In Case You Were Wondering, Our Heroine Does Not Support World-Dominating Secret Terror Organizations

As a general rule, Our Heroine does not wade into the comboxes on political blogs. Political comboxes are like rough-n-ready frontier towns at the turn of the century: there is no law, and only the strong survive. And Our Heroine, while blessed with some heroic qualities (like perseverence in the face of a baking disaster), is not strong.

However, Ace of Spades had a review up of Quantum of Solace, and I wanted to see what the consensus was, because I liked it, (though with reservations) so I dived into the comments. And I can't wait to share one of my most favorite comments evah.

First: my reservations. Really, one reservation. The movie was too strong on realpolitik. I mean, I know that Haiti is mostly an impoverished hellhole, and I know that good governments sometimes get in bed with bad dudes to keep even worse dudes from making trouble, and I even know that spies can suffer from moral lassitude. But when I want a healthy dose of real-world spy drama, I'll read Graham Greene or something.

This is a Bond movie, people. Bond does not do Haiti (or Bolivia) to thwart petty tyrants and bring water to the sweaties and grubbies. No. Bond does Paris, Biarritz, Prague, etc. He plays high-stakes Baccarat against the agents of world-dominating secret terror organizations that want to nuke the moon, for pete's sake (I don't know why they want to nuke the moon. They just do. Ok? Deal with it!)

So, basically, I thought Bond was too constrained by "reality" in this film, but not in a good way.

The comments at Ace's were hilarious overall. And there was a debate about how corporations were portrayed. I didn't share in the opprobrium for QoS on this count, because the only corporation in it was really a world-dominating secret terror organization masquerading as a corporation -- and I didn't get the idea that you were being told that these are interchangeable entities.

However, I have been sensitive to this anti-corporatism in other movies where I didn't think it belonged like Iron Man (most recently).

So, since I've been getting kind of tired of this exact same trend, this totally frantic-sounding comment from someone named Cautiously Pessimistic made me horse-laugh. (and horse-laughing is not something to which I readily admit.)

Does anyone know of a movie where the eeevil corporation turns out to be an intentional force for good? I'm getting increasingly tired of every freakin' corporation being evil personified that wants children to die in the streets because their blood turns into gold or something. If anything, having a good corporation in a movie would be a plot twist without the twist, because everyone will be waiting for the CEO to take of his mask and say, "FOOLED YOU! I'M THE ANTICHRIST!", and be totally taken by surprise when it doesn't happen.

I would like to write this movie now, just to make him happy.

Our Heroine Feels a Twinge of Guilt

Ok, ok, y'all, I just finished The Heart of the Matter, and I feel like a big meanie. I wish an eagle-eyed reader had let me know not to be so hell-bent for leather re: a certain "Scobie smackdown" I was demanding. That poor fella.

I won't write any more about it so as not to give anything away. But I did want to share this lovely quote from the final chapter. Extrapolate from it what you will.

She said drearily, "Father, haven't you any comfort to give me?"

Oh, the conversations, he thought, that go on in a house after a death, the turnings over, the discussions, the questions, the demands -- so much noise round the edge of silence.

Our Heroine Sees A Movie

The Third Man, to be precise. The last of the Graham Greene noir movies to be shown at BAM, thank Heaven! Anyhow, it's no fault of the movie that I'm glad it's the last. The flick itself was solidly awesome. I'm repeating a thousand critics before me when I mention the zither score. Yes, it's as amazing as they say it is (and oddly creepy in it's unrelenting jauntiness). And the final chase scene through the underground drains is equally worth the praise heaped upon it.

But I throw my hands up in disgust at myself and ask, "Am I a book snob or what?!" I mean, I read in my Portable Graham Greene that the novel The Third Man was never meant to be published. That Greene felt you couldn't write a proper screenplay without first writing a fully-fleshed story. So he writes the novel The Third Man, always intending it to be a movie, then he does the screenplay adaptation, and then says that the movie is, "the finished state of the story." So, if ever there was a situation in which the movie is going to be head and shoulders above the book on which it's based, it's this one, right? Right. And yet...I still liked the book better.

Again, it's not the movie's fault, it's mine. I simply heart good potboiler prose, like this:

How quickly one becomes aware of silence even in so silent a city as Vienna with the snow steadily settling. Martins hadn't reached the second floor before he was convinced that he would not find Lime there, but the silence was deeper than just absence -- it was as if he would not find Lime anywhere in Vienna, and, as he reached the third floor and saw the big black bow over the door handle, anywhere in the world at all.

C'mon, that's good right? That's really, really good (especially considering that no one was ever supposed to read it). Talk about something being better than it had to be.

So, go, Netflix thee a copy of the movie, but even in this instance, you've got to read the book too.

Our Heroine Returns from a Holiday

This post was supposed to go up on Ash Wednesday. I've been on blog holiday! (Actually, I've just been blog-lazy.)

Anyhow, in the interim I've been heavily overdosing on Graham Greene. This film festival at BAM has forced me to read four, count 'em four, Greene novels in four weeks: Ministry of Fear, A Gun for Sale, Brighton Rock and The Third Man. I am going to see the last film at BAM tomorrow night with Father A., and although I'm finished with all four novels, it felt silly to start reading something non-Greene before the festival ended, so now I am in the middle of The Heart of the Matter.

I find Greene, in single doses, to effect in me a sense of hope. His broken, shabby heroes, taken one-at-a-time, really do remind me of "the appalling strangeness of the mercy of God." Taken five at a time though, they're just depressing. Here's an illustration of what I mean. I started reading Greene this month with Ministry of Fear and I'm ending with The Heart of the Matter. Turns out, these are fitting bookends. Both protagonists, Arthur Rowe in MOF and Henry Scobie in HOTM, suffer from a surfeit of pity, in particular towards their wives. I know that Greene thought that pity, as opposed to compassion, was a manifestation of the sin of pride. However, the difference in my reaction to both characters shows the wearying effect of five consecutive Greene novels. I really sympathised with Arthur Rowe, I even forgave him for the "mercy" killing of his wife. But Scobie I find just patronizing and tiresome. I long for a Scobie smackdown. Seriously, y'all, it's not healthy the way I want him punished for his pride, in a way that I did not want for Rowe. Of course, I haven't finished Scobie's story yet, so I may get what I want, but it's not happening soon enough for me.

After all this Greene I am so tired of the mediocrity, the shabbiness, and the frailty of all his characters. I'm tired of the doubting priests, the querulous wives, the faithless husbands, the petty spies, the ignorant policemen, the lame, the hair-lipped, the obese. Of course, I've only read five novels in four weeks and I'm already sick of the human race. How totally comforting to think that God has witnessed this same stuff - and worse - for thousands of years and loves us madly still.

For our far-from-saintly heroine, however, it's clearly time for some pallet-cleansing Wodehouse. Right ho!

Our Heroine Makes a False Start

Y'all, it is not a good sign for the success of this project that my first, post-intro post has nothing to do with The Iliad.

It's just that before I get started on that 800 lb. gorilla, something came up that I have got to focus on. BAM Rose Cinemas, very near to where I live, is screening "Graham Greene Noir" from February 22 to March 30. Wot's all this then? Well, allow me to quote you from the program:

Novelist Graham Greene was a master of murder and mayhem—from international
intrigue to back-room deals gone bad, no one does British noir better, as this
series of four features based on his writings proves.

Word. I am so psyched! Especially to see Ministry of Fear, because it contains a trifecta of things I love: British film noir, Graham Greene and Ray Milland. Pretty awesome, right?

Here's the rub, like The Iliad, I've never read Ministry of Fear. And I can't see the movie without having read the novel first, it's a personal credo. So I bought the book today at Barnes and Noble and have to read the whole thing by showtime Thursday. With some cafe mochas from Starbucks I can totally do it, but I can't read The Iliad concurrently.

If you know Greene, I think you'll empathize. If you don't know him, trust me on this, in my shoes you'd be doing the same thing. He's such a compelling rascal, our Mr. Greene is. And don't worry, I'll tell you all about it!