Twelve Angry Jurors at Midvale

I had the delightful opportunity to go see my friend Kristen in Twelve Angry Men (excuse me, Twelve Angry Jurors) at the Midvale Performing Arts Center last night. I've often wished community theaters would focus more on straight plays and less on musicals, and shows like this one are the reason why. While musicals often have cliche plots or confused messages, it's been my experience that dramatic theater provokes more thought and positive self-reflection.

There are a few theatrical gems I believe most Americans should take time to see. The Crucible by Arthur Miller is one of the first to come to mind. A good, solid production of The Merchant of Venice is another one. Now I'm adding Twelve Angry Men to the list.

Sorry, I mean Jurors. Look, I know why they changed the title of the play - women serve on juries, too, and it's far easier to cast women in community theater than men. But the title Twelve Angry Men just pops with energy, while Twelve Angry Jurors just sort of lackadaisically flops to its knees.

</rant>

Twelve Angry... People really takes the time to analyze what "reasonable doubt" means, and it challenges its audience to take their civic matters seriously. To this end, it fills the jury with hurried, impatient people - much like we often are - and shows them callously willing to throw one man to the executioner just so they can be on their way. As the plot progresses, though, we start to see the people in the jury are all sorts of individuals: immigrants and outcasts, professionals and housewives, ordinary men and women with consciences very much like our own.

Oh, and racists. The scene where the racist juror gets shut down is definitely a favorite, and Midvale's cast executes it beautifully. It's a goosebumps moment.

The production as a whole is pretty good. The set's a simple one - and that's fine, the production doesn't require anything fancy. They make some pretty clever use of technology when reviewing the evidence in the trial, displaying the most important elements on a big TV so the audience can see it, too. The costuming's another highlight - different modes of dress and hairstyles really make the jury feel like a group of strangers thrown together. Finally, the acting is pretty darn good where it counts, especially with the deeply moral Juror #8 and his most vocal opponents.

Oh, and the racist.

Twelve Angry Jurors opens tonight and has showings on March 1, 3, 6, 7, and 8. Shows begin at 7:30 p.m. at the Midvale Performing Arts Center (MPAC) 695 West Center Street (7720 South) and are presented without intermission. Tickets may be purchased online at www.midvalearts.com. Ticket prices are $7 for general admission, $5 for seniors and children, family passes are available for $25 (one household).

More Ram Girl

I really want to do a story with this character!

I also took a couple of the earlier sketches I've done with the girl with the ram horns and touched them up a bit. Hopefully, it'll start to be a little clearer that she actually has ram horns and not Princess Leia buns.

More tweaking to follow, I guess.

Lastly, I've been doing a lot of shadow work with just "scribbling" rather than more time-consuming "hatching." I... don't like the result as much.

But hatching just takes SO LOOOOONNNNNNG!

Braddy Reads The Anime Art of Hayao Miyazaki

Yeah, I read this book on accident.

Sort of. See, I was in the mood to look at some good art books, and the drawings of Hayao Miyazaki, filmmaker best known for Spirited Away and Howl's Moving Castle, are among my favorites. So I saw this book in the library catalog and thought I'd put it on hold, just so I'd have some pretty pictures to look at. Then the book arrived, and there's not a single illustration in the whole thing.

How can you have a book called The Anime Art of Hayao Miyazaki without a single picture in it?

Well, I decided to read through the book anyway, as it appeared to be a rather scholarly approach to the films directed by Hayao Miyazaki. And scholarly it was! I'd never even heard the word "concomitantly" before, and the author uses it at least a dozen times throughout the text.

I've often wondered what a scholarly approach to pop culture would really look like. It's not something I've ever really thought to research, though. I must say that the scholarly approach to Miyazaki's films actually makes me appreciate them a whole lot more - even Howl's Moving Castle, which I've recently started to look down on despite the fact that it's the film that introduced me to Miyazaki.

I think the title is something of a misnomer. While the book certainly dedicates most of its time to discussing Miyazaki's work, there's a lot of space devoted to the works of other prominent directors from Studio Ghibli. I guess "Studio Ghibli" wouldn't move as many books as "Hayao Miyazaki."

The only section here I could see appealing to people not absurdly obsessed with fine foreign animation is a brief chapter detailing the sort of "bromance" between Hayao Miyazaki and John Lasseter of Pixar. It's a pretty cool little story. Otherwise, this one's for hardcore fans only.

I don't think I can sully my fingers by typing the word "otaku."

Strange Companions and a New Journey

So last week, I decided that I really wanted to draw a little girl sitting in the branches of a tree monster, like from the end of the Lord of the Rings. Then I remembered that, at some point, I really wanted to draw a centaur. So I did it all at once.

I traced the picture out with pen and paper, then photoed it and finished it all in Procreate. I finished hatching the background, but then I realized that the hatch marks all went in the EXACT SAME DIRECTION throughout the entire picture. So I selected the background and flipped it, because I am mad clever.

Get Away From Me!

Your pants... patch your pants!

Back to playing around with Procreate.  It's actually pretty fun working in shades of grey (man, there must be, like, fifty of those things!). This sort of thing is much easier than cross-hatching, but I think I like the effect of hatching much better. I'll keep experimenting.

Braddy Reads Boxers & Saints

Gene Luen Yang wrote an amazing book a couple of years back called American Born Chinese, a story about the son of first-generation immigrants from China interwoven with the Chinese legend of the Monkey King and a hilariously racist sitcom charicature of a Chinese boy named Chin-Kee.  The three different stories draw tighter and tighter together as they progress, until they are completely pulled together in one of the best executed endings I've ever seen in a comic.

Now Yang's done it again with Boxers & Saints, a two-part comic that tells the story of the Boxer Rebellion in China.  The first volume tells the story of Little Bao, a young man who is able to invoke the spirit of the first Chinese Emperor and fight against the poisonous presence of "foreign devils" who have invaded China.  The second volume follows an unwanted child known only as "Four-Girl," who embraces the religion of the foreigners as an act of rebellion against her family.

The two stories proceed roughly independently of each other, only brushing together in small places, scenes which seem unimportant in the narrative as a whole.  Both stories offer fascinating perspectives on what it was like to live in China during such a turbulent, difficult time.  Most impressively, neither story completely villifies either the invading foreigners or the Boxer rebels.

In this regard, Bao's story is probably the most engaging, as his struggle to accept the sometimes horrifying violence he feels he must perpetrate in service to his cause is the chief conflict of the first volume.  Boxers, by itself, is a compelling read - it's violent and grim, but it's never so oppressively dire in its portrayal of war that the reader wants to take a breath.  My only real complaint about Boxers as a stand-alone graphic novel is that the ending feels too abrupt.

Of course, the true ending isn't found until the reader gets through Saints. Personally, I feel the story here is a bit weaker - but that just might be me bringing my preconceptions to the novel.  I expected the main protagonist, Four-Girl, to be a devout Christian convert in order to better contrast with the devotion Little Bao brings to his cause.  Most of Saints seems to revolve around how little Four-Girl actually believes in the Christian faith of the foreigners.  Her interactions with the visions of Joan of Arc are certainly compelling, and they mirror similar mythic experiences from the first volume, but the story as a whole just doesn't feel quite as emotionally charged as the first.

...well, until the ending.  Boy, that ending.

Boxers & Saints does historical fiction right, inspiring curiosity about the real-world events which inspired the story while advocating a message which still feels applicable over a hundred years later.  The books also do comics right - I used to dismiss Yang's art as "simple," but now I find it refreshingly unpretentious.  It takes real skill to make something so compelling look so easy.  Finally, the two-book story does storytelling right - deftly weaving bits of thread around the others in a manner that looks random and insignificant until the time is right to pull it all together and BAM!  Tapestry.

That is how weaving works, right?

Catching Up with the Classics: To Kill a Mockingbird

Last September, my book club picked up To Kill a Mockinbird, which is (and I say this objectively and without overstating) probably the best gosh darn book in the history of anything that has ever been written, ever. Now, I remember studying the book back in my junior high days and, as part of the curriculum, getting to see the movie with Gregory Peck. At the time, I loved the movie.

Of course, I also watched Yu-Gi-Oh religiously. Please don't let my questionable taste warp whatever little credibility I may have left.

Anyway, I saw To Kill a Mockingbird for sale at Target ($10 for a blu-ray! Not bad!). I figured there were worse uses for my money, like... I dunno, food or something. So I decided it was time to catch up with a classic film I hadn't seen in years.

Now, I hate to be this guy, especially when we're talking about one of the great classics of American cinema, but... the book is better.

Like, TONS better.

The movie gets all the highlights from the book - specifically regarding the Atticus and Tom Robinson plot - but they just don't capture the complexity of the setting. They completely omit large portions of the Boo Radley plot - heck, Boo's hardly mentioned outside of fifteen minutes at either bookend. And they do a complete disservice to the character Scout, who's almost totally sidelined in her own story.

That's a real shame, because Mary Badham is actually a pretty great child actress. Heck, she and Phillip Alford, who plays Jem, both manage to bring a lot of intensity to the scenes they're in. Alford's got this way of showing that he knows more than maybe a kid his age should, and Badham brings this great energy to the tomboyish Scout that makes her a joy to watch.

I'd probably say they were the best actors in the whole movie if they weren't sharing the screen with Gregory frickin' Peck. Seriously, that man can act better with the back of his head than most can with their whole bodies. And that voice... I either want to curl up in it like a blanket or flagellate myself, depending on whether he's comforting me or calling me a racist.

Really, the whole cast is excellent. I don't think people talk enough about Brock Peters's turn as Tom Robinson, and Robert Duvall steals the scene when he steps into the light as Boo Radley... and he doesn't even say anything.

Even the camera work is impeccable. There are some really brilliant shots, especially during the attack at the end of the film. And Mary Badham's eyes... whoosh! Goose pimples.

So, yeah, the movie's not exactly terrible. It's just not quite as good as the book. Luckily, living in the age we do, we don't have to choose one or the other. We can appreciate both for just how incredible they are!

Hey! Are you appreciating them yet? Get on it!

Cleaning Out My Closet

This was a great holiday weekend.  Not talking about Valentine's Day, though.  I spent Valentine's Day watching cartoons and going to bed early.  No, I got stoked for PRESIDENTS Day, because I got the day off from work and finally got around to doing some of the cleaning I've been putting off since Christmas.

Now that I have a great big unfinished basement, my parents decided it was time for me to start storing my OWN crap.  So they sent me home with boxes of old... stuff, in addition to the usual leftovers and giant totes of toilet paper (it's a Christmas tradition).  So I went through the boxes on the morning of the 17th, just to see what I wanted to keep around.  Turns out there was... a lot of stuff I'd completely forgotten about.

So now it's time to look at the me from roughly ten years ago and laugh at what a silly boy that guy was.  You're welcome, Internet!

Take, for example, these photos from all of the high school dances I attended, including the photo from that really ill-advised night when we all decided it would be "super fun" to go out in a big group with someone who WASN'T our boyfriend/girlfriend.  "High school" me, by the way, was an idiot.

Oh, hey, it's a couple of unsold copies of the CD I cut with the a capella group I sang with in high school.  Joy!

On Track 4, my voice cracks.

Speaking of embarassing musical incidents from my adolescence:  When I was in high school, I was convinced that I'd be writing or arranging music for the rest of my life.  I picked up some bits of sheet/choral music which I thought I'd use for inspiration.

It's great to see which music I thought would be timeless back in 2000, like Riverdance and Smashmouth.

Not pictured:  The binder full of guitar tabs I printed from the library for the same purpose.  By the way, I do not now, nor have I ever, played the guitar.

Here's a fun one - while serving my mission for the LDS Church in the Czech Republic, I found this deck of playing cards with pictures and quotes from some of the most famous silver screen actors and actresses.  Best part of this set?  The box with the disclaimer that says, "Not for sale in the U.S. or Canada."

Another acquisition from the mission:  three issues of Donald Duck comics in Czech.  Oddly enough, at least one of the stories in these collections was re-released in an English language collection I picked up about two years ago.  I started reading the book, and trying to figure out where the heck I'd read that particular Donald Duck story before was AGONIZING, especially since I didn't recognize any of the dialog.

Eventually, I came across a box of stuff from my junior high years.  Here's a coin bank one of my friends gave me for Christmas.  At one point, there were probably some valuable coins in here.  Now they're all pennies.  I might take them to the bank some day if I ever get REALLY DESPERATE for an extra $5.50.

Finally, there's this collection of all of the written homework I completed in 9th Grade English class, including a collection of poetry with lines like, "There's a demon following me," and, "In my darkest nightmares, I see a world trapped in the fire."

You know, lyrics that make Skillet sound subtle.

Suave Clown of Romance

Ladies love the nose...

Braddy Reads A History of the World in 6 Glasses

So I've made a goal this year - an unwritten goal (well, previously unwritted) to read more non-fiction.  I've decided that I'll focus on some of my favorite subjects and hobbies, mainly food, art, and history.  Admittedly, "history" is a pretty broad subject that could do with some narrowing.  However, sometimes a broad overview is sufficient.  And, heck, if it's an overview that happens to include some food info as well, then that's pretty great.

I learned last year that food makes a pretty great medium through which to teach history, and Tom Standage seems to agree, if his book A History of the World in 6 Glasses is anything to go by.  Standage links some of the most popular and influential beverages with broad sections of human history.  Beer is associated with early human history and a move from wandering hunter-gatherer tribes to fixed farming settlements.  Wine is associated with the rise of Greek and Roman thought.  Distilled spirits reflect the spirit of exploration and ocean travel.  The rise of coffee mirrors the rise of scientific thought.  Tea covered the world in a period of global imperialism.  Finally, Coca-Cola's worldwide popularity is indicative of the triumph of marketing and the spread of American influence, for good or for ill.

Frankly, that's the gist of the book, so I may have saved you a few hours of reading.  However, the details of this expansion are well-worth reading, and Standage's writing is accessible enough to invite even novice students of history to crack open the pages.  I've found a lot of events in here that I want to explore in a bit more detail, but, as an introduction to world history, this text serves its role well.  And it makes its lessons all the more effective by tying historical events in with everyday beverages everyone consumes.

Well, everyone except me, that is.  I'm Mormon.

Adventures in Animation: Scooby-Doo: Mystery Incorporated

No.

No no no no no no no.

There is no way that a Scooby-Doo cartoon is any frickin' good.  It just can't happen.

I mean, GEEZ, this is the series that's been telling the exact same set of jokes for, like, forty years.  And, frankly, the joke was NEVER that good.

"Eep!  A ghost!"

"It's not actually a ghost.  It's Farmer Johnson in a mask!"

"Stop eating the tires on the mystery machine, Shaggy!"

"Ruh-roh!"

And so on.

The Scooby-Doo series is just one long string of one-note characters, goofy chase sequences, and a talking dog with a speech impediment.  And Mystery Incorporated is no different.  In fact, it seems like it's even more of the same stuff we've already seen.

And yet, SOMEHOW, it's also really, really good.

The main cast of five characters has somehow evolved, despite the fact that they're nearly identical to every earlier iteration.  However, they've each been written like they're parodies of themselves.  Fred's single-mindedly obsessed with traps and mysteries, Velma's the brainy one who has a chick-moustache, and Daphne's so spoiled that she literally doesn't know what poop smells like.

Seriously, that's brought up.  The show sounds like it was written by the guys behind Robot Chicken.

So the characters are funnier than they've ever been before, but Mystery Incorporated also benefits from an increase in animation quality.  Those goofy chase sequences, where the monster chases the gang through all sorts of doors that somehow connect to each other despite all opening on the same hallway, now have a half-decent animation budget behind them.  They're pretty great to watch.

Yeah.  It's funny.  It's well-drawn.  And it's got some great characters.  Scooby-Doo:  Mystery Incorporated is better than it has any right to be.  At all.

Shaggy and Scooby themselves, though?  Still annoying.

Don't Fear The Darkness

It's really quite a lovely place. Everyone's so happy to see you.

Big Screen Breakdown: The Lego Movie

Initially, I had no interest in seeing this movie. I mean, it's a January release (already a marker of low-quality) that looks to be a 90-minute commercial for an overpriced toy line. But then The Lego Movie started tracking really well, so I'll admit I got curious.

• Okay, before I say anything else, I have to say this: Will Arnett has one of the best Batman voices I've ever heard. It's great.
• I expected this to be another one of those movies where all the best jokes are highlighted in the trailer. And... yeah, they kind of are.
• You know, the animation here is actually pretty good. They made a lot of good from the relatively limited medium available to them.
• The movie's basically The Matrix, up to and including how the heroes are able to "see" things differently. In fact, the gag that the "master builders" who make up the rebellion "see" the world in terms of part components, down to the actual part number from the Lego catalog, is worth the price of admission by itself.
• Anyone else think it's ironic that such an obvious marketing tool, full of product placement and branded toys, has a character named "Lord Business" as its primary antagonist?
• Speaking of Lord Business, Will Ferrell actually looks really good as a minifig.
• The good guys' base is called Cloudcuckooland, and that is awesome.
• Verdict: Eh, it's harmless. If you're interested, check it out.

Oscar Shorts 2013

Yeah, I'm DEFINITELY making this an annual tradition.

The Oscar-nominated short films are showing at the Tower Theater in Salt Lake City, and I managed to go catch a few of them.  Sadly, I didn't enjoy this batch quite as much as last year's, but they were still quite a bit better than most of the other movies I caught during 2013.  

Before I get into the films themselves, I must say I really appreciated some of the comments made by the filmmakers during the presentation.  There were a lot of comments about short films and how they may become increasingly relevant as people become more and more hurried.  Most importantly, the filmmakers spoke of how significant the act of making a film is, whatever the budget or technology available.  Honestly, to hear such dedicated artists speak so lovingly about their craft was quite inspiring.

Here's a brief rundown of the live-action shorts I managed to catch.

Helium (Directors: Anders Walter and Kim Magnusson)

This short film about a hospital aide who comforts a terminally-ill young boy with stories about a magical land of airships was definitely high on visual appeal.  It's a touching tale with some strong performances, especially from the chief actor.  The filmmakers also managed some pretty great visuals on a significantly less-than-Hollywood budget.

The Voorman Problem (Directors: Mark Gill and Baldwin Li)

British national treasure Martin Freeman stars in a story of a psychiatrist who must deal with a prison inmante who believes he is God.  Don't expect much in the line of philosophy here, though:  this one's a comedy, through and through.

Avant Que De Tout Perdre (Just before Losing Everything) (Directors: Xavier Legrand and Alexandre Gavras)

This French film is my pick for best of show - the story of a woman taking her children and leaving an abusive relationship certainly leaves little room for warm fuzzies.  Rather, this was one tense thriller, evoking a sense of unease I haven't felt since the best of Hitchcock.  Darn fine cinema.

Aquel No Era Yo (That Wasn’t Me) (Director: Esteban Crespo)

Speaking of tense, this tale of child soldiers in Africa (afraid I can't remember which country) was absolutely brutal.  I don't think I'd ever watch this film while curled up in a blanket with a tub of popcorn - but that's hardly the filmmaker's intent.  It's a solid picture, but quite discomfiting.  Pretty sure that was the point.

Pitääkö Mun Kaikki Hoitaa? (Do I Have to Take Care of Everything?) (Directors: Selma Vilhunen and Kirsikka Saari)

Heh.  No way this film wins.  But I'm glad it was included.  One family's frustrating attempt to make it to a friend's wedding on time leads them from one catastrophe to another.  This movie was a total hoot, and a great way to end the shorts program, especially after the bleakness of the previous two films.

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This year, I managed to catch a couple of the short-form documentaries as well.  I had to momentarily set aside my bias against documentary filmmaking to really get into the spirit of things.  Not sure how well I succeeded, though...

Sorry, but whenever I watch documentaries, I always get the nagging suspicion that the filmmakers, or the subject, or SOMEONE is lying to me.  As a genre of film that purports to expose truth, that's a pretty big bias to overcome.

Cavedigger (Director: Jeffrey Karoff)

Ra Paulette digs caves.  That's his profession.  More accurately speaking, though, caves are his art.  He looks at his caves as transformativ, both for himself and the people who commision his artwork.  The film mostly explores the tension that exists between artist and patron - the one with the vision versus the one with the pocketbook.

Prison Terminal: The Last Days of Private Jack Hall (Director: Edgar Barens)

Jack Hall is in prison serving a life sentence after killing his son's drug dealer.  He's nearing the end of his sentence - he doesn't have much longer to live.  The prison sets him up in a hospice situation, where other inmates with life sentences spend their time washing him, helping him to the bathroom, and otherwise making sure his last days are comfortable.  Now, I'm not sure what motivated the filmmaker to try to capture a person's last days of life on film, but I do know the kindness and selflessness of the hospice workers felt truly genuine.  Honestly loved this film.

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The Tower's schedule is so erratic, I'm not sure if the films are even still showing.  If they are, though, go check 'em out.

Madman

Excuse me, sir, but have you got the time? 

New Friends

Huh... they sure are... different...

I've actually started writing a story featuring this character, who's made a brief (unrecognizable) appearance before. Hopefully, she looks more like herself here.

The more I write the story, though, the more I realize I kinda want it to be a comic, so I'm sketching up some character ideas as I go. We'll see what happens.

Fear the Future

I've lost a lot of sleep recently.  A lot of that's due to the weird stomach bug I got last week, one I managed to shake by lying under a pile made up of every blanket I own for about twelve hours and sweating it out. But I've also started to worry a bunch, something I always thought old people did for no reason.

No, that reason has started to make a whole heck of a lot of sense.

The future's a big scary place, one which could just as easily be full of caramel pudding cups as it could be a gauntlet of naked Miley Cyruses riding atop construction equipment. The fact that I no longer know what to prepare for doesn't help at all. I've got all sorts of questions that press on my mind at night, and they never really go away during the day:

Can I really continue to make ends meet the way I'm working?

What if I get fired tomorrow?

What if I don't get the TTP Project report turned in on time?

Of course, these are completely silly questions. The way I'm working, I've never been MORE successful, I've got no reason to think I WILL get fired, and the TTP Project doesn't even exist except as the punch line to an old Dilbert comic strip. Yet none of that actually helps me stop worrying.

Last year was a big one for me. Can't remember a bigger year among the thirty or so I had before. And I realize that most of the decisions I made during that year were motivated by some kind of fear. I saw a lot of scary stuff last year. Friends and family had their lives made very difficult through lost work, or illness, or legal troubles. So I made it my goal last year to do everything I could to avoid those problems.

Heck, if I'm completely honest, my whole life's course has been altered due to some kind of fear. The reason I live in a cushy house instead of a cardboard box where I write my fifth sequel to Batman vs. Sharktopus on the back of a Chik-Fil-A wrapper is because I made the decision some time ago to put my financial well-being ahead of my dreams, a decision deeply rooted in the fear that I couldn't somehow do both simultaneously.

The strangest part? I can't say that I made the wrong decision. Fear has led me to a pretty good place, despite Yoda's strictest warning.  Doesn't stop me from dwelling on the woulda-couldas, though, and it doesn't stop the fear. 

Guys, I really want a teddy bear!

Jack B. Nimble

Well, he jumped over the candle stick...