Merry Christmas

***On Christmas morning the Herald gives us a story of holiday cheer spread by a pair of East Boston cops. The duo (in the photo from bostonherald.com) turn a domestic call into an attempt to make one little girl's Christmas a little brighter.

***The Globe has reporter Joseph Kahn's year-end review of news and pop culture in verse.

***Salon.com wonders whether "It's A Wonderful Life" is the scariest movie ever.

***The New Yorker's Adam Gopnik took a look at a recent spate of books exploring the historical Jesus earlier this year.

An American classic

Fifty years ago today, Americans were introduced to Scout, Jem and Atticus Finch, as well as Boo Radley and Tom Robinson, in the pages of Harper Lee's novel To Kill a Mockingbird. Today it is one of the most widely read, widely taught and widely loved books ever written. The 1962 film, with Gregory Peck (in photo, with Mary Badham as Scout) as Atticus -- the upstanding small-town Southern lawyer who defends an innocent but sure-to-be-convicted black man -- has also gone a long way toward ensuring the story's enduring popularity.

I was assigned Mockingbird as a freshman in high school, and it was the first time I'd read something where I wanted desperately to meet the characters. It also was the first time that I'd read faster and faster in the middle of the novel -- because I was so interested in the story -- but then slowed down toward the final pages, as I didn't want the magic to end. Mockingbird made me want to write.

Harper Lee, now 84, never wrote another novel, and published only a few small items in the last five decades. Someone -- I can't find the quote now -- once commented on the Pulitzer Prize winner's dearth of writing after her wildly successful debut, saying that Lee put the truth so clearly and absolutely on the page that she never needed to write another word. Here is one piece of that truth, as Atticus speaks to his children: "...before I can live with other folks I've got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience."

Say no to popcorn

Next time you visit the cinema, you may want to pass on the giant barrel of popcorn. Even before you add the fake butter, a medium-size movie theater popcorn and a soda have as much fat and calories as three quarter-pounders. Great Caesar's ghost!

This story comes from the Center for Science in the Public Interest, which releases reports a few times a year to tell us what we should pretty much have known anyway: the mall cinnamon rolls, the supermarket processed foods and the movie theater snacks -- among other things that Americans are consuming vast quantities of -- are all horrifically bad for us.

As food expert Michael Pollan says, "Don't eat anything your grandmother wouldn't recognize as food."

Respecting the rights of others

To live amongst other people and maintain order there generally needs to be some limits on personal liberty. I think that most of us would agree with the notion that everyone cannot do absolutely anything they please at any moment. One famous limit on speech is the oft-quoted concept that "you cannot yell 'fire' in a crowded theater."

I was in a fairly crowded theater yesterday to see a movie. I walked in a few minutes before the film started and, with the center rows pretty full, I took the first seat on a middle row in a side section. As the previews were running, three young guys -- frat-boy types -- squeezed by me to take the open seats to my left. They munched loudly on popcorn at the start of the movie, but they weren't intentionally trying to create noise and they do have a right to eat popcorn -- whether the theater is crowded or not.

What they did do that was infuriating was fiddle with their cell phones throughout the entire film. Texting, checking for messages, checking the time and, at one point, the guy next to me took a phone call during the film. The same guy dropped his phone toward the end of the movie and fished around on the floor for five minutes. These were guys in their 20s acting like teenage girls.

Even without the movement and talking, the blue light of cell phones is pretty damn annoying in a theater. It is distracting to the eye. I turned to give a dirty look every time I saw the glow, but in the darkness of a cinema I doubt the trio noticed. Even if they did, however, is it likely that they cared? The signs in the lobby of the Somerville Theater clearly specify that cell phone use -- even just texting -- is grounds for ejection, but no one was walking around checking, and I wouldn't expect them to be. If I went out to inform the staff, they would have probably come in to warn the guys, but then I'd have to sit somewhere else because they'd be angry. If I said something to them they would have scoffed at me.

I've had a similar experience here on Bennington Street. A number of times this summer, at various hours of the night, a vehicle will pull up to a house almost directly across from mine and the driver will beep the horn. This has happened as late as 3 a.m., and I've noticed it a half-dozen or so times. (It may have happened many times before, say, 10 p.m., but I wouldn't have taken much notice because I am not some cranky person who wants to stifle the lives of others. I have only taken notice when the incident occurs at an unreasonable time.)

The horn blasts aren't even tepid toots. There's usually more than one long blast. It is unfathomable that this individual thinks that he or she has the right to disturb, even wake up, the roughly 200 or 300 people that are within earshot because whoever is supposed to be picked up not outside or because the driver is too lazy to get out of the vehicle and ring the doorbell. I've been close to going out there a couple times, but I'm not looking for a late-night confrontation with a stranger. (It is always the same house. I have the address, and I am taking note of who comes out and of the vehicles.)

What's the problem here? Why don't the theater guys or the drivers have some respect for the people around them? There is a temptation when things like this happen to believe that our society, or civilization in general, is going downhill -- the "hell in a handbasket" argument. I am leery of jumping on that as a first option (though in the end in may be true). A thousand years ago the Vikings (and other marauding invaders) weren't very civil; less than 200 years ago one race was still enslaving another in a "free" society; 60 years ago most Americans agreed with interning the Japanese in wartime; in places all over the world ethnic and religious differences lead to horrific bloodletting -- today as in every previous society.

These are big, violent examples, I know, but maybe in general things aren't getting worse, but in the overall scheme of the modern Western world, things are actually getting better -- which makes even small transgressions appear more noticeable. Maybe that's it. I'm not sure. All I can do is try my best to be as civil to those around me as possible and hope that everyone else thinks in the same terms.

Celebrating the season

With snowflakes falling outside my window and George Winston's CD December playing in the background, I want to mention a few things of interest:

***This is the shortest day of the year, with the longest night ahead. The actual winter solstice occurred at 7:04 a.m. EST today. For thousands of years people all over the world have marked and celebrated this day -- Saturnalia, Yule, Dongzhi, Mean Geimhridh and Midvinterblot are some of the names used to mark the occasion at various times by different cultures, and the observance of Christmas comes out of these traditions. While today marks the beginning of winter for us, in many parts of the world this is the season's midpoint.

***The Globe has a story today on Christmas caroling, which seems to be making a comeback. I think that's pretty cool. Can you imagine a group of carolers making their way down the sidewalks of East Boston? Anyone want to run with that idea?

***I've long been a fan of the holiday classic It's a Wonderful Life, and a recent piece in The New York Times discusses some of the charms of the Frank Capra film. Despite the feel-good conclusion, much of the movie is a rather bleak depiction of the modern world and of a decent man's complete unspooling. Look closely at Jimmy Stewart's face as his character's world crumbles and then as the course his small town would have taken without George Bailey becomes apparent -- the scene at Martini's bar where George prays before getting punched out; the scene where he grabs his son and desperately holds him close; the scene where he sits across from the delighfully amoral Henry Potter and realizes that the old man is right: George Bailey is worth more dead than alive; the few seconds before he jumps off the bridge to end his life in what he thinks is the most honorable way out; and, most of all, the scene where, in the alternative, George-less universe, he is rejected by his cold, impatient mother, and Stewart, unshaven and haggard, runs confused and frightened right up to the camera and stares out at the horrific world around him with crazy eyes. Though the opening is sappy, there is lots of wonderful stuff in It's a Wonderful Life.

***I was recently in a bit of traffic coming off Route 1 in Saugus at the Lynn Fells Parkway exit when I realized the source of the slowdown was people checking out the elaborate holiday displays at a pair of houses just off the highway. While a few lights can be nice, the over-the-top gaudy spectacles strike me as cheesy and wasteful. A Boston.com piece indicates that some other people agree.

Ready for your close-up, Eastie?

According to a Globe story, South Boston is looking a bit too spiffy to play the rundown neighborhood it once was, and so film and TV productions that need the hardscrabble look have to shoot elsewhere -- including East Boston.

"They said Eastie looks like Southie," said state Representative Brian P. Wallace, a South Boston Democrat. "I cracked up. Eastie's always been 15 years behind us, so that's no problem."

Ouch. There are some spots in this neighborhood that haven't physically changed much since Bill Clinton first took office, but there are plenty of pricey condos and renovated properties in East Boston. Maybe Rep. Wallace doesn't get here often, but we'll take his comment as a harmless poke and laugh it off.

Dark days and knights

Batman has come a long way since I used to watch reruns after school of the campy, short-lived 1960s TV series and even farther from its creation as a comics series in 1939. I saw the most recent incarnation this week, Christopher Nolan's film The Dark Knight, on an IMAX screen in Reading, and the movie is breaking box office records.

While there were a number of things I liked in the film, there were also some drawbacks to it. I recently read an entry in the Globe's MovieNation blog in which critic Ty Burr tells of being at a family event and having a number of teens and twentysomethings come up to him and ask if The Dark Knight is the best film ever. It seems the more cleverly violent and destructive a movie is, the more young people like it, but -- call me "a bleeding-heart liberal wuss" (and some have) -- that doesn't motivate or excite me as a moviegoer. I can appreciate special effects, stunts and celluloid trickery to just a small degree, but then it quickly turns me off.

I like stories about people and their struggles with life, their ethical dilemmas, their subtle epiphanies. I like long shots, few cuts and wide landscapes. I like witty dialogue, intelligent characters and smart plots. For me, The Dark Knight was a spectacle, and a cool one, but it's not likely to be the best film I've seen this year. In fact, it's already not.

There were, in the somewhat convoluted and hard-to-follow plot, a number of ethical questions addressed by the movie, and most of them relate to the path America has taken in this post 9/11 world: Does an increase in resources and tactics applied to an enemy increase the atmosphere of disorder? Is it acceptable to spy on everyone to keep tabs on the bad guys? Should torture be used to elicit information? Is it necessary and acceptable to violate one's moral code in order to subdue an enemy who seems not to possess such a code of their own?

The Dark Knight cannot really be discussed without mentioning Heath Ledger's role as the Joker. It is one of the most captivating cinematic performances I've ever seen, but some of that is certainly due to our knowledge of his death not long after filming was completed. Still, he is very good and worthy of an Oscar nomination. Whether he wins or not, however, should be based on the strength of his performance as compared to the other nominees (if you agree that such awards have any sensical rubric) and not out of pity because he is gone.

The movie is good -- dark in tone and filled with non-stop action. It is also physically dark, and -- as a review in The New Yorker pointed out -- after Christian Bale, who plays Batman, trained for months in martial arts, it's impossible to follow what he is doing in any of the fight scenes because they are so fast, close and dark. The same effect happens in other scenes and plot elements, causing some confusion as to what is going on.

What is really unfortunate is that Hollywood has wasted and will continue to waste untold millions on movies with violence and explosions that take on none of the ethical quandaries that The Dark Knight does, and our young people -- who have had their ability to appreciate art that has depth and meaning destroyed by our watered down, mass market culture -- will continue to give the studios a reason to do so by accepting all the artless crap they are sold every day.

Lights, camera, Eastie!

Location scout Raine Hall was in East Boston a couple weeks ago, working out the logistics for the Martin Scorcese film Ashecliffe, which is shooting some scenes in the neighborhood. She asked around and found that a good place for crew members to park would be the lot at the Boys & Girls Club (which has moved operations to Savio Hall) on Paris Street.

The production is in Eastie this week, shooting near the water off New Street, behind industrial buildings that are next to the Maverick housing development. There are a number of 18-wheelers and vans parked all around there. The photo is from a sign posted at the end of Sumner Street to direct the film's crew members.

The movie is based on the novel Shutter Island, by local novelist Dennis Lehane, who wrote the book Mystic River, which was also made into a film that had some scenes shot in East Boston. Ashecliffe features Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley, Michelle Williams and Max von Sydow. It's scheduled to be released in the fall of 2009.

Update: Winds cause trouble on the set, according to the Herald.

Sacrificing humanity

On March 12 of last year four young American soldiers -- Steven Green, James Barker, Jesse Spielman and Paul Cortez -- raped 14-year-old Abeer Qassim Hamza in a village southeast of Baghdad. While they took turns on the girl, one of them shot and killed her parents and younger sister in the next room. When they were done, they killed the teen with shots to the head and then tried to burn her body.

In wartime, horrible things happen every day. Many are part of the accepted rituals of fighting and killing, but some are so far beyond anyone's idea of what is justifiable that soldiers are court-martialed, imprisoned and sometimes executed. When someone does what these four guys did, they must be held responsible and they must be punished.

But there is a bigger picture here and it is this: When you train people to become killers and when you put them in a place where they see so much violence that it desensitizes them, then they become desensitized killers. For some, it is impossible to recalibrate from one day or one setting to the next, even after they come home. You can't put toothpaste back in the tube.

Today I saw In the Valley of Elah at the Kendall Square Cinema in Cambridge. Tommy Lee Jones gives a masterful performance as the father of a soldier who comes back from the Iraq War a different person and then goes missing. The film is partly a meditation on how cruelty and violence are planted in people and how they spread and grow.

Atrocities have always occurred in wartime and they always will. Soldiers get messed up mentally as well as physically in war zones, and some return to take out their fears and frustrations on their spouses and children. Because of such consequences, the civilian leadership of the military must be extremely careful about sending troops into battle and we, as voters, have to be extremely careful about who we install in the White House and hand the levers of power to.

In 2000 and 2004 -- collectively -- we failed.

Light! Camera! Eastie!

The Hollywood pic Bachelor No. 2 was filming at East Boston High School yesterday. In the morning I saw signs just outside Day Square that read "CREW" and "SET," pointing people to where they were supposed to go. I'm not sure if there's more filming to be done in the neighborhood today or in the future.

The Boston Herald reports that Kate Hudson was here yesterday (see photo) as part of the film. The actress was reportedly under "heavy security" because her ex-boyfriend, Owen Wilson, attempted suicide over the weekend.

Reviewing reviews

While living in Maine, I wrote a pair of film reviews for a small magazine called Wolf Moon Journal before I was hired as a sportswriter by a string of weekly newspapers. The reviews, still available online, are of The Motorcycle Diaries, of which I am particularly proud, and Closer. Roger Ebert better watch out.

Lights! Camera! Eastie!

Boston. com reports that Kevin Spacey, Laurence Fishburne and Kate Bosworth are in the Boston area filming a movie of "the true story of how a band of MIT students used card-counting techniques to win big in Vegas casinos." The article says that one scene was filmed in a warehouse in East Boston. The film has no name at this point.

Presidents Day trivial thought

Ever notice the resemblance between our third president, Thomas Jefferson, and the actor Robert Redford? I've long felt that Redford should have played the great statesman at some point in his career.

His name is Clint

In recent days I saw the film Unforgiven for the first time since its theatrical release in 1992, and I think I'm even more impressed now with its deconstruction of the mythology of the West. If you have yet to see the movie, I recommend it. Be cautioned, however, that Unforgiven takes quite a dark view of the world.

Late in the film, which took the Oscar for Best Picture, a young cowboy says of a man that he just killed, "He had it coming, right?" Clint Eastwood's grizzled and weary gunslinger pauses, looks out over the landscape and says, "We've all got it coming, kid."

Holiday musings

A few notes while preparing to return to work tomorrow:

• I didn't make too much of a stink regarding any Christmas traditions or practices that might have fallen by the wayside, but back on Thanksgiving I did. This year, for the first time, my mother didn't cook a turkey and the fixings. This year it was decided, before my input, that we would get our Thanksgiving meal to go from the supermarket. I was appalled. Sure, the food was from a well-respected, high-end supermarket and my mom, who is approaching 70, is not as energetic in the kitchen as she once was, but the food was mediocre, it still had to be heated (and wasn't all hot at once, which was a complaint about cooking) and the clean-up was virtually the same. Here's the thing: Thanksgiving is all about the meal. We celebrate a meal in remembrance of a meal (though we have embellished the details), so if we give up on the meal, then what is the point? As a result, I have volunteered to host Thanksgiving next year.
• There are some who regard It's a Wonderful Life as an exercise in excessive sentimentality, but they are all Scrooges. The 1946 film, now as much a part of Christmas as the tree and stockings, does celebrate small-town values and the decency and endurance of the common man, but there is certainly nothing inherently wrong with glorifying those items. Too often a moralistic view is presented without nuance, wit or balance -- in short, without art. Frank Capra's film, however, presents those by the sleigh-load. Remember that a good portion of It's a Wonderful Life is dark to the point of outright cynicism. Old Mr. Potter's brand of cutthroat capitalism rules the land and George Bailey has given up. But individuals can and do make a difference in our world and Jimmy Stewart's Everyman does so. Who can keep a dry eye at the conclusion? In recent years I have especially noted the amazing shot toward the end of the movie, when Stewart is denied entry into his mother's boarding house and he runs out into the road. Next time the film comes around, notice that moment, with the camera right in the actor's face, frightened almost to the point of distortion.
• Sitting in my favorite cafe the other day, a few people started singing Handel's Hallelujah chorus. They were obviously part or all of some type of singing troupe -- a chorus, if you will. The outburst was only a few minutes in duration and not too loud, and -- with snow falling in big flakes at the time -- was quite nice to hear. I think that people should spontaneously break into song more often.