American Pie: Review and Commentary.

    How do you do, 

   American Pie seems to be the last kind of movie to review, but given that the film is twenty years old now, I thought of giving my two cents to it. Alone, the film is like some strange type of pie where it looks mouth watering from the start, until you slice it. Then you see strange, black goo where the filling ought to be. Then, when you taste it, it's awful. So much so that you throw the rest out and you spend the next period of time washing out your mouth. 

   That's a way of describing how one feels about this teen sex comedy, yet there is another side to it. The title comes from the song by Don McLean, first premiered in 1972, where he sings of the event we call "The Day the Music Died." This is in reference to Feb. 03, 1959, when during a winter tour the three rock stars, Buddy Holley, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper, were killed in a plane crash outside Clear Lake, Iowa. At the time of the movie's release, it had been forty years since the crash,and the song has been a classic. In fact, the same year American Pie came out, Weird Al did a parody called "The Saga Begins", only with a different subject matter. 

    The reason for bringing this is up is for the sake of trivia, because if you were to watch American Pie, you won't be seeing any plane crashing or hear the song played in the sound track. In fact, there is nothing much left of the song, other than the title. It's just like in Fantasia featuring Tchaikovsky's "Nutcracker Suite" without the Nutcracker. Recently, with the film now twenty, I am thinking that the title is something of a fluke. There does seem a certain bit of innocence in the first movie that is lacking in the sequels (but I still see the warts present as the review continues). I mean, this was to be the first of what seemed a trilogy, later a series of films, until it became basically the Millennium's National Lampoon. 

   The film has a basic plot: four teenage boys make a pact to lose their virginity by prom night. Those four good old boys drinking whiskey and rye, and singing "this'll be the day [we lose our V-cards]" are named Jim, Finch, Kevin, and Oz (nope, not the wizard). Right off the bat, you'd read that and think, how cliche: four teenage boys are planning to get laid at some point and there is going to be a comedy of errors leading up to it. There are indeed some issues with the plot, one of which is how it objectifies the girls into sex objects. It certainly takes the four boys plot from American Graffiti and gives it the blue pill, but I wonder what was the point in this? 

    Not only that, the pact doesn't happen for most of the first act, but it gives plenty of time for us to know the characters.  

   Jim, a lonely teenage broncin' buck, sans a pink carnation or a pick'em up truck, who kind of resembles Cory Matthews from Boy Meets World, is shown wanting it while also viewing some adult material. The opening scene has him watching something on the television, but due to the period of time, he can't see much. Hey, the joys of the pre-millennium technology. In those days, some of the channels couldn't be viewed unless you had a satellite dish or digital cable (those rich enough for those channels, of course, had a way of keeping them away from the kids). Those were the days!

    Back to Jim, his father decides a cheaper thing to do is to give him some nudie magazines, which to me is like teaching a kid not to smoke by making him smoke an entire carton of cigarettes. All it does is just make him addicted to that trash. Not only that, these days, Jim's father would have been in hot water for showing that smut to a minor, even if he did so on a computer. Later on, after catching Jim indulging in self-love with the pie (which is where the film gets its title), he covers it up first and then has an honest discussion with Jim about masturbation. In the former, I must say something. Jim's mom obviously worked long and hard on that pie and to see it trashed like that is an insult, while lying about it is even worse. Now she is going to have to make another, and then what? Both Jim and his dad will have to eat it as well, even if it turns out to not taste very good. As to the latter, it's actually much better, especially when he compares sex to a tennis game, with masturbation basically being like playing the game against a wall. Basically, it gets very boring after a while (and for plenty of people, addictive), and that it's not a game. Though the discussion doesn't bring up any religious issue to it, or even discusses the health affects or benefits, I think that scene has the most honest discussion out there in pop culture, whereas our puritanical culture would make movies and shows hide it with euphemistic terms. 

   The film does offer one affect of porn viewing and masturbation where Jim lacks the ability to walk up and talk to girls (though I am not certain any expert out there can offer evidence to support that, but we'll give the dog a bone on this one). I am aware that teenage boys often are going through puberty and are going to be awkward around women, and sometimes there are teenage boys who might not be attracted to girls but instead prefer their fellow men. Others are asexual. Still, I have noted that characters like Jim are always shown that way where they focus on a pretty girl and try to talk to her, but can't. Then, for a time, his porn becomes a clutch (after all, the popular line of thought is, why waste time and humiliate yourself by talking to real women when you can have your fantasies; the women in the pictures don't even have to give to consent for lusting because they don't even talk; and they won't age, unlike their real counterparts -- or make complaints of you bothering them or make it a legal matter, either). All the while, he focuses on a foreign exchange student named Nadia, played by Shannon Elizabeth. 

    Just to avoid rabbit trailing, I'll get to the other boys. Finch and Kevin, two typical nerd boys, with the latter as the leader of the group, who initiates the pact, and the former is something of a germaphobe, to the point that he doesn't use public restrooms. That last is understandable because, well most places like gas stations and rest stops rarely keep their restrooms clean (there are some exceptions, of course). Kevin also has a girlfriend named Vicky, with whom he wants to get to the next level, which puts a wedge between them briefly. 

    Case in point on the last, at a party at the Stiffler's, (name of that weirdo guy played by Sean William Scott, whose parents are always absent, leaving him to host parties where people get drunk and make out). When Kevin and Vicky are there, Kevin attempts to get to that level while Vicky is slow to try it. Vicky even talks with another girl, Jessica, who tells her that sex is not a rocket launch (I still fail to see the analogy). Vicky agrees, then gives her boyfriend what some people call "the blow." Of course, Vicky would want the favor returned, so Kevin tries to find something in the same manner. He contacts his older brother who tells him of the Book of Love (apparently, lots of boys wrote it, to answer the song's question) and he finds one routine that he tries on his girl, with great results. One joke in the scene has Vicky's father coming up to bring her to dinner and she yells out a response before he knocks on it. Apparently, to most people, there's "coming" and there's "cumming", and its the former the father thought he heard when she really said the latter. Personally, I don't know how that happened, especially as it's actually the Latin word cum, which is pronounced "coom", which means "with" (as in "Et cum te spiritu", meaning "And with your spirit."), but it's gotten into the English language somehow. Yet, on some television stations, Vicky's line is even altered to something like "be right there!"

     After that encounter, Vicky tells Kevin she loves him. Yet, Kevin can't say it to her, which upsets her. For a time, it seems they might break up, until, after another talk, Vicky finally goes to Kevin and tells him what he wants to hear, though she suggests after the prom. 

    As to Finch (apparently a reference to Atticus Finch), he bribes some girl to make him seem a stud, which makes him lock horns with Stiffler, who was seen vomiting after drinking some neglected beer that Kevin....know what, I'll just skip that part and say, don't just pick up any random drink when at a party. After all, there are worse things to wind up in drinks in those situations (which begs the question, why does Hollywood perpetuate the image of underage teenagers having parties with alcohol and no adult supervision? I mean, a bunch of poor, innocent teenage girls gathering in a house with like minded teenage boys, in a setting featuring drugs and booze, hosted by some pervert or strumpet, where someone can get drunk and taken advantage of? Not to sound crazy, but isn't that one of the things that's led to the MeToo movement in recent years?) So, while the Stiffler was looking down, the Finch stole his horny crown. To get at Finch, he puts lax into his coffee, prompting the whole random scene where Finch is running for home, yet winds up in the girls' room. The scene is grotesque and hardly necessary to me, other than the fact that it explains how Finch lost his chance at a prom date. 

    Finally, Oz, the one jock in the quartet, who does the lacrosse team along with Stiffler. Oz, unlike the stereotypical jock, doesn't have any arm candy, but decides to try out for the pact too. He does so by exploring the campus, eventually entering the choir and meeting Heather, leading to all sorts of jokes on his masculinity and orientation. Oz's arc becomes basically showing that he can be a real man without going into the macho sport athletic set, which seems to impress Heather, until she learns of his reputation and the pact. At one point, she dumps him while saying, "you're such a jock, no a jerk!" Then, after a speech from the coach, Oz decides to renounce the pact and that is when Heather agrees to go with him to prom. 

    Jim gets most of the comedy on him. Besides the thing with the pie, he continues longing for Nadia, who invites herself to his place for study. Turns out, it's so she could change after some event or another, and the boys decide to use this as an opportunity to film her, leading to the most well remembered image of the movie (Shannon Elizabeth taking off her clothes, down to her panties; as if to be Gen Y's answer to the swimsuit fantasy scene from Fast Times at Richmond High). It's also the most controversial. Here, a girl is changing clothes and her privacy is being disrespected, herself objectified, and her consent not even asked for. What's worse, not only are Jim and his friends seeing it, but so is Stiffler's little brother, a group of girls, some boy band with a monkey, and Sherman, the Jester on the Sidelines Minus a Cast, who instigated the plot. Apparently, Jim sent the link to everyone instead of choosing who to send it to (twenty years later, the hilarity of the scene only goes so far, considering we got websites that are about posting videos of people doing embarrassing things).

     So, it gets back to Jim who returns to find Nadia on the bed, getting comfortable (she does grab a shirt for modesty). Looking back on the strip-tease, I can't help but think with the way it was done she somehow knew she was being filmed. Instead of scolding him, like you would expect a girl to do (or some of the things today's women do), she turns the tables on Jim and has him do a strip tease for all to see. Afterward, he is in his boxers when he is invited to bed, then she has him touch her, prompting the one embarrassment that comes on teenage boys. Not once, but twice does this happen, making Jim the laughing stock of the school. Nadia is later sent home by her sponsors, leaving Jim without a date. 

     Enter Michelle, the band geek played by Allyson Hannigan, who starts her stories with "there was this one time at band camp...". You know, I have a sibling who went to band camp and she never began her stories that way. She never even says that in her video reviews. With nothing else, Jim decides to take to the prom the girl who sang the blues.

     So prom night arrives and there they all were "one place, a generation lost in space, with no time left to start again," which is about the only way to describe this point of senior year. It's here the antithesis of the pact, a red headed, freckled faced nerd, named Sherman, who calls himself the Sherminator (a portmanteau of Sherman and Terminator; a self-proclaimed "sophisticated sex robot sent back in time to change the life of some lady"), the boy who claimed to have done it with a girl earlier in the movie, is revealed to be false. The girl he supposedly done it with says they didn't do it and that it was all a bribe to make it seem that he has prowess. And as he watched her on the stage, his hands were "clinched in fists of rage," cause she mentions he has a habit of wetting himself, which happens then and there. No angel born in hell can break that kind of spell.
    This puts the four in a crossroads and for a moment it seemed nothing else will come of it. Even Jim is willing to say he has had it with sex while Oz has gone so far as to renounce it. Finch is down because he has no date. He even talks to a cynical girl named Jessica, who only gives him a flask full of booze. Heather seems in love with Oz because they were dancing in the gym real slow. Yet, all four still head to Stiffler's party after the prom, while we don't get any of the prom cliches (meaning we don't get to see a prom king and queen). It's here that Jim and Michele get to know each other more, with some strange stories exchanged. Then they retire to the bedroom, to partake in that sacrificial rite: during which Kevin finally says those three little words every girl wants to hear, Oz lets Heather decide when to do it and is rewarded for it, Jim gets the slam-bam-thank-you-ma'am from Michele (in what could foreshadow the sex scene from Breaking Dawn), and Finch goes down to the basement and runs into Stiffler's Mom. The first seems cliched, the second is unrealistic, and the third I have nothing good to say on. The last, I'll mention, because it becomes his revenge for the coffee spike as he seduces her, thus when Stiffler comes down, he finds his mom with Finch as the pact was consummated (and, I guess, Satan laughing with delight).
    Just like the song, the film ends on a low note. After using Jim, Michele just "smiled and turned away", leaving Jim to continue his video sex chat with Nadia. Finch also used Stiffler's Mom, believe it or not. Oz and Heather become a couple, despite winding up going to separate colleges come fall. Yet, after all the build up, Vicky decides to call it quits with Kevin, which was the worst of the four. They go to the sacred store...I mean, their favorite restaurant, where they have breakfast and make a toast to "the next step."

    American Pie isn't a feel good classic, not in the way most of the movies from 1999 are, especially given all that was mentioned. The plot is cliched, is mostly done for comedy but little development on the characters, and there is a lot of objectifying of girls in this movie. In American Pie, girls are only eye candy to be lusted over, to acquire in a sexual conquest, and any who says yes to a guy will make the guy feel great.
    Of course, several things do turn the sexism charges on its head. For one, Nadia is shown as the exotic foreigner to make four typical American boys drool over, yet she turns the tables on one of them by having him strip on camera as well. Heather and Vicky are another way of subverting it, considering how they let their men know when they are ready and are respected for it. The only problem with them I got is how the film presents the same old cliche that if the man says something the woman wants to hear, which is opposite of what he really wants, she'll immediately give it to him, revealing that her desires are mutual. I don't know what universe that kind of manipulation works, but in real life, Kevin and Oz would still be virgins on graduation as most girls tend to stick to their abstinence vow really well. Not only that, Vicky's arc is pointless when she breaks up with Kevin after they consummate their relationship, all the while we had become invested in them. Michelle, meanwhile, the one geeky girl who would likely not be chosen for a date, does what my girlfriend once said, "why invest in other people when it's gonna be over?" (something to that effect), by simply taking Jim's virginity and then leaving, all the while no relationship comes from that.
    The rest of the girls are only just extras who look pretty while standing around and letting guys hit on them. The one exception is Jessica, the cynical girl who can't wait to be in college, something I consider be just a trope of that snarky, teenager who thinks everything is false, never enjoys life, and often thinks things will be better once they are out of high school. She has no arc, other than lie for Finch and give Vicky some sex advice, and the sequels don't really know what to do with her, other than make her a no show in one, or a Lesbian in another.
   Sherman and Stiffler are also stereotypes, with one being the creepy nerd who annoys the other boys with his high IQ and bothers girls with his ugly looks, and the other being a jock who acts like the big man on campus (after seeing him in Road Trip and Dukes of Hazard, I can't help but think that seems the character Sean William Scott was made to play in the turn of the millennium; in all those films, he is showing going around with a grin on his face while attempting to get in a girl's pants or get at some guy). Come to think of it, that is just about all that is need to be said of those two, since they only exist for the sake of comedy or conflict.
     As a whole, there is a reek of sexism with American Pie, something that today's audiences might not want. At the same time, there is some innocence with the film that connects with the song in more than just the title. Don McLean wrote "American Pie" after seeing the tragedy in the plane crash that killed three rock stars, after which rock n roll was transformed: going into teen pop and folk music in the early sixties, psychedelic tunes and political songs of the late sixties, then the dark and edgy songs of the early seventies, all a far cry from the wholesome, feel good, Oldies that dominated the airwaves in the fifties. The same with the American Pie franchise after the first movie. They decided to give it a sequel after getting into the millennium, which reunited the cast (including Jim with Nadia), and brought back the same sex comedy. Then they got another, though they renamed it American Wedding, where after Jim realized he was into Michelle, they get married. After that, the franchise became like National Lampoon with a few made for TV movies, some that went straight to video, with the rehashed plot points and the same tired out sexism, before going back to the big screen in 2012 with American Reunion. Not one of the sequels has had the same magic as the first movie and not one has had the staying power, either (though American Pie 2 made more money than the first movie).
    That leads to the one contrast in that innocence loss. With rock n roll, the loss of innocence came with the music transforming over the course of a decade. With this movie franchise, the loss of innocence only came from reusing the same thing constantly until it got stale.
   Now, the song, inspired by an event now forty years old, may continue to be enjoyed still, even after only one artist attempt to make her own version. The film, meanwhile, hasn't aged well. It's become that embarrassing friend from high school who never grew up, or basically the cinema's version of Harvey Weinstein. True, at one time, people would have thought of him good and all, considering he gave us so many good movies in the nineties, and for liberals he campaigned against Trump in the 2016 elections. However, all that no longer matters after all the sexual abuse allegations are made to light. We can like the late forties to early sixties America, racist and sexist warts and all, even as we jam to "American Pie", but it's even harder to like a sex comedy like American Pie, regardless of the innocence it may carry. The mindset of the song's world had a balance, for with all the dark side of post-World War II America, there were a lot of good things in that era that were traded in for progress (though it's be rabbit trailing to list them all). The mindset of the movie, however, doesn't provide that balance. It's a secular film (American Wedding attempted to add religion by making Jim and his family Jewish, though I have found no evidence to support that revelation in its prequels), the view of teenagers in high school is slanted, the story is cliched, the sexism is rampant, etc. It is no wonder the older audience would have called it trash.
    Could it have been fixed in a remake? Not a word has been spoken. I know people would start in the characters. In the first film, we had a quartet of white boys who hook up with four white girls, something a lot of people today would want to change. I am sure if they remade this movie, they'd feature one of the boys and one of the girls as a person of color. They can also show how far we have come since 1999 and actually have a gay character in there, somewhere. Another radical move is change the premise from four boys vowing to get laid by prom into four girls making that vow (a kind of sex positive update on How to Marry a Millionaire). Either one of those updates would be the tip of the iceberg, but considering the content of the first movie being transferred to the remake, I doubt those updates would actually improve its quality.
   Perhaps its best to not keep making remakes and only keep American Pie around for aesthetic reasons only. In a sense, reboots of older films have their pluses, but often contribute to the robbing of innocence of a genre. In the end, considering how Ghostbusters fared, a remake, to paraphrase the song, will cause the children to scream, the lovers to cry, and the poets to dream, and not a kind word be spoken, and the older fans would take "the last train ride for the coast." To quote John Wayne, "That'll be the day, Pilgrim!" 

Undersea Adventure Overview.

   How do you do,

  (First, let's take a moment to remember the people in the Southern Atlantic coastline who are dealing with Dorian and pray for the safety and recovery efforts they will face.)

   After having a nostalgia blast with Wishbone and the Amazing Odyssey, I decided to revisit another game of my childhood: Knowledge Adventure: Undersea Adventure.

   Knowledge Adventure was a series of computer game like programs issued in the late eighties, early nineties time frame, as a way to educate children, as well as be entertaining. Thus, the series was popular for people of all ages. The motto for the franchise was "Have Fun! Get Smart!"

  Admittedly, some of the programs they offered didn't age well. Space Adventure had a few things set for after 2000 which never happened (including people returning to the Moon in 2012). The knowledge of dinosaurs has come a long way since the release of the original Dinosaur Adventure (which was re-released later as Dinosaur Adventure 3D), while it seems the last was released on the sudden revival in dinosaur interest due to the release of Jurassic Park and Land Before Time. Other programs have held up over the years, such as Body Adventure 3D, to some extent, along with Bug Adventure, Kid's Zoo, and American Adventure (the preview shows the presidents morphing over the years, though dated now as it stopped with Bill Clinton). Topping the ones that holds well is Undersea Adventure, one of two of my favorites (the other being Dinosaur Adventure).

  Open the program on the CD or floppy disk, get into DOS in the process (in those days, some computer programs worked by getting off of Windows and into Disk Operating System, or DOS, where you had the annoying task of having to type out the program you wanted), and then you see the title screen with three electronic notes played. Then comes the video of the great white shark approaching, making one think he was in the cage see, before it goes to the other and then swims away (perfect for any too young to see Jaws). That was how the program opened.
   The game came in two versions, which I'll call the Alpha and the Beta versions. The Alpha version is the one I liked the most: it had the simplistic menu design where you are in a kind of cabin of a boat looking out. Each of the lay out items led to a particular item, such as the popcorn leading to the movies or the treasure chest to the 3D Undersea World.
   There are games involved: Can You Find Me?, What Do I Eat? and Who Am I? Each game is a trivial one where you match the food with an animal or a body part with an animal. Get all correct and you are treated to a CGI orca leaping out of the water (enough to cry out "Willy!")
    While the games are for fun, there is also the reference where you read articles about the flora and fauna of the oceans, most of which are based on Jacques Cousteau's exhaustive work, The Random House Atlas of the Oceans. There's even an introduction article on him that comes when one first enters the reference page. The reference page comes with category areas for fish, crustaceans, mollusks, marine mammals, marine reptiles, maps, the shore, and so on. Click on either of them and you go straight to one particular subject. There's also a series of red, yellow, and green buttons on either side of the picture that when pressed on results in all kinds of noises (some are just added for humor-sake). The one thing with the reference page that I couldn't figure out is how you could zoo out the globe to the point of being in space as with Space Adventure. 
    While the reference page has movies, you could watch them separately in the movie page. You can also go to the lab and see the inside of the shark, octopus, and lobster. There is also the story book, which is meant for the pre-school and kindergarten aged audience because a voice speaks out the words, and the writing is in a simplistic manner to allow things to be explained without going over one's head.
    These areas are not as impressive as the 3D Aquarium and Treasure Hunt, which use the 3D engine for movement with the mouse. The graphics are somewhat dated (being like that of Wolfenstein 3D, which came out a year earlier; yet was enough to make someone who played that game expect to see the bad guys pop out any second). In Aquarium, you start at the end of a hall and enter the atrium that resembles a flower. You then chose which of the rooms to enter. Unlike in Wolfenstein, the doors don't open and each time you go in, the music changes.
    You can see for yourself in this series of videos posted by KGrove94 on Youtube. The player in the videos is like me, and I am sure some of y'all who remember are, by starting at Coral Reef room first, then working one's way around from there. The music includes a presto obstinato for the atrium, followed a gentle sounding tune for Coral Reef and Exotic Fish rooms, pleasant harmony for the Marine Mammal and Open Ocean rooms, a somewhat Calypso beat for the Danger and Weird Fish room, while The Shore room has a tune of steel drums with the sound of waves crashing. The Aquarium is breath taking either way and is the only aquarium in the world that is open 24/7 and is all free admission (and you don't even have to beg your parents to set aside a time for a road trip to a real one).
    The set up is impressive and the dated graphics ignored, though it does seem a disappointment that each room only has pictures and never once can one see three dimensional creatures. Nor are the pictures moving. Instead, one clicks on the pictures and a text appears for a description, similar to seeing it on the side of a fish tank. One interesting bug is in both versions: you click on the wall of the Coral Reef room and the text for the Brain Coral appears. This never happens in the other rooms, something I can't explain.
    Treasure Hunt has the same set up, but this time you are greeted by a manatee named Splash (he claims he used to be a boy-a-tee, but then he grew up. 😄😄😄) You start out in an area with a center room and three halls leading to different room. Behind you is a poster of a shark, which you click and it disappears forever, enabling you to begin the game. First, you might be more conscious of the set up, so after Splash speaks, you would explore the three rooms: Kelp room, Coral room, and Surf room (Splash will sing "Surfin' USA" upon your exiting of that room). Each room has another manatee: one with a shorts, one with sunshades, and the third with a tie. In each room, you interact with an animal for some facts, each one talking as though to impersonate a celebrity (the nudibranch sounds like Arnold Schwarzenegger, for example). When you start the game, you go in with one minute worth of oxygen in the tank. You must find the treasure before it runs out, barring stops to interact with additional aquatic life along the way (though Splash says to avoid the predators).
    One thing noticed by anyone is how you come into contact with Splash and he vanishes. Why, I don't know. The beta version fixes this glitch, but since he is at the end of the game, we can assume he found a short cut.
    The beta version of the game is about the same with a few changes. The movies are expanded to have more videos, which all come with an annoying commentary at the start before the doors open to let you watch (you'd have to click to skip over it). It also gave new voices to the characters (making Splash sound younger and removing the celebrity impersonations) as well as adding a commentary to each picture in the aquarium (which only works on the illiterate and the visually impaired). Even the menu is made to resemble the inside of a submarine, which doesn't have the same personality as the alpha version. Other than that, it has no improvements on the graphics or anything else.

    Since the CDs don't work on my current computer, it is a disappointment to not bring it up again, plus it also seems unlikely to share the experience with any of my kids in the future. That is indeed a shame, because it really is a classic. So far, I am yet to hear of any HD versions or some newer releases made, one that not only updates some of the knowledge, but possibly show how far computer technology has come to enable a more realistic aquarium or treasure hunt.
     For someone who doesn't live near a coast, the viewing of the game videos is enough of a way to come close, as well as providing the nostalgia blast. 

The Nutcracker and the Mouseking: A Christmas Allegory

How do you do.

  For the upcoming Christmas Season, I decided to start the reviews on literature with one of my favorite Christmas tales, E.T.A Hoffmann's Nussknacker und Mauskoenig or The Nutcracker and the Mouse King. This has been long in the work and has nothing to do with the recent film adaptation that is in theaters now, but since everyone is watching I decide to get it posted this year.

 When you first hear of The Nutcracker, you might be thinking of the ballet by Russia's great composer, Pyotr Ilych Tchaikovsky. The ballet was from a late period in the composer's life, about a year before his death, best known to American listeners in the abridged style "Nutcracker Suite", on which a sequence from Disney's Fantasia is based on. Tchaikovsky reportedly disliked the piece and after 1892 it was rarely played[1], until in the middle of the last century with the frequent productions of the ballet itself. Because of the setting of the story being in Christmas eve, it's become part of the Christmas traditions just as Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol and Clement Moore's "A Visit from St. Nicolas" had before it.
  Yet, before there was a Russian ballet, there was the fairy tale, and it was the work of two men: a German Romantic writer named Ernst Theodore Amadeus Hoffmann, aka E.T.A. Hoffman, and French novelist Alexandre Dumas, the man who gave us The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo. I list it as the work of two men because the original story was written twice. The first was by Hoffman in 1816, done as a novella, while Alexandre Dumas rewrote it as The History of the Nutcracker twenty eight years later. The plot lines in the story are completely identical that one could accuse Dumas of plagiarism, yet a few changes in writing style are noticeable, the way Dumas looks into the Christmas Tree concept like that of an anthropologist observing natives in a ritual in contrast to Hoffman presenting Christkind tradition, and so on. So, we're basically looking over the same story if I reviewed the both at once.
   One noticeable difference is in the family, where Hoffman features the Stahlbaum family while Dumas renames them the Silberhaus. The first is said in genealogy.com to mean "steel tree", whereas the latter "silver house"[2]. And it's not too hard to see that plenty of German influences are in the ballet, such as the inclusion of "Grandfather Dance" in the libretto, itself a traditional German dance done to signal the end of a gathering (making its place as the end of the Christmas Party scene right).
   The heroine of The Nutcracker is not named Clara, unlike what the ballet has, but Marie Stahlbaum / Silberhaus. Marie is a variant of Mary, a French and German variant mostly (though The Sound of Music taught us German speakers could also use Maria). This name connection, as well as the way she holds the Nutcracker, invokes the image of the Virgin Mary holding the Christ Child. In a way of avoiding the actual motherhood, Drosselmeier, her eccentric godfather, gives Marie the Nutcracker doll that he made himself and she protects the doll like a mother protects her baby. Like any mother, she discovers that there are other things to come between her and her doll, which was originally to be shared with, but Herr Stahlbaum / Silberhaus deemed it to be in Marie's care. First case is when Fritz breaks the Nutcracker while trying to crack nuts. Later, she finds him being threatened by the mice.
  The theme of protective motherhood shows in the differences between Marie and her brother, Fritz, in treatment of the Nutcracker. Fritz, like any boy, just sees the Nutcracker as a toy to play with; another hussar to command. He even tries to crack a really hard nut with it and it breaks the jaw. Marie weeps over the injury of the Nutcracker while Fritz considers him not a good soldier. By every right, Fritz should have gotten a good spanking for that but he was lucky that time. Instead, his father makes him ashamed of his treatment of a soldier, since Fritz is in to toy soldiers. This protective mother stage goes to the Mouse King's advantage when he threatens to chew him up if she doesn't appease him with sweets. The Mouse King, of course, uses this for extortion.
  When Drosselmeier comes on the scene, we learn alot of the man from the start. Godpapa Drosselmeier, as he is called in the story, is Fritz and Marie's godfather, a special sort of relation in Marie's life: he is there to rear the children should their parents die, as according to his role when they were baptized. Drosselmeier is described as a little man with wrinkles in the face and some long hair, plus a black patch over his right eye. Looking at him, you would think of the Norse god Odin, trading in his wanderer robes for that of a clock maker. The appearances are just about the only connection to Norse mythology that Drosselmeier appears to have. His whole name is Christian Elias Drosselmeier. If you look at the name, you notice the two instances of "el" being used, especially in Elias.
    Drosselmeier is a strange sort. Though he is good natured and friendly, I couldn't help but notice he could be a jerk at times. When Fritz breaks the Nutcracker, he sides with the boy. Later, he scoffs at Marie figuring out who the Nutcracker really is, and tries to show her false. Yet, when he presents his nephew in the end. There are times that Drosselmeier is someone who knows more than what he is saying, which makes him the most unpredictable of the characters. 

   On Christmas Eve night, Marie sneaks into the toy room to check up on her nutcracker doll (stored with, along with other toys, a doll that is named Clara) and that is when the mice arrive. Mice were a common pest in Europe for centuries, along with their cousins, the rats. The reason is because mice and rats were considered carriers of the Plague (ironically, a family of rats is also called "plague"). Mice also like to get into food and will eat anything left out, as evidenced in the story where the mice bother the queen to have some lard. They also get in people's hair, nibble on exposed skin, crowd in clothes, and leave stains on floors and walls. So, based on this knowledge it's no surprise to see the mice as villains.
  The worst among them is as big as a hamster with the attitude of a shrew. He has no name but is called The Mouse King. Now, the ballet productions portray the Mouse King as a conventional mouse with a crown on his head, with the animated film The Nutcracker Prince making him seem rat like (perhaps playing off on Professor Ratigan from The Great Mouse Detective), but Hoffman's story describes him as a large mouse with seven heads. The image is also in Dumas' version. The seven headed rodent invokes the image of the Dragon and the Seven Headed Beast described in the Book of Revelations (both cases are described wearing a diadem on each head). The reason most productions didn't use the original image is practicality; you just can't create a seven headed mouse mask and put it on the body of a man, and they are yet to use today's puppetry like they are with King Kong. One thing scary is real life rodents in Germany have been recorded bounding together into a bigger menace, usually because they are stuck together by sticky substances. Rat kings, they are called, and they could consist of up to thirty-two rats stuck together as one body.
   Reading over the battle with the mice seems like that of a miniature version of Armageddon. The Mouse King is the Beast, Whore of Babylon, and Satan himself rolled into one while the Nutcracker and the dolls become the angels defending Earthly paradise from the Armies of Darkness. Mostly the toy soldiers, along with international dolls, while the girly dolls hide in the rear; yet I am positive in this day, you could have some of the most popular toys taking part in the action (even Barbie dolls taking on the mice). In the first battle, the mice appear to win near the end as the Nutcracker seems outwitted as a commander and then the toys get literally help from above. Marie throws a shoe at the mice who scatter and then everything goes black (The Nutcracker Prince takes it a step further by having the Mouse King land on his candle and run off screaming "MY TAIL'S ON FIRE!" and later winds up in the fire place, sort like the Devil tossed into the Lake of Fire).

   Another biblical allusion is presented in the story Drosselmeier tells to Marie and the children. The core of The Nutcracker is the story of a literal tough nut to crack, the Crackatook Nut, which is introduced as a cure to a curse. In the story, which is never used in the ballet, a king and queen of an unspecified kingdom have daughter named Pirlipat, presented as a beauty with good teeth. At least, she was until Dame Mouserinks comes on the scene.
   Dame Mouserinks, aka the Mouse Queen, starts out extolling the Queen for food, such as the lard used in making sausages, resulting in them not tasting well (it's strange how the King faints when he discovers "too little fat"). Once more, the fact mice were a problem in the past is illustrated and the King has it decreed they are to go. Drosselmeier is shown in the story working with the Court Astrologer in taking out the mice plague with mousetraps, with only the Mouse Queen escaping and vowing revenge.
  She does so by biting Pirlipat, turning her into an ugly thing. The King is angry and tells Drosselmeier to find a cure. When he couldn't, the King almost has him executed, but spares him at the urging of the Queen, sort of a play to scene of Bathsheba petitioning to King Solomon, only streamlined. Instead, when Drosselmeier brings up the Crackatook Nut, he is sent on a quest with the astrologer to find it.
   Besides the occult theme with magicians involved in the court, one thing that seemed queer is how the Princess is examined. Drosselmeier is said to take her apart as one would take apart a machine to examine for repairs, making one wonder if she were a girl or a puppet. It's likely a metaphor for a body examination, which makes it seem creepy (I don't think someone other than the court physician would be permitted to examine a princess' body like that). Anyhow, they realize they need not only the nut, but also someone who hasn't shaved yet and never worn boots, and the man turns out to be a youth who is also named Drosselmeier.
  The theme of virginity is shown in the younger man in various ways: he has not shaved yet nor has he worn boots. It's an interesting symbolism of virginity as shaving and wearing boots were considered the trademarks of manhood and boys generally don't do one or the other (it was once a rite of passage for a boy to put on a collar on the top of his shirt and cuffs at the end of sleeves, while also putting on trousers). Since I grew facial hair before age fifteen, it does seem strange for the youth to not be shaving at age fourteen, but some boys at that age have only peach fuzz. The boots part is understandable since such were hard to come by that could fit and fourteen is when boys go through growth spurts in the legs and feet that would make it hard to have the right size. Yeah, you might be wondering what do those things have to do with it? Let's say it's a cultural thing to compare male virginity to boyhood, since people believe men cannot be virgins.
   With this theme, this makes the younger Drosselmeier the one who can crack the nut. He cracks it and gives it to the Princess, sort of how in the Last Supper, Christ takes bread, breaks it, and gives it to His disciples. He then walks back seven steps (as if to mark the days of  the week, if not Creation). However, the Mouse Queen comes in once more to avenge her broken spell by biting him in the ankle, turning him into a Nutcracker, thus turning the Young Drosselmeier into a Christ figure (think Genesis 3:15), taking Pirlipat's curse away and upon himself. The Mouse Queen pays for the bite with her life, but upon transformation, the Nutcracker is rejected by the princess he cured, which brings to mind how the people of Israel rejected Christ. Instead of crucifixion, the Nutcracker, Drosselmeier, and the Astrologer are banished from the kingdom.
    Just now, I was thinking it over and see that the Blessed Trinity in the three men: in this case Uncle and Nephew play Father and Son, with the Astrologer as the Holy Spirit. Considering the Bible also has kings rejecting God, it should be no surprise when they are banished from the kingdom after the Princess is cured. It is also a sad twist, considering how Pirlipat fell for Young Drosselmeier on first meeting, when he was at his height, only to reject him when at his lowest. I should add on that that the Brothers Grimm were arranging their fairy tales around the same time Hoffmann was writing his. In a sense, Hoffmann had satired the Grimms' fairy tales where a beautiful and pure princess is paired with a handsome and noble prince, by showing beauty to not mean good. It's at that point, we return to the story proper.

  After the first battle with the mice, Marie's role as mother ends and she becomes less like the Virgin Mary and more a princess guarded by a prince. A psychologist would consider this progression a case of Freud's Oedipal attraction in reverse, where instead of the son being attracted to the mother figure it's the mother attracted to the child figure. The fact that the child is actually a man makes this sort of thing taken to another level. How is it a man? The Nutcracker comes to life that night (not in the Toy Story sense) and we hear of a story from Drosselmeier of how a nephew of his was turned into a Nutcracker. Marie figures it out and starts calling the Nutcracker by his name, even refraining from the Pieta pose that she had earlier. The Nutcracker tells her to stop sacrificing her things for him and requests a sword, which he uses against the Mouse King.
   At this point, I should point out that the story takes on a turn similar to most fairy tales and folk tales with dragons. The common image has them guarding things, and sometimes a princess, and the man would slay it to rescue the latter. In this case, the dragon is played by the Mouse King. Without us seeing it, he slays it, wakes up Marie, and takes her to Toyland. From this, we see the Brunhilde legends being referenced as well as "Sleeping Beauty" and "Snow White."
  Finally, Marie becomes the perfect bride. She is presented a fairy tale marriage when the Nutcracker takes her to his kingdom. She does wake up from this and goes to the Nutcracker to make a vow to be not like Princess Pirlipat. This vow results in the Nutcracker taking human form at last and Marie finds a handsome suitor presented to her by his uncle.This kind of transformation follows that of the Beast in Barbot de Villeneuve's fairy tale, "Beauty and the Beast" where the girl makes a solemn vow of love and it breaks the spell that was holding the man in another form. In this case, it's as a nutcracker doll.
   One final Biblical allusion comes when the Nutcracker takes Marie to the Doll Kingdom, shown as a magical world where toys and sweets live and every Christmas tree known grows. The set up of this fantastic world is meant to resemble Heaven, and Marie sees it twice. First the Nutcracker shows her the place after slaying the Mouse King. The second is after the Nutcracker becomes human again and takes her there upon hearing she would love him regardless.
   In the final chapter, Marie tells everyone of it but no one believes her. Her father even threatens to throw her toys away if anymore talks of it come. But, Marie keeps faith and says the magic word. In the end, all are happy. That ending is preferable to the Baryshnikov production of the ballet that ends with Clara back in the living room and wondering if the whole thing was just a dream.

 

Notes.

1. Fantasia. Disney Pictures. (1940) (Classicalmpr has an article on the movie's use of the suite in better detail).
2. genealogy.com. (accessed in 2018). 

Going Twenty: A Bug's Life

   How do you do, 

  It's winter and the "Going Twenty" phase will end now with Disney and Pixar's A Bug's Life. A Bug's Life was the successful follow up film of Pixar in wake of Toy Story, the film that struck it rich in being a completely computer animated movie. Toy Story appealed to all ages when it came out in 1995; adults enjoyed the intelligent story telling and dialogue while children were delighted by the film's fantasy and adventure elements. Toy Story was even rated among the top ten films of the year when it came out, and is on the list of 100 greatest American films of all time, along with Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the latter was a breakthrough in traditional hand drawn animation.
   While it was in production for the anticipated Toy Story 2, Pixar attempted another follow up in what was practically a tough act to follow. But, they pulled it off in 1998 with A Bug's Life, where the film centers on arthropods interacting. It wasn't a real technological leap of anything at all. The real breakthrough was Toy Story, which was to bring toys to life on the big screen with computers. Everything after that focused more on the story telling elements, just as Disney did in everything after Snow White. A Bug's Life permitted new ways to explore this new form of animation and allow Pixar to have a bigger scope to things, whereas Toy Story was the technological leap to get computer graphics in motion. That can explain why this movie has a better story than Toy Story. The projects to come also allowed writers to develop their characters more, considering how Toy Story largely centers around Woody and Buzz and have all the other toys in the background. In A Bug's Life, we have a protagonist in Flick, but we also have other characters with their own conflicts, their own plots, and their own resolutions.

   Of course, Pixar rarely does much original with its stories. A Bug's Life is basically a rewrite of The Three Amigos, which in turn uses plot elements from The Magnificent Seven, which is an Americanized version of The Seven Samurai. I wouldn't call it stealing from any of them; A Bug's Life is merely retelling an old story in a new way, which is itself not that old.
   In the days before writing, stories were told aloud and what was told got passed down to the next generation. Some were preserved the same all through the ages while others borrowed elements from the world and incorporated them into the narrative. Then came the invention of writing and stories could now be preserved in print. As people began to move around, they encountered other stories in other cultures and elements would sometimes be borrowed in making new stories. For example, Ancient Greece had Homer's epics, The Iliad and The Odyssey, which inspired the Roman poet, Virgil, to write The Aeneid. Later, in the Middle Ages, you can find great works that use Christian influences and Biblical themes combined with tropes from a pre-Christian era and create something with it. It continued on: Blake took inspirations from John Milton's Paradise Lost, Dickens' A Christmas Carol is greatly influenced by Shakespeare's plays, and Pierre Boulle's Planet of the Apes uses the inverted species order that Jonathan Swift featured in his Gulliver's Travels (which also inspired Dr. Seuss' "The Butter Battle Book").
   A Bug's Life uses the same basic story line of the previous films, being that a village is terrorized by bandits and a group of heroes are called upon to protect it. In the Kurosawa film, the samurai are treated as the Japanese version of the Medieval knight in Europe, where they sacrifice their lives to protect people from evil, though the image is a romanticized version at best. In reality, the samurai of Feudal Japan were more like Luca Brazi of The Godfather than Sir Lancelot of the King Arthur legends, the strongmen in service of their lords. If we are to use Star Wars, since the Jedi are said to be inspired by samurai warriors, the real ones would lean more toward Darth Maul, Darth Vader, or even Kylo Ren more than they would as Qui-Gon Jinn, Obi-Wan Kenobi, or Luke Skywalker. Yet, the romantic image is what is used in the movie and is passed to the cowboys in The Magnificent Seven, another figure of a man who is often glamorized and romanticized in Hollywood as a symbol of chivalry. Considering from reading books about the Old West, the American cowboys were not modern day Sir Lancelots; they were mostly hired hands on ranches who drove cattle across trails and came to town after work where they sometimes got out of line with the law. The Magnificent Seven adds something of the Americans rescuing others trope where Yul Brynner and Steve McQueen enlist five others to help them beat Mexican bandits who terrorize a Mexican village. Of course, both it and the Japanese movie are depicted as tragedies in the fight as half of the group is cut down and both have someone lamenting that the helpless farmers were the actual winners.
  Fast forward to the eighties with The Three Amigos where some of the tropes that made The Magnificent Seven great in the sixties has been challenged and reevaluated. Revisionism on the Punitive Expedition brought on by Vietnam introduced the trope of the Anglo Americans getting into places he clearly doesn't belong and the tradition hero worship is nothing but the White Messiah trope. The Three Amigos is not very heavy handed on it, but it uses this by reducing the seven warriors down to three, and the plot twist is they are not really gun slinging heroes but simply actors brought in on false pretenses. When they meet the big bad, the cover is blown and the results are disgraceful, but in the end they decide between being phonies back home and phonies in another country it would be better to be the latter and they help the villagers win out.
   All that finds its way into A Bug's Life, replacing the Mexican banditos with grasshoppers, the villagers with a colony of ants, and the three Anglo American actors turned saviors into circus bugs. Another older story inspired the movie, of course.

   You may have heard of the fable "The Ant and the Grasshopper", how the grasshopper "fiddled" away summer while the ant and his pals worked in collecting the harvest. When winter came, the grasshopper is cold and hungry, and begs the ants for food and shelter, to which the ants refuse. Aesop's original message was harsh, which explains how retellings, including Disney's cartoon "The Grasshopper and the Ants" would feature a change in which the ants do welcome the grasshopper in who repents of his previous stance and earns his keep by entertaining the ants with his music. The fable is still used to illustrate the benefits of working to prepare for thin times during the thick and how idleness wastes away the thick times and leaves on unprepared.
   A Bug's Life appears to add another twist: suppose the children of the grasshopper took advantage of the hospitality of the children of the ants and set themselves up to rule over the latter. Now the ants stock up the food to offer as protection tokens to grasshoppers who claim to be their protection against other bugs. Thus, we have a connection to other three movies mentioned above.
   One thing that people have caught on during the years is the film's anti-authority message. When the grasshoppers question the need to return to the ants after having enough food, their leader, Hopper brings up that Flick, the hero, has stood up to him. So how does one ant matter to him? He illustrates it well in this scene. The grasshoppers hold a whole colony hostage and if their control ends, the grasshoppers could be overwhelmed. In short, it's all about power.
   The message of the conflict between Flick and Hopper is basically the people in power are vastly outnumbered, and often weak without support of the people, and the masses could overthrow them all, and they know it, so the powers that be will maintain their power using means of fear and keeping groups divided so as to avoid a united mob coming after them. One thing they fear most is when one person stands up to them, the entire population will, thus examples must be made to maintain that power. Consider historic examples, like the Nazis in Germany, the Bolsheviks in Russia, and you can see it done before; and some might think the same with the US today where certain elements are in charge and use fear mongering (and political correctness) to keep everyday Americans in line. Hopper understands that and will do everything to keep that power (one telling example is the way he threatens harm to his younger and less smart brother, Molt).

   In the end, the masses do revolt, and the circus bugs assist. Other subplots include Princess Dot wanting to be taken seriously, Flik's progressive ideas of invention while ants stubbornly hold to traditional ways, and the circus bugs' arc of redemption after losing their jobs happen as well. Plenty of the humor is the way how the circus bugs try to hype up and subvert stereotypes to their specie. For example, Francis the Ladybug can be relatable to those gender fluid sorts since we all assume ladybugs are female. The same with Rosie the Spider, a black widow (who jokingly talks of the deaths of her husband at one point) who is suppose to be a deadly arachnid and yet hangs with the others like it's no problem. Heimlich the Caterpillar even makes one think of the children's book "The Hungry Caterpillar" with his eating habits. Meanwhile, Manny is a praying mantis who is introduced in meditation (instead of praying) and P.T. Flea (named for P.T. Barnum, the guy they made a musical on) who owns a circus, both in reference to his namesake (and he even looks like Barnum) and the fact people have flea circuses.
   Other cases of artistic license are made. For one, real life ants have nests made mostly of female, technically, while males like Flik would have wings and exist mainly to mate with the Queen, whose daughters make up the workers. Flik is made a worker ant, and a male, and given a romantic subplot with Princess Atta, who becomes queen in the end. Others include the way they humanize insects by making them walk on two legs and have arms like people while spiders are generally depicted with six legs (sort of a way to make them out as monsters). Yet, pill bugs have more than six legs and are shown in the movie too. One thing that could have worked with the circus is if Rosie had a scorpion friend, the pill bugs replaced by a centipede and a millipede, and maybe a crab for the strong guy, then the circus would have all the groups of the Arthropod phylum represented. Of course, as most people are aware, not all arthropods are bugs.

   While the story is recycled, the film A Bug's Life has the legacy of making Pixar a household name, doing more so than Toy Story did. With its success, Pixar was able to create not only the sequel to Toy Story but also such hits as WALL-E, Up, and Cars. In each case, we see many motifs and tropes of older stories regenerated into new tales.
    It really is a fun movie to watch; even someone who is not into bugs would agree. 

Food For Thought: Armistice Centennial.

    How do you do, 

   In the United States, November 11 is Veteran's Day. It's that one time of the year where we honor the veterans of wars who had fallen in combat as well as the ones who are still among us today. Yet, it wasn't always called that. 

  One hundred years ago, this day, the Armistice that would end the fighting of World War I happened. It came into affect at 11:00 on this day, a century ago (by which point, nearly everyone in the Western Hemisphere was still asleep). For many, it seemed the war was completely over. Perhaps, the whole concept of war was over. Perhaps Man may be able to live in peace. At least, that is what we all felt as the Treaty of Versailles was being signed, a document intended for peace that instead led to another war. 

   Prior to November 11, 1918, there would have been millions of European men who were, like Ashley Wilkes in Gone With the Wind, willing to be happily buried in their homes, knowing that they were in countries that ruled the world. In 1914, the Great War came. In between those years, those millions of young men watched as their childhood friends were cut to pieces by machine guns, tangled up in barbed wire, or suffer from trench fever. They saw real men die in agony when they shot them, yet tanks seemed unfeeling with their armor and airplanes appeared unstoppable since they could fly. All for what? Just to capture a few yards in some places, or a hill in another. And at sea, the submarine added another monster lurking below. 

   For each country involved, World War I had a different meaning. For Great Britain, both it and World War II marked the watershed moment in the power of the empire. For France, the war was a trying time for the Third Republic, considering as most of the battles were fought in France and her will was tested to the limits. France certainly came out intact and stronger than before (even if it seems it was all thrown away in World War II, France had earned the final victory in the end). Italy's time in the war does seem strange as she turned on her allies and tried to defeat them, only to lose for the most part. Then, the Centrals attack and send Italy running, which makes one think Italy lost this one, but the Italians did hold out on the Piave Line and their final battle was a victory (even if the troubles of post-war times led to Fascism). For Russia, Germany, and Austria, the war was marked with defeat, the dissolution of their empires, and chaotic aftermaths. As the Russian reader knows, the hardships of war kicked off the revolution, which led to the Communist take over and the rise of the Soviet Union. For Germany, the defeat also meant hardship and anger as she was blamed for it, and it would plant the seeds for the Nazis taking over. This doesn't mean nothing good can be said for them all, considering how the Germans were defending their home at the start and Russians defended theirs later on. And I also admire the determination of the Austro-Hungarian Army at Przemysl, where they withheld a siege for 133 days. 

  The war wasn't confined to Europe. The Middle East was involved, also, where the Ottoman Empire made its last stand. During the period Turkey was fighting, the tragedy known as the Armenian Genocide occurred, while the Anglo-Egyptian Army enter Jerusalem, something no Englishman had done since the Crusades, and the British-Indian Army went into Mesopotamia (which meant such places my generation know like Basra, Baghdad, and Karbala were fought over then), and one British soldier helped an Arab revolt. In the end, Turkey became a republic and maintained her sovereignty while her southern neighbors were occupied by the British and the French. The war was also fought in Africa, where even African soldiers fought each other and one German Army present surrender undefeated in the end. Asia saw Japan grab off the German settlement in China as well as the islands she would later fight the US in in World War II. In the Americas, the war was largely naval battles fought away without any engagements on either continent. So, that explains why it was a world war. 

    For the United States, World War I was what ended the tradition of focusing on our home waters. Before, the US was satisfied with staying out of international affairs, with a few exceptions. World War I changed it; it meant the US would be involved with world affairs besides the Western Hemisphere, and World War II would later consummate that, making it possible for the US to assume the role as the world police. And all the US did in the war was minimum compared to everyone else and we arrived late in the war. 

  One thing World War I did was it ended the romantic notion of war. There was a growing movement prior to it that was seen by many who felt that wars are too horrible to use in solving problems. It really took the Great War to really make it official, since there was no way to hide the trenches and the basket cases. Indeed, it is a fact that war was what halted Fascism and Imperialism and Communism in the past; it is a fact that it took a war in Southeast Asia to make US society, indeed all the Western Civilization, to change itself for the better or for worse; it is a fact that through war Saddam Hussein was twice defeated and Kuwaitis and Iraqis were free of his tyranny; it is a fact that war was the only way to stop ISIS and the Taliban; and it is a fact that without war humanity would never have evolved to its current state. But there is another side to this: it's something that General Sherman pointed out once.

   "War is cruelty, no use refining it," he said. He made it cruel enough that the Confederates were willing to surrender, and to some if we have plenty of Shermans around, it can make any wars that happen now be done with quicker. At the same time, wars also breed more evils while destroying one form of evil. Think of how the Twentieth Century would have been if World War I had ended sooner, or never happened. We have to think of the grieving widows that are spawned of wars, or the orphans, and we must think that in many religions there are those who pray that war would never happen in their lives. We have to think of the young men we send to the slaughter or leave maimed, or mentally scared for life when we start wars. Never mind if the earth is over populated, especially since it would take an apocalyptic sort of war to reduce it greatly and that would mean hardships for the survivors. 

   For that reason, most of us see that view of the peace feelers in 1918 and wonder at the naivety. Then again, who is to say someone a century from now would think the same of our current society. Since another war happened, the day we set aside to remember the Armistice is made Veteran's Day. In the past, the United States had Memorial Day (once called Decoration Day) as a way to give honor to servicemen. This was a product of the Civil War. After World War II, which with the First World War gave us two generations of veterans, we had a holiday set up for the living while Memorial Day leans more to the dead. 

    So, what are we to learn from this. Basically, to avoid counting our chickens before they hatched. In order to have peace, we would have to avoid making the same mistakes as before and not make additional antagonisms. Those vets from 1918, they saw that lesson learned even as they grew old and then ancient, even as they became shadowed by their sons who fought in World War II, and grandsons in some armed conflict of the late century (for the US, the Vietnam Conflict). So, in honor of those men who fell in the Great War, whatever nationality they may be, and for those who saw the end and have it lived it through, even to the last ones left alive, let us all take a moment to pause and make peace with the past. May they all rest in peace. 

    "Blessed are the peacekeepers for they will be called children of God."

                                                                               Matthew. 5:9. 

Notice.

   How do you do,

   Due to this year being when the centennial anniversary of the Armistice in World War I happened, there won't be an entry to "Going Twenty" for November. Instead, December will take up the next, and last, entry. On that matter, there won't be a new season for "Going Twenty" for 2019. So, sorry to disappoint anyone looking forward to a few words on Star Wars: The Phantom Menace or American Pie, both of which will turn twenty. 

   Instead, the month of November will have a few things on World War I and the ceasefire that was to bring peace (but instead was a prelude to another war). However, there will be a few other things to dissect and analyse in the months of November and December too. Until then, 

   Pie Iesu Domine dona nobis pacem.   

Going Twenty: Meet Joe Black

    How do you do, 

   [Originally, I was going to have Practical Magic be the movie for the "Going Twenty" series, but since I haven't seen it in its entirety, I decided to skip that and go to the next entry. I'll replace this one with something else in November.]

     

    Meet Joe Black might not seem Hallowe'en material since it's largely a rom-com. However, there is a good enough creepy vibe to it with the opening voice saying "yes" with Parish confronting death in it to match. The film features Sir Anthony Hopkins playing a multimillionaire named Bill Parish, president of the Parish Communications. He's set up as something like President Trump with gray hair and a slight British accent (and this guy is younger than the president). On the eve of his sixty-fifth birthday, he begins hearing voices and learns they belong to Death who wants to explore the world before taking him to the next world.
   Meet Joe Black is a re-imagining of the 1934 film Death Takes a Holiday, which in turn is based on the Italian play La Morte in Vacanza, by Albert Casella[1], while using a title structure like that of Meet John Doe. It's the second of two movies where Hopkins played opposite Brad Pitt, who takes on the title role. Though a remake, a few differences are in the character of Death. In the 1934 film, the character, played by Frederic March, wants to know why people fear him and asks a duke to be guide. In Meet Joe Black, Death is only doing this to explore what Parish speaks of with "passion, rapture, [and] obsession." Another change involves Susan. In the original story, the woman who captures Death's heart was not the Duke's daughter, but his son's sweetheart. In this one, Susan, played by Claire Forlani, is made to be Parish's younger daughter, with the older, Allison, played by Marcia Gay Harden, already married.
   There is something like Martha and Mary deal in the two daughters. We see Allison spending many of her screen time focusing mostly on her party planning for the big birthday soiree she is hosting for her father, while Susan is a bit more relaxed and keeping everything hands off. Clearly, Allison is Martha while Susan is Mary, in this action. The reason for this is more of favoritism, as revealed in Allison's talk with Parish late in the movie, with Allison clearly suffering a case of a need for her father's approval. That need basically translated into her constantly worrying about how it will turn out and rarely taking a break, even with her husband, Quince, an employee of her father, coming along. Susan, on the other hand, is basically dotted on by Parish who wonders if she had found the right man, even though she is clearly in a relationship with Drew, another employee. For the most part, Susan plays up the character of the woman who is over thirty, very attractive, more focused on career instead of settling down, yet hasn't experienced true love, and then suddenly gets it when a good looking man steps in. At the same time, she's almost a daddy's girl, and the one time Parish shouts at her is enough to make her sad and avoid him.

   One thing that may not be known to most is there is an actual Joe Black. The real Joe Black was a baseball player, serving as pitcher for the Brooklyn Dodgers, before dying a few years ago. Unlike Brad Pitt's alias in the movie, the real Joe Black wasn't Death in disguise. Not only that, the real man didn't even resemble Brad Pitt in any shape or form (look for yourself in this wikipedia article). The one reference to this is brought up by Quince in the first dinner scene, upon learning Joe's name.
    Considering how black is associated with death, there is a fair amount of it in the movie. Joe Black has it in his name, but there is also his suit and tux, as well as the swim suit and the dress Susan wears. Remarkably, Pitt's character doesn't get to be black either, but instead we get the white skin, blond hair, and blue eyed Joe Black, almost like something from Nazi propaganda. I am positive they went with Brad Pitt because he could project an expression of innocence if he wanted to, as if to match the way he interacts with the world. Really says something if they could only find blonds who show that more easily than they could find a dark skinned sort who can project the same image.
   Another thing to note is how secular the movie is. Joe Black plays off as Death, yet never once do we hear anything of God. Parish is never shown praying or making amends with God on anything; he only speaks God's name when cussing or swearing. There is a moment with the Jamaican woman that suggests some old religion, but it's never done too deep. To me, it's inconsistent to have Death as a spirit and yet not bring up any other spirits or deities into the mix. The movie is also a sign have how rotten some people in Hollywood are given that they can't find anyway of saying the word "God" unless in anger or as a swear word.
   On a less offensive note, there is no violence in the movie, not even a fight. The characters just talk and talk. There is a sex scene, done between Susan and Joe, but the scene is done very artistically. For one, we don't get any nudity -- everything is shot from the waist up with Pitt and the same with Forlani's back (ever her breasts get obscured by Pitt's arm in one shot). Instead, it mostly focuses on the faces and their reactions to the pleasure, which in a way makes much more erotic than any other sex scene in the film industry. Unfortunately, there's very little foreplay involved.
    After the sex scene and the two have redressed, it's obvious that Joe didn't learn the art of tie tying, something that is hard for some men. As a result, it's not put back on, but its absence provides another use of symbolism -- that of virginity loss.

   I do have a copy of the movie on DVD, though there are few things I noted like the fact the sex scene happens at the start, not end, of one chapter, thus making skipping the scene not an option if you don't like missing a few things. I also have found the shooting script for the movie and it contains scenes not included in the movie that the DVD failed to show (not sure if the Blu-Ray has them or not). For example, we have been hearing about this Bontecou deal and a meeting. The script has an actual scene where Bill Parrish meets this mysterious Bontecou and they have a private talk. Considering the talk doesn't include the deal, my guess to why it's not in the movie has something to do with plotting. The script has more depth to Drew in how he has Joe Black researched after the first board meeting and later on shows up to tell Joe he found nothing on him. Drew then shows up at the Parish house without an announcement to bring up the deal, mostly as a last warning before the scene of his dismissal. Parrish considers it threatening and orders him out. Drew leaves, but also has an argument with Susan, during which she ends things with him. Without the scene, we lose many plot points, especially with Susan and Joe falling for each other, because it almost looks like the usual leading lady cheats on S.O. with leading man, but that's okay because her fiance, or boyfriend, is the bad guy of the movie thing going on. There is also a funny scene after the Jamaican woman dies with Joe stopping by a Korean grocery store and getting some peanut butter. He doesn't understand anything of money change, even as the man brings it to him, and says he can't change. If only they kept it in the movie.
    Don't take my word for it, look it up.
   Meet Joe Black was also trimmed up for the airport version once, which was sometimes aired on television in the early Aughts. The trimmed version was disowned by Martin Breast, who placed on Alan Smithee in the credits. It's justified due to the removal of the bargaining and dealing plot, the deletion of the Jamaican woman's death, additional moments between Parrish and his daughters, even the love scene is cut up into a series of kisses with some undressing of Joe for the female gaze. I also consider that a good reason why they don't have it on home video.

   Meet Joe Black is a long movie with funny moments, though the acting does seem to be something you'd see in Twilight (did Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart watch this movie before playing their characters?). The movie was modest at the time of its premiere, but most people went to see it only because previews to Star Wars: The Phantom Menace was included. It's one of the few movies that is not fondly remembered today, most likely to be dismissed as another romantic comedy from the 1990s with cheesy dialogue, though Brad Pitt fans would enjoy it.
   One good part is the birthday scene where Bill Parrish offers his wish to the crowds, where he proclaims not on riches or fame, despite everything that has happened, but only for people to have a wonderful life. He had also heard Joe wanting to have Susan with him, but Parrish convinces him that love is more than the three things he said earlier, but also "trust, responsibility, making...decisions and spending the rest of your life living up to them." He knows, as do we, that Susan is only in love with the man whose body Death took, enough to claim Necrophilia on Susan's part, as well as basically the woman only being in love with the identity that the man has just stolen, not the man in possession. Once Joe realizes this, he breaks it off and returns the body back alive for Susan, though it does lead to us wondering how the man will react to being called Joe.
    Best part is how Parrish mends things with Susan and tells her how much he loves her while "What a Wonderful World" plays in the background. Though he won't be dancing with her at her wedding, the dance that follows is the perfect father-daughter dance. I also like the way they use the foot bridge to mark Bill Parrish's exit with Joe, with Susan coming up to see the two men she loved disappear, only for one to reappear. Under normal circumstances, she'd be asking what had he done to her father and call him a murderer, but since it's a movie it's let loose. Something about it makes it feel like the parting farewell of the nineties, if not the whole 20th Century, telling us how things will be okay and we shouldn't have regrets as we enter the new millennium.
  At the time the film came out, we were all like Parrish before he crosses the bridge as the Millennium arrives. After that part, we became like Susan, wondering what will come next and wait for whatever it is to come, to come to us. Certainly makes one wish we could go back in time and see the arrival without all the knowledge of what was to come. Bill Parrish was right in the movie. It is hard to let go.

[1] "Death Takes a Holiday." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Takes_a_Holiday (last modified August 12, 2018).