Kiddie TV #1

Lately, Maya and I have been watching a lot of shows geared towards kids. There's kind of no way around it, especially these days when we're all spending so much time at home. If I happen to be in the room while my kids are watching tv, I'll usually pay a minimal amount of my attention to what's on. But that's often enough to form a general impression, and sometimes some pretty strong opinions.

Some quick reviews:

Fireman Sam

My kids are really into this one right now. They're apparently not the only ones: it's run for 12 seasons, albeit intermittently and in different iterations, over the span of four decades. It came out in 1987, when it used stop-motion animation. Maybe there's a nostalgia factor for parents who are my age and might have grown up on it. I don't know. All I can tell you is that in it's current form, it totally sucks. The animation is generic and charmless. But the absolute deal-breaker is the voice acting, which is so exaggerated that it renders the show basically unwatchable. I can't even comment on any other aspect of the show because I haven't gotten past those voices. The only semi-bright spot is that there's a character named Elivs Cridlington, which is a cool name.

1 out of 5 stars

Octonauts

We're just coming out of a major Octonauts phase. My kids absently sing the theme song to themselves during the day. Every submarine they see is the Octopod. Every penguin is called Peso. I get the appeal: it's a fun show. The voices are great (are you listening, Fireman Sam??), with every new underwater creature using a different type of accent from the English-speaking world. It teaches kids about about underwater life without getting too wonky about it. And my kids have retained most of it, too. My son told me about the crown-of-thorns starfish, which is a menace to the coral reef. And my daughter used the phrase "marine mucilage" (!?) in its proper context. My only gripe: it's subtly sexist. The three lead characters, the only three who are named specifically in the intro, are all male. Since every character in the show is practically interchangeable, would it have been that hard to make one of the leads female? I know my daughter would have appreciated it. As a consolation, she's latched on to Peso, the penguin medic who is easily the most endearing of the bunch.

4 out of 5

Daniel Tiger

At the age of four, my kids have basically outgrown it now, but it served as a great introduction to tv. It's a sweet show, full of moments that are relatable for toddlers (nervousness about being left with a babysitter, trying new foods, etc.). The jingles are kind of catchy, and because they are sung approximately 67 times over the course of a twenty minute episode, they are quick to stick in my head. Like Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, the show that spawned it, it's an incredibly well-meaning show, that's also a little too earnest and saccharine at times. Not that my kids have ever complained. I get that I'm not the target audience, but there are definitely shows I enjoy more.

4 out of 5

Bread Barber Shop

We've only actually seen a few episodes of this show, but it's notable for its incredibly odd premise. Here's the premise, as described by Netflix: "Bread is a master cake decorator who gives life-changing makeovers to his customers." I'd add that the title character is a slice of white bread and that many of his customers are donuts, to whom he gives the works: glazing, frosting, sprinkles, etc. We watched it once, and then I told my kids it was too weird, and turned it off. They didn't protest, although once in a while my son will ask me, apropos of nothing, "Why is Bread Barber Shop weird?"

2 out of 5

Puffin Rock

This quiet, peaceful show about puffins and other animals who live in a remote island off the Irish coast has been in the regular rotation for almost a year. The animation are charming, the characters are cute and pleasant, the stories are full of information about animal behavior and climate, and it's narrated by the delightful Chris O'Dowd. It's a little formulaic ("Another lovely day on Puffin Rock"), but who cares? #ShrewCrew4Life

5 out of 5

A Paper I Wrote Got Slammed by Some Florida Professors Whom I've Never Met

This has been on my mind for a while and I'm not sure how to feel about it.

From time to time, I like to Google the handful of articles I've written, especially the ones that have appeared in academic journals. I've published two such papers, one about Cormac McCarthy and Shakespeare and one about motif of cake (yes, cake) in Great Expectations and Jane Eyre.

My searches don't tend to yield anything earth-shattering, but once in a while I'll find something. As far as I can tell, my work has been cited three times:

1 - A Master's candidate named Amy Wilson, from Georgia State University, cited my cake paper, which is so awesome and flattering. Her work is impressive: it really resembles a doctoral thesis more than anything I wrote for in my Master's program. I hope her professors liked it enough to give her that Master's.

2 - Professor Stacey Peebles from Centre College in Kentucky, cited a paper I wrote for The Cormac McCarthy Journal in an essay from her book Cormac McCarthy and Performance: Page, Stage, and Screen. She is the editor of the journal, and one of the foremost experts on McCarthy. I was honored enough that she accepted my article to her journal, and just so pleasantly surprised when I found that she had cited it in her own work. Truthfully, I haven't read the whole book, and I doubt I ever will. Doesn't matter. It's still awesome.

3 - And then there's the third citation. About a year ago, I happened to come across a paper prepared by three professors from University of Central Florida that cited my cake paper rather heavily. The paper had more to do with pedagogy than with literature. Specifically, the professors talk about teaching their students to distinguish between good sources and bad ones, using sample essays from academic journals. Its title is "The Prestigious and the Predatory: Helping Online Students Navigate Open Education Sources in a World of 'Fake News.'"

It will come as no surprise to you, given my less than enthusiastic tone, that my own paper is featured in this article as one of the bad ones. Yes, these three professors combed through academic journals for an article that represented a perfect example of what not to do, and they landed on my humble paper "Baked Nectar and Frosted Ambrosia: The Unifying Power of Cake in Great Expectations and Jane Eyre" featured in an online journal called The Victorian. 

Here's a direct quote from professors Hohenleitner, Campbell, and Raible:

Their final essay, which is read in conjunction with Donaldson’s, is “Baked Nectar and Frosted Ambrosia: The Unifying Power of Cake in Great Expectations and Jane Eyre” by Alexander Barron. Also an Open Education Source from a journal called The Victorian, this article is generally easier for the students to read critically. Some get very excited about the idea of cake because it’s accessible, but Barron’s argument is a bit circuitous and doesn’t really prove anything profound about the reading of either text. They are quick to identify his gmail address; some even question the validity of Breadloaf College of English (which actually is a legitimate organization associated with Middlebury College). One student even went so far as to critique his “gratuitous quoting of plot summary” which really made me proud. Unfortunately, she was the exception.

Oof. Where to begin? My first instinct was defensiveness. I even started to draft a response before realizing that there was no way to respond without sounding defensive. That I never ended up sharing my thoughts in e-mail form is probably for the best. Anyway, that's what the blog is for.

I wrote the paper for a class I took in summer of 2013: the Victorian Novel, with Professor Isobel Armstrong. (She was hands down my favorite Bread Loaf professor, and this was one of two classes I took with her.) Most papers are written by PhDs well versed in their specialty areas. When I wrote this one, I was a Master's candidate who had just read Jane Eyre for the first time that very summer. So if my work seems a little elementary in comparison to some other published essays, there's a reason for that.

The main topic (cake) is admittedly quirky. And my writing style is, for better or worse, simpler than what you'd find in most comparable articles, which makes it "accessible" at best and hard to take seriously, at worst. In the world of academic writing, "accessible" is sometimes code for "frivolous," as though in order to be worthy of serious attention and respect, one's writing must be as obtuse and impenetrable as possible. This position is total bullshit, and it certainly shouldn't be advanced by anyone who teaches writing, but the professors in this article aren't the only academics who perpetuate it. (And for what it's worth, the voice in "The Prestigious and the Predatory" is pretty lucid.)

Of all the many charges levied against my paper in this paragraph, I'm most willing to admit that it "doesn't really prove anything profound." It deals with what I thought was a cool detail about Victorian culture. Not profound, I guess, but I have to wonder whether or not my point is really any less profound than the central points of similar academic papers.

Is my argument circuitous? I mean, obviously I didn't think so, but I'd be willing to hear you out if you told me it was.

The accusation of "gratuitous quoting of plot summary," rankles me since it's something I caution my own students against. I think I provided necessary context in my paper, rather than gratuitous summary. That unnamed student and I will have to agree to disagree.

The most laughable point here is the insinuation that Bread Loaf is some sort of obscure, phony, or non-accredited school. Both the Masters' program and the annual literature conference are famous in academic circles. For God's sake, Robert Frost taught and worked at Bread Loaf for like fifty years. Besides, does the University of Central Florida really want to be throwing shade at other Master's Programs in English? #SorryNotSorry

I can't fault undergrads for not having heard of the program, but you'd think their professors might know better. The revelation that the school is "actually legitimate" is such a lame concession, as though a professor had to hastily Google this improbably-named school just to confirm its existence.

See?? It's a real thing!

The author continues, "I want to be clear that I don’t intend to dismiss the work of a critic like Barron categorically" (How charitable!), before finally dismissing my work as a "random discussion of one image in two novels," which, I guess if you're comparing to another paper written by a feminist critic that clearly fits into the larger context of Feminist readings of Victorian Literature, then yeah, mine is going to seem kind of random.

She also talks about the merits of face-to-face class time with students, rather than using online discussion boards. That way, she can slam my article in real time. She writes, "Online, sometimes someone has already posted a full endorsement of the intellectual profundity of the cake article before I or other students have the chance to rebut it, and then I never know for sure if that student will ever revisit the board to read the continued conversation." Yes, it would be a shame if some student actually saw the merit in my argument before the professor had a chance to set the record straight about its actual worthlessness.

How am I supposed to feel about all of this? On the one hand, the old "No press is bad press" axiom might be applicable. I'm flattered to know my little paper is even being discussed. When I publish these things, I assume no one outside my immediate family will ever read them, so I'm kind of tickled to know that some kids in Central Florida have not only read this paper but have opinions about it.

Then again, these professors completely tore my paper apart, and apparently encouraged their students to do the same. I'm not adverse to constructive criticism, and in fact I don't even necessarily disagree with some of the charges levied against my paper. But damn, that stings.

The title, "The Prestigious and the Predatory" seems to cast me in the role of predator, which is a laugh. If anything, I feel like I've just been eaten alive. Better than being left on the shelf to spoil, I guess.

A message to the three distinguished professors from UCF.

What a Week for Drew Brees

This may be an unpopular opinion, and I'm not even sure it's my place to say this, but I accept Drew Brees' apology.

The entire country is reeling from another completely avoidable death of a black person at the hands of the police. And this is the moment he chose to trot out the old tired argument about disagreeing with those who "disrespect the flag." It was especially bad timing for this type of rhetoric (not that there's ever really a good time), and he was justly criticized for it.

And then he apologized on Instagram. He called his previous remarks "insensitive" (they were) and said they "completely missed the mark" (they did). He wrote in his post that his comments, "lacked awareness and any type of compassion of empathy," which is absolutely true. He literally said the words, "I would like to apologize," and "I am very sorry," which many feel is a necessity for a sincere apology.

Inevitably, some people will question his sincerity or claim that he's sorry about the backlash more than the actual sentiment of his original remarks. But I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt. To me, the whole purpose of advocating for Black Lives Matter is to change people's minds, often by asking them to recognize their privilege. We hope that in so doing, they'll reflect on their attitudes towards others and come out with more empathy. Isn't that kind of reflection exactly what Brees is doing in his statement? And if you don't think it is, then what exactly are you looking for?

I'm glad Mr. Brees took the time to think about what he had said and why it upset people. A lot of people would have callously dismissed their critics as a bunch of snowflakes or "cowards and Marxists," in the words of former NFLer Burgess Owens. (Eye roll.) Well done, Mr. Brees.

And now on with the fight!

And by the way, he knelt for the anthem along with his teammates.

We Shall Never Surrender

ASSIGNMENT

Part 1

Select an excerpt from a speech on the "Great Speeches" website and commit it to memory. Record yourself performing the excerpt, upload the performance to Youtube and post the link in the submission box below.

Obviously, you are performing this excerpt from the comfort of your own home, which means I can't be absolutely sure you've committed the whole thing to memory. That's alright. If you'd like, you may use note cards or a teleprompter (if you have one?), but do not just read. In fact, if you are reading - even just notes - you need to disguise this fact. Your delivery needs to sound natural. You are performing - not simply reciting and not reading. That means dress up a little (as in, please don't just wear your sweats for this), find an appropriately dignified spot in your house, and put a little energy into it.

PS - The list I've provided, "35 Greatest Speeches in History," is rather sexist. It doesn't include a single speech by a woman, so take the "greatest" claim with a huge grain of salt. That said, the site is called "Art of Manliness," so I guess the omission of women isn't all that surprising, and to be fair, the list does include some wonderful speeches.

Part 2

Write a rhetorical analysis of the speech you recited (min. 500 words). You may use first person and maintain a fairly informal tone, but you must talk about how the speaker uses rhetorical strategies and devices in order to persuade his audience. See my own example. You can find it on my blog: "We Shall Never Surrender.")

Post the rhetorical analysis on your blog, along with a link to the recording of your speech on YouTube.

______________________________________________________________________


Here's my attempt:


Winston Churchill's "We Shall Never Surrender" Speech

June 4, 1940; House of Commons; London

Of all the speeches, why would I be so foolish as to try to do justice to this one? Churchill's speech before the House of Commons is one of the most iconic of the twentieth century. And it received a boost (even though it didn't need one) from Gary Oldman's delivery of it in the final scene of Darkest Hour, the 2016 film that won him an Oscar.

To be clear, I don't have an acting background, or the requisite English accent needed to really pull this off. But I've always want to see what it was like to deliver such an inspiring speech, in the way that someone playing Guitar Hero wants to know what it's like to play the solo to "Free Bird" in front of a packed house. Besides, it seems like such an apt speech for this moment, when we could all use a bit of inspiration. Churchill spoke these words to parliament in the face of the Blitz. It's risky to try to compare his situation to ours, but in the sense that it has brought the people together to take action for the common good, the Coronavirus might be the closest thing to the Blitz in my lifetime.

Churchill has always been respected as a great orator, and with good reason, but we ought to appreciate him for his writing as well. He was a lover of poetry, and quite literally a poet himself. (His daughter helped to collect and anthologize his original works after his death.)

With its appeals to his audience's and his shared British-ness, the speech primarily deal in ethos. By calling Britain "our island home," he galvanizes his people, who are famously proud of their geographical and cultural isolation from the rest of Europe. (The phrase may also serve as a subtle allusion to John of Gaunt's famous monologue in Richard II, which calls England "this sceptred isle.") The frequency of the word "we" - it appears a whopping thirteen times in this excerpt of just over three hundred words - only serves to reinforce a shared sense of purpose.

As verbose and poetic as he can be, Churchill clearly knows the value of a good sound bite. Long sentences are punctuated with short and powerful declarative clauses: "At any rate, that is what we are going to try to do" and "[W]e shall never surrender." Of course, the most famous part of this speech is its climactic list. The anaphora of the repeated phrase "we shall" (often, "we shall fight") works as a mantra, reminding the British of their patriotic commitment. And by calling out groups of British, who will serve their country in different ways and in different places (beaches, streets, landing grounds, fields, hills) he embraces his entire audience, and demonstrates that he values their work in all of its various forms.

The excerpt ends with strong couples of words ("subjugated and starving," "armed and guarded," "power and might," "the rescue and liberation"). The individual words in these pairs lean on each other for strength, and ultimately create an effect beautiful in its poetry and firm in its purpose.

The Public Shaming of the Astros

This is shaping up to be one of the most miserable baseball seasons on record. The Yankees are the odds on favorite to win the pennant. And worse, every conversation about baseball seems to begin and end with the Houston Astros' cheating scandal. This is not a fun topic, and it's not even really about baseball as much it's about injustice and the desire to exact revenge.

This has been a huge story, and I can't deny that it has good reason to be. The Astros have affected almost everyone in baseball: the Dodgers and the Yankees, of course, whom they eliminated from the play-offs, but also every other team and almost every individual player. A little-known pitcher named Mike Bolsinger is suing the Astros on the grounds that his bad outing against them in 2017 did irreparable damage to his career. People are pissed off - even the kinds of people who don't tend to get pissed off. Normally taciturn players like Aaron Judge, Nick Markakis, and even the great Mike Trout have publicly castigated the Astros.

The fans are irate to an extent I've never seen before. In 1994, they were disgusted with the greed from both owners and players, which resulted in a lengthy strike and a canceled World Series. In the mid-2000s, they were outraged to find out about the rampant use of steroids, but it was hard to cast too many stones, because every team had fielded its share of users.

The difference this time is that all of the rage is directed towards one team. Almost everyone - fans and players alike - seems to think the Astros got off too easy. True, their manager and general manager were fired. So were the managers of the Red Sox and Mets, who were, respectively, a coach and a player for the 2017 Astros team, both rumored to be heavily involved in cheating tactics. No current players have received punishment, though, and the commissioner has not stripped the Astros of their 2017 title.

Let me say here that the act of vacating titles is categorically dumb. It's an empty gesture that has always seemed to me more like pandering than like actual justice. The way to move on from any event we don't like is not to pretend that the event didn't happen. Will vacating a title really bring much satisfaction to the Dodgers or their fans? Will it really change the way the Astros and their fans think about the 2017 World Series? If popular perception is that a title is tainted, then the title will be remembered that way, whether or not the championship banners are still allowed to fly.
I am not trying to sugarcoat the Astros' cheating. It was bad for the game, bad for the fans, bad for other teams and for many individual players. But some fans' hysterical response to the scandal is, to me, just as bad and often worse. It reminds me of Jon Ronson's great book, So You've Been Publicly Shamed, which examines the contemporary phenomenon of massive social media shaming.

"[W]ith social media, we’ve created a stage for constant artificial high drama," write Ronson, "[E]very day a new person emerges as a magnificent hero or a sickening villain. It’s all very sweeping, and not the way we actually are as people.”

In the age of social media, when someone transgresses into "sickening villain" territory, we unleash a torrent of what he calls "ecstatic public condemnation" that build and builds until it is completely out of proportion with the crime that has actually been committed. Again, I am not trying to go easy on the Astros. I just think trial by social media is stupid, boring and unproductive. It has a way of bringing out our basest instincts too. In recent weeks, fans have cheerfully expressed their desire to see players intentionally hit by pitches, and anyone who offers the slightest dissent faces scorn and derision. Calls for both baseball-related and general violence against Astros players have become normalized. For God's sake, Josh Reddick, who may or may not have even participated in the Astros' cheating scheme, has revealed that he has received threats of violence against his family.

A truly appalling paragraph from the ESPN story: "I put a post of my kid rolling over for the first time and I gotta look down there and see 'I hope your kid gets cancer,'" Reddick said. "It makes you really want to see that person in person. Really makes you want to go up to him and see what they would do if you put your face to their face and really get a little bit of retribution for yourself. Pisses you off."

Does anyone really think that sociopathic behavior gets a free pass if it's directed at a cheater? And are you truly a baseball fan if your greatest desire going into this year is to watch living, breathing people being used as target practice dummies? Is this really something you want to see? And yes, they did something wrong. And yes, they deserve punishment. This whole thing has caused real heartbreak, and I don't want to be blase about that.

But there has to be something better than mob justice.

It's baseball season! Spring training games are underway! This year, we get to see what Garrett Cole looks like in pinstripes, and what Mookie Betts looks like in Dodger blue! We get to see whether or not the Nationals can defend their title, and whether or not the Orioles can break the 50-win threshold! We get to see a new stadium in Dallas! We get to watch Albert Pujols cap off a Hall of Fame career!

Look. If you're pissed, then you have every right to be. But if you are looking forward only to watching Alex Bregman and Jose Altuve endure bodily harm, then you're in the wrong place.

If you want to be sad, then be sad. If you want to take a break from baseball then fine, I get it. But if you're just using this scandal to as a receptacle for your own negativity and bloodlust, you can feel free to find a new hobby.

Now can we please talk about something else?

Oscars 2020

My goal in any given year is to view every nominee for Best Picture before the night of the ceremony. With roughly eight hours remaining, it's looking bleak. Of the nine nominated movies, I saw six and a half. (Jojo Rabbit was the half. I watched the first hour illegally and then dozed off. When I returned to the site the next day, it was no longer functional. Truthfully, I enjoyed the first half so little, I felt no burning desire to finish it anyway, beyond the anticipated satisfaction of checking it off my list. More on that in a minute.)

Frankly, I'm pleased with myself for even making it to six movies, which is no easy feat when you're planning your life around your twin toddlers. The rise of Netflix has obviously helped: I watched both The Irishman and Marriage Story in my pajamas. Once again, it also helps to have a wife who lets me shirk my fatherly duties on occasion.

In ranking these movies, I'm using the same ground rules I used last year. I'm listing these movies purely in order of how much I enjoyed them, not by objective quality (which isn't a thing anyway), not by cultural impact, and not even necessarily in order of how much they deserve to win the Oscar.

2020 was, in my opinion, a stronger movie year than 2019, and one of my favorite years in recent memory. I legitimately loved at least three of these movies (not a claim I would have made last year) and I feel much more confident about my number one choice (unlike last year, when I was constantly made to feel that my affection for Green Book made me "un-woke"). Btw, SPOILER ALERTS for all movies.

2019 was the best year for movies in quite a while.

The List

1 - Parasite
2 - 1917
3 - The Irishman
4 - Marriage Story
5 - Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
6 - Joker
7 - Jojo Rabbit
Not ranked - Ford vs. Ferrari
Not ranked - Little Women

My Pick for Best Picture: 1917
Movie I think will Win: 1917

And now, some thoughts on each movie.

The synopses for Parasite all seemed sort of vague, but the reviews were uniformly excellent. I went to see it not really knowing if it was a comedy, a thriller, or, as the title seems to suggest, a horror movie. Once I saw it, I realized the reason for the vagueness. The movie is impossible to faithfully describe without massively spoiling it. The first half is engaging enough: it's darkly funny to watch the members of the Kim family infiltrate the Park family, all while pretending to be total strangers to each other. And then, about an hour in, the doorbell rings and we see that frightening, haggard face of the former housekeeper. And then, holy shit, the underground bunker (!). And things just get crazier from there. I watched with my mouth agape, wondering where this crazy movie was taking me. And, having a peach allergy myself, I feel I enjoyed it on an even deeper level.

1917 was one of the most thrilling movies I've ever seen in a theater, and a reminder of the big screen's advantage over the phone screen. In general, war movies tend not to be my favorites. This one worked for me, I think, because of the simplicity of the story and the focus on the visceral experience of combat. I hadn't felt so enthralled by a movie since Gravity - and 1917 was a vastly better movie. The plane crash sequence was particularly harrowing. So was the main character's iconic final run, parallel to the trench, amidst an onslaught of explosions. The definitive WWII movie is Saving Private Ryan. The definitive Vietnam movie is probably Apocalypse Now. Finally, we have our definitive WWI movie, too.

On paper, The Irishman was a dream come true for every fan of crime movies. Scorcese, De Niro, Pesci, Pacino, the true story of Jimmy Hoffa. This seemed like it couldn't miss. The crazy thing is: it pretty much lived up to the sky-high expectations. Look, I can understand the criticisms: it's three and a half hours long. Could it have been trimmed? Sure. Did it get a little bogged down in historical detail at the expense of story? Yes, probably. Was the age-reducing CGI a little silly? Yes, although that didn't detract from my experience. At the end of the day, this was great story-telling on an epic scale. It's tragic, and darkly funny, and historically fascinating. It goes without saying that the acting was brilliant. (Obviously the leads kill it, but the smaller parts are equally well played. Stephen Graham, for example, more than holds his own with the heavyweights.) What surprised me was the restraint and complexity of the acting. None of those big Joe Pesci Do-I-Look-like-a-Clown scenes here, and that's just fine. For my money, de Niro's phone call to Jo is some of the best acting he's ever done, and that's saying quite a lot. "What kind of man makes a phone call like that?"

I love movies like Marriage Story. No bells and whistles, just a sharp script full of keenly observed details about domestic life. And of course an acting masterclass by Driver and Johansson (and Laura Dern and Ray Liotta, too, as the smarmy lawyers). The saddest part of this movie is that there's no bad guy. Both characters are basically sympathetic. The antagonist here is divorce itself.

I liked Inglorious Basterds and disliked Django Unchained, so I had no idea what to expect from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Turns out it was right in the middle. There were some great moments: Leo's character killing it in the western b-movie to earn the admiration of that little girl, and of course, the whole sequence with Brad Pitt on Spahn Ranch. But the pacing was slow and parts of the movie dragged. I'm torn on the ending. On the one hand, these were the warped hippies who would murder Sharon Tate in the worst way possible. And yet... it's one thing to gleefully kill Nazis and slaveholders, but kind of another to kill teenage girls who, murderous intentions aside, haven't actually done anything terrible yet. Call me a snowflake, but the big violent showdown at the end sort of rubbed me the wrong way - especially the visual of a middle-aged Brad Pitt slamming a teenage girl's face onto the mantle in the most graphic possible way. The audience cheered at that part, but I don't know. Seems like a weird thing to cheer for.

Was Joker really a good movie? Or was it just surprisingly poignant for a comic book movie? The answer probably lies somewhere in the middle. It was a dark, but engaging character study with some truly iconic moments (everyone talks about him dancing on the stairs, but what about that subway scene?). Everyone has raved about Joaquin Phoenix's performance, which will probably win him an Oscar. And yes, it was great acting, but it was also tough to watch and ultimately, like the movie as a whole, felt a little one-note. As a character, the Joker obviously needs to be psychotic, but he also needs to exude a sort of reptilian charisma. Jack Nicholson's and Heath Ledger's Jokers were nothing if not charismatic. Phoenix's Joker is the opposite: who would want to do anything other than keep a great distance from this guy? Sure, his capacity for charisma is hinted at in the final moments (in the riot scene), but it's hard for me to buy this guy leading an army of clown-faced followers.

Which brings me to Jojo Rabbit, which I'll attempt to weigh in on despite having only watched half of it. It's hard for me to talk about the movie without bringing up Wes Anderson, whose work I've never liked. Like almost all of Wes Anderson's movies, Jojo lost me with its cartoon-ish script and its stylized acting. Like all of his movies, it seemed to think itself awfully cute. Like all of his movies, it must be said, its cinematography was gorgeous. But, like all of his movies, it left me feeling like I was on the outside of a big inside joke. People have talked about the potential offensiveness of Hitler as imaginary friend, but I wasn't offended so much as just confused. Unlike most Anderson movies, its reviews were decidedly mixed: it earned a 58 out of 100 on Metacritic, which is quite low for an Oscar-nominated film. So at least I know I wasn't alone.

Other films of note:

Richard Jewel was a solid movie. Paul Walter Hauser can really act (I love him in I, Tonya, too), and I hope he continues to find work. Also, Clint Eastwood's anti-media, anti-government politics rubbed me the wrong way, but whatever.

I wasn't sure I liked Uncut Gems as I was actually watching it, but the more I reflect on it, the more I appreciate it. One of the most hectic, nerve-wracking movies I've ever seen. Damn, that last hour was great. The auction scene, the Celtics game, the jammed door. I want to see it again.

Two Popes and Dolemite is My Name are about as dissimilar as two films can get, but I lump them together because they are both on Netflix. Both were solid, if uneven. In Two Popes, the scenes between Hopkins and Pryce were riveting, but the film lost momentum during the lengthy flashbacks. The movie-filming sequence in Dolemite was a hoot, but on the whole, the movie felt sort of slight and insignificant.

I saw three of the five films nominated for best documentary, and of those, I'm putting my money on American Factory. This story of an auto-glass factory in Dayton, Ohio reminded me of the many, many Americans whose experience is vastly different from mine, and reminders like that are why I love the movies.

One Last Thought:

I enjoyed Parasite more than any other movie I saw this year. That said, I hope 1917 wins Best Picture. There is a growing perception that Hollywood is a bubble for the snobby elite (which is kind of true), and that the nominated movies have limited appeal for the general public. The divide between popular and critically acclaimed films is greater than ever before. I'd like to see that divide start to shrink, and for that reason, I'm rooting for 1917, an epic, captivating war movie in the grand Hollywood tradition. If it acts as a gateway drug to introduce more people to quality movies, so much the better.

More Stupid Lyrics

Life is a highway

I want to ride it all night long.

If you're going my way

I want to drive it all night long.

I heard this song at the supermarket today, and it occurred to me that it's always bothered me, though I can't say I'd really given it much thought. The song kind of sucks. It's a classic case of a song in which the chorus so overshadows the verse, that most people don't even know how the verse goes. (Other songs on this list include "Dude Looks like a Lady" by Aerosmith and "Big Shot" by Billy Joel.) What really bugs me though is the main lyric. Folks, this is not how a metaphor works.

"Life is a highway."

Comparing life to a highway is pretty banal, but basically fine.

"I want to ride it."

So, "riding the highway" is, in this metaphor, just living life. The declaration "I want to live," is obvious to the point of meaninglessness. Also, riding a highway all night long: it sounds kind of exciting on paper, I guess, and it's no doubt given a boost by the upbeat music of the chorus. But honestly, there is nothing exciting about riding a highway all night long. It's lonely and repetitive and just doesn't evoke a life well lived, as I think is the intent.

Also, why "ride" instead of "drive"? (It changes to "drive" in the last line of the chorus, but why not both times?) It's such a passive word. If you're simply along for the ride on the highway that represents your life, does it mean you aren't making decisions for yourself? Does it mean you have no free will?

"All night long."

My biggest problem with this dumb chorus is that the metaphor totally breaks down here. If life is a highway, and riding that highway is living life, then you should be riding it for an entire lifetime. And you'd hope that would be longer than the span of one night, right? All life long admittedly doesn't have the same ring to it, but it would make more sense.

"If you're going my way, I want to drive it all night long."

This line sounds fine, until you think about what it actually means. And what it actually means is anyone's guess. If the guy is talking to the object of his affection, is he saying that he only wants to continue living his life if she is living with him? That makes sense, I guess. But to suggest that he'll live passively ("ride") if left by himself and more actively ("drive") if he's with her? Well... that doesn't sound healthy.

Whatever, though. You're not supposed to think so hard about a song this catchy. You're just supposed to belt out the words - which I'd be happy to do, if the song didn't suck.