Analyze this

With the kids back at school, I have been able to return to the world of sports radio and television. I don't sit there all day and watch a never ending stream of ESPN shows, mind you. I abandoned the Worldwide Leader years ago when it was apparent that what they considered sports coverage was some combination of loud-mouthed ignorant hosts arguing with each other. Instead, I usually have the Dan Patrick Show running on the radio or NBC Sports network while I am working. No matter where you get your sports coverage, one thing that is startlingly clear within a matter of days is just how much critical analysis has become the dominant source of content. This isn't analysis like Trent Dilfer may offer on ESPN, where he is breaking down plays and coverages. This is just plain criticism passing as journalism. It isn't limited to sports, either. I would wager that more words of criticism are written across the interwebs each day than any other tone. 

You see it in entertainment coverage, sports coverage, news coverage, food coverage, fashion, celebrity, travel - even religion.  Gone are the days of the simple reporting of facts or investigative journalism. Everything now has to have an editorial attached. One of the biggest examples of this was when CNN switched their sports provider from Sports Illustrated to Bleacher Report. SI is a (somewhat) respectable old school sports journalistic entity. Bleacher Report is basically a sports blog. Every article they write ends with some kind of editorial statement. Some of them are wildly out of place and unnecessary. But there they are. It is almost like the news outlets are worried we won't know what to do with the information they are providing us. So they also have give us the stance we should take now that we have the news. 

Look at political speeches. Some political entity will get on television and give a fifteen minute speech. Then the networks will run two hours of commentary breaking down and criticizing what that person said. And with the rise of Twitter, we don't even have to wait until the speech is over. We can start sending out our analysis as soon as the person hits the stage. "What a weasel." "What is that tie supposed to mean?" "How can this guy get elected when he mispronounces mujaheddin?"  

Slip back into the sports world for a moment. After last college football season, it was the unanimous opinion among sports people that Jadaveon Clowney would be the first pick in last year's draft. There was even spirited discussions about if he should sit out this season to make sure he didn't get injured like his old teammate Marcus Lattimore. He was the best player in college football, we were told. He is unstoppable, they said. It was like every college football expert was tripping over each other to join some insane Clowney posse. (No groaning, you should expect that by now people.) Living in Columbia, we have gotten more than enough coverage of Clowney. My twelve year old son, who could care less about football, wanted to watch the first game and came home telling jokes involving Clowney. (Why is six afraid of seven? Clowney) Two games into the season? USA Today had a headline this week asking if Clowney had already slipped in the draft. Sports outlets have already switched to debating just how overrated this out of shape wannabe is. The Gamecocks still have 10-12 games remaining this year. And he's washed up after just two?

Think about the news of Ben Affleck's casting as Batman. How much ink and web space was devoted to criticizing that choice? I clearly remember this uproar over Michael Keaton being cast. And Christian Bale being cast. And Heath Ledger being cast as Joker. In fact, the person who was the least criticized for being cast as Batman was George Clooney, who was so bad he has apologized for his role. Affleck is an Oscar winner for screenwriting and producing. He has been nominated as an actor. This isn't Zac Efron or Ashton Kutcher being cast here. We don't have any footage, any pictures, any script yet. But people have eviscerated the choice.  

So what, you may wonder. In fact, you may be waiting for me to be done to criticize me. I think there are several problems. First, being so critical all the time is a horrible way to live. It poisons your thought processes to where you start to find the worst in everything instead of the best. Think about if you go to a restaurant with a positive outlook. Let's say you know the owner or you're on a date. You will praise the things you like and overlook the things you dislike, unless the whole experience is a complete disaster. Maybe the chicken was a little dry. But the appetizers were great and the dessert rocked. You will probably walk out happy and see the experience as positive. If you go in angry and wondering if this dump will be any good, well, it will more than likely bring you down - no matter how good it is. 

Second, we get an overinflated view of our importance when we become full time critics. "People HAVE TO know what I'm thinking!"  It is like the universe is holding its breath to hear what we think of the new Harry Potter movies or Kate Winslet's dress. Since the Internet allows us to be anonymous in our criticisms. We can write rude things about an athlete who could tear our heads off in real life. We can say things about people we never would say to someone's face. Would you ever walk up to Ben Affleck and tell him he is going to suck as Batman? Would you tell the president to his face you think he is a jerk? Would you look an actress up and down and say she looks like a cow?  Of course not. But online, behind our screen names, we can be as cruel as we want. It makes us feel like we have power over those people, because we can cut them down. They may have the fame, money, and power we wish we had. But, dang it, we can be rotten on Facebook about them. We start to believe we are above the rules of common courtesy. We are superior to all those people who disagree with us. That's hardly a healthy view of things. 

The last reason I have to avoid the cult of criticism is something I realized yesterday in an unusual place. We fail to see the beauty of the "big picture" when we start to pick on and at everything. Last night one of my very favorite shows ended. We have been watching Burn Notice on USA since the end if season two. We caught up on the first two seasons quickly and have been avid viewers for five years. The show is far from perfect. It had had its ups and downs and its share of ludicrous story lines. It suffered from the entertainment trap of "too many layers of bad guys," where each conspiracy unveils another deeper layer. This season was much darker and different from the other ones. Instead of helping someone every week while constantly pursuing the bad guys behind the curtain, the team was kind of out to save their own skins. They were doing one job all season, only to stay out of prison themselves. They had to partner with slimy government agents to take down slimier bad guys. The problem came when the slime line wasn't so clear. Our honorable hero, Michael Westen, went so far under cover it looked like he wouldn't and couldn't come out. It was easy to pick on the season. Some episodes were frustrating. They weren't bad. But they were different. And that was hard. But as they tied all the pieces together, it culminated in one of the best series finales I have ever seen. Michael ended his quest the only way possible for a man like him. There were major sacrifices made - ones that were heartbreaking to see come to pass. But I couldn't have asked for a better ending after so many years invested in the show. 

So often we forget the big picture. We can be so critical of each quarter, half, and game that we miss out on the complete season or career. We get upset about a role being cast and miss out on the overall direction of the movie franchise. Think about the Avengers movie franchise. People griped about Robert Downey Jr being cast as Iron Man. It was originally supposed to be Tom Cruise. How stupid would that be in retrospect?  People were unhappy about just about everyone cast in the Avengers series, except Samuel L Jackson. But the movie itself was brilliant. The complete effort made sense. Imagine if the Internet existed when Michelangelo was painting the Sistine Chapel. Would there be constant online whine and cheese fests over each panel?  "I can't believe he painted Jeremiah that way!!!  Omg!"  Would Lincoln or Reagan stood up to the constant news influx and the age of twitter?  Doubtful. Personally, I also think of the Bible and how people get hung up on battles over tiny passages while missing the whole story. It is often quite detrimental to be so obsessed with the parts that we miss the completed project. 

I know that I have battled a critical spirit in my own life. I have been labelled by many people as a negative person, with one minister telling me in junior high that I was "the most negative person he ever met." (That felt good.)  I will admit that I have been negative a lot and I still can easily fall back into that. I also like to analyze movies, restaurants, music, sermons, tv shows, and books more than most people. I like to think about them and critique them (which is not the same thing as criticizing them.) A critic doesn't have to be critical. We can examine a thing and judge it without bringing an acidic attitude into the process. What is our reason for that analysis? Is it to help people or ourselves? Is it to make ourselves feel better and tear others down? Is it to stir up issues and brings readers to our blog or twitter account? Are we being fair and allowing people to present the completed work before we tear it to shreds?  Maybe it would be helpful to turn that highly trained analytical eye inward for a spell to make sure we are doing things right first, and doing them for the right reason. It may give us a richer view of things were we aren't constantly tearing them apart. 

Where's the Mystery

I threatened numerous people that my next post after the award winning Reunion Files would be a list of my favorite superheroes.  BUT, I lied.  Sure, this probably will reference superheroes, but the actual list will have to wait for another day.  Instead, I am wanted to address something that has been bugging me for a while now.  It started as a Facebook status update.  But, when I realized that it was going to take a paragraph to explain, I knew it had to go somewhere else.

TO THE BLOG!!!

[Side Note: Facebook friends, if you feel it necessary to write a full column for your status update, can I suggest you perhaps turn that into a note?  Then I will at least know what I am getting into.  I don't mind a short paragraph.  Everyone knows that I have written my share of long statii.  If the status ventures into needing its own ISBN number, go the Note route.]

I have reached the end of my tolerance of movie and tv spoilers.  There was a time, not too long ago, where I enjoyed the random spoiler.  I liked to know some information about where a show was heading, or what treats may pop up in a movie.  When Lost was on air, I would visit many sites to figure out what just happened, what it meant, what was coming.  I like to know the random detail about a television series.  We watch Burn Notice every summer and winter.  It left us last year with some big cliffhangers last season, so I was naturally curious about what was going to happen.  I did at some point go onto ew.com and see how long a character would remain in jail.  But that is a big difference from the spoiler madness out there.

The reason I even thought about this was that one of my regular entertainment sites - not even a normal spoiler site - had a post up about who Joseph Gordon Levitt was playing in The Dark Knight Rises.  This is the thing.  Christopher Nolan is notoriously secretive about his movies.  And he is even more paranoid than he usually would be because of the way people now desperately want to ruin films.  I love Nolan's films.  I like the intrigue and surprise of them.  If you allow yourself to, you will be kept off guard the entire time.  This has been his hallmark from the early films on through the Batman movies.  Memento, Insomnia, The Prestige, Inception.  All of those are complex stories that require the viewer to remain in the dark.  I loved those films BECAUSE I didn't know what was going on.  The experience would have been ruined if I had known spoilers.  Nolan's ability to make intriguing movie trailers without giving away plot points is almost as breathtaking as his ability to make the movies themselves.  I remember seeing the Inception trailer and thinking it was incredible.  I started to wonder what was going on in certain scenes.  And then when I saw the movie, I was completely wrong about everything I had guessed.

Now, I know that massive movies like Dark Knight Rises do not allow for complete secrecy.  You can't hide filming a giant vehicle racing through downtown Chicago or a bomb exploding on a football field.  So there is going to be paparazzi shots of those things online.  But if the filmmaker is going out of his way to keep SOMETHING secret, let him do that.  There is probably a good reason.

J.J. Abrams is another director that gets labelled "notoriously secretive."  But he has to his credit some really twisty surprising stuff that would not have worked if everything was out in the open.  When a director fights the intrusive nature of modern media, it is almost they get a target on their back.  Now it becomes an accomplishment to get set photos, script peeks, or character bios.  This is happening to Abrams now on Star Trek 2.  He went so far as to rent giant cargo carriers to surround the shooting area because he got tired of seeing every little thing plastered on the web.

I guess I don't see the point of all of this.  I suppose for the photographers there is some kind of thrill in breaching security.  Maybe it is the modern equivalent of a photo safari in Africa.  But for the moviegoing fan, does this actually help the moviegoing experience?  Do you enjoy a film more because you know everything about it?  I know that I don't.  I want to be surprised.  It may not ruin the entire movie, but it isn't as good as it could be.  Heather and I were watching the series premiere of a show the other day on television.  There was a big twist at the end where a character dies - someone you never would have imagined was going to bite it.  The only problem was that I already knew that.  I wasn't looking for information on the series.  I was just reading an entertainment story about the premier (which we were watching on DVR the next day).  There wasn't any warning or anything.  And this wasn't like I flipped out because someone told me the secret in Psycho fifty years after it came out.  This was the next day.  So what did I think about the whole episode?  "So when does this dude die?  How does that happen?"

The thirst for secret information combines with some of the worst journalism since newspapers were called newsrocks and the fact that you can get information anywhere, any time.  This is a perfect recipe for disaster.  The writers are so desperate for scoop to drive traffic to their site that they don't care if their information is damaging to anyone.  Here are some recent examples that I will put SPOILER WARNING in front of, just in case you have missed stuff.

• After The Avengers, entertainment sites were flooded with people discussing the details of the monster film.  Ordinarily, I would have been right there opening weekend and been in the discussion.  But I couldn't make it until the second weekend.  I actually had to completely avoid any story with Avengers in the title because so many of them had spoilers in them.  One of the most grievous was on blastr.com (a major offender).  They ran a photo gallery of the most shocking deaths in Joss Whedon's film career.  The picture to promote the gallery was of the character who shockingly died in The Avengers.  
• The massive response to Avengers led to people searching for information on the next Marvel film - Iron Man 3.  Sure enough, out comes a picture of a red, white, and blue Iron Man suit.  It gets plastered all over the place: blastr, yahoo, ew.  Who is this?  Is it Iron Patriot (from the Dark Avengers storyline)? Is it War Machine?  The very fact that this discussion was happening may have ruined a major story arc in the movie!  
• Ridley Scott is one of the original secretive directors.  With Prometheus, he tried to keep as much information under wraps (until it was time to super-promote the film by apparently telling everything that happened).  The movie had barely hit theaters before multiple sites were talking about what was said in a conversation at the end of the movie.  Of course, the conversation gives away massive information.  

It used to be that you had to hunt for information about a movie or a show.  Now you have to actively and intentionally avoid it.  And it is getting worse and worse.  If you don't see a movie opening night, be prepared to have all the secrets ruined the next day.  I have gotten into the habit of just avoiding sites altogether until I can see a movie.  More than that, though, I go into total media blackout.  I remember back when Independence Day came out, I didn't want to know anything more than I had to.  I wouldn't even look at the toys until I saw the movie because I didn't want to accidentally see the aliens.  Back then it was a different story.  To not get information, you didn't go to the toy section and didn't read insider magazines.  There was no Internet.  

Today, it is a real challenge to not see a movie spoiled.  Take Dark Knight Rises.  I am so excited for this film.  First of all, I am a major Batman fan.  Second, I love Christopher Nolan.  Third, I have thoroughly enjoyed Nolan's Batman series.  Fourth, it looks like it may be harkening to the Knighfall comics arc, which was one of my favorite.  It is an excitement on par with Avengers.  The original trailer came out and didn't show much - just enough to excite fans everywhere.  Then a second trailer came out and gave more information.  Then multiple viral campaigns got started.  Then there were the onslaught of television commercials.  At this point I already have seen more than I wanted because I know there are two different Batmobiles and there is a Batplane.  I have tried to avoid a lot of the spoilers out there, but there have been intense online discussions about what the Selina Kyle character is all about, if Joseph Gordon Levitt is playing a good guy or bad guy, if Talia Al Ghul makes an appearance.  Not just that, but when you go to the toy store, there is a whole line of toys with characters and vehicles that I wouldn't know existed without watching the movie.  [Similar problem with The Avengers, when Lego brought out sets that showed the aliens that Whedon had worked so hard to never show.]  It becomes tons of work to NOT see anything that will spoil the movie.

I really miss the older days when you knew a movie was coming out, you saw the trailer, there may be a magazine article and that was it.  Now we are so saturated with a film and its coverage and its tie-ins that the film itself almost becomes a second thought.  It makes me wonder if the marketers behind all of this thinks it is successful.  Was The Avengers successful because it was marketed to high heaven and had relentless coverage?  Or was it because it was a very good movie that tied together several other really good movies?  Is Dark Knight Rises going to break records because it has been promoted non-stop for the last month?  Or is it because it probably is going to be beyond amazing?  The thing is, even with all of this promotion and marketing and coverage and "leaked info" and snoop pictures, the moviegoing audience can still identify junk and avoid it.  John Carter, Battleship, Dark Shadows were all promoted to a ridiculous level.  They all had the same level of pubic recognition.  And they all bombed because they were awful.  

The is a fine line between spoilery information that will attract and info that will ruin.  I want to know what JJ Abrams' show Revolution is about.  I think it looks very cool and I plan on watching it.  I don't think that it hurts to know Elizabeth Mitchell has been cast as the main kids' estranged mom - even though I didn't know those kids had an estranged mom.  Knowing Mitchell is on board is another draw.  But if they start telling me a bunch of information about everything, that is going to turn me off.  Of course, marketers would probably label me an "educated viewer."  That doesn't mean schooling, it means that I know a lot about entertainment and the like.  With a show like Revolution - like with Avengers and Dark Knight Rises - there are three groups of viewers.  There are people who are on board no matter what.  There are people that won't go no matter what.  And there are those who need swayed.  Just about all of these efforts I've talked about are aimed at that last group.  With the new Batman movie, the first group was won over when the movie was announced.  But the blockbuster status of the film will be determined by just how many of the last group can be swayed.  The problem is when the powers that be, the media, those who are obsessed with information actually damage the interest of the fans to gain fringe viewers.  [You could actually argue that Apple has been walking this line for a while, and failing from time to time.  Their desperation to pull in new users with things like the new MacBook Pro and Final Cut Pro updates actually alienated long-time Apple devotees.]  That may make business sense, but it stinks for those people who really support projects.   

I know this isn't going to change any time soon.  It actually will get worse.  Everyone has a phone with a camera.  It is so easy to post news.  Real journalism is being run out of town by entertainment media and gossip sites.  And movie and television studios have to have MEGA-hits to justify their costs.  Everything has to be big now.  I have never seen so many $100 million and $200 million grossing movies labeled bombs as I have this year.  We have seen shows that consistently pulled in over ten million viewers weekly cancelled for poor performance (Alcatraz, Terra Nova, Rob!).  It is going to become harder and harder to control how much information we get about entertainment.  I'll guess I will just have to expand my media blackouts even more.  I can only imagine how bad it will be by next year's Man of Steel.  But if you happen to know anything in advance, just keep it to yourself.  

Assemble!

I saw The Avengers last night. It was a remarkable movie - extremely entertaining, funny, heartfelt. I was surprised at just how well it was crafted. Today I was watching some interviews with the cast and the director, Joss Whedon. There are some major themes in the movie about the concepts of working together as a team and how flawed individuals can still do amazing things. Whedon was expounding on some of that. He said that in today's world - with the society and economy disintegrating - community is so important. It is crucial. A real man is not defined by the masculine macho stuff he does. He earns esteem by his willingness to live in, serve, and be a part of community.

I've been thinking on this issue for a while now. Our church is big on community. That is one of their core values. On Sunday, our pastor preached on Gideon. He talked about how one of Gideon's biggest flaws was his desire to pull away from others. First, he was isolated due to his apparent weakness. Then, he was isolated due to his success. Pastor Isaac said, "The community will be a blessing to the person who is willing to be a part of the community." He also made several excellent points about how we cannot allow ourselves to put ourselves above the group. We are in this together.

This is not a popular concept in today's world. Well, at least not in America. We consider privacy a God given right. We put our best foot forward. We don't cry out loud. We hold it inside and learn how to hide our feelings. That was never the plan, though. God created us for intimate (close) relationships with Himself and others. We were supposed to be involved with those around us. It was not good for man to be alone. That didn't just mean when it came to marriage. It was a truth about mankind. It isn't good to be alone. Bad things happen when you have to live alone. In movies, you get eaten by the mythical beast. In life, you get eaten by, well, life.

As I've been reading through Exodus and Leviticus. (What? You don't read Leviticus for fun? Who needs 50 Shades of Grey. Go read Leviticus 18.) It has hit me time and again how we were never intended to live life alone and in private. The sacrifices for the nation of Israel were not private. They were out in public in front of all kinds of people. When you had to get something right, it was in the blazing light of day. When you move to the Early Church, things aren't any different. We are told to confess our sins to one another, bear each other's burdens, and share in the journey together. That group of believers had everything in common. I don't think that was just money. It was their whole lives.

I know in my own life I have to go through major trauma or intense struggle before I open up. Shoot, I routinely won't write blog posts on here because I'm worried what people will think. But that isn't healthy. It isn't right. One, I then force myself into an isolating position I shouldn't be in. But two, I also rob others of the encouragement they may be needing in just that moment. How many times have I been struggling with something, only to see a post or a Facebook status or hear a sermon on that issue? Maybe I'm supposed to be that help for someone else. Instead, fear and pride shut me down again. And who is better off from that?

In the movie, nothing could be accomplished until all those broken, severely screwed up people put their own issues aside and agreed to work together. They had to realize that as embarrassing or terrifying it would be to trust someone else, it was the only right choice. We need to come to that point. We are all messed up. We all have issues and struggles. Not a one of us is above help or beyond it. Let's start working together on living life the right way. (Now if I was cheesier, I would try to make some clever twist on Avengers Assemble. But I'm not going to fall into that trap.)