My dad listens to books on tape while he runs, and this is how he came upon The Lord of the Rings. He heard about the films and decided to listen to the books, which are read by this great old English gentleman. Anyway, he listened to the books and then saw The Fellowship of the Ring. And complained about it. Complained about how it was nothing like the book. A few weeks ago, he got The Two Towers DVD and watched it. Then he called me to complain about it and how it was nothing like the book. For example, he offered, the sexual tension between Eowin (the Rohrrim lady) and Aragorn was never in the book; she was never attracted to him. (Not that I remembered any of these incidents; I last read the trilogy over five years ago.) He also lamented the lack of elements from The Two Towers into the movie.

Normally, he's the pragmatic one. Whenever I complain about a movie or try to tell him about the cool philosophical undertones of The Matrix, he says, "It's just a movie!" This time I got to tell him that, but I don't think he was listening. He was too busy complaining.

What I told him was that he shouldn't expect the movies to be the same as the books. I've certainly accepted this. Books are one kind of art form; movies are another. Not only has the content from the books been modified to fit the medium of the film (and to fit your screen), it has been filtered through Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, and the various actors before it comes to you, the viewer. Film is a unique medium: it is limited in what it can do by price (if a particular scene from the book is unimportant to the story, it will be removed. Hence the lack of Tom Bombadil in the films) and by time (few viewers will sit through a six hour film that does include more elements of the book. And yes, six hours was the length of the first cut of Return of the King). I'm tired of people who complain that the film was nothing like the book. Of course it wasn't! They're different media and they're authored by different people. The Lord of the Rings by Peter Jackson is an interpretation, a variant work, of the novels by J.R.R. Tolkien. True, he attempts to remain as close to the text of the novels as he can, but there are some cases where he either cannot do that, or wants to do something different simply for his own pleasure. Remember: Peter Jackson is an artist as much as Tolkien was, and The Lord of the Rings films are Peter Jackson's art. It is up to him how much he wants to stray from the books or not. True, the more he strays, the less the films are true to the books, and the more the audience becomes upset, since they no longer feel that they're seeing a film adaptation of the books, but a Peter Jackson film loosely based on the books.

I loved Return of the King. I think it was my favorite of the three movies. It had the right combination of spectacular battle sequences, edge-of-your-seat tension (I wasn't sure until the end what would happen to Gollum, Frodo, and the Ring. Would Peter Jackson stay true to the book or develop his own ending?). The end of the film is tear-inducing -- not for me, but for others who haven't been jaded by Robocop. If I want to read The Return of the King by Tolkien, I'll do it. If I want to see The Return of the King by Jackson, I'll do that, too. I recognize that each work is separate and I don't try to evaluate one by the same methods I use to evaluate the other. But Maddox probably won't say that.

Posted by Mark at 9:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Supreme Court's most recent decision, McConnell v. FEC (02-1674) was a blow for freedom of speech. The subject of the case was the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform law, which prevents so-called soft money contributions from PACs, special interest groups, labor unions, and other political organizations.

The Supreme Court, in another 5-4 decision, ruled in favor of the FEC and campaign finance reform, noting, "The governmental interest underlying §323 (a) [of The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002] -- preventing the actual or apparent corruption of federal candidates and officeholders -- constitutes a sufficiently important interest to justify contribution limits."

The Supreme Court, however, has recognized time and time again that money talks: money is part of freedom of expressive association; that is, how I spend my money indicates what my opinions are. The fact that I donate money to a extremely left-wing communist organization is me voicing my opinion in favor of communism. And yet the majority of the nine justices felt that the government's interest in preventing federal candidates from being "bought" by high-paying contributors outweighs the government's need to protect speech. John McCain has been at the forefront of attempts to cut down on corporate involvement in elections and the general impression that politicians are no-good liars. Whilst campaigning for president three years ago, he toured the country on the "Straight Talk Express," a gimmick that he devised to create the impression that other candidates don't talk straight.

Like anything that curtails freedom of speech, there are legitimate elements of speech that get hurt in this decision, too. The Supreme Court has always erred on the side of hate groups when it comes to squelching so-called hate speech or letting freedom of speech be open for everyone; in this case, however, it has erred on the side of squelching free speech, and no doubt this will have a significant impact on state and local elections in the future.

Posted by Mark at 1:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Currently under investigation for illegally obtaining prescription painkillers, Republican demagogue Rush Limbaugh has the audacity to state to his national radio audience that the investigators have political motives for the investigation. "Limbaugh compared the search warrants for his medical records to the demands that Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean release political records from his years as Vermont governor," says the story from NewsMax.com. Rush also used the occasion to ponder the hypocrisy of why his doctors are being investigated, but Dean's political record is not being investigated. "'A lot of people think he should release his political records. ... Nobody's demanding he release them. There aren't any search warrants being issued for his political records," Limbaugh said from his South Florida studio. "I bet you what, if I had been treated by Dr. Dean, I bet you Democrats in certain parts of this country would be demanding his records'," Rush is quoted as saying in the NewsMax article. Funny thing is, the media are demanding Dean's records (once again, Rush is proven wrong). In a December 8 Newsweek article by Michael Isikoff (headlined "What's in Howard Dean's Secret Vermont Files?"), it is noted that people want Dean's political records, but they "are locked in a remote state warehouse -- the result of an aggressive legal strategy designed in part to protect Dean from political attacks." Even the supposed bastion of the phantasmic "liberal media," The New York Times, calls Dean out: "There is no good explanation for why Howard Dean's office sought to have nearly half of his gubernatorial records sealed away in Vermont," says an editorial written on December 5.

So, to summarize: Rush is comparing an investigation into his criminal activities to an investigation into someone's political activities. Then, he (incorrectly) states that Democrats aren't questioning Dean about his own past as governor of Vermont.

Posted by Mark at 10:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)