Eastside Messenger - November 18, 2018

PAGE 4 - EASTSIDE MESSENGER - November 18, 2018
columbusmessenger.com
eastside
Messenger
(Distribution: 12,574)
Rick Palsgrove................................Eastside Editor
eastside@ columbusmessenger.com
Published every other Sunday by
The Columbus Messenger Co.
3500 Sullivant Ave., Columbus, Ohio 43204-1887
(614) 272-5422
BIRTHDAY • ENGAGEMENT • WEDDING • ANNIVERSARY
• GRADUATION • RETIREMENT
IN MEMORIUM • ARMED FORCES
Say it with an announcement ad in
the Messenger and spread the word.
You can download the appropriate form from
our Web site or stop by our office
Monday-Thursday, 8:30 a.m.-5 p.m.
Friday, 8:30 a.m.-2 p.m.
Columbus Messenger
3500 Sullivant Ave.
614-272-5422
www.columbusmessenger.com
SUPPORT
your
Community Paper
Through advertising, community newspapers like the
Messenger have always been FREE papers. In these
tough economic times we are asking you the reader to
help offset the current decline in advertising revenue by
participating in a voluntary payment program*.
To those who have already participated -
We Thank You.
For those who would like to, below is a form
you can mail with your payment.
*This is not a subscription.
.Name:
Address:
City/State/Zip
columbus
3500 Sullivant Ave., Columbus, OH 43204
1 year ($9) 2 year ($18)
Eastside Westside Southwest
Southeast
columns
www.columbusmessenger.com
Hotels flourished in early America
To advertise in
the Messenger,
call Doug at
614-272-5422.
Did you know the concept of a “hotel” as we know it is uniquely
American?
In his book, “The Americans: The National Experience,” the historian
Daniel Boorstin wrote that a British man visiting the United
States in the 1850s noted, “The hotel is quite a peculiar institution of
this country.”
According to Boorstin, in Europe a tavern was a place of refreshment
and an inn was a place of lodging. In the United States a tavern
or an inn could be both of these things. Boorstin notes that by the end
of the Revolutionary War, a new American word, “hotel,” had become
common for a place that accommodated “travelers and strangers.”
“Borrowed from the French, in which ‘hotel’ meant a noble house
or a city hall, here it named a new kind of community enterprise,”
wrote Boorstin.
Hotels sprung up in towns big and small throughout America in
the 19th and early 20th centuries to serve a population on the move.
It was common for there to be several hotels in a town regardless of
its size.
Hotels that blossomed in large cities tended to be large and ornate
“Palaces of the Public,” according to Boorstin.
Hotels that sprung up in small towns were smaller and a bit plainer
than their big city brethren, yet were still large and architecturally
interesting enough to stand out from other buildings in town. A hotel
in a small town could not only serve as lodging oasis for travelers, but
it might also be a social center were people would gather to trade
news with travelers. Americans have a history of being on the move
and a hotel was a place where people from all over could converge and
informally share ideas.
“Hotels were among the earliest transient facilities that bound the
nation together,” wrote Boorstin. “They were both creatures and creators
of communities,
as well as symptoms of
the frenetic quest for
Editor’s Notebook
community...American hotels were a microcosm
of American life. People in transient and
upstart communities had to become accustomed
to live, eat, and talk in the presence of
those they only knew casually. This was living
the ‘American Plan’ in every sense of the
word.”
According the book, “Canal Winchester,
Ohio: The Second Ninety Years,” by Lillian M.
Carroll and Frances S. Steube, three hotels
operated in the small town of Canal Winchester
in the 1800s and early 1900s. Three hotels in a
town that for much of that time averaged less
than 1,000 residents.
Travelers who stayed at these hotels came to
Rick
Palsgrove
town on horseback, by wagon, by stage coach, canal boat, and trains.
This meant there were a lot of people coming and going who needed
lodging.
Traveling was hard in those days and took a lot of time. A hotel in
a small town was a welcome place of rest for the weary.
According to Carroll and Steube, the three historic Canal
Winchester hotels were the Commercial Hotel on South High Street
(where the Huntington Bank now stands), the Leonard House on
North High Street, and the Merchants’ Hotel, also on North High
Street.
Rick Palsgrove is editor of the Eastside Messenger.
A watered down web
I was at a peak level of confusion when Sony
announced last year that they were planning to revisit
the ‘Millennium’ series by the late author and journalist
Stieg Larsson. Up until that point, the distribution
company had let six years pass without expressing any
desire to continue with their adaptation after the
under-performance of “The Girl with the Dragon
Tattoo” so to say their newfound interest was puzzling
was to put it lightly.
As I continued to read further into the announcement,
however, the rationale became clear to me. They didn’t
want to continue with that adaptation as fans and actors
in that film had begged them to do; they wanted to create
a ‘soft reboot’ because they cared about keeping development
rights out of the hands of competing companies.
It was a rationale that hangs over this movie. Their
‘soft reboot’ featuring a non-sequel based off a book not
written by Larsson is a watered down mix of a standard
espionage film complete with tired twists, turns
and tropes. If they were hoping to kick start a new
franchise with “The Girl in the Spider’s Web,” they
might want to revisit that idea.
It begins as most espionage films do — with a program
that is lusted after by baddies all across the
world because it gives the user access to every nuclear
code. Its creator, Frans Balder (Stephen Merchant),
was removed from further software design by the NSA
after he tried to destroy his commissioned work.
Fearing for the safety of the world, Balder contacts
prominent hacker Lisbeth Salander (Claire Foy) to
retrieve the software from the NSA database in order
to destroy it. Likely using Russian spyware, she easily
hacks into the NSA security network to steal it back.
Thinking her role in this theft is done, she quickly
realizes it is just beginning
as a dangerous
organization called the
Spiders are now gunning
for her, Balder and Balder’s
genius son August (Christopher
Convery). Feeling just slightly
out of her depth, she contacts her
old friend and partner Mikael
Blomkvist (Sverrir Gudnason) to
help her uncover the identity of
those on their heels and perhaps
save the world in the process.
One of the things that made
Larsson’s books and the subsequent
theatrical adaptations (the
The Reel Deal
Dedra
Cordle
Swedish version is the ultimate version, and not just
because they managed to complete the trilogy) so compelling
was how stark and bleak and slightly inaccessible
it is. This film, however, has a lot of its sharp
edges filed down to make it accessible to a wider audience.
The problem with this is that it’s just not a very
good film. There are pieces in here that make one
think it could have been great — the relationship
between Lisbeth and one of the Spiders for example
and their horrific backstory and motivation — but the
story and dialogue do not live up to its possibilities.
If there is a saving grace for this film, it is the performances
by its lead and secondary actors. With her
expressive face, Foy is an interesting choice for the
typically closed off Lisbeth Salander and she makes
this version work, and Sylvia Hoeks is chilling despite
the dialogue working against her.
See WEB, page 5