Shattered Glass is the story of a guy who says exactly what he thinks the people around him want to hear to no benefit beyond his own power. It’s a classic example of what is sometimes called a ‘middlebrow’ movies which is one of those slang terms with a very vague definition that, nonetheless, is very helpful – in my mind, the best definition is a movie that is completely unambitious in style and laser-focused on ambitious content. This movie does nothing to draw attention to its visuals, its set design, or its acting – it’s simply an honest presentation of a very clear thematic concept and very clear characters, and it trusts that the story of a guy lying his ass off and getting caught will inherently be satisfying.
My favourite scene in the whole thing actually comes right around the start. Stephen Glass (Hayden Christiansen) has been hired by Michael Kelly (Hank Azaria) for The New Republic, and he quickly becomes popular for his relentless charm; he has a strong sensitivity to other people’s emotions and a relentless approach to reassuring people, which the other characters immediately like (personally, I find him aggressively needy from the jump, but then the movie isn’t about me).
The scene where he first meets Charles (Peter Sarsgaard) is the one that fascinates me. Charles will go on to be the one who leads the investigation into Stephen’s falsified news stories (after an initial alert from reporter Adam Penenberg (Steve Zahn), more on this in a second); up to this point, he’s known amongst the other staff for being cold and distant. Every person Stephen has met up to this point has found his aggressive approach charming; Charles comes off here as totally uninterested – not insulting or dismissive, but beyond that, not even registering what he’s doing.
This is what fascinates me about this scene – on paper, it should be uninteresting, because it’s one guy making small talk and the other absolutely not responding. But this comes in a story, and at a specific point – echoing out into the whole narrative. It suggests that, if there is a specific quality of character that led to Stephen’s unmasking, it’s Charles’s coldness; it’s not that he’s antagonistic to Stephen’s weird neediness, it’s that he doesn’t give a shit one way or the other, and it’s suggested that he’ll see Stephen more clear-eyed because he has no emotion to bother him in the first place.
You definitely see this in the scene at the other end of the movie that caps off their relationship, where Stephen desperately begs Charles for a ride to the airport, claiming he doesn’t know what he’ll do to himself; this time, Charles fully recognizes what he’s doing, and he’s unmoved by superficial demonstrations of emotions because now he spots the motivation driving them, and he refuses to give Stephen any kind of compromise or leverage.
Beloved Magpie Dave Shutton has argued that Charles is still heavily indicted by the film; he’s still part of the system that allowed Stephen to rise and flourish for so long (and Chuck says so himself). It’s interesting, because he’s not wrong – if I look at this as a literal depiction of action (and this did very much happen), it’s pretty embarrassing for all involved. As a movie, though – as a depiction of extreme action – it’s important and necessary. Stories and especially movies and especially Hollywood are infamous for focusing on individuals over systems, but I think that’s their strength; systems are vitally important, but we want emotional reasons to do what it is we do, and it’s nice to have an exaggeration of what we’re supposed to be doing every day.
About the writer
Tristan J. Nankervis
Tristan J Nankervis (aka Drunk Napoleon) has been a writer, pop culture critic, dishwasher, standup comedian, waiter, potato cake factory worker, gamer, TV worker, and various other things. You can find him in Hobart, Tasmania.
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Department of
Conversation
What did we watch?
Red vs Blue, Season One, Episode Ten
It’s interesting that the plot is becoming more serious here – the characters are hunting down O’Malley, and there’s an honest-to-god action sequence as they invade his base; meanwhile, Church has been thrown back in time and learned of a prophecy concerning Caboose. There’s a problem here where the plot isn’t interesting enough to catch my attention and not absurd enough to be funny – the best part is Church being thrown back a very specific number of years, and otherwise it’s getting by on the characters (there’s some great gags about Tex’s hypercompetence here).
One interesting thing about writers who get big for a goofy comedy is how they can sometimes try to take it seriously, or at least, feel compelled to take it seriously; you are, after all, making it your life’s work, and I think there can be a combination of wishing to be taken seriously and having genuine ideas for a serious story that can get in your way. I know writing drama and feeling quite comfortable in it has led to me being comfortable also doing something purely aimed at comedy (that, after all, is why I’m studying this show). Luckily we’re about to enter the arc where Church tries changing the past.
There’s one of the red multiplayer characters out at O’Malley’s base. One-off faceless characters like this gaining individuality is so funny to me.
“Hey Grif? Why don’t you stick to criticising other people’s plans instead of coming up with your own?” / “It does seem to be my talent.”
A great scene where Sarge lays out a plan that will get him aside from himself killed (“Someone needs to be at the back to have an objective assessment of the situation.”).
“You know, most people would tell that story in a way that makes them sound a little better.”
“I carried the bomb and found Church. I am a very important person.” The sheer amount of effort Caboose puts into expressing a thought is great.
“Would you stop saying bad things that come true?! Or… say them ten seconds earlier!”
Starring Dick Van Dyke – Presented by American Masters to mark the legend’s 100th birthday, this does what it says on the tin, which is the norm for American Masters. If you want innovative filmmaking, look elsewhere. But it’s really hard to go too wrong with two hours of clips of Dick Van Dyke performing and talking about his career. The choice of talking heads is generally conservative – mainly costars and older white men – but the reminiscences are touching. The biggest issue I have is that once past The Dick Van Dyke Show, there was a lot of cherrypicking, lingering over Diagnosis Murder but dismissing most of his non-hit movies as bad and ignoring his return to Broadway in The Music Man. And very curiously no new interviews with his family, though I think they made their own documentary. But, hey, I learned a lot about his early struggles, and he is disarmingly honest in many of his interviews. (I topped this off with two episodes of The Dick Van Dyke Show since the best way to celebrate him is to watch whole episodes and not clips.)
Wonder Man – Danny Kaye is a nightclub entertainer murdered by a mobster. And is also his bookworm of a twin brother, who the dead man comes back to haunt and to get help in seeking justice. There is a ton of silliness here, some inspired and some just nonsense, but Kaye does his best to carry the day, with ample opportunities to sing, dance, and ham it up. Watching this right after the Van Dyke special, I was struck by how everyone was saying Van Dyke is the heir to the great silent comedians but no one suggested he drew inspiration from Kaye. They really are similar showmen. But Kaye seems to be drifting from public memory and it seems a lot of people cannot stand his schtick. I’m still a fan. Kudos also to Virginia Mayo, always good opposite Kaye, and Vera-Ellen, a superior dancer.
Frasier, “A Passing Fancy”/”Cranes Go Caribbean” – In the former, Frasier needs to call in ever more favors to line up that date with Patricia Clarkson, but shockingly, when it all seems to be about to crumble, he is up to the moment. A pleasant change from the usual self-created chaos. In the latter, which is the season finale but I only learned that after watching it out of order thanks to an Amazon screwup, Frasier takes his new lady to Belize, cannot have a good time, still manages to sleep with her, and then wakes from an erotic dream about Jean Smart! So he does the only think he can think of: he calls Lilith for advice. There is a surprising level of maturity in these episodes, in how Frasier is dealing with his problems and in how everyone is acting. Yes, I know all of this will come to nothing in season nine, but for now, Frasier is on firmer footing than in quite some time, and certainly more than most of season eight. And when Frasier and Lilith say goodbye, they both say “I love you” and the idea that they have reached a place where the marriage is dead but the love is not just seems right.
MASH, “Dear Ma” – Radar’s turn to write home. Events of the day include foot inspection time, Col. Potter getting shot in the butt, and Frank being Frank. Lots of funny bits and some well directed moments from Alda, but like most letter-home episodes, not really full of plot.
Pretty Good, “Fool Time, Part One” – Jon Bois did a four part series about the history of the telegraph, focusing on the people who helped invent it and the people who didn’t (but say they did). AND tied it the sitcom Home Improvement and how there are Tims in the world who take credit for everything but do nothing and Als in the world who are actually the doers. Some of this was interesting if weird – the commentary about why Home Improvement is pretty much forgotten was good – but part one was less a history and more a demand that Samuel FB Morse be stricken from the record. Yes, there is very good reason to do so, but after 50 minutes, it started getting repetitive. And I think I will say that as much of a fan of Bois as i am, I don’t think he’s a particularly good (or at least objective) historian.
I have seen the Kaye, probably 40 years ago when my dad first introduced me to him.
One of David Bowie’s favorite songs growing up was Kaye’s somewhat eerie “Inchworm”, and biographers have indicated the melody/vocals influenced his work overall. Not a well-remembered figure but legacies come up in surprising ways.
Team Danny Kaye forever. There was nobody like him. I need to rewatch The Court Jester again soon…
Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair: I like Kill Bill, but Pt 1 in particular is the least of Tarantino’s films (well, Death Proof is a special category), and as the lights went down I had a moment of anxiety for what I was letting myself in for. But it was great! The quickest five hours at the movies I ever had. Kill Bill Pt. 1 on its own felt longer the first time I saw it when it was first released than this full experience (and I never saw Pt 2 in the theater). And it works very well as a single film, even though the tone and pace of the two parts are quite different as individual pieces.
The sword fight in the House of Blue Leaves is, in fact, better in black and white, as I had anticipated. But there is an extension of the O-Ren animated sequence that I really enjoyed. Also, in the original presentation there is a cliffhanger of sorts at the end of Pt1 when the narrative reveals something that The Bride doesn’t find out until much later. In this version that surprise is preserved, and I bet it is quite a shock to someone who watches this movie who hadn’t ever seen the originals. (If such a person exists.) I was dubious, but this was a great success.
P.S. The 70mm format sure does a great job of highlighting every pore and crag in David Carradine’s face.
On my last couple of re-watches of KILL BILL I’ve been cutting out the rap-arounds and playing it as a single films, eliminating the reveal at part 1’s end, and discovered that it plays pretty well as a single film. Certain motifs and repetitions appear, to me at least, that weren’t apparent when one has gaps between the two sections and the appearance of the daughter coming as a shock to both the audience and the main character makes dramatic sense. Not my favorite Tarantino flick (it’s accumulation of themes and ideas is, I feel a kind of unwieldy) but It’s ambition and technical control in the actual filmmaking , while a bit too hermetic in the back half, is eye catching.
I think the biggest knock on Kill Bill, unlike most of his work save maybe Resevoir Dogs, is that it doesn’t actually have much to say. It’s just a bunch of cool scenes. So I found the double version actually addressed that, as the accumulation of hal-formed ideas adds up to something eventually after five hours.
It’s A Wonderful Life — in a packed theater, of course. Unfortunately said theater had terrible cleaning policies, which is the only way to account for all the dust in the air; I went with a buddy and we were both screwed from the damn beginning bell. This remains an absolute classic, more then ever I picked up on George’s frustration and Capra’s evocation of it (there’s a fantastic bit after Harry comes home with a job offer where Capra keeps the camera tight on George’s quiet face, swallowing his emotions down as he moves through a crowd) and how he toggles between direct action with honor and love and a crippling self-pity (Mary is not immune to this either). I think it’s the “self” that is the real trap there, falling within your own despair and not seeing others as a way out, but others can let you down too, right? Mr. Potter is the most selfish man in the world, Pottersville is the selfish ideal of all collapsed into one, the only relationships transactional (this time I noticed the great detail of the main street median having a KEEP OFF THE GRASS sign, you can pay for any pleasure but you can’t have public space); if George’s existence saves so many what does Potter’s existence mean? There are lingering fears and doubts despite that happy ending, but there is also the knowledge that no man is a failure who has friends, another extremely dusty part of the movie. And those friends are there singing and this is another thread I picked up on — lots of music, from young George whistling to the Charleston dance-off to “Buffalo Gals” to the final carols; if there is discord (Mary smashing her record, that excruciating piano practice scene) there is also people giving their voices to each other freely. You can’t buy a song, Mr. Potter.
Live music — stopped in at the brewery and there was a benefit show of a dozen folkish/rootsish/country bands, also a quasi-white reggae band that was not exactly my speed but they did play a mashup of “Angels We Have Heard On High” and “Gloria,” a brilliant idea executed very well (with more rock). The next day at another bar was the Josh Lederman Cambridge Somerville All-Stars, more roots with an Irish session feel as well, fantastic stuff to hear at the pub. At one point a guy walked in with a clarinet case and a minute later had stepped into the song already playing, it was that kind of a show.
Introduced It’s a Wonderful Life to the kids this weekend, will try and have more later. But the shot you mention stood out to me as well – Stewart moving from one blocking tableau to another and Capra including it shows George’s private thoughts in the space between interaction. Extraordinary choice and shows that Capra and Stewart weren’t approaching this as just the simple morality tale it sometimes seems like in summary or popular memory.
I revisited Mike D’Angelo’s superb breakdown of the breakdown scene and he calls attention to some excellent blocking work there too — https://www.avclub.com/it-s-a-wonderful-life-1798229072. Another thing that struck me are Capra’s close-ups of George and Mary — I’m not sure of the grammar here but the frame-filling faces feel very much of silent movie style and it’s an intrusive but powerful choice each time, throwing everything on the actor and honing the emotional impact to those expressions.
Something that got me last time was even the IRS guy coming into the party at the end, shrugging, and tossing some cash into the pile before joining for “Auld Lang Syne.” You really can’t buy a song and you can’t buy everyone.
Seinfeld, end of season 4 / start of season 5 – the pay-off to the season-long meta “Jerry’s making a sitcom” plot was pretty great, some excellent callback cameos and the casting sequence and reveal of the final pilot was very funny. Otherwise I’m happy to be back in more episode territory, although they’re increasingly referring back to other episodes in mostly extremely entertaining fashion. “The Puffy Shirt” was the other highlight of this set of episodes, largely because of George’s parents (now featuring Jerry Stiller) being absolutely unhinged.
I don’t think Jerry Stiller was even in that many episodes but it’s impossible to imagine the show without him.
He’s in quite a few in the back half of the show once they finally found him.
The Eternaut (s1e2-6) – Episodes two and three veer from the comic quite a bit establishing the effect the invasion has on the people of Buenos Aires. The plot is the same, but the story is different and expanded with new characters. The characters and writing are strong and nuanced. For one there are more women. In the comic they are just motivation for the main character to survive and return home to. People are reduced to an animal state, fight or flight, pitting neighbor against neighbor for resources, the usual post-apoc scenario. But also, unlike the Walking Dead, there is a sense of hope with people coming together to fight a common enemy. There isn’t quite the nihilism of WD. But something happens at the end of episode three to put it more in line with the source material. The Argentine political position, nationalism and resistance spirit is there. The intranational resistance to fascism and one party rule, and the international Cold War fear of the two Super Powers is present. I kept thinking of Cold War B-movies, like Them! In particular. That the rest of the world had to fear and be at the whim of two super powers isn’t something you see in the old B-movies or even in American film and television of the past 70 years. The special effects were excellent. I also thought of Starship Troopers’ combat scenes. I spent six hours wondering if a certain character would appear and the last five minutes didn’t disappoint in that regard.
WAKE UP, DEAD MAN– I’m on board with this being the best of the “Knives Out” franchise. Besides demonstrating a deft touch with story-telling that traverses time and perspective, it focuses on how faith, both in God and in rationality, is a part of satisfying something in the Self, and how the machinations of crime unravel the security that belief is supposed to cement. Comedy, character study, and mystery are pretty effortlessly fused here.
TANGERINE– Second watch, and one that revealed how carefully structured this chronicle of L.A. street life is, something rather obscured at first watch by the improvisational energy and brashness that Sean Baker and his cast bring to the proceedings. It’s kind of a mash between neo-realism, with its centeredness on the “street” as a space where the personal is inseparably tied to the public, and Hawksian comedy. One wouldn’t think that these styles would mesh, but they do so electrically.
Turns out to be a difficult premise to keep up for longer than a trailer, and the movie is mostly but not entirely successful at handwaving inconvenient side tangents that distract from its central question (like easily shrugging off any other loved ones and family from life on Earth). That central question should boil down simpler than 120 minutes asks for: which version of yourself is the truest, the young romantic or the aged pragmatist?
Unfortunately the first version is where the film misses. Olsen and Teller’s characters have the comfortable rapport of old marrieds but Olsen and Turner have none of the spark of young love, mostly due to Turner’s character having nothing going on beyond “killed in war.” Maybe that’s part of the point, a man taken off the board before he could develop much of a personality, but what’s in it for Olsen? Turner doesn’t have a distinct enough charm to make much of a case, and there was no specific life plan they had together than that she could want to continue.
Both too mired in detail (although the myriad eternities constantly being pedaled are funny) yet with too many possibilities left on the table, this one delivers on the charming premise promised in the trailer. But it’s not something I’d want to spend more time with.
Haha, somehow didn’t include the title. If you guessed Eternity, you win the prize!
What did we play?
The Sims 2: Legacy Edition
That is to say, the game with all the expansions built in and updated for modern hardware – not remastered, to be clear. This is the first time I’ve played this game since I was a kid (mostly because they stopped putting CD drives in laptops); it’s funny how much it’s a precursor to modern mobile tapping games, because even more than most games, it’s a matter of methodically setting activities in motion and keeping track of different moods and states. Two things separate it from later games of that ilk; one, you do have to work hard to balance everything at all times (hence its famously addictive nature), and more importantly, there is a real emotional arc to everything you do with a strong creative underlining. I ended up sending each of my generations of Sims to college, down to reusing the same dorm, and I ended up with a feeling of sentimentality over it.
I remember the third game technically improved on the motivation system, but I don’t think any game since quite got the balance right for the gameplay; the expansions – which go further than I did when I was into the game, with vacations and such – successfully patch up minor issues with the design so that it’s at its most compelling. I set out to play from a married couple down to the death of the second-generation Sim (with the self-imposed limitation of never using either the de-ageing reward or resurrection on Sims who died of old age, though I could try and argue with the Reaper). I managed to have money be essentially irrelevant in one generation and maxing out all the skills on all the family members almost without trying.
Amusingly, each generation of Sim turned out uglier than the last, despite my attempts at husbandry; out of laziness, I basically picked a Sim partner at random from the neighbourhood ones and somehow each generation had more prominent cheekbones to the point of ludicrousness. Amazingly, my second-generation Sim lived an incredibly long time; one thing I quickly learned was that I had to keep shifting their motivations as their lives changed simply because they would tend to achieve their goals quickly anyway, so he went from hungry for knowledge in his teens and college years to ruthless worker to cheerful family man and he managed to outlive his slightly younger wife to live to the ripe old age of seventy-eight days (he nearly outlived his son significantly, but managed to argue the Reaper down from having him die from being struck by lightning. By the end of his life, he’d learned everything you could possibly learn in the game, reached near the top of his career track before retiring, and painted thousands of masterpieces. I’d so long run out of finding things for him to do or need to keep track of him that I let him go wild, and he spent most of his time getting high. It was incredible.
An extra session of Strahd ahead of the holiday break, and we are now in a place where it’s just monster after monster. And I have no idea why. This week we are slated to fight a roc. Or maybe The Rock, not sure which. I have been trying to get the party to plan ahead but I don’t know how focused we are on it yet. (One player, who has wild shape and could be really useful, has not really been engaging with the game the past six weeks.)
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night on Steam
This was picked for the Retronauts podcast Metroidvania Book Club, and I’ve had it for years, so I took the opportunity to finally play it, making it past the first boss before the game froze. Anyway, this starts as a DS-era Castlevania with a fresh set of paint, which updates things to feel more modern while the gameplay deliberately stays the same. So far so good, though it’s odd to have a somewhat more limited character (compared to modern Metroidvanias like Hollow Knight and Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown) in a full 2.5D environment. Also, I was given a couple of weapons and outfits from the Shantae series from the start, since I have one of those games on my Steam account, and they stick out hilariously here, from the big pirate gun, to the scimitar that chops zombies’ heads off, to the subtle hip-undulating when the main character wears any of Shantae’s minimal outfits.
Lumines: Puzzle Fusion on PSP Go
Played a few rounds over the week. As addicting as ever, even as the mixed-color squares are always a pain in the ass to deal with. They really struck gold with this one.
Super Mario All-Stars + Super Mario World on Super Nintendo
My brother found me a used copy of this combo cart, which wasn’t sold at retail and only came bundled with SNES consoles at the end of its sytem life. We had one as kids, but it seems this specific cart goes bust on its own at a more common rate than the usual SNES games, and ours did after lending it to our cousins. So I was very curious to see if this one worked, and it did. And I’m glad of that, and also of learning that Super Mario World allows you to play the two-player mode even if there’s only one controller plugged to the system, which I never knew, and came in handy this time because this particular version of SMW has an original Luigi sprite. The Luigi sprite in the original game was actually just the Mario sprite with green colors, but this one is leaner, has a different face, and features a totally distinct jump animation that I didn’t remember. That was fun to see again.
Arcade Archives: Punch-Out!! on Nintendo Switch
Pick up this to play for a while, ended up trying to beat it. Didn’t get close but I made good progress and I might make it a project next up. This is pretty great, though it takes time to adjust to the controls on Switch, whereas I’ve played the arcade original and remember it feeling remarkably intuitive there. Also, the dual display mode here means I can’t really play it on portable mode without turning the screen on its side, or I have to put it on the big TV and use one half of the screen (the other one shows stats). No matter, I thing I might go for it, and I might give the NES version (which I’ve never beat) a run for it it.
As I mention whenever this film comes up, I -haven’t seen it, and – went to law school with Steve while he was engaged in this scheme. (It was found out right before our first year finals.)
I also found him charming (we would always make eye contact and smile at each other whenever our Prop professor would make a joke that only the few Jews in the class would get). But I never saw him as emotionally needy, and I still don’t. From my perspective, he wasn’t doing all this for some deep psychological void. He was doing this because he wanted to make money and he was too lazy to do his job properly.
The movie definitely emphasizes the emotional aspect, but a lot of this is in service to the lazy scheming — his fraud is constantly being glimpsed at the magazine and he has to come up with reasons for editors to not follow up on those glimpses; without the emotional appeal he’d be up a creek very quickly.
Very well said about Charles’ indifference, which of course other people don’t like. That is where I think the movie is most subtle — the New Republic comes off looking fucking terrible (although there is some real soft-pedaling of Michael Kelly due to his death, but he’s the one who brought Glass on board) but Charles’ excision of Glass keeps the magazine going, and leads to respect that is not dissimilar to what Glass is getting at the beginning of the movie. You can see his head getting a little swollen.