Spy Who Came In From the Cold

I had the house to myself while Amy and her friend, Monica, ran downtown yesterday, so after going through half of my Dad's thesis, I stopped by Xav's library and pulled out a couple of DVDs. Last night I watched The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, starring Richard Burton. Based on the John LeCarre novel of the same title, this 1965 movie was shot in that perfect black and white they only did in the very early through the mid 1960s.

Richard Burton plays a tired British secret service agent who has been in charge of Berlin Section for the past nine years. He is sent on a mission by Control and Control's right hand man, George Smiley, to play defector for the soul purpose of undoing their opposite number, Mundt, the East German secret operations commander.

This is not a film in which the plot hinges on whether a spy can use his laser watch before an evil mastermind can gain world domination. John LeCarre renders a patient, highly intelligent portrait of intelligence agencies and the ethical ramifications surrounding innocent casualties and the betrayal of personal loyalties. Unlike James Bond/Bourne Identity Films, his stories are important, say something about ourselves, and resonate deeply. The execution of the trial scene near the end, when Alex realizes the horror of what he's actually been participating in, is masterful.

Why can't more films be of this caliber? There are plenty of us who enjoy real craftsmanship, taught yet subtle stories about genuinely interesting people. It seems like the right director could make them pay for themselves. Most of the movie takes places either sitting at tables or walking through the countryside. You would need no collapsing skyscrapers or stuntmen. Just a handful of talented actors and a good script.

I'd note that you get to see a young Robert Hardy, who later played Siegfried in All Creatures Great and Small and, most recently, plays Minister of Magic Fudge in the Harry Potter Movies.

Unwigged and Unplugged

This is an extremely interesting article if you are a longtime fan of the Christopher Guest mockumentaries Spinal Tap, A Mighty Wind, Waiting for Guffman and Best in Show. Guest, Harry Shearer and Michael McKeen are doing a limited tour playing some of their songs and taking questions from the audience. Guest and McKeen are both 61 and Shearer is 65, but, if anything, their humor keeps getting better with time. A quick glance at the Unwigged and Unplugged Web site shows they're in Chicago on May 30--oh good Lord, that's just two days from now--at the Chicago Theater. That is tempting. They've placed a generous 13-minute concert clip on YouTube, which you can watch here:

Glee

If you haven't yet done so, please go to http://www.fox.com/fod/play.php?sh=glee and watch the pilot episode of the new Fox comedy Glee. It's simply fantastic. It's the funniest thing Fox or any one of the big networks has done in ages. It's about the formation and ongoing drama of a high school glee club or, as it is now known, show choir. The casting, acting, writing, humor is cinema quality. A real highlight is the former glee club director. I hope they have him make occasional reappearances.

The best part, though, really does seem to be the music. They've chosen awesome Broadway songs that serve alone as great entertainment but usually double as a subject material gag--my favorite being the "Sit down, you're rocking the boat" sung by the student in the wheelchair. Another is the image of a crowd of cheerful 16-year-olds singing "Rehab." Just check it out. It will be the big show when it premiers this fall. It may be the first time I buy a television soundtrack.

Philly Sound

I get most of my ideas and suggestions regarding which music to buy from NPR or from my radio station manager friend, Pete. In this case, I impulsively downloaded Love Train: The Ultimate Sound of Philadelphia after hearing an interview on Fresh Air.

This is a boxset retrospective of Kenny Gamble's and Leon Huff's Philadelphia International Records hits. It's four CDs of stone cold awesomeness, with tunes like Cowboys to Girls, Rubberband Man, Back Stabbers, Western Union Man, La-La Means I love you, I ain't jivin' I'm jammin'. It's that symphonic black sound of the 70s, and it's one of the nicer collections I've gotten in a while. It really makes me want to go back and delve other eras like Motown or Stax. I just added the 1973 documentary Wattstax to my Netflix queue.

My only caveat is that this set seems to lead to guys without soul screeching meaningful falsetto around the house.

My new blog

So, this is the new blog. I hope to keep it all contained mostly to books, movies, television, graphic novels, music and other hobbies.

In the past few months, I've been reading Thomas Merton. I started with Seven Storey Mountain. I moved to New Seeds of Contemplation. I then read an excellent biography of his monastic experiences. I now have No Man is an Island. I'm quite taken with Merton's ideas of contemplation and monasticism and his pursuit of interfaith dialog. So much so that I recently arranged to take a one week retreat at Garden of Gethsemane in Kentucky, where Merton lived as a Trappist. Sadly, I had to cancel this due to my class schedule and beginning my new position on Monday. I do intend to make that trip, however, within the year.

I am currently reading The Cost of Discipleship, by Dietrich Bonhoeffer; Gun, with Occasional Music, by Johathan Lethem; Getting Things Done, by David Allen; and The Prayers and Meditations of Saint Anselm.

Getting Things Done is a book on organization with an excellent and simple filing system that I hope to put in place throughout this week before entering the new job. Gun, with Occasional Music is a futuristic literary private eye novel. For private eye junkies, it's necessary to keep one of these going at all times.

The Cost of Discipleship is by Lutheran martyr Bonhoeffer (executed in 1945 by the Nazis) and earnestly explains his conviction that achieving "costly" or genuine grace comes from an absolute, immediate yielding to Christ's call, as opposed to "cheap grace," which is actually bestowed by ourselves and is thus meaningless. The draw to Prayers and Meditations of Saint Anselm are fairly obvious: it's peaceful to read monastic meditations.