richardcampbell

Xmas

Looking back, those first pictures are pretty scary. Liam and Caroline came home early in December and have been putting on weight every day. Everything's working out fine - including the midnight feedings. We've had a great Xmas, with our two special gifts being the center of attention.

Liam and Caroline

We knew there were going to be surprises in this journey, but last night with no warnings at all, Kristen began contractions (1:45am, naturally), we rushed to the hospital and Liam and Caroline introduced themselves to us. They are almost 31 weeks, they are good sized they're breathing ok, and we're going to start worrying about them every day for the next who-knows-how-long.

Liam Robert Campbell - 3lb 10oz - 3:52am, 5 November 2008

Caroline Lee Campbell - 3lb 2oz - 3:54, 5 November 2008

Spotlight on Crime

Joseph Wambaugh's Hollywood Station is a fun, semi-procedural crime novel. Though there are a couple of narrative threads, it all serves to thrust you into the seamy world of modern crime, LA style. A good fast read. (Also available from my Amazon store, visible on the left side of the page).

This Season's Man

Roundabout Theatre is putting on A Man For All Season's starring Frank Langella as the martyr Thomas More. This is a solid production, but essentially a one-man show. Someone said that the reason that this play hasn't been revived on Broadway was that the movie was so good - not a great reason, but true enough. Except for Langella's portrayal, all of the other characters (Henry VIII, Wolsey, Rich, Norfolk) are serviceable yet it's hard not to imagine Robert Shaw,  Orson Welles, John Hurt, Nigel Davenport in their roles.

Of some interest - the original script (via Wikipedia's entry on the play) by Robert Bolt is quite modern, theatrically speaking. There is a "Common Man" narrating the play and taking on different subsidiary roles as required. This explains, to some extent, the care with which those roles were written.

This production (and the movie) do away with that Brechtian touch, which I imagine is for the better. For while the play is a marvelous scholarly quotation of More's writings, conscience, and tragic defense, there's not much to the endeavor except that the main character is saint while all the rest are sinners. But as long as the saint is played by actors of the caliber of Langella (or Scofield), that's more than good enough.

(The only flaw is that the Ambassador to Spain reminds one too much of a Monty Python character!)

A Maine Travesty

I've been going up to Maine to my Uncle's cabin on Lake Arrowhead for over 25 years; He's had the place since 1965. I was told that the lake was named for the wildflower/plant which was all over the shoreline. I'm here to report that it's all been cover-up. Below is a picture I took last week:

You can compare that to plant A here or here and plant B here or here .

I think you'll agree that the plant on the lake is the pickerelweed not the arrowead .

The clincher: My photo doesn't show the flower, but during summer, the plant has a bright purple/blue cluster of flowers. And there are lots of pickerel in the lake.

Double Danger

Saw The Roundabout Theatre's production of Les Liaisons Dangereuses . Pretty good stuff, with Laura Linney and Ben Daniels. And then, odd coincidence, we had just gotten digital cable hooked up in our lake house, and we saw that Dangerous Liasons was available for free. Interestingly, the movie played out the more romantic of the two; for whatever reason, this theatrical version makes the odd choice of playing the script for laughs. Daniels deserves a lot of credit for being on stage for just about the entire 3-hour running time, but his change from heartlessness to heart-brokenness is undermined by the whole casts' exaggerated slap-stick. Only Linney retains some semblance of propriety in the midst of the amorous cruelties. John Malkovich and Glenn Close are able to make the wrenching denouement work better simply by playing it straight.

Wall-E

Some day, I'll have to put together a spreadsheet calculating the average star rating for various studios. One of the reasons to procrastinate would be that the top studio can be guessed -- What is it about Pixar that they can't seem to make a bad movie? Wall-E is great fun, and manages to balance sweetness with goofy, message with mayhem, and anti-commericialism and technophilia with a level of perfection.

What is a simple robot-screwball-romance seems to morph and grow before our eyes: old-fashioned throw-back (complete with references to Hello, Dolly ), chase movie, man's inhumanity to himself, etc. And, as if to top it all off, mostly silent (except for the sound effects, music, and android beep-boops).

I'm only disappointed that, with all the references to the film-in-a-film, they didn't finish off the atmospheric production with the cast singing Hello, Wall-E.

Expectations

In other blockbuster news, Kristen and I are expecting. In fact, we're expecting twins. Due date should be late Dec/early Jan. Probably earlier than later, they tell us. So far, all looks good and we're trying to figure out how this is all going to happen in our little NYC apartment.

Iron Man

I got to the second highest global boxoffice film of 2008 whilst Kristen was at Sex And The City. Iron Man is certainly one of the best comic-book-to-movies adaptations out there (though I confess, I never even knew the source material existed before now). As with "Indiana Jones", the plot of course is meaningless. The key is to have a great, natural lead and effortlessly quick and imaginative storytelling. As the lead, Robert Downey Jr. is out-and-out fantastic, bringing hard-work, obsessiveness, and quirkyness to the role. For story-telling, Jon Favreau (and Industrial Light & Magic) have produced another great summer action ride. Added to the mix, Jeff Bridges - of all people - handles the role of evil corporate boss with larger-than-life bravado (and lots of basso yelling). Much fun.

Indy's Back

I haven't posted in a long time, but at least not as long as Indy's been away. Spielberg's latest smash ( 2008 global box office champ ) has the daunting task of trying to live up to our memories of the past. There's no escaping that this new trek has a different tone and a couple of clunky scenes, yet it is a joyful ride nevertheless.

This time, we've got a few new characters with Sean Connery noticeably absent. I think that's a good thing; recall how Lethal Weapon became a bloated sit-com as it added second-bananas with every outing. Now, we add a new kid on the block, Shia LaBeouf, and resurrect Karen Allen as the long-suffering girlfriend. LeBeouf's fine - it's not like a Jones movie is strong on introspection anyway - but Allen doesn't do much more than smile at Indy or the camera the whole time. Thankfully, the one main scene where the two talk-it-out hits the mark.

The whole picture is more measured in its pacing than the early pics, an indication of everyone's age, perhaps. As we pick up the pieces of this episodes puzzles, we never quite reach manic levels of adventure, and the mix of Soviet spies, Incan (or whoever's) ruins, and aliens, never really makes any sense. And who cares? You'd think that after finding the Holy Grail, Indy would become a confirmed Roman Catholic - so it's easy to take the gang's gee-whiz response to aliens in stride.

At the end, it may be diminished expectations (one friend actually despises the movie), but the rest of my gang liked it just fine.

Nanotech

I would assume that we're all hip to the nanotech future? There's still a big gap between now and this, but even the intermediate future will be very, very cool. Talk about "change"!

Kings

Two Shakespearean tragedies, two damn fine performance, and two annoying productions. A few months back, we went overseas (over the East River, that is) to Brooklyn's BAM to see King Lear with Ian McKellan. It was a long, ponderous show -- starting out with the cast parading out on stage to the sound of a loud and portentious orchestral anthem. After then parading back off stage and re-entering to take their places for Act I, Scene I, we were able to settle in to the extraordinarily uncomfortable seats and watch four hours of royal backstabbing.

Whilst the overall effect was fine, the recent habit of British Shakespearean actors to overact, ham up each line, and add arbitrary snarkiness to every meter of prose, grows exhausting. There was a time when the tradition was to speak the lines plainly, letting the beauty of the words shine. (Not to mention way back in the day, when musicality of speech was rewarded). Now, lines are overwrought exaggerations, with shaking body parts, and all innuendo graphically displayed. Oddly enough, over a decade ago, McKellan's Richard III was a far more evenly modulated performance that brought novel insights into the play to the fore.

Still, by the time you get to Lear carrying in dead Cordelia, you're still transported by the ageless drama. And even an overbaked Ian McKellan is better than most anyone else.

After Lear, I thought that Macbeth would be a sure thing. It's the shortest play, and really quite straightforward. Patrick Stewart can manage this sort of thing with ease. But again, the production just wouldn't let the play be the thing. This time, we're set in a modern army of some sort -- nothing too wrong with that. Then we lather on Soviet imagery -- ok, I get it, Macbeth's assassination is akin to totalitarian regime change. But then again, every little character is encouraged to turn small parts and lines into bravura showstoppers. Never would you have guessed the sturm-und-drang brought to bear on the simple, quick comic sketch that should be the Porter's scene.

Oh well. Both evenings were put on by very talented people and there is much to recall with pleasure. But seriously, too too much effort put in to almost ruining the classics. Take it easy, next time.