Governor Corbett Manages to Lower the Sleaze Bar

Governor (and Space Cadet) tom Corbett takes on the NCAA's attempt to flush PSU's football ambitions. 

Just when you think it can’t get any worse, it does. Just when you’ve convinced yourself that you’ve seen all the sleaze imaginable, another slime ball climbs out from under a rock. I mean, how can you top the Nazi Rifle Association’s response to the Newtown massacre? Congratulations to Tom Corbett, who managed.

If you’ve not yet heard, Corbett is the Republican (natch!) governor of Pennsylvania who recently announced his intention to spend some taxpayer money to sue the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). That’s because of the NCAA’s pathetic standards for scholar athletes, right? No–guess again. Is it because the NCAA has refused to curtail exploitative recruiting practices that allow colleges to bring academically ill-prepared inner-city black kids onto campus just long enough to get a fall’s worth of football out of them before they flunk out? Wrong again. Nope–old Governor Corbett is livid that the NCAA banned saintly Penn State from playing any bowl games for–my God!–four years. Such a harsh sentence for such a trivial matter!

I’m talking, of course, about the Jerry Sandusky pedophilia scandal that took down Joe Paterno and PSU’s president. I mean, all that happened was the at least 8 minor children were raped during a 16-year period while Paterno turned a blind eye and the Athletic Department covered it up. Hell, that’s just one little boy every two years–hardly enough to warrant keeping the university’s football team out bowl games!!! What was the NCAA thinking? I mean this is Penn State after all–a football powerhouse. What’s a young boy every now and then when gridiron supremacy is on the line?

Corbett sure put the “pig” back into pigskin. As it happens, I’m also furious with the NCAA. I’m livid because it didn’t lower the death penalty to PSU football. Sixteen years of pedophilia and all PSU got was a four-year bowl ban and the loss of a few athletic scholarships? That’s it? If the PSU faculty has a collective scrap of decency, its response to Corbett’s pathetic lawsuit will be a vote to dismantle the football program. Don’t give me any of that crap about how the young men on the team today had nothing to do with Sandusky. My response is that inconveniencing those who would have to transfer would teach them a greater lesson than they’d ever learn at State College. That is, if we still believe that protecting children is more important than football.

Pennsylvania taxpayers should be up in arms over this. First of all, no one has ever successfully taken on the NCAA, so Corbett is a fool on a fool’s errand. Second, I’ve driven Pennsylvania roads recently and can think of at least one better use for state monies. Third, the federal government has got to be watching all of this. Corbett has already said that he intends to have the Commonwealth opt out of the healthcare exchange network under President Obama’s medical reform act. Is a federal lawsuit in the offing? It should be. If Corbett has money to burn on making the state safe for football coaches who play footsies with children, he’s got the cash for healthcare reform! 

I can’t recall who wrote the first article I read with the title “Does America Hate Children?” I know it was in the 1980s and I think it was in Newsweek, but I might be mistaken. No matter–dozens of such articles have appeared since. No doubt Pigskin Corbett’s gross insensitivity will spark a few more. At the very least it’s another confirmation of a frequently slung aphorism about the GOP–it’s a party that believes that life begins at conception and ends at birth. Unless, of course, the child is a boy that looks like he might grow up to be a halfback. 

The Hobbit an Unexpected Unpromising Start

Better advice: Save the money and see it in 2D (or don't bother at all). 

THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY (2012)

Directed by Peter Jackson

New Line Cinema/MGM, 169 mins. PG-13 (for beheaded orcs)

* *

I devoured everything J. R. R. Tolkien ever wrote about Middle Earth (including The Silmarillion) and I’m also a fan of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings films (one of the few DVD sets I actually own). For filmmakers, though, prequels are tricky business. Just ask George Lucas, whose three Star Wars prequels failed to generate the enthusiasm of parts IV, V, and VI, which were released nearly two decades earlier. Peter Jackson is the latest director to toss aside caution, and perhaps he shouldn’t have done so. Although The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, part one of his three-part adaptation of Tolkien’s 1937 novel, is cleaning up at the box office, it’s no Lord of the Rings. In fact, it’s not a very good film at all. Unless Jackson has something quite different in the can for parts two and three, it’s hard to imagine that the critical reviews of part one will help the box office for what comes next.

The first problem is one of padding. The Hobbit was a single contained book of just 388 pages. In order to make this into a trilogy, Jackson has added touches from other Tolkien writings on Middle Earth. Alas, much of this material is for devotees only, the sort of hardcore stuff that’s analogous to inventing an entire Klingon language for Star Trek über fans. You will, for instance, be introduced to twelve dwarves–too many for most viewers to absorb and more than anyone needs to know about. The salient fact is that they are a small band intent upon restoring Erebor, the dwarf kingdom conquered by the dragon Smaug. So let’s just form the fellowship and move on, shall we?

Jackson doesn’t. He opens with a sequel to his prequel–an aged Bilbo Baggins (Ian Holm) busily finishing the memoir of his youthful adventure–The Hobbit–for his nephew Frodo before he disappears from The Shire. Sound familiar? It’s taken from The Fellowship of the Ring, part one of the Lord of the Rings (LOR) trilogy. Finally we flash back in time and see Gandalf (Ian McKellen) attempting to convince a youthful and reluctant Bilbo (Martin Freeman) to forsake his comfortable hobbit home and stuffed larder to undertake an adventure.

Soon we encounter the film’s second problem: tone. LOR was fantasy for older readers, but The Hobbit was originally meant for children. So how does one target the film? As the opening drama for what is ultimately a grander one, or as a cartoonish children’s story? Jackson tries to have it both ways and it doesn’t work. He introduces Bilbo to the dwarves by having them invade his home and clear out his well-stocked pantry in a hedonistic evening of gluttony, drunkenness, and burping. I wondered if Terry Gilliam co-directed, as these scenes played as they were outtakes from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The dwarves are supposed to be fierce fighters, but our first impression of the barrel-chested, pint-sized sons of Erebor is that they are a cross between Snow White’s companions and The Three Stooges (x4).

Equally trite is the story of Gandalf’s wizard colleague Radagast the Brown (Sylvester McCoy), the protector of Mirkwood. He’s St. Francis by way Dr. Doolittle and a Summer of Love acid test. He tends a forest of cute animals including–and I kid you not–a team of speedster rabbits that pull his land sledge at rocket velocity.

Then we get more padding, including a trip to Rivendell to meet the elves and experience the enchantments of Galadriel (Cate Blanchett). What isn’t padding or background is wall-to-wall ambushes and battle scenes. Pick your Middle Earth villains–trolls, goblins, wargs, orcs–and they are all here, including the Pale One, a mutant super orc thought to have been mortally wounded by Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage) after the orc killed his grandfather.

The battle scenes are spectacular, but they also flunk the plausibility test, even for sci-fi and fantasy. It’s easy to see why the LOR fellowship will ultimately triumph over evil–any dark power that relies upon orcs and goblins for its army is doomed to fail. They are so inept that, in one scene, our Erebor-bound band of 14 manages to rout thousands of them in a single go on their own home turf! An Unexpected Journey only takes us to Bilbo’s discovery of the ring, his first encounter with Gollum (Andy Sirkis), and a draw showdown with the Pale One. Quite a bit remains, and we didn’t really get a lot of story for a nearly three-hour-long film.

So how about the cool special effects? These and the battle scenes are often thrilling, but so too are car chases in run-of-the-mill mob films that induce similar sensations for far less money. Plus, we’ve already seen these in LOR. What about the 3D? My advice: don’t bother. It’s nothing you’ve not already seen in other 3D movies and the glasses dramatically darken the picture. Rivendell should be viewed in full light. It is a CGI marvel of the first magnitude. (I can attest from experience that the few bits of actual New Zealand landscape for Rivendell come from one of the most nondescript parks in the entire country!)  How about the acting? McKellen and Sirkis are fine, but they could do Gandalf and Gollum in their sleep and sometimes do. Freeman is easily the best thing in the movie, but even he has trouble redeeming some of the paste-up performances from the dwarves. And, if I might, Armitage’s portrayal of Thorin Oakenshield is particularly wooden!

In all, not a promising start, though I suppose we can thank Jackson for not tossing in any Jar-Jar Binks characters. The tale will continue. But should it? Sometimes it’s best to rest on one’s laurels. --Rob Weir

Top Ten Albums of 2012

Rob’s Top Ten for 2012

It wasn’t a great year for music by any means. In fact, it’s gotten so easy to produce an MP3 or a CD that just about everyone does. DYI is cool for friends and family, but such projects often add to the background noise and make it harder to find the really good stuff. And, as politically incorrect as it is, I find 90% of all hip-hop and rap to be unworthy of being viewed as music. Ask me to judge by the standards of slam poetry and we can talk, but spoken word over sampled music and programmed percussion doesn’t meet my melodic measurements. So here is my Top Ten for 2012 in the genres (such as they still exist) of rock, pop, folk, country, and world music.

 1. Le Vent du Nord, Tromper le Temps (Borealis):  From Québec comes a jewel from a band so good that the only open question is whether we prefer their energy or their polish.

2.  Ari Hest, The Fire Plays, (Project 4 Records): Baritone vocals evocative of John Gorka and compositions worthy of Billy Joel or Paul Simon. Score one for the Metro (NYC) male.

3.  Neil Young and Crazy Horse, Psychedelic Pill, (Reprise): The old man still has it! Perhaps overlong at two discs, but a classic Young mix of country, folk, rock, and grunge.

4. Altan, Gleann Nimhe, (Compass): These Irish-folk veterans stepped back in time for a new release the evoked the band’s early days and their back-to-the-future project succeeded brilliantly.

5. Caroline Herring, Camilla, (Signature): If Country music was run by talent scouts instead of empty suits, Caroline Herring would be one of the industry’s brightest stars.

6.  Genticorum, Naguez Rameurs, (Mad River): A tick below Le Vent du Nord, but just a tick. Add both to your collection and you’ll clog your way through 2013.

7. Karine Polwart, Traces, (Hegri Music): From one of Scotland’s most fearless singers, an album about loss, bruised hearts, and renewal. Raw emotions meet heavenly vocals.

8. Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer, Little Blue Egg, (Red House): Recovered demos and shelved songs from the late, great Dave Carter–a hit from beyond the tomb and renewed life from Tracy.

9. Jason Myles Goss, Radio Dial (Jeswaldo Sounds): This rising talent from Boston’s fertile folk scene is back with an album full of compelling stories from the down side of life.

10. (Tie), Steep Canyon Rangers/Mairi Morrison & Alisdair Roberts, Nobody Knows You/Urstan, (Rounder/Drag City): Sometimes the hippest new thing is the old made new. Steep Canyon Rangers aren’t your daddy’s bluegrass, and Morrison & Roberts give a fresh treatment to Celtic waulking songs and mouth music.--Rob Weir

Nu-Blu Album Preachy But Solid Bluegrass

NU-BLU

Nail by Nail

Pine Castle Holdings 1181

* * *

At a recent conference I attended a session on marketing and music. In a chat with one of the presenters I said that I had just gotten a CD that purported to be a “Christian bluegrass” album. He laughed and queried, “Aren’t all bluegrass albums Christian?” He wasn’t serious, but it’s certainly true that mountain gospel has long been a staple for bluegrass vocalists. So how is Nail by Nail different from any other bluegrass record? Let’s start with what isn’t different. The North Carolina-based ensemble Nu-Blu features all the expected instrumentation: guitar (Daniel Routh), bass (Daniel’s wife Carolyn), banjo (Levi Austin), mandolin (Austin Koerner), and fiddle (Greg Luck). Carolyn Routh handles lead vocals and everyone except Luck jumps in to produce signature three-part harmonies. Songs feature instrumental breakouts, usually a sequence of flat-picked guitar, banjo runs, and fancy mando and fiddle bowing. Occasionally a soulful slap bass punctuates the procession before a quick burst of notes bridges back to the melody and vocals. So far, so standard….

But make no mistake: Nu-Blu also has a preachy side that comes through in the selection of some pretty overt lyrics. (Lest there’s any mistake, notes on the back of the album make it clear that Nu-Blu sees this recording as musical testimony.) This seven-track CD presents Jesus as crucified and savior of humankind. Let your tolerance for preaching guide your decision of whether or not to check out Nu-Blu. A reason why you might wish to do so: this is a very good band. They may lay it on a bit heavy at times, but they are perennial nominees in the category of bluegrass band of the year in a state that knows bluegrass. Some of the testimony is indeed on the heavy side—which is why my favorite track was the cover of Tim Stafford’s more subtle “Where Did You Get that Water?”—but there’s not a thing pushy about the band’s top drawer musicianship. And if you want to know the difference between bluegrass gospel and bluegrass gospel, this one will guide you.—Rob Weir

Click here to hear "Hammer on the Nails."

Boxing Day Gifts for Decision (and Non-Decision) Makers

Santa's not the only one who should be kicked out on 12/26! 

In many places where Christmas is observed, the day itself is for family and quiet contemplation. (Wow! What a bizarre idea, huh?) Present exchanges, usually modest ones given in small numbers (shocking!), actually take place on December 26, Boxing Day. (In the USA, we return gifts on Boxing Day.) So here’s my Grinch list of Boxing Day gifts for decision- and non-decision-makers (broadly defined).

To Egypt: A military coup. It’s the only thing that has a prayer of saving the nation from civil war, religious jihad, and regional war. The Muslim Brotherhood has railroaded through a new constitution that will, if left unchecked, impose sharia law on the nation and take it back to the 14^th century. It will, of course, blame Israel for anything that goes wrong and seek to launch a holy war against it. Ordinary Egyptians would be much better off under a junta.

To all doe-eyed liberals who actually believed in Arab Spring: Huge slices of humble pie and forced feedings of it. Maybe if they get sick enough, reality will dawn. Who knew Arab Spring would not bring democracy to Yemen or Egypt? Lots of us, actually! In fact, anyone who actually knows the difference between fairy tales and social reality anticipated this.

To the NRA:  Copies of Mein Kampf and 10% off coupons for jackboots and brown shirts. This is how fascism begins–a bully group of well-armed thugs decides that their self-interest matters more than the well being of the masses. Fear is used to cow the populace into believing that only the thugs can save them from the savagery that the thugs themselves unleashed. The NRA at least ought to learn their tactics from a master.

To the masses: The secret ballot and instructions on how to use it to vote down thugs, fear-mongers, and assorted bullies. Also an instruction manual on pressure politics within putative democratic societies. Caveat: You actually have to use the vote and citizen lobbying power, not serenely assume that there is magic in the mere possession of them.

To the average taxpayer: A big old increase in federal levies. Go on–blame Obama. You know you want to. But you can really thank the Tea Party, which would rather make you guys pay through the nose than to tell the 1% that they actually have to pay anything substantial for the privilege of living in a capitalist society. (Of course, you might just want to use the ballot and pressure politics to fight this. See above.)

To Obama: A spine. You’ve been reelected Big Guy, so take charge. Call out the fascists and the greedy. Go ahead–impugn their patriotism and call them what they are: disloyal, self-centered, and greedy. And while you’re at it, the word “treason” is defined as “an attempt or conspiracy to overthrow or war against the government,” which is exactly what a lot of the hard right has advocated. They’re not even subtle about it. Check out the statements on violently overthrowing the government by Texan secessionists and Mississippi Tea Party leader Roy Nicholson. Order their arrests, Big Guy. Put aside Mr. Compassionate and find your inner LBJ. Kick some butt, starting with the anti-government crowd. When we go over the Fiscal Cliff, use executive powers to punish the districts of anti-government Congressmen. And remind Americans regularly why they are paying higher taxes.

To the Founding Fathers: A Rest in Peace Bill. The new law asserts that: (a) the founders were mortals, not infallible gods, (b) they were politicians skilled in ambiguous doublespeak long before the term was invented, (c) they were not clairvoyants able to foresee all future implications of the documents they wrote, and (d) they consisted of many non-denominational and non-religious individuals who would be repelled by the very idea of mixing politics and doctrine.

To politicians present and future: A current calendar and the particulars of the subsection of the Founding Fathers Rest in Peace Law. This section requires that “All members of Congress must, upon taking office, sign an affidavit stipulating that they have no idea what the founders really intended. Moreover, members of Congress are charged with making sound policy for the current time period, not 1783. No member of Congress can support measures to restore slavery, property requirements for voting, male supremacy, or repeal of the 16^th Amendment.” 

And, just to lighten the mood a bit, some sports gifts:

To the Pittsburgh Pirates: A 21^st consecutive year of losing baseball. Any team that would give away a top closer (Joel Hanrahan) to the Red Sox for a bust minor league pitcher (Stolmy Pimentel? Who the hell names a kid Stolmy?) and a minor leaguer (James Sand) who was a trade toss-in from another organization, simply doesn’t deserve to win.

To the Boston Celtics: A GPS pinned with the location of the Fountain of Youth, or a March dump-salaries trading session. Guess which one is more likely for this broken-down plow horse of a team?

To the National Hockey League: The demise of Gary Bettman. But which is more likely, an outbreak of democracy in the Middle East or a contagion of sanity in professional hockey? I wouldn’t bet a bag of pucks on either.    

Le Vent du Nord's Fabulous Holiday Gift

LE VENT DU NORD

Tromper le Temps

Borealis 214

* * * * *

Reviewers are supposed to be impartial, but I can’t help myself: Le Vent du Nord is my favorite Québeçois band and has been for quite some time. We often (rightly) associate music from La Belle Province as spirited, but sometimes ragged–appropriate for the dance and party niche it fills so lustily. Le Vent du Nord is spirited all right, but it is also so accomplished that the music is as at-home in a recital hall as in a Gatineau kitchen.

To experience just how wonderful this album is, go to track ten, “Le Diable et le Fermier.” It’s Nicholas Boulerice’s entry into an ever-expanding genre of songs about commoners–in this case a farmer–who outsmart the Devil. Much of it is just thundering feet, a cappella call-and-response vocals, and instrumental drone, but you don’t need much with four singers whose harmonies are tighter than an elephant’s yoga pants. Though the song is new, it’s in synch with the throwback feel of others on the album, some of which are gleaned from 18^th and 19^th century songbooks, and some of which commemorate past events. In the latter category place “Lettre á Durham,” the quartet’s solemn-yet-hopeful take on an infamous British report on how to subdue Francophone rebels and their culture (and their limited success in so doing). Le vent du Nord can certainly burn the dance boards, as we hear in Olivier Demers’ frothy fiddle work on “Toujours Amant,” and in a reel titled “Le Winnebago” (named for an unfortunate vehicle rental) in which the fiddle mixes with bouzouki (Simon Beaudry), guitar (Demers), and accordion and mouth harp (Réjean Brunet). Or how some real froth–a song inspired by being stranded (poor babies!) in the famed Belgian brewing town of Chimay? And what better way to flavor it than with Boulerice cranking out a spirited hurdy-gurdy melody? You get a bit of everything on this album, including “La Soirée du Hockey,” which began life as a small protest against Canada’s decision to discontinue French-language broadcasts of “Hockey Night in Canada,” but which now has an added level of poignancy given the NHL lockout. There are also seasonal songs, songs with a bluesy feel, and songs about waiting for love, a mother’s love, and even that rarest of things in folk music–requited love (“Le Souhait”). 

Let’s just crown these guys the Kings of Québeçois music and be done with it. Thus far in the 21^st century, no other band comes close to their track record of sustained excellence. Call this one un cadeau glorieux for the holidays.--Rob Weir

Hitchcock: Performances Surpass Thin Script

HITCHCOCK (2012)

Directed by Sacha Gervasi

Fox Searchlight Pictures, 

98 minutes, PG-13

* * *

The first thing you should know about Hitchcock is that the film is not a biopic. It takes place entirely during the shooting of Hitchcock’s shocking masterpiece, Psycho. And it’s not really about that either; it’s really about how the distracted auteur comes to appreciate and cherish his long-suffering wife, writer/director/film editor Alma Reville. It is, in essence, a domestic drama that just happens to involve very famous people. Call it the latest installment of Tolstoy’s famous dictum: “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” 

The story is set in 1959, shortly after Hitchcock’s North By Northwest had done well at the box office. A handful of critics, though, gave the film respectful-but-tepid reviews, and several openly questioned whether the then 60-year-old Hitchcock was past his prime and had recycled ideas. (Those reviews are now dismissed as absurd, and North By Northwest is universally regarded as a great film.) That criticism–and the outsized ego it bruised–forms the central existential crisis of Hitchcock.

Credit Anthony Hopkins for an astonishing portrayal of Hitchcock. Thanks to prosthetics, makeup, and a “fat suit,” Hopkins inhabits the role of Hitchcock physically as well as emotionally and intellectually. You can gift-wrap the makeup Oscars now, and in a normal year–read: one in which Daniel Day-Lewis hasn’t played Lincoln–Hopkins would be a strong candidate to win the Best Actor Academy Award. He plays Hitchcock as a tempestuous mix of egoism, jealousy, voyeurism, genius, stubbornness, insecurity, bombast, and tenderness; in other words, a walking contradiction. He has a thing for blondes, crosses the line between observer and Peeping Tom, manipulates his intellectual inferiors, drives himself relentlessly, over-fuels his various appetites, and only considers consequences when they slap him in the face. Psycho is now considered such a classic that we forget that the film only got made because Hitchcock mortgaged his mansion and funded it himself–his studio, Paramount, wanted no part of a movie based on the deeds of the Oedipal serial killer Ed Gein and only allowed Hitchcock to make it because they couldn’t figure out how to break his contract.

The second thing you need to know about Hitchcock is that even though it’s based on Stephen Rebello’s book The Making of Psycho, it’s really about Hitchcock’s relationship with his wife, Alma Reville (Helen Mirren). As Hitch grows more obsessed with his film, he also further neglects Alma, whom he comes to suspect is having an affair with half-talented writer Whitfield Cook. Do you need me to tell you that Mirren is good in the role? Of course she is, even though her part is a tad underwritten. Mirren plays Alma as the woman behind the throne–the foundation that shores up her husband’s self-doubt and the stitcher who makes random great ideas appear as seamless genius. The film plays a bit like how pundits described Bill and Hillary Clinton: you get two for one. Mirren isn’t afraid to appear mousy, and few do fierceness as well as she on the screen.

The third thing to know is that Hitchcock only works because the performances are so good. You could fly a flock of birds (get it?) through the holes in John McLaughlin’s script and, though there are snippets of witty dialogue, the film also resorts to some very cheap tricks–including insider Hitchcock jokes and contrived Ed Gein visitations–itchcok jokes–Hitto advance the story.  Luckily the cast transforms the thin (just 98 minutes) script. Hopkins and Mirren are fabulous, but most of the secondary performances are equally solid–Danny Huston as the obsequious Whitfield Cook; Scarlett Johansson as a star-struck Janet Leigh; Toni Collette as Peggy Robertson, Hitchcock’s secretary, gopher, sounding board, and sometime scapegoat; and Jessica Biel in a surprisingly controlled performance as Vera Miles. I found James D’Arcy’s portrayal of Tony Perkins a bit cartoonish, but he certainly had Perkins’ neurotic energy down.

Make no mistake; this film is no Psycho. In the hands of lesser actors, it’s probably not a very good film at all. Luckily Sacha Gervasi struck casting gold for his directorial feature debut. And it’s lucky for us as well; much like the 2008 film Me and Orson Welles, we see how powerful performances magically transform middling material into small gems.

--Rob Weir