Picky, Picky, Picky!

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m already in August Mode, a frame of mind common among Washingtonians, New Yorkers and other pretentious pseudo-intellectuals of my ilk during which time unless, let's say, Obama is caught in fishnet stockings chasing a sumo wrestler or McCain is discovered to actually have spent the Viet Nam war in Canada making macramé bongs while his twin brother Skippy was the real POW, I simply don’t give a rat’s ass about politics. Save it for after Labor Day.

So I was surfing for non-political news earlier today at my usual haunts and ran across this story in Slate about amateur locksmithing.

This happens to be a topic about which I actually know a little something, albeit second-hand, because amateur locksmithing was the hobby of one of my oldest school friends, a fellow who shall remain unidentified despite the statutes of limitations having long since lapsed for his various youthful indiscretions.

Of which there were many. My friend, whom I’ll call here “Jimmy” after a fairly crude lock opening technique, became intrigued as a child with the inner workings of locks and keys and, more to the point, how to open the former without benefit of the latter. As skilled trades go, locksmithing is far more about brains than brawn and Jimmy has a logical mind and a meticulous temperament exactly suited to figuring out puzzles and therefore to picking locks.

By high school Jimmy had also managed to acquire a key cutting machine – don’t ask! – various tools of the trade including illegal lock picks and tension wrenches (more about which below), shims and so forth. He had also, um, ‘borrowed’ locks from schools, churches and other public and semi-public places, dismantling them and discovering in the process how to make master keys to those entire buildings or building complexes.

I hasten to point out that Jimmy had no larcenous intentions in any of this. He simply viewed a locked door or a lock of any sort as a challenge. The fun was all in figuring out how to thwart the lock owner’s desire to keep him out, not in actually entering where he wasn’t wanted. It was, in short, simply a game.

Okay, so every once in a while there were more, um, practical applications of this skill. In the late 1960s, when the suburban youth of America (1) had just discovered the pleasures of marijuana but (2) were convinced that there were millions of ‘narcs” lurking just about everywhere, having a key that could stop the elevator between floors in a local apartment building (not ours!) long enough to smoke a joint and then wait for the ceiling exhaust fan to remove the tell-tale scent before turning the elevator back on was the perfect solution to our privacy problem. Keys to the padlocked chains barring vehicular entry into public parks where a young couple might go parking at night similarly proved handy.

Of course, that was all many, many years ago and my friend Jimmy is now a respected member of one of the learned professions and a disquietingly conservative pillar of his community. My guess is that he doesn’t even smoke pot anymore, let alone take young girls parking.

Woolgathering about my salad days (“Block that mixed metaphor!”) aside, the thing about this amateur locksmithing business is that its opposition is such a classic case of vested interests trying to protect their once largely unchallenged turf and trotting out all the usual and typically disingenuous “public interest” arguments in the process.

Case in point: I could be charged in many jurisdictions with possession of burglary tool over the fact that I have, courtesy of Jimmy, a small lock picking kit I’ve used on countless occasions when I or a friend lost or misplaced a key. At least the way the law used to be written, unless you were a bonded locksmith, such mere possession was sufficient grounds for conviction of a misdemeanor. After all, if you weren’t a real locksmith, what on earth could you possibly want with such implements except to commit a crime? Right?

[Insert “possession of rape equipment” joke here.]

I wasn’t aware that amateur locksmithing was so popular a hobby as the Slate article suggests, but I’m glad to hear it. Truth be told, I misplaced my old pick set a few years ago. Hey, maybe I can just order one online these days! To be sure, there are legitimate arguments in favor of keeping some sorts of information confidential. But knowing how to open a pin-tumbler lock, even a Medeco lock, without having to use bolt cutters hardly rises to the level of legitimate state secret. And as the enthusiasts correctly point out, the first step in building a better mousetrap lies in finding out the weaknesses in the old model. That’s what we call progress.

Constant Viewer's Summer Roundup

Constant Viewer is sometimes asked why, since he isn’t paid to do so, he occasionally goes to movies knowing well in advance that they are going to defy the laws of physics and simultaneously suck and blow. Collaterally, CV is asked if there are any such movies so far beneath his contempt that even he won’t stoop to go seeing them.

Good questions. Glad you asked.

In the first place, CV has not ruled out the possibility of one day actually being paid to write his shallow little, myopic and idiosyncratic movie reviews, notwithstanding the fact that no professional journal or periodical that isn’t already in bankruptcy proceedings would venture such a foolish hire. In the second place, being among the idle poor or, as CV prefers to be called, independently lower middle class, CV probably has more free time than those of you who continue to trade what someone else wants you to do for mere money. (Not that there’s anything wrong with mere money. See “In the first place,” supra!) Some of you will be shocked (shocked!) to learn that CV actually sees movies occasionally about which he does not scurry home and knock off one of his little 500 word tantrums. (See infra. Nota bene, also, how CV works those Latin term paper words into his reviews. What a guy!)

In the third place, many of you would be even more astonished at how low Constant Viewer’s contempt is willing to descend on the right occasion. Still, as they say in rehab (or so CV is told), you know you’ve hit your bottom when you can’t lower your standards fast enough to keep up with your behavior. And in that spirit CV is happy to report that there are a number of movies on the Hollywood Horizon to which CV will not be, um, exposing himself.

Brideshead Revisited : CV doesn’t care how talented Michael Gambone, Emma Thompson or any of the rest of the cast are or how wonderful this 135 minute feature film version of Evelyn Waugh’s most famous novel may be. It will never, CV repeats, never come close to being nearly as magnificent as the nearly perfect seven hour miniseries version made in the early 1980s.

CV can think of even dumber motion picture remakes. Psycho, for example, not that anyone would be stupid enough to try that! But the only possible saving grace to this movie is if it doesn’t suck so badly it encourages our vast and intentionally illiterate nation, who still wouldn’t read a novel even if Oprah told them to, to find the classic Brideshead DVD set and marvel at how good television can actually be.

The X Files: I Want To Believe: Who the hell green-lighted this thing? Come on, isn’t Chris Carter like the uncle you used to think was so cool back when you were nine or ten only to discover a decade later what a phony jerk the guy was? If there was ever need for more proof of P.T. Barnum’s famous observation about the birthrate of suckers, this hand-me-down David Lynch's ramblings fit the bill even better than LOST.

Hey kids, remember when David Duchovny was going to be a big movie star? For the record, picking up a paycheck as the voice of Tiny Jesus in Queer Duck: The Movie doesn’t count. Meanwhile, ambiguity born of sloppy, aimless writing and unresolved plotting isn’t the same thing as suspense born of tight writing and plotting even if you can convince gullible pre-teens it is for a television series or two.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars: George Lucas is the happiest man on earth now that his fondest dream has come true. That dream is, of course, to be rid once and for all of real actors, locations and all those other dreary necessities of live action movies. Let’s face it, the Star Wars money machine was always a cartoon waiting to happen. Well, now it finally has. CV notes, by the way, that according to the IMDb this 90 minute Saturday morning cartoon has been “rated PG for sci-fi action violence throughout, brief language and momentary smoking.” Have we become so paranoid, so petrified, so pussified as a people that the mere fleeting image of a cartoon character momentarily smoking is enough to warrant a PG rating? (The answer, sadly enough, appears to be yes, yes we have.)

So, are there any openings left this summer CV is looking forward to seeing? Why, yes, as a matter of fact, there are. First, although CV isn’t a big comedy fan, Tropic Thunder looks quite engaging. Second, although it may not come out in wide release, Brad Anderson’s Transsiberian looks intriguing. And finally, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor looks like a fun popcorn movie.

(Oh, and speaking of, well, actually implicitly referring to, Brendan Fraiser, Journey to the Center of the Earth is also a fun popcorn movie, especially in 3D, and well worth taking the kids to go see. And so, if it’s still playing at an art house near you, is the charming, bittersweet The Visitor.)

See you at the Bijou.

Constant Viewer: The Dark Knight

Constant Viewer caught the 12:01 showing of The Dark Knight in a theater nearly filled with some five or six hundred fellow dark knight owls, CV’s 13 year old son included. The theater almost certainly would have been filled but for a second showing some 20 minutes later. CV isn’t venturing any guesses about opening records, especially if you adjust for inflation, but The Dark Knight is a lock for this summer’s blockbuster, no mean feat when you consider the current competition.

Let’s get the accolades out of the way up front here. Christopher Nolan continues to astonish as a director, and no little part of CV’s astonishment is in realizing that The Dark Knight is only his eighth directorial credit. Christian Bale has certainly grown in the part since Batman Begins, a fine movie in which, in CV’s opinion, Bale was its weakest element. CV can’t remember when he didn’t like Michael Caine in anything since the original Alfie and can’t, for that matter, remember anything in which Maggie Gyllenhaal wasn’t an asset, either. Morgan Freeman has one of the most fun lines in the movie in a truely clever scene of attempted extortion and both Gary Oldman’s James Gordon and Aaron Eckhart’s Harvy Dent manage to impress despite all the stiff competition for attention.

And then there is Heath Ledger. Will his Joker earn the late actor a posthumous Oscar? If the voting were held by, say, Election Day, Ledger’s chances would be excellent. But The Dark Knight is still a summer movie, not a ‘serious’ movie, and the Academy has historically been chary about posthumous awards. Nonetheless, Ledger’s performance is simply breathtaking and, as entertaining as Jack Nicholson’s Joker was in the original Batman, this new Joker has to be considered the gold standard against which both earlier and subsequent super villains must be judged.

Ironically, however, the way Ledger’s presence overpowers everything else in The Dark Knight is, given Ledger’s untimely death, the movie's greatest weakness; for CV couldn’t help but be distracted over and over again by the thought that this bravura performance could never be reprised. Imagine, for example, if Anthony Hopkins had died shortly before the release of The Silence of the Lambs.

Of course, you’re going to go see The Dark Knight no matter what CV says even if your girlfriend drags you to Mamma Mia first. Buy the large popcorn and soda, since you’re going to be there a full 152 minutes after the endless litany of trailers. Well, after all, Nolan is reaching for a movie of epic proportions here. And if he just slightly misses, the audience nonetheless was certainly not bored as the second hour came and went with another half-hour ahead of them. In fact, when the credits finally did roll they applauded. And CV, to his mild surprise, joined in.

Constant Viewer: Hellboy II: The Golden Army

Constant Viewer would think lines like “I’m not a baby, I’m a tumor” would be a whole lot funnier if it weren’t for the fact that countless young women have been taught to treat their unborn children exactly in that manner. Still, in the context of the Troll Market in Hellboy II: The Golden Army it’s a pretty clever line. It’s a pretty clever movie, for that matter, even if director Guillermo del Toro may have spent just a little too much time playing Rock’em Sock’em Robots as a boy.

Hellboy II is, after all, a boy’s movie based on a boy’s comic book. Okay, so as comic book characters go, Hellboy is on the other side of the comic universe from Nancy and Sluggo if for no other reason than he actually is funny occasionally. As is the movie. Ron Perlman reprises his Son of Satan turned government agency good guy (an oxymoron, CV knows) with plenty of the right sort of attitude, which is to say not too damned seriously. The rest of the principals from the first move are back, too, and CV was disappointed only in Jeffery Tambor’s character not being nearly as bureaucratically smarmy as before. As for new team member Johann Kraus, IMDb lists no fewer than three actors participating in what is essentially Robbie the Robot with a case of magical gas. CV notes for his fans, among whom CV is not to be counted, that the Kraus character voice actor is Seth MacFarlane. This explains the gas, at least.

As for the story line, Hellboy and his Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense teammates are called to the rescue when the prince of an ancient magical kingdom attempts to break a truce with humanity by reassembling a crown that will give him control of “70 times 70” supposedly unstoppable Rock’em Sock’em Robots Mechanical Warriors. The prince isn’t such a bad fellow, really; he just feels that human beings have taken over too much of the planet. His father and twin sister oppose breaking the truce and a family squabble of mythical proportions ensues. Oh, and there are a couple of love stories kinda, sorta going on in the background, too.

Del Toro obviously has a flare for fantasy yet keeps his tongue firmly planted in his cheek here even as he puts the characters through their more or less predictable paces. Hardly a great film, Hellboy II manages to keep from taking itself too seriously well over ninety percent of the time and settles sensibly for being a fun ride in Summer Movieland.

May I Misquote You On That?

With a tip of the virtual mortarboard to reason’s Nick Gillespie, we find an interesting report from Andy Guess in Inside Higher Ed of a study by J. Scott Armstrong and Malcolm Wright with the remarkable conclusion that all scholarly papers and what they laughingly call 'studies' and 'research' in all academic disciplines are entirely made up – plucked from out of the old nether orifices, as it were, by so-called 'scholars' who certainly never bother to read the citations or made-up quotations they litter their papers with, knowing full well that no one is ever going to bother to check and, besides, those earlier studies and so forth are just as phony and filled with errors and fabrications as the new stuff, so why bother?

Or something like that.

What's Black And White And Red-Taped All Over?

When pondering whether politicians are being disingenuous or really are as stupid as they appear, remember that these two are not mutually exclusive. So when Dallas County commissioners squabble over whether the phrase “black hole” includes racist overtones and requires an apology, the mind reels at trying to discern whether this is a case of race bating on the part of the white commissioner, the black commissioner or both.

The context here was the loss or misplacing of files in the Dallas County central collecting office. White commissioner Kenneth Mayfield called the office a “black hole,” black commissioner John Wiley Price “corrected” Mayfield and called it a “white hole” and then “Judge Thomas Jones, who is black, to demand an apology from Mayfield for his racially insensitive analogy.” (Note to the incredulous: judges are elected in Texas.)

A black hole, the Dallas Morning News dutifully reported for its public school educated readership, is "the invisible remains of a collapsed star, with an intense gravitational field from which neither light nor matter can escape."

Lest you presume that I, being white, naturally side with Mayfield here, it occurs to me that it may be the case, known to him and his colleagues, that the personnel working at that office are predominantly African Americans, in which case his comment might indeed have been an intentionally elliptical racist innuendo. Of course, that credits the man with significantly more wit and verbal talent than the vast majority of politicians at any level have, but it can’t simply be rejected as a theory. I hasten to add that I know nothing at all about any of these men or about Dallas County’s bureaucracy. I do know something about bureaucratic inefficiency, though, and such knowledge includes the fact that incompetence and indifference are equal opportunity qualities commonly possessed by government employees of all shades. (Wait a minute! When I just said "shade," did I mean... oh, never mind.)

In any case, race bating and posturing, whoever may be at fault here, is a tiresome game. Sadly, however, there must still be a strong market for it among voters, else politicians wouldn’t supply it with such tedious regularity. Personally, I am in favor of politicians acting as idiotically as possible as frequently as possible in public. How else will the public ever come to understand what they (and, perforce, you and I) are paying for?

Constant Viewer: Mongol

Mongol probably isn’t coming to a theater near you or, if it is or already has, it probably isn’t the sort of movie you’re likely to go see unless you’re already the sort of art house film buff who eschews Hollywood flicks and regularly uses words like "eschew."

But Constant Viewer saw it yesterday and, as Mongolian language movies go, CV would give it a thumbs up (if CV had opposable thumbs like those art house snobs, that is) for beautiful cinematography, excellently choreographed and executed battle scenes complete replete with splattered blood galore and the sort of epic sweep we don’t see all that much ever since David Lean died.

Mongol tells the story of the early years and rise to power of Genghis Khan and, lest there be any doubt, it is not a remake of The Conqueror, clearly the most grotesquely funny miscasting of John Wayne ever. Besides, Mongol is all about the gentle side of Genghis Khan; Khan the family man, law giver and all around good guy. It’s not The Wrath of Khan; it’s Yes, I Khan! (Now, if only CV could figure out some way to work The 39 Steppes into this review.) Better still, since Mongols are not what you’d call chatty people, this is the rare foreign language movie where there is absolutely zero chance the rare dialog and therefore rare subtitles will distract you.

Mongol is in many respects an old-fashioned movie. There are no surprising twists or turns and no flashy CGI special effects. It is, on the other hand, an entirely craftsman-like film and, as all movies should, it takes you somewhere you’ve almost certainly never been. By contrast, an increasing number of this summer’s movies take you where you’ve already been far, far too often.

New Corn Laws Adam Smith Would Also Dislike*

Diamonds are scarce like every other economic good. Their scarcity, however, is vastly exaggerated by those in the business of marketing them as a luxury. If the cure for cancer were discovered tomorrow, however, and if it somehow required natural, i.e., not man-made diamonds, the demand for diamonds would skyrocket and they would legitimately command an even higher price.

Food, by contrast, is not a luxury but a necessity, at least in its most elementary forms. Moreover, the poorer you are, the more you will spend of whatever your income may be on food and the more vulnerable you will be to any sudden and significant increase in its price. Four dollar a gallon gasoline inconveniences middle-class Americans but a 75% increase in global food prices is catastrophic for poor people around the world.

Which is precisely what an unpublished World Bank study is being reported as claiming.

In the rush to report such things (and, yes, the rush to report such reports), it more often than not occurs that sensational conclusions such as this are not only misleadingly taken out of context but, once the data is actually made available, subsequently shown to be unsubstantiated by that data. That needs to be said here, as well.

Still, whatever the figure may be, whether it is 75% or the laughably and unbelievably small 3% the U.S. government has claimed plant-derived fuels contribute to recent food price increases, it takes no more than common sense (never in large supply, I grant you) and a passing grade in intro economics to realize that a new and large demand for a commodity will at the very least temporarily raise its market price. Moreover, at some point, if that demand continues or, worse yet, continues to grow, suppliers will not be able to meet such increased demand at whatever the former market price may have been.

U.S. energy policy (not unlike U.S. health care policy) is criminally broken. I mean “criminal” in a moral, not a legal sense, and yet the fact that alternative bio-fuels like ethanol are being mandated by our elected weasels in Washington artificially skewing both the energy and the food markets and contributing no end to the misery of the world’s poor probably should be a crime of some sort. It is, in fact, simply a forced redistribution of wealth for nothing more than the ephemeral political advantage of those office holders who temporarily placate their constituencies as a result, never mind the unintended and sometimes tragic consequences others must suffer.

But that is the political reality. Starving people in third world nations don’t vote in U.S. elections, whereas Kansas and Nebraska corn farmers do.

(* Yes, I do in fact know that when Adam Smith first wrote about corn laws the word "corn" was a generic term for grains.)

Avast, Ye Lubbers! And A Happy 4th To Ye! Yarrrr!

No 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door. But 'tis enough. 'Twill serve. -- Mercutio, Romeo and Juliet, Act III, Scene 1.

Today, as my little way of celebrating Independence Day and my impending 57th birthday two days from now, I marched bravely (well, semi-bravely) into a Claire’s at the local mall and paid a young woman $20 to pierce my left ear. This admittedly trivial bit of fashion news -- news in the sense that when word gets out that geezers like me are getting their ears pierced now, piercing and earring sales will soon plummet -- requires a bit of background information.

Long, long before Pirates of the Caribbean and even before straight white guys tentatively began to get their ears pierced back in the late seventies, youngster D.A. Ridgely was especially taken with those 1940s swashbucklers he watched on the old black & white RCA console in the living room, especially including Errol Flynn in The Sea Hawk. Truth be told, I didn’t know then and don’t know now how to go about buckling a swash or if Flynn even wore an earring in that movie, but somewhere along the way in my childhood I became enamored with the idea of getting a pirate’s earring.

Well, it was the 1950s and not only were there no straight white men with earrings in my neighborhood, there weren’t any straight black men to be seen anywhere sporting earrings nor any gay black or white men, either. Of course, Arlington, Virginia was still segregated in the 1950s, so I didn’t see too many black men of any sort most of the time and as far as gay men went my family was still in denial about Liberace, never mind Uncle Julius who everyone said was a “perennial bachelor.”

Anyway, the point here is that in the working class neighborhood of my childhood expressing an interest in getting an earring would have resulted in even more beatings than my use of the occasional three syllable word already engendered, so dreams of pirate gold faded or were repressed or some such. The years passed with my decidedly non-Jewish body nonetheless still qualified, should I ever convert, for burial in a Jewish cemetery with nary a tattoo and only the orifices that came as original equipment.

Life goes on, Obla Di Obla Da, and my maturing fashion sense drifted increasingly toward what I’ll call Eternal Preppy: Oxford cloth button-down shirts, Harris tweed jackets, that sort of thing. In terms of sartorial consistency, jewelry of any sort hardly enters the picture here, a wedding band and maybe a college signet ring excepted. Well, that’s pretty much how official and professional Washington, D.C. has always dressed and dresses to this day and that’s where I spent the bulk of my professional years.

But those years are over for me, or at least on hiatus, and so I decided what the hell? But this raised a somewhat delicate point; namely, where the hell should a fifty-six year old (for two more days, thank you very much!) man go to have his ear pierced?

I actually considered doing the deed, myself, but besides the fact that I have a yellow streak where my spine should be, the fact is that I am famously bad at doing anything manually. (God made me a little bit smarter than most people, I am sure, simply so I wouldn’t starve to death as a manual laborer.) The thought of having to go to my doctor or show up at an emergency room with an infected ear thanks to my own ineptitude quickly ruled out the do-it-yourself approach. This left shopping mall stores and strip mall tattoo / piercing parlors.

Now, as it happens, I have a cousin Nancy who does (or did, I haven’t seen her in a few years) tattoos professionally. I suspect she’s quite good at it but I don’t know if she does piercings too, and, besides, we no longer live close to each other.

Worse yet, though, and let me hasten to add that I genuinely like my cousin Nancy but, but, but... well, let’s just say that she fits exactly my image of the sort of person I would expect to find running a tattoo parlor and if I didn’t already know her I wouldn’t let her get within ten feet of me with anything sharp in her hand. Actually, now that I come to think of it, even knowing her I wouldn’t let her get that close.

So there I was this morning at Claire’s, their literally closest competition, the Piercing Pagoda, being closed. If it is true, and it is, that I am not your typical walk-in customer for the local tattoo / piercing parlor, it is equally and perhaps even more true that, by virtue of gender and age, I am far from fitting the demographics Claire's aims for.

Look, I’m not the shyest guy around, but let me put it to you like this. When I was in high school and college I smoked a little pot now and then. Experimented, you might say, as long as it’s understood that we're talking about a longitudinal study. Still, the day came when I stopped smoking pot, and that was in no small measure because buying it was no longer a matter of asking a fellow student whose experimental studies were even more rigorous than my own where I could buy an ounce. When I was very young the adults used to try to scare us with images of old men hanging around the school yard trying to sell us drugs, but I was afraid I would become an old man hanging around the school yard trying to buy drugs, so my longitudinal study finally came to an end.

So, okay, I felt foolish walking into that store. A perfectly charming 20-something young woman didn’t so much as bat an eye at my request. Had I been she and someone like me came in and asked to get his ear pierced I have no doubt words like Alzheimer’s would have been crossing my mind. Moreover, I probably couldn’t have resisted offering me a senior citizen discount, one of the many reasons I would have failed at a retail career.

But no, she was very gracious and matter-of-fact. I picked my starter earring; alas, not the pirate’s gold hoop I plan eventually to get (before September 19th, of course!), but a discreet little gold ball and she had me sign and initial various acknowledgments and waivers while she put on surgical gloves, inserted the earring cartridge into what amounts to a plastic rivet gun and, bingo, it was all over. Well, over except for the aftercare demonstration. I tactfully declined to point out to her that poking open the bottle of formerly sterile solution with her ball point pen rendered it no longer sterile, paid for my purchase and wandered off into the day.

Sadly, but to nobody's surprise, I still don’t look anything like Errol Flynn or Johnny Depp. I wouldn’t go so far as to say I already have buyer’s remorse but I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if, after I get my hoop in six weeks and wear it a while, I don’t take it out and let the hole heal over. I’m certainly not trying to make a statement and, besides, piercings and tattoos long ago stopped being signs of rebellion and uniqueness -- a status they only enjoyed for a very brief period a long time ago. Today, if anything, they are signs of an almost slavish conformity to mass market fashion.

As I said above, when aging Baby Boomers like me decide to do something of this sort, that is in itself sufficient proof of its complete absence of hipness. (See? We even still use words like “hipness”!) But I’m happy with my decision and additionally happy to note it has annoyed my family. Now, if only I can figure out how to get this swash buckled!

Constant Viewer: Hancock

The first thing that must be said about Hancock is that, its misleading trailer aside, this is not a comedy but a serious summer superhero action movie. Okay, so the phrase “summer superhero action movie” probably shouldn’t ever be qualified by “serious.” Still, Constant Viewer thought he’d be seeing something of a send-up of the genre; the superhero equivalent of Last Action Hero (a much maligned and actually very good movie, by the way).

But no, Hancock has its comic moments but most of them are, in fact, on that disingenuous trailer. What you see when the lights go down is the story of a man whose past has been lost and whose present and future, as a result, are in danger of being lost as well. CV isn’t surprised his fellow reviewers have been all over the map about this movie, he really isn’t sure about it, himself.

This much in favor of Hancock can clearly be said. All three principal players, Will Smith, Charlize Theron and Jason Bateman, turn in strong performances in well written, three dimensional roles. (Okay, okay, 3-D by action movies standards, but hey, you know.) Theron’s part is substantially larger than CV expected, a fact which leads to a plot twist that caught CV entirely by surprise. The special effects are fun and it’s actually refreshing to see the ripple effect, if you will, of the typical superhero’s good deed doing.

On the other hand, CV came away thinking that Hancock is a brilliant concept that has been almost indifferently executed. Surely a malcontented alcoholic superhero is a character worthy of more exposition and exploration than he is given here and CV felt almost rushed through Hancock’s rehabilitation so that the movie’s far more conventional story could get going.

Will Smith is an enormous talent with enormous personal appeal. Among his contemporaries, probably only Tom Hanks is as hot and as personable a star. Smith's string of hits since before Independence Day is a simply amazing streak (never mind that CV thought Wild, Wild West sucked), and he’ll probably carry Hancock securely into financial success just on good will alone. Frankly, however, Hancock didn’t come close to the major movie it could or should have been, and that’s a damned shame.

Torture By Any Other Name

I strongly encourage you to read Christopher Hitchens' first-hand account of the experience of waterboarding in Vanity Fair.

When news first broke that U.S. personnel were using this "enhanced interrogation technique," the ensuing discussions broke into two separate questions: (1) are such techniques torture and (2) regardless, are such techniques ever morally justified.

Much to the dismay of my former co-blogger Thoreau, I have steadfastly remained agnostic on the second question, perhaps to the point where the casual reader might have inferred that I was implicitly sanctioning such behavior in our current, endless War On Terrorism™.

No. I was not. I do not.

Nor have I sanctioned or do I sanction the despicable practice of extraordinary rendition in which the U.S. delivers prisoners into the hands of our less punctilious "allies" to be tortured.

I do not, nonetheless, rule out the occasional, exceptional case where the utilitarian calculus is overwhelmingly in favor of taking the risk torture might work versus the more likely harm to come if it is not attempted. Such scenarios are, ex hypothesi, immune to criticisms that they may not or will not work. Sometimes long shots are all you have.

But, as Thoreau has also pointed out repeatedly, the greatest care must be taken to ensure that the exception does not become the rule, that we do not become beguiled by fear into condoning that which is both rationally and morally beneath us as a people.

Returning to the first point, however, I must confess that in my personal, experiential ignorance of such things I considered it at first an open question whether waterboarding did or should qualify as a torture technique. But whatever initial benefit of the doubt we might once have given officials who either denied waterboarding is torture or attempted to hide behind bureaucratic euphemisms has long since passed. (Such officials, it hardly needs to be added, long ago forfeited any entitlement whatsoever to credibility, anyway.)

I have what I think is, under the circumstances, a modest and reasonable recommendation. Anyone who continues to assert or argue that waterboarding does not constitute torture should immediately be afforded the opportunity to experience it first-hand it as Mr. Hitchens did. If, having done so, he continues to wish to assert that waterboarding is not torture, we should consider his opinion for whatever we believe it is worth.

Otherwise -- that is, should he not avail himself of that opportunity -- he should politely but firmly be told to shut the f*ck up.