Fun with words: If Aaron Sorkin wrote Star Trek: The Next Generation

March 15, 2012March 15, 2012 ~ Graham Milne ~ 6 Comments

corridor — Plenty of room for a pedeconference.

For those weary of the blatant Sorkin-worship on this blog, I promise this will be the last of him for a little while. But as he often does, he has inspired me to try my hand at something a little offbeat today. I would never claim to be half the wordsmith he is, but Sorkin does have a particular style that can be mimicked by us lesser mortals who have studied his works a little too obsessively. Behold then, for your amusement, Star Trek: The Next Generation as written by Aaron Sorkin. Hope you dig. (Sorry about the pdf, but script format doesn’t seem to want to play well here. And oh yeah, characters copyright Paramount Pictures, no infringement intended, purposes of parody, so on and so forth.)

Aaron Sorkin’s Star Trek: The Next Generation

Yes, as William Shatner would say, I need to get a life.

It ain’t easy

March 13, 2012 ~ Graham Milne ~ 10 Comments

sorkin — Aaron Sorkin, making it look easy.

In Adventures in the Screen Trade, his seminal book on screenwriting, William Goldman talks excitedly about meeting one of his literary heroes, Irwin Shaw (The Young Lions and Rich Man, Poor Man among many others). They spend an afternoon together, the young Goldman soaking up as much of Shaw’s wisdom as he can. As they are about to part, Goldman flippantly comments to Shaw that writing must have been easy for him. Shaw is struck dumb and becomes incredibly morose, remarking quietly, “It wasn’t easy.” Goldman spends the rest of the chapter berating himself for having said that, for trivializing in one ill-informed quip a lifetime of Shaw’s tribulation and heartbreak poured out on paper. Perhaps the most intimidating part of attempting to write anything is the mere existence of the reams and reams of brilliant work that have gone before, and the resulting feeling that you will never measure up because it’s so difficult for you and those other guys could just knock out genius effortlessly. Staring at the blank screen and the blinking cursor with the spectre of Jack Kerouac feeding rolls of paper through his typewriter because he just couldn’t stop can diminish your verve quite abruptly.

Indeed, writing is one of those paradoxical vocations that people can claim to love in one breath when they are bashing their heads against the wall trying to figure out the right order of words in the next. While I am presently finalizing my first novel, it is intended to be the beginning of a trilogy – an accidental trilogy, given that when I began writing it, it was only going to be a single work until I found out about word count limits – and while I know how it is supposed to end, I am not entirely certain how to get there. The other day I had a flash of inspiration and found myself laying out the plot of book two in my head. Resolving to get at least a workable outline down as soon as possible, I found myself sitting at my computer, utterly stymied. The words were just not there. I got up, walked around, got a drink, looked out the window, pet the cat, changed the music and still nothing came. In that moment I felt about as in love with writing as I am with right-wing conservatism. An inability to find the words is the wedge that lets all the demons through the door. Who are you kidding? You suck at this. You’ll never amount to anything. No one will ever want to read this, let alone spend money for it. When a writer sinks into that well of self-criticism, no amount of positive feedback will help a whit. One can imagine Irwin Shaw at his typewriter caught in the same spiral, and thus have no difficulty picturing his deep offense at William Goldman’s casual remark.

One of my writing heroes, Aaron Sorkin, wrote 88 episodes of The West Wing over four years – working on his other series Sports Night concurrently during the first two of those years and still maintaining an unsurpassed level of quality that entrenched a collective ideal of a liberal and intellectual Presidency of the United States during the frustrating Bush years. A recent Vanity Fair article discusses how The West Wing continues to inspire young staffers who work in the White House to this very day. Yet while he was writing, Sorkin’s marriage broke apart and he suffered well-documented problems with substance abuse, even an embarrassing airport arrest. I would love to meet Aaron Sorkin one day, shake his hand and thank him for inspiring my own writing. But not in a million years would I ever dare to suggest it was easy for him. That would diminish not only his work, but my own – I think I’d be embarrassed to say I was inspired by something that the guy knocked off in five minutes on a cocktail napkin.

Writing is the articulation of the soul, the translation of wordless thoughts and feelings into a permanent form that can be shared with and experienced by others. It is announcing with a megaphone the baring of your vulnerable heart to the world, and hoping for connection, and though it can be as difficult as physically tearing open your ribcage with only your fingertips, we are compelled to do it anyway. The drive of a writer to craft his message can leave ruin in its wake – the ruin of relationships, of health, of entire lives – the fate of men like Ernest Hemingway. At the same time, one has to concede nobility in the idea of this sacrifice of personal well-being to a higher purpose – the creation of a lasting story. This is not by any means to suggest that all great work should require ear-slicing insanity, only that no one should ever expect to reach this mythical idea of effortless writing, and it’s something to remember the next time the flashing cursor unveils the horrifying sight of the blank page. It’s hard for everyone, no matter how easy they make it look.

The human factor: Game Change

March 12, 2012March 12, 2012 ~ Graham Milne

When Aaron Sorkin was first developing The West Wing, he was advised repeatedly that shows about politics don’t work. It’s one of the more interesting ironies that even though pundits are fond of dismissing political machinations as “inside the beltway” minutiae that make no difference to the lives of ordinary people, political stories, whether they are Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, All the President’s Men or JFK, are among the most compelling dramas out there. Why, might one ask? There is something Shakespearean in narratives set amidst the pursuit of, or the exercise of high office – they are our latter-day tales of the courts of kings and queens. In fact, Game of Thrones, HBO’s award-winning fantasy series, wins praise not for its dragons and magic and special effects but for the plights of its very human characters caught up in the drive for political power. Indeed, “HBO” and “Game” would seem to be a winning combination, as exemplified by the premiere this past weekend of Game Change, the Jay Roach-directed story of the McCain-Palin presidential campaign of 2008. In today’s climate it’s difficult to put politics aside when looking at a movie like this, but the script (by former Buffy the Vampire Slayer actor-turned-writer Danny Strong, who also wrote Recount) jettisons ideology to a large extent. You don’t really get the sense from the movie of what McCain and Palin were running on or how they differed from the successful Democratic ticket. The story focuses instead on what made The West Wing and the best political movies work – the human element.

You don’t have to agree, even slightly, with the positions of John McCain or Sarah Palin to enjoy this movie – you can be the staunchest, conservative-loathing left-winger and still relate to the weary McCain’s fading hopes to be President, the suddenly infamous Palin’s desire to prove herself on a national stage and seasoned advisor Steve Schmidt’s drive to win. There is an honour to these people when viewed in their private moments (fictionalized as they may be here) and a humanity that we come to realize is stripped away under the lens of 24-hour news coverage, rendering them less people than caricatures defined at the whims of others. The sublimely talented Julianne Moore is an eerie dead ringer for the infamous Alaskan governor, nailing her look, her movement and her oft-imitated voice, and showing us what made average people gravitate to her in the first place. It was easy to snicker at Tina Fey’s “I can see Russia from my house” line back in the day; much less so to see the film’s Palin experiencing being pilloried night after night to raucous laughter. The always watchable Woody Harrelson is excellent as Schmidt, who is instrumental in getting Palin on the ticket over McCain’s initial preference of Joe Lieberman, and who watches like Doctor Frankenstein as his “creation” spirals out of control, only to try and salvage what he can of the party as the campaign begins to go off the rails. In one of the final scenes, as he angrily tells Palin she will not be allowed to give her own concession speech on election night, he has come full circle, a believer in and defender of the traditions of American democracy, after living the consequences of trying to win through cynical political calculations alone.

Asked by Anderson Cooper at the end whether he would have put Palin on the ticket had he the chance to make a different choice, Schmidt only comments with resignation that in life, you do not get do-overs. As the real-life Sarah Palin maintains her public presence and muses to the press about jumping into the 2012 Republican race should Mitt Romney not achieve a solid lock on their nomination, the ultimate lesson of Game Change rings loudly – the reason why, contrary to popular (or at least entertainment executive) belief, political stories work. John McCain, Steve Schmidt and the Republicans looked at Barack Obama’s effect on his supporters and concluded that rock star charisma was enough to win. What they and the world came to realize in 2008 was that it is not – gravitas matters more. At its heart Game Change isn’t about wonkery and punditry and polls; what it does is put the lie to the old saw that anyone can be President – or, perhaps more accurately, that anyone should be President. Some people just aren’t up to the job, and that’s nothing against them. Sarah Palin certainly wasn’t, and there is a hint of classical Greek tragedy in the tale of a woman given such an enormous opportunity only to see it drift away because of her own failings. I’m a proud liberal – I cannot condone Palin’s politics, how she conducts her life or how she would choose to impose her worldview on others, but I can empathize with the loss of a dream I didn’t realize I even wanted. We all can. That’s why Game Change works, and why it can take its place among the best political stories – because of the human factor.

Hey you, get your damn hands off her

March 2, 2012 ~ Graham Milne ~ 3 Comments

I was standing in the express lane at the grocery store, waiting to purchase dinner, tapping away on my smartphone. Three places ahead of me in line was an older couple who were quite exasperated with the cashier, for reasons difficult to ascertain; something to do with the amount of change being incorrect. The cashier, a young kid no more than twenty, was doing his best to be accommodating – this did not impress the older man, who decided at one point to slam his hand on the conveyor and yell at him. Giving the older guy the benefit of the doubt just for the moment, he could have reached the end of his tether after a rotten day. But that was no reason to take it out on the kid, who was not being rude, or dismissive, or in any way belligerent. What surprised me most about the whole affair was how my stomach turned at the old guy’s outburst. You know that scene in A Clockwork Orange where Alex, having undergone the brainwash of the “Ludovico treatment,” starts heaving with nausea at any example of violence? That was me. It was this peculiar mix of revulsion and paralysis. I’ve spent a lot of time in the past few weeks reflecting on this and wondering where it came from, trying to contextualize it in terms of my overall personality. And the conclusion I have come to is this: I hate bullies.

Liberals aren’t supposed to be hateful. We are supposed to be the compassionate and empathetic turn-the-other-cheekers who look at the world in endless shades of nuance and complexity. Yet I can summon no sympathy or understanding for anyone who preys on the weak; who tries to get their way by intimidation, smears, threats and the perpetuation of hatred and fear. It isn’t that I just want to see bullies stop bullying, I want to see them humiliated and utterly destroyed. I am positively gleeful at the thought of the arrogant asses of the world sobbing in the corner. I see it as justice and fair retribution for the torment they have inflicted on other people. And it frustrates me that what seems on the surface to be wishing only for karmic just desserts makes me no better than they are.

When the news broke of Andrew Breitbart’s death yesterday, I was appalled at my initial reaction, which was, essentially, good riddance. This man devoted his life and career to spreading hatred of the things that I believe in. But at the same time, he was somebody’s father and somebody else’s son – a man with a young family and kids that now have to grow up without their dad, a situation I can understand all too acutely. Andrew Breitbart’s children don’t deserve that, and at the same time, he doesn’t deserve to not be around to watch them grow up. Maybe that is what makes liberalism such a challenging philosophy to uphold – the need to be able to look deep into the soul of one’s opposition, into the recesses of the ugliness that repels us and tears at our most cherished tenets, and locate the mutual humanity. As Andrew Shepherd (Michael Douglas) puts it in The American President, “Let’s see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who’s standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours.” And to that say, Namaste.

What did I want to do in that moment in line? What would have sated those intense feelings of anger and hatred simmering inside my gut? Did I want to take a swing at the old man? Did I want to excoriate him in a Sorkin-esque blaze of wit and erudition and Gilbert & Sullivan references? Which of those options would have made it better? The answer is, neither.

The perfect illustration of this dilemma, for me, is the climax of the first Back to the Future, when George McFly, thinking he’s playing out a scene to win the affections of Lorraine, realizes to his horror that he is in fact throwing down with his lifelong nemesis Biff Tannen. Biff is such a detestable character, embodied memorably by Thomas F. Wilson, that everyone who watches the movie can’t help but smile when George finally decks him with one powerful left-handed haymaker. But the crucial point of the moment is not the defeat of the bully – it’s George’s embrace of the confidence locked away inside him. Biff doesn’t really learn much of a lesson or even stray very far from his bullying ways – it took two sequels to finally defeat his ilk once and for all – but George is forever a better man. When we see George at the end of the first movie, he has no trouble dealing with Biff, and again, not because of one bloody nose, but because he recognizes Biff’s failings and pities him. One can never be threatened by someone for whom you feel pity – it is an irreversible triumph, because it is a triumph of the soul.

Eventually the cashier and his manager were able to address the problems of the old couple and send them on their way – a happy ending for all concerned. The rotten feeling I had inside, however, lets me know that I still have work to do on myself – I’m not George McFly at the end of the movie just yet. And it remains ever difficult to find that pity in a time when bullies run rampant in our governments, our banks, our schools, tearing with greed at the very fabric of our civilization. Yet ours too is a powerful flame, one that should be stoked constantly to ensure that our collective humanity shines on. Our lasting impression upon history can be exemplified by the best of us, and those are the people I’d rather stand with.

Painting with notes: Emilie-Claire Barlow live

February 28, 2012March 12, 2012 ~ Graham Milne

Jazz is probably the only form of music that is equal parts sexy and frustrating; like a beautiful woman in a smoke-draped bar who slips you her phone number on a napkin, only for you to discover that it’s written in an encrypted quantum algorithm. Emilie-Claire Barlow has the former aspect nailed, with a voice at home in both swinging English and seductive French that can run like the sleekest saxophone. As for the frustrating part, not a problem – she retains the freshness of the improvisational nature of jazz, but applies a bottomless bag of tricks to an open and accessible package. Two magnificent hours at the Oakville Centre for the Performing Arts this past Friday exemplify her appeal. A striking presence, strutting confidently about the stage in a sleek silver mini-dress amidst her all-male backing band, she defies the expectation that someone so good-looking and talented should be an unapproachable diva. Despite legs that go all the way to the floor (thanks Aaron Sorkin for the metaphor), she’s a supermodel you somehow don’t feel quite so intimidated about walking up to greet. She deserves to be much more famous than she is – worthy of the echelon of Michael Bublé – but hopefully time and more great albums and performances will take care of that. Indeed, one all-too-brief night in the company of her voice is enough to get you hooked.

It’s struck me how similar jazz is to painting, and it’s no coincidence that many of the greatest jazz performers, Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett included, were also painters. If you think of both arts as the careful application of individual colors towards a composite whole, then you have a fairly good sense of how the comparison fits. On The Beat Goes On, her album of covers of 60’s rock and folk songs that was the centerpiece of Friday’s performance, Barlow has done far more than pour old wine in new bottles, she’s splashed it against her own unique canvas. She has reinvigorated tired, cheesy karaoke favorites like “Breaking Up is Hard to Do,” “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head” and “These Boots Are Made For Walkin'”, playing around with time signatures and tempos and layered them with her breezy intonations, turning them into new creations that would feel right at home at the Bourbon Street Bar around two in the morning. The title track is a surprising new take on the Sonny and Cher attempt at Dylanesque relevance (that felt dated when it first dropped with goofy lyrics like “Electrically they keep a baseball score”), which hums along crisply before revealing its greatest treasure – that it’s a mashup with Quincy Jones’ danceable “Soul Bossa Nova” (better known as Austin Powers’ theme, or, if you’re a Canadian of the right age, the theme to the gameshow Definition). Barlow strolls through these songs with ease, but is equally at home with musical standards like “Surrey with the Fringe on Top”, haunting ballads like “So Many Stars” or her Piaf-conjuring French-language take on “Dream a Little Dream,” just a few of the other selections from earlier albums she dazzled Friday’s audience with.

Barlow’s opening act, jazz bassist and singer Brandi Disterheft, is an intriguing performer in her own right, her tiny fingers dancing across the strings of a massive instrument she can barely lift and drawing out a rush of incredible sound. Disterheft’s music veers more toward the make-it-up-as-you-go, hipster style of jazz, but there’s so much raw talent there you’re happy to come along for the ride, even if you don’t quite understand where you’re going or the what the deal is with the scenery flying by. She had the crowd enraptured merely in two brief numbers to kick off the evening, with a style and presence all her own – if Emilie-Claire Barlow is the traditional sultry jazz siren, Brandi Disterheft is Tinkerbell, her practiced ease with her craft making it seem as though the notes that spring forth are indeed the result of pixie magic.

Speaking of the crowd, one cannot forget to mention their giddiness at hearing Barlow’s closing encore – the Brazilian ditty “O Pato (The Duck).” Barlow confessed to us after the show that she had dropped it from her setlist for a time but found audiences were asking for it back; indeed, a few “quackers” on Friday were quite insistent on hearing it, sparking many giggles from the enchanting songstress during her stage banter. If you haven’t heard it, it’s a funny number about a duck who loves to dance the samba and gets his friends the goose and swan to join in – three and a half minutes of unadulterated, swinging joy. In a way it’s fitting that it has inadvertently become something of a signature song for her, as it sums up her style, this strange, alluring combination of sex appeal and approachable goofiness that is still jazz through and through. That she’s able to slice off the frustrating aspect and make amazing sounds for the masses is nothing but a credit to how good she is. Because all the talent in the world is useless if no one gets it.

Laudantium Duo Cathedrales

February 8, 2012February 8, 2012 ~ Graham Milne

A review I found of The Grey recently (not mine) pointed out that it’s not often we see poetry in the movies. Nor are we likely to find it on television, particularly when there is after all so much donkey semen to be consumed, and so much ritual humiliation to be suffered, in pursuit of cash and prizes. In a way though, it’s not really surprising. The production of episodic television can best be likened to a meat grinder churning through product ever faster. Compromises are the order of the day to meet the schedule; creativity takes a distant back seat to speed. Poetry, by contrast, is meditative and contemplative – it takes time and care to compose, and even more time to read and reflect upon. That is why the rare occasion one does come across televised poetry is such a gift. James Lipton called The West Wing‘s “Two Cathedrals” the finest hour of television ever produced, and I’m inclined to agree. Written by series creator Aaron Sorkin with his usual brilliance and flair, it is an allegorical story of Job, a story of a man, the President of the United States – ostensibly the most powerful man in the world – whose faith is tested to its limits. A man who is forced to confront his innermost demons, who is pushed to the edge, to breaking, and finds solace and strength once more to stand against the coming storm. A story of the true bravery of which human beings are uniquely capable.

The setting: The White House. As re-election looms, President Josiah Bartlet (Martin Sheen) is about to reveal to the world that he has multiple sclerosis and did not disclose it during his first run for high office. His beloved long-time secretary and confidante Mrs. Dolores Landingham has just been killed in a car crash. Tragedies and misfortunes pile on and the President finds himself questioning what he sees as God’s plan, wondering if God is, in fact, merely a feckless thug. In a series of flashbacks we see young Jed demeaned by an imposing, small-minded father who seems to resent his son’s very existence. When the President curses God in Latin (“Cruciatus in crucem – eas in crucem”) and crushes out a cigarette on the floor of Washington’s National Cathedral, he is rebelling against God and his father as one. He has sunk to his lowest and is resigned to defeat, advising his staff he does not intend to seek re-election. An hour before a press conference at which he plans to announce the same to the world, Bartlet sits quietly in the Oval Office, preparing himself for the grand humiliation to come – when suddenly the door is blown open by the wind and his conscience reasserts itself. In the form of a conversation with an imagined Mrs. Landingham, Jed reminds himself – through the voice of his departed mentor and friend – that the fight is worth the struggle, that he is in a unique position to help so many faceless people, and he cannot and will not be undone by the failings of the father. He walks outside, and as the haunting guitar of Dire Straits’ “Brothers in Arms” starts up, Bartlet is baptized by the driving rain. At the press conference, he throws away the script and invites the question of whether he intends to run again. It’s established earlier on that when Jed has made up his mind, he smiles and puts his hands in his pockets. Without speaking, he does so again, and his journey is complete. He has descended to the depths, walked through the fire, and emerged whole and greater.

One cannot watch the episode without feeling a similar lift, regardless of whether or not one is a person of faith – and that, to me, is one of the triumphs of “Two Cathedrals.” The allegory of God/father vs. Jesus/son is plain, but it is handled so delicately that even though the underlying themes of the episode are highly religious, it does not come across as a sermon, but rather a paean to the faith a single human being can have in himself, and the ability to overcome any amount of doubt in order to do what is morally right. There will likely be a time in every man’s life when he looks to the image of his own father and questions why he is here, or what purpose, if any, his suffering must serve, very much as Jesus on the cross cried toward heaven asking why his father had forsaken him. It is the paradigm of the relationship between a father and a son. The clarity and certainty Bartlet finds as he stands in the rain is to be admired, and in many ways, to be envied as well. We should all be so lucky to understand ourselves and our place here on earth. Where “Two Cathedrals” helps is in throwing down the challenge, forcing us to ask the question – one of the most terrifying any man can ask, because the answer can truly shape the rest of his life. It can come to define the limits of who he is and everything he will ever be. That is more than mere poetry – it is the essence of truth.

My kingdom for a good m-m-movie

January 25, 2012March 12, 2012 ~ Graham Milne ~ 5 Comments

Few can disagree that 2011 was a forgettable year for movies. One is reminded of the 1994 baseball season, which, owing to a crippling strike, was the first without a World Series. You almost wish that the Academy Awards could skip a year themselves. A rule change a few years ago expanded the field of Best Picture nominees from five to ten, and this past year, the Academy couldn’t even gather ten films worthy of the top honour – settling instead for nine. And none truly captured imaginations and inspired the affections of millions, or infected the zeitgeist like famous films gone by; the closest contender is The Artist, whose primary selling point is that it’s a silent movie done in the style of the 1920’s – an exercise in Hollywood nostalgia (or navel-gazing if one wants to be cynical about it), and appealing most to old show business insiders heartsick for the halcyon days of Irving Thalberg and Louis B. Mayer. As a prime example of how low 2011 set the bar, the highlights of one of the performances nominated for Best Supporting Actress (Melissa McCarthy in Bridesmaids) is the character defecating into a sink. The Simpsons has a great word to express the apex of being unimpressed: for lack of a term more in the mode of the Queen’s English, 2011 in film was simply meh.

But this isn’t the place to whinge about how Hollywood never makes anything good anymore, because I don’t believe that’s necessarily true. They just seemed like they were having an off year – maybe they were depressed after the triumph of the Tea Party in the mid-term elections. 2010 offered some fantastic entries, including two personal favourites – The Social Network and The King’s Speech. Both were masterfully written, impeccably acted and crisply directed, and both were essentially about a shy and retiring person finding his voice (metaphorically in the former, literally in the latter) and forcing the world to hear it. It remained an open question up until Oscar night which of the two would emerge on top – ultimately the Academy opted for the movie with the more endearing protagonist, and The King’s Speech was thus crowned (interesting trivia note, it was the second movie in a row to win Best Picture featuring a performance by Australian actor Guy Pearce, after The Hurt Locker in 2009, even though in that one he gets killed in the first five minutes).

Visually, The King’s Speech is not as interesting as The Social Network, with its digital trickery in the portrayal of the Winklevoss twins by a single actor and the use of tilt-shift photography in a regatta sequence. Many of the shots in The King’s Speech are quite simple – medium and close-ups of the characters, slightly off-centre to indicate their lack of comfort in their surroundings and with others. But you cannot take your eyes away from the screen, because the performances and the writing hold you like a vise. As much praise as Colin Firth deserves for his role as King George VI, with his commendable choice not to overact the King’s infamous stammer and thus render it cartoonish, for me the real joy in the movie is Geoffrey Rush as speech therapist Lionel Logue. I have decided that Rush is one of those actors I can watch in anything. As much as everyone raved about Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean, Rush was the unsung star of that film, creating a complex character despite a thin script with just the right smattering of Robert Newton thrown in. Rush can even elevate dreck like Mystery Men with his presence. Indeed, without Rush, The King’s Speech never would have been made – in a breach of protocol, the script was dropped off at his home without going through his agent first, but Rush loved what he read enough to get things moving.

As mentioned previously, The King’s Speech and The Social Network are both masterpieces of screenwriting (indeed, they both won Oscars for their writers), but for very different reasons. The Social Network is Aaron Sorkin through and through; the cadences and references used by each character belong to that unique universe of his creation. David Seidler’s dialogue in The King’s Speech is equally remarkable, but for a different reason – how understated it is. Although regular readers know I admire Sorkin greatly, sometimes it’s difficult to imagine any real person speaking the way he writes them – people aren’t that quick, witty, off-the-cuff or as complex in the iterations of their arguments. By contrast, there is wit and sharpness in the words of The King’s Speech, but amazing economy as well – the script is a mere 90 pages and very little was excised in the final cut. The wit and personality of the players seems more natural; there is less sense of the screenwriter typing the lines. Seidler is letting the characters speak, he is not forcing his words into their mouths. For a movie about finding one’s voice, this choice is not only appropriate but adds to the realism of the story and deepens its emotional resonance. They say as much as, and only, what is needed. And the richness of what they do say makes you want to go back and watch the movie again and again. If it happens to be airing on any given day, I am compelled to sit and watch the whole thing – and I still smile when dear Bertie pulls it off in the end.

So far, 2012 does look to hold more cinematic promise – we have The Dark Knight Rises, The Hobbit and Skyfall all due to hit screens before the year is out. Perhaps we can consider 2012 to be 2011’s mulligan, its do-over. I’m hopeful as always, every time I sit back in the theatre and the lights go down, that I’m about to see the greatest movie I’ve ever seen. Sometimes, like with The King’s Speech, I come pretty darned close to thinking just that.

Ten quick grammar lessons from The West Wing

January 20, 2012January 20, 2012 ~ Graham Milne ~ 4 Comments

If you want to write well in any capacity, professional or otherwise, you should watch The West Wing. Hell, you should watch it over and over again, scrutinize, memorize, take copious notes and write countless essays on its tropes and its impact on the human psyche. Rarely, if ever, has there been a series so in love with the peculiarities of the English language. Truly – few writers can turn arguing over grammatical construction into entertaining television. Not lost is the irony that if Aaron Sorkin were inclined to participate on Internet message boards, he’d definitely be considered a grammar Nazi – in the best sense of the word of course. Presented then for your perusal, ten useful takeaways to pin to the office wall for reference whenever needed:

Unique means one of a kind. Something cannot be “very unique.”
Nor can something be “extremely historic.”
Alliteration can make a reader need an avalanche of Advil.
It’s not “attorney generals,” it’s “attorneys general.”
Writing your sentences, dangling modifiers should be avoided.
“Hallowed” is not spelled with a pound sign (#) in the middle of it.
Pregnancy is a binary state, you either are or you aren’t.
“Frumpy,” onomatopoetically, sounds like what it is.
No one knows what “redoubtable” means.
The fourteen punctuation marks in standard English grammar are: period, comma, colon, semi-colon, dash, hyphen, apostrophe, question mark, exclamation point, quotation marks, brackets, parentheses, braces and ellipses.

The most lasting lesson, however, may be that fundamentally, it’s not a bad thing to want to appear smart, and that there is virtue in forever trying up your intellectual ante.

Break’s over.

Decision points

January 3, 2012 ~ Graham Milne ~ 1 Comment

Yes, I’m aware of the irony of titling my first post of 2012 after George W. Bush’s autobiography. Decisiveness is one of those traits highly valued in leaders, that they are firm and resolute in their convictions. Strangely enough it seems immaterial what those convictions are, as long as they are unwavering – someone who takes the time to examine an issue thoroughly before committing to a course of action is dismissed as a ditherer. It’s assigning total vindication to the concept of leaping before you look, inasmuch as it matters less that the leap will actually kill you than it does that you were certain about leaping in the first place. I’ve chosen this topic for my 2012 leadoff slot because it relates to my sole New Year’s Resolution: to be more decisive. Which is not to imply that I’m advocating the abandonment of sound judgment; it is certainly not to suggest substituting recklessness for reason. Rather, it is the idea of committing fully to a course of action instead of hemming and hawing and gaming out all possible failing scenarios first. Acting the latter is the equivalent of standing on the side of a busy roadway watching cars race by, when you really should be in that race. You should have been in it eighty-three laps ago, but you’re waiting for an elusive “perfect moment” to jump in. Truthfully, you’re not waiting for a perfect moment. It’s a fable you’ve conjured to rationalize your unwillingness to shift into gear and step on the gas. It is the eternal lament of the coward who has resigned himself to never trying.

We can sit back on our couches and slam the politician with the redneck opinions, the auto-tuned singer of dubious talents but ample cleavage, the latest hack vampire novelist, the hopelessly wooden thespian, the football team that never wins. But every single one of those people chose to stand up and try. It doesn’t matter that they may have succeeded because of how they look or who they knew or just plain dumb luck. They could have stayed home and kept to themselves, settled for a less than ordinary life. Something compelled them to take that fateful step into traffic. Ambition is not a vice; indeed, it is the driving force at the heart of all human progress since the beginning of time. I’m writing this on a computer and sharing it with the world because someone long ago decided they wanted something other than pen and paper. And before that someone decided they wanted something other than chisels and stone tablets, or charcoal and cave walls upon which to record their thoughts and stories. Star Trek was never about going timidly where thousands had gone already, if, you know, it was perfectly safe to do so and no one else would be upset by it. Hard to imagine getting excited about a television series like that, isn’t it. As it is hard to imagine getting excited about a life of hesitation and half-heartedness. Those who make a mark on the world use their whole heart. One shudders, like Ebenezer Scrooge confronted by the Spirit of Christmas Yet to Come, at the prospect of looking back from the tail end of life at endless opportunities forsaken and dreams that never got off the ground. That beautiful girl you never had the courage to ask out. The trip you never took. The jobs you didn’t apply for, the promotions you didn’t chase after. The novel you never submitted to a publisher. The treasures locked inside your soul that you never chose to share with anyone else. What then are you taking with you as you shuffle off this mortal coil? What are you leaving behind? Someone, I think it was Mark Twain, had a great quote about being more disappointed twenty years from now by the things you didn’t do, than by the things you did – regardless of whether you succeeded at them or not. Regret is the most burdensome of Jacob Marley’s chains.

My promise to myself for this year, then, is to charge at life. If I am to fail, then I want to fail with a huge Graham-shaped hole left in the wall I just ploughed into at full speed. (Full credit to Aaron Sorkin for that delightful metaphor.) Moreover, I hope to never again answer the question, “What do you want to do?” with “I dunno, what do you wanna do?” That is giving up one of your most precious freedoms as a human being – the freedom to decide the course of your own life. Even in matters as seemingly nonchalant as what to have for dinner. 2012 for me, is to be a year with no regrets, and no chances passed up. That is the stuff of living itself.

Oh yes. And I also promise to blog more.

Fun with words: What’s missing?

November 1, 2011November 1, 2011 ~ Graham Milne ~ 5 Comments

A dollop of fun today, a touch dissimilar to rants past. Your mission, and I think you’ll find it amusing, is to scan my paragraphs and unmask what’s missing from my words that you would normally find abundant. It is my task also, to suss out if I can do it whilst maintaining a gripping account for visitors to my blog. Why do I do this? Curiosity, mainly; to find if it is at all within my writing skills. Do I fancy my output as wordplay on par with that of a craftsman such as, say, Nabokov? Hardly. Most vigorously not, in point of fact. Triumph in this pursuit, or falling short, will signify nothing important, or lasting. It is, truly, just for kicks.

Pray, what to talk about today? Our world is a cornucopia, rampant with judicious topics: a sampling might contain a follow-up to All Hallows’, political turmoil abroad and on our own soil, institutional ramifications of Kim Kardashian’s imploding nuptials, or sonic vistas from Coldplay’s album Mylo Xyloto. Or my familiar go-to if nothing can catch my imagination on that day, Aaron Sorkin’s vast portfolio of writings. Anyway, I’ll go for a story I find particularly irritating.

Much was said about Ms. Kardashian’s 72-day sham, mainly and rightly, that it is folly to proclaim in this day of our ongoing commoditization of stardom that any should look upon gay unions as a singular hazard to that most holy (said with sarcasm) institution of matrimony. Is it not individuals such as Kim who turn such important rituals into ridiculous “shows” for cash who should catch our communal scorn? Why do loyalists to a particular political inclination go on fighting to bar gay unions if straight Kim and company can flaunt what is so important to so many loving pairs with such disdain? A high point of hypocrisy, I would think. Not that it’s a shock coming from such sorts. It’s always about “saving our morality,” a worn-out justification to attack things out of favour with a diminishing group of old right-wing layabouts.

A propos of our villain in this saga, you cannot totally fault Kim. Truly, all of us must swallow our own wrongdoing in popularizing Kim’s antics and crafting a mass craving for additional clowning around; purchasing stacks of flimsy publications thanks simply to Kim’s mug only adds to this “famous-for-nothing” lady’s kingdom of public domination. It will not stop until common man opts to turn his focus away and to topics of vital import. Until that day, Kim Kardashian and ilk will maintain an unnatural hold on our discussion and grow rich, with a continuing sum contribution of nothing to civilization’s gradual growth (or stagnation).

I shall stop my rant at this point and ask you again to look back at this post and say what is missing. For my part, it was good fun to craft. You may submit your thoughts in our usual way. Alas, naught but bragging rights to our victor. Good luck though, and happy hunting!