High School Musical, it’s Just That

Walt Disney’s High School Musical 3 has started in cinemas all over the place. Zac Efron is in every glossy magazine for his starring in it. Zac Who? If you don’t know, you don’t have girls aged four to 14 at home.

Zac Efron

The opening night of the movie in London was memorable. Thousands of teenage girls and younger were waiting for hours for Zac Efron, the star in High School Musical 3 and it’s two prequels. These prequels weren’t planned as cinema movies but for Disney’s own channel. As it sometimes happens, the concept was more powerful than its makers and had to move out into the world. More space, more money.

High School Musical tells the story of an idealized dream high school. This tells you the story of all three parts of the musical. Because all characters are clichés, the stories are as well. You name it you get it. No surprises, but then no bad surprise either. It’s definitely a pretty little filmlet with pretty stars that sing prettily pretty little songs. That’s it. It all reminded me of the 1970s touring show Up With People, nice songs, nice people, nice show, otherwise utterly not memorable. Even the style of the song material was the same in the show as it is now in the musical.

But then, what can you expect from a film called High School Musical which, like its two prequels, tells the story of a high school musical that should be performed? But now comes the turn-around you didn’t expect. I’ve seen all three of them and I liked them.

The films are utterly enjoyable, because you need absolutely no brains to follow. You even might walk out for 30 minutes and come back and won’t be lost in the story, the plot is so predictable. The music doesn’t offend or excite, you may read a book with it and never even notice it is playing. The acting is just good enough for high school, so nothing to complain there either. It’s a pure Disney product in a fantasy world high school. But time and again I was reminded of my own high school. So all in all, it’s good value for the money. Just don’t expect any depth in story or acting.

The newest Disney product has been selling millions of DVDs and CDs in the United States and millions more worldwide. No wonder it went movie, the merchandizing potential is enormous. It is just surprising that such nondescript music is selling like that. But probably it’s also because of Zac Efron who has become the load stone of many crushes.

Zac Efron and his girl friend and co-star Vanessa Hudgens have presented themselves as very likeable and clean young actors in London; as Britney Spears did when she was employed by Disney. They both seem to be mother-in-law’s dream matches and as squeaky clean as the movie they just played in. It is to be hoped they remain that way.

Being such inoffensive persons, it beats the imagination why they were attacked during a night out in London. It is quite unutterable, what spite can do to a person. Another unsavoury side link were topless photographs of Zac showering offered on eBay by a user zerimarr. That’s just plainly tasteless, and probably Photoshop; and eBay took ages to clean these bids out, as usual. It is time that people started to respect the right to private life again, even if somebody is a star. The film is a good start to instruct your children about that as well.  

Further reading

Zac Efron Reinvented

The Paperboy

Fake Coming Out for Taylor Lautner

Why James Bond is Eternal

The Man With The Golden Touch: How The Bond Films Conquered The World by Sinclair McKay was published by Aurum. Just one more writer jumping on the marketing train of Quantum of Solace? Not quite.

Sean Connery

Every other year or so, a James Bond movie comes to the cinemas around the world. We are all used to it and either adore it or ignore it. Like a meteorite, these movies are tailed by a trail of book publications, most of which are not worth the paper they are printed on. But they ride like passengers on the fame of the movies.

In his book, McKay tells the story behind the Bond movies. It is not a new story, others have done it before. It tells the story of the producers, Broccoli and Saltzmann, two creative genies with the talent to find the right people for the job. Out of it, he makes a good case for the claim that without the movies Ian Fleming would be forgotten and his books out of print. Due to the movies, his books are still found in book shops everywhere.

McKay gives us the full treat, taking us through every movie produced up to the present. It is obvious that he knows them well, and the facts are well researched. Having said this, I have to admit that I tend to disagree with him on most statements all the same. But that is a matter of opinion, not science. He is right, though, to attribute the timelessness of the movies to two sound producers. Broccoli and Saltzmann had the knack of concentrating on what mattered while ignoring the fads of time. Where most movies become hopelessly outdated after a few years, Bond movies just have aged respectfully.

I also agree with him that Thunderball was the most boring Bond movie ever. But how he could be kind to ‘poor’ Lazenby beats me. Despite being nice, McKay alleges Lazenby with selling minty chocolates before becoming an actor. And I for one violently disapproved of Roger Moore who should have played light comedy instead. McKay on the other hand is highly appreciative of Moore, though he sees that the errors in taste in these movies were many. His list of atrocities committed is quite impressive, actually.

Besides the producers and the actors, he pays tribute to the three men who set the style for Bond movies to this day, Adam, Barry, and Binder. I tend to think that the mixture of all these talents including Connery made the first movies so highly memorable. In a way, Quantum of Solace is still carried by these movies despite the many years that have gone by.

The book makes a good read, maybe because there is nothing really new in it. McKay has done his homework on details, obviously, and writes a droll style. It’s well worth a rainy afternoon. If it’s worth its selling price of £18.99 I must leave up to you. I would rather wait for it in the library on a day I have nothing better to do.

Further reading
Quantum of Solace: The Source
Roger Moore Biography
Turkey Apprehends Israeli Spy

Poor Rich Boy: Carl Hirschmann

Carl Hirschmann himself might not be the most interesting person, but he certainly makes a good example for the old adage of poor rich boy. Born into lots of money to come, he seems the epitome of a slightly directionless young man whiling away time in pointless frivolities.

Carl Hirschmann

The history of the Hirschmann family is short and sweet. Carl Hirschmann senior founded a company called Jet Aviation. The company caters to the superrich of this planet in several ways. On one level, it is an engineering company that upgrades the planes of discerning individuals with the bare necessity you just must have for a 30 minute flight from Paris to Nice, like 3D cinema, golden fittings in the bathroom, and individually fitted leather reclining chairs. On the other level, it rents out exclusively appointed small aircraft including crew for your shopping trip to London or Milan.

His son, Carl Hirschmann junior is noted for only one thing, he sold his father’s business for an estimated 750 Million Dollars. That brings us to the poor rich boy Carl Hirschmann himself, already. The Hirschmann family so far has managed to stay out of the papers and the news in an astonishing way and is best known for two things: They are of no importance in Switzerland, and they have made no claim to any celebrity status. So what is there to do for the son?

Step one: Make yourself a celebrity. There would have been several possibilities to get onto the (easy to climb) celebrity summit in Switzerland. One obvious solution would have been sustained charity work. But work is probably not what Carl Hirschmann is used to, so instead he opted to claim to have had a fling with Paris Hilton. This announcement not only brought him no celebrity, it made him look outright ridiculous.

Step two: Find something to do. It may be supposed that his choice of work reflected the fact that his celebrity status had failed or maybe it was a publicity stunt in regard to that venture. Carl Hirschmann opened a night spot called Saint Germain in Zurich, which usually is called a celebrity venue. The real celebrities, though, go to the Kronenhalle. Be that as it may be, he opened the Saint Germain with money from the family.

And with that we are in the middle of all the quandaries of a poor rich boy. Coming from a family with no claim to fame, how do you get it to an extent that others from older families have? The Paris Hilton ploy might look ridiculous, but maybe it was quite realistic. This doesn’t mean it is true, but it served a purpose maybe just as well as charitable work would have done. Because people would just have said: That’s easy for him to do, with all that money.

Opening the Saint Germain opened the second quandary. If the venue is a success (which I can’t judge due to lack of information available), people will just say: That’s easy for him to do, with all that money. If it isn’t, we either won’t hear about it, or it will be commented with: What else could you expect?

But building his life on the said premises brought one thing on (of the ‘I could have told you so’ variety): Unwanted publicity. With his face and financial circumstances in the open, he became the object of slander and money hunters. If you think money hunters are mainly found in Ponzi schemes or other frauds, you are wrong. Most money hunters these days work by means of the courts. In Britain you get the adverts daily on TV from lawyers who will claim any damage they can get for you in any which way. They are the tip of an ice berg in today’s society of greed.

One of these schemes was the one I reported on in the Sassy Headline article. As an update to that, the prosecutor general of Zurich has meanwhile issued the statement that the arrest was done on charges of sexual harassment. That leaves things wide open as to truth or fiction. At the same time, though, Carl Hirschmann was found guilty by a court in Basel for hitting a man in the face in a bar. The claimant had asked for 100,000 Dollars in damages, and was awarded 5,000. I have not followed the case closely, therefore I can’t tell if it is revision or not.

Poor rich boy, he seems to prove an old truth about financial dynasties: The first generation builds the fortune, the second preserves it, and the third squanders it. But whatever he will do, there will always be the detractors who’ll put it down to money alone.

Further reading
Zurich is More Than Banks
The Beginnings of Investigative Journalism
How Money Came to Dominate Our Lives 

Pomp and Circumstance for Haider

Jörg Haider’s funeral brings 30,000 people to Klagenfurth, many of them Nazis. The press ignores this and concentrates instead on defamation of gays and gay lifestyle.

Jörg Haider

Jörg Haider got a state funeral with pomp and circumstance on Saturday. The pomp was due to him as governor of Austria’s Carinthia state. The circumstances leading up to his smashing his car on the roadside were not part of the ceremonies.

30,000 people are said to have lined the streets of Klagenfurt, Carinthia’s capital, as the coffin was driven to the funeral in Klagenfurt’s cathedral, bedecked in flowers and covered with the Corinthian flag. Amongst the mourners were seen many Vienna cabinet ministers led by President Heinz Fischer, Saif al-Islam, son of Libyan dictator Khadafy, and many old SS veterans, but also many young Nazis from half of Europe. Surprisingly missing at the funeral were Haider’s right wing counterparts in France, Jean-Marie Le Pen, and in Switzerland, former Minister of Justice Christoph Blocher.

The amount of people should give authorities pause to think about the enormous attraction Nazi thinking seems to develop for old and young alike. Especially in a country like Austria who has never faced up to its devastating role in the War, this should be closely watched. But seemingly neither governments nor press are sensing or seeing the danger, spending their time rather in defamations of others.

Before the funeral came the news release from police which was less than welcome to family, friends and party fanatics. Apparently, Jörg Haider had been drunk when driving home, having spent the evening first at a reception, then in a nightclub and finally in a well known gay bar. Apparently he spent a late night hour in the company of an unknown young man in the gay venue. A guest who offered to drive Jörg Haider home, seeing he was heavily loaded, was rebuffed.

Having read many press reports on the case of Jörg Haider, I have noticed that the press instead of concentrating on the unprecedented coming together of apparently 30,000 Nazis in Austria has misused their articles for negative and nugatory remarks about gays and gay life. That is not only deplorable, it is outright dangerous. It is the sneakiest way of being politically incorrect.

In fact, in half the articles I found the gay bar was used in conjunction with negative remarks or riders, such as ‘sleazy’. I am positive that none of the writers have been in Klagenfurt at any time of their life. If they have been there, they certainly were not in that bar enabling them to judge if it was sleazy. And it’s people like these journalists who make public opinion. Doesn’t that frighten you?

It frightens me, because defamatory insinuations like these are the cesspool of public opinion. Just because a bar or any venue is gay operated and frequented mainly by gays and lesbians does not make it in any way sleazy.

For the prequel of this text, please press here.

Further reading
Monaco in World War II
From Iron Cross to OBE
Don't Speak Well of the Dead