An oft-omitted passage from Plato

 

An Idol moment

Back in the lingering end of the hippie days in the late 70s and early 80s, consumer activist David Horowitz used to have a TV show. He’d come on and rail about how horrible it was that the “butter” on movie theater popcorn was actually some kind of oily goo that had never seen the insides of a cow. He also had a passionate hatred of over-packaging. Seemed like at least once a show he’d haul out a bag of cookies, open it up and show us all the evil travesty of excessively airy plastic trays.

The problem with acting offended by a foot-long cookie bag that turns out to be eight inches of polystyrene is that Americans love packaging, often more than we love the actual product.

Take Coke for example. All this product really offers us is corn syrup and caffeine, with carbonated water as an afterthought just to make it drinkable. Everything else, from the familiar brown color to the uniquely-styled bottle, is just, well, packaging. But take away the magical color and nobody buys it, as Crystal Pepsi proved back in the 80s.

Sadly, I think that spells doom for my latest, greatest show idea: American Asylum.

I’ve gotta start this one with a history lesson. Back in the days before television, people sought entertainment outside their homes. And one popular amusement destination was local insane asylums. England’s Bethlem asylum was particularly well known as a spot where the upper crust and even the newly-semi-idle middle class could pass a few carefree hours gawking at the mental patients. And if the inmates’ gibbering and cavorting wasn’t sufficiently entertaining, patrons were invited to poke them with sticks to get them riled up.

Attending trials was another popular pastime, one that has been a repeated success in syndication. So if it works for courtrooms, why not the loony bin? Let’s parade crazy people across TV screens and let the ad-watching-product-consuming public gawk at them. Should work, right?

On paper, maybe. But in reality, that might be a bit too much like offering consumers a bottle full of caffeinated corn syrup. They’ll drink it. They want to drink it. But they need some kind of packaging in order to make the experience palatable.

And that’s the real genius of American Idol, which recently started its seventh season. Like the carefully-camera-facing beverages on the judges’ table, it what we crave packaged up nicely so we don’t feel bad about consuming it. We want to feast on the auditions of deluded nutjobs who think they’re going to be famous for anything but their own freakishness. We want to watch Simon poke them with a stick to get them going real good. And as long as we can maintain the pretense that this is actually some kind of talent show, everything is nice and socially acceptable.

So poke on, Simon. America toasts your good health with an ice-cold bottle of Coke.

Review – No End in Sight

Though at this point all of us – well, okay, most of us – realize that the war in Iraq has gone badly, this documentary helps us understand exactly what went wrong. Not surprisingly, most of the problems can be traced to the Bush administration’s rampant bungling of post-war reconstruction. The movie is fairly well put together, with an even blend of interviews, on-scene footage and graphics. Mildly amusing

Review – Stardust Memories

I’ve said this before, and unless filmmakers finally manage to get over themselves I’ll probably have to say it again: if you hate being famous so much, find a different line of work. Invest wisely, retire and live out your life in peaceful anonymity. Go out and get a job and see what it’s like to work for a living for awhile. Just give it up. Eventually the fans you seem to hate so much will get tired of you and move on to someone else. In Woody Allen’s defense, he doesn’t seem to hate fame as much as he hates not being constantly famous for everything he does. After all, it isn’t his fault that his neuroses aren’t funny anymore, leaving his following longing for the good old days. Like Hannah and Her Sisters, this picture is partially redeemed by the excellent location work, but otherwise it’s more than a bit on the boring side. Mildly amusing

Review – Eastern Promises

Cronenberg has done worse. The basic structure is a boring mob movie, and the fact that the gangsters are Russian rather than Italian doesn’t make it any more interesting. But Cronenberg’s lingering skill with gore helped spice things up a bit. Viggo Mortensen stars as a low-key factotum in the London branch of the Russian mob who gets too close to a midwife (Naomi Watts) who knows too much about their underage prostitution ring. The real draw for me, however, was the tattoo stuff. I find Russian prison tattoos fascinating, so I enjoyed the parts of the movie that focused on the meanings of various designs and their importance in the criminal subculture. A little blood and ink aren’t quite enough to make this a must-see, but at least they supplied some entertainment value. Mildly amusing

Review – The Kingdom

The opening credits really got me interested in this movie. I thought maybe it would turn out to be like Syriana only less boring. And for the first hour or so, it actually filled the bill quite nicely. I don’t care for Jamie Foxx’s acting other than his work in Ray, and I don’t care much for Jennifer Garner at all. But I like Chris Cooper, and I definitely like movies that offer an even blend of international intrigue (especially when it’s at least semi-realistic) and a fast-moving plot with some good action and quality special effects. Trouble is, with 40 minutes or so to go the balance gets thrown way out of whack. Suddenly it’s a crappy video game excuse for a war movie, with the good guys going in with guns blazing and wasting the bad guys while taking only minimal damage. In other words, Foxx and Garner seemed a lot more at home in the back half. What a disappointment. Mildly amusing

Review – 3:10 to Yuma

As of this writing I haven’t seen the original. Nor do I have much of a taste for westerns. However, standing on its own as an action movie, this was reasonably entertaining. Christian Bale stars as a down-on-his-luck rancher who decides to pick up some badly-needed cash by escorting a dangerous criminal (Russell Crowe) to a train that will carry him to justice. Along the way we get several twists and turns and a lot of macho posturing as the balance of power shifts back and forth between the characters. Though this is unlikely to make my “eight best” list, it was an acceptable use of a couple of hours. Verdict: mildly amusing.