals and quetzals. The two-page spread also features six amusing illustrations grouping the animals, so kids can have an instant idea of what they look like.

Finally, the third alphabet is a listing of various people appearing in photographs hanging on the Christmas tree of an elderly woman who finds Kitty after she runs away. While the first alphabet is funny and the second is educational, this third is poignant as it shows all of the people important in the woman’s life and helps Kitty to understand how much these bonds matter. There are also interesting little tidbits in there, such as the fact that “vriend” is the Afrikaans word for “friend.”

Another fun element of this book is the fact that shortly after Kitty runs away, the pup who lives with her also hops out of the car in order to conduct a search. After that point, many of the pages have a black-and-white inset showing how he is progressing on his journey as he sniffs her trail out and makes inquiries of any creature he sees. The main illustrations, by contrast, are vibrantly colored and sometimes presented in several panels per page. This is a very busy book, filled with a bustle of activity and sometimes several things happening at once. It’s also ultimately a very sweet book with a heartwarming conclusion that is likely to elicit as many smiles among parents as children.