Movie Review: Battleship

Directed by Peter Berg. 2012.

Battleship begins with a scene in which a young man breaks into a convenience store in an attempt to steal a chicken burrito for Brooklyn Decker. This scene is set to the Pink Panther theme. Now I know what you're thinking: that I'm going to criticize this scene. You think I'm going to talk about how silly or out of place it is or make some such complaint. Yet I have come not to criticize this scene but to praise it. Why? Because it is a scene, a scene during which something happens, a scene with a clear beginning, middle, and end. This is more than I can say for the middle two hours, yes, two hours, of Battleship. I was going to write "Peter Berg's Battleship" but you know what? I don't think he directed this, or at least most of this. Why?

Well, there really are no scenes in the middle two hours of the movie. The film lists lazily back and forth between Brooklyn Decker hiking in the Hawaiian foliage and a destroyer sailing in circles around an alien craft. It seems as if they filmed without a script for the majority of the shoot because you could cut or rearrange any of what happens without any effect on the story and the dialogue reads like it was written an hour before filming. My guess is the filmmakers shot the finale, rendered the effects shots, edited everything together, shot pickups to fill in what was totally incomprehensible, and lastly padded it with wide shots. In fact there are so many wide, flyover, and effects shots that it doesn't even feel like any people are in the movie. Battleship does not so much feel directed as assembled from 2nd unit material.

The end of the movie is clearly the premise pitched to the produces as well as the only part mapped out in any detail. The gist is, and brace yourselves: the heroes need a ship that can take as much damage as it dishes while engaging the final enemy ship so they turn to the retired Battleship Missouri and re-fit her for combat. Frankly, I think the idea is a hoot and not just because I thought of it many years ago (although I had in mind to use the carrier Intrepid.) The final battle and its preparation are a good deal of fun. I liked the old-timer veterans showing today's crew how to man the ship and the crews straining and sweating to carry the massive shells for the guns. I enjoyed watching the veteran who just regained use of his legs going mano-a-mano with an alien. These brawny scenes (hooray for scenes!) with their rock and roll soundtrack and corny one-liners finally established a tone, and a vigorous and good-natured one at that.

This final scene is fun but any battle scene is only as good as the preparation for it. This can be done with varying degrees of skill and ingenuity, but it has to be done.  That the penultimate scene with the veterans is in fact the preparatory scene for the final battle makes the two almost a movie in themselves and shows just how utterly empty are the preceding hours. Battleship is far from the first movie with a simple idea and a lot of padding but seldom has so much of a movie been phoned-in. There is room in the world for light movies and craftsmanship can redeem slight fare, but there is no room for laziness.

Movie Review: The Avengers

Directed by Joss Whedon. 2012.

N.B. Due to recent criticism I have taken special effort to ensure all images used are precisely appropriate to the review.

Samuel L. Jackson shoots down a fighter jet with a bazooka.

This review will proceed for the two of you not satisfied with the above.

The Avengers should have been a disaster. It should have had a lame end-of-the-world plot, wall-to-wall and incomprehensible action, generic dialogue, and the big name franchise characters stuffed in to draw the crowds. What we got was not only competency in all said areas but a whole which is a good deal more than the sum of its parts.

The plot is bound to be the weakest link in an action movie and though The Avengers is no exception its plot succeeds largely because it lacks the pitfalls of a slight script inflated to accommodate 100 minutes of action. We are spared decoy maguffins and the trading of essential items back and forth umpteen times. We are spared double, triple, and quadruple crosses as well as double-agents, betrayals, inexplicable changes of heart, and suddenly finding out who the "real" enemy is.

Instead Joss Whedon decided to keep it simple: a bad guy wants to take over the world and he needs a device to do it. Stop the bad guy and take the device. There is little to say about the plot other than that it works and lacks the usual cliches. The characters are introduced swiftly and quickly realize they must work together. There are no unnecessary delays because one of them must be persuaded or cannot be found. No one takes a powder or throws a hissy fit. Although tempers flair, and Whedon's snappy wit is a delight in these scenes, the characters realize the world is at stake and remain onboard the plan.

Loki

This is not to say the plot is wholly devoid of juicier fare. In fact we are treated to a few intellectual morsels. First off, we learn about the ideology of head bad-guy Loki. He doesn't just want to rule Earth but thinks humans are unfit to govern themselves. Yes, the idea of ruling rather implies that people need to be ruled but it is fair and good to see the implications of authoritarianism explicated a bit. More specifically he calls freedom a great lie and asserts that people want to be ruled, that people are lost in their individual quests for purpose and identity.

I would have liked to hear some more retorts to these old Platonic criticisms of liberty from the heroes beyond Captain America's response, paraphrasing, that "The last time I was in Germany and one man stood over others, there was a disagreement," which doesn't really address the arguments. This is not to say Captain America's response is foolish or naive for although it does not address all of Loki's points with an argument, Captain's statement does respond to the notion that "people like to be ruled" by citing an instance in which people refused such an "offer." I wasn't expecting a philosophical debate about liberty in the middle of a battle but I hoped somehow these ideas could have percolated up somewhere in the movie.

Spoilers

Nick Fury

S.H.I.E.L.D Director Nick Fury also presents us with some ideas to chew on when he lays out his problem: there are too many individuals with extraordinary powers who cannot be stopped. Fury had had two plans to fix this. The first was to acquire the Tessaract and use its power to create an arsenal of weapons to defeat these new powerful enemies. The second, the AVENGERS Initiative, involved recruiting the best individuals to meet the challenges S.H.I.E.L.D, which is to say ordinary people, could not. If we recall that Fury works for some secret council, one which seems to claim unlimited authority when they make the call to nuke New York to stem the invasion, we see all three fundamental types of government represented. Loki represents an absolute monarch, Nick Fury's bossy council represents oligarchy, and the Avengers democracy. Loki and the council seem obvious enough villains, but what do we infer about democracy from the Avengers?

For all their fighting Fury recruits the Avengers with great ease. Too he expects them to return when needed simply because they are needed. Such makes a powerful and rather unambiguous statement about the practicality of democracy. They come together after relatively little persuasion, they quarrel a little but work together for the greater good, they depart with no reward or extra authority, and they'll return when needed. Politics solved! The important political question, though, is how to get the best people to step up and prevent the worst from doing so.

It is Fury who accomplishes this and if we view the Avengers as agents of democracy we can see Fury as a presidential figure. Yet he wasn't elected even though he seems to represent ordinary people. The Avengers certainly don't trust him, with both Tony Stark and Captain America spying on him and ultimately discovering his secret plan to build weapons of mass destruction. Stark, ironically given his own powers, criticizes him for his plan of nuclear proliferation. Later, one of the Avengers says that Fury has as much blood on his hands as Loki. Really? Surely criticism of him could be made if we knew more about him, but without such information isn't that verdict a bit much? The scene in which Fury's plan is revealed and the Avengers begin to criticize him and fight amongst each other has a very democratic flavor consistent with the symbolism we discussed above. Because we don't have enough information to judge these other issues the scene becomes more about the problems of democracy than any one issue in particular. That the Avengers are attacked during this debate seems to carry an obvious implication: internecine problems to shrink in significance when an army's at the door. Is this so?

Agent Phil Coulson

There is, however, one more unusual bit. About halfway through the movie Earth's situation looks grim. S.H.I.E.L.D.'s flying carrier-battleship has been attacked and Loki has escaped. Dr. Banner and Thor are lost somewhere. Agent Coulson has been killed. How will Fury rekindle the team spirit? He shows them Coulson's prized Captain America trading cards, covered in his blood. Out of all that could have motivated them, he thought they needed a martyr. That Fury lied about the cards being on Coulson's person at the time of his death is not as significant as the fact that he decided to use the agent's death as an example at all.

Overall Whedon's script is commendable. He avoids many action movie pitfalls and cliches and succeeds in infusing some meaningful ideas and questions. There is very little essential dialogue in which to get tangled and there are no inessential reversals, deceptions, et cetera to gum up the works. This feat ought not be underestimated; I think this script cost Whedon no small amount of grief.

That said, The Avengers is two hours twenty minutes long and most of the attention is not on the aforementioned intellectual bits but action and snappy dialogue. Both satisfy.

Alien Invasion

The opening heist scene is probably the worst action in the movie. With its generic car and helicopter chase and the collapse of the S.H.I.E.L.D. compound lacking all depth it looks like part of a much chincier flick. The final action scene, however, is deftly handled. Whedon develops and maintains a clear sense of space but I still grew a tad weary watching the nameless aliens get whacked. Despite this, the scene ought not be underestimated. Whedon does a fine job making each hero seem heroic even while other heroes perform more impressive feats. Hawkeye's arrows aren't as spectacular as Iron Man flying around but he seems pretty powerful picking off the invaders. Captain America is not as strong as the Hulk, but he looks powerful fighting as he is. He does not seem less heroic fighting ground troops while the Hulk is fighting some giant flying creature because he is doing what is appropriate to him and his abilities.

The Hulk

Ultimately these characters are the highlight of The Avengers and though I would want more development of the ideas it is hard to complain after seeing these characters interact. Robert Downey Jr.'s cocksure Iron Man is as disarming and grudgingly entertaining as ever. Captain America as a by-the-books soldier is as good a foil for him as Roadie was in the Iron Man series and Iron Man is a better foil than Captain America had in his own movie last year. There is a palpable and logical tension between the narcissistic Tony Stark and the self-sacrificing Captain Steve Rogers. Chris Hemsworth's Thor has an appropriately aristocratic flavor with his accent, diction, and physical stature which pleasantly contrast Stark's 21st century playboy and Captain America's dutiful humility. Mark Ruffalo's Bruce Banner is a surprising treat. There is a subdued tension to his comportment which lends credence to what would be a silly one-liner in a lesser movie. Likewise a brief moment on the deck of the carrier  where he awkwardly shuffles around some passing soldiers with refreshing subtlety how he's rearranged his life and who he is to control the Hulk. It also helps explain a later scene when he is able to turn into the Hulk seemingly at will.

Flying Battleship

Speaking of the flying battleship-aircraft carried, I didn't care for it. Too much of the movie takes place aboard it. I think Whedon ran into a setting problem with the script. "Where should all of this take place? Does it even matter? I guess it should be in a S.H.I.E.L.D. base but then they're underground the whole time and the enemies have to come to them and then we need a vehicle for them to get around in anyway. Besides that'll remind people of X-Men. Tony Stark's lab is too small and people have seen it already. A submarine is worse than a base, a ship is too much like the military and a plane is too small. Hey. . . wait. . a flying ship!"

Natasha Romanoff

Anyway, Hawkeye and Black Widow seem the least drawn of the characters although Whedon cleverly works in their backstory at the service of the plot instead of as plodding exposition. Hawkeye spends most of the movie as a bad guy which is helpful because Loki has no underling and there are enough good guys to keep track of but it doesn't help his character. Natasha Romanoff / Natalie Rushman / Black Widow is most fun in her opening scene doing her spy thing but is not particularly well-utilized later on although her posterior is clearly the principal element of several shots.

Overall The Avengers is splendid entertainment. It is a rare example of an action movie where as much care was put into the writing as the visual elements. That it is so simple is a result of needing to keep clear so many other elements which could easily tear the film in many directions and thus apart. It would benefit from a little trimming of both dialogue and action while firming up the ideas, but still it's hard to complain about too much of a good thing. Cheers, Mr. Whedon.

Joss Whedon

Sacred Music V: Of Praise and Petition

Sacred Music: Part I | II | III | IV | V

I'm guessing that Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man got your attention just now. Doesn't he look happy? Look at those flailing arms and that big grin: he's ecstatic! He's ecstatic and he wants everyone to know. He just can't contain himself. Look at him!

In the course of affairs I have often heard the charge that Catholic sacred music is dolorous and depressing. It is not celebratory enough. Chant in particular is too serious. In place of such music Catholics should use big loud happy pieces during mass. Preferably this music should be in four parts and feature as much tinkling and thwacking accompaniment as possible. Mass should be HAPPY. After all we are "celebrating" the eucharist. Psalm 43.29 and the "sacrifice of praise" is then duly trotted out.

Now this sentiment is surely not to be condemned in toto any more than, say, the happy heart of Joseph Haydn that wrote his great symphonic masses should be castigated. The sentiment must, however, be moderated and for two reasons.

Foremost we must be reminded that prayer, all prayer, fundamentally maintains an element, even a prevailing element, of petition. We never simply praise God but always ask and hope that He be praised both to the utmost and per omnia saecula saeculorum. We hope that our humble offering of praise, subject as it is to our foibles, exalts. We hope that our love is pure and our craft refined. Thus even a laudatory prayer is not simply an effusion of joy but a hopeful request. All prayer, then, should maintain some spirit of supplication even as it exhorts or expresses.

Modern man of course has difficulty with this necessity because requesting implies submission and submission humiliates him, that is, it makes him humble. Petition seems to provide no vehicle for him to express himself or demonstrate the extent of his own genius and vast material resources but rather forces him to acknowledge his smallness and weakness.  Such an admission is uncomfortable for the modern man who has conquered so much and such brings us to our second reason that one must praise as supplicant, that otherwise the offering becomes a vehicle for the aggrandizement of the individual than of pure praise for God. This is a problem for much great music simply because the music is forever tied to its composer. In some way when we hear Handel will always hear not just music but Handel. Only the church's ancient and anonymous chants overcome this hurdle.

Now this imperative that prayer praise and petition God alone, what we might call the SDG imperative after the famous saying Soli Deo Gloria that  Bach appended to all of his music, has a profound implication, namely that all elements must focus on and only on a divine end. In other words, Christian worship is the worship of God. This means each element of sacred music must either directly contribue to a divine end by way of its overt meaning or by way of beautifying the work. For example, a text might worship in words and music might beautify it.

All else, by definition, serves another purpose. This implication itself has another: such music must be excellent. That which fails to be excellent contains, perhaps only in part, what is extraneous. Such is extraneous by virtue of having what is purposeless, and it is purposeless because it does not solely address God, is not beautiful, or accomplishes one of these aims but at some greater expense. For example, we might add words which unbalance the musical phrase or we may add notes which obfuscate the words. Too we may add either notes or words which are redundant and therefore undesirable as disruptive to the work's overall symmetry and logic.

The greatest works of sacred music contain the most excellent texts with no poor or extra words, the most excellent music in which all elements are necessary and meaningful, and harmony between these two elements.

If you enjoyed this essay you may also enjoy:

External:
Theological Problems of Church Music by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger
Liturgy and Church Music by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger

At APLV:
The Anonymous Artist
Causa Pulchritudinis
On Gratitude
Music and Community
Would You Sing it on a Boat?

The Sinister Side of Elitism

or, On Democratic Elitism

Bunthorne, from
Gilbert & Sullivan's
Patience

It's not easy being an elitist. Properly filled the pursuit requires a broad education as the basis for a penetrating perspicacity. Now this doesn't sound so bad, the former being a calculated investment and the latter a tutored talent, and indeed if these only were the requirements we all would lay upon the daisies of  cultivated taste. What is required also, and much to the dismay of the elitist, is the consumption and voluntary regurgitation of pop culture poison.  This gastronomic, intellectual, and aesthetic sacrifice goes unknown to the philistines, consumerists, hooligans, fashonistas, who graze on whatever vittles their whims, credit cards, privates, and current wardrobes urge. To foist Lady Gaga upon someone whose daily bread is Mozart is inhumane at best.

If you are not yet sympathetic to the cause of the elitist think of his sad case this way: he has no allegiance to the contemporary, to the fresh and new, but to an idea. He is bound to some sense of proportion, meaning, or symmetry. . . to beauty if you will. So when he waxes nostalgic about the good ol' days of 1780s Vienna or sheds a tear for Cicero, shed a tear for him, for part of his soul rest there, and only there.

Yet the elitist infuriates his critics. How can you criticize someone who thinks what he likes is the best, or for liking the best? You don't criticize someone for liking the US Marines or the Yankees, do you? Then why for liking Mozart or the Berlin Philharmonic? Do these tormentors perhaps bear some shame that their favorite music is written by a semi-literate, or played by a band named after an insect, or rocks? How do you fault someone for rejecting the vulgar, or standing up for the minority, acts which are elsewhere always laudable and just? How to fault one who chooses, who elects, as elite in essence means, especially in the democratic West? Of course the internal contradictions and tensions ensuing from hating this man and praising his virtues whenever they occur in some other individual. . . well one pities the hamster.

–

Yet like most beliefs elitism can take a pernicious turn, a turn away from its inherently conservative roots. You see elitism in principle simply wishes to preserve the good, not to hold it capture. It does not want Cicero and Mozart to be held in an ivory tower only for elitists but rather wants to make sure he is not lost. It wishes the best to be known as the best far and wide. In some sense it does want an "aristocracy" that is, it does want the best to rule, but an idea can only rule when it is in the hearts and minds of many. True elitism then cannot be a passive hoarding but an active cultivation.

Fred Siegel's recent Commentary article is a good summary of elitism gone awry, of elitism which hopes to put a basket over high culture's sacred flame and to keep the masses in the dark, of elitism which hopes not to spread the best to the many but to keep the many without culture, since no culture is to be preferred to bad culture. Mr. Siegel has done the dirty work of cataloguing the anti-democratic, even dictatorial impulses of these would-be cultural guardians so I will spare myself the same agony. 

I would, however, like to amplify and explicate the criticism, especially as it stems from the issue of education. You see if one really believe what one likes is the best then it's hard to concede that it would turn out the loser in any aesthetic, that is to say, academic or intellectual, argument. So when you say that people don't like what is best you are really suggesting they lack the education to come to understand what is best. So teach. Write. Perform. Promote. Fund. Praise the good and criticize bad. Don't sit atop Parnassus wagging your finger. Don't mandate intellectual and cultural squalor, that is, spiritual impoverishment, whilst advocating for the material improvements of the very same people. 

Earlier we said that elitism in principle simply wishes to preserve the good, not to hold it capture. This today is easier than ever when with digital technology we can reproduce and share material without any loss of the original. How can this but help spread the good? It  can only fail to do so if you maintain that in a contest for the human soul Mozart would lose out to Lady Gaga. To the untutored and in the short run, he might. ( I would ask, though: how do you know Mozart is losing? Surely not by sales or profits when you can purchase the complete works of Mozart for less than the cost of one ticket to a modern pop concert.) Then again the untutored driver goes awry, the untutored architect errs, and so forth for all jobs. Man is born with previous few skills. Why not educate your brother? Are we to regard man as the noble savage as regards politics but otherwise simply a savage, and an irredeemable one at that?

It is not necessary to hold such a view to maintain one's aesthetic bona fides. In fact, refusing to spread what one professes to be the best or suggesting that there are people inherently unable to love the same is the surest way to discredit both.

Bucket List of the Mind

1. To achieve at least C1 fluency in German, Italian, and Russian.
2. To read the entire Old Testament in Hebrew.
3. To read the Iliad and the Odyssey in Greek.
4. To play through the complete keyboard works of J.S. Bach.
5. To read the complete works of Shakespeare every year.
6. To read the complete works of Plato and Aristotle.
7. To acquire enough competence in Sanskrit to read the Indian classics.
8. To sing Palestrina's Pope Marcellus Mass.
9. To read Dante's Divine Comedy in Italian.
10. To read the complete works of Charles Dickens
11. To listen to the complete cycle of J.S. Bach's cantatas every year.
12. To read the Summa Theologica and Summa Contra Gentiles
13. To observe the 110 deep sky objects of the Messier Catalog; and the 400 objects in the Herschel Catalog.
14. To commit the Psalter to memory.
15. To read the complete works of Virgil in Latin.
16. To read the Qu'ran in Arabic; and Avicenna's Metaphysics of Healing.
17. To read the complete works of Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, and Dostoevsky.
18. To read Kant's three Critiques.
19. To work through Euclid's Elements
20. To do all of this in a spirit of humility, gratitude, and wonder.