The Illusion of Depth

Like many other "vocabulary nerds" around the world, I have lately fallen into the habit of playing Wordle every day. For the blissfully unaware, the object of Wordle is to identify a five-letter word in six guesses. There are approximately 13,000 five-letter words in the English language, but not all of those words are included in the Wordle solution list. Some have been omitted because they are considered offensive or incendiary, while others are absent because they are merely obscure. Unfortunately, the algorithm for including or excluding words is a bit arbitrary, and not always transparent. LYNCH and SLAVE have both been removed from the official list. PUSSY (which has a perfectly benign alternative meaning) was excised, although HUSSY (which only ever means one thing) was left in place. PENIS was cut from the list, but HYMEN is still intact. Go figure that one out (and take note, all you Wordlers: PENIS is out; HYMEN is in. And stop sniggering.). For my part, it's t...

Please note that this week's film has been rated  15  in the UK. In 1977, an episode of the American television series Happy Days (which at that point had been running for five successful seasons) featured a scene in which the Fonz (remember him? Cool dude in the leather jacket?) jumps over a live shark on water-skis (to clarify: Fonzie, not the shark, is on the water-skies, although I don't think it matters all that much). The stunt has gone down in television history as the moment at which Happy Days demonstrated it was prepared to do absolutely anything to revive its flagging ratings. Happy Days had been conceived in the 1970s as a feel-good exercise in nostalgia for Baby-Boomers who had fond memories of their own teenage years in the 1950s. The Fonz jumping over a shark marked the point at which the series stopped being about anything other than a cynical attempt to draw viewers back to a franchise that had begun to stagnate. In the subsequent decades, the phrase ...

Last week's film ( It's Always Fair Weather ) was a fun, feel-good MGM Musical that laughed at the rapidly growing power of television (and television advertising in particular) in 1950s American society. Our next film also examines the power of television, but without the "feel-good" part. A Face in the Crowd was released in 1957, but the story it tells is one that feels uncomfortably close to the bone in our present day.  It's no coincidence that the film received a widespread re-evaluation in 2016, just as a certain vulgar media personality was gaining devoted populist support in the political arena. Written by Budd Schulberg and directed by Elia Kazan (the pair who had brought you On the Waterfront three years earlier) A Face in the Crowd follows the career of Larry "Lonesome" Rhodes, an obnoxious, hillbilly media personality with "man-of-the-people" appeal and a devoted, almost cult-like following (played with frightening power by Andy ...

In December 1944, the musical On The Town opened on Broadway with a book by Betty Comden & Adolph Green, music by Leonard Bernstein and choreography by Jerome Robbins. It told the story of three sailors with 24 hours shore leave in New York City, and it has gone on to become one of the iconic Broadway musicals of the era.  Although it was filmed in 1949 (with Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra and Jules Munshin playing the three sailors) the film version makes a number of radical changes to the original Broadway work, most notably by removing almost all of Leonard Bernstein's music.  The film also takes place after the war has ended, which arguably alters the tone of the entire work. In the Broadway version, the three sailors have one day to enjoy their shore leave, after which they will be returned to active service, and almost certainly sent into combat. The girls they encounter are aware of this (and are aware that 24 hours is all they will ever have together). The audience too...

The year is 1944. World War II has been dragging on for years, with no end in sight.  Allied forces have just landed at Normandy.  Hollywood has been pumping out rousing war movie after rousing war movie in an effort to maintain popular support for a war that is sending a seemingly unending stream of young men to their deaths. And then Preston Sturges released Hail the Conquering Hero . Hail the Conquering Hero tells the story of Woodrow Lafayette Pershing Truesmith, a young man from a small town whose father had died a hero in World War I. Raised on stories of family courage and bravery during wartime, Woodrow had joined the Marines in the hopes of emulating his legendary father, only to be disqualified after one month by a slightly embarrassing medical ailment. Ashamed to admit this to his mother, he has written to her that he is being sent into active combat, while he is actually working a civilian job in a San Diego shipyard. When he encounters a group of genuine Mar...