Arrested for Walking—The Pedestrian

A solitary man walks on streets through neighborhoods for the simple pleasure of it. A police car accosts him and wants to know why he is walking.

Ray Bradbury wrote The Pedestrian in 1951. He set it a century forward from when he wrote it, but it feels eerily true today. I strongly suggest you look it up online or find it in a collection of his short stories. It is so short, it almost qualifies as flash fiction.

photo by Hitesh reddy allu 

The incident is referred to briefly in his famous novel Fahrenheit 451.

Movie Review: Emma

Emma (Anya Taylor-Joy) is a twenty year-old child of privilege. Having successfully arranged a match for her beloved governess, she now proceeds confidently as an expert in matches. She definitely wants what is best for her friend Harriet (Mia Goth), who is a person of low circumstances. When Harriet receives a proposal from a farmer whom she loves, Emma steers her away from him. She wants Harriet to marry up from her situation.

Mr. Knightley (Johnny Flynn), Emma’s brother-in-law, looks askance at Emma’s presumption. He lectures her more than once that she is being arrogant, and even has prejudices (in a positive way) about some son of privilege whom they have never met, but who is due to visit.

Emma and Mr. Knightley keep locking horns. Is Emma doing the right thing for Harriet? How will this turn out?

This is the third version of Emma that I’ve seen. (Yes, Clueless starring Alicia Silverstone is a reimagining of Emma, but it doesn’t count.) My favorite has been a 1996 version starring Kate Beckinsale. Readers familiar with the book by Jane Austen say this is the most accurate version, and besides, I think Kate Beckinsale is the loveliest woman in Hollywood. I saw a different 1996 version with Gwyneth Paltrow, but hardly remember anything about it. The one with Kate Beckinsale has the lowest production values, but it was filmed inside real stately manors, with all the darkness and cramped camera angles that implies. It feels authentic.

I wasn’t going to see this year’s Emma because I was put off by the opulence of it. Jane Austen occupied the lowest rung of the upper class, and the Kate Beckinsale version stays faithful to that. The new version with Anya Taylor-Joy is set in a much higher level of Regency society, which put me off.

But I saw it anyway. Yes, this is a higher strata of society. The incredible wealth of the mansions is hard to feature. The actions of the menservants as they obey every whim of Emma’s father look comical. And this was the first movie I’ve seen that shows what it looks like for the nobles to have their servants dress and undress them. (A couple of rear end scenes were brief.)

Somehow, this year’s version won me over. Emma is usually portrayed as an incredibly vain, arrogant woman who only changes when her folly comes crashing down on her. In this version, there is an underlying sweetness to her that grows, especially in her unending friendship with Harriet. In all three versions, the dance scenes at the ball are the emotional nexus of the story. I have to say that this year’s version had the best dance scenes I’ve seen in any Jane Austen movie. I mean it. The best. Even better than in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. (Yes, that counts as a Jane Austen movie.)

So whether you’re a Jane Austen fan or not, I recommend this most recent version.

P.S. Emma is shown playing a small piano and singing. I was pleasantly surprised to see in the end credits that it really was Anya Taylor-Joy.

Coronavirus Did not Shut Us Down

Some moron on NBC said that Seattle is a “ghost town” because of fear of the coronavirus. A lot of us are going online to disprove that. On Saturday, I went to the Bellevue Square mall. (Bellevue is the most populous suburb of Seattle.)

Here we are:

I didn’t focus in any farther to avoid showing people’s faces. Plenty of people milling around, shopping, eating in the restaurants. 

I will say the janitors were visible, wiping down the handrails and other commonly touched areas. The mall has no reason to desire bad publicity. Here’s one of their major tenants:

As I’ve noted before, they’ve achieved a slacker kind of cool vibe. Perhaps I should have said hipster.

And their big rival is there.

They have the work hard, play hard feel.  

So, not a ghost town.

Watch out for that Tree

Last Sunday I noticed that one of the tall trees on our church property looked like it had been split in two. It came to an abrupt end where fresh wood was showing. That part of the ground was blocked from my angle as I approached the building, but I could see the tips of some branches sticking up. I hoped it hadn’t hit the building.

Then from inside, it looked like this:

click to enlarge 

That wasn’t even the half of it. Did I mention it was a tall tree? It was mostly on the roof.

I was amused when a couple young girls ran up in the parking lot, then were stopped by the yellow tape on their side. Then I was told the tree had fallen just an hour before. If it had fallen sometime later, families would have been walking on that sidewalk to get to church.

If you can’t think of something to pray to be thankful for at a moment like that, something’s wrong.

I watched as men on the roof chainsawed off huge chunks and threw branches down.

Thank You, Captain Obvious

This was on a table of snacks. One woman said if you can’t figure that out, you deserve what effects they have on you.

In other news, water is wet, and vacuums suck.

The following picture is kind of the opposite of obvious. Notice how the Revival Sermons of Jonathan Edwards is displayed between the females from the Batman series and Wonder Woman.

Click to enlarge

Jonathan Edwards is famous for his sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” 

They did this because . . . not sure.

Dawson’s Creek Dream

I think it’s important for writers to write down their dreams. I had this one Monday night.

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In my dream, I was in the TV series Dawson’s Creek. I and another guy saw Dawson standing on a short stool. A rope led from his mouth to a doorknob several feet in front of him.

He said he had a toothache, and this was how he was going to pull the tooth out. But he became hesitant about going through with it.

Joey was there. I said, “Joey, grab his feet. I and this other guy will tackle him at his shoulders.”

She bent down and moved forward to grab his feet. Dawson didn’t like the idea, so he waved us off.

Dawson jumped backwards off the stool. The rope pulled his tooth out.

He showed it to us. It was a large molar with faint black streaks on the back. He said that showed where the cavity was inside.

Later, Joey and I went to a dance we had organized. Couples were dancing in a large, dark room in formal styles, holding hands as they went through practiced moves.

Joey asked me to dance. She said it in a non-romantic way—just something to do instead of standing around.

We danced without holding hands. The room around us was black now. I think Cindy Lauper’s song “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” was playing. I tried to imitate Joey’s moves, saying I wasn’t familiar with this form of dance. She said I was doing it perfectly.

public domain

Imagine her younger, with long hair

Sources of the dream:

I wasn’t a fan of Dawson’s Creek, but I watched part of the first season. I thought Katie Holmes was pretty, just like Shiri Appleby in Roswell.

My current workplace has Muzak from the 80s. That’s probably where the song came from.

I went to the dentist on Monday. A tooth might have a tiny crack in it too small for their X-rays to pick up. I may need to get a crown.

Change Space Force Command to Starfleet Command

Have you seen the logo for the newly created Space Force?

Remind you of something? Look at the logo on Spock’s chest.

(I can’t use the actual Starfleet Command logo. But Star Trek did some black & white publicity photos that they never copyrighted.)

Here’s our chance to change things. At We the People, the site where the White House can be petitioned, I have created the page:

Change the name of Space Force Command to Starfleet Command

To sign the petition, you have to take a moment to create an account. When 150 signatures have been gathered, it will appear publicly on the We the People site. Then signatures could really start steamrolling.

Please let people know about this—Star Trek fans, people who want to throw a monkey wrench into government, friends with too much sitting-around time. Right now, we have to use the link above, but this could go viral. And who knows what will happen?  

Movie Review: A Silent Voice

This is the first time I've reviewed a movie on Netflix. 

Shoko is a new girl in an elementary school. She is deaf. Instead of everyone being friendly to her, a number of students bully her, to the extent that they destroy her hearing aids. Shoya, a tough kid, is the meanest. But when Shoya is confronted by the school, he rats out his friends.

Ostracized in junior high, Shoya withdraws. He doesn’t try to make friends in high school. Seriously depressed, he seeks out Shoko in her school. She’s so scared of him, she runs off.

He wants to make amends, but doesn’t know how. What will happen with these two damaged people?

A Silent Voice is a beautiful movie. The way the characters move—whether children, teenagers, or adults—is completely realistic. And in typical Japanese style, there are some static scenes that show flowers or trees. It is up to you to figure out if there is anything symbolic about Shoya extending his arm for some yellow blooms that are beyond his reach.

Be warned, this movie is an emotional roller coaster. It would be nice to say that Shoya simply outgrows being a bully, but that wouldn’t be true. He had to go through his own torturous time. And it would be nice to say that Shoko stays a cheerful person, but she is just as emotionally damaged as he is. And the school doesn’t seem equipped to deal with bullying. There are no simple solutions here; just individuals not knowing how to put their lives back together from bullying and depression.

The movie does have some flaws. The names Shoya and Shoko sound too much alike. The early parts of the story are shown in a disjointed manner, which can be confusing. The use of a blue X on a person’s face to show that Shoya is not making eye contact gets tiresome. And the movie feels like it’s a little too long. However, it’s realistic in that getting over that much emotional damage would not happen instantly.

I’ve never been to Japan, but here are a few notes to explain some curiosities in the movie:

Q. What’s with all the hair colors?

A. Some anime show people all with dark hair. In this case, the animators chose very different hair colors so we can easily tell the characters apart.

Q. Why does Shoya’s mother always cook meals on what looks like a large hot plate in the middle of their equivalent of a dining table?

A. That’s normal in Japan.

Q. How much is a yen worth?

A. Less than a penny.

Q. What are the hand motions Shoya’s mother makes towards him while he is in their car?

A. In the West, we beckon with one finger up. In Japan, it’s four fingers down. So at first she beckons to him with four fingers down, then changes her mind and splays her hand at him, telling him to stay.

Q. Why do Shoko and her mother suddenly dress in kimonos?

A. For some festivals, women and teenage girls still dress in kimonos.

I know that some purists will wish to see the subtitled version, but with some characters speaking at the same time, the dubbed version will be easier to understand.

Movie Review: 1917

During World War I, Lance Corporal Tom Blake (Dean-Charles Chapman) is told that his brother’s battalions is about to walk into a trap set by the Germans. They will be massacred. Because the phone lines are cut, he and his friend Lance Corporal Will Schofield (George MacKay) are ordered to cross no-man’s land to warn them.

The Germans have withdrawn as a way of setting the trap. The two friends set out, making their way through the gruesome and corpse-strewn no-man’s land, though other soldiers warn them they have no chance of surviving. Will it be safe to use the German trenches? How can two lone soldiers hope to make their way through enemy-occupied territory to warn the other battalion?

1917 is the most immersive war movie I have ever seen. We are right there with them with seemingly impossible close-ups as they make their way through mud, rats, water-filled craters, claustrophobic trenches, and mutilated corpses. At no point was I aware that anyone was acting. They simply were the soldiers going through hazard after hazard, thinking they will be shot at any moment. The film is done in a continuous style, so the movie gives the impression it was done in two or three shots—no shifting to other viewpoints or convenient scene cuts.

This goes right up there with Saving Private Ryan and We Were Soldiers as the most realistic war movies. Some of you have sat through the horrifying first twenty minutes or so of Saving Private Ryan, but I have to warn you, the state of the corpses shown makes Saving Private Ryan look like a coming-out party. Hours later, I still feel stunned.

As long as you know what you’re in for, I recommend 1917.