Down and Out in the Middle Kingdom
I've been known to make questionable choices in reading material before going on a long trip. When strapped into a metal tube that's hurtling over the ocean with several-hundred other cramped and cranky passengers, I don't want to be reading War and Peace, I usually crave popcorn like The Da Vinci Code or the latest Michael Crichton page-turner. So, despite the fact that I think Cory Doctorow is kind of tedious and obnoxious (at least based on his bOINGbOING persona), when I spotted Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom in the local book emporium, its potpourri of transhumanism SF and Disney World fetishism seemed like just the pipeful of literary crack I needed to wile away a 5-hour layover in Detroit, followed by an 8-hour plane flight over the briny.
Unfortunately, this novel didn't even begin to live up to my lowered expectations, and it certainly doesn't deserve the effusive praise it has received from authors like William Gibson and Bruce Sterling. Other than the brilliant gimmick of setting the plot in Disney World and the mildy-interesting concept of "Whuffie" (an economic system based on something akin to Brownie Points), it offers little beyond uninvolving characters and stale, utopian SF cliches.
Even the concept of a future Disney World, where eternally youthful Technorati maintain the park in the service of humanity, could've been handled in a far more interesting way. Instead, the curators come off as spoiled and self-involved, the kind of creepy little yuppies that would've been perfectly comfortable raising a couple hundred million dollars of venture capital to develop vertically integrated Internet portals for upscale pet-food providers back in the dotcom days, then promptly blow it all on cubical massages, exhorbitant dinner parties at The Flying Saucer, and 30-second Superbowl commercials.
Next time I fly, I'm sticking with Crichton.
On the film front, my son and I went to see Hero (AKA Ying Xiong) yesterday afternoon. I was hoping that this movie would avoid some of the more irritating aspects of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, but alas, it was chockablock with the same sort of ridiculous martial-art excesses that require an inordinate amount of disbelief suspension for me to enjoy.
Why is this sort of Peter Pan-esque prancing about on wires crap so popular? The film would've been perfectly capable of standing on its own without it. However, the gorgeous cinematography, sets, and costuming almost made up for it, and the epic battle scenes easily surpassed those of last year's Return of the King.
The ending was problematic too. Without giving away too much of the plot, the film's message of the need to unite China's disparate provinces under a despotic, brutal government seemed an awful lot like mainland propaganda to me. I wonder how this will go over in Taiwan? Not well, I should think.