Movie Monday: Wonder Boys

Posted on March 19, 2012 | Leave a comment

There are a handful of movies I watch at least once a year. I’ve seen each of them many times and enjoy each viewing. In many cases it’s like relaxing with a favorite drink. Wonder Boys is one of those movies. Curtis Hanson’s adaptation of Michael Chabon’s novel about a one hit wonder novelist turned writing professor whose life is falling apart is very comfortable for me. That may say more about me than the movie, but I’ll try to fix that in the rest of this review.

I think you probably get more out of Wonder Boys if you’re a writer, but I don’t think it’s necessary. Michael Douglas who typically plays super-rich and powerful characters is strangely perfect as the disheveled Grady Tripp. It’s expected that he’s a good guy having lots of bad things happen to him but as the story unfolds, you realize every one of his problems is entirely of his own making.

Before the movie even starts his wife has left him. His editor is coming in from out of town to look at his second book that is a few years late. He’s having an affair with his boss’ wife. And his best student is either going to become a best selling writer or possibly kill himself. We learn all of these things are already happening and then things start to get worse for him.

It sounds depressing but it really isn’t. It helps that his editor is a bisexual hedonist played by Robert Downey Jr. and the moody student writer is played by Tobey Maguire. In fact, the cast in this movie is one of the best I can think of. Katie Holmes plays a student tenant of Grady’s who’d like nothing more than to sleep with him. (There’s a scene where she’s laying in bed reading his manuscript that’s probably far sexier to writers than it would be to other people.) Rip Torn has a bit part as a pompous best-selling writer. He’s sort of the anti-Grady. Frances McDormand is the woman Grady is having an affair with. She’s one of those actresses who never gets enough roles. She’s a character actress who tends to disappear into her character.

The humor throughout the movie is what makes the whole thing work. It would be a dark, depressing affair without it. Instead, it’s a movie full of hilarious moments amongst all of the chaos. Also, no review of this movie would be complete without a mention of the fantastic soundtrack that includes Bob Dylan, Van Morrison, and John Lennon. On a rainy morning with nothing to do, some people like to put on The Big Lebowski (a fine movie in its own right). I put on Wonder Boys.

- Jack Cameron

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Movie Monday: Game Change

Posted on March 12, 2012 | Leave a comment

Sarah Palin. There are few names more divisive than hers. Four years ago when she was plucked from obscurity literally from the wilds of Alaska, few people knew who she was. The new HBO movie Game Change is about how that moment happened and everything that happened after that.

Game Change is an impressive movie. It would have been easy to paint the McCain/Palin campaign as a bunch of morons who made mistake after mistake and basically do the whole thing as an extended Saturday Night Live sketch. Instead, they portray an incredibly balanced narrative about a presidential campaign in trouble and the methods they used to give the campaign the shot in the arm it needed.

It’s difficult to portray real people who are still alive and in the public spotlight. Julianne Moore manages to play Sarah Palin as a real person in extraordinary circumstances and does it all without falling into cliché or caricature. Ed Harris seems to disappear into the role of John McCain. The only time you notice it’s Ed Harris is when you hear his unmistakable voice. He plays McCain as an American hero really trying to do what ‘s best for the country while also winning an election. Much like real life, these two rarely share the screen together. Woody Harrelson’s portrayal of campaign strategist Steve Schmidt is easy to overlook but shouldn’t be. In many ways, his character carries the movie and symbolizes the momentum and drive of the campaign.

Before Sarah Palin, John McCain was losing. He was too old. He wasn’t popular with women. He didn’t have the charisma that Obama had. What he had was a long distinguished career was a politician and war hero. Sarah Palin was the exact opposite. She was a charismatic, female, with almost no experience and no real knowledge. She was flash. He was substance. On paper, I can see how it looked like a good idea and Game Change makes that clear.

Game Change also makes it clear that Sarah Palin simply had no idea what she was getting herself into. This was because she was a bit naïve and a bit stupid. Her folksy charm won over millions at the Republican National Convention. We’d seen this sort of down home charm in both Bush presidencies and there’s a good portion of America who are comforted by it.

Unfortunately, there was nothing behind the Sarah’s charm. She had no grasp of international politics and had difficulty understanding even the simplest of policies. Game Change shows how McCain’s people try to teach her but it’s impossible for her to listen because the entire time she’s being told by the people how much they love her. She thinks she doesn’t need to change because people love her. Though she doesn’t say it, her actions say, “I don’t have to be smart. I’m pretty and they like me.”

Towards the end of Game Change, it becomes a bit of a monster movie in that you can tell McCain’s people are thinking, “My god! What have we created?” as Sarah Palin continues to go against campaign policies and blatantly lies about things when she doesn’t like them. Though the movie does a good job of giving us insight into the mechanics behind the failure of the McCain/Palin campaign, I still had a hard time feeling bad for the character of Sarah Palin. This may be due to my own political opinions. Then again, it may have something to do with Sarah just being the sort of person I don’t care for.

Game Change is a good movie and a cautionary tale. It would be much better if it were fictional. The idea that this actually happened is a bit disturbing. The even more disturbing part is that as the presidential race heats up again, things seem to be even crazier. I wonder what HBO will do with this in four years.

-          Jack Cameron

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Book Review: The End of Faith By Sam Harris

Posted on March 8, 2012 | Leave a comment

I discovered Sam Harris when I found a link to an excellent article he wrote about violence and self-defense. It was well written and incredibly practical. However, the thing that got me most was that it actually gave me a new idea about violence:

“This is the core principle of self-defense: Do whatever you can to avoid a physical confrontation, but the moment avoidance fails, attack explosively for the purposes of escape—not to mete out justice, or to teach a bully a lesson, or to apprehend a criminal. Your goal is to get away with minimum trauma (to you), while harming your attacker in any way that seems necessary to ensure your escape.”

This was a new concept to me. It wasn’t that I didn’t agree with it. It was that I’d never really thought of it like that before. I read a few more of his posts on his site and then decided I would read one of his books. When I get interested in an author, I like to start with his first book whenever I can. So I got The End of Faith.

The End of Faith is about faith, religion, and the incredible dangers posed in the modern world by people who believe things with no evidence. As an atheist, I was a bit concerned that I’d read the book and my only reward would be that I’d have a few more points to make when I debate someone about the existence or non-existence of God. Surprisingly Sam Harris’ book is much more than that.

One thing that struck me about Harris’ writing is that he isn’t nice. He doesn’t try to bend the reader to his way of thinking. He hacks at the weakest points of some of the longest held beliefs in history. And he’s exceptional at it. He attacks blind faith with reason, practicality, and logic.

I’m sure it’s no surprised that in this first part, I was in complete agreement with him. I also thought how this first part of the book was so brutal that many Believers probably wouldn’t read further. This is unfortunate on many levels. Sam Harris is clearly a well educated smart man and he has something important to say here. I’d like to think that anyone, regardless of their faith would be interested in what a man like him has to say about religion and faith. Ultimately, if you read it and think he’s wrong, nothing has been done to your faith. If you read it and think he’s right, then your beliefs will have changed. Either way, it’s not damaging.

After clearly explaining why religion and blind faith don’t make a lot of sense in the modern world, Harris starts talking about the consequences of religion in the modern world. He touches on everything from missionaries not passing out contraception to suicide bombers whose actions are celebrated by the faithful. The picture he paints of the horrible things that happen because of what different people think happens after we die is startling.

This isn’t a new problem. Harris goes into detail about how history is full of atrocities and tragedies that are the result of religion. He acknowledges that religion has also contributed a great many good things to our society but not one of them would have been impossible without religion. Unlike things such as the Spanish Inquisition which required faith to happen.

With technology continuing to shrink our world and weapons of mass destruction being easier and easier to produce, the existence of groups of people who believe in things that cannot be proven and want to kill people who do not believe those things make religion and faith one of the most obvious dangers to our civilization. Harris goes into details on why this is true and what we should do about it. It’s here that he almost loses me. While I don’t agree with all of his conclusions, I can find no fault in his logic. In many ways, I think that perhaps I just don’t want to agree.

After pointing out the fallacy of faith and the dangers of religion, Harris takes some time to talk about ethics. He does a reasonable job of pointing out that ethics do not need to be grounded in religion and that we don’t need a God or an old book to tell us what is right or wrong. I agree with this, but his thoughts on torture disturb me:

“Whenever we consent to drop bombs, we do so with the knowledge that some number of children will be blinded, disemboweled, paralyzed, orphaned, and killed by them. It is curious that while the torture of Osama bin Laden himself could be expected to provoke convulsions of conscience among our leaders, the unintended (thought perfectly foreseeable, and therefore accepted) slaughter of children does not.”

Personally, when it comes to torture, I’m against it in all cases. If for no other reason than it rarely produces good results. Torture to me is a failure of the interrogator. Then again, I’m not the biggest fan of bombs either. However, as he points out, regardless of the outcome of the torture, from a purely ethical standpoint, he has a good point.

Finally, Harris talks about spirituality. This was the last thing I expected on a book basically dedicated to the absurdity and horrendous consequences of religion. His thoughts here are lucid. He argues that in many cases religion gets in the way of spirituality and our objective study of it. I entirely agree with him. The most spiritual moments of my life had nothing to do with Jesus or church.

Often books like this will not have sources. They’ll read like manifestos. Harris’ book does not suffer from this. Almost a third of the entire book is full of notes about his sources and references. Clearly, he did his research.

The End of Faith is a book I’d love to share with my father and with any Believer I know. It’s challenging. It’s thought provoking. And it’s accessible. There’s not much more I ask for in a non-fiction book. I’m looking forward to reading more Sam Harris soon.

- Jack Cameron

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Movie Monday: Star Wars Machete Order

Posted on March 5, 2012 | Leave a comment

Welcome to Movie Monday. Every week I’m going to be writing about a movie I recently watched. It may be a movie I’ve never seen before. Or like this week, it may be movies I’ve seen literally hundreds of times.

Over the weekend I decided to watch the Start Wars movies with my son in what is being called ‘Machete Order’. Basically you watch A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back and then watch the second and third prequels before finishing off with Return of the Jedi. You don’t watch The Phantom Menace at all. You can read the original article about this here. Since you can (and should) read the article, I’ll try not to rehash what he’s already said about it. Instead I’m going to talk about this set of movies and my reaction to watching them in this order.

I watched the Special Edition versions because those are the ones I own. I have not yet been subjected to the Blu Ray blinking Ewoks and the like.

Episode IV: A New Hope

The original Star Wars movie remains one of the best made sci-fi action movies of all time. While George Lucas took much of the plot from other sources, no one had done a movie quite like this. Watching the first twenty minutes of it, I’m still surprised by the amount of screen time we get with non-humans. It’s a gutsy move to put two robots on your screen, one of whom only beeps and whistles and expect the audience to care about them.

A New Hope succeeds because of what one of my friends calls “perpetual peril”. Each new situation leads to a new more dangerous situation for our characters. It’s a difficult thing to pull off and the Star Wars movies do it again and again. For example, when our heroes are on the Death Star, they go from rescuing the Princess in the detention area to being trapped in the detention area to being trapped in a garbage pit to being trapped in a garbage pit that’s crushing them. It’s exciting no matter how many times you watch it.

Yes, some of the Special Edition stuff sucks. Greedo shoots first and the Jabba the Hutt scene (which I refer to as ‘the gratuitous Boba Fett scene’) are significantly annoying but what they did with Mos Eisley and some of the shots in the Death Star battle make up for that in my opinion.

Episode V: Empire Strikes Back

Anyone who is making a sequel needs to look at Empire. Empire hits every sequel button just right. We have the same cast of characters. They’ve grown and changed a little since last we saw them but not too much. We’re introduced to a few new characters. And perhaps most importantly, the characters are thrown into entirely new situations. The reason Empire Strikes Back works so well is that they don’t need to take time introducing the main characters. That means they can get straight into the plot.

This also means that when they do need to introduce a character, they can take their time. The introduction of Yoda is still one of my favorite Master/Apprentice sequences from any movie. This is the movie where we see Luke grow from a whiny teenager into a hero. And yet, he doesn’t do everything right. He’s still impulsive. Even after he knows Yoda is a Jedi Master, he still doesn’t listen.

The ending of Empire is one of the all time best cliffhangers. We get the revelation of Darth Vader. Everyone’s favorite scoundrel, Han Solo is captured and frozen. And really, the Rebel Alliance got their butts kicked throughout this movie. It’s not easy to take the absolute victory from the first movie and turn it into something minor, but they manage to do exactly that.

The Special Edition stuff in Empire isn’t annoying at all really. Suddenly Cloud City actually looks like a city. Before the Special Editions I would have said that like 50 people lived on Cloud City. Also, at least in the DVD set I have, the scream that had been added to Luke’s fall is thankfully gone.

Episode II: Attack of the Clones

Following Empire Strikes Back with Attack of the Clones works for a number of reasons. First, it delays the resolution of the cliffhanger. Second, now that we know who Darth Vader is, we’re actually interested in how he becomes Darth Vader.

The opening crawl does a good job of letting us know what’s going on. While we initially have no reason to care about Padme and the attempts on her life, once Obi-Wan and Anakin Skywalker enter the story, it suddenly matters. Anakin comes off as a bit of a dick throughout the movie. What’s interesting is that having just watched Luke for two movies, we can see that being a whiny, selfish, impulsive guy must run in the family.

One thing that gets overlooked in the prequels is Ewan McGregor’s fantastic performance of Obi-Wan Kenobi. I totally buy that his Obi-Wan eventually turns into Alec Guinness’ Obi-Wan. And having already met Obi-Wan in the first two movies, it’s nice to see him in action in his younger days.

The only time Attack of the Clones suffers is when it starts getting into the politics of everything. In A New Hope, there was one mention of the Senate being dissolved and that was it. We don’t watch Star Wars to watch West Wing in Space. The rest of the time, it’s a reasonably fun movie.

The one problem with watching it in this order that I noticed is that when C-3PO says, “The Maker!” upon seeing Anakin, it’s a bit strange though it almost just sounds like one of 3PO’s random outbursts. It still doesn’t explain why Padme and Anakin basically steal C-3PO. Really, the existence of R2-D2 and C-3PO in the prequels is more a distraction than anything else. Their ‘comic relief’ isn’t very funny and in a universe full of droids, it’s weird that these two particular droids would stick around so much.

The final lightsaber battle is good with the exception of Yoda jumping around like Sonic the Hedgehog. Again we get Jedis getting involved in battles where they’re simply outmatched. The movie ends with the beginning of the Clone War. It’s not really a cliffhanger and it’s not nearly as good as the first two movies, but it works well in this placement.

Episode III: Revenge of the Sith

I would argue that of all the Star Wars movies, I like the opening sequence of Revenge of the Sith the best. It’s one of the final battles of the Clone Wars. It succeeds in throwing us right into the middle of it and then putting our characters again into perpetual peril. Once they get on board the ship it’s just one perilous situation after another. I even buy the crash landing on the runway even though, since all ships levitate, there’s no reason for a runway. It’s like the end of the car chase in To Live & Die In LA where the cars are on the wrong side of the road an you don’t even notice.

Then we get bogged down with politics again, but not for long. Anakin is having visions of his wife’s death and it’s bothering him. He feels like he’s gaining so much power and yet, he can’t save his pregnant wife though admittedly she’s only in danger in his dreams.

The turning of Anakin to the Dark Side isn’t just because of the Emperor. Yoda, who is generally very wise, gives Anakin some spectacularly bad advice. Then the Jedi Council basically marginalizes him. They’ve got good reason and part of that is manipulation by Palpatine, but still, it’s an interesting choice to make it not entirely Palpatine’s fault.

General Grievous is a strange character who seems to be around more than anything to keep Obi-Wan Kenobi busy for a while.

When we get to the epic final battle between Obi-Wan and Anakin, it’s a bit absurd. There are parts of the fight I like, but it’s almost like the perpetual peril thing done wrong. This doesn’t take away from the final scene between them where they both feel completely betrayed.

And finally we have Anakin as Darth Vader. The scene where his helmet is put on for the first time is haunting. And having watched A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back, we know where this path is going to lead.

Episode VI: Return of the Jedi

It begins with Darth Vader arriving on the new Death Star. I found that after watching the two prequels, I felt like Darth Vader didn’t really want to be there. I’ve probably watched Return of the Jedi more than any other movie I own. And it wasn’t until I watched them in this order that I felt that. Darth Vader in Return of the Jedi is conflicted throughout the entire movie, not just when confronted by Luke.

I had read in the Machete Article about Luke’s arrival in Jedi, but I was still surprised by it. Again, it’s a scene I’ve watched hundreds of times, but given the juxtaposition of this scene after watching Anakin go from Jedi to Sith, when Luke walks into Jabba’s Palace with his hooded robe and just chokes the guards, he’s looking more like Sith than Jedi. It’s a good moment that wouldn’t be there without watching the movies in this order.

Again, the Special Edition has enough good things that I can forgive the bad things. The song in Jabba’s Palace is terrible, but the ending sequence works much better, even with the horrible music. (I’m a fan of the Ewok Celebration Song from the original.)

Return of the Jedi isn’t just the end of Luke’s storyline. It’s the end of Darth Vader’s. Watching the movies in this order, you see this a lot clearer. Also when Luke burns Vader’s body, I was immediately reminded of Anakin on the lava shores of Mustafar.

I found you lose almost nothing by getting rid of Episode I. Or more to the point, you gain more than you lose. Without Episode I, you have no child Anakin, no strange virgin birth, no midiclorians, almost no Jar Jar Binks, and all you really sacrifice is a pod race that  goes on too long and a lightsaber battle (like there aren’t enough of those).

Final Thoughts

If you encounter someone who hasn’t seen the Star Wars movies and wants to, I highly suggest watching them in this order. Not only will it be a better experience for them, it’ll be a new experience for you.

-          Jack Cameron

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Humiliation Is Not An Act of Love

Posted on February 10, 2012 | Leave a comment

Recently the above video has been making the rounds. The basic idea of the video is that this guy’s 15-year-old daughter complained about how her parents were treating her on Facebook. She attempted to block her parents from seeing it, but as I’ve mentioned before, nothing on the Internet is truly private. In response, her father posted this video of him going off about her behavior for everyone to see.

This is a technique called public shaming. It’s been around since the Middle Ages. Thanks to the Internet, every few months, we get a new example of some frustrated parent doing this to their child. The typical response is the digital equivalent of patting the guy on the back for standing up to his daughter’s bad behavior. Or they’re glad that he ‘gave her a taste of her own medicine’.

In America, we absolutely love vengeance and people getting what they deserve. Mel Gibson made a career by making movies about that in the 80s and 90s. So these reactions in many ways, are only natural. The problem is that public shaming is not good parenting. It’s not discipline. It’s just vengeance. And it’s vengeance on your own child.

Some will argue but that she will learn from this. However, simply because someone learns from the experience doesn’t make it a good thing. People learn not to walk through Central Park at night when they get mugged.

What the father in this video did was humiliate his child. And he did it because he was humiliated by what she wrote. What he taught his child was that her behavior was okay and that the proper thing to do when you’re humiliated is to escalate the situation. This is wrong and it isn’t the act of a loving parent.

I am a father of teenagers. I understand firsthand the frustration that comes from raising teens. I do get where the guy is coming from, but abuse is wrong no matter what. And humiliation is a form of abuse. It’s not a form of good parenting. It’s a form of weakness. Rather than humiliating your child, how about teaching your kid that respecting other people is important? You can talk to your kids all you want, but ultimately they are going to learn by your example. If you show them that humiliating people is okay, then that’s exactly what they will do.

This guy is frustrated because his daughter doesn’t have any respect for him. He probably wonders where that comes from. He should look in the mirror.

-Jack Cameron

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I’m With The Brand Part 5: The Masters of Personal Branding

Posted on February 2, 2012 | Leave a comment

Tim Ferriss, Personal Branding at its best.

We’ve talked about the concept of Personal Branding, finding your Personal Brand, developing your Personal Brand, and the things to avoid when it comes to Personal Branding. In this post, I’ll point you in the directions of Personal Branding experts. Some of these guys were working on Personal Branding before anyone had a name for it.

Dan Shawbel wrote what some consider the Bible of Personal Branding, Me 2.0. It’s a fast read full of good information. Dan has created a business around Personal Branding. His success speaks for itself.

William Arruda is another professional Personal Branding guru. His book, Career Distinction focuses on how Personal Branding can improve your career and your career prospects.

Timothy Ferriss is another master of Personal Branding. He doesn’t advertise himself as such. Instead, he’s known as a best-selling author, champion kick-boxer, fitness guru, and chef.  Yeah, he gets around. And yet, he still manages to maintain a consistent high quality Personal Brand. He does this by being a source of good information and a champion of unknown experts. Tim Ferriss spends just as much time talking up people he looks up to as he does talking about himself. His first book, The 4-Hour Work Week changed the way I look at work. His second book, The 4-Hour Body changed the way I look at fitness. His next book The 4-Hour Chef will doubtlessly change the way I look at cooking. (Notice how he brands his book with the ‘4-Hour’ thing? That’s not an accident.)  What do these have to do with Personal Branding? The information in Tim’s books aren’t specifically geared towards Personal Branding. This is true, but using many of the ideas and techniques in his book, you’ll find that you increase your Personal Brand.

As Personal Branding gets more mainstream, there will inevitably be more books and articles about it (like this one). The most important thing to remember is that you are creating your personal brand whether you’re doing it purposely or not. You’re doing it by having a Facebook page. You’re doing it with Twitter and FourSquare. You might as well take control of it.

-          Jack Cameron

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I’m With The Brand Part 4: Your Boss, Your Mom, Or A Cop

Posted on January 31, 2012 | Leave a comment

I spend a lot of time online. So I suppose it’s not entirely surprising that I see people make Personal Branding mistakes every day. Many of these people would be quick to point out that they aren’t interested in Personal Branding and that they’re simply sharing their lives online with friends and relatives. That may very well be true. It doesn’t change the fact that some things shouldn’t be shared online. Ever.

A common piece of dating advice is that you not talk about your ex. There are reasons for this. Some will say that it’s because they’ll think you’re still hung up on your ex. I say it’s because they are picturing you talking about them after the relationship. No woman likes it when you call another woman a bitch. And yet, if you go to any random Facebook, you will see people trashing their exes or having actual online fights with someone they’re dating.

Another common mistake is trashing your place of employment. Sure, you might work with a bunch of people who make brain damaged monkeys look like the control room at NASA.  You might be the only one there who isn’t on drugs. Or maybe just the job itself sucks. We’ve all had the shitty job with the stupid coworkers. Some of us have had that job for years. Complaining about it online may be cathartic, but it’s not going to help you get your next job that’s not as shitty.

Yes, it’s cathartic to just go off on a rant about all of the ways you’ve been wronged both personally and professionally. It feels good to get some of that off your chest. But trashing other people is never the way to get past them in the long run.

This does not mean you shouldn’t share your bad day with the world. There are ways to do it that aren’t going to hurt your future relationships or jobs. All you have to do is use this rule of thumb: Don’t post anything online that you wouldn’t say to your boss, your mom, or a cop.

If someone is being a moron at work and making your job difficult, it’s better to say, “Managed to make some progress on the project despite challenging obstacles.”  Really, when it comes down to it, Personal Branding is just good personal public relations. What you’re trying to do is say what you want to say without causing any unintended problems.

It’s fine to have an opinion. It’s fine to be angry. Just be sure that you’re in control of that anger and use it wisely. Count to ten. Then figure out the most creative way to say what you want to say.

This is the fourth part of my Personal Branding series. If you’ve come this far, you’ll want to read tomorrow’s fifth and final post where I point you in the direction of the Personal Branding geniuses. I know quite a bit about Personal Branding but it’s all due to reading and watching these guys. See you tomorrow.

-          Jack Cameron

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