Hologram for the King Not Destined to be a Classic

 

 

 

 

A Hologram for the King (2016)

Directed by Tom Tykwer

Lionsgate, 97 minutes, R (nudity, language, drug/alcohol use)

★

 

Sometimes when you’ve never even heard of the movie you’re about to watch, it’s because it’s a sparkling independent film made outside the corporate hype machine. Other times, it’s because the films stinks like a skunk with gas. A Hologram for the King falls into the latter category. It was made on a $35 million budget–chump change these days–and only recouped a third of that. The reason it survives on DVD and Kanopy can be explained in two words: Tom Hanks.

 

The tag line for this one could be: “Community Theater Does Death of a Salesman in the Desert.” Hanks plays Alan Clay, who once worked in sales for Schwinn and oversaw the layoff of most of the workforce when bicycle production was outsourced to China. He’s now shilling (but not selling) holographic teleconferencing networks, a job he got because he once met the nephew to the king of Saudi Arabia. It would be quite coup if Alan could land a lucrative Saudi contract.

 

Clay is, however, a mess. He has undergone an acrimonious and expensive divorce, harbors guilt from what happened at Schwinn, is under pressure to sell or be fired, can’t afford his daughter’s college tuition, and has the self-confidence of your average milquetoast. He only briefly met the powerful Saudi nephew at a large conference, but he’s being sent to Saudi Arabia to pitch his company’s holographic wares. Are you laughing yet at the setup for this comedy/drama/romance?

 

No? I’ll bet you could have written a better script! What’s on the screen is shocking considering it was based on a work by Dave Eggers. Clay gets to Saudi Arabia but misses the shuttle from Jeddah to the King’s Metropolis of Economy and Trade (KMET). He has to hire a driver. Yousef (Alexander Black) is a bit wacked, talks a mile a minute, is part of the unsanctioned underground economy, and is in love with the daughter of a rich family that forbids their match. Ha ha. The KMET is an elaborate but barren shell in the desert that might or might not turn into something. Alan’s team is ensconced in a tent that lacks, well, everything: Internet, food, furniture, air conditioning, beds, a local contact…. Alan has encounters with a receptionist in the one building that’s operational. Her job seems to be to keep Alan uninformed.

 

Back at the hotel he can’t even drown his troubles. It’s Saudi Arabia, so no alcohol. He meets Hanne, a horny Danish woman who gives him a bottle of olive oil. Why is she Danish? Because the movie was made by an international consortium. I suppose it could have been worse, as the Cayman Islands also took part in this camel wreck. Can you guess what’s inside the olive oil bottle? Stop it! These jokes are killing me!

 

Each morning Alan oversleeps and needs Yousef to take him the KMET where… nothing happens. He finally circumvents the receptionist, finds his contact working in an unfinished condo complex at the KMET and scores stuff for his team. Now for the really hysterical part; Alan has a gross bump on his spine. I’ll spare those details because it’s a setup for him to meet Dr. Zahra Haken (Sarita Choudhury).  You know what they say, there’s nothing like a potentially cancerous lump to make a Saudi woman fall for you. Except, of course, Choudhury isn’t Saudi; she’s Bengali British, though she’s cute in her chador and quite lovely out of it. If you think that might be a tad culturally insensitive, in one of Yousef’s Driving Mr. Alan episodes he misses an exit and drives a robed Clay through Mecca, a gag roughly as offensive as farting in the Vatican. I assume Mecca is stock footage as the movie was actually filmed in Morocco and Egypt.

 

There is so much more this film could have been about–believable cultural misconnections and a more nuanced look at growing Chinese economic dominance to name two–but instead we get love at a beach house. At every juncture where director Tom Tykwer could have made an intelligent comedy he opted for the obvious no matter whose culture he had to belittle. I could go on, but this has already taken more time than you should devote to watching this film, Rated R for rancid. 

 

Rob Weir

July 2024 Music: Brian Mackey; Fink and Marxer; Melissa Carper; Amy Annelle; Charlie Overbey ; Khoomei Beat; Alba Haro

 

I’ve never met Brian Mackey but there’s something about Good Morning Ireland, the smoothness of his voice, and the sentiments in his lyrics that makes me want to. He’s not from the Auld Sod; he was born in New Jersey, lives in New York, has been kicking around the alt.folk and alt.rock scenes since the early part of the century and has been carrying a heavy load. He recently became a father again, but his son Brian died from a heroin dose–the shadow on the cover. As good songwriters do, he picked up his pen to spill out some of his pain and hope. Good Morning Ireland is an album of healing and people dealing with unresolved issues. “Cold,” for instance, is about a woman he asks, And who made you so cold/And this feelin’ you’re under/Who made you so damn cold…. The pop-influenced “Don’t Be Sad” is an uplifting song suggesting that making connections is the key to betting past disappointments big and small: Regret is a long drive/You don’t wanna take by yourself…. “Dublin Night Bird” which inspired the album title, could have been maudlin. After all, it’s about traveling to Ireland with his son’s ashes to scatter. Mackey uses his light and expressive tenor to sing his sadness, yet find small-but-poignant reasons to hang on. And let’s not forget the healing power of love. There are several such songs on the album, but try “More Than Anyone” with its splashes of bluegrass fiddle and soaring notes that collectively bring a smile. There are sixteen tracks in all and I admired every one of them.

 

 

It’s been a while since last I heard Cathy Fink and Marcy Marxer and it was joyful to know they are still making compelling music. Their voices, banjos, guitars, mandolin, and ukulele are joined by the yangqin (Chinese hammer dulcimer) of Chao Tian on From China to Appalachia. The album is exactly as promised, one that demonstrates the affinity and intersection between American and Chinese traditional music. In a baker’s dozen tracks they move back and forth between the two cultures. Chances are good many listeners won’t know Chinese offerings such as “August Flower,” “The White Snake Song,” and “Nan Ni Wan,” though you might know a marching song popularized by Pete Seeger with an improbable title gleaned from Mao Zedong: “The Rules of Discipline and Eight Points of Attention.” You will probably be on more familiar ground with pieces such as Ola Belle Reed’s “High on a Mountain,” “Pig Ankle Rag,” “Mary Don’t You Weep,” and Cousin Emmy’s “Ruby, AreYou Mad at Your Man.” One listen to to “Glory Meets the Meeting House” will drive home what becomes obvious as you move through this wonderful project: Music crosses borders and ideologies to highlight our shared humanity.

 

 

We recently encountered Melissa Carper as one-third of Wonder Women of Country. Borned in Ya is her new solo LP. She hails from Arkansas but her approach is that of the big mountains and foothills back in the days when “Western” music was separate from “Country.” Western music was heavier on fiddles, swing music, jazz for the masses, and singing cured by campfires and wide open spaces. In other words, more Patsy Montana than Patsy Cline (or today’s airbrushed Nashville icons). The title track is a bit of a tease–a mix of country and evangelical fervor­–though Carper’s commanding voice is on full display. But check out the giddyup of “Lucky Five” supplemented by a band arrangement circa 1940. Or deliberately retro songs like “I Don’t Love You Anymore,” “That’s My Desire,” or “Every Time We Say Goodbye.” That’s because some of the material on the album is retro. “Every Time” was penned by Cole Porter, for instance. “Your Furniture” is another that Carper sings as if it ought to be coming from the speakers of an old Philco radio.  This is a delightful album that’s so outta of the past that it circles back and feels brand new. The album drops on July 19 so look for new videos once it’s on the streets.

 

 

 

Amy Annelle has had a rough stretch of bad health–endometriosis, fibromyalgia, mental health challenges–so it’s understandable she hasn’t had a new record for a while. You could assign a lot of meanings to “Pull Tabs and Broken Glass,” the first track on The Toll. She now lives in Austin, so that song has a real Texas feel, though she prefers to call herself a folk and Americana artist. The catchy “Down and Out in Denver” certainly has more of a folk vibe, the sort that’s upbeat despite themes of mistakes and regret. This is another album that releases in July with only a few advance videos available. Though it’s not on The Toll, “Distance Lullaby,” which she wrote doing Covid lock down, gives you another taste of her music.

 

 

The album In Good Company by Charlie Overbey reminds us again that the barriers between rock and country music have pretty much collapsed. Overbey is the lead vocalist on each track. His is a strong, gravely voice but once you listen you’ll wonder if he’s trying to take us back to the glory days of electric music or is offering a new kind of outlaw boot rock. This much is clear; every track except one has an electric guitarist. None other than Nils Lofgren does the honors on “CChampagne CocaineCadillacs and Cash," a so long to the crazy life and the woman he shared it with. But don’t expect mellow acoustic, even though that’s Overbey’s axe of choice. Duane Betts plugs in for Overbey’s “Life of Rock n Roll.” It too poses as a farewell to rock, but perhaps with tongue in cheek. To return to the song without an electric guitar, that would be “Miss Me” with John Graboff on pedal steel. Not everyone will agree, but for me it was the only track that didn’t sound like everything else.   

 

 

Short Cuts:

 

If you’ve never heard Tuvan throat singing, you must. Tuva is a section of Siberia and Mongolia that was once the domain of nomadic herders who lived in yurts. It still is to some extent though modernity has altered many aspects of life. Khöömei Beat is a quintet of five Tuvan musicians who use overtone vocals to imitate sounds of nature and communicate across vast distances. Changys Baglaash sports a softer drone sound and updated arrangements than traditional Tuvan singing but it’s still unforgettable. Try “My Ancestor’s Khoomei" and listen for the growls and improbable sounds. If you like it, seek more. “Dembildey” is available.

 

 

Alba Haro is from Barcelona where she studied cello and jazz vocals. Next up was Boston’s Berklee School of Music for a master’s in production and performance. The latter informs her EP Triptica. “Amanece” is frenetic free form modern music followed by a poem. “Acoral” features sad strings, periods of relative silence, keys, and Haro’s haunting sometimes keening vocals. This avantgarde project won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but I was intrigued.

 

 

 

 

James: A Masterpiece of a Masterpiece

 

 

 

James (2024)

By Percival Everett

Doubleday, 320 pages

★★★★★

 

Scads of novelists have given treatments to Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, the book I’d nominate as the elusive Great American Novel. It’s fair dinkum for anyone to take cues from Twain as Finn itself is a variant of The Odyssey. There’s no need to rehash Twain’s story arc; if you don’t know it, for heaven’s sake read the novel before your citizenship is revoked.

 

Bouquets and kudos to Percival Everett for his masterful James. I'll get to it in a moment but first, for irony lovers, I’ve been rereading Bill Bryson’s The Lost Continent, his tongue in cheek search for the perfect American small town. The week before I got a copy of James I read Bryson’s take on the Mississippi River town Hannibal, Missouri, the setting for Huckleberry Finn. It would be safe to say that Hannibal was not a candidate for the perfect small town. Having been there, I agree. Bryson used terms such as “disappointment,” “awful,”  and “shabby.” He also noted, “Twain got the hell out of both Hannibal and Missouri as soon as he could…. I began to understand why Clemens not just left town but also changed his name.”

 

If it was bad for young Sam Clemens, you can imagine what it was like for enslaved peoples before the Civil War. Huckleberry Finn took that on directly with Huck’s flight down the Mississippi with Jim, a runaway slave. In Everett’s novel, Jim is the namesake James; that, is, a proud man rather than an infantilized slave. You’ll find numerous similarities between Twain’s novel and Everett’s, but the name James is a tip-off. Everett asks us to imagine that the bumbling, unsophisticated, illiterate Jim–called “Nigger Jim”* in unexpurgated versions of Twain–was an act. Everett didn’t need to invent that possibility; historians have long known that this occurred. It even has a term–passive (or submissive) manipulation–that describes methods of getting over on slaveholders by playing to stereotypes. You could, for instance, pretend to be slow and ignorant as a way to stall, work more slowly, or frustrate a master.

 

Everett writes of the moment in which “Jim” decided to become “James,” but he was well on his way long before that. His James is not only literate, but he also furtively reads the for-decoration-only philosophy books on Judge Thatcher’s bookshelf and holds mental debates with Plato, John Stuart Mill, and others. When a book is missing he easily deflects blame by torturing English grammar and asking what possible use he would have for a book. It worked because white people saw what they believed to be true.

 

James is shot full of the humor that made Twain’s novel a classic, but he subverts it in deeply ironic ways. James is raising his enslaved family to be as smart as he. One very funny section (in a stinging fashion) has James teaching his well-spoken children how to alter their speech around white people. He patiently praises them for clear communication but tutors them in how to make it jumbled, ungrammatical, and vague.

 

Of course, what would a new look at Huckleberry Finn be without a float down the mighty Mississippi? James hides his true self from Huck as they encounter everything from wrecked paddle wheelers and floods to rattlesnakes and hucksters. The last of these is Everett’s take on the duke and dauphin who, despite the dangers they pose to our heroes, rivals Twain for comic relief. In their journey, James develops a paternal liking to Huck. Everett largely keeps Huck’s character intact, though he makes him more of a naïve wide-eyed kid than the confident and reflective character of Twain’s novel.

 

In many ways, Everett’s James has aspects of alt.history revenge film characters comparable to Mann in Rosewood (1997) or Django Freeman in Django Unchained (2012). As in those films, conditions and attitudes radicalize James. Where Everett deftly departs is that James shares intelligence and outrage with Mann and Django, but he also miscalculates–sometimes with tragic results­–and is no superhero. He must ultimately come to grips with what kind of person he wishes to be within the society in which he must live.

 

James is a masterpiece based on a masterpiece. As a Twain scholar, I think Sam Clemens would approve 100 percent.

 

Rob Weir 

 

 

* Twain intended the “N-word” to shock. He was an ardent opponent of slavery and wanted readers to consider Jim’s humanity.