Guardians of the Galaxy

I don't think I ever anticipated nodding my head along to "I Want You Back" while watching a Marvel Comics film set in space. But there I was, doing such a thing. In what is one of the most joyous scenes in the film, the audience seemed to be filled with happiness as...well, it's best left unexplained for now. Just watch it, and I hope you will smile.

The movie opens with the unearthly "I'm Not in Love." Then, we see a man in an "Iron Giant"-like mask, walking around a barren, rainy planet. When he reaches his destination, he removes the helmet--it's Chris Pratt, in our first scene with him. He puts on some headphones and starts dancing to "Come and Get Your Love." Pratt, who explained that "acting is already embarrassing," not only has pretty good moves but really seems to be enjoying himself.

This is a Marvel movie, right?

It is. I have disliked many of the other Marvel films (especially "Iron Man" and "The Avengers") so much that I had low expectations for "Guardians of the Galaxy." But it's a great summer film, and a great soundtrack certainly helps it. Director James Gunn has described his approach to the music of the film as "holistic," and he played them on set during film. But a great soundtrack only takes you so far--comedy can help tremendously, as well. At another point in the movie, our stars Pratt and Zoe Saldana are (about to) dance to Elvin Bishop's "Fooled Around and Fell in Love." In that scene, Gamora (Saldana) mentions that she is an assassin and therefore doesn't dance. "Really?" is his response. "Well, on my planet, we have a legend for people like you. It's called 'Footloose.' And in it, a great hero, named Kevin Bacon, teaches an entire city full of people with sticks up their butts that dancing, well, is the greatest thing there is." (Bacon was amused.) Dave Batista plays Drax the Destroyer, a chiseled prisoner who seeks revenge for the death of his family. Drax is of an alien species that, we are told, is a literal one--one that has no understanding of metaphors. But Drax disagrees. "Nothing goes over my head...My reflexes are too fast. I would catch it."

But the film's best comedy team is Bradley Cooper and Vin Diesel. Cooper has shown that he can do comedy just as easily as he can do drama (and sometimes, as is the case with "Silver Linings Playbook" and "American Hustle," he does both simultaneously). Here, he provides the majority of the film's laughs. He plays Rocket, the Han Solo character, but he's also a genetically altered, walking/talking/hissing raccoon. When we first meet him, he and his partner Groot are after a bounty for Peter Quill (Pratt), who incidentally prefers to be called Star-Lord (which is a corny name, but of course, so is Luke Skywalker). They try to catch Quill, who is being pursued by Gamora, and the four of them engage in a fairly exciting chase. Groot is voiced by Vin Diesel. What I was frequently reminding myself of while watching "Guardians of the Galaxy" was the famous story of how Bela Lugosi didn't want the title role of Frankenstein in 1931 because of the character's lack of dialogue. So the role went to Boris Karloff, who was then an unknown. So why would Diesel, who is a major star and has appeared in films as varied as "Saving Private Ryan" and the "Fast" series, want a role in which his only line is saying "I am Groot"? Well, think about it: Diesel has had quite the challenge before him. He has had to create arguably the most complex character in the film while only getting out three words consecutively. Diesel has also offered a much more interesting reason: his life since the death of his friend and co-star Paul Walker. Diesel appreciated how "Guardians of the Galaxy" allowed him to play a character who celebrates life in such a manner. Indeed, he is the spark of many of the most heartfelt moments in the movie. He's the only pure, innocent character. In one scene, he sacrifices, and in another, he gives a young girl a flower while smiling gently (and doesn't react in a similar fashion as Karloff did in a similar situation in "Frankenstein"), all while uttering in a simple fashion "I am Groot." So there's emotional weight here in the film. This is a story about friendship, camaraderie and reconciliation.

There's plenty to not like about "Guardians of the Galaxy." I'm not sure why some of the modern high-budget movies like the "Pirates of the Caribbean" series and the new "Planet of the Apes" movies look so fantastic but it's always the Marvel Studios movies that look like a mess. As Todd VanDerWerff pointed out in Vox, this movie is at its best when it's not a Marvel movie, calling it fun but frustratingly typical. But otherwise, it's quite a worthwhile movie-watching experience, especially to see such performances. Pratt really is a joy here. Rob Lowe was likely on to something when he called Pratt the "future of movie stars." Pratt will also appear in the new "Jurassic Park" film next year. Saldana now is the queen of franchises after also appearing in the "Star Trek" films and "Avatar." (She also appeared in the first "Pirates of the Caribbean" film but apparently had a miserable experience.) It's not simply our main cast who are exceptional in their roles. While Glenn Close and John C. Reilly, as a politician and police officer respectively, are disappointingly underused, Lee Pace (whom you might recognize--though he looks completely different--from "The Hobbit" films) and Karen Gill are quite good as the villains. For another entertaining scene, there's Benecio Del Toro in one of his best performances in years. Nearly stealing the show is Michael Rooker as Yondu, a blue-skinned bandit good-guy/bad-guy who can easily take out a host of adversaries while whistling.

I really don't think I've had so much fun at the movies in a long time. The audience applauded at the end. It's moments like those when I am reminded of what an experience the cinema is. And I got to watch space scoundrels dancing to the Jackson 5. Can't beat that.

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Boyhood

The joys of a young child can be ruined by the yelling of adults. This is how "Boyhood" starts. There's a young child (Ellar Coltrane) lying in the grass, unobtrusively staring at the sky. His mother (Patricia Arquette) picks him up and asks him how his day was, gently prodding him about negative progress reports she's receiving from his teacher. His mother mentions that the teacher claims Mason, the young boy, deliberately inserted rocks into the classroom's pencil sharpener. She keeps asking why he would do such a thing. His eventual response is he assumed that because the machines make pencils sharp, it would do the same of rocks. He is quite the curious young boy, as most children often are.

"Boyhood" is an epic story. A film like this--one that takes place over twelve years--would typically feature a young actor as Mason at age six, then another one in his early teen years, then perhaps a twenty-something actor as a college-bound young man. His parents would be played by Arquette and Ethan Hawke, but they would have makeup applied to them throughout the filming to at times make them look younger and other times to make them look older. Not so with "Boyhood."

"Boyhood," directed by Richard Linklater (who, with "Dazed and Confused," "Waking Life," "School of Rock" and the "Before" trilogy, has show that he is one of America's most versatile directors) is a most unusual movie-making experiment, one unlike just about any other American film before it. Unlike the traditional approach, it has literally been filmed over twelve years. Starting in 2002, Mason grows up before our eyes. "It's time for you to grow up!" could be the mantra of his story. His inquisitiveness shifts to cynicism but ultimately bends towards optimism. He's a "yeah, I guess" kind of kid who doesn't appear to excel as much as his sister (Lorelei Linklater); his eyebrows seem permanently arched, particularly in his preteen years. By the time he's an adult, he looks a bit like Peter Dinklage. But in every one of these twelve years, it seems to be that he is the brunt of every sort of lecture. Have you ever seen a more relaxed youth on the screen? I can't recall any scenes of tantrums or even fighting back. The film (and trailer) make excellent use of an exceptional song called "Hero" by Family of the Year. The lyrics "let me go; I don't want to be your hero" seem to exemplify Mason's persona.  

But ultimately, this movie is good, but not great. Hawke (Linklater's collaborator on the "Before" trilogy) overdoes it in a scene or two. The film goes on for about 40 minutes too long, and Linklater's dialogue is painful at many times in the film--virtually every line from a young person sounds incredibly artificial.

But what I do like most about "Boyhood" is the complexities, because such is life. You can find such complexities in the role of Mason's parents. Sarah Boxer in the Atlantic recently asked why all the mothers in Disney films die, arguing that the beneficiary of a dead mother in children's films is a good father. In "Boyhood," it's not so simple. Early on, the father certainly does, in the eyes of the two children, come across as "the nice one," giving away gifts liberally and taking his children out for bowling and French fries while their mother scolds them for not doing their homework. Hawke's character, we are told, has just returned from Alaska, where he worked. At various times in the story, he is unemployed. The mother, on the other hand, moves the kids around for better economic opportunities. Mason and his sister get to see their dad on the weekends, but their father is replaced by one alcoholic after the other. One of them is possibly suffering through post-traumatic stress disorder and the other has a frightening malicious disposition in his eyes. The latter is played by Marco Perella, and he's absolutely terrifying, even in his "normal" scenes. There haven't been scenes of childhood abuse this disturbing since "This Boy's Life" more than twenty years ago. Fortunately, Mason still has his two loving parents. This ultimately might be a story not necessarily of a young boy but of his relationship to his two loving parents; the parents might not love each other anymore, but they certainly love their children.

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Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

Et tu, Koba?

"Dawn of the Planet of the Apes" is the movie that has brought "Apes" to war. Oddly enough, this is one of the most anti-war films in years, with unmistakable allegories and warnings against unguarded militantism and vengeance. This has been observed by several others. Ari Siletz notes that audiences will surrender to the film's fatalism, that "when the forecast is war, peacemaking is as futile as raindancing in a drought." Here's what Rob Ryan has to say: "The central thesis of the second movie seems to be that despite the best intentions of good leaders, people (and apes) are innately paranoid, hateful creatures that are almost entirely incapable of getting along with each other." Three years ago, in my review of "Rise of the Planet of the Apes," the better than expected reboot of the series, I wrote that the horror of the film was that the "descent with modification" that is evolution is flipped and the hegemony of humans over their distant cousins is reversed. The horror of "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes" is that now both species have guns and will do anything to destroy each other. There exists here an embrace of the "killer ape theory," the idea that "war and interpersonal aggression was the driving force behind human evolution." War has found a way.

This is really evident in the fascinating performance that is Toby Kebbell as Koba. Koba (if I recall correctly) was the ape who was particularly mistreated in the previous film. Here, he is one of Caesar's (Andy Serkis) top lieutenants. In the opening hunt, it is Koba who saves Caesar's life. Koba recognizes that it was Caesar who saved his first, and so he is willing to follow him wherever Caesar takes the apes as their leader. But it's not so simple. The majority of Koba's scenes show him as a character of haunting mercilessness--an angry warrior charging into battle, willing to figuratively and literally jump through fire if he has to. I don't think I've ever seen something as uniquely frightening as an ape shooting assault rifles while charging on horseback into battle. Scars make you stronger, he believes--but they also make you more bitter. He has learned hate from humans, and that appears to be all he has learned, and so he grows impatient with Caesar's cautious pragmatism and pacifism. Koba is clever as he is vicious, making his humorous scenes, like how he "plays monkey" to distract his enemy humans, all the more unnerving. It isn't too surprising that he hates humans so much. His reflection, to some extent, is in Gary Oldman's character, Dreyfus. It's not fully explained, but we can assume that while it's unlikely the apes killed Dreyfus's family, he blames them. He's a man of war by necessity, he might argue, not by choice.

Caesar, our main protagonist, isn't nearly as interesting as Koba. But Andy Serkis is doing remarkable work with this trilogy. After watching the first film, I couldn't help but wonder if Serkis was getting tired playing these characters that require motion-capture technology. After all, he has done this for Peter Jackson's "Lord of the Rings" and "Hobbit" trilogies, "The Adventures of Tintin," and "King Kong." He is a part of the main cast of the upcoming "Star Wars" film, and while there are interesting, to say the least, theories as to what kind of character he will play (ranging from a Wookie to Yoda to Jar Jar Binks' son), I side with the argument that his character should not be one that requires computer generation. He has proven his ability and imagination with such acting, but now, I say, let him have an opportunity to prove he can do more traditional acting. Serkis knows this; here is what he told the Telegraph: "Caesar and all the other characters I have ever played are driven by one thing and that is acting. Audiences want to be moved by acting, not by visual effect." I still think that audiences don't quite understand the physicality of his work. Here's an great quote from an interesting article in Wired about his performance as Gollum: "He conceived Gollum as an addict whose inner struggle translated into an out-of-control, convulsive physicality. In his audition, he climbed up on a chair, his face contorted, and delivered his lines in a thin voice interspersed with a gurgling cough."

Serkis doesn't necessarily gurgle a cough and contort his face, but his Method acting approach and laborious study of ape movement is obvious. Remind yourself that the actors portraying humans are not seeing the actors portraying apes as we the audience see them, so the pressure is twofold on Serkis and others. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, the digital rendering of Caesar seems to look less realistic than that of Koba or Maurice (Karin Konoval), an orangutan who serves as an important adviser to Caesar and a school teacher. Most of the other characters aren't particularly interesting, though. Jason Clarke as Malcolm, the main human, is more of a man of peace (in stark contrast to Clarke's characters in "Lawless" and "Zero Dark Thirty") than Dreyfus. It's not a bad performance or character per se, just a rather flat one. Like Frida Pinto before her, Keri Russell isn't given much to do other than hand out antibiotics to dying apes. But while the movie doesn't have much to offer in terms of character development, the other elements are terrific. The music by the great Michael Giacchino manages to aid the film while seemingly paying homage to the original 1968 film and "2001: A Space Odyssey" (which was released the same year and also famously has apes). Its dialogue isn't exactly that of Shakespeare, but its impressive visuals, powerful imagines and obvious metaphors make it a movie you should see.

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Life Itself

I've made no secret of my admiration of Roger Ebert over the years. But allow me to keep on showing my adoration for the finest film critic we ever had: If there ever was an American treasure in film criticism, it was Ebert. The winner of the Pulitzer Prize and a recipient of a Hollywood Walk of Fame Star (the first in both categories for a film critic), and a prolific writer on a variety of subjects, he was the film critic. But I assure you--you don't have to know who Ebert was to enjoy this movie. Whether you know who he is or not, you really should see "Life Itself," the new documentary about his life and career. It's one of the year's best.

The country first came to know Roger Ebert through his incredibly influential partnership with Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune. They were Siskel and Ebert. But as we all know, it was a complicated relationship. An example of just how much they could truly hate each other is told by Marlene Iglitzen, wife of Gene Siskel. Siskel and Ebert were on a plane out of Chicago, and Siskel grew tired of Ebert (who is described as a raconteur by several individuals in the documentary) telling a story to another passenger. Siskel, annoyed as ever, gave a note to the flight attendant and asked if she would give it to Ebert. She did. The note said something along the lines of: "Mr. Ebert, we in the cockpit almost always agree with you over your reviewing partner. We would be delighted if you would join us in the cockpit." Ebert was ecstatic, sprang from his seat, and marched toward the cockpit (and keep in mind that because of his weight, it was rather awkward for him to move about the cabin). The flight attendants were shocked as he was about to knock on the door, before Siskel shouted up toward him and revealed himself as the true author of the note, much to Ebert's profound irritation and humiliation.

Ebert was an exceptional storyteller. If you don't believe me, listen to his story he told on Letterman's show involving Siskel and a Korean film about a lady and her dog. According to Ebert, the two of them were viewing the film with other Chicago film critics and were quite bored by it. Siskel decided to leave the cinema to make a phone call. In the time that he was gone, the movie (which featured nothing of any significance) suddenly took a bizarre turn by having the main protagonist have sex with her dog. Siskel returned, and the other critics broke out into laughter. Siskel demanded an explanation, Ebert told him, and Siskel refused to believe it. Trust me, it's much funnier listening to Ebert explain the situation.

The narrative over the years, especially after Siskel died in 1998 from brain cancer, has been that even though Siskel and Ebert seemed to frequently shout at each other, they really did like each other. But the documentary makes great use of the awesome--yet frightening--YouTube clip of repeated outtakes from their show. "Sound a little excited, Gene," Ebert lectures. "Sound less excited," is the terse response. Ebert continues to correct him--"It's called 'And the Moves,' not 'At the Movies,'" is the next interruption. Siskel keeps it together, then finishes: "That's this week on 'Siskel...and Ebert...and the Movies...and the asshole, and that's Roger!"

Don't worry: They really were a great partnership and seemed to do other outtakes simply roasting each other. "Do you know that for Gene, speech is a second language?" Ebert keeps winning, poking fun of Siskel's inability to not trip over his words. Then for another outtake, they team up, poking fun at Protestants, which, according to Ebert is a group of people who sort of want a religion. What a team. I mean, these two guys couldn't have been further apart in personality. One was tall and thin, the other was small and large. One studied Philosophy at Yale, the other journalism at Urbana. One wrote for the bourgeois Chicago Tribune, the other for the more working class Chicago Sun-Times. But they were quite the team. They came full-circle in the aftermath of Siskel's death. Consider Chris Jones' exceptional 2010 article, where Ebert describes how he and Gene were born to be Siskel and Ebert. In the following paragraph, we see just how much Ebert protected Siskel after his death:

Ebert keeps scrolling down. Below his journal he had embedded video of his first show alone, the balcony seat empty across the isle. It was a tribute, in three parts. He wants to watch them now, because he wants to remember, but at the bottom of the page are only three black squares. In the middle of the squares, white type reads: "Content deleted. This video is no longer available because it has been deleted." Ebert leans to the screen, trying to figure out what's happened. He looks across at Chaz. The top half of his face turns red, and his eyes well up again, but this time, it's not sadness surfacing. He's shaking. It's anger. 

But the heart of the movie--the team the film most wants to focus on--is Roger and Chaz. Those two additionally seemed different, the most obvious difference being their skin color. But the love they clearly had for each other, especially as Chaz cared for him during his battles and pushed him to keep going, makes this one of the great love stories of any documentary. She herself also has a talent for storytelling, but many of the stories involve pain. She tells us how at one point, the pain became so bad that he slipped her a note saying "kill me." She angrily refused--"That is not an option," she insisted. Ebert is terribly in pain throughout the filming. An obvious hole exists where his jaw used to. We see him struggle deeply as a nurse inserts a suction tube into his throat, and as a physical therapist coaches him to produce even a few steps at the hospital after he's broken his hip. Nobody deserves such suffering, especially Ebert. But he endured, as long as he could.

Ebert is described by a friend as being "nice--but not that nice." Indeed, his not-niceness shows, whether it's in heated conversations with Siskel or arrogant reminders of his Pulitzer Prize--he doesn't always come across in the best light. But as a champion of motion pictures, he was extraordinary. Errol Morris tells us of how a strike during the premiere of his documentary "Pet Cemetery" meant that it wouldn't be reviewed in New York, which essentially equated to doom for his film. But Siskel and Ebert, based in Chicago, were to review it, and they reviewed it not once but three times during the course of the show. Ava DuVernay describes her meeting with Ebert at the Oscars and his inspiring her. (He wrote about the encounter on his blog.) Ramin Bahrani explains how Ebert promised to attend a showing of his film "Man Push Cart" at the Sundance Film Festival. For the first two showings, Ebert was a no-show, but the third and final showing (at eight in the morning during the final day), Ebert was happily at the front of the line. Ebert would later give Bahraini a gift that had been given to him by Laura Dern, who was given it by Alfred Hitchcock. It was Bahraini's responsibility, Ebert told him, to give it to someone else. Martin Scorsese, who Ebert predicted in 1967 would be one of America's most important film directors, tells us how at one point in his career, his marriage had fallen apart and he became addicted to cocaine. He truly was at a low point, and begins to break down as he describes what kept him going: he was told that Siskel and Ebert were to pay tribute to him at a film event. When they gave a bad review to his "The Color of Money," Scorsese mentions that it felt more like a paternalistic warning, not a malicious bucket of venom.

Film critics are meant to be the unsung heroes of movie-watching. That is, we not only are long passed the days of Pauline Kael and Siskel and Ebert but we are also passed the point where people take film critics' opinions seriously. But if Ebert could have had some kind of totally objective viewing of such a documentary, I believe he would adore this movie. He would certainly be proud of director Steve James, one of Ebert's favorite directors. Ebert famously said that no good movie is too long but no bad movie is short enough. I've never found that particularly accurate, but it surely is here. I didn't want the film to end. But all good things must end; such is life itself.

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The Fault in Our Stars

"I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart. I simply can't build my hopes on a foundation of confusion, misery and death."
-Anne Frank

The only thing worse than cancer is kids with cancer. This is a fairly bold topic for a novel and film about young people in love to tackle. But tackle it does. This isn't a movie about sick kids but kids who are sick, and there is a subtle yet important difference between the two. It doesn't need to be elaborated but you'll understand as you watch.

"The Fault in Our Stars" is the story of a girl with cancer, not cancer itself. The girl is named Hazel, a sixteen-year-old, and is played by Shailene Woodley. Hazel has suffered from thyroid cancer for years, and, despite limited relief, surviving has helped convince her doctors that she is a miracle. No one in the audience would doubt her melancholy, however, as her doctors casually proscribe anti-depressants and pressure her to attend youth peer groups for those suffering from cancer. She reluctantly agrees. Here, she literally bumps into a young man named Augustus Waters (Ansel Elgort), whose own cancer cost him his leg but not his spirit. At one of the youth meetings, he proudly describes to the group that his only fear is oblivion. He intends to be around for a long time, and will reach legendary status. This understandably strikes Hazel the wrong way, and she tersely challenges him in front of the others.

Despite this defiance and rejection, Augustus develops quite a crush on Hazel, whom he flirtatiously keeps referring to as Hazel Grace. They swap books--she gives him "An Imperial Affliction," by a reclusive author who, despite his powerful writing, fled to the Netherlands never to return. Augustus gives Hazel Grace his copy of a graphic novel based on his favorite video game. They read the books and appear to enjoy the experience. The flirting continues and crescendos until they fall in love and battle their cancers together.

I liked this movie, and I was surprised by how much. It has a peculiar trajectory--it starts intriguing (though that's probably not an appropriate adjective to use), becomes annoying, then really annoying, then tolerable, then enjoyable, before becoming really enjoyable. And yet I couldn't help but feel much too manipulated. While it's strongest element is that it's a movie about kids who are sick and not sick kids, its weakest quality is that this is a movie that seems to objectify human beings just so I, the viewer (and one who is fortunate enough to not have cancer), can feel happier about my life. I wasn't sure how to react to that. There's a scene that takes place in the Anne Frank House, and there are obvious similarities between the two individuals, mainly being that they are both intellectual, brave young women. The problem is that when our two protagonists reach the top, where Frank and her family hid, it inspires them to kiss. Call me mature or realistic or cynical or whatever, but while it is a powerful and hopeful image, it still struck me as behavior more from Justin Bieber than those who are struggling and kept persevering. The scene might make you cry, but it also might make you internally debate the ethics of such actions.

Aside from being objectifying, it also at times feels clichéd. However, I can't say it's completely clichéd, because the characters' European fairy tale quickly turns into a nightmare in the film's most unpredictable moments. What starts with the pounding adrenaline of Charli XCX's music as their plane lifts off (and a lame attempt at humor as we discover that Mr. Confident Augustus is afraid of flying), the young ones finally get to meet this beloved author of theirs. I won't reveal who plays him, only that you'll likely agree with me that he's one of America's most talented actors. The scenes with him are uniquely but pleasantly absurd.

Woodley is exceptional. Fortunately, she's chosen a better project than last year's atrociously awful "The Spectacular Now." Even in the weaker moments of "The Fault in Our Stars," she still shines, and motivates us to stay interested. She should be considered for an Oscar nomination. Laura Dern and Sam Trammell are also terrific as Hazel's parents, Dern especially so, providing some of the movie's most touching moments. But I think the person who stands the most to gain from this movie is Nat Wolff, who is brilliant in just about all of his scenes (that don't involve trophies). Wolff plays Isaac. When we first meet Isaac, he tells us that his cancer caused him to lose one eye and another surgery could cause him to lose the other. Still, he's on top of the world, madly in love with his girlfriend. As the film progresses and changes, so too do his standing and perception of life. His unusual character and the notes he hits are the exact representation of the movie's dual nature. An issue I had, however, with the acting was about Elgort, who, while not terrible, could have used better direction. He simply overdoes many of his scenes.

You ought to see this film. It's a celebration of life, an acceptance of the banality yet grit of those who persevere. The best movies are coming-of-age stories. This is one, but uniquely different. We rarely see such characters in such extraordinary pain. Rarely do movies like this inspire such thought (and yes, hope and appreciation).


And finally, here's an important message by "The Fault in Our Stars" author and vlogger John Green:

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Edge of Tomorrow

Did you see the science fiction movie where the guy needs to solve a mystery and yet he keeps dying? But every time he dies, he suddenly wakes up again--you've seen it right? It's a neat little film with a clever concept: what if a movie was like a video game, where every time the character died, he got to try over again and win? The film is called "Edge of Tomorrow," and it's the hit new mov--wait a minute! That wasn't "Edge of Tomorrow"! That was "Source Code," with Jake Gyllenhaal, from several years ago. Alright, well both films share strikingly similar plots, although "Edge of Tomorrow" is a louder (and more stupid) movie with more action and big, creepy aliens (that happen to kind of look like a hybrid of those in "Independence Day" and "War of the Worlds"--again, not so creative).

"Edge of Tomorrow," the hit new movie with Tom Cru--wait a minute! Those helmets...that gear...those grotesque aliens...I know I've seen those somewhere. Was it "Source Code"? No, there were no aliens in that movie. Methinks it was circa 1997. I know--it was..."Starship Troopers"? I remember that one! That's the guilty pleasure Paul Verhoeven movie; "the only good bug is a dead bug!" Okay, so one must concede that this "new" movie called "Edge of Tomorrow" borrows from "Source Code" and "Starship Trooper" (and "Independence Day" and "War of the Worlds"), but that's it!

Although...those aliens...they move so darn fast, rolling around and everything. Wait just a friggan minute. Those things move just like the aliens (or robots or monsters or whatever the hell they were) in "The Matrix." Is there anything original in this supposedly new movie? Not really. "Edge of Tomorrow" is frankly, not very original. But directors as varied as Quentin Tarantino, George Lucas, and Martin Scorsese have all used previous works from other directors as inspiration. There is (usually) nothing wrong with this. But when it becomes so prevalent as it is in "Edge of Tomorrow," it becomes distracting, to say the least.

But wait, wait, wait! "Edge of Tomorrow" is based on a 2004 book called "All You Need Is Kill" by Hiroshi Sakurazaka. So in actuality, "Source Code" (but not 1997's "Starship Troopers") is guilty of unoriginality, no? What a particular position this reviewer finds himself in: criticizing a movie for being unoriginal when it in fact is...original. Shouldn't this make me rescind my initial appraisal of "Source Code" and assess "Edge of Tomorrow" differently? Ah, to hell with it! Complaining about a movie because it's unoriginal does not justify disliking the film. But alas, that is not the only problem with "Edge of Tomorrow." For one, it's a pretty stupid title. But again, not sufficient evidence to bash it. Is the acting bad? No--for the most part. Cruise does a fine job. Of course, he hardly ever submits a bad performance. He can almost always lead an action blockbuster, as is the case with "Mission: Impossible" or "Top Gun," and he often puts in exceptional acting, like he did in "Magnolia" and "Collateral." He's one of the rare actors who can lead a loud, dumb movie, and actually act. But he's not given too much to do here, and neither is his co-star, Emily Blunt.

Cruise plays Major William Cage (what a pristinely original name) who sort of goes on TV and "sells" the war as a propagandist. The war happens to be the entire world (or so we should hope) against an alien species. But when he shows up to the war zone, his general (Brendan Gleeson) orders him to the battlefront, even though he has never served and has no intention to. He wakes up in handcuffs and is joyfully humiliated by his commanding officer, played by Bill Paxton (whose acting is a bit over the top, but whimsical and enjoyable nonetheless). Cage is put into terribly heavy and potent gear (similar to the ones in "Aliens" and "Pacific Rim"--oh, for the love of God). "Saving Private Ryan"-style (ugh), he storms the beach with his other soldiers...and dies quickly. But then he wakes up.

"Oh, no," the audience must think. "Not one of those stupid 'it was all a dream' types of story." No, not quite. Here's where the fun begins. Cage seems a bit nauseous as he relives essentially the exact previous moments before his "death." His commanding officer, Paxton again, goes through the same routine. The other soldiers taunt him in the same manner. Something surely is amiss. He dies again and then wakes, yet again in the fetal position, kicked up. He tries to convince the others of his prophetic ability to foresee the upcoming slaughter by the aliens; it's as if the aliens know they're coming. He goes into the same battle, at times trying to save his comrades, often with success, but it's for naught. He continues to die, he continues to wake. It's as if this is the sci-fi version of "Groundhog Day" (dammit!). But he does find one peculiar difference: there appears to be someone just like him.

This is where Blunt comes in. She plays Rita Vrataski, a soldier fiercely nicknamed "the Angel of Verdun" due to her reputation as a fighter. She, too, suffers from this bizarre condition, and once she realizes it, she instructs him to find her again once he dies. Again, this is quite fun. Over and over, we see him replaying this game, finding Rita again and again, dying again and again, becoming stronger, yet discovering not only his own flaws and inabilities, but his growing (and predictable) affection for her.

But the filmmakers cannot sustain this for long. Eventually, it just becomes loud and uninteresting. A missed opportunity, as they say, and an unoriginal one.

Did I mention the music sounds a lot like the theme from "Inception"?

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The Legacy of Barack Obama (Pssst--He's Not the Worst!)

By now you've probably heard about the poll that says Obama is the worst president since the end of World War II. We've still got several years to go, but it seems voters have made up their minds about the man who was to bring us hope, change, and a post-racial America.

The worst president ever?

You can debate whether or not you agree with President Obama's policies, but you can't argue that he hasn't achieved a majority of them. According to Politifact, Obama has basically achieved 69 percent of what he said he would do. Among some of the most significant "promises kept" include bringing troops out of Iraq, seeking verifiable reductions in nuclear warhead stockpiles, and creating new financial regulations, which include the creation of a new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (created by now-Senator Elizabeth Warren), a financial stability oversight council, an audit of the Federal Reserve, credit card rules, and regulation of over-the-counter derivatives.

Admittedly, there are many "promises broken," and it seems that just about all his policies are controversial. But I'd like to focus on several and argue that now only has President Obama been one of our most consequential presidents ever, but he has also been one of the best.

Is it too really early to talk about Obama's place in history? I don't think so, and neither do a variety of opinions, found here, here, here, here, here, and here, with some authors suggesting that (despite this recent decline in his approval rating) his place could be anywhere from seventeenth best to fourth best. So what is the Obama legacy? We don't have time to go over everything--every accomplishment, every failure, every debate--but I'd at least like to make a few points on the following:  

Health Care and the Economy. President Obama has transformed the U.S. healthcare system profoundly. The Affordable Care Act (aka "Obamacare") alone makes him the single most consequential president in a generation or more.

To understand its significance, one must first understand the state of American healthcare. As John McDonough of the Harvard School of Medicine explains, the U.S. has "far and away" the costliest healthcare in the world. As he has put it, if we're spending so much money relative to other countries, "one might expect we would be doing significantly better." Since 1980, however, costs have skyrocketed.

How are we doing compared to other nations? Not so good. Compared to other higher-income nations, the U.S. usually ranks the lowest (with the U.K. and the Netherlands ranking as the highest). Among care effectiveness and safety, efficiency, and equity, we are usually among the worst. Even though spending is so high (for a variety of reasons), healthcare here isn't performed as well as other developed nations.

The ACA helps fix that. Among its ten titles, the first title alone would be the most aggressive reforms ever. Consider the reforms in Title I (based on Romneycare): Young adults can stay on their parents' plans until 26. Now there is a Medical Loss Ratio, in which insurance companies have to write a rebate check if premium dollars spent were not related to medical costs. (Billions of dollars have been referred back to patients.) Subsidies are now rewarded for people above the Medicaid threshold, and (despite a terribly pathetic start), there are at least 27 federally facilitated marketplaces. All of these allow consumers to better compare which health plan is right for them. All of those are simply in Title I.

Title II was the Medicaid expansion. Contrary to what most people think, for the most part if you're a non-disabled adult with no children, in most states, poor people didn't have access to insurance through Medicaid. Not so anymore. Unfortunately, while the Supreme Court validated Congress' utilization of the individual mandate under its taxing power, it simultaneously declared that states do not have to be forced to be involved in the expansion. 26 states are expanding, while 21 are not (and four are debating). Ohio Republican Governor John Kasich invoked Christianity in his argument to join the expansion: his belief is that when he dies and goes to St. Peter, he's not going to be asked what he did to keep government small, but what he did to help the poor.

But the intransigence of the other Republican governors is puzzling at best and inhumane at worst. Despite the federal government paying 100% of the funds for the first three years, changing the typical 50-80% cost of coverage (so typically, for every dollar a state spends on Medicaid, the feds write a check for 56 cents), many states with conservative governors have refused the funding and instead allow their poorer citizens to continue to suffer. Still, one can be hopeful. Medicaid was crated in 1965 and was optional for states; it took about 5-6 years for a majority of states to join. The last was Arizona--in 1982.

The remaining titles involve changes to Medicare to improve benefits for enrollees to get free annual wellness exams with no cost sharing. Calorie labeling is required on chain restaurant menus for every item. Helping patients quit tobacco is now covered. The cost of the law--about $950 billion (mostly from Titles I and II) are completely self-financed, often through taxes, such as those on tanning beds. And it is expected to lower the federal deficit (although only by a bit).

Beyond the ACA, there was the American Recovery Act, or the "stimulus." There have been few laws as consequential as this one. While most American presidents barely get half of a major bill signed in one term, Obama essentially had five in one within his first month in office: the largest investments in healthcare and science since LBJ, the largest tax cut since Reagan, the largest infrastructure spending since Eisenhower, and the largest investment in education ever. This law has fundamentally changed the country for the better. As Michael Grunwald has written in "The New New Deal," the Recovery Act injected an emergency shot of fiscal stimulus into an economy hemorrhaging 700,000 jobs a month. Moody's, IHS Global Insight, and the CBO have all agreed that it helped enormously.

We have recently had five straight months of job gain above 200,000, the highest since the 1990s tech boom. But have we heard much about it? No. Instead, we hear a lot about this particular poll about how terrible Obama is. President Clinton likes to cite statistics that in the roughly equal amount of years that Democrats and Republicans have controlled the White House since World War II, Democrats have created more jobs. Jordan Weissmann of the Atlantic (of all places) says this is more complex, that it's more due to luck and that there hasn't been consistency among the parties' presidents and their ideologies within their own parties. True to some extent: Barack Obama is not Bill Clinton, who wasn't Jimmy Carter, who wasn't Lyndon Johnson. Ronald Reagan is far different from Dwight Eisenhower. But the point I'd like to make is that Obama has been liberal but also pragmatic on the economy and on other issues, willing to be advantageous (the GM rescue, the Bin Laden raid) and willing to fail (as is the case with gun control, but this is more due to an ignorant Congress and an even dumber--yet tiny--part of the public). Second, Obama has indeed been liberal, and yet liberals have grown cynical of him. And so I ask this of liberals: Is the fervor and excitement you have for Senator Warren any different than what you had for then-Senator Obama? Would a President Warren really be so much more progressive than President Obama? Has there ever been a president who has accomplished as many liberal goals as this one? Even before the regulations of healthcare, the financial institutions, and polluters, the Left, under Obama, got tobacco regulation, massive forest protection, and the Matthew Shepard Act, things they were trying to achieve for years.

Incidentally, "fiscally responsible" House Republicans--who created a several trillion dollar hole in eight years--offered their own version of stimulus in 2009 in the form of a $715 billion, and yet that gets to be defined as fiscal responsibility. And, according to Grunwald, there is a bit of hypocrisy involved: Paul Ryan requested money for green-job training in Wisconsin, Michelle Bachmann and Joe "You Lie!" Wilson also requested funds, as did Mitch McConnell, who wrote five letters for electric car factories in Kentucky. Governors Rick Perry and Jan Brewer both accepted the funds.

These very Republicans like to tell us that the stimulus failed. It did not, at least not according to the 80% of University of Chicago survey of economists who said it lowered unemployment and increased GDP to 3.8% at its peak.

Foreign Policy
When I voted for Obama in 2008, I never, in a million years, figured Osama bin Laden would be killed. I assumed he was long, long gone (dead or alive). But now he's dead, and Obama's the one who got him. As William Dobson said, Obama "exorcised" the demons of the foreign policy mistakes during the Carter and Clinton era.

But what about the crisis in Iraq with ISIS? That's all Obama's fault, right? Well, first of all, it was the Bush administration that not only invaded the country on false pretenses (and recall that it was Obama who rightfully called it a "dumb war"), and it was the Bush administration which negotiated the end date, and it was the al-Maliki regime that insisted (under pressure from the Iranians--oh, the irony) that the Americans leave. This crisis is not Obama's fault, and leaving the country remains one of his greatest accomplishments.

Dylan Matthews at Vox reminds us of six numbers that no one should ever forget: over 126,000 civilian deaths; 4,486 dead American service members; 2 million refugees; $817 billion lost in direct costs and trillions more in indirect costs; Freedom House's rating Iraq's "democracy" as a 6, or "not free," (with the worst possible number being 7), meaning it is essentially as democratic as Iran; and finally, perhaps the most important--0, which is the amount of weapons of mass destruction found. A war based on false pretenses that has completely destroyed a nation. Is it the fault of the current occupant of the Oval Office, or his predecessor?

President Obama's foreign policy has, simply put, been a success.

The Environment
Global warming is the ultimate tragedy of the commons. Coined by Garret Hardin in the 1960s, the idea of the tragedy of the commons is that people share a finite resource but are motivated by their own self-interest. Hardin used the idea of a pasture with competing farmers and their cows; one farmer might notice that another farmer has more cows, so he tries to compete. The obvious solution is that the resource is destroyed. "The population problem," he wrote, "has no technical solution; it requires a fundamental extension of morality." Hardin quoted William Foster Llyod, who wrote, "The essence of dramatic tragedy is not unhappiness. It resides in the solemnity of the remorseless working of things." In other words, the problem is not fixable--the resource (the planet, our only home)--is doomed.

President Obama hasn't taken that attitude. He has acted, many times alone without the help of Congress. The fuel efficiency standards he set are estimated to eliminate 1/6 of U.S. aid on imports by 2025. There are also now tightened efficiency standards for light bulbs, furnaces, refrigerators, dishwashers, and air conditioners. Cold-drink vending machines now will reduce enough energy demand to power over a million homes. At least 680,000 low-income homes have been weatherized. Solar power now is the fast-growing industry.

The President should be applauded for his efforts. His administration's record includes pumping tens of billions of dollars into renewable energy and making it immensely difficult for any new coal plant to open unless it can effectively capture its carbon and store it (which at this point is fairly impossible). On June 2, in what Matt Yglesis called the single most important day in Obama's second term, Obama's EPA announced their intent to regulate the CO2 emissions from the nation's coal plants. The New York Times reports that this could result in a 20 percent reduction in CO2 emissions.

One more thing. If somebody has the gall to say that because we had a bad winter, global warming is not man-made, please remind them that not only does the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change strongly state that global warming is happening and humans are behind most of it, but also that the U.S. National Academy of Sciences found that 98 percent of scientists agreed with the theory that mankind was exacerbating global warming. Incidentally, it's called global warming, not Northeast Ohio warming. To paraphrase Justin Gillis, a snowstorm in Cleveland does not extinguish a severe drought in California or devastating forest fires in Russia.

LGBT Issues
Andrew Sullivan and Newsweek were right to call Obama our first gay president. While initially appearing unwilling to fight for these causes, Obama is officially the first sitting president to support same-sex marriage; his Justice Department stopped defending the Defense of Marriage Act (which the Supreme Court eventually partly nullified); he signed the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Act to classify crimes against LGBT individuals as hate crimes. (The law had been blocked for more than a decade.) He proudly repealed a discriminatory and waste-of-money law that never should have been written in the first place: Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Now, LGBT soldiers can serve openly. Regarding transgender equality, he has been the best (and there is no second place among his fellow presidents).

Obama seems to be a communitarian who deeply values human rights and dignity. E pluribus unum is frequently mentioned by him. But would he have been committed to these actions and policies if he were president in 2001? Probably not. In 1996, he claimed to support same-sex marriage (and if this is accurate then he was way ahead of the country) but then he became a senator and ran for president in 2008, the year of California's infamous (and now gone) ban on marriage equality. He changed his mind on marriage equality, before changing it again famously before the 2012 election. It has been asked if Obama is leading the fight or riding its waves. It's probably the latter. His actions regarding equality and rights have been phenomenal, though it does seem that his cautiousness has guided him more than a belief that he is marching the country down the moral arc of the universe.

Which brings me to my next point: President Obama certainly has his failings, as all presidents do. He has unfortunately sometimes surrounded himself with bad advisers, especially on education issues. Here's what former under-Secretary of Education Diane Ravitch has to say about the President's record on education:

"The most unexpected supporter of corporate reform was President Barack Obama. Educators enthusiastically supported Obama, expecting that he would eliminate the noxious policies of President Bush's No Child Left Behind. They assumed, given his history as a community organizer and his sympathy for society's least fortunate, that his administration would adopt policies that responded to the needs of children, rather than concentrating on testing and accountability.

The first big surprise for educators occurred when President Obama abandoned Linda Darlin-Hammond and selected Arne Duncan, who had run the low-performing schools of Chicago, as secretary of education. The second big surprise--shock, actually--happened when the Obama administration released the details of Race to the Top, its major initiative, which was designed in Secretary Duncan's office with the help of consultants from the Gates Foundation, the Broad Foundation, and other advocates of high-stakes testing and charter schools.

There was very little difference between Race to the Top and NCLB. The Obama program preserved testing, accountability, and choice at the center of the federal agenda. Race to the Top was even more punitive than NCLB."

Obama is also partly to blame for the death of immigration reform, and his lethal and criminal use of drone strikes could have fundamentally destructive effects in the future. Battles he has fought could likely define him as a war criminal. Ryan Cooper at The Week fiercely declares that Obama could have helped create over a million more jobs had he not become so invested in deficit reduction. He should be held accountable for all these actions.

But still, I am not looking for perfection, for surely there never has been, nor will there ever be, a perfect president. All the presidents, regardless of party or ideology or era, seem to be guilty of at least one terrible thing or another. It seems criminal behavior is simply a job requirement. I am not a single-issue voter, and I avoid litmus tests. As the Vice President likes to say, "Don't compare me to the Almighty--compare me to the alternative."

Mark my words: warts and all, Barack Obama will be remembered as one of America's greatest presidents.

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Bigger Than Life: The Movie That Speaks to Me

“Only great pain, the long, slow pain that takes its time... compels us to descend to our ultimate depths... I doubt that such pain makes us "better"; but I know it makes us more profound... In the end, lest what is most important remain unsaid: from such abysses, from such severe sickness, one returns newborn, having shed one's skin... with merrier senses, with a second dangerous innocence in joy, more childlike and yet a hundred times subtler than one has ever been before.”

-Friedrich Nietzsche, "The Gay Science"

The movie spoke to me. It was too close to home. How often have you heard such comments from people after viewing a motion picture? I have to admit some honesty--movies rarely, if ever, "speak to me" or are "too close to home." My favorite films--"The Godfather," "Onibaba," "The Great Dictator" and others--are mostly completely unrelated to me and my experiences. But while watching a practically forgotten film from 1956, I began to feel an eerie resemblance to my situation. The movie is called "Bigger Than Life."

So let me begin with my story:

On September 26, 2012, after a somewhat long day of teaching, I had a raspy sore throat that I expected would go away. After all, several weeks before, during a remarkably stressful start to the quarter, I had suffered from a terrible cold that left me in bed most of the weekend. The sore throat didn't go away, nor would it for months and months. Since that day in September, I have had roughly a dozen or so symptoms; among the worse have been heartburn, morning throat irritation, dysphagia (discomfort when swallowing), globus (a feeling of the throat clenching in), and odynophonia (pain when speaking), the chief symptom.

But before I reveal my thoughts on "Bigger Than Life," I really need to elaborate on just what it is I've been going through. I mentioned an eerie connection to the film. Here is an eerie passage from a book called "The Chronic Cough Enigma."

A twenty-five-year-old female grammar school teacher came to see me [a laryngologist and author of the book] with a nine-month history of a sensation of a lump in her throat, breathly hoarseness (dysphonia), vocal fatigue, intense pain with voice use (odynophonia), and cough. Her cough, voice, and odynophonia made it hard for her to get through the day. By the afternoon, she was miserable, and by the end of the week she was in tears because of her voice and throat pain. Nine months earlier, she had been completely healthy with no symptoms whatsoever; her problems began following an upper respiratory infection (URI). She described having a cold that turned into severe laryngitis and pleurisy. Weeks later when she started teaching, she was already having severe symptoms that just grew worse as the school year wore on. When she came to see me, she was desperate. From my initial patient intake forms, I saw that her reflux symptom index (RSI) of 33 was very high (normal < 15), indicating severe reflux. Her glottal closure index (GCI) of 18 was also very. The GCI measures voice symptoms and is very useful in determining if a person has problems with the vocal cord nerves, specifically if the vocal cords are paralyzed or partly paralyzed. This patient’s high GCI of 18 suggested that she likely had vagus nerve damage. Examination of the voice box by transnasal flexible laryngoscopy (TFL) confirmed that she had a paretic (weak, partially paralyzed) left vocal cord. Special vocal cord function testing called stroboscopy showed that the left vocal cord was floppy, also indicating vocal cord paresis. Finally, her larynx showed severe reflux. The patient underwent tests for reflux and for vocal cord paresis (e.g., laryngeal electromyography), all of which indicated that she had suffered a post-viral vagal neuropathy. To complete this clinical anecdote, the patient responded well to an intense antireflux program and to two medications used to treat neurogenic cough and vagal neuropathies (amitriptyline 10 mg . before bed, and gabapentin 100 mg. four times a day). The drugs were given in this case for her cough and throat pain. Within six weeks, she was asymptomatic and within six months, she was off all medication.

Eerie indeed. Like this unfortunate individual, I was a twenty-five-year-old teacher when my symptoms first appeared. Unlike that teacher, however, I did not suffer from a cough, but I did (and still do) suffer from odynophonia, and as a teacher, the pain has made my job much more challenging and less enjoyable.

It was the first week of class. We were desperately short on teachers, so I had two classes of students. The first group had less than twenty, but the next class had about 40. With back-to-back classes and almost no time to eat, teaching eight hours straight from 7:30-3:30 left me exhausted and eventually suffering from a terrible upper respiratory infection by the end of the week. I remember being in bed most of the weekend, as my voice had been shattered. But I recovered in time and returned to work. A new teacher had arrived and he took over one of the classes.

About a few weeks later, just like that other teacher, I suddenly had a bad sore throat at the end of the day, but I thought nothing of it. Surely, it will go away during the weekend, I thought. It did not. Nor did it for the new few weeks. So I went on vacation to Taiwan and despite the humidity and relaxation, it seemed to be getting worse. Back in Saudi Arabia, I was told I had a fungal infection, but when the medicine didn't alleviate the pain I was told I had acid reflux, and that the reflux was reaching my larynx. I took the pills and ate "healthier" food and yet the pain did not go away. Back in Ohio, doctors at a "prestigious" clinic (I'll leave the terribly overrated institution unnamed) "ruled out" reflux (but were wrong). They explained to me that that awful cold I had months earlier could have sort of messed up my nerves, creating a neuropathy, or neurogenic pain. "Okay, whatever. I'll buy it." But that medicine didn't work and so I stopped taking it all together. "Your symptoms are atypical," they told me as they washed their hands of me and moved along. And as the one year anniversary approached, I thought to myself that if I woke up on the one-year anniversary of first feeling symptomatic, then there indeed would be proof of a God.

Instead, the opposite happened. I woke up and I had never experienced pain quite like that in my throat. I didn't know how I would be able to get to work. I truly believed I was on the verge of a breakdown. A friend calmed down and told me about Nietzsche and his struggles with chronic pain. So I picked myself up a bit and saw a (rather expensive) specialist in New York City. After five terribly uncomfortable tests, I was given quite a plateful of diagnoses: gastroesophageal reflux disease, severe laryngopharyngeal reflux, post-viral vagal neuropathy, and bilateral vold fold paresis.

What the hell does that all mean?

Everyone knows GERD--it's heartburn, or stomach acid and pepsin refluxing (flowing up) back into the esophagus. But what about LPR? LPR, reflux into the throat, is unfortunately a much more difficult battle. Whereas more than fifty reflux episodes constitute GERD, as little as three qualify as LPR. PVVN? Many patients complain of suffering from a bad upper respiratory infection and weeks later, out of nowhere, they're either hoarse or coughing or suffering from odynophonia. It's a little complicated, but essentially the infection is potent enough to damage one's vagus nerve, the nerve that runs from your brain down to your lower esophageal sphincter. Because the vagus nerve "calls the shots," it has profound effects on one's system. Allow me to quote one research article: "Patients with this condition may present with breathy dysophina, vocal fatigue, effortful phonation, odynophonia, cough, globus and/or dysphagia, lasting long after resolution of the acute viral illness." The article goes on to describe that this can lead to paresis of the vocal cords (which the director of Google, who suffered from this, can explain) and LPR.

I'm told that my LPR has essentially been cleaned up (though new problems have presented themselves due to this fight--long story), even though my vocal cords appear a bit pink. (Incidentally, refluxers are very, very vulnerable to several different types of cancer.) But unlike that teacher who required only several hundred milligrams of neurontin and 10 milligrams of amitrptyline, I have tried much, much more, and while the pain is probably not as bad as before, it remains, and I'm afraid it will do so forever.

I could go on for hundreds and hundreds of more words--on a broken healthcare system, my feelings of the pharmaceutical industry, skepticism of alternative medicine and supplements, the de-mythologizing of "doctors-as-God" complexes, the disgusting over-usage of antibiotics, my jealousy of people who can eat whatever the fuck they want--but that is not my intent. Instead, I want to describe how Nicolas Ray's "Bigger Than Life" "spoke to me." (Note: This isn't technically a review of the film.) Based on an article called "Ten Feet Tall" (a line spoken in the movie when the protagonist describes how he feels after beginning his treatment), "Bigger Than Life" stars James Mason, who also produced the film, as a school teacher. (You've probably seen at least one of Ray's two biggest films--"King of Kings" and "Rebel Without a Cause.") Mason plays a teacher (another eerie resemblance) named Ed Avery, but from the very first time we see him, he writhes in pain. Yet he refuses to show anyone, and he's under a considerable amount of pressure as he works two jobs (and he hides one of them from his wife for fear of embarrassment).

But eventually he collapses and is rushed to the hospital. Doctors there diagnose him with a rare inflammation of the arteries which will likely kill him. He is proscribed a new drug (cortisone). It begins to work: he has his life back, and soon he feels "ten feet tall." But, as expected, he begins to misuse his medication. A parent-teacher night turns into a bizarre (yet quite funny) tirade comparing the parents' children to apes. His loyal friend, the physical education teacher (played thanklessly by Walter Matthau, who is still sorely missed) tries to intervene, but this only causes suspicion from Ed. His condition worsens, and he soon becomes more and more hostile and alarming (and dangerous) to his wife and son. There's a haunting and wonderfully-shot scene where Avery, now virtually madden by it all, confronts his son after the boy tries to destroy the cortisone. It's incredibly ominous.

It should be obvious why I feels a connection to this film and its central character (though, I assure you, I've never tried to harm young children and I've never abused drugs). I am more or less on a new regime that I am cautiously optimistic about. While I am fortunate to have doctors who care about me, I'm afraid I might fall forever in the mindset of Voltaire's famous quote: "Doctors are men who proscribe medicine of which they know little, to cure diseases of which they know less, in human beings of whom they know nothing." I could compare myself to Mason's character and succumb to the idea that "it could be worse," though this is a sort of "illness porn" that I don't think is always the best route. My mood changes frequently: sometimes feeling depressed, sometimes feeling fortunate, sometimes feeling bitter. Fear is probably the most common. It does provide one with a heightened sense of what really matters in life. I now know that I can find the rapidest increase in happiness through providing a kindness and through smiling, even if I'm not happy (try it, it works!).

I am often reminded about information I found at inc.com on happiness, specifically a quote from George Vaillant, the director of a 72-year study of the lives of 268 men: "We are happy when we have family, we are happy when we have friends and almost all the other things we think make us happy are actually just ways of getting more family and friends."

The ending of "Bigger Than Life," though it severely suffers from deus ex machina, embraces this concept. It's actually the worst part of the film. It's so abrupt and damages the pace. (Spoiler alert) We go from an exciting fight between Mason and Matthau to yet another one of Hollywood's embrace of "all's-well-that-ends-well." But regardless, Mr. Avery finds his peace and happiness, and Mr. Vaillant could likely use him in a future study. I only hope Vaillant would add that we are happy when we are healthy.

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Use a Reel Mower!

It's summer time and so begins the lazy, hazy, crazy (and friggan humid) days of summer and the cacophony that is everyone in the neighborhood mowing their lawns. But I have a secret for you: real men and women use reel mowers. What exactly are reel mowers? Ask your father (or grandfather) and he'll tell you. They are, essentially, old-fashioned lawnmowers, or, in today's vernacular, eco-friendly lawnmowers. That pic to the left is my very own pride and joy. Now, why would anyone want to give up their loud, dangerous, expensive, polluting, waste-of-space power lawnmower these days? Here are three simple answers:

1. Save on gas. The average American spends anywhere from $100 to $200 a month (or more than eight percent of their income) on gasoline, and in this economy, you could probably use all the savings you can get. According to the EPA, lawnmowers are responsible for the same amount of emissions as 11 new cars and also 17 million gallons of fuel being spilled while Americans refuel their lawnmowers.

Gasoline prices remain high, and they've increased even higher thanks to the crisis in Iraq. And even if there were no crisis in Iraq, prices would still go up. As researcher Fereidun Fesharaki put it, "The future is one of an unstoppable force--demand--versus an immovable object--supply limitations."

2. Save the planet. Some good news: India has set an ambitious goal of planting 2 billion trees, and deforestation has fallen 70% in Brazil. Germany has set a record of generating 75% of its electricity from renewable energy. Texas, of all places, leads the nation in wind power generation. And, Kentucky, the state with the worst pollution in the nation, is beginning to cut its coal use.

But our planet is still in peril. Global warming has become so bad that rising sea levels in the Pacific have washed the remains of Japanese soldiers from World War II onto the island shores. And yet there are still Americans who offer the most bizarre responses. "Why did the dinosaurs go extinct?" is one question a congressman actually asked. Speaker Boehner simply said that he was "not qualified" to discuss the subject because he wasn't a scientist. (This is a common response among politicians, who conveniently happen to be experts on everything else.) Here's how one scientist responded to that answer: "What if we asked: 'Senator, do you advocate drinking toxic sludge?...would the response still be 'I don't know, I'm not a scientist'?" President Obama put it a bit better: "When President Kennedy...set us on a course for the moon, there were a number of people who made a serious case that it wouldn't be worth it...but nobody ignored the science. I don't remember anybody saying that the moon wasn't there, or that is was made of cheese." (Incidentally, the EPA administrators of the Nixon, Reagan, and both Bush administrations support regulating CO2 emissions.)

And yet even John Podesta, one of Obama's senior advisers on climate, has warned that their efforts simply aren't enough to prevent the worst effects of climate change. Brad Plumer at Vox puts this succinctly and pessimistically: "The idea that the world can stay below two 2 degrees Celsius looks increasingly delusional."

While we're making progress, there is much, much more to be done. As Thomas Friedman wrote in his book "Hot, Flat, and Crowded," cleaning up our planet is not supposed to be fun and easy. There is nothing easy about this. We are way beyond the point where we can just change our light bulbs and feel better about ourselves. Is mowing the lawn with a reel mower easy and convenient? Of course not. Tiny twigs constantly and annoyingly halt my mowing. Will it eliminate the problem? No, but it's one more step we can take to help.

3. Exercise It's no secret that America has a severe health crisis, with more than a third of American adults suffering from obesity. What better way to shed some pounds walking? Walking has numerous benefits, including aiding digestion, improving blood pressure and lowering the risk of coronary heart disease, serving as a slight antidepressant, and many more. As Hippocrates said, "walking is man's best medicine." And what better way to walk than while pushing a reel push mower?

But what's that? You don't want to walk with a push reel mower and instead stay seated on your nice, comfy ride mower? Well, I have some bad news for you: A recent study has found that too much sitting raises the risk of cancer. The study found that spending the majority of one's day sedentary--whether at an office, in a car, or in front of a TV--creates a 24 percent increase of getting colon cancer. It's even higher for uterine cancer--a 32 percent increase!

The reasons are obvious. Use a reel mower--you'll help save your wallet, the planet, and your life. Now you can't beat that.

Here's a decent video on reel mower maintenance:

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Lawrence of Arabia

"Lawrence's endurance seemed so great to the local people at Jerablus that they could not believe in his death, for 'he could outride, outwalk, outshoot, and outlast the best of them.'

[Shaykh Hamoudi, the chief local foreman at Carchemish, said to an interviewer] 'Tell them in England what I say. Of manhood the man; in freedom free; a mind without equal; I can see no flaw in him.'"
-"A Prince for Our Disorder," John E. Mack

As expected, Maurice Jarre's exciting theme sets the tone immediately. We see T.E. Lawrence, and he is about to go for a ride--so are we, frankly. This is how "Lawrence of Arabia," the great British epic, begins. Forgive me for the "ride" sentence, not only for its corniness, but for seemingly approving of the bizarre adventurous sentiments, one of the few legitimate arguments against the film. Yes, few films are faultless, but "Lawrence of Arabia" is arguably the best film Great Britain has given the world.

We're soon introduced to Lawrence the character, and he is quite an eccentric one, extinguishing matches with his bare fingers and possessing a "funny sense of fun," according to the bureau man, played by Claude Raines, whose opinion it is to send Lawrence to Arabia, where Bedouin tribes have attacked the Turks at Medina. And from there, we go to the desert, a big sea of sand accompanied by Jarre's iconic score. Lawrence befriends a Bedouin who serves as a guide; that is, until he is mercilessly shot by a rival Arab. This Arab is named Sherif Ali, and he is played by Omar Sharif, who would go on to star in Lean's "Doctor Zhivago." From here we see more of the film's romantic embrace of the desert; Lawrence decides to return to the desert to rescue a man who has fallen off his camel, but Sherif Ali warns him that they will both die, for "it is written." Lawrence shouts back that nothing is written. Lawrence appears to believe that he is the master of his fate and the captain of his soul; to Sherif Ali, he is a blasphemer. But Lawrence pulls it off. "Nothing is written," he repeats, before succumbing to exhaustion and falling to a carpet to sleep.

Before I continue, I have to first simultaneously defend and acclaim Peter O'Toole and David Lean. Both are at the top of their game, but unfortunately, not everyone agrees with me. David Thompson's "The New Biographical Dictionary of Film" is not so kind to O'Toole, claiming that O'Toole played the character with "desperate intensity." Thompson may be unflattering towards O'Toole, but he is vicious toward Lean. Thompson accuses Lean of suffering from "the Selznick syndrome," and that "Lawrence of Arabia" is the only Lean epic where the spectacle is "sufficient to mask the hollow rhetoric of the scripts." Lean slowly became "the prisoner of big pictures, a great eye striving to show off a large mind." Those are serious allegations. Thompson is likely accurate that Lean's films are best appreciated if one can tolerate the weakness in character development and especially dialogue. Is the script hollow? Yes, especially the dreadful scene where Lawrence first gains the attention of Prince Faisal (Alec Guinness, a player in many Lean films). Over the panic of a superior military officer (Anthony Quayle) and the barks of Sherif Ali (with a tremendous amount of overacting in this scene), Lawrence somehow gains favor by comparing the desert to the ocean, and it is here where Thompson is accurate in his description of O'Toole's desperate intensity. The screenplay isn't awful but it's not exactly Shakespeare. All I can say is there is nothing wrong with spectacle; "Gone With the Wind" may be a guilty pleasure for some, but to paraphrase Benthem, the quantity of pleasure being equal, spectacles like "Lawrence of Arabia"can be as good as "12 Angry Men."

Is there a lot of overacting? Some folks on Reddit seem to think so, as does the blogger behind "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die." But other epics could also be criticized for bad acting and emphasizing style over substance. "Seven Samurai" by Akira Kurosawa (a director so rarely criticized) comes to mind. You might be hard-pressed to find worse acting in such a respected movie than "Seven Samurai," and, for that matter, virtually all of Kurosawa's films. Does this sole element make "Seven Samurai" or "Throne of Blood" or "Ran" bad films? Of course not. Viewers must observe films holistically. (To be fair to Mr. Thompson, he doesn't appear to care for Kurosawa either.)

I don't mean to pick on its screenplay, but there is one final note I want to address: Lawrence's odd simplicity. As he establishes himself as a leader in the Arab fight against the Turks, Lawrence claims that he loves the desert because it's clean. With all due respect to my current host country, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, this is not the case anymore. The Jarre theme--its light, romantic crescendo--quickly vanishes from one's head when one sees an omnipresent sight of Coke cans, Snickers wrappers, and plastic bags (which are killing camels at alarming rates). While Jordan (where the film took place and was shot) is still, for the most part, one of the great beauties of the world, I wonder if "Lawrence of Arabia" gave me premature images of such a wonderful, clean ocean of a desert (and I do hope Saudis--particularly the youth--start taking better care of their country).

"Lawrence of Arabia" is great fun. At three-and-a-half hours, it can often test one's limits of patience, but, at least for me, the only scenes that dragged are the final thirty minutes. Flawed? Certainly (see above). A masterpiece? Definitely. It's a beautiful film that you owe yourself to see.

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