Some Thoughts on two celebrated Black Mirror episodes

(I'd posted this on Facebook, and I've migrated it here for something a bit more permanent.)

Some thoughts on the two most celebrated (as far as I can tell) episodes of BLACK MIRROR ("San Junipero" and "U.S.S. Callister"). First thing is -- yes, I enjoyed them both, especially "U.S.S. Callister". But, I have some quibbles wtih the reactions I've seen to both, in one case on moral grounds, in the other simply a feeling that the story is a bit overpraised... I'll expand after some

SPOILER SPACE ...

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Ok, "U.S.S. Callister". As those who have seen it know, the episode is about a creepy technology officer for a company that has created a really impressive virtual game space. He -- who has been cheated by his partner, and who is a useless loser with women -- has created a private version of the game space, modelling it on a show obviously based on STAR TREK, and he has created versions of a number of his fellow workers (using their DNA via some unconvincing magic tech) and imprisoned them in that game space eternally. The women are creepily "enhanced" for, apparently, his sexual excitement (though no one has genitals -- his hangups obviously include fear of actual sex), the men are humiliated, any of them are changed into monsters if they cross certain lines.

OK, so far so good. This guy is pretty creepy (though his worst "real life" sin seems to be that he is "too starey" at times), and what he has done to the virtual copies of his co-workers -- "copies" which are conscious and feeling and, and which change based on their "virtual"experiences -- is horrible, and deserves punishment. And, a punishment is devised -- his virtual copy is enslaved in some sort of isolated bubble universe, while (most of the) rest of the crew is freed to the open network, on a version of the starship that might be able to do real cool stuff.

What's the problem? Well, the real life version of the bad guy, as far as I can tell, is essentially murdered. (He's stuck linked into the game space, can't get out, and so will die of thirst/starvation in a little while.) And nobody seems to care. What he needs is some psychological treatment. Murder seems a long step too far.

That moral objection aside -- and I should note that the episode itself doesn't necessarily endorse his murder -- viewers, I think, are supposed to notice what's been done, and check their own reactions.-- the whole thing is very well done, and the final jump into a virtual space that seems like a fun and expansive universe is pretty cool.

Now, "San Junipero". The title space, which strongly resembles Santa Cruz (as hinted by the movie poster for LOST BOYS in the opening scene) is actually a virtual space, where people can visit for a few hours a week; and where people who are dying can upload themselves and presumably live forever. That's a fine idea, but it's a VERY OLD idea, treated in too many SF stories to enumerate. There are obvious issues to consider, and they've been considered, again and again. In this episode, the central story is about two people, a Lesbian woman who we eventually learn has been confined to a hospital bed for decades after she became paralyzed in an accident resulting partly from her parents' terrible reaction to her coming out; and a bisexual woman who had had a long happy marriage to a man who had objections to "passing over" -- being uploaded in San Junipero. This woman -- Kelly -- resists the other woman's plea to join her in San Junipero after she -- after both of them -- die.

The thing is, the objections to uploading are given very short shrift. And San Junipero -- to my mind -- is portrayed as a very shallow place. All you can do there is go to bars, have sex, and drive cars too fast (because after all you won't die permanently if you crash). Doesn't that seem like kind of a thin life? And don't the 20 year old bodies everyone has seem kind of a cliche?

Mind you, I still liked the episode, and thought it very slickly done, very well executed. But kind of shallow.

Film Review: Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing, Missouri

We finally saw Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing, Missouri yesterday. This is the much praised new film by Martin McDonagh. This is McDonagh's third feature film. We saw the first two: In Bruges (2008) and Seven Psychopaths (2012). (Thanks to our son Geoff for pointing us at In Bruges.) Those films, particularly In Bruges, were both excellent -- twisty and blackly funny and intelligent and involving. Three Billboards is also brilliant -- indeed, it's his best film, I think. It can be described in the same terms I used above except it's not twisty -- and it is emotionally stunning in a way the first two films really aren't.

Some of this is acting. Three Billboards stars Frances McDormand, Woody Harrelson, and Sam Rockwell. McDormand is getting tremendous Oscar buzz, and she deserves it, but one shouldn't slight Harrelson and Rockwell, who are both exceptional. (I should mention that McDormand and Rockwell, in particular, are two of my favorite actors.)

The story is in its way fairly simple. McDormand plays Mildred Hayes, whose daughter Angela was raped and murdered some months prior to the film's action. The crime is unsolved, and she decides to put up a series of billboards near the murder site, stating: "Raped While Dying"/"Still No Arrests"/"How Come, Chief Willoughby?". Her grief and rage are understandable, but her placement of blame is utterly unfair -- the police department has done their best (possibly somewhat limited by small town resources), but the crime is simply one of those that may be beyond resolution.

The story turns more on the local reaction to the billboards, which is mostly negative -- indeed, as much an overreaction as Mildred's blame of Chief Willoughby. Willoughby (played by Harrelson) is an honorable man, with a beautiful Australian (?) wife and two young daughters. And he's dying of cancer. His reaction to the billboards is composed partly of anger at Mildred's unfair criticism of him, but it's blended with compassion for her situation, and a lot of tolerance for her actions (which include some outright criminality). The rest of the town is less forgiving, harassing her teenaged son, harassing her African American boss -- and her dentist even tries to pull her teeth without novacaine. The hostility extends to the advertising firm that rented her the billboard space. Mildred's husband, who had left her for a 19-year-old not long before Angela's murder, is also upset at her -- for a constellation of reasons that go beyond the billboards, of course, and that intersect in ways that cause intense guilt in both of them -- Mildred especially.

I haven't mentoned the imost important character besides Mildred -- Jason Dixon (played by Rockwell) -- a frankly and violently racist cop. Willoughby doesn't approve of his actions, and reins him in when he can, but seems a step too tolerant, too sure he can bring out the good he's convinced Dixon has in him. But we learn, over time, that Dixon is a loser six ways from Sunday -- with the help of his quite awful mother. It's obvious that he takes out his personal shortcomings on anyone he can -- and somehow, between the writing and Rockwell's acting, we feel a bit for him -- even though we cheer his (much earned) downfall.

The movie has a couple of turning points -- an intensely moving development in Willoughby's life -- terrible crimes committed by both Jason Dixon and Mildred Hayes (in both case somewhat unpunished, at least by the justice system) -- and what seems a promising break in the Angela Hayes case. But it doesn't offer any easy answers, nor any real redemption or cathartic resolution. We are, it seems, urged to cheer for Mildred, but it becomes clear that she is essentially broken, simply too obsessed with revenge, and too willing to let her obsession smash anyone around her -- the basically good, like Willoughby and like her son; and the not so good, like Dixon and her ex-husband. Dixon is even more broken, and with less reason, but they end up literally in the same place, looking for someone to take their hate and anger out on who just might deserve it.

Are there faults? Of course there are. The biggest fault, I think, is the unconvincing portrayal of (fictional) Ebbing, Missouri. I'm a Missourian, so maybe I notice more -- but the location doesn't look like Missouri. (I would guess it's supposed to be set in the Ozarks, in a town maybe like Dexter or perhaps more like West Plains.) That's a nitpick (I believe the movie was shot in North Carolina, and it does look like that). But otherwise the town doesn't quite hold together -- the High School looks too big, the police station too small and old. There's a point where Dixon tries to explain to his Mother why white people can't just order blacks around like they used to -- "The South has changed", he says. But no one from Missouri would call it part of "the South". None of these faults really harm the overall movie -- but they do make it clear that it was written and directed by an Irishman who has possibly not even been to the state.

One thing that's really important in movies is music, and the music here is wonderful. (The music was coordinated by the great Carter Burwell, probably best known for his work with the Coen Brothers.) Best of all is the song that both opens and closes the movie: "Buckskin Stallion Blues", one of the incomparable Townes Van Zandt's greatest songs. The opening version is Van Zandt's original, the closing version is a lovely cover by a singer I had not known of before, but will listen to more now, Amy Annelle.

Bottom line: this is a wonderful, wrenching, movie. It had me in helpless tears at least twice. Granting that I haven't seen all the most praised movies of the year, I have this at the top of my list of 2017 movies (though The Shape of Water is pretty darn close).

Old Bestseller: The Social Secretary, by David Graham Phillips

Old Bestseller: The Social Secretary, by David Graham Phillips

a review by Rich Horton

Sometimes the author's life story is far more interesting (and shocking!) than the events of their novels. So it is with David Graham Phillips, who was murdered, at the age of 43, by a man who thought one of Phillips' characters was based on his sister, in a libelous fashion. (The killer then committed suicide.)

David Graham Phillips was another of a long string of influential and popular novelists from Indiana who were active around the turn of the 20th Century. (Others include Booth Tarkington, Meredith Nicholson, Charles Major, George Ade, James Whitcomb Riley, and Theodore Dreiser.) Phillips was born in 1867. After college (Asbury College in Indiana (now DePauw) and then Princeton) he worked as a journalist in Cincinnati before moving to New York. He had much success in this field, and was considered one of the important "muckrakers", notably publishing an article called "The Treason of the Senate", which was one impetus for the eventual passing of the 17th amendment, which allowed for direct election of Senators. His first novel, The Great God Success (1901) sold well enough that he quit his newspaper position and concentrated on freelance investigative journalism as well as novels. He eventually published over 20, written over about a decade. It seems that most of them dealt with significant social issues, particularly the social and economic position of women. (He never married, living with his sister Carolyn until his death in 1911. She prepared his last novels for publication, and I wonder if she had a hand in writing them.) His most famous novel might be Susan Lenox, not published until 1917, which concerns a prostitute.

(Cover by Clarence F. Underwood)

In this context The Social Secretary seems an outlier. It is very short (about 25,000 words) and very light. It was published in 1905 by the Indianapolis firm of Bobbs, Merrill, though my copy is a Grosset and Dunlap reprint, from about the same time. It is illustrated by Clarence F. Underwood, with "decorations" by Ralph Fletcher Seymour. (I am not quite sure what the "decorations" are meant to be, unless that's a credit for the design of the book.)

The story is told via the supposed diary entries of Augusta (Gus) Talltowers, a young woman of a very good Washington, D.C. family that has fallen on hard times. Forced to get a job, she becomes the social secretary for Mrs. Burke, the wife of a new Senator from a Western State. The Burkes are relatively uncultured, "common", and Gus determines to use her knowledge of the social ways of DC, along with the Burkes' money, to establish them in society, to the political benefit of Mr. Burke.

Along the way Gus takes very much to Mrs. Burke -- "Ma" as she insists on being called. Gus doesn't take as easily to Bucyrus Burke, the eligible and appropriately aged scion of the family, though her friends try to persuade her to set her cap for him -- he'll have enough money to solve her family's financial problems. But "Cyrus" just seems silly to Gus. Gus has a suitor of her own, a Colonel Lafollette, but she finds him boring. She is more interested in the impoverished Robert Gunton, a friend of the Burkes.

However, as Gus's efforts on behalf of the Burkes are a smashing success, Robert falls for Nadezhda, the dangerous sister of the Ambassador of an Eastern European nation (no name given, I suppose "Ruritania" will do). A mild diplomatic incident is threatened. Also, Ma Burke has something of a nervous collapse from too much partying. And somehow Cyrus seems less annoying than he had ...

Well, of course, all works out swimmingly. Robert Gunton's masterly ways tame Nadezhda and charm her family. Ma Burke pulls through just fine. And Cyrus finally figures out how to properly court Gus. It's a very slight book, pleasant enough but really a bit less fun than I had really hoped. It is worth noting that besides the romance plot there is a bit of neep about the social world -- and how that affected the politics -- in Washington at that time -- it's minor stuff, but it's of some interest.