Brockett Blog

Editor’s note: This column originally was published Feb. 15, 2008.

Learn something new every day

Three of my family members work for the Lemont School District, in an area people outside the state would consider the Chicago suburbs. They like their jobs, but one crucial feeling was denied to them: the hope that some day, if the fates and weathermen allowed, school would be canceled.

In their stories to me, the administrators took on a cartoonish strength in the face of inclement weather. I pictured the superintendent in a yellow slicker, strapped to a tree in the middle of a tornado, waving in students from the bus dropoff and into Algebra II. Weather reports would warn of sleet downpours, or midget-height levels of snow, and they would prepare for another day on the job.

That is, until a recent Friday. The snowstorm promised overnight arrived late, snarling traffic at the exact moment (usually 4 a.m. or so) when a superintendent has to make the call. The kids rejoiced. My family rejoiced. Well, besides the one who was already on the road, a lack of hope causing his ears to block out that welcome telephone call.

Rocket Science – DVD
What’s better for a snow day than pop culture about high school? Probably about 4,023 other things. But give Rocket Science a chance if you’re looking for a high school movie both realistic and wholly absurd in its approach.

Director Jeffrey Blitz first brought us Spellbound, a great documentary about the peculiar world of competitive spelling. For his first feature, he writes and directs the character Hal Hefner, a quiet little bundle of nerves whose brain and tongue never seem to meet quite right. In a telling early scene, he practices in the morning what he’s going to say each day, even if life never measures up to his plans.

So for Hal to come of age, he must deal with the stuttering. The answer, as is usually the case in the mind of a teenage boy, comes in the female form (Anna Kendrick). She entices him into the world of debate, where motormouths hopscotch with logical reasoning until turning it into a force of nature. A movie that takes fewer changes would have Hal tear off the shackles of his affliction like a young Forrest Gump running from a pickup truck full of stone-throwers. But stuttering isn’t like that, as much as the audience might hope it to be. The lead character grows up in all the right ways, and the movie does the same. It’s a high school movie without Heathers, Mean Girls or even a Bring It On cheerleader to be found. It’s nice to know those movies do exist.

Born Standing Up by Steve Martin – memoir
Maybe debate wasn’t the right key to unlocking Hal. How about stand-up comedy? As Steve Martin’s Born Standing Up shows, the process takes an amazing amount of learning, and that’s even before studying drama or philosophy on late-1960s college campuses.

This certainly isn’t Cruel Shoes, as the focus isn’t as much on translating the comedian’s sense of humor as it is trying to tell the story about how a white-suited man with a fake bow going through his head filled massive arenas in the late 1970s. The lines that stick out most after this breezy (a couple hours on back-to-back nights should do it) read? The ones where Martin looks over his material and wonders – “Is that funny? Looking back, I don’t know.” As Martin’s performances evolved, it isn’t a matter of judging punchlines. It’s an entire act under the microscope, an entire idea. Describing it like that would be like calling any rambling essay a “think piece,” though, and the book isn’t like that, at all.

We learn enough about Martin’s family life to know he loved to perform at an early age. The tone is dry, sometimes humorous, but exacting in its quick observations. You can tell the whole story is a revelation to Martin, as he pieces together his adolescent magic tricks and other assorted odd skills and turns them into something worth paying to see. The biggest surprise? That even as he appeared on talk shows like the Tonight Show, he barely scraped by – what you think is the big break isn’t always as it appears. When the act takes off, almost inexplicably, you understand why Martin retreated into films – all the skills he honed in the early years were wasted on stadium seating.

You don’t get Martin’s full career (the pinnacle of L.A. Story, the paychecks from Cheaper By the Dozen), only the climb up the mountain. Unless you break a leg, the way down just isn’t as exciting – and for that, the book benefits.

Editor’s note: This was a feature that I wrote a few times, but wasn’t able to invest myself in fully. In noticing how certain aspects of pop culture informed others, I thought it would be cool to have a design that showed how that happened. This first installment was the most successful.

A week in the pop culture, with all its entanglements

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An iTunes podcast: NPR’s All Songs Considered — Bob Boilen hosts this program, and the offerings include everything from 30-minute “guest DJ” interviews to concert-length live performances of bands like the New Pornographers and Rilo Kiley. The Jan. 3 edition features Mark Ronson, a name you might not recognize but he’s someone who gets more calls from Brits looking for a hit than a corner drug dealer.

As a producer, he loves using live horns and interesting beats. Amy Winehouse? That’s him behind the board. This interview sprinkles in some of his favorite work, including a great remix of Bob Dylan’s (!) “Most Likely You’ll Go Your Way (And I’ll Go Mine).” Another artist to work with Ronson is …

Lily Allen, Alright, Still — It took a while, but a co-worker’s terrible mistake of leaving CDs on her desk allowed me a listen to the complete album for the first time. Her three singles painted unique combinations of cheery soundscapes and lyrics that completely rag on loser guys. It’s as if she spent a few months picking up guys at a pub named “Cads,” and she arrived on the other side with awful relationships but excellent, funny observations. Think Alanis’s Jagged Little Pill, but with less rage and more sing-songy putdowns. So funny, in fact, that guys shouldn’t feel ashamed for listening to it. Outside this general theme, don’t miss “Alfie,” a borderline novelty song that will take a restraining order to get out of your head.
Allen’s success has given a chance to others in this genre, including …
Kate Nash, “Foundations” — Nash’s Made of Bricks just released, and doubtlessly she’ll be compared to Allen. But the first single entwines a toy piano/guitar strum combo with lyrics that look a little less humorously at the jerk in her relationship. The song finds universal appeal in the way her guy seemingly (we only get her side, after all) takes her for granted. And in that sense, “Foundations” empowers in the way it voices all the worrisome thoughts that get glamorized in Sex in the City-fied pop culture.

You used to expect to see someone like Nash on the late-night TV circuit performing, but not this year …

A Daily Show/Col-bert Report — One thing somewhat lost in strike coverage? December stinks for new programming anyway. Shows take a break for holiday vacations and Americans have the nerve to do things other than watch shows and commercials. But we’re entering the time when people grow tired of the Christmas toys and, baby, it’s cold outside. Viewers now expect something new. Rather than strike coverage burnout, expect further coverage as average viewers contemplate whether to just go through all those TV box sets they’ve bought than see if someone dies on American Gladiators.

Comedy Central’s two flagship weeknight shows returned, sans writers but with plenty of awkward energy. The network shows have taken odd forms, as anyone who saw the YouTube clip of Conan O’Brien faithfully singing a country standard can attest. The first few shows for both programs crackled with a jagged edge, which can happen when you don’t exactly know what you’re going to say next. But without good guests (actors and musicians support the writers’ strike) and limited news coverage, even these freewheeling shows will have to abandon the forms that got them to their place among TV’s funniest shows. When desperation breeds this new innovation, only then will these shows return to can’t-miss status. But will they want to?
Less TV means more time for movies you missed, like …

Zodiac (2007) — Robert Downey Jr. as a freewheelin’ cops reporter? Queue it up! This drama tells the true-life story of the “Zodiac” string of murders/attacks in a post-Summer of Love California. Jake Gyllenhaal brings his awkward intensity to a newspaper cartoonist who slowly becomes obsessed with the cryptic serial killer. All slumped shoulders and haunted eyes, this role fits right in Gyllenhaal’s wheelhouse. And while Downey’s acting keeps things spicy, Mark Ruffalo shines brightest as a San Francisco cop who slowly feels the weight of an unsolved, high-profile case.

As far as procedurals go, director David Fincher invests his film with brief blasts of energy (depicting some of the attacks), which buys him time to detail the bureaucratic tangle created by the unwieldly case. Two-and-a-half hours worth, to be exact. Last week, a director’s cut of the movie came out on DVD, but giving yourself any longer with this movie only would make the audience the latest victim of this unsolved crime.

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