thoughts from a brokenSoldier

I just watched The Daily Show, and had to post.  Stewart mopped the floor with Cramer, and it couldn’t have been more fun to watch.  IMO, it lived up to the hype, plus some.  Cramer got taken right down to the bottom - in effect begging to be let off the hook when he said "Okay, how about I try that?  I’ll do that."  Really?  Grovelling?

I loved it, and I fully plan to watch the unedited version as soon as they post it tomorrow.  They’re saying they had to cut about 8 minutes from the tape in order to keep it within the alotted time, so the rest should be just as good.

 

P.S. - Isn’t it a sad commentary to notice that this guy has been all over the NBC family of news shows, and Stewart was the first one to call him to the carpet for his obvious misconduct? 

Okay, after all the recent ire I’ve spilled onto the virtual pages here, it’s time for a little aside on a lighter note.  There is a habit among our media - country-wide - that kinds of sticks in my craw.  (I am an English Major, which explains why I take issue with this…)

In recent history, I have noticed that many journalists, national and local, have taken to using the phrase "an historic" when describing significant events in our society.  While this seems very intellectual and proper, it is quite definitely an erroneous use of the language as we have come to use it in America.  (Before you accuse me of nitpicking, be advised that I know this is a minor thing, but I wanted to stray away from the political, even if just for a moment.) 

The use of this phrase can quite easily be traced.  When speaking in the British dialects of the English language, the phrase "a historic event" is most certainly incorrect, but only because in those specific dialects, the "h" is silent.  That means that the first syllable actually pronounced is the vowel "i."  And as we know, when putting an identifying article in front of an adjective, the "a" becomes "an" if the first pronounced syllable is a vowel, illustrated by the difference between saying something such as "a building" and "an event."  But when American journalists speak, they pronounce the consonant "h" in the word historic.  So what we end up with is the phrase "an historic event."  Try it in reverse and you’d get something like the phrase "an significant event in history."  Take away the fact that British speakers display this trait, and we have no reason to place the word "an" in front of a word that begins with a consonant.  As an example, do you ever hear anyone describe something large and heavy as "an hefty item?"  You do not, even though the British dialect, true to its form, would certainly mandate such a pronunciation.  The problem, though, is that British journalists rarely ever use that phrase. 

Hey, I told you it was minor!  I simply wanted to take a break from outlining the faults of the McCain-Palin ticket for just a hot minute.  I mean hey, you can only say something so many times before it becomes a bit boring, and boring is not something I take a lot of enjoyment in being.  At the risk of being branded sexist, I’ll use a well-known axiom to explain my momentary departure from my recent theme.  Trying to get a message across to hardcore Republicans about how unfit their nominees’ ticket is is like teaching a pig to sing - the only two things you’ll accomplish are to waste your time and annoy the fuck out of the pig. 

But don’t despair…  With all this recent material surfacing about the inconsistencies in statements and policy records/ proposals from the McCain-Palin camp, I’m sure I’ll be getting back to familiar topics fairly soon!

   I just saw The Dark Knight last night, and even though I expected it to be good, it surpassed even my expectations.  This was just an excellent movie.  I originally thought that this movie might just fall victim to the sequel syndrome that has characterized a great deal of movie series, especially among the superhero genre, but within twenty minutes I knew that this was definitely not going to come to pass.  Too often, studios succumb to the temptation of making a quick buck off the original movie’s success, and the reason those franchises so often fail in that endeavor is that they tend to center the story solely around the abilities and idiosyncracies of the title characters and villains (i.e. Terminator, The Hulk - the Ang Lee version, and the original Batman movies), instead of around the story that character inhabits, which is much deeper and much more interesting.  This is emphasized by Christian Bale’s comments in response to a critic’s suggestion that Ledger could upstage him in this movie, in which he said that he in no way disagreed with that evaluation, solely due to Ledger’s own stellar portrayal - and not the circumstance of his untimely death.  I hope this trend of superhero movies focused more on the franchise’s storyline as opposed to their namesake characters continues (it seems promising, considering the this year’s pprevious superhero blockbusters Ironman and The Hulk succeeded for the same reasons), because it makes for a far more compelling and faithful reflection of the reason behind the success of the works that originally made these characters so entertaining and popular in our culture in the first place.  Ledger’s excellence in this role is elevated even more due to the fact that he was playing a role previously played by no less than a Hollywood legend;, in a movie that was also critically acclaimed, and he absolutely nailed it, in every imaginable sense of the word.  Echoing this assertion, Moviefone recently published a list (link below) of the 25 greatest movie villains of all time, in which Ledger’s Joker comes in at #5, while Nicholson’s Joker didn’t earn a spot on the list. 

http://www.moviefone.com/insidemovies/2008/07/10/best-movie-villain/ 

   And one of the main reasons it was so good was the unreal degree of success that Heath Ledger showed in his portrayal of the iconic villain.  While Nicholson’s portrayal of the infamous criminal was great in its own right, what elevated this performance even further than the original was the fact that Ledger’s Joker so effectively relates to the world we live in today.  Nicholson’s Joker was an excellent performance that stuck faithfully to the lighthearted style of Batman story that showed the Joker as a malignant trickster with a penchant for comedy along with his criminality.  Ledger’s Joker, on the other hand, embodied the type of fundamentally dangerous criminal that is not motivated out of the common material cravings of average criminals, but rather the desire to see society as we know it implode upon itself out of an unadulterated hate for it, motivated by mistreatment by that society, or simply an evil desire "to see the world burn."

   Such criminals are not swayed by our traditional means of pursuit, which makes them extremely hard to combat.  Trying to foist this particular breed of evil is both difficult and dangerous, because your options in doing so are very limited, and the most effective ones involve stooping to their level of immorality and chaotic prescriptions.  And in doing so, we may accomplish our short-term goal of apprehending them, but in the long run they have won the victory of causing civilized society to abandon just enough of its objectively moral and ethical principle to ppush it down the path towards destroying itself from within.  I know pop culture parallels to geopolitical trends are many times silly, but I think in this case a comparison is quite valid.  The Joker of Heath Ledger and his motivations are eerily similar to the motivations of the type of terrorist that threatens our current global society.  While there are some distinct differences, such as in the case of Muslim terrorists and their belief that their actions are divinely inspired, even these individuals share the realization that the most effective way to destroy a way of life is to get it to do so itself.  Thus, Ledger’s performance not only succeeded because of its excellence onscreen, but also because he managed to relate his character - without artistically compromising it - to a form of evil that we can observe pervading our world today. And as I interpreted it, the movie itself was a commentary on the choice we have in today’s society - we can choose to succumb to the desire for security in the face of destruction by relinquishing our rights in exchange for security, or we can follow the advice of Benjamin Franklin:

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

   And the suggestions that Ledger’s death was in part a result of his immersion into such a dark character are as irresponsible and speculative as they are inaccurate.  The people that would definitely know such things - his fellow cast and crew members -  have affirmed that he was in no way a victim of the sort of method acting that requires constantly remaining in such a dark character, a style so marvelously utilized by Daniel Day Lewis in movies such as Gangs of New York and The Ballad of Jack and Rose. (In the latter case, Lewis repeatedly resisted the suggestions from his wife - who directed the film - that he play the title role of Jack, because it was a role in which his character had implicit, if not occasionally explicit, sexual overtones with his character’s own daughter, and his style of immersion would possibly lead to him having very real emotional difficulties in transitioning out of the role.)  Instead, Christian Bale plainly stated a sentiment echoed by most of Ledger’s fellow cast members that when the cameras were rolling, he was as in-character as one could get, but once scenes were cut he was his usual joking, "laid-back" self, in no way tormented by the demands of playing such a disturbed psychopathic character.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/05/27/christian-bale-opens-up-a_n_103701.html

"He was incredibly intense in his performance but incredibly mellow and laid-back." 

   In the end, Ledger’s performance, in my humble opinion, is the very definition of Oscar-worthy, and that claim has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that he is no longer with us.  While his death was tragic, and definitely did - due to the nature of our humanity - have an effect on the publicity during the run-up to its release, from an artistic standpoint it is utterly saddening to realize that there will be no other opportunities to see what his prolific talent and impressively broad theatric range could do with other roles in the future.  As an unabashed humanist, I am truly sad that the world lost a great human being, father, and enjoyable person.  And as a avid fan of artistic talent and performance, I am likewise utterly saddened by the fact that we will never again get the chance to see such a talented performer do what he so enjoyed and devoted his life to doing.  In saying goodbye to Heath Ledger, I feel sorrow for the loved ones he so prematurely left behind, but I also take solace in the fact that in his final performance, he got to show us how positively gifted he really was.

Heath, you were a true master of your craft, and you will be sorely and sincerely missed now that you are gone. But, at least in the mind of this soldier, you’ll be just as earnestly and dearly remembered for what you showed us all before you left.