I’ve got to be honest. I really liked W.. As a guy who is firmly entrenched in the middle, leaning left on some issues, right on others, I felt like the portrayal of George W. Bush was remarkably fair — especially given what I was expecting from Oliver Stone and company. In fact, of all the characters in the film, I feel like Bush comes off the best.

The movie is well-written and well-structured (even though it just back and forth in time), and mostly well-acted (more on that in a moment).

In fact, Josh Brolin’s performance as “Junior” is so good that you don’t mind that he doesn’t really look like him. Brolin’s impression of Bush is spot-on, but it is not a caricature and does not get in the way. Instead, Brolin’s performance comes off as very honest. Cromwell’s as George H.W. Bush also rings true, though Cromwell did not even begin to do an impression of “Poppy.” This was probably a good decision as those who chose to impersonate their real-life counterparts tended to do poorly.

Chief among the poor performances was Thandie Newton as Condoleezza Rice. Her impression of Rice was over-the-top to the point where it was just uncomfortable. She even looked uncomfortable doing it. I’m not sure what Stone and company were thinking when they allowed her to continue to do this (or, perhaps, egged her on to do it).

While the film feels somewhat balanced to me, there are some items that I just don’t get. The movie wants to vilify many of those involved in the decision to invade Iraq: Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz, etc. This I expected. Yet, the film makes Colin Powell out to be a saint. The contrast between Powell and Rice is particularly striking. Newton’s portrayal of Rice is as a weak sycophant, while Jeffrey Wright‘s portrayal of Powell presents him as the only level-headed member of Bush’s cabinet, yet he is forced to tow the line in the end.

In his brief introduction to the film, Cromwell said that the movie was timely, arriving “neither 10 years too early nor four years too late.” While I find the timing of it a bit suspect (so shortly before an election — note that many major political players are shown in this movie: John McCain, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, Joseph Biden, but no Obama), I feel like Cromwell might be right. Why not examine Bush’s presidency while it’s still fresh in our minds?

In the end, I’ve got to recommend W. for two reasons:

• Josh Brolin’s performance
• The interesting, almost centrist, portrait that it paints. Not sure how the Righties and the Lefties will feel about this. I am definitely interested in hearing their opinions though.

The Shack is the tale of Mackenzie Allen Phillips (a.k.a. “Mack”), a somewhat normal guy, who is asked by God to return to a shack in the forest where one of his daughters was brutally murdered. While there, God in all His/Her glory and personages converses with Mack, showing him the many things that he has misunderstood.

In this blog, I like to think about writing. When I think about The Shack and writing, my thoughts aren’t good.

First of all, the chapter titles are too cutesy and only tangentially related to what’s in the chapter. A scene that occurs around breakfast is called “Breakfast of Champions”, but not much of this scene has to do with “champions.” This is just one minor example, but it is something that started to get on my nerves as the pages wore on.

Second, the first 80 pages are entirely too long and unnecessary. As I read it, I had several thoughts, allow me to share a few with you:

• The author must be trying to get this novel up to a minimum length. This stuff is unnecessary and long-winded.
• The author is not confident in his writing skills.
• The author does not know what’s important.

Honestly, it was painful. I got the sense that Mr. Young was just trying to stretch this thing out so that it would be of a normal novel length. In so doing, there was some crazy word choice. At one point, Mack sits down to watch television. Nowhere do you see the words “TV” or “television.” Instead, Mr. Young has chosen “media tube.” Totally unnatural. In the end, as a reader, I just didn’t feel like I was in good hands.

The book does lurch past these difficult opening scenes. Once Mack makes it out to the shack (about 1/3 of the way through the novel), things pick up and become more interesting. Still, there are some inconsistencies. For example, one of the persons of God is represented by a black woman. Throughout her extended conversations with Mack, her speech fades in and out of colloquialism making me wonder: “Why can’t God stay in character?”

Beyond that, though, The Shack does present an interesting take on the Trinity and interesting ideas about how humans live with each other and with God. For this, and in spite of its poor start and tendency towards emotional cheese, it is probably worth reading.

However, the whole thing is cheapened by the final page of my copy which talks about “The Missy Project.” The Missy Project is a promotional tool that encourages you to write reviews of, promote, and hand out copies of The Shack. If I picked up some novel by Michael Chabon or Umberto Eco, and I saw this, I’d be disgusted. You would be too. Look, Mr. Young, if your book is good enough then people will tell others about it. If it’s not, then they won’t. Just because it is “christian” in nature doesn’t mean it’s okay to shamelessly self-promote. Whatever your intentions, it wreaks of money-grubbing.

Finally, a note on “heresy.” Mr. Young has caused a lot of controversy with the publication of this novel. A lot of people are up in arms about the theology that is presented therein. Ultimately, as I read it, I kept thinking: I’m glad there is a bunch of hoopla over some of this stuff…American Christians need to be confronted with their stereotypes. Do I agree fully with Mr. Young’s take on things? No. But, I think we’d agree on the biggies (e.g., God saved us, breaking our bondage to sin and death through Jesus’s salvific work on the Cross). Let’s agree on the biggies and not sweat the small stuff. I’ll get off my soapbox now…

UPDATE: For a well-reasoned, balanced, humble look at many of the issues involved with The Shack, see the following posts by Regent College’s Professor John Stackhouse:

1. In Defense of Ideological Fiction
2. Some Theological Concerns (Part 1)
3. Some Theological Concerns (Part 2)
4. Some Celebrations

Unfortunately, I had to give my copy back, but I am sure that I will be picking up my own at some point so that I can re-read it again. As I write this, I must ask myself: “Why the heck would you re-read something so horrific?” Again, it demands to be read…

Set in some post-apocalyptic future Hell, The Road is the tale of a man and his child traveling south through the (nuclear?) winter to find warmer climes. From the outset, the mood is dark and foreboding. While an early flashback whispers of lost utopia, it is almost the only hint of normalcy that you’ll find in this taut page turner. Instead of focusing on paradise lost, McCarthy chooses to focus on the present. How do our travelers find food, shelter, warmth in their increasingly hostile environs?

As I said above, there are points in the story that literally made me feel sick. However, the grotesque is not here presented merely for the grotesque’s sake, but serves the larger whole:

• (a) it shows us the ability of the human spirit to endure (though the reasons for this endurance vary and are questioned)
• (b) it horrifies us, perhaps as a warning against allowing the state of things to slip into this sort of Hell

The style, at first, seems self-aware. McCarthy has eschewed grammatical conventions like normal paragraphs and punctuations. You won’t find any chapters in this novel either. Each scene bleeds into the next by the use of paragraphs offset from each other by a blank line. It’s difficult to read at first. Items flow together. You always have to think about who is speaking a given line (“he said” doesn’t mean much when the two main characters are nameless and male). By the middle portions of the novel, however, I forgot all about these quirks and eccentricities. Instead, I was just blazing through wondering what would happen next. It is to McCarthy’s credit that he abandoned grammatical conventions here. It slows us down a bit, which is a good thing, as The Road is meant to be savored and enjoyed. Still, it’s the sort of read that you’ll probably finish up in a couple of sittings.

Overall, The Road is a touching sort of buddy narrative unlike any other. The relationship between the father and child, the way they speak to each other, is at once real and foreign. For this relationship alone, and the ability of its narrative to keep you pressing forward, The Road is highly recommended. Yet, in its warnings and meditations on humanity, The Road becomes so much more.

Is this my favorite novel? Perhaps. I’d have to think about it…but it’s definitely way up there on the list.

I’ve been using Fluid for about three weeks now, and just thought I’d offer up my experience.

This review is based on Fluid 0.7, the most recent version that was available when this post was written.

What & Why?

As the web evolves and becomes more and more “2.0,” my reliance on web applications for tasks that used to be handled by desktop has increased. Web applications are simple, easy-to-use, and because they only require a browser, they are typically cross-platform and ultra-portable. Here is a list of the web apps that I currently use on a daily basis (and the desktop apps they replaced):

• Gmail (replaced Apple Mail)
• Remember the Milk (replaced a variety of “to-do” apps including OmniFocus)
• Google Docs (replaced Word, Mellel, and Excel — Though I still need to use these from time-to-time)
• Google Calendar (replaced iCal)
• Google Reader (replaced Vienna)
• Mint (replaced Quicken)

In short, these web apps cover my major daily activities: email, to-do’s, light word processing and spreadsheeting, scheduling, and money management.

At one point, however, I became annoyed with this phenomenon. My annoyance had a great deal to do with my own mode of working. I prefer to use the keyboard for most tasks — the mouse is the enemy! When switching between apps, I use cmd-tab to get around. Because these applications live in web browsers, cmd-tab can’t be used. Instead, I must use your browser’s shortcuts to navigate through its tabs or windows. The problem here is that, no matter how hard I try, it is inevitable: my tabs are going to get disorganized. When this happens, and things stop working consistently, I get frustrated and want to drop this Web 2.0 thing altogether!

Fluid allows me to trick myself into thinking that I’m looking at a regular application, when, in fact, it is simply a self-contained, site-specific browser (site-specific browser = SSB).

Notice how each of these web applications shows up in my Dock as its own item: Gmail, Remember the Milk, Google Calendar, Google Docs. I can cmd-tab to them, launch and select them from the Dock, etc. Some apps, such as Gmail and Google Reader, even have badges that get updated. Looks like I’ve got an unread email in my inbox. Quite nice!

If you’re a real geek then you’ll love the fact that Fluid now has a JavaScript Console, JavaScript API for dock badges as well as Growl notifications. I’m a Growl user, so I’m down with that.

Use

Fluid is quite easy to use.

1. Launch the application and you’ll be greeted with this window:

2. Enter the URL (e.g., https://mail.google.com/mail) for Gmail.

3. Enter a name for the application.

4. Choose where to save the application. Of course, like any other OS X app, you can drag it wherever you want later.

5. Tell Fluid which icon to use for the app. It can use the website’s favicon — which is handy but very low-res. Luckily, there is a Fluid Flickr Group where you can grab PNG icons for your favorite web apps.

Voila! You’re done. Double-click the application and get busy…

The Good

1. SSBs Fit My Workflow
No elaboration needed here — I’ve said my piece above.

2. Dock Badges
What could make an app feel more Desktop-y than live updating badges on the Dock icon?

3. Control How To Handle Outside Links
A Fluid apps preferences allow you to control how that application handles links to other domains. This is especially useful when you want some apps to open links within and others to use your regular browser. For example, I hate the idea of my mail client opening up a link. My Gmail app’s preferences allow me to tell it to use FF3 to open links. Problem solved. At the same time, you might really like the idea of being able to open Google Reader stories in tabs — no problem.

Here’s a quick screenshot of the application’s preferences:

4. Growl Support
I love Growl. Anything is enhanced by its use of Growl. OK, maybe not anything.

5. Knocks the Socks Off of Mozilla’s Prism
Prism, like Fluid, is Mozilla’s answer to the SSB need. You might be thinking, “Well, Stephen — aren’t you a Mozilla fan? Why not use Prism?” Unfortunately, as of this writing, there is no way to open more than one Prism SSB at a time (at least in OS X, maybe this works in Windows). This is beyond comprehension. It is, for lack of a better word, dumb.

6. Checks for Updates
As you can see above, there is a preference for each Fluid app to check for updates. I am hoping that when Fluid is updated, it will be able to update these apps individually so I won’t have to recreate them. If this is the case, then this rocks. If not, then we can slip this item down into “The Bad.”

The Bad

1. WebKit
I am not a huge fan of WebKit. I use Camino as my primary browser, though I’m testing Firefox 3 right now. In either case, I would prefer to use Gecko as my rendering engine.

Why does it matter?

It doesn’t matter too much. However, my Fluid apps look all WebKit-ish, which means that web widgets and forms and whatnot look slightly different than they do in Camino/FF3. Consequently, my web apps look a little “off” to my eye.

2. No Keychain Access (as far as I can tell)
One of the reasons I opted for Camino over Firefox a year or two ago was the issue of saved passwords. I like the idea of having passwords saved in the keychain (still one of my issues with FF3). Fluid does not seem to have a way to access passwords from the keychain. Further, it does not have a way to save passwords. This means that I’m typing in passwords for apps like Gmail more often than before.

3. Too Many Apps
Over the past few weeks, I have sometimes felt like I have too many apps running. I like to keep things clean. If you are paranoid about the number of apps that pop up on the screen when you hit cmd-tab, then Fluid might not be for you.

The Ugly

There is one little bug in Fluid that requires discussion. I didn’t put this in “The Bad” simply because I felt it belonged in its own category.

As of v. 0.7, Fluid apps have a really annoying habit. When I click on an external link in an app that does not use them (e.g., Gmail as I’ve discussed my setup above), the Fluid SSB opens a blank SSB window before opening the target in your other browser.

Example:

• I have Gmail setup in a Fluid SSB to disallow external links.
• I click an external link.
• Gmail app opens a blank Gmail app window.
• A new tab in FF3 is created, displaying the target.

This is quite annoying. This is my appeal to Todd Ditchendorf, the creator of Fluid, fix this please!!! FIXED

Conclusion

Fluid creates great little SSBs for my favorite web apps. It’s changed the way I work with web apps, and I’m quite grateful for it. Currently, I give it 4 out of 5 stars.

What can it do to earn 5 stars?

1. Stop the silly blank window business described above. FIXED
2. Give me a choice of rendering engines.

Otherwise, I think this is a solid app, and I can’t wait for it to mature into 1.0.

UPDATE

- The blank window opening problem now has a workaround. Check out this page at the Fluid App Google Group.

This is my review from Goodreads.

The back of this book contains a “PS” section with info about the author and a short interview. In this interview, Chabon defends genre fiction (there is also a list of his favorite genre fiction writers; Raymond Chandler tops that list). I am inclined to agree with Chabon that there is nothing particularly extra good about “literary” fiction that warrants it being placed over and above “genre” fiction.

Because of all of this, I had expected this book to read like a “genre” work — specifically, like a Sherlock Holmes story. It doesn’t.

Michael Chabon is a gifted writer, but The Final Solution: A Story of Detection isn’t anything too special.

What I appreciate the most about this book is the language. Chabon has a great gift for using words. I was particularly attuned to his use of the passive and other taboo or uncommon constructions. He uses them to great effect. Makes me want to write a vehement defense of the passive! Though, generally speaking, it is a good idea to adhere to the principles of William Strunk, Jr.

The Final Solution is most disappointing in its plot, which is why I say that it does not resemble a work of genre fiction in the way I had expected. Overall, I was a little disappointed in the “mystery” and “sleuth” aspects of the story.

Look, this blog isn’t all fun and games–time for some seriousness!

In 2007, Steve Martin published a sort of memoir, Born Standing Up that chronicles his life as a stage performer. From the magic shops of Disneyland to lonely on-the-road burnout to superstardom in the late 1970s, Martin exercises his hindsight, talking about relationships with family, friends, co-workers, lovers, and the various venues that he called home for so many years.

What I really appreciate about Born Standing Up is the blue collar approach that Martin takes to his art. The book certainly makes his gigantic success (selling out shows with upwards of 20,000 seats!) seem like a flash in the pan (to be followed by a good film career) that came only after hardwork and a little bit of luck. Prior to “making it”, Martin spends years on the road, honing his show, amassing over 4 hours of material (my friends who are comics would say that this is quite a bit!), refining timing and movement. This account (in the chapters “On the Road” and “Breakthrough”) were easily the most enjoyable for me.

I suppose it would be easy to lay back and just give Martin praise. He’s clearly a funny guy, a very clear writer, and a very successful person (at least professionally…which is what this book is about more than anything). At the same time, he was also extremely lucky. At the age of 21 he was writing for a hit TV show, The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, ostensibly because he had dated the right person (Mitzi Trumbo). While his on-stage act is gaining steam a decade or so later, he is catapulted to huge success by the popularity of Saturday Night Live. Martin acknowledges these events as quite important in his career, but I feel that this was definitely a case of “being in the right place at the right time.”

In terms of writing, Born Standing Up is more than capable. The final chapter begins to feel a bit too nostalgic and sappy, but I’ll forgive Martin this. I am sure it is difficult not to slip into that mode as he blasts through the final stage of his career (film) in order to find some resolution to the strained relationship with his family. Martin’s prose is easy to follow, written, like most of his other works, in a very straightforward style. He has a knack for illustrating his own gags and capturing the silliness of the various eras he is working in (especially when it comes time to talk about “flower power”).

While Born Standing Up is a memoir of his stage-performing career, I personally would like to read a full autobiography. I love Martin’s writing here, and would gladly have sat through a discussion of his current pursuits. While I do not feel that Shopgirl is some great novel, I do feel that Picasso at the Lapin Agile is one great play, and I would have loved to have read more about his work on that particular project.

In the end, I’ve got to give Born Standing Up four out of five stars simply because Martin is clear and evocative, and he happens to hold a place in my heart as the star of some of my favorite films: The Jerk, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, and Roxanne, to name a few.

Today, Natalie and I saw There Will Be Blood, a P.T. Anderson directed morality play for the 21st century. The film pits all the wonderful intensity of a Daniel Day-Lewis performance against the odd realities of early oil prospecting and zealous religious fanatics in turn-of-the-century western United States.

I freely admit that when the credits began to roll at the end, I had no idea how I felt about it. I knew this much: Daniel Day-Lewis must be the best actor of our time. In spite of certain issues with the plot (like the lack of one, really), my eyes remained glued to the screen because of his amazing performance. Day-Lewis has a knack for melting right into his role, delivering performances that feel so real that even when they are over-the-top (and his character, Daniel Plainview, is definitely over-the-top, as was Bill the Butcher from Gangs of New York) you believe him–even to the point of forgetting that he is an actor at all.

Praise for Daniel Day-Lewis aside, I’m not sure how I liked the film. Cinematography was dramatic and wonderful–good stuff. All technical aspects of the film were great–editing, the score (by Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood), art direction, costumes, etc. The issue here is story.

The film is based on Upton Sinclair’s 1927 novel Oil!, which I admit I have not read. All accounts seem to indicate that There Will Be Blood is only inspired by Sinclair’s work which appears to be more about the relationship between a father and a son. While this theme is certainly important throughout There Will Be Blood (and played to dramatic effect), the real theme is corruption, greed, power, and money, and how these cripple, torture, and torment the soul. Unfortunately, I feel that the film makes too many great leaps in time to really see this corruption played out. It would be better to see it happen gradually, but this is not at all how the film moves.

Do I like There Will Be Blood? Not sure. I’m going to have to see it again. Natalie has already said that she’d rather not, but I have the unmistakable feeling that I missed something. The movie did not wow me like No Country For Old Men, which left me slightly stunned and breathless at the end. This, perhaps, is where the two are different. At the end of No Country For Old Men I felt like I’d “gotten it”–it was clear to me what Cormac McCarthy and the Coen Brothers were trying to say. Further, it was an idea and message that rang true to me. For There Will Be Blood I feel as if I’m missing something. The encoded message that I received was not new or original.

So, I’ll have to see it again, which isn’t all bad. As I’ve said, Daniel Day-Lewis is positively amazing. I found myself putting on my Daniel Plainview voice after the movie and performing his lines as we drove home. Truly memorable. P.T. Anderson shows himself more than capable with this type of subject matter that is, at least on the surface, more “normal” than his previous works (Punch-Drunk Love, Magnolia, and Boogie Nights are the three P.T. Anderson films that come to mind).

On an entirely different note, There Will Be Blood made me think about writing. As I was watching the movie, I had one of those experiences where I felt like I could have written it (not entirely good since some of the story choices bother me). I wanted to rewrite the story of Daniel Plainview and his son, H.W. Plainview. Even the small town preacher, Eli Sunday, excited me from a character standpoint. These were people who made unpredictable choices. Yet, these choices, even when surprising, seemed in-character or reasonable. Sometimes, characters need to do something a little outrageous to get noticed. Sometimes, characters act in brash and unexpected ways. I know that I have fallen into a trap where I have psychologized certain characters into little boxes where I can dictate how they think, feel, and act and it’s all predictable. It would be better to psychologize them into corners and see how they fight their way out.

In the end, There Will Be Blood is recommended for the incredible acting and wonderful character work alone. Is it a great movie? I’m not sure. Is it a great study? I think so.

My biggest disappointment came with “The Whore’s Child.” While Russo creates a memorable, interesting character in Sister Ursula, ultimately, I was disappointed by the somewhat flat first-person writing professor, and the framing device and method of storytelling employed.

Specifically, I wondered what Russo had to gain by setting the story in the present. While Sister Ursula goes through some changes in the present, no other character is significantly interesting. Russo’s framing device (Sister Ursula enrolls in a fiction writing workshop, but is not writing fiction at all) sets the action in the past; we really see the story through her eyes, not the narrator’s. For much of these flashbacks, Russo (a.k.a. Sister Ursula) falls into a “telling” mode. While the reader is left to wonder about where the story will come out (and I think it ends well), it feels a bit tedious getting there, in spite of its short length, because we are just being told tidbits and details. There’s not a lot of “show.”

“Monhegan Light,” on the other hand, is more engaging. Like “The Whore’s Child” we are confronted with some interesting characters (though some, such as Joyce, are a bit stock) in interesting situations. Unlike “The Whore’s Child” we can really feel the immediacy of the story—Russo has occasion to write.

Martin, a Hollywood director of photography, decides to make a visit to the island community of Monhegan in order to visit an acquaintenance of his now dead wife. It is sweet, yet tragic. Martin neglected his wife while she was alive, but he has fallen in love with her again after seeing her through another man’s eyes. Consequently, he seems disinterested even in the sexy, young Beth that he has been seeing. Interesting situations abound. I liked it.

And he thought too about Beth, the poor girl. She had it exactly backwards. This trip wasn’t so much about saying goodbye to his wife as saying hello. He’d fallen in love with her, truly in love, the moment he’d uncrated the painting back in L.A. and seen his wife through another man’s eyes.

“Monhegan Light” is to be recommended for its interesting transitions alone. Russo employs sharp cuts, eases in and out of flashbacks (sometimes very effectively), and sweeps across both time and space with minimal effort. From a technical perspective, I found this to be a good study.