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Movie poster for 'Sweet Liberty' featuring Alan Alda in a historical outfit, playfully holding a hat, beside a motorcycle, with Michelle Pfeiffer and Michael Caine's names also displayed.

Let me begin with one of my trademark non-sequitur intros: my mother recently complained to me that she made the mistake of clicking a news article on her MSN homepage about Meghan Markle. And as a result, she sees multiple articles every day about Meghan Markle, because the algorithm thinks she’s interested in the activities and opinions of the Duchess of Sussex, which is not the case. (Yes, I know I could tell her to clear the cache, but frankly it’s fun to hear her rant about it.)

I bring this up because here at Ruined Chapel, we follow the opposite logic of the internet algorithm. Here, we believe in delivering our readers the offbeat and the esoteric; things that they had not expressed an interest in, because they did not know they existed. So when I threw the floor open to my audience to ask whether I should review Sweet Liberty or another, more famous picture, and I received replies to the effect that no one had heard of this film, the choice was easy for me. 

Sweet Liberty is a comedy about a history professor named Michael Burgess (Alan Alda) who has written a book called… Sweet Liberty, set during the American Revolution. And he’s achieved what so many authors dream of: Hollywood is making a movie of it! Even more improbably, they’re making it in the town where he lives, so he gets a front row seat to watching his book evolve from page to screen.

Unfortunately, this evolution means it changes from the carefully-researched, historically-grounded story he wrote to a slapstick sex comedy set during the Revolutionary War. Being a good student of history, Burgess is appalled to see the liberties the film takes, including a thorough revision of the character of Banastre Tarleton, transforming “Bloody Ban” into a romantic rogue, played by a charming English actor, Elliott James. (Himself played by a charming English actor, Michael Caine.)

Meanwhile, Dr. Burgess’s personal life is also on the rocks. After an argument, he and his girlfriend (Lise Hilboldt) decide to “take a break” from one another, and his aging mother (Lillian Gish) keeps pestering him to reunite her with an old friend of hers, even though such a reunion is for, multiple reasons, quite problematic.

The one good thing to come out of it all is when Dr. Burgess meets the lead actress in the film, Faith Healy. (Michelle Pfeiffer) She is the very image of the heroine of his book, as if the woman he has carefully studied from the 18th-century has stepped into his world. Naturally, he is attracted to her—but is he attracted to the actress, or the character she is playing?

The movie juggles Burgess’s outrage at the historical inaccuracy, his relationship turmoil, and the antics of the film’s cast and crew—particularly Elliott, whom Caine plays with an infectiously devil-may-care attitude—with only moderate success. All of the story elements are funny, but none of them get enough screen time to fully develop. As it is, it feels more like a loose series of sketches built around a concept.

The most interesting part is the subplot with Burgess’s mother, which at first felt like it was part of a different movie altogether, but ultimately proves to contain the core theme of the film. Burgess is faced with a choice of whether to tell his ailing parent the truth, as is his natural inclination, or to tell her something that will make her happy, as his girlfriend urges.

Which is better: the hard reality, or a comforting fairy-tale? This is a choice everyone, but perhaps especially a historian such as Burgess, must grapple with. As the filming of his book carries on, Burgess becomes increasingly desperate to have something historically accurate happen, finally leading the re-enactors performing the Battle of Cowpens, and insisting that the battle be depicted in accordance with historical accounts in a climactic and fittingly rebellious act of defiance to the show-biz crowd. 

The film is funny, but could have been much funnier. It has an interesting theme, but it could have explored it better. It feels overall like a really good idea, with so-so execution.

Still, the cast seems like they’re having a good time. Michael Caine’s scenes in particular are an absolute hoot, even one involving a trip to an amusement park that has nothing to do with the plot, but which seems like an excuse to act silly, which Caine does with relish. Also, it’s a rare thing to hear anybody reference Banastre Tarleton nowadays, so I applaud the movie for making him the focus of Burgess’s book, instead of the low-hanging fruit like Washington or somebody.

It’s a fun, feel-good movie, and anyone who loves history, particularly the American Revolution, is likely to enjoy it. I certainly know what it’s like to watch a historical movie and find myself slack-jawed with horror at the inaccuracies, so I could relate to Burgess on that level. It would be a good movie to watch while cooking the hot dogs and waiting for the fireworks to begin.

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It was a near thing, this. I almost didn’t have a book to review this week. I wanted an America-themed book since we just had Independence Day here in the USA. But until this past Monday, I couldn’t find anything short enough that I would have any hope of reviewing in time.

To the rescue rode Zachary Shatzer, on a horse that was white, but also red and blue. Or something like that. But you all know by now that I always love to read a Shatzer book, and when I saw his latest was a parody of political thrillers, a genre near and dear to me, you can well imagine my delight.

Puppet Dance features all the tropes we expect of thrillers: conspiracies, assassins, double-crosses and backstabbing. Except instead of being done seriously, it’s played for laughs. The president is a simpleton elected solely for his good looks. The vice-president has to juggle his Machiavellian plans for world domination with mending his relationship with his goth teenage daughter. And the assassin, who prides himself as a ruthless and efficient killing machine, is actually a bit of a bumbling buffoon; for example, when he drops his rifle and ammunition on the way to prepare for a job, and his forced to eat one of the bullets to conceal it from bystanders.

The plot is basically a power struggle between aforementioned vice-president and the director of the CIA, both of whom are vying to be the true power behind the throne of the empty-headed president. The only person capable of saving America–indeed, seemingly the only person capable of doing anything well–is Agent Dennings of the Secret Service, who saves the VP’s life at a hopscotch convention.

From there, it’s off into a madcap labyrinth of whimsy and silliness as only Shatzer can deliver. I could try to summarize it all, but really, the whole point of the thing is the humorous way the story is told.

Which is not to say there isn’t a deeper reading that can be made. What are literary critics for, if not to systematically suck the joy out of any work of fiction by imagining things in it that the author never intended? This, dear readers, is my speciality.

You can read a fairly scathing critique of 21st-century culture in the works of Shatzer. For example, the way Vice President Beanstar slowly builds a coalition of supporters by pandering to fans of various activities, celebrities, franchises and the like, could be read as a comment on consumerism; as people who fanatically (and remember always the word “fan” is short for “fanatic”) build their entire identity around some piece of pop ephemera are easily manipulated to advance the goals of a malevolent politician.

Or again, when Agent Dennings goes undercover as a television star, but the effort fails because people have so thoroughly conflated the actress with the character she portrays that they are unwilling to even speak to her. Much of Shatzer’s humor is derived from characters who have completely dedicated themselves to raising trivial issues to the level of zealous idolatry. Something that will be familiar to anyone who has ever been on the internet.

These are interesting themes, and no doubt a healthy corpus of literary criticism could be derived from them. However, that would just miss out on the real fun of Shatzer, which is basically that in his world, even the villains are basically good, if rather eccentric, and everything can always be resolved in a pleasingly amusing fashion.

Shatzer, like Wodehouse, is fundamentally optimistic, and this shows through in all his works. Even when he is making fun of something, you can always sense the affection at the heart of it. So, in these troubled times, when one can be forgiven for checking a little anxiously, and a little more frequently than usual, whether that star-spangled banner does indeed yet wave o’er the land of the free and the home of the brave, I think I’ll give the last word to Shatzer. Or rather, to Agent Dennings, the embodiment of humble competence in a world run by madmen, narcissists, and criminals:

It was a strange thing, she mused, that America could manage to be such a wonderful place when led by people like this. And it was wonderful, she had no doubts about that. The ideas on which it was based: freedom, equality, and opportunity, though never fully and perfectly realized, had also never been crushed by the ceaseless parade of corruption, morons, and corrupt morons at the highest levels of power. An incredible feat, when you thought about it. 

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I’m not typically one for inspirational internet videos, but this one gets me every time.

That, dear readers, is what America’s all about. Happy Independence Day weekend!