'Gulliver's Travels' Starring Jack Black: A Brobdingnagian Letdown

WASHINGTON, DC – This Saturday saw the release of Gulliver's Travels, a new film version of Jonathan Swift's classic 18th-century novel. The movie, directed by Rob Letterman, stars Jack Black as the travel writer Lemuel Gulliver, who gets stranded on the island of Lilliput and hangs out with the tiny people who live there. The critical reception has been less than warm, with the plot, cast, and effects all coming in for various amounts of drubbing.

• Want to Include Some Biting Social Satire? No? Guys?  The A.V. Club's Nathan Rabin mourns a missed opportunity. "Since Black's very existence upends everything the Lilliputians know about reality, he is in a privileged position to recreate their world however he sees fit, to serve as a cross between king, god, and monster. Rather than comment on how power corrupts, however, the film has Black re-fashion Lilliputia as the ultimate awesome stoner rec room ... The filmmakers have reduced a definitive satire about the flaws and foibles of human nature into family-friendly sub-Disney pabulum about an affable slacker who finally musters up the courage to ask a pretty girl at work for a date."

• Not So Much Bad as Puzzling--But Also, Really Bad  "In my travels I've seen Roman ruins, Greek ruins and Byzantine ruins, but I've never seen a ruin like this," writes Joe Morgenstern at The Wall Street Journal. "The 3-D is cheesy (2.2-D at best) the gags are gross (Gulliver urinates on an 18th-century palace to extinguish a fire) and the production abandons all hope of coherence when the hero fights a climactic battle with a giant robot out of 'Transformers.' What were they thinking? What were they smoking? What were they singing on the way to the bank?"

• 'Unnecessary and Unfunny'  You can sort of tell that Gulliver's Travels ruined Michael O'Sullivan's Christmas. Writing in The Washington Post, O'Sullivan offers mild spoilers: "After extinguishing a raging fire by urinating on it--and, collaterally, on several Lilliputians--[Gulliver is] quickly declared a hero. (Just imagine that scene. On second thought, don't. If it sounds funny to you, you'll probably love the one where Gulliver accidentally sits on a Lilliputian after losing his pants. I can't do it justice in a family newspaper. But I will tell you there's a cast credit for a character described only as 'Butt-crack man.')"

• Dear Jack Black, Please Stop Taking These Roles  Wesley Morris at The Boston Globe calls the movie "a migraine inducement that you'd think Jack Black had gotten out of his system years ago. Yet he still finds an excuse to wear a blazer and shorts and fling his bodily orb like Angus Young on Guitar Hero night at the neighborhood bar ... Hasn't Jack Black the stoned slacker already matured into Jack Black the adult? Not satisfactorily enough, it seems."

• Jonathan Swift Weighs In  A. O. Scott at The New York Times offers a review in the form of an imagined e-mail from Swift, who notes bemusedly that the film "converts my great Satire into a gaudy, puerile Toy. My avowed purpose in composing that text, as any swot who has suffered the Duty and Dullness rampant in our Schools must know, was to employ my modest pen as a scourge against human Folly and the vanities of the Age. Having deemed itself unable to defeat those foes, this rendition of 'Gulliver's Travels' chuses rather to join them." [Note from the Wire: You really need to read this review in full.]

• Aw, It's Not That Bad  Roger Ebert at the Chicago Sun-Times gives one of the more sympathetic readings. "I want to explain who 'Gulliver's Travels' is for, and who it might not be for," Ebert writes:

One person it is definitely for is Gloria DeMent, the 84-year-old grandmother who wrote AP film critic Christy Lemire in horror after spending $96 to take four generations of her family to see "The Nutcracker in 3-D." She wrote: "It broke my heart when we left the theater that my little great-granddaughters (ages 5-13) had sad little, confused faces." Believe me, Auntie Glo, there would have been smiles on those faces after this movie ... Do you think her great-grandchildren are going to be sitting there, saying, "You can see that's done with green screen?" I don't think so. They're gonna be saying, "Thanks, Grandma Glo! This is ever so much better that that scary 'Nutcracker' movie! There isn't a single Holocaust reference anywhere in it!"

Action, Hope, 2011

The Nation -- In the wake of the midterm elections, with conservatives and the Tea Party wielding new power in Washington, we have entered a tough period in our politics. But history helps us understand that dark periods come and go, and they can be overcome if—and it’s the critical if—we all do our part.
The late, great Studs Terkel, a true friend of The Nation, believed that hope was rooted in the conviction that there is always good worth working for. Action engenders hope, Studs told us.
Looking forward to 2011, there are many ideas, organizing efforts and causes worth fighting for—many which should engender hope as we work together to make this a more just and decent nation.
Below are five that I believe are valuable in these times.
1) CIW Takes on the Supermarkets
The Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) enjoyed a remarkable 2010, successfully obtaining penny per pound pay raises and code of conduct agreements for farmworkers from the three largest $10,000 to as much as $17,000. The State Department also recognized Laura Germino, CIW’s antislavery campaign coordinator, as an “seven slavery operations in Florida over the last fifteen years, resulting in the liberation of over 1,000 farmworkers.
Now, the CIW’s Campaign for Fair Food—think human rights in the food industry—takes on the $550 billion supermarket industry and this kind of backward thinking: “We don’t have any plans to sit down with the CIW,” said Publix Media and Community Relations Manager Dwaine Stevens. “If there are some atrocities going on, it’s not our business.”  
Actually, the supply chains used by corporations to turn a profit—and how workers who give us the food we eat are treated—are absolutely the business of corporations and consumers. Publix, Ahold (parent company of Giant and Stop & Shop), Kroger, Trader Joe’s—all would be wise to either get on board or brace themselves. You can begin to educate yourself and get involved here. This is a fight we all need to be a part of in 2011.
2) Democracy Reform
In the wake of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United public campaign financing system and a constitutional amendment granting Congress the authority to regulate corporate campaign expenditures.
We also need to reform our voting system to encourage full participation and end winner-take-all/lesser-of-two-evils elections. There was significant progress with instant runoff voting (IRV) in 2010—most notably in Oakland where a progressive city councilwoman scored a stunning upset in the mayoral contest. IRV allows citizens to rank the candidates on the ballot so they don’t fear “spoiler votes,” and it ensures that the winner is supported by a majority rather than a plurality.
Other key reforms to fight for in 2011 and beyond include ending abuse of the filibuster in the Senate, a DC Voting Rights, felon re-enfranchisement and universal voter registration. There is no shortage of excellent groups working on these issues—FairVote is one of the best and most under-appreciated. Common Cause, the Brennan Center, Demos and DC Vote also do excellent work. FreeSpeechForPeople.org and Move to Amend are focused on the constitutional amendment allowing Congress to regulate corporate campaign expenditures. These are some great places to start getting involved.
3) Afghanistan Exit Strategy
The War in Afghanistan is the longest in US history at 110 months, and the most expensive at $1 million per soldier and over $100 billion annually. There have been over 2,200 US and coalition casualties, and tens of thousands of Afghan civilian deaths. Additionally, nearly 600 US troops are wounded every month.
In 2011, that majority which has turned against the war will have to show Congress that the American people care about the lives and treasure being wasted in this war.   Inside the beltway, the Afghanistan Study Group led by former Marine Matthew Hoh has offered an alternative path to get out of Afghanistan. Outside the beltway, peace groups like Voters for Peace, Veterans for Peace, Win Without War, Peace Action and Codepink are helping to make sure that the voices are heard of the 60 percent of Americans who believe this war isn’t worth fighting.
Do your part to ensure that July 2011 begins a real withdrawal. End this war.
4) Taking on Poverty
The recent US Census revealed that forty-four million Americans—one in seven citizens—are now living below the poverty line, more than at any time since the Census Bureau began tracking poverty 51 years ago. Shamefully, that figure includes one in five children, more than one in four African Americans or Latinos and over 51 percent of female-headed families with children under 6.
You can begin to turn the tide on poverty by educating yourself on the issue. In 2011, in the face of an unsympathetic Republican House and deficit hawks who would force us to choose between Half In Ten is a great place to start. A project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund, Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and Coalition on Human Needs, it advocates for strong policies benefiting low- to moderate-income families, pursuing a national goal of cutting poverty in half in ten years. 
5) Building a Progressive Infrastructure
Whatever your issue—war, poverty, financial reform, clean energy, global warming—the prospects for change will be brighter if you also work to rebuild and strengthen the progressive movement in 2011.
In some ways, this work will necessarily be defensive—it will involve protecting Social Security, Medicare and other vital programs from being slashed at the national level. But these same fights will also offer opportunities to lay down markers for the future of our economy and politics, and to galvanize progressive support. We saw Congressional Progressive Caucus led by co-chair Congressmen Raúl Grijalva and Keith Ellison.
While opportunities for progress will be limited at the federal level, at the state and local levels prospects may be brighter, and success will depend in part on building coalitions around issues like drug reform, living wage campaigns and environmental sustainability. This is a year when we may also need to try more creative strategies, including nonviolent sit-ins and protests—around the climate crisis, joblessness, New Economy Working Group, offering grounded yet bold alternatives to make our economy more just, sustainable, equitable.
In 2011, as progressives try to strike a balance between needed short-term actions and long-term strategic thinking, here are some other groups—in addition to those you might already be involved with—that I believe are worth working with: Progressive Congress, Progressive Change Campaign Committee, Campaign for America’s Future, Progressive States Network, Working Families Party and the Center for Community Change. 
Rest up, get healthy and strong—and be ready for some action that engenders hope come January 2.