But I did finally finish James Clavell's historical novel Shogun, and I'm on to the next volume of the Asian Saga, Tai-Pan. What can I say about Shogun? I don't know, it's kind of hard, because I really liked the first half of it, but the second half kind of dragged for me. And when the second half of your book is the same size of most authors' entire book, that's a bit of a problem.
So, plot: John Blackthorne is a British sailor who ends up in Japan with his crew. But he's smarter than the rest of his crew, which earns him the attention of the local daimyo, eventually landing him in the hands of one of the country's most powerful daimyos, Lord Toranaga. Toranaga is currently at war with his rival Ishido, who leads a coalition of other powerful daimyos looking to seize absolute control of the country, under the guise of protecting the seven year-old legitimate heir of the nation's power structure from harm. Toranaga sees that Blackthorne can be useful in his battle as he seeks to protect the Heir and keep his own power, and he begins to glean knowledge from the Englishman while manipulating him (and the rest of the country) like pieces in chess.
The novel is based off of actual historical occurrences and people, but the characters' names are changed, which wisely allows Clavell to branch off from the historical record and give the characters adventures beyond what their real counterparts were known to have had. And this is really where Clavell shines, in giving us the fullness and complexity of feudal Japan. This is a man who does his research, and his world-creating is peerless ("What about Tolkein and HIS awesome ability to create a world from nothing?" Shut up, nerd!) He also possesses fine clarity, an ability to not only explain the complicated relationships and circumstances, but to explain them clearly. He does the same thing with characters, so quickly and easily establishing who the characters are and what their position is that I rarely, rarely found myself forgetting who anyone was, a major triumph for a book with probably 60-75 characters. I will say, though, his descriptive powers do not include clarity of setting and action. I found it absolutely impossible to picture Osaka castle, or figure out where anyone was standing on a ship at any point, the battle scenes were a mess and the earthquake scene was even worse. I was lucky enough to have a first printing of the book, with a map of Japan on the inside covers; paperback owners may want to have an atlas handy.
Clavell obviously knows here that action is not his strength, and so he fills the book with manipulation and political intrigue. For a popular fiction book, there is a LOT of intrigue in here, and it helps raise the intellectual bar. But it's this very feature that also drags the book down. The first half of the book is a fine balance of action and intrigue, and the plot clips along marvelously with excitement and suspense. But around the second half, one particular plot development requires that Toranaga's plans hit a wall for a while... and for hundreds of pages, the action is stalled. Every time that something almost happens, something else immediately happens to keep that first thing from happening. And that is a really frustrating read. When we finally get back to Ishido's territory the balance is struck again, and though the ending is low-key it's still very well done. But for some time the novel drags its feet. What really hurts Clavell is that he gives absolutely no sense of the passage of time. Schemes fall apart seemingly minutes after they begin, new schemes are put into motion by something that happened either days or seconds ago. With no indication of how much time is passing, it's impossible to tell when any event is happening in relation to anything else, and in a story of intrigue, a timeline of events is very important. Otherwise it just feels like everything and nothing is all happening at once.
I wouldn't call these problems "bad writing," though. I think Clavell just wanted to write his first epic novel, and the thing honestly got away from him. Tai-Pan (which I did read before, several years ago), is shorter and tighter, and I don't remember it having these weird pacing problems. I'm looking forward to the future novels of the series, but Shogun itself felt like a bit of a letdown. And it's a shame, because most of it is really very good. Putting its plotting problems aside and remembering all the good moments and intricate detail that ran all throughout (even when it was slow, it still had good parts), I think I can safely say I liked it. Just didn't like it nearly as much as I could have.
It's been a while since my last AlterBadger review, so I have a few movies stacked up. Let's try to give at lest a little attention to those worthy few.
The Best Years of Our Lives was shot after World War II, and concerns the lives of several veterans returning home from the front, only to find that it's nearly impossible to get back to their daily lives. What surprised me is that, for a film made in the 40s, it's a surprisingly realistic story, told quite well. Director William Wyler is practically a human factory for classic Hollywood films (Roman Holiday, The Heiress, Ben-Hur, The Children's Hour, How to Steal a Million, Funny Girl), so I shouldn't have been too surprised. But genuine emotional realism is hard to find in the forties, and this dark and somber film absolutely delivers. Of course there is some melodrama, and some heartfelt swelling music, and some really bad acting, but there's also some really good acting to balance it out, particularly from the female characters who are actually allowed to act like real human beings for a change. It felt more like a novel than a Hollywood film, and portrayed men in uniform with an honesty and evenhandedness generally lacking from the time period. The film won an Academy Award for Best Picture, and I'd say it was well-earned. Fine emotional drama, overall very well done.
My Fellow Americans is a 90s comedy with Jack Lemmon. But surprisingly, it's better than every other 90s comedy with Jack Lemmon. I really found myself enjoying this one. Lemmon plays a former Republican President. He and a former Democratic President, played by James Garner, become aware of a dirty scheme being perpetrated by the current President, and they set out to bring him down, as they run for their lives from government forces. Predictably they find themselves among "real Americans," and what you'd expect is that the real folk touch their hearts with their real ways, and teach them a lesson about America. But that doesn't happen. Oh no, Americans are some really, genuinely fucked-up people, and that message runs right along side-by-side with any portrayal of "real America." It's a twisted odyssey across a landscape of idiots and angels, and Lemmon and Garner are just absolutely perfect at their roles. They play very well off each other, and off of everyone else. It's still 90s fluff, but in the very best way. I liked it.
Re-watched Monty Python's Life of Brian. Still as good as you remember. Though a little less time could have been devoted to the Biggus Dickus jokes...
Also re-watched one of my favorite 90s Woody Allen films, Bullets Over Broadway. John Cusack, a man born to star in Woody Allen films, plays a playwright who desperately needs funding for his play. So naturally his producer finds a financier... only problem is, it's the mob. A mob doll is shoehorned into one of the play's roles, a play that is already suffering from being turgid and overly intellectual. When the doll's bodyguard steps in and helps to rewrite the play, Cusack's character finds himself the toast of the town... for a play that he didn't even write. Now completely enmeshed with the mob, he has to find a way out, while trying not to sacrifice any artistic integrity that he has left. There's so much great stuff, it's hard to describe it all here: the writer's affair with an older actress, the reedy-voiced ingenue and her dog, the leading man with his food addiction who finds himself a little too attracted to the mob doll for his own good, and the doll herself, one of Woody's favorite actresses, Dianne Wiest. Wiest is just absolutely hilarious in her role, with perfect delivery, and Cusack is even better. The biggest compliment I can give this film is that I honestly can't think of anything bad to say about it.
Also got my copy of (500) Days of Summer in the mail from Netflix, and since I just watched it I can give it a longer review. Yes, this would be by director Marc Webb, whose name alone certainly qualifies him to direct a Spider-Man movie, and that is exactly what he's doing right now. I actually put this movie on my queue many, many months ago, before his spidery hire was announced, and I'm not going to launch into a discussion of whether, based on this, he could make a good superhero film. Because really, it's impossible to judge that kind of thing. Who would have thought the director of Elf would make such a good Iron Man movie? Who would have thought the director of Iron Man would have made such an appallingly shitty Iron Man 2?
So, the basics: Tom is a sensitive young man. Summer is a free-and-easy young woman (yes, her name is Summer; you didn't think the title would be a metaphor or something, did you?). They begin a relationship, and the story of their relationship lasts for 500 days. The film makes the smart choice to tell the story in a non-linear way (with a helpful counter telling us which day we're on at any given point), so that even amongst the budding thrill of new romance, we know that things will eventually go wrong. And thank god, because the budding new romance is really pretty cheesy. I seriously almost turned the thing off after 20 minutes. The film doesn't start getting interesting until its second act, when things inevitably start to collapse. The thing is, two people falling in love isn't an interesting story, anybody can fall in love, that takes nothing. It's why they don't STAY in love that tells you something about the characters and the world they live in (that world being Los Angeles, which they mention once about forty minutes in, though given how much they talk about the nature of their city it's really kind of an important point).
So what do we learn about the characters? Well, Tom is really sensitive. Like, a lot. And he's kind of an asshole toward women, but I don't think I was supposed to think that. And Summer is free and easy. She represents a sort of hyper-male fantasy: she puts out quickly, she watches porn, she's had sex with other girls, she wants to keep everything "casual," she's openly affectionate in public, she wears dresses and bows in her hair, she expresses few opinions on topics other than love and sex... the film makes it very clear early on that what we're dealing with is not an accurate representation of "the truth," but a stylized presentation of Tom's memories. So really, it makes sense not to present the characters realistically, but it ends up making them very uninteresting to watch. I understand it's a stylistic choice, but it also means I don't give a shit about these people.
Webb gamely plays with the film, throwing in plenty of weird camera tricks and effects and fun moments; the highlight of the film (featured prominently in the trailer) is a massive outdoor dance number celebrating Tom's sexual conquest, complete with an animated bluebird alighting on his shoulder. Webb has a strong presentation, and even the quieter emotional scenes are, at times, genuinely moving. There is a real sobriety apparent in the scenes following the characters' break-up. The script, unfortunately, can't keep up, either in quirkiness or sobriety. Its definition of quirkiness is to throw in enough alternative music references to choke a very large horse, which Webb gleefully accents with a metric ton of gratingly similar folk-rock tunes that blare with music-video dominance over the scenes. It would be nice to actually hear what the characters are saying underneath the music, but on the other hand that would mean listening to the actors, who themselves can only really only be described as "pretty good." It must be hard for an actor to be expected to depict emotional reality in an unrealistic way but still with a hint of realism, especially when the characters are only capable of two emotions each.
The film's saving grace is that it did have SOME real emotional impact nestled amongst the schmaltz. And, unlike some romantic comedies, it does have some really great comedy. There were many moments that were truly, genuinely funny. Funny enough to compensate for its shortcomings? Yeah, but not really. Look, this is a hotel movie: if you're in a hotel, and you don't have anywhere to be for a while, and it's on HBO, it's well worth your time. You'll like it, you'll have fun. Should you run out and rent it? There are definitely a lot of other movies you should see first. (500) Days of Summer is a small-budget film aimed at teenagers, and any time you have that, you're looking at quirkiness over quality. And Webb's visual quirkiness will get him a lot of jobs, and anyone who wants to make a film that's "a little different" will call him (or Tim Burton, but Webb will be so much cheaper to hire!). And he'll produce many quirky films with neat little visual stuff that looks good in the trailers, and that'll be his career for the next ten years. Unfortunately, quirkiness ultimately can't make a whole film, and it doesn't here either.
American Film Badger: And we're at #16 on the list, so let's see who we have...
#16 on the 1998 list is... All About Eve. My god, that is a wonderful film, just wonderful. An actress at the top of her game is shadowed by a younger actress who seeks to replace her. Creepy, atmospheric, and with very fine acting. One of the very best American films ever made, no question.
And on the 2007 list, the #16 slot goes to... another Hollywood drama, Sunset Boulevard. This was #12 on the 1998 list, so let's see what I had to say about it then: "This one's a very dark comedy, where a washed-up actress becomes obsessed with a young screenwriter who uses her mansion to hide out from debt collectors. It's Hollywood satire mixed with psychological thriller, shot in beautifully moody black-and-white. It's no secret that the main character dies at the end, the movie opens with him floating face down in a pool. How he gets there is the story." Yep, that sums it up. I've seen a few Billy Wilder films, and I've got to say, he's one of the best.
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