Published: 20 May 2013 : 2 days ago
[Madman]
The Americans have this thing called manifest destiny, an inviolable right – nay, requirement – to explore, expand, conquer and settle. The Great Plains, an area that covers roughly the middle of the US, capturing Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas and a bunch of other states that chews my word count, is living proof of manifest destiny. It was once an incredibly fertile land where dreamers and chancers became instant farmers and land holders. Urged by the government to service the post-WWI booming economy and become the food basket of the country, millions of acres of rich, moist soil quickly became fields of glowing yellow wheat. Then Wall Street crashed and grain prices plummeted. Faced with lower returns, the farmers of the Great Plains made a fatal miscalculation and planted twice the amount of seed to make up the difference. Unsurprisingly, it backfired, destroying the soil. Then drought and one of the greatest man-made ecological disasters in history was about to unfold.
Fast-spreading winds picked up tonnes of unanchored, overworked soil dragging it hundreds of kilometres across the country and out to sea in noxious clouds hundreds of metres high and wide. Day turned into night in minutes, dust clogged the mechanics of mammal anatomy and thousands perished. The Fruit Bowl became the Dust Bowl and 2.5 million people left the Great Plains in the greatest mass exodus in US history.
The Dust Bowl is like every other Ken Burns doco – daunting narration, stark imagery (the era was one of photo journalism’s biggest gifts) and heavy-hearted recollections of survivors. Burns’ style is timeless – 1080p hi-def might be the new standard, but this is grainy, methodical and defiantly unglamorous old school filmmaking. At nearly four hours long it’s a typical slog, but The Dust Bowl is hypnotically heartbreaking and not nearly as – ahem – dry as expected.
JUSTIN HOOK
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Published: 20 May 2013 : 2 days ago
[Warner Home Video]
The third most popular Google autocorrect for Ernest Hemingway is ‘manly’. It’s fair to assume it references the author’s legendary masculinity and chronic oversupply of testosterone and not the Sydney beachside suburb where our presumptive PM dons his budgies. Hemingway was a giant of 20th Century literature in every conceivable way. His reputation as a hard living, hard drinking knockabout and knocked-out bear-of-a-man has only grown since he took his own life in 1962. He also loved cats, so would have loved the internet. Sadly, it’s a hypothesis we cannot test.
In the mid-‘30s Hemingway met Martha Gellhorn. They ended up travelling to Europe soon after to report on the Spanish Civil War. Gellhorn was a bold, forthright journalist who had already carved out an enviable career in reportage as a chronicler of the Great Depression. Regardless of whether Hemingway was her match or foil, the pair spent most of the next ten years together. The partnership was sealed in a hotel room under constant barrage by the Spanish Army; a fitting start to a fiery relationship.
Nicole Kidman, as Gelhorn, pulls out one of those performances that reminds us she can actually act and isn’t all pale ghostly perma-shocked glances and awkward preening. Clive Owen, on the other hand, is a bit lost, never capturing the blustery presence of a true giant. Owen – a brilliant actor, it should be said – is more charismatic affectations than brute strength. His accent and mannerisms are all over the shop, much like this two-and-a-half hour (!) movie. It’s part travelogue, part biopic, part soap opera – bits of everything, lots of nothing. On the upside, the supporting cast is brilliant (David Strathairn, Molly Parker, cats) and Lars Urlich as a Danish documentarian with all his trademark whining insolence. Like its protagonists, Hemingway and Gellhorn is damaged goods.
JUSTIN HOOK
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Published: 20 May 2013 : 2 days ago
[Warner Home Video]
Aaron Sorkin sells himself as a genius. For all his talent, Sorkin has a strong streak of obnoxious know-it-allism that some find charming and forgivable because his intent is pure and politics are noble. There are others who don’t. The Newsroom is an unholy intersection of all that is great and all that is gruesome about Aaron Sorkin. The show starts with a rousing ‘mad as hell’ monologue delivered by Will McAvoy (Jeff Daniels) lamenting the state of journalism in the early 21st Century. A fluffy newscaster with no experience in hard hitting journalism, McEvoy decides there and then to be better, more truthful, more demanding. Thereby introducing ten episodes of an elongated Sorkin rant against a panoply of small ‘l’ liberal targets, but mainly Fox News and the Republican Party.
The Newsroom is polemical. It’s ‘statement’ TV; worthy, serious and thought provoking. At least, it thinks it is. In reality, it’s smug and self-satisfied, only fitfully making the case it slays sacred cows. Setting the show in a fictional newsroom dealing with real (albeit old) events is Sorkin strong-arming history into his world view – a world where complex problems are solved ex post facto with sassy rhetorical flourishes, rat-a-tat-tat office interplay and good old-fashioned angst. The Bin Laden assassination episode is one of the worst 40 minutes of TV I have ever seen. For every problem (oil spills, immigration, campaign funding) the political Left are right and the Right are dead wrong.
Frustratingly, Sorkin is actually making valid points. Broadcast media is vastly and dangerously under-servicing communities all over the globe. But the answer isn’t simply being more progressive. It’s a much bigger issue, one that cannot be addressed in a DVD review. But Sorkin’s efforts to do the same in a severely misfiring TV show are equally misguided and fanciful. Never trust a salesman.
JUSTIN HOOK
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