Movies No One Saw: Upside Down

I recently watched on Netflix a movie you probably haven't heard of: the fantastical 2012 vehicle starring Kirsten Dunst and Jim Sturgess called "Upside Down." Worldwide, it made just over $22 million, not even half of it's $60 million estimated budget. When I saw the trailer way back then,  the visuals of two mirrored worlds looked dazzling, and it reminded me of my own idea nuggets of upside-down worlds, but the story was billed as a love story of the opposing worlds variety. (Get it? They literally live on two different worlds.) I didn't have much hope for the story going in. And... I was right.

The basic story is this: Adam (Jim Sturgess), always curious, climbs a mountain and meets a girl on the other side. (You see, somehow they can climb high mountains without any hiking gear and don't pass out if they're at the top too long). They fall in love with each other (though we skip that part), but some bad dudes chase Adam down the mountain. As he was guiding Eden (Kirsten Dunst) back into her world when they found him, he has to let go of the rope, and she falls and hits her head. He screams, and she's presumed dead. Then his aunt's house gets burned down for some reason.

Flash-forward to ten years later. Adam seems okay, and is working on some sort of anti-aging cream using the mystical pink bee pollen wisdom gained from his maternal line. This cream lands him a job at Transworld, where he's learned is Eden's place of work and she is alive and well. He befriends an "Up Top" worker named Bob, and befreinds him. With his help, he gets a meeting with Eden. When he meets her, he finds out she has amnesia as a result of her head injury. (Thank goodness she didn't die though, right? Even though her head was like, bleeding pretty bad and it was the top of a friggin' mountain.)

So begins a hazardous quest to court her and win her heart. Why is this complicated? Well, for one, the two worlds, Up Top and Down Below, are like the First and Third Worlds. Up Top is prosperous at the expense of Down Below, and treats the people of Down Below as inferior. Casual interaction is strongly discouraged (Yet Bob practically yells at him in their cubicle scenes together). Also, everything, literally everything, in these two worlds are oriented to their homeworld's gravity. Even when Adam sneaks into the Up Top floors, his pee still goes in the Down Below direction. How could this work? Why is it such a big deal if someone from Down Below "infiltrates" Up Top? It's not like he can stay very long. (How does he stay in Up Top? Using weighted metal from Up Top's world, as they are oriented to Up Top's gravity.)

Even though the weights keeping him in Up Top are liable to burn up, he continues to sneak through to get to his lady love, and half-assedly courts her. Eventually, though, she learns the truth, and remembers Adam and their teenage fling. They reunite on the mountain where they met, but not for long. After a disorienting chase scene, and the seemingly definitive defeat of Adam, we get the tidy, happy ending, and a tentative solution to the opposing gravity problem, that we all were hoping for.

This movie is a prime example of how important story is for a movie to really work. "Upside Down" has a great concept: two different worlds with two different gravities? Sounds cool. It looks cool, and there are some eye-popping visuals, especially when we have the contrast of Up Top's and Down Below's orientations. The scenery looks absolutely gorgeous, especially the mountains, even if the whole teal/orange contrast is overused. There is at once a sense of magic, and science fictional elements.

Buying In and Selling Out

Predictably, I haven't had much time to update this blog (got some big stuff going on this year), but the book I have most recently read, unlike books like Game of Thrones, did not get a lot of press during its release, at least not that I've seen. I couldn't even find the book at Barnes and Noble. I ordered the hardcover through Amazon.com (I may not rule out self-publishing through that platform, but I will only buy a Kindle if I literally have no choice) as it was apparently the only place I could find it. (Again, no choice) And it turned out to be a breezy, fascinating read about breaking into investment banking, involving sacrifices that most people would not be willing to make for prestige and the almighty dollar.

Buying In,  by Laura Hemphill, who apparently has a background in financial services, follows the "conversion" of first-year analyst Sophie Landgraf at the fictitious investment banking firm Sterling. When the story begins, Sophie is uncertain and full of self-doubt, snooping through her superiors' office to learn more about them and how they came to be a success. By the end of the story, even as she has lost her job and the big merger deal she was on the task force with out of her hands, she comes back for more, confident that now she knows how to play the game.

Though the story takes place during the period of collapse that rippled through Wall Street in 2007 and 2008, Sophie is tasked with a merger project that has absolutely nothing to do with what caused the Great Recession. Rather, she and her colleagues, and arguably Sterling itself, are casualties of this collapse. But this doesn't make the story any less compelling. The time period serves to add a poignant note to Sophie's Sterling saga, in which all the work she puts into the AlumiCorp-Roll-Rite merger deal is no longer given credit.

The story is Sophie's story, but we get into the heads of the other major players in the merger deal: Ethan Pearce, the man in charge; Vasu Mehta, the VP of the Industrial Group; and Jake Hutchinson, the CEO of AlumiCorp who takes a shine to Sophie, and a victim of much bad luck himself. Through these other characters we get an idea of how the financial services industry works and what it does to people. Ethan is self-serving and ruthless; Vasu is disillusioned and depressed; and Hutch has no time for phoniness and typical bankers' spin.

Interestingly, glimpses of Sophie's possible future can be seen in the lives of the other characters, even those whose heads we don't get into. There is Vasu, who has given so much of his life in years and in days to this company, starts to miss seeing his daughter grow up and visiting his ailing mother before she passes away, questioning why he was giving so much for this company that hardly appeared to value him at all. There is Nancy Cho, in whose office Sophie finds evidence of a pathetic love life and personal dissatisfaction, even as Cho puts on a front of satisfaction with her success. Then there are the people of Sophie's personal life, who express active disagreement with the choices Sophie is making and her dedication to a job that seems to yield no real satisfaction. And one of whom, her boyfriend Will, rejects her for this choice. One wonders if it will be long before this happens to the others.

Even with all the hard work she put into the project, Sophie was in the end just a number, a cog in the machine; yet it doesn't even put her off from further pursuing the financial services industry. This makes Sophie's character a fascinating if frustrating figure, especially in the face of making it in a male-dominated industry. We witness her conversion in full, as she internalizes Sterling superiors' words of wisdom and warning, and twists her mother's advice to fit her own motivations.

The only apparent reasons she broke into the industry in the first place were one, to live in New York and two, to make a lot of money. She's coming in with the "right" reasons, perhaps, but with the "wrong" attitude, such as the idea that she would be able to trust anyone she worked with, no matter how much time she spent with these people. And in the end, when she was thrown under the bus with all the rest, instead of looking into other, perhaps more self-fulfilling (rather than self-serving) career paths, she doubles down and negotiates her way to a job at Ethan's new firm.

As a person who knew enough about the investment banking industry to understand that it's unfettered capitalism at its worst, but certainly not that much about the ins and outs of the industry (like, wtf is a "model"?), I found this to be an enlightening read. But even by the end of this story, one nagging question still remains, one that Will early in the book asks Sophie herself: why is this important? What sort of satisfaction is she getting out of this; being barely able to get by on her own, when plenty of other people doing other jobs do the same thing? (perhaps not on such an expensive scale, but still.) I at first interpreted it as a phase Sophie was going through, in reaction against her parents' blase attitude about money...and the fact that, especially after her mother's death, her family appeared to have none. (Though now that I think about it, I wonder...does Sophie have no other living relatives other than her father? There is no mention of any. I suppose it's possible, but still...)

Aimee Bender's "The Color Master:" a Three-Part Review, Part Three

The third and final section of this underwhelming collection was...maybe not the best, but I enjoyed every story in this section, up until the very end. It seems that the theme of this collection is primarily unsatisfying endings that make no sense.

I really enjoyed the story "Wordkeepers," a kind of fabulist tale of modern-day distraction, even if the narrator was exasperating. I identified more with his love interest, who insisted upon correct grammar and complete sentences, fighting back against this new realm of easy forgetfulness, but the subject matter was topical and the ending was actually satisfying in its own way--a rarity in this collection.

The next story was the title story and the star of the collection, "The Color Master," was indeed one of the best stories in this collection. The setting was odd, as it was at once fairy-tale and modern-day Europe (a fantastic facsimile, more like) and there wasn't much world-building--not that I would expect any from a literary short story. But the process of choosing colors (as the Color Master did) and the vivid descriptions of color, as well as a well-threaded fairy tale plot in which the protagonist grows into her own and the kingdom is saved, were all expertly woven and a delight to immerse myself in. The final line, though, left me going "huh?", because even though I figured the story of "Donkeyskin" referred to the deposed king, why is the story "hers"--i.e. the Color Master's? Because she knew what was happening all along? Or is the Color Master the "her"? Once again I found the ending needlessly confusing whereas throughout the rest of the story I had been able to follow along and pick up the thematics pretty well. So either I'm not "getting it" or it's just plain nonsense.

The third story, "A State of Variance," was not particularly memorable, a story of a legacy of freakish symmetry and finding love and happiness in the opposite. In a way, though, the story starts out one way--a woman who can no longer sleep for more than an hour and thusly experiences dream states while awake--and then turns into the story about a too-symmetrical young man's hangups and his dealings thereof. Interestingly, she didn't get too much into the boy's dad, and the trend of not naming characters continues.

The fourth story, "Americca," was one of the more interesting ones, and contained plenty of echoes of Lemon Cake: an ordinary family encounters some extraordinary small occurences. But unlike in Lemon Cake, the inexplicable giving mysteriously stops after a while, and happens only once more. One of the most difficult things to pull off in a short story is the flash forward--in this story it would be revealing whose voice it was all along--and this story is not an example of such a device being well-done. The voice was not quite that of an adult (in fact she's a child for most of the story) but all of a sudden she is 27 and crying over some delicious curry, presumably because it was the last gift and it will never be given again? Didn't work for me. I'm not a fan of the title, either. Otherwise, though, Bender's usual talent was on form.

The final story in the collection, "The Devourings," stood out in that it's a very fairy tale type story. For one, it has ogres and honest-to-God magic in it. This is also one of the top five best stories in this collection. From the single narrative of a woman in love with an ogre springs forth two narratives related to devouring, and like the concluding events of the story, neatly wraps in on itself. It's a nicely put together, if strange, story that lends itself more to the Brothers Grimm school of fairy tales than it does to what most people are familiar with. (Then again, most people won't be reading this book)

In the end, the collection had mostly okay stories, and some good ones, as well as a few bad ones. I did not enjoy this collection as much as her first, and I'm starting to think Bender is getting too comfortable with a certain formula. It seems that even experienced writers forget that the formula doesn't always work, and you got to mix it up a little bit to keep your stories fresh and prevent writers' atrophy. I give it 2.5 stars out of five.

Aimee Bender's "The Color Master": A Review in Three Parts

My latest reading is Aimee Bender's recent collection of stories, The Color Master. I loved her first collection The Girl in the Inflammable Skirt and her second novel The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake. Yet, I was apprehensive when approaching this collection. I'd not so surreptitiously read the first story "Appleless" in the bookstore before I went ahead and bought it, and didn't like it too much. (More on that later) And the collection is divided into three parts, so I'm dividing my review into three parts, one for each section.

The first part did not get off to a good start, to say the least. The first story, a three-page story called "Appleless," is an exercise in mythical and literary cliche: the vaguely defined "we" as a narrator, the objectified beautiful blonde woman, and a story that is so blantantly obvious in its attempt to try and make you think. Oh, I thought about it all right. Now, some of the imagery and description of the story is great--the "loaves" of hair, the smell and taste of apples--but it's a story that just plain doesn't make sense, and not in a good way. I probably missed something, but I'm not looking to discuss this story in a class or a book club. Quite frankly, I think the story sucked, especially for a first story--isn't it supposed to be a good one that's supposed to be first? And the funny thing is, I think this was the first story by Bender that I actually came to dislike the more I read it. Whether it's about misogyny or raping the earth, it's old hat. The packaging doesn't fool me.

Next was "The Red Ribbon," which I found interesting at first. When a woman plays out her husband's prostitution fantasy, it changes the way she looks at everything, including their relationship. Her awkward inquiry about intimacy with an intrepid saleslady was funny and poignant in its own way, but the story falls into the failing marriage cliche of storytelling. By all accounts, I liked this one better than the first, and perhaps this subject doesn't interest me, but I found elements of the deja vu variety that just bores me to tears.

When I got to the third story, "Tiger Mending," I thought, "Now we're getting somewhere!" A story about a strangely gifted seamstress as narrated by her sister as they travel to Malaysia to see what the sister's job offer was about. The voices of the two sisters are so distinct, yet they play off each other quite well, and the scenes in which they're at the tiger mansion are bizarre and spooky. But then, the story just ends, and again, it doesn't make sense in a bad way. I'm sorry, but what? They do this to themselves? So then what the fuck's the point of even doing it? Tell her to just not do it, let them die! They are not fit! Let them die out, like the pandas (sorry panda lovers). So another disappointment in the end.

"Faces" conjured up more familiar themes and situations. In fact, the main character in this story, William, exhibited similarities to the brother in Lemon Cake: he's antisocial but still manages to get by in classroom and social situations. The story wasn't that bad, and I commend Bender on giving a protagonist with a disability pov a whirl, but I found so many logic fails. William has face blindness (thank you Arrested Development! Saw it coming the minute the doc took the photos out), which for some reason is called "facial illiteracy" in the story (wut?) and made me wonder if Bender knew if this was a real thing. Now labeling it with a name people don't use is one thing, but the fact that he gives all his "friends" aka the people he hands out with the same name? Um, their voices and clothes would be different, wouldn't they? And wouldn't they call each other by their names at some point? I suppose it's funnier/quirkier/more "profound" for him to just call them all the same name, but face blindness is a real thing. People who actually have this get by by differentiating people by other identifying markers, like voices. Sure, they may forget who's who from time to time (because apparently facial recognition is important for memory, at least as far as remembering people are concerned), but they'll figure it out! Eventually he'd have to call someone by their name.

"On a Saturday Afternoon" was yet another story that started off promising, but kind of didn't do it for me by the end. It started out as the strangely told story of a woman who has become jaded and tired with dating, but then one day she asks her two male friends to enact a fantasy--a sexual fantasy--for her. I found it strange that the friends are unnamed and reduced to merely "the blond one" or something like that, though it becomes apparent that she regrets goading them into doing something that was so objectifying and demeaning, in a way. And the sex scene--which was such a big part of the story--is so awkwardly written I sped read through it the first time.

So, I didn't have high hopes for the next ten stories as I finished this part. Little did I know that I would be pleasantly surprised...

The Wonder of Childhood and the Wisdom of Experience

Welcome to the weekend, and the end of summer, in which I might get more time to devote to this blog (maybe; I have to admit that lately, other things have taken higher priority). So today, a short post about a short novel: Neil Gaiman's The Ocean At the End of the Lane.

The story follows a boyhood encounter with a mysterious magic world that is full of peril for the mere mortal, leading him to experience a thrilling, strange, and terrifying adventure. It's framed by a middle aged man remembering this period of his life, and the entire story is tinged with a nostalgic atmosphere. It's technically a novel, but flows as smoothly and slowly as a short story.

Neil Gaiman is an experienced writer, and it shows. His language is air-tight, and he paints the secret, forbidden world with vivid detail. I won't give away much here, because I think it should be experienced first-hand, this introduction to this world. Gaiman also captures the psyche of an imaginative little boy wonderfully, full of the curiosity, wonder, and fear of an imaginative seven-year-old. While the story takes place when the unnamed narrator is seven, there is a sense of experience, of darkness, perhaps imposed by the presence of ancient beings, that may appeal more to older audiences--or precocious children. That said, anyone with adequate life experience to understand that things were different "back then" will take some enjoyment from the story.

In some ways, the tale subverts the genre of boyhood adventure, as he becomes scared an powerless the being and forces too great for him to overcome alone. His troubles begin and end with the Hempstocks, a family of women whose origins and existence remain a mystery. Another interesting point is that all the named characters are female, suggesting that it is these characters who are the real actors in the story--the boy is just along for the ride.

That's not to say that the boy's problems were purely fantastical. There's a not-so-subtle implication that his father has abusive tendencies, which is not explored further when the traumatic incident is snipped out of his father's memory. We get a sense of disconnect of the boy from his family, right in the beginning when he's moved out of his own small bedroom into his sister's. While he cares for his mother, he doesn't seem to be close with her at all. In all, the bland family situation, aside from the time when they rent out the boy's room to lodgers, is pretty run of the mill family drama type stuff. It's almost unfair how the boy's adventure seems that much more fantastic, as his family and his own life are so mundane.

Gaiman leaves us with incredible, beautiful, shocking, frightening images from this boy's encounter with the magical realm. I found myself verbally reacting to the turns of events of each chapter as the story revealed that the world of what could be called "magic" can be dangerous and scary, possibly resulting in existential threats. The language is perfectly immersive, the work of a master of his craft, creating a lasting impression on the reader. I finished reading the book about a week ago, and the story still holds fast in my memory. I will definitely read it again at some point.

In The Ocean at the End of the Lane, Gaiman presented a world that is vivid, wonderful, and terrifying that I had never seen before, a world within a world that follows its own logic. and this was the story of one little boy's encounter with it, and his death (or near-death) because of it. Because it is so perfectly constructed, I have to give it 4.5 stars.

Corn Maidens and Demon Brothers

Joyce Carol Oates is, at the very least, an unsettling writer. I haven't read a lot of her work, but the one novel of hers that I have read, Zombie, made my skin crawl all throughout. This more recent collection of hers maintains that vein of creepiness that seems to have become her trademark. That she is revered in literary circles and not relegated to the genre ghetto is almost incredible. In her stories, though, the idea of supernatural forces influencing the characters is suggestive at best, or nonexistent. The horrors that Oates covers in this collection are entirely the result of the human mind and the society that has failed it.

The title story is unquestionably my favorite, though it is more accurately a novella than a short story. In this tale, a blonde girl is kidnapped by a sociopathic teenager who plants false evidence to implicate the school's computer consultant in her disappearance. While the missing girl's mother frets with worry and regret, the teacher bubbles with anger and resentment, the girl is drugged and kept hidden in a room in the sociopath's mansion, and prepared for a ritual inspired by Native American "corn maiden" tales, twisted in the sociopath's mind. We get a full picture of this story that the characters each grasp only a fragment of, seeing the points of view of all directly involved. Judith's is obviously the most twisted perspective, with her scenes narrated in a manic cadence. And though the mother and teacher's victimization and frustration are understandable and sympathetic, Oates lays bare the very real effects of rumor and prejudices that permeate not only the evening news, but the actors involved. Though the circumstances of the girl's disappearance are highly unusual, Oates presents the harrowing event in a realistic and haunting manner.

Oates' status as a literary writer is quite obvious in the way she richly evokes scenes, weaving into them the characters' emotional state and point of view, following the classic "show don't tell" rule of writing. The final story, "A Hole in the Head," serves as a perfect example, richly detailing the hastened but thorough process of covering up an accidental murder. "Beersheba" also does this quite well, as Oates slowly reveals the details and backstory as we follow the protagonist through his (likely) last day alive. No matter how harrowing or horrifying the experience, we can clearly envision these scenes as if we were there. Oates' stories also debunk the myth that another writing adage, "write what you know," means that you should only write about what you have personally experienced. Because surely Oates has not murdered or kidnapped anyone. With the right amount of research, you can write about anything.

"Unsettling" is a flexible term. In "Nobody Knows My Name," a story with suggested supernatural elements, a large cat kills the protagonist's baby sibling, almost in response to her hatred and jealousy. Supernatural forces are the only explanation that I can think of to explain this bizarre occurrence, because it's just so strange. In a way, though, it doesn't matter how the baby died, for Jessica would have implicated herself in it. "Helping Hands" I also did not enjoy so much, bringing in an out-of-left-field ending. In this story, a recently widowed woman reaches out to an employee and war vet of the titular charity/thrift store. Perhaps she was so stricken with grief that she could not see the "signs,' and perhaps sometimes people whom you'd expect to  be shady are shady, but I thought things escalated much too quickly, in any case.

The other two stories in the collection were very similar, and less nightmarish than the rest. Both involve twin brothers: one handsome and successful yet sleazy, and the other less successful and well-liked, but intelligent and kind. Over the years, the brothers become estranged, but in the end, they reconcile with each other somehow. And yet they are not the same story: the first, "Fossil Figures," the weaker brother was born with birth defects, spending his life as an artistic recluse, and the stronger brother is ashamed of him. However, when the stronger brother falls from grace, he moves back home with his weaker brother and they grow old and die together. It's kind of sweet, really. In "Death Cup", the successful brother is a cad and a con, while the other is merely an introvert. This story is told from the introverted brother's point of view, and we can understand how much he despises his brother, and how much he believes his brother despises him. When the caddish brother returns to the family estate in the wake of their uncle's death, the introverted brother finds himself incapable of killing him, as much as he fantasizes about his death--always the better man even against this will. But, riding together in their uncle's Rolls Royce, just in time to be killed in a car accident, he finds that perhaps there is something to be said of his brother's life after all.

Though not all these tales are nightmares per se (see above), each story stands to shock or creep you out in some way, and you might find yourself sympathizing with characters you may not have sympathized with otherwise. These tales are authentic Oates tales, stories that could only have come from her enigmatic mind, so any fan of hers is strongly recommended to read  this collection. My rating: four out of five stars.

The Writer's Life in the 21st Century

One of my resolutions for this year has been to devote more time to my creative writing, which I had sorely neglected in 2012. By "work", I don't mean the first draft, which I practically breathe on the page, but revealing it to new pairs of eyes for the first time, rewriting and revising, and sending it out to strangers in strange offices for them to judge my work on its publishability. And as I am finding out, this is where the real work in creative writing endeavors lies.

So far this has proved to be a challenge, as I work a full-time job that requires me to sit in front of a computer 35 hours a week. But it's not just these hours I can factor in--there is also commuting time, wake-up time, and decompression when I get home after devoting my entire day to someone else. So the last thing I want to do when I get home is to spend another 3-5 hours on another computer. And do more work--albeit of a slightly different nature.

In order to become a published writer, one has to not only write, but rewrite, edit, and gather enough gumption to send out her work to the best magazines and publishers (and know which ones to send to). This can take several hours out of one's day, and if one has a day job or a life of some kind, this would have to be spread out over several days. And one would also need to have the energy and ability to concentrate on such things for such a large block of time. This doesn't turn out to be so easy. Some days I am just burned out and don't want to deal with anything that is also work.

These elements, of course, apply to all writers who have had to struggle to make their voices heard. What makes this time, this century, unique? The unlikelihood that we will ever be able to make a decent living off our writing alone, for one--the number of writers who could was always small, but it seems to be smaller. This makes the grinding 9-to-5 even more essential to the living of a writer's life.

We also have a lot of distractions to push away in order to devote the level of concentration required to follow through with the remaining steps of the writing and publishing process. Fewer people will also likely read our writing--especially if one decides to write literary fiction, thanks in part to the aforementioned distractions. (As for myself, though I do enjoy literary fiction, have found myself increasingly bored with literary realism, so those of you who specialize in that genre--good luck with that) With the amount of time required in order to even get oneself out there, it's amazing that people manage to do it at all.

Obviously, it's not impossible. But what if you feel like you were more on top of things before? When your schedule was more varied? Before you had broadband internet access, and just had your imagination to keep you company on those long summer days? What about those days when all you want to do is write, but you have to work all day that day?