Steve Jobs – Walter Isaacson (2011)

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NOTE: this is a palate cleanser after a month of daily genre postings.

I am not an Apple user.  I own no Apple products.  In fact, I think they are a little bit of a cult.  But I know a good story when I see one.

I picked up this book because Steve Jobs was such an interesting figure.  But what surprised me most about this book had nothing to do with Jobs — there won’t be too many revelations for anyone who has followed the computer industry at all.  I was impressed by how well the book was put together by Walter Isaacson.

I am immediately bored by biographies that start out at the big bang, and waste 100 pages getting to the subject.  Isaacson takes care of the preliminaries and gets to “Steve Jobs” the character in pretty short order.  Of course it helps that Jobs became pretty interesting at a young age.

The milestones, products and key people in his life are presented clearly and concisely — this book moves.  Isaacson has done a great job of sticking to the important topics and skimming quickly over most distractions.  The only time I got a little restless was toward the end.  I think that is probably true of any contemporary non-fiction book.  As events approach the current day, things just seem to get frayed and less important (other than his fate, of course).

I just deleted a few small complaints because 1) who am I to judge, and 2) this is a great book, and not just because of the subject.

Etc.

  • Holy cow, were there a lot of dudes crying in this book.
  • Walter Isaacson has also written biographies of Albert Einstein and Benjamin Franklin which I now plan to read.  The one about Henry Kissinger, not so much.
  • This was the first time I ever got the sense of a Board of Directors actually doing something.  Normally all you ever hear is log-rolling: serving on each others boards, approving astronomical salaries, rubber-stamping proposals; or people being appointed purely because they are famous.  The Board here seemed engaged, which is even more amazing given who they were dealing with.  And that one of them was Al Gore.

How to be a Serial Killer (2008)

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howtocover01This one sat in the streaming queue for a while.  First, I’m not usually that fond of horror comedy (although Tucker & Dale has warmed me up to it).  Second, I expected it to be another Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon.

BtM:TRoLV was good, but it always nagged at me that everyone did not take it seriously from the start that he was a serial killer.  I got that same vibe in the beginning here from the titular infomercial on how to be a serial killer.

It quickly won me over due to the great production of the infomercial, the strength of Dameon Clarke’s performance as Mike Wilson, and me realizing that the infomercial was just a Rupert Pupkin type fantasy playing out in his mind.

It starts off in a Rocket Video store where a rude customer is hassling the clerk.  Wilson spots the dweeby put-upon clerk as a potential protege.  Mullet – check, baseball cap – check, shirt buttoned to the very top – check, and his name is Bart.   Plus, working in a video rental store, he’s about to have a lot of free time.

They follow the customer to the back of the store and Mike kills him. A strong relationship is forged quickly as Bart immediately bonds with Wilson as the Yoda to his Luke Skywalker — if Yoda were a serial killer, and bore a close resemblance to John Cusack.

howtorules01Wilson shows him the ropes of the serial killing game (literally and figuratively), careful not to move too fast with his student.  He gives him weapons training, tells him who makes a good victim, etc.

This is interspersed with bullet points from Wilson’s fantasy infomercial on how to be a serial killer.  Don’t steal, don’t rape, respect women, don’t kill animals or children, help the homeless.  This guy is actually a better citizen than me; except for, you know, the murders.  He even suggests that SKs benefit society, and that maybe he would have even killed Hitler if he was around back then.

A pivotal event sends Wilson and Bart on the run for the last half of the movie.  This is a great turn as it prevents the infomercial / mentoring material from wearing out its welcome.  I appreciated the new direction and situations they got into.

I rate this a Season 4 of Dexter.

Post-Post Leftovers:

  • Just to be clear: you must respect women, but that doesn’t mean you can’t kill them.
  • The score is great, but you might want to turn down that sub-woofer; the bass is brutal.
  • Strange that Yoda passed the spell-check, but Skywalker did not.
  • I will assume it was intentional disrespect and not an error that the picture of Hitler was reversed in this shot.  That’ll teach’m!howtoswastika01

Tales from the Crypt – And All through the House (S1E2)

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tftcchristmassanta01aI usually skip the Christmas episodes of TV shows.  They too frequently use the same old tropes of a miracle actually happening, or the most popular character really being the most lonely, or an outcast character getting all squishy only to be an asshole again next week, or just generally being a downer.

But only requiring a 20 minute investment after pruning out the odious Cryptkeeper intro and the closing credits, I decided to give it a shot.  And it was really good.  I guess the exception to my rule is: If you can get an axe in Santa’s hands, Ho, Ho, Ho!

The episode starts out as saccharine as usual with The Christmas Song (Chestnuts roasting on an open fire . . . ), but it turns dark pretty quickly.  The step-father is established as an awful man certainly deserving to be murdered on Christmas Eve with about 2 lines of semi-cranky dialogue.

tftcchristmadad01aMom does the honors in what I must say say is a great performance.  First, giving him a nice whack to the noggin with a fireplace poker, then having trouble getting the poker out of said noggin.

When daughter Carrie comes downstairs thinking Santa has arrived, Mom hustles her back up to her bedroom, and fatefully opens the girl’s  window.

Now we enter the Weekend at Bernie’s portion of our program.  Mom puts plastic wrapping over Dad’s head, cheerfully tied off with a festive red bow to keep the blood contained.  She drags him outside into the snow as the radio warns of an escaped killer.  Her plan to toss him down the well is foiled when he suddenly reaches out to strangle her . . . after having had no oxygen for a several minutes.  Normally, I’d give this a pass, but if he had been breathing it would have been obvious from that balloon on his head.  After this brief surge, he just kind of poops out.

As she stops to take a breath, she turns to see axe-wielding Santa.  An icicle to the face and a swift kick to the Chestnuts enable her to run back into the house and call the police.  Remembering hubby lying outside in the snow, she hangs up on them.

It takes another attack by Santa to make Mom realize that she can pin Dad’s murder on Santa.  This is the kind of brainpower that lead her to think the well was a good place to dump a body.

In the meantime, Santa has crawled into Carrie’s open window.  The little girl is thrilled to see him even though he is the most disgusting Santa since Dan Aykroyd in Trading Places.

Seeing her little girl holding axe-wielding Santa’s hand, Mom gives an extended series of screams that, if they weren’t dubbed in from some horror scream library, one should be established in their honor.

tftcchristmamom01In all, another very well done episode.  I give it a 10 out of 12 days of Christmas.

Post-Post Leftovers:

  • Mary Ellen Trainor was in an incredible string of hits 1980 – 2000 when she was coincidentally married to director Robert Zemeckis.  Post-divorce, not so much.  However she got the gig, she was great in this episode.
  • Marshall Bell, who got about 2 lines here, played Kuato in Total Recall.  Or more accurately, his conjoined brother, and also the voice of Kuato.
  • The Cryptkeeper pulls a Hitchcock and assures us that Carrie was not killed.  No mention of her having to be institutionalized for life, though.

The Illusionist (2006)

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illusionistcover01A Steven Millhauser twin spin!

The movie uses a flashback sequence to start in the same scene as the short story.  As a boy, Eisensheim encountered a traveling magician who performed miraculous tricks.  In the short story, he starts with coins from the boy’s ear; in the film, it is a frog, which is an improvement.

After a bit more conjuring and levitation, the wizard disappears, and by some accounts also the tree he was lounging under.  And maybe he also made off with the boy’s personality, because young Aaron Taylor-Johnson grows up to be the charisma-free star of Godzilla.

Paul Giamatti plays the role he always plays, Paul Giamatti.  In this case his character is Inspector Walther Uhl, who appears in both versions.  It is confusing to call Paul Giamatti by that other name when he is clearly Paul Giamatti, so lets just call him Inspector Giamatti.

The film and short story share the same early illusions.  As Eisenheim takes the stage, he removes  his black gloves, throws them in the air and they become ravens.  Both versions contain the Orange Tree illusion where Eisenheim plants a seed, grows a small tree and produces oranges in a few seconds.  The 2nd part of the trick has trained butterflies flying in with a handkerchief.  It is a callback to a handkerchief a volunteer gave him, but it just seems strangely separate from the Orange Tree trick part of the illusion.

illusionisttree01The film mostly stays with the source material as a large mirror is wheeled on stage, and a volunteer is taken from the audience.  Eisenheim directs the woman through a series of movements.  Naturally, the mirror image reflects those movements; until it doesn’t.  In both versions, but in slightly different ways, the volunteer’s reflection is stabbed as the actual volunteer watches motionless.  This miracle is disconcerting to the entire audience — the 5% at the necessary angle to view the illusion, and the 95% who fear they grossly overpaid for their seats.

Around this time, the film makes its biggest departure away from the short story.  True, the story as written might not have supported a feature-length film.  The filmmakers could have gone in at least two directions — playing up the fantastic elements of the story, or shoe-horning in a love triangle among Eisenheim, the Crown Prince of Austria, and the volunteer who was the Prince’s fiancee Sophie.  While still a great movie, I wish they had gone for option #1.

In the short story, the illusions get darker.  In Book of Demons, the titular book bursts into flames releasing “hideous dwarfs in hairy jerkins who ran howling across the stage.”  In Pied Piper, he causes a group of children to vanish.  When they return, some claimed to have been in a heavenly place, but others claimed to have “been in hell and seen the devil who was green and breathed fire.”  If there had been more of this, but still grounded by an abbreviated romance — GOLD!

The  rest of the film mostly plays out the love triangle which does not exist in the short story.   There is a murder, political intrigue, framing, suicide, more magic.  And mostly a happy ending.  Inspector Giamatti even turns out to be an OK guy.

illusionistjessicaThis is not the usual  blueprint for Steven Millhauser’s stories.  He frequently begins with a premise of something very big, or something very small, or something physically impossible and beats that premise to death.  But I mean that in the best possible way; examining the phenomena from many different angles, creatively tackling the implications.  It might be a town that maintains an exact duplicate of itself, women’s dresses that are as big as houses, paintings that seem to move, or an illusionist with who performs impossible feats.

The premise is the thing for Millhauser.  You don’t go in looking in for a love triangle with the Crown Prince of Austria.  I hope to cover more of his work later.

Post-Post Leftovers:

  • On Amazon, this is categorized as Movies & TV > Blu-Ray > Romance.  Such a lost opportunity.
  • Sophie’s name is mentioned exactly once in the short story.
  • Although in both versions, Eisenheim is clearly performing impossible feats, the short story makes more of a case for the supernatural.  The Orange Tree illusion, however, actually has an historical basis, even if it was tarted-up with the trained butterflies.
  • I read this in the collection We Others: New and Selected Stories.  I am happy to support the arts, but putting out a collection of 21 short stories where 14 have been previously collected is just effectively forcing me to pay 3 times as much for the new material.  Well, not forcing exactly, as I actually set foot in a public library for the first time in years.  Sorry, Steve-o.
  • And don’t get me started on the trade paperback scam.
  • I don’t generally give actors much credit for their craft, but you can pretty much depend on Edward Norton to be great in anything he does.
  • Handkerchief is a strange word; it is literally a hand kerchief.  But a kerchief is specifically defined as being a woman’s scarf.  It is one of those strangely literal words like fireplace that say just what they are with an almost caveman simplicity.  Ummm . . . . fire . . . place!

Ray Bradbury Theater – Gotcha! (S2E4)

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Note to self:  Do not make “fine mess” reference as it is only 50% accurate.

This is not quite a twin spin.  There is a story in the Bradbury book called The Laurel and Hardy Love Affair which tracks the first few minutes of this episode fairly well.  However, the short story becomes a traditional melodrama like early Vonnegut, while the episode veers into horror.

Strangers John and Alicia attend the same costume party as singles.  Improbably, they have independently elected to attend dressed as characters who individually have absolutely no identity without the other.

This is especially strange for Alicia.  At least John has the gut, the black suit, the bowler, and the mustache to sell himself as Oliver Hardy.  In a pinch, he could also claim to be a fat Charlie Chaplin or Hitler.  Alicia really just has the hat.  Never-the-less, once they meet-cute, she does exhibit a pretty good Stan Laurel vibe.

Alicia takes him to a staircase famous from one of L&H’s movies.  She had been filming a commercial there earlier in the day.  Inexplicably, the crew left a piano case there, but nothing comes of it.

rbgotcha01Then they go to a diner and and commence one of the longest, least erotic public displays of affection in movie history.  It is even more uncomfortable when done by a couple role-playing 2 dudes.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that.  However, that is followed by a really nice montage of their courtship.

Then things get weird.  Alicia takes John to a fleabag hotel promising to play the titular Gotcha! game.

She gives John white pajamas to wear, lights a bunch of candles and tells him to remain completely silent until the alarm clock goes off.  There is a nice shot where she is standing at the end of the bed, and we are seeing John’s POV.  Alicia says “Gotcha” and sinks as if through the floor, although the bed blocks our view.

rbgotcha06After several largely pointless shots of the candles, John, the alarm clock, and the shower head, Alicia suddenly reappears with a pasty face and puts her bony fingers on John’s face.  “Gotcha!”

The alarm goes off and she is her cute self again.  “Gotcha.”  John is terrified, in tears, and she apologizes.  For reasons unknown, he goes with her back to the same diner.  He seems to be PTSDing pretty hard.  She asks if everything is OK, if he would like to play the game again tomorrow with the roles reversed.

He says no, but as she is leaving dejectedly he says, “Gotcha.”  He says it with the blankest possible face, and it is impossible to attach any valid analysis to the ending.  Sadly, botched endings are becoming the hallmark of this series.

Post-Post Leftovers:

  • Alicia says that the original scene with the piano case was filmed 4,000 miles away in Los Angeles.  Unless this episode takes place in Ecuador, that is just about impossible.
  • It is weird that they made the effort to have the crate be so similar to L&H’s in some ways (placement of the THIS END UP stencil), but not in others (placement of the cross beam).
  • Brad Turner went on to direct 46 episodes of 24 — almost 2 full days — so he is forgiven.
  • The Laurel and Hardy theme song, used way too much in this episode, is Dance of the Cuckoos.