And now here is Ben Stein, sneering and scoffing at Darwin, a man who spent decades observing and pondering the natural world — that world Stein glimpses through the window of his automobile now and then, when he’s not chattering into his cell phone. Stein claims to be doing it in the name of an alternative theory of the origin of species: Yet no such alternative theory has ever been presented, nor is one presented in the movie, nor even hinted at. […] When our greatest achievements are blamed for our greatest moral failures, that is a blood libel against Western civilization itself.

John Derbyshire on Expelled on National Review Online

I just got back from watching the newly-released film adaptation of Ian McEwan’s novel Atonement. It was, quite simply, brilliant. I can’t remember when I saw a better film. Visually, it leaves everybody (including Merchant Ivory) in the dust: the scenes on the beach at Dunkirk were some of the most powerful depictions of war that I know of. The metafictional elements of the novel, always a challenge in film adaptations, came across perfectly.
This should be a slam-dunk for the “Best Picture” Oscar.

I’m waiting for the 9:15am showing of “The Golden Compass” to start. The Cinerama was the obvious choice of venue: a big, extravagant setting for an over-the-top film. After reading the reviews ((Decidedly mixed, as you can see.)) , I decided to re-read the books before seeing the film; I’ve finished the first two and will knock off the third this weekend. (Of course none of the books were originally called “The Golden Compass”; that’s an American revision.)
More after the movie is over.
[Later]
So, a very mixed bag. If only the director had insisted on an extra hour; there’s too much packed into the 113 minutes allotted for this. (But then a couple of scenes are dragged out too long, especially the climactic battle.) On the other hand, the actress that they found for Lyra, Dakota Blue Richards, is perfect. Here’s Ty Burr in the Boston Globe:

Any adaptation of Pullman’s fiction hinges on its Lyra, and in the first-timer Richards, Weitz has found someone worth following. Rangy and impetuous, with a sour, tilted mouth and big eyes that narrow with suspicion, Richards suggests the foul-mouthed street urchin and the future grande dame; she’s not conventionally pretty, but she has beauties in her. Above all, she’s whip-smart and curious – a real adventuress. She makes the “Narnia” kids look vaguely feeble.

So often when you see the film of a favourite book, there’s a jarring effect: “I didn’t imagine her looking like that!” But Richards’ Lyra is an improvement on my imagination, which is delightful.
Much was made of the fact that the director had tried to downplay the identification of the Magisterium with the Catholic Church, and to present it as a vague, generic form of authoritarian institution. Many atheists expressed frustration that Pullman’s clear anti-religious message was being diluted. I don’t think they need worry: the Magisterium is clearly, unequivocally, depicted as a religious organization, and it is unambiguously evil.
If you know the books, you will probably enjoy the film, although the clumsy preamble and bizarre resequencing are likely to frustrate you. If you don’t know the books, read them first. Either way, try to see the film on a really big screen. And hopefully the “director’s cut” DVD will be twice as long.

Finally! The US broadcast of the second season of Life On Mars started this evening. I’ve watched the first episode, and it’s as compelling as ever. Now if they could just release season 1 on DVD over here… ((There was a review of the new season in today’s San Jose Mercury News, which I’m testing on my Kindle, and the writer got me all excited by stating that the season 1 DVD was “readily available”. Well, yes, if you have a DVD player that takes Region 2 discs, and you order it from the UK. I’d rather have a kosher Region 1 copy.))

I’m at the Cinerama in Seattle, waiting for the 9:50am showing of “Beowulf”. It’s the first time I’ve been here, and the first time in years that I’ve been in a “full-sized” movie theatre. I’d forgotten what it was like. Fake stars in the ceiling, a huge stage curtain which has just parted to reveal what must have seemed a huge screen… before the era of iMax.
The trailers have just started. There are just 12 people in this cavernous space. Time to watch…
UPDATE: I enjoyed the film; I’d probably rate it seven out of ten. You have to see it on a big screen – iMax or Cinerama – or you’ll lose most of the grand sweep of the action. On the other hand, I don’t mind seeing it in 2-D rather than 3-D; it was quite vivid and immersive enough for me. It’s rated PG-13, but that feels a bit of a stretch. The “swiving”, ribaldry and nudity are just fine, but the violence is very graphic, intense, relentless, and hyper-realistic.
Yes, Angelina Jolie is gorgeously, unabashedly naked. OK, so they smoothed off her nipples, and gold-plated her from the neck down, but so what. And the 30 foot flagellum works beautifully.
I read a few reviews of the movie yesterday, and none of them picked up on what seemed to me an obvious angle. This is a film designed to look like a videogame. The visual realism of the latest PS3 and XBox360 games is approaching that of film, but it still has a way to go… so now film is starting to bridge the gap from the other direction.

Inspired by Andrew Sullivan’s review, I went to see the documentary “No End in Sight” this evening. As Andrew writes…

… it is worth seeing again what Baghdad was the morning after it was liberated: still a viable city, still a place where sane, non-sectarian Iraqis with education and decency could see, if only dimly, a way forward. You see and hear also from the many good people who did their best in this effort across the government and, of course, in the military; and the many Iraqis who were eager at first to join hands and build a new country. Even then, it would have been very, very hard. We’ll never know for sure if it was going to be impossible. But we do know that, with this president and vice-president and defense secretary Rumsfeld, what chance we had was consciously, arrogantly, recklessly, criminally thrown away. The toll in human life, in American honor, in American power, in financial waste, and in the war on terror will be up to historians to measure. But it is immense.

As Andrew says, we’ll never know what might have been; nevertheless, it is very clear that a few key decisions, taken by a few reckless ideologues, ((One of the most critical decisions was Paul Bremer’s disbanding of the Iraqi army. Earlier this month, Bremer published an op-ed piece in the NYT in which he defended the decision. Now Charles Ferguson, producer of “No End in Sight”, has posted a devastating video rebuttal of Bremer’s piece, with specific testimony from many of the principals. It’s clear that Bremer and Slocombe are lying, probably to deflect criticism from Bush and Cheney that they were asleep at the switch.)) during a few months in 2003, virtually guaranteed the disastrous results with which we must now contend. Criminal incompetence doesn’t begin to describe it.
After leaving the cinema, I couldn’t shake the feeling that for many of the Bushies, this whole thing was some kind of ghastly videogame: exciting, but unreal, and ultimately trivial. Rumsfeld’s giggling over his silly jokes. The brand-new graduate from Georgetown, dropped into the Green Zone to take charge(!) of the planning for Baghdad traffic (and whisked away again after a few weeks.) The CPA spokesperson who couldn’t speak Arabic!!! Is this the best that America could do?

This afternoon I decided to see The Simpsons Movie. More fæces, more nudity, more filial speeches: it could have been a sequel to “Death at a Funeral”. But it wasn’t. It was just another very, very funny film. Matt and co. made excellent use of the big screen; it was a lot more than simply a collection of TV episodes. Recommended.

Just got home from watching Death At a Funeral downtown. ((The trailer is here.)) It was very funny in a very English way, which means that some of the audience (including yours truly) were laughing hysterically, while others seemed confused and occasionally grossed out. It was good to see my favourite actors from “Spooks”/”MI-5”, Mathew Macfadyen and Keeley Hawes, while Allan Tudik (whom most will remember as the pilot in “Serenity”) was inspired as the inadvertent victim of hallucinogenic “recreational pharmaceuticals”.
Good fun. And then after lunch I celebrated by going up to Capitol Hill and getting (by my standards) a fairly radical haircut at Scream.

Tom, Kate and Hannah – the three other members of the “Fellowship” – are visiting Seattle this weekend. On Saturday we explored Pioneer Square, prowled around Uwajimaya, grabbed a hasty lunch, then took a bus over to the Pacific Science Center at Seattle Center. The new Harry Potter film was playing there, and it was the duty of the Fellowship to watch it together. A nice bonus was that it was in the new Boeing iMax Theater, and the last 20% of the film was in 3D!
We adjudged the film “thoroughly enjoyable and satisfying”, which led to discussions of the final Harry Potter volume (which all of us except Tom had read). The recurring issue was the sheer implausibility of the Epilogue to that book. I tried to explain it away as “magic”, but that didn’t feel right.
After the film we explored the Seattle Center. Although the weather was perfect, we decided not to join the extremely long line to go up the Space Needle. Instead we returned to my apartment and kicked back for a while. Around 8pm we headed down South Jackson Street to watch the annual Seafair Torchlight Parade. ((Kate pointed out, correctly, that no torches were in evidence, but nobody seemed worried by this.)) It was a very long ((and occasionally disorganized)) parade, and the final marching band didn’t come through until around 10:30. I’ll try to post some pictures (and video) soon.
Tomorrow we want to get out on the water for a while. Maybe a cruise, or perhaps a ferry ride.

Around lunchtime, I developed a yen for a movie. It’s a warm, slightly humid day; A/C would be nice; what shall I see? Maybe a bit of mindless fun with “Transformers”? I checked the reviews at RottenTomatoes: not promising. OK, if “Transformers” was at 56%, what was the top-rated film currently in the cinemas? I scanned the full listing, and although the animated film Ratatouille had an outstanding score of 96%, the outright winner was Once, with 97%. I watched the trailer – and I was hooked. I finished lunch, hopped a bus up to Capitol Hill, and went to the Harvard Exit.
It was a superb film.
One reason that I think I liked it so much was that it was set in Dublin, and I was there so recently that it was particularly vivid. Just as Tokyo is “the third character” in “Lost in Translation”, so Dublin – especially the area around Temple Bar, Grafton Street, and St. Stephen’s Green – is a character in this film. And as in “Lost in Translation”, the film revolves around the way in which an unexpected and ephemeral relationship can offer the possibility of change. The romantic in me wonders if the relationship is going to be the outcome, rather than simply a catalyst. The film-lover relaxes and appreciates the economy of the art that brings these things to life, and makes us care so much.
Oh yes – I bought the soundtrack CD on the way out of the cinema. Because even though some of the dialogue (with heavy Irish and Czech accents) is hard to follow, the music is the true language of this film. And there are no surrogates here: the actors wrote and sang their own compositions.