Pulp Culture

Ingrid Bergman As the Forgotten Catalyst of the #MeToo Movement

2018-04-12T21:57:00.001-07:00

After a loooooong hiatus, probably the longest one I've taken because I just didn't know what I could say in a world of more turmoil than most of us can handle. Example: My last post was about gun control and how it's intimately tied to nationalist seeds that were planted in the 90's when there was too much domestic terrorism going around. Interestingly enough, this wast in response the Charlottesville rally, way before #NeverAgain and the shootings in Parkland and subsequent student outcries and marches. It's as if the minute you think of something important and culturally appropriate to write, something else happens before you type your first sentence. Our world under the Trump administration is 'sour cream in the sauna' as Patton Oswalt put it. The minute you think you have something important to say about one catastrophe another one comes around and that one becomes moot. And after a while you're depressed thinking; what's the damn point? However this blog was started about film tv and the media, and in my account I noticed many drafts that I started but never finished; about Taylor Swift's new ridiculous album where she reinvents herself and contradicts herself at the same time and why do we care ...the brilliance of the Ryan Murphy machine and why I believe that American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace contrary to popular opinion was actually pretty brilliant. But I had lost my mojo. Sounds better than I'd lost my will to give a shit.

Today a movie I had heard of, but had never seen was on TCM and I watched it because I love (I was about to say 'old movies' but that's so disrespectful) The Golden Age of Hollywood and everyone knows how much I geek out on that shit. I had heard the psychological term that was taken from the title of this film, surprisingly from my therapist but never really understood what it was about until I watched the film Gaslight (1944). It stars Ingrid Bergman in an Academy Award-winning performance, Charles Boyer, and Joseph Cotton. Because it's a 1940's film there has to be an angle and an actual diabolical plot, but I can see why the term 'gaslighting' comes from the film. For those not in the know, first of all good for you ...but we've probably all been gaslighted in one way or another, usually by a person close to us and intimate in our lives. It means when a person systematically and psychologically wears you down and makes you mentally weak; making your ability to recognize your decisions, your opinions, and your very relationship to reality to be questioned. Ingrid plays the victim of gaslighting before psychological therapy was even a thing. What really got to me was that Bergman is able to not necessarily recognize what is happening to her, is able to get away (with male help) but still.

A beaten down, psychologically exhausted Bergman shows in her eyes that she's had enough.

Most people, when they think of Ingrid Bergman they have the picture from Casablanca (1941) in their mind when an emotional beauty asks Humphrey Bogart how she will go one without him and he just hold her chin and says 'we'll always have Paris.' Then she waves at her one true love through a fog as she climbs on a plane that will take her to safety. But her career has taken a turn for the more inadvertently sociopolitical since then.

Then it made me think of other Bergman films and realized that there is a fundamental feminist thread inadvertently running through her film career and her roles. She almost always plays a victim of some kind of psychological torture. Another famous example is Spellbound (1945) directed by Alfred Hitchcock and co-starring Gregory Peck, where his character has amnesia and she plays HIS therapist and to get him to remember his past correctly she must travel to the darkest depths of his subconscious and risk her own sanity in the process.

Moving to the 50's, she at that time had been ostracized by the Hollywood community for leaving her family to marry Roberto Rosselini and have children with him. It must've hard to be blacklisted like that for personal decisions. Yul Brynner costarred with her in Anastasia (1956) for which she won her second Academy Award (and not her last one), and he in fact said that unless she was cast, he wouldn't do the film. She (again) plays a woman with many psychological dysfunctions and appears to be weak emotionally and mentally. And yet, she always overcomes, and how more feminist can something like that be, even in those times? When the patriarchy is not only not in your favor, but is telling you that everything you say or do is wrong, and you have the courage to stand up to that and say; I don't care. I know who I am and you can stop trying to take that away from me.

A woman found about to kill herself on the banks of the Siene River is rescued by Yul Brynner but through her own initiative takes her rightful place among what she knows is her destiny.

It was cataclysmic in the 40's and 50's. Most people would point out Katherine Hepburn or Marilyn Monroe for being so overtly opinionated and strong whether they use intellect or their sexuality as their weapon, but to look at Ingrid Bergman and her behavior both on and off the screen would make her at the crux of the #MeToo movement.

To back track just a little. My favorite film of hers was always the Hitchcock film Notorious (1941) where she plays opposite Cary Grant as a spy. Here's the background. Her character Alicia a party girl and quite the drunk, which is understandable considering her father was just prosecuted and jailed for Nazi war crimes and she wants nothing to do with him or his affiliations. To redeem herself, she is offered a job by the American government as a spy to infiltrate a Nazi collective in Argentina and is made to go further and further into the inner circle until she is proposed to by a Nazi war criminal. She decides for the sake of the mission to accept, throwing herself into greater danger. Once her husband discovers that he's married to an American agent, he and his mother decide to slowly poison her so that they can kill her but it wouldn't look like murder. After a while, she gets wind of exactly what's going on but decides to see the mission through, and it is only because they have weakened her so much physically that she is unable to save herself and Cary Grant has to swoop in and literally carry her out of the house to safety.

Adapting a more androgynous look, trying futility to hide her incredible beauty, Bergman knows that she is a pawn in a game between covert operations by the United States and the clandestine Nazis in Argentina and still fully throws herself into danger, because she can handle anything anyone throws at her in Notorious (1945).

But her gall, fearlessness, off the wall intelligence and intuition, is absolutely astounding in this film. I wish every young girl can see any of Bergman's work because she was a role model without even knowing it. Yes, she did what she wanted, and she put every part of herself into her very complicated roles and left her blood and sweat on the floor. She did it with class, with grace, and with an unshakable sense of assertion. She brings strength to very vulnerable characters and gives women a voice and a dignity in an era when that was most usually overlooked. She gave women a great role model whether she meant to or not, and she did it over 60 years ago. She did this by being hyperaware of the type of woman she wanted to be and to portray, and did it with absolutely no fear. She's not trying to be 'as good as a man'. She's being a woman, and a woman who is stronger and better than a man could ever aspire to be.

Some clips below to entice you:

Our Government Surrendered This War a Long Time Ago

2017-11-24T18:26:00.000-08:00

McVeigh's defiant mugshot.

Netflix has a new documentary out on the Oklahoma City Bombing that I've decided to watch, partly because I have a morbid fascination by the dark and the devastation that can occur in a country that supposedly is the greatest in the world (that's why we moved to it), and partly because I did live through it and the precursors that led up to it.

If you were born in the 90's or something, or just didn't pay attention...in 1995, on April 19th, a 26-year-old disaffected Gulf War vet named Timothy McVeigh planted a giant fertilizer bomb in front of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in a rented truck and set off the fuse. The front of the building was leveled, over 600 people were injured with almost 200 people killed, a lot of them being children who were dropped off that morning at the day care center that was on the first floor. It was domestic terrorism on a level that Americans had never seen, and the deadliest attack on American soil of civilians until 9/11. He was caught, tried, and convicted. He was executed in 2001.

McVeigh's chilling perp walk.

A few years ago, living in Los Angeles, I started writing a script about the bombing, not about McVeigh, but about what happens to a person that leads him to create such a horrifying act of hate against innocent men women and children. He did not have a criminal record, he had an honorable discharge from the army, and when they did a perp walk with him and people got a look at him for the first time, amidst shouts of 'baby killer' and 'monster', he looked like a regular home-grown salt of the earth kid, with a thousand yard stare on his face. His subsequent interviews show no glimmer of any type of mental illness nor any remorse, which is terrifyingn and blood curdling. He had just murdered almost 200 innocent people and not an ounce of regret was expressed. The way he spoke about it, seemed like he was talking about a mission that he had to do in Iraq.

The first thing investigators noticed that April 19th happened to be the anniversary of the Waco compound standoff that culminated in the Branch Davidians setting the building on fire without letting many adults and children out despite the plea of the Government.

David Koresh mid-preach. The media labeled him 'the sinful messiah' who would talk politics, have a beer with you, and just happens to have sex with underage girls.

Backstory on that: In the 70's, in a small town in Texas, on Mount Carmel the Branch Davidians created a cult that eventually passed to its most passionate follower David Koresh. He preached a lot, saw himself as the messiah, bible-thumped, you know, cult bullshit like that. Oh I forgot to mention he had over 20 wives about half of whom were minors. One day a FedEx delivery man calls the FBI because one of his crates that he regularly delivered accidentally opened and a large amount of grenades fell out. The FBI conveyed this information to the ATF (that's bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms for those of you that don't live in Bible Belt states) and they discovered that Koresh and his followers had been turning semi-automatic weapons into automatic weapons which are illegal in readiness for the opening of the Seven Seals, and Armageddon and other cult bullshit. Then the stand-off began. I forgot to mention, it was a siege that lasted 51 days in 1993. It attracted a lot of media attention and many drove down to Waco to see it, many of whom had anti-Government pro-gun nationalist beliefs, and saw the Government as this big bully who was trying to take away people's guns. One of those spectators was Timothy McVeigh who was actually interviewed for a local news segment. The negotiator knew that there were children inside and begged Koresh to at least let them out, most of them were able to go. But about 30 of them (whom Koresh claimed were his children stayed). On the 51st day, Janet Reno the Attorney General under the Clinton Administration saw the films that Koresh had sent to the media during the siege, and ordered the FBI, ATF, and SWAT special forces to go into the compound with battery rams.

The compound at Mt. Carmel engulfed in flames after 51 days of negotiation.

Let me make this PERFECTLY CLEAR. I never in my life nor do I now, believe that the fire that engulfed the Waco compound was started by the Government. The documentary that I watched and eye-witness testimony confirms that they clearly heard Davidians inside dousing the compound with petrol and telling others to put on their gas masks. And then, the unthinkable happened. A small billow of smoke was seen out of a window on the top floor, and all special forces were ordered to back off. Within seconds the entire compound lit up like nothing I had ever seen before, with over 100 Davidians still inside.

Timothy McVeigh was incensed by this. He grew up tall and lanky and was bullied in school and in the army. He saw the Government as a big bully that had to be taken down a peg. And if innocent lives got in the way, so be it. His rage was also fueled by the incident at Ruby Ridge (I believe it was in '91), where Randy Weaver and his family were killed in a stand off by with the FBI after they had learned that he had been sawing off shotguns for the KKK. So white nationalists put two and two together and basically started a battle cry that was something along the lines of; the Government is attacking whitey and taking away whitey's guns, fuck them, let's destroy them.

Today, it seems like gun violence and white supremacy go hand in hand, and the seeds of this were planted in the '90's with the aforementioned events. Many guns around the '90's were purchased at gun shows, which were frequented by mostly white supremacists at the time. Along with this hateful rhetoric, something that really affected McVeigh's belief in nationalism and gun ownership was a book called 'The Turner Diaries'. It's basically the KKK bible. I haven't read it (obviously), so I have no idea what it's about. I heard in my research that it's about a man who fears 'white genocide' pfffft...and goes to live in a cabin in the woods with his most precious possession; his guns. White genocide...I mean the gall that you have to have to use that term. Seriously. If you're a white person and you say that to a Jew or an African American, or an American Indian...etc., you deserve to have your ass kicked.

We all remember this right? 'Jews will not replace us'. Don't worry potato face, I don't want whatever it is that you do.

So now, people cling to the Second Amendment like it's drift wood in a violent ocean. Most of these people are more than likely racist, and have grandiose delusions of grandeur. And in the midst of all of this recent gun violence that has been, and will continue to go on and on and on without the government doing anything is because the government is too scared of people starting to bring up Waco, or Ruby Ridge. But those were instances where the Government had full autonomy to do what it did. And where it leads is a situation like the bombing in Oklahoma City. That's the logical escalation. We sit and wonder why even Democrats won't talk about harsher gun control legislation after catastrophes like Sandy Hook, and most recently in Sutherland Springs, because they remember what happened throughout the '90's and what kind of hell will come down on them if they move on it. They're afraid of another Oklahoma City. This does not excuse it whatsoever. The atrocities of the 90's that, I swear to god made me bawl like I've never bawled, will never be erased from the American consciousness and nationalists and white supremacists will always use it as leverage against stricter gun laws.

With the white power rally in Charlottesville, we can see a kind of u-turn back to those cataclysmic times, and it's terrifying to think that domestic terrorism is once again taking front and center in our narrative. All it takes is for one man to have a completely skewed and ill-informed consciousness to lead to unspeakable acts of terror. Mental illness is not the problem. The Government (especially the Trump administration) is quick to blame it on anything aside from laxed gun laws that murder far too many people. Everyone (including myself) is up in arms about; how can Congress not discuss this? How can they say that it is not the time? They understand that they should believe me. They are like those farmers in and around Germany in the 1940's who lived quietly next door to death camps and said and did nothing, knowing full well what was happening, and later denying it. Put a gun in the hands of a white nationalist filled with hatred, resentment, and nothing but rage, and that's all it takes. I don't know if love and tolerance is enough to get us through this, or the understanding that when the Founding Fathers wrote the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution they were talking about gun powder war muskets and bayonets not semi-automatic weapons that are distributed to the Army before they are deployed to a war zone. It's very black and white, and the Government doesn't want to be the bad guy. They know that if they tighten the rope around the 2nd Amendment, there will be an uprising that will very likely lead to another Ruby Ridge, another Waco, and eventually another Oklahoma City. This is however no excuse because it's getting to the point where it's like cancer; every single person will soon know or be someone who was killed due to gun violence. And now more than ever it's out of control. That's a scary thought.

Side Note: If you Google: 'shooting in...' like I had to for this blog post, every city in the damn country comes up.

Also: There is a mini-series coming up about the Waco Siege. I don't have an opinion on it, but it looks like a Blame-the-Government kind of angle so I'm not so happy about it. Trailer below.

Ode to Musician Bio-Pics

2017-10-21T23:01:00.000-07:00

I'm excited, are you excited?

So the production of Bohemian Rhapsody is well under way with director Bryan Singer who debuted with The Usual Suspects back in the 90's and went on to make no more good movies, and of class action lawsuit for having sex with underaged boys at his Hollywood mansion fame. Just so you know, this production went through like 18 casting changes and I don't even know how many fall outs over creative differences. Apparently the gramps with amps, leftovers of Queen; Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor want to make it more about the band than a Fred bio-pic. Let's be real, people only liked or in my case loved Queen because of Fred Mercury. He was the creative glue that gifted us with truly one of the most amazing stage presences and one that seems impossible for imitation, some of the most innovative songs in the Rock 'n Roll cannon, and an unforgettable voice making him truly one of the greatest front men of any era. And without him, the others would have faded into obscurity before the 70's even started. Sasha Baron Cohen was in line to play him and I supported that. He has a great voice as he's proved in the terrible film Les Miserables, and it's an inspiring casting decision considering he's a comic actor but has a presence and eccentricity factor akin to Mercury himself. Then they cast Ben Whishaw, I mean...whatever. Eventually it all fell on Rami Malek's gorgeously flawless shoulders, and early release photos are indicative that he's got this down. What is kind of annoying, aside from having a confirmed rapist directing a film about one of my favorite icons of music, is that Freddie has been dead for 20 years, his long time lover and life partner Jim Hutton died in 2010, and Brian and Roger are the only ones who 'want to do Freddie justice' granted, they know him very well, they were like a family, a band is a marriage blah blah blah, but it still seems like this would be their baby and their interpretation of Fred's legacy rather than an objective homage to this god-like figure. Well, we'll see. In this spirit of this highly anticipated film here's a list of other very inspired casting decisions in music bio-pics

The film culminates in Queen's iconic performance at Live Aid in 1985.

Val Kilmer as Doors frontman Jim Morrison and everyone in the supporting cast of Across the Universe can fuck off.

Also goes without saying that Jamie Foxx and Ray Charles and Angela Bassett as Tina Turner are iconic and it their performances are basically seamless. So here are some lesser-known imitators.

Sissy Spacek as Loretta Lynn in Coal Miner's Daughter because well yeah.

O'Shea Jackson Jr. as his own father Ice Cube in Straight Outta Compton. That's quite the responsibility, in fact I kinda dig the whole cast of the film.

Gary Oldman's premiere performance as Sid Vicious in Sid and Nancy. I remember thinking; holy shit who is that. They found his fucking twin, also they make being a junkie look pretty glamorous. Also, lest we forget, this is the film premiere of one Courtney Love. (Strangely not as Nancy Spungen).

Most bio-pics about The Beatles really suck. This isn't that. In Nowhere Boy, Aaron Taylor-Johnson plays a very young John Lennon in his art school days, wanting to start a skiffle band and reuniting with his estranged mother only to have her die in a car accident a few months later. He meets Paul McCartney and the seeds of the Beatles are planted. It's really not about the band at all, and Aaron Taylor-Johnson gives a very mature performance while being only 17 during shooting and falling in love with his director Sam Taylor-Wood...they went on to get married despite the 33 year age difference, and she went on to direct Fifty Shades of Grey...it was a simple time.

The main cast of The Runaways. Yeah Dakota Fanning and Kristen Stewart did Twilight movies together, but let's just forget that happened for two seconds and focus on this tiny film where no doubt the main cast had to take major salary cuts in order to play one of the most important glitter rock/punk rock cross over all-girl bands in an era of cock rock. But i'm sure Dakota and Kristen could afford it with their Twilight money to play Cherie Currie and Joan Jett respectfully. They actually nailed it. Teenage chicks in corsets and electric guitars...in the 70's...it was just so damn cool. I miss them.

professional alcoholic and pouty lip caddy John Rhys-Meyers was only 21 when he undertook the role of Bryan Slade; a Marc Bolan and David Bowie hybrid in Velvet Goldmine, hands down, one of my favorite films; one of my favorite sub-genre's of music; Glam rock. Directed by one of my favorite living filmmakers Todd Haynes, so really pretty fucking perfect.

Ewan McGregor; same movie. Curt Wild was an amalgam of two of my favorite musicians; Iggy Pop and Lou Reed. And all the other favorites I mentioned prior, so you get it.

Out of the 7 actors that played a version of Bob Dylan, Cate Blanchett definitely outshines all of them in I'm Not There (again, by Todd Haynes), not just because of the gender fluidity, but her speaking style, mannerisms, and attitude of Bob Dylan during his rock transition was absolutely something else. She should have won the Oscar that year. You know what? She should win every Oscar she's nominated for.

Oddly hot weirdo Joaquin Phoenix as Johnny Cash in Walk the Line was the role he was born to play. It was nuanced and really worked on, you could tell that it was almost an immersion and not an imitation.

Petit Frenchy Marion Cotillard won an Oscar for her performance of national treasure Edith Piaf. I kind of am severely in love with Edith Piaf, the first music I listened to was all of her recordings, so it's kind of an unhealthy obsession. I truly believe that no better music exists. A lot comes close but Piaf poured her heart into every song and the passion of her voice gets under your skin and grabs you by the spine. This metaphor is not making any sense. She is the greatest torch singer to ever torch sing, and the pain of her life is in every note she hits. Marion did her own singing, and she nailed the fuck out of this.

Ok trailers below:

Movie That Can't Movie

2017-09-16T21:04:00.002-07:00

Clever marketing I'll give them that. That's about all I'll give them.

So where do I begin ...I threw up, and I came home shaking. And no this wasn't from a night of heavy drinking. I don't drink anymore but after seeing Mother! I wish someone had stuck a bottle of vodka up my ass. So many things bother me about this absolute garbage presented as art, (and I should know, I wrote my graduate thesis on Warhol). So, let's start with the big one: ripping off so many filmmakers I can't even count. I'll take you through the short list. The obvious one is Polanski, in particular Rosemary's Baby, then the body horror sub-genre created by one David Cronenberg which was totally bastardized. The pseudo-realism of Michelle Gondry, and the female protagonist suffering and being unconscionably passive a la Cassavetes (who is one of my favorite filmmakers).

'What have you done to its eyes!?' The iconic ending of Rosemary's Baby proving that the real horror is on the face of the person reacting, therefore there is no need to actually show it. What the human mind can imagine is always worse than any horror you can show. Again, epic fail Mother!

Horror movie that took forever to horror was not so much a fright or a smart unraveling of a mystery like say Get Out, which breathed new life into a dying genre. This was just torture. I paid Aronofsky to torture me for 2 hours and three showers couldn't shake that shit off of me.

This blog post might not make much sense but that's how disoriented I am. Fuck this movie, seriously. I know that Aronofsky has a penchant for religious symbolism and imagery but pick a fucking lane. You either utilize the symbolism or you go full monty on the blood and guts. This was the latter as if I was watching a film student ripping off the SAW franchise. To say that this was an unpleasant experience is an understatement, but back to the religion stuff. There's a shit ton of it and he's spreading it thick like cement; he's layering it like a parfait; pick a metaphor.

This was in the trailer so it's fair game. Really driving the Garden of Eden metaphor all the way home.

One thing that my friend and I agreed on was this whole idea that Aronofsky seems to be obsessed with is the parable from the Old Testament where God is apparently drunk on the job and keeps creating societies that he disapproves of, boom comes a flood, and clean new start. That's actually explored and nuanced (somewhat sloppily in his prior film; Noah), but that sentiment is crammed down our throats so hard with a chimney sweep's brush. Apparently Aronofsky has never heard of nor is familiar with the concept of subtlety. I really can't go further into it without revealing the plot and the marketing department made so sure that they weren't going to give away ANYTHING to trick people into shelving out 12 dollars to see CENSORED CENSORED of fucking CENSORED CENSORED. Here are a few biblical themes that I'm just going to shuffle for you just to confuse you because I'm confused and I don't want to be the only one: Cain and Abel, immaculate conception, Sodom and Gomorrah, Jesus healing the blind, lots of Jesus actually; garden of Eden, forbidden fruit, original sin, there's some myth of Sisyphus sprinkled on it as well. It literally just builds until even the most well versed graduate student in Divinity would go; fuck this shit.

Director David Cronenberg in between takes with his star James Woods on the set of the film Videodrome; which this film steals heavily from and as a Cronenberg superfan, it's infuriating.

Want to watch a competent film with religious allegory check out Fellini's Satyricon, Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures, Todd Hayne's Poison, ANYTHING by Ingmar Bergman, or even some episodes of 'Lost' will do.

Another thing that really pissed me off was that Aronofsky decided to throw out structure all together. You really would think that this was some bullshit made by a first year film student at a bottom tier film school (sorry film schools). Movie takes two and a half acts to movie and most of the first 110 or so minutes are following Jennifer Lawrence with a shaky hand held, camera making me more nauseous than watching Blair Witch on the big screen. It was done so much ad nauseam that I actually got to study her cool updo's and french braids pretty well because there was little else to do.

Again, I really can't go into the plot, and if I did, you wouldn't see the film, but how about this; take my word for it. I'll even throw money into the pot. Don't see this movie. Or do, you might be a masochist, whatever.

The golden rule of filmmaking that was first coined by the late great Billy Wilder and echoed by filmmakers worth their salt for generations is; 'respect your audience'. You're not making a film for yourself, you're making it so others will see it otherwise, what's the damned point? Aronofsky apparently didn't get that memo.

The Battle of the Tennis Movies

2017-09-10T23:02:00.000-07:00

LaBeouf and Gudnason.

TIFF just opened its doors and premiered with the anticipated Borg/McEnroe with Hollywood's favorite bad boy de jour Shia LaBeouf as the favorite bad boy of tennis John McEnroe, and newcomer (at least to American Cinema) Sverrir Gudnason as Björn Borg; the machine. This film (bio-pic what have you) is about the 1980 Wimbeldon match. The first Wimbeldon and Borg in his record-breaking 5th. It was perhaps the most important match of 21 year old's McEnroe's career and just so happened to be the first out of the gate. He was the only thing standing between Borg and a record of 5 straight Singles Men's Wimbeldon wins. This is all before McEnroe started a reputation of yelling at referees, throwing rackets, and just turning the whole sport into a spectacle. Don't get me wrong, he's talented AF, so the spectacle was still one hell of a sport to watch when McEnroe was playing it. That's perhaps why LaBeouf was cast. Perhaps they are kindred spirits. The film premiered a few nights ago, and LaBeouf received almost universal praise for his portrayal of the tennis legend even though he looked nothing like him nor really played tennis.

The real Borg and McEnroe minutes before their showdown. Costume and makeup are going to get major props for this.

LaBeouf is a damn good actor (as tired as that hyperbole is), and yeah I said it so you know where I stand. I haven't seen the film yet, but I'm optimistic as hell. Everything about it looks like those great sports movies that used to exist in the 80's before Disney had to go fuck it all up; one word - Miracle.

The only person that didn't praise his performance was the man himself, shocker. But I also want to see if Sverrir was any good and coming from a Swedish/Icelandic background I'm sure he's a machine, much like Borg. But what I really want to touch on and provide a good segway into the next film is the idea of sports films. In the 80's you had really great sports films; from Chariots of Fire (which started the trend), to The Natural, to Hoop Dreams, to Breaking Away. It all climaxed with Field of Dreams, and then it all went to shit. And my generation was stuck with crap like Blue Crush, Hot Shots! and fucking Varsity Blues. What the hell happened there? I'm not big into sports but my god. Yeah, have a protagonists perhaps two and make it about the primal struggle which is basically what sports is. It's about winning and losing, no philosophy, no fuss. Just simple human competition. That's drama right there. I believe that these two films are going to restore that void that's been missing in cinema. Some sports moments last forever. One of which that I'm sure everyone has heard about is the Miracle on Ice in 1980 when team USA beat the Soviet Union in the Olympics. Basically accomplishing the impossible hence the term 'miracle on ice'. Thanks Disney for ruining it for a generation that never got to live through that or experience the actual brilliance of that moment. (I didn't live through it either, but I've seen the actual footage and it was way more intense and dramatic).

The media was right there capturing every insane moment leading up to the Battle of the Sexes.

Anyway! Speaking of another thing I didn't live through (I was born in '85, ok gimme a break, I'm not that old, but I do know my history) was the Battle of the Sexes. It was a tennis match, and that's what they called it. It is also being screened at TIFF and stars Emma Stone (whatever) as feminist icon and tremendous tennis player Billie Jean King and Steve Carell as Bobby Riggs; the has-been, outlandish and flamboyant champion from a million years ago pinned in a battle of man vs. woman, which really did turn the game into a spectacle when he challenged the former to a tennis match in 1973 basically to make an extra buck and draw attention to himself. Billie Jean King reluctantly accepted, and Bobby Riggs would not stop spouting chauvinist rhetoric at her just to get people's ire up. Billie Jean King was in her prime, and with an actual battle of the sexes going on in society at the time, this tennis match drew a great deal of attention and King's inevitable victory meant a great deal to the American feminist movement. She went from icon to legend. I'm not sure if Emma Stone is the best casting, but unlike Shia LaBeouf, the original that she was portraying gave her a wonderful review.

The real Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs posing for a publicity still.

I'm excited for both films. I feel like Battle of the Sexes is going to be more of a politically skewed film that deals with the zeitgeist of the times and heavily pushes the second wave of feminism movement of that period, and Borg/McEnroe is going to be a much darker psychological exploration of athleticism and dreams; accomplished and broken. Both sound great to me and I'm really stoked.

Another film that may redeem the genre is the upcoming Tonya Harding/Nancy Kerrigan biopic; I, Tonya starring Margot Robbie as Tonya Harding, which I actually did live through. And I really can't wait for that one because when that whole shit went down, I was actually a figure skater myself. Granted I was 8, but I never lost interest in the sport. If a film can make you fall in love with a sport that you otherwise don't care about, they've done their job.

Trailers for both films below:

Casual Racism #SquadGoals

2017-09-01T23:12:00.000-07:00

Happy 4th White America!

There was a great article after 1989 came out by I think (and pray) Judith Butler or Linda Williams (there goes my academia swag card) that labeled Taylor Swift and her 'squad' a bunch of neo-nazi Barbies. I tried to find it, and if you Google Search 'Taylor Swift Nazi' you get about 2 million results; the most compelling of which is this one. It's not difficult to see why that is. I'm sorry but Taylor has been selling herself as kind of a faux Jill-of-all-trades, twerking in her 'Shake it Off' video, and most recently blatantly ripping off Beyonce's 'Formation' video with 'Look What You Made Me Do'. She's a tall Aryan-AF looking blonde who loves to play the victim; and what do white nationalists do aside from playing the victim all the time.

Taylor's go-to music video director Joseph Kahn tweeted that the 'Look What You Made Me Do' video is not in Beyonce's art space ...I beg to differ.

Perfect example: Kanye the villainous African American man is ruining the 'reputation' of a helpless young white girl. What is this, 'Birth of a Nation'? (The D.W. Griffith version). All you have to do is watch the Viceland documentary on the Charlottesville rally to see why that is. I won't go as far as to say that she's their cultural icon, but she's strange not to denounce the rumors much like Trump. However she has no trouble denouncing rumors about her flimsy and flighty love life...hm. But most of this started when the whole squad became a thing. She surrounded herself with tall blonde girls who looked just like her. It was only when she received criticism for that, that she 'allowed' Zendaya in her clique. Like the whole world is her basic Aryan high school. I think Zendaya is doing just fine without her.

Squad goals?

Cultural appropriation is just as bad as outward racism in my opinion, so let's move on to the greatest 'culture vultures' of our time; Kendall and Kylie just can't help fucking up can they? Let's get this out of the way. They are white girls. Sometimes, I like to see what idiots on social media are getting up to, and it doesn't look any better for either of them. Firstly, the unspeakable and tone-deaf Pepsi commercial that would have ruined anyone's career that Kendall miraculously survived, where some genius thought that to make her the face of the Black Lives Matter movement was a good idea. Then came the T-shirt line. If you don't know, let me catch you up. Kendall and Kylie are so obsessed with their own faces they decided to super-impose them unto T-shirts of album covers by Biggie and Tupac. Are you fucking kidding me? And because they wanted to market it for basic bitches, the gave it a vintage look and charged a hefty 125.00$ price tag for them before quickly removing them from the market.

I'm sure the Muslim community is totally fine with this.

Kendall herself is also getting quite a bit of flack because her IG is chalk full of offensive and insensitive imagery such as her dressed up in a Hijab, to a shirt with a confederate flag on it. Also, lest we forget, she tagged a photo of herself and her sisters with the caption; 'girl power ...sister power' with a fist bump emoji on it. Only problem is that the fist bump color was basically three emojis darker than white, implying she was somehow on board the brazen cultural appropriation train without actually doing anything for the community that she is stealing from. I think my fave response to that bullshit was a girl who told her straight up to stick in her emoji lane.

Tupac always wanted his legacy to be two white girls' initials over his image.

The most recent BS regarding members of Taylor Swift's Aryan squad that's popped up is with supermodel Gigi Hadid. You'd think she gets a pass because she's half Semitic; born to a Dutch mother and a Palestinian father. And yet, she got a shitload of well-deserved flack when she announced that she would be walking in the Victoria Secret fashion show that would be held in Shanghai this year. Now, don't think that because she's not full blood that she doesn't enjoy white privilege. Her entire life was spent in Malibu living with her mother and rich, white stepfather, David Foster. Perhaps you're the biggest asshole when you don't admit that yeah you enjoy the fuck out of white privilege. Anyway, someone managed to dig up an IG video of her at a Chinese restaurant with her sister Bella, who did a weird quasi and really racist Asian bow, as Gigi held up her cookie in the shape of a Buddha face and squinted. That's some ratchet shit right there.

Presented without comment.

Now yeah, these things may seem minimal, but this is how it starts. And with racial tensions at an all time high, I'd be a bit more careful if I was a cultural icon, especially one that children look up to ...for some reason. Ana Navarro? No thanks ...Kendall. They're role models whether they like it or not, and people are just not having anymore of their casual racism. You don't get away with everything just because you're pretty, ladies.

Nolan Goes to War and Wins

2017-07-23T23:09:00.000-07:00

I can tell you that this is Tom Hardy, but this is the classic nameless soldier that Nolan uses to magnify the breadth of the viewer to the film.

These are really hard to write, because as anyone will tell you it's much harder to write a good review than a bad review, but I was swept away by Dunkirk (ok that was a tired metaphor) ...it blew my socks off ...no even worse. It was amazing ok? And I dare to surmise that it's Christopher Nolan's best film in his repertoire. I know he has a strong following not only of fan boys, comic book nerds, but also cinephiles, and is revered as like the next Orson Welles or something, I mean he makes good films and is very skilled but he's not Orson Welles. Here's the thing, I watched Memento because everyone was pressuring me to do it when it first came out in 2000, and at the time I was still smoking pot so I watched it. I watched it literally the day before I saw Dunkirk for the second time and after all of these years it's still brilliant.

Now, I know I'm going to get murdered for saying the following, but apart from The Dark Knight, which I don't even think is the best superhero film; I mean it's up there, but no. I don't like his movies. I think they are very conceptually interesting but very self-indulgent; from the crazy runtimes to the weird time parallels he loves to fuck around with, which I see as very self-serving. I didn't bother watching The Dark Knight Rises, and I hated Inception; Interstellar -- same thing. He's one of those people that I think starts out as a massively talented maverick indie filmmaker who turns completely cray once a studio gives him some money a la Darren Aronofsky.

I'm a history buff, or huge History Channel nerd however you want to call it, and I am actually completely obsessed with World War II so going into the film, I was well aware about the battle and subsequent evacuation of Dunkirk.

One of the most iconic scenes in the film, and Nolan spared no expense to make it look as authentic as possible. Word has it that over 10,000 extras participated in the film.

Nolan does not give you any backstory, and good for him. He's a filmmaker that doesn't talk down to his audience and assumes that they are all as smart as he is. Except for in Inception, where there was a character who's whole purpose was to explain the convoluted plot to the audience by asking the questions that we all silently were.

But back to Dunkirk. If you don't know the story -- The Nazi army is basically a few kilometers from total occupation of France. The only countries allied against Hitler at this time are France and England. The British are retreating and the only way out is across the English Channel which is pretty fucking far even though we have people swimming that shit now. But then again, those people don't get torpedoed by U-boat's or shot down by the Luftwaffe like fish in a barrel. At this time, Churchill had focused all of his military preparedness on fortifying England with the British Navy which was the best in the world. Unfortunately, he didn't plan for the aggression of Hitler's Luftwaffe air force. About 400,000 British men needed to be evacuated off of the beaches in Dunkirk, France, and this story is about the miracle of their survival.

An actual photograph of the evacuation of Dunkirk.

As a film, it is a towering achievement in the war film genre. I haven't seen anything quite like it. In a world with wall-to-wall CGI, Nolan used basically none. It is breathtaking what he was able to accomplish filming from the three main locations of the evacuation; land, sea, and air...and yes it did lead to Churchill's 'We Will Fight Them on the Beaches' speech.

I saw it with a Russian who shall remain nameless, and they're an art major (or were); educated in the Soviet Union. There, they are apparently taught to play against action. It's a very character driven, character-centric aesthetic. In fact, they they refer to excessive action as 'Zhelezo' which means metal. As in, too much metal, not enough humanity.

A scene where the chaos is humanized and meditated on is usually one of a deafening silence. And yes that's Harry Styles on the left. Happy now?

I countered that by arguing that most war films; yes, have a singular viewpoint. Some of the best in fact; from Saving Private Ryan, to The Pianist, to Kubrick's Path's of Glory because someone apparently wrote it down somewhere that war has to be humanized. I understand that sentiment, but in all actuality war is the exact opposite of that. It is a conflict of chaos where everyone who fights in it from the generals to the privates are anonymous and just have one initiative in mind; survival. I would rather actually compare it to a film like Black Hawk Down, which according to my estimates has about 50 speaking roles. You don't remember who's who most of the time; their rank; and what they're whole deal is, because guess what; it doesn't matter. There is a mission, it goes wrong, soldiers are trapped under huge enemy fire and that's the story right there. It's a documentary style of narrative filmmaking, and Nolan just nailed it. His camera work, his beautiful imagery, and his signature aesthetic all worked in his favor and the film is an absolute masterpiece. Because in war, nothing really matters except staying alive am I right? Did that sound too Hunger Games?

But back to the filmmaking, again with about 30 principals in the cast, with seasoned actors like Kenneth Branagh who basically has like 5 lines and Cillian Murphy who just repeats the same thing over and over again, it's a sacrifice of telling the story as accurately as possible without making it about a particular person or a particular viewpoint. During the evacuation of Dunkirk, everyone's objective was the same, and that's how Nolan approaches it. Most of the characters don't even have names, IMDB it. All in all, well worth the hype, the wait, and definitely now that I come back to it, the best Nolan film to date.

Trailer below:

Remake that Doesn't Know How to Remake

2017-07-13T21:49:00.000-07:00

Emma Watson makes the best of a movie that doesn't know how to movie taking example from another famous Emma who just won an Academy Award for the same thing.

There was so much ridiculous hype and over-marketing (if that's a thing) over the live-action remake of arguably the best Disney film of all time. Trying to capitalize on the success of the live action remake of The Jungle Book which actually was useful and interesting, the studio heads decided to basically make a carbon copy of the original with a few new songs to make extra off of iTunes and to stretch the run time. If you haven't seen it, watch the original...and that's exactly what this film is. It's like when Gus Van Sant did a shot-by-shot remake of Hitchcock's Psycho but that was for Avant-Garde performance art purposes so he gets a pass, not to introduce children to a totally bastardized and creepy version of what was a great film to start with.

Good luck explaining sentient furniture to your kids now.

So it's set in the most British part of France apparently where only Lumiere has an actual French accent. And in a cartoon world a lot of what was deemed unbelievable could be conceivable with enough suspension of disbelief. Now it raises a lot of uncomfortable questions like can Gaston really lift two heavy-set people with his hands, and do all of the sentient object in the palace actually have human souls? I mean, it's creepy as shit.

The motion capture on Dan Stevens is basically ridiculous. He's terrifying, which kind of kills the love story which is central to the plot.

But not as creepy as what they did to Dan Stevens, that poor son of a bitch. They could have used practical prosthetics, hair and make up to make him properly beastly looking, but they decided to CGI the fuck out of him so that he looks like he was drawn by a 12 year old on a Windows 7. Also, the sentient objects with actual speaking parts have more character and facial expression in the original, than the CGI moving objects in the old palace. I don't care how good of a French accent Ewan McGregor can do.

As I said, with a few new songs added (because Bill Condon has a huge hard on for almost memorable songs that stretch the runtime), the songs are exactly the same, except they sound like cheap karaoke versions of the beloved originals like 'Be Our Guest'.

They were fun, remember them?

There is a cheap half-assed attempt to fill in some plot holes like what happened to Belle's mother? How did no one in this tiny town notice that the Beast has been beasting for like ten years? And how the hell did she get the damn Beast on the horse after being attacked by wolves. But it's so lazy, I'd rather just use my imagination. Speaking of which, I remember that as a kid, you really did fall for the Beast and understood why Belle would too, but in the live-action version he's so CGI'd to death that there's nothing remotely attractive about him.

I'd also like to touch on the controversy surrounding La Fou as the first openly gay character in the Disney-verse. In this great article it actually surmises that La Fou is a piss poor tribute to the gay community. He basically meets the somewhat offensive and stereotypical gay tropes like an effeminate manner, and a one-sided crush on Gaston that's never really nuanced, but apart from that he's the gay comic relief that you expect in a film from the 50's that's more ignorant than anything else. He gets like one sincere moment that would make him a genuine gay character, but that's all that Disney allows him. Lest we forget that his name literally translates into 'the fool'. C'mon Disney, you had more going with Ursula or the Sherif of Nottingham.

I guess I missed the take-acid-now instruction prior to this scene.

Bottom line, this remake is not only useless, but it's superfluous. Apparently Disney couldn't leave well enough alone. The most iconic scene in the film; the ballroom dance scene between Belle and the Beast in that stunning yellow dress had more beautiful sprawling camera angles and lighting in the cartoon. It's like they're not even trying. If you haven't seen it, just watch the original and pretend it's in live action.

Sofia's Epic Fail

2017-07-03T22:15:00.003-07:00

4 out of these 7 women have speaking roles.

Was that harsh? Well, watching her new film The Beguiled felt like a one and a half torture ride to nowhere's-ville. I want my time back, and my money. And I want her to make better films, but that's not going to happen is it?

The film was marketed as a radical feminist revenge story, perfect for the chauvinist rhetoric of the Trump era, but Valerie Solanas it is not. It's not even a 'hell hath no fury…' kind of thing. As I said, it's about an hour and a half of nothing. Which is a fair assessment of basically all of her films, yeah I said it. It had such great potential. It's a Misery meets Gone with the Wind story based on a Clint Eastwood movie from the 70's (arguably the best era of America filmmaking). With a stellar cast like Kirsten Dunst, Colin Farrell, and the up-and-coming Elle Fanning, you were thinking how could this go wrong? In all respects apparently.

Admit it, this part from the trailer is why we all wanted to see it. 'Get me the anatomy book'.

I have to give it up to the marketing department. They did a great job with the theater art, the promo art, the trailers, etc. Basically building up this turd in a dress so that people would shelve out 11 dollars to see it. I saw it with a friend earlier today and we witnessed quite a few walk outs. At first we thought it was because we were basically screaming at the screen, but we couldn't help ourselves. Eventually, we realized that the walk outs had the right idea.

So stop fucking with us, Coppola. Just because you're Hollywood royalty doesn't mean you can do no wrong. In fact you can do so much wrong to some seriously ripe and brilliant material that it kind of taints your family's legacy.

The film is photographed beautifully; with low-lit interiors, candlelight and sunshine, and dressing that looks like it's actually a house that has been lived in and not a matte painting that was put up the day before. Costumes are en pointe and that's about the only positive things I have to say about the film. I know it was just released, so unlike most of my reviews I'm not giving away the plot. Here's what we know. Colin Farrell is a Union deserter; a Irish mercenary who has been badly injured and is found on the outskirts of a large Southern plantation in Virginia. He is taken in by the children and their headmistress who have had to lay low three years into the Civil War. It's pretty obvious that 6 girls in their sexual prime or in puberty and a woman a bit past her prime but still hot AF (Nicole Kidman) would create sexual tension with the one man they're keeping in the house so palpable you could cut it with a bread knife.

I will give her the director of photography a lot of credit. He managed to make a dull film very pretty. So you have that to look forward to.

Firstly, this house she runs with 6 pupils seems to have an endless supply of food and wine. What the actual fuck? Every movie about the Civil War, or any war for that matter is about people having no food or rations. Also, three of the girls don't even have speaking parts. That's a waste of space, they literally do nothing. You could just cut them out of the film and save the budget. For an hour and a half run time, I would say there's about 20 minutes of dialogue which is par for the course for a Sofia Copolla film. Every single time there is a moment for potential pathos, drama, and hubris, she builds that moment and then kills it. It's like getting really close to orgasm, and then the person falls asleep on you.

Although it appears deliciously sexually devious, the actually sexuality of this film has about as much erotica as a 13 year old's vampire fan fiction.

It's almost as if Sofia is afraid of the sexuality of this film, which is basically the driving force of the plot. Even scenes that should be highly erotic are creepy and weird. Scarlet O'Hara crying on Ashley's chest was more erotic than anything in this movie. For a mostly silent film with no plot and no nuance of the main characters it seems to kind of move into the category of Avant-Garde, which I believe is actually Sofia's calling. But go Avant-Garde all the way. Film on 16mm silent Bolex cameras, with a 10 minute run time, and save us the grief. She so desperately wants to be considered a serious artist, but she comes off as uber-pretentious. She breaks so many film rules that it's just not right.

I know breaking film rules can be fine, but what we think of as breaking is actually bending. Tarantino does it, Scorsese does it. But rules are there for a reason. Example: Your main characters have to be nuanced. They have to be three dimensional. They have to have motive good or bad. There has to be a plot that moves forward and doesn't just meander around waiting for shit to happen. I don't care how pretty it looks.

People think that she's so unique because she plays up the subtlety which is actually giving her audience a giant middle finger. There's being subtle, which is fine, and then there's saying nothing at all, and that's what this film does. I don't need resolution, I can leave a film without closure as long as the film presents interesting questions to consider later. This film does not. You leave the theater thinking…'well, that happened'. Sofia is should really stop writing her own films because she writes about 30 pages and stretches it to an hour and a half run time (I keep mentioning that because it felt way longer). It's kind of sad that coming from such a talented family, we'll think of The Bling Ring as 'the good one'. Hard pass.

Trailer below...I mean...whatever.

One Person Carried the Entire Season

2017-06-29T22:50:00.000-07:00

Best friend and girlfriend of Poussey finally find an appropriate tribute to their lost loved one and I cried all the way home.

It's rare in a multi-protagonist show that one person stands out. Early on, before OITNB became a thing, most of the first season was about Chapman. The writers saw that this clearly didn't work so they gave everyone a storyline, an arch, and a flashback …standard multi-protagonist rules, just watch Lost.

I was talking to a friend earlier about Mad Men, getting a little sidetracked, but that did also start out about one person; Don Draper, and then evolved with a plethora of new characters and the OG's having some serious stories, laments, and flaws. That's what makes them relatable.

Spoilers coming but you should have watched it by now; that show basically invented the binge watch culture.

Daya at the climax of Season 4. Sensing a pattern here.

A little bit on what is happening in the new season. Daya shoots the sadist CO Humps in the leg, and a riot breaks out in the prison. The riot actually lasts through out the entirety of the season and that MCC bitch Linda somehow gets mistaken for a prisoner so she's along for the ride. If you remember correctly, The girls at Litchfield are pretty eccentric to put it mildly so the riot has some wonderful and sometimes cathartic twists and turns. It's really a great season, and there's one woman that carries it through to the very end.

Taystee leads an action to throw away the 'bribes' that the governor provides in order to stop the riot because according to her, it wouldn't be justice.

If you haven't guessed, I'm talking about Tasha 'Taystee' Jefferson. Poussey's best friend. Danielle Brooks who plays her is barely old enough to rent a car, but her training at Julliard did her well, to say the least. Usually we focus on actors 'on the brink' if they bag a role like Jennifer Lawrence in Silver Linings Playbook at the ripe young age of like 23. When OITNB started, Brooks was actually the exact same age, and has maintained a consistency to the character and a commitment to the arch of Taystee. This season was definitely hers. I don't know of the season's past if I could assign them as belonging to someone. No, she doesn't get the most airtime, or the smartest quips, but my god, the depth of this girl was incredible.

And of course they set in on fire because they want 'to be motherfucking taken serious!' You go Taystee.

I kept having to remind myself of the youth of this actress and subsequent inexperience because you would never be able to tell, and though just like every season, a different character gets a flashback, and in the end, it's all about Piper (who is the worst), Brooks upstaged everyone in her passionate fight as Taystee struggles to deal with her grief and get justice for Poussey.

At the climax of the last episode, it was like watching a Shakespearean tragedy, just watching the performance that Brooks gave. I don't often say this, but it seemed to come from the bottom of the gut, and I cried rivers. It was a catharsis that no one was expecting, and Brooks definitely spread her acting wings.

What Brooks is able to accomplish as an actor in this scene is beyond me. She keeps you guessing the entire time, and the emotion is so palpable that it's impossible to separate yourself from it.

But what's truly important is that she is instrumental and a catalyst in every episode. As an actress, she has so much stamina, and so much of herself to give to the role I have no idea how she didn't fall down from exhaustion by the end. I've really never seem anyone so committed and playing the same character for 5 years, but her nuanced performance gives her so much staying power. It boggles the mind as to why we don't acknowledge her more. For such a tender age, you would never expect her to carry a show of over 30 main characters in its most chaotic season, but she managed, and she should be commended for it. There are a lot of brilliant actors that make up the Litchfield prisoners, and usually it is Uzo Aduba (Suzanne 'Crazy Eyes' Warren) who walks away with the Emmy's, which she definitely deserves, but I was taken aback at how well Brooks managed some really tough and complex material. Put it this way, if there was a riot at a prison I'd want to shadow Taystee, and if we were doing acting exercises at Julliard, I'd want to do them with Brooks. She is somewhat of an unsung talent that deserves way more recognition than she gets.

Prolly seen the trailer, but here it is anyway, it premiered in early June on Netflix so your binge should just about be over by now. Happy watching!

Christine Didn't Make It

2017-06-22T22:06:00.000-07:00

This is Christine Chubbuck coming to you live from WZRB in Sarasota, back to you George.

I don't usually take a somber tone, I mean 99% of what I say and write is sarcasm. But I watched a movie recently that really affected me, and I've seen quite a few of those. Contemporarily speaking, this was perhaps the most overlooked film of this past year. It's called Christine starring Rebecca Hall as the titular character of Christine Chubbuck who is famous for shooting herself on air at the network where she worked. Rebecca Hall could very well be the most underrated actress of our time. People kind of lost interest in her after she was upstaged by Penelope Cruz and Scarlett Johansson in Vicky Christina, Barcelona.

It's one of those films that makes you immediately go on Wikipedia because you think to yourself that no way is this based on a true story, but it is. The tragedy of Christine is very much steered by the patriarchy that is constantly in her way. The film is meditative and a strong character piece and if you don't know what happens in the climax it can seem to drag, and yet Hall carries it so brilliantly.

Christine is a co-anchor at some local station in Sarasota, Florida…jealous? And she's interested in positive human interest stories, alas her boss doesn't give a shit because it doesn't sell. One could say that it's the female Nightcrawler but the opposite of that. She doesn't want to sensationalize the news, in fact she calls it exploitative.

'Jesus Christ, just make your stories juicy!'

What's truly tragic is that she is optimistic to the very end. In the opening scene (this film takes place in the 70's btw) she imagines she's interviewing Richard Nixon, knowing she'll never even get close. We learn throughout the film that she lives with her mother, and about to hit 30, is still a virgin. She hates pot smoking, which her mother regularly engages in, and has a general disdain for the shall we say 'free love' of the times. She is so determined to not be famous per se, but to succeed in the job that she so much loves to do; a job dominated by male culture. She even volunteers at a children's hospital and is desperate for human connection. The lead anchor she frequently works with is the handsome George played my Michael C. Hall, whom she is desperately in love with, but because of her awkward workaholic demeanor, she doesn't really have a chance until he invites her out to dinner only to tell her that despite her hard work and cooperation with the whole 'if it bleeds it leads' attitude the station has taken on, that George has been promoted to anchor in Baltimore in a top 20 market over her. What makes it worse is that he was able to choose someone to take with him and surprise surprise it's not her. Things are made worse when she find out that she a cyst on her ovary and the entire thing has to come out.

The fake flowers that symbolize a lot more than you think.

Over time, Christine realizes that everything is working against her. We don't really get a sense that she's suicidal but we get clues that she has some mental issues that are only exasperated by her circumstances.

Aside from Hall, it's the direction of the movie that is truly special. The camera follows her into an abyss surrounded by 70's glamour. There is a brilliant scene where she's clearly distracted in an interview on air by the fake flowers on her desk. She abruptly stops the interview and throws the flowers at the camera operator saying that it's all she can think about right now.

I suppose there's a tenacious stubbornness to her that a lot of us, especially women can relate to. She works in a highly sexist environment where her abstaining from drinking and partying is looked upon as weird and she herself is looked upon as aloof. The amount of time she spends working shows how passionate she is, but left and right she is shut down even when she is cooperative. Her boss has nothing but disdain for her, and they are at odds almost constantly.

The way the film is directed, we can see that not only is Christine at the end of her rope towards the climax, but she sees no other way out. We don't see the gun, not really. We see it in her bag, but we don't see her staring at it contemplating what she's about to do, which is the lazy way out.

Her final and only revenge is to put on a very false and somewhat creepy facade by going to her boss' office and asking to be lead on the following Monday about the weekend news. She promises that it will be sensational, and in the most prophetic and unforgettable way, through the strangest smile she tells him; 'I'm agreeing with you'.

The real Christine Chubbuck

I've already told you what ends up happening to Christine, and sometimes when you're not quite ready for that moment even though you know that it's coming, you need to see it again. But I couldn't watch this again. It was directed so viscerally that I literally jumped …off of the exercise equipment I was on, but give me a break.

Back to Hall, I really thought she'd be at least nominated, but the film was small, the film was dark, and if anyone should have won, it should have been Natalie Portman for her haunting portrayal of Jackie Kennedy, but Hall needs to be acknowledged not only for the aesthetics of Christine; the walking style, the hair, the mannerisms, etc. But it was one in a few times where an actor inhabits a character so intimately that it really bothers you. You want so much to know what's going on inside Christine's head and her descent into making the decision that she finally does, and yet you don't want to know; that's great acting. Hall did Christine Chubbuck justice in a subdued, understated performance of a woman who is pushed into a corner by her male colleagues and no matter how hard she fights and how much she compromises, she feels that she's left with no choice and no other way out. And there's a strangeness in that part of you that actually does understand that.

Trailer below, streaming on Netflix, highly recommended.

Let's Talk About Bill Cosby

2017-06-15T21:21:00.000-07:00

Polanski at the height of his success

With the giant clusterfucks of the current administration's agenda against women of constant shit and malice hitting us in the face like a curve balls at …I don't know what constitutes fast in baseball, whatever. I wanted to bring this subject up because among all of the Trump news to which I have almost become immune, almost (I mean, its great material for my non-existent comedy career). Alas, we've all recently heard among the Trump babble that the jury is in a deadlock about the verdict against Bill Cosby. A deadlock is not the best use of that word but at least they didn't call it a hung jury …Am I right? Ok! Enough puns.

If you're not up to date because you've made a nice home for yourself under a rock, let me enlighten you. After a woman's accusation came out that Cosby had sexually assaulted and raped her, it was about 10 or so years old. Now, in the state of California that is still within the statute of limitations so he can still be prosecuted for it. After this very courageous woman finally spoke up, it seemed like every other woman in the greater Los Angeles area came out all with the same disturbing story. 50 to be exact. I mean, it boggles the mind. 50 women are accusing Cosby, and what really sticks in my craw is that these women will never be vindicated. They will never see justice. He's not going to stand trail for those 50 as he should considering none of them had the courage to speak up, which is totally understandable. What's the word of a lowly ingenue against one of the biggest celebrities of that era? If this teaches us anything, and knowing about rape statistics, the most important and best thing a woman can do if she is victimized is speak up. You would think that a comic as successful as Cosby doesn't have to drug and rape girls. Who knows, was it titillating? Was it amusing? At least we know that to a sane person it's sick and wrong, and according to the police an egregious violation on too many women to even wrap your mind around.

Now, I'd like to talk about a paradox of conscience that I've dealt with for a while. It's interesting that no one has yet compared this scandal to the Polanski scandal of the 1970's. Here's some backstory on that; Roman Polanski was and is a brilliant filmmaker from Poland who lost both parents in the Holocaust as a kid. He made a name for himself as an auteur in Europe, moved to Hollywood and after Rosemary's Baby, he was THE Roman Polanski. He was married to the beautiful and wonderful Sharon Tate for a little less than a year until she and others at her house were brutally murdered by the Manson family while Roman was in London. His life changed forever, I mean of course it would. It should be added she was 8 1/2 months pregnant with their child at the time.

A few years later, when he decided not to give into grief but to survive and to keep going as an artist he made arguably his best film; Chinatown. Around this time, he started dating very young girls. He's European, they were European, I'm sure there was some legality there. Then, one night at Jack Nicholson's house, he was taking photographs of a 13 year old girl named Samantha Gailey, and according to public record, he proceeded to give her champagne and quaaludes to knock her out (sound familiar?), then sodomized and raped her.

Because of a really long story about what happened to the system of justice in this particular case, even though he had admitted culpability and guilt, he fled to France. To this day he is not allowed in the United States. The crisis comes from the fact that as a film lover, I without any pretense, faux intellect, or politics, really admire and respect him as a filmmaker. He is actually one of my favorites, and given what he had survived in his life, is it time to forgive him? Should we have forgiven him before? Surprisingly most people did. Except the police. I will never in my life advocate what he did. I have had to separate the person from the crime like a family member would.

Cosby at the height of his success

However, there's a sense of betrayal with Cosby that I cannot come to terms with. I grew up on The Cosby Show, and he really was America's dad. Not only that, he was so wholesome, and so iconic, realizing what he had done was such a blow to me that I don't think I have any forgiveness for him. As a woman, it makes my skin crawl. What I think bothers me the most is that he thought he could go on and on and get away with it, but now he's learning that no one is above the law. I just have no mercy for him. Why his case is different to me than the Polanski case is a total mystery. I do not think of Polanski as a victim. Although the European press would argue that. There is a very interesting documentary that I will link that expresses how he became two different people to two different sets of press; The European press saw him as this wholly tragic figure who survived the gassing of his mother, the murder of his wife, and maintained his voice against the Hollywood machine, while the American press saw him as this malignant twisted dwarf who dabbled in Satanism (untrue btw), was highly controversial, and just the perfect villain.

13-year-old Samantha Gailey, Polanski's victim.

And yet, Cosby would be the last person to understand as a villain. So many of us, particularly women, have difficulty coming to terms with that. He brought happiness to so many homes on TV night, broke race barriers in comedy, did a great deal for Civil Rights as well. And yet, his epic downfall is what his legacy will be, it is not tainted. It is forever tarnished.

I think the moment where I truly felt guttural hate for this man is when someone not exactly known for being of sound mind or for telling the truth; Janice Dickinson was interviewed about her experience with him as a young model. She said her piece, but the camera man failed at his job and forgot to turn off the tape. You can see that she started weeping in a way I never want to see a woman weep. Sexual assault is no joke, and having to hold it in because of intimidation from Cosby is even more disturbing and disgusting.

Back to Polanski, I would blanket statement this whole thing and say that of course circumstances aside it is never ok, and we all know this. What is it about a person that you can eventually forgive and one that is unforgivable. When Polanski received his Best Director Oscar for The Pianist in 2002, every single member in the Dolby Theater stood up and clapped their asses off. Is it time? I doubt it. It's ironic that a man like Polanski who made films that were really amazing and that's about it, is more forgivable than Cosby who brought us so much joy when we were children. But perhaps that's why we hate him more. And you know what? We should. There will always be an asterisk next to both of their names, and actually perhaps Cosby's name will be erased from TV history so that there isn't a giant splotch on their repertoire.

How the world will now remember Cosby. 'Shame' should be written on his lapel like a scarlet letter.

Ironically for Cosby, Hollywood is a very forgiving city. Hugh Grant, Mel Gibson, fucking Tara Reid, I mean c'mon. But in this age where women feel that their rights are being peeled apart like an orange, he is not a martyr. He is the shining example of what happens when power in Hollywood goes unchecked. We've talked about what's most infuriating and for lack of a better word defiling about this whole case is that it took one woman to speak up to make a whole army of them who felt so little next to the great and powerful Cosby to speak up and lived in silence for YEARS. I really do hope he gets his comeuppance. If not in court, the certainly in the court of public opinion. Why? Because I'm a woman. We will always be intimidated by figures like that who have more power, more money, more everything to fear people into speaking up. But since Obama had put sexual violence on the map, and really made it a forthright issue, its time to say I don't give a fuck who you are. You're a monster, and that's all I see.

Below is the trailer for the film I had mentioned earlier. It's called Wanted and Desired. Don't bother with Netflix the full thing is on Youtube, it is a must-see.

Shakespeare's Gay Pride

2017-05-30T20:31:00.000-07:00

Granted I've never seen this play live, but this is definitely the best and most iconic version of Shylock.

Brace yourselves, this might be controversial but since when do I shy away from that. I go home after a lone day, and I read or watch Shakespeare and try to write...because I am better than you. Tonight I rented on Demand my favorite Shakespeare play; The Merchant of Venice. Those of you who know it, good for you, and for those of you who don't...you're an asshole. But it concerns a man named Antonio (played in the film by Jeremy Irons) and the story goes that a 'close friend' Bassanio (Joseph Fiennes) desperately wants to court a woman named Portia (Lynn Collins) who lives in Belmont which I assume is a tiny island off the coast of Venice. Here's the problem. Bassanio is a do-nothing, just a pretty boy with a lot of passion. Antonio his friend is a merchant...hence the name 'Merchant of Venice'. Long story short (too late), Antonio wants to help him so much that he gives him license to borrow money from the Jew of Venice, Shylock (Al Pacino) who is a money lender because Jews back then couldn't own businesses. Shylock complies but not before reminding Antonio that he's a piece of shit and giving the condition that if he is not paid back, the forfeit will be a pound of Antonio's flesh ...literally. How's the Vera cliffs notes? They agree and the deal is made and that's as far as I'm going because for chrissake read some goddamn Shakespeare.

Artist rendition of Portia fighting off suitors.

On to my point, aside from the fact that there are always women disguised as men and the other way around particularly in his comedies (Twelfth Night, Midsummer, this play, etc.) There is always a special and unspoken relationship between certain male characters. Ask yourself, why would Antonio agree to this insane condition on Bassanio's sake? He's always seen in the play as being so overtly kind and almost a doormat to the much younger and prettier Bassanio. He is literally willing to put his life on the line for him. It's quite similar to the relationship that Iago and Cassio have in Othello. And no, I don't think this is an Elizabethan bromance. It can be argued that Antonio's loyalty to Bassanio is stronger than Bassanio's loyalty to Portia.

The debt to be paid. He hath laughed at my losses, mocked at my gains.

In Shakespeare, the women who have relationships with each other are usually ones of mutual respect and friendship. Much like you would find on an episode of Sex and the City. Yet the director of this particular film likes to play up the shall we say flighty relationship between Portia the most beautiful woman in Belmont and her BFF Nerissa, to the point where it's not so subtle.

Portia doesn't need suitors, she has Nerissa.

There's another element, it's quite small but it's become an iconic Shakespearean line and most people that use it today don't even know that it comes from this play. Shylock has a daughter Jessica who decides to renounce her Jewish faith to marry a man called Lorenzo. She dresses in a man's disguise to escape and says; 'do not look at me for I am much ashamed of my disguise ...but love is blind'. Indeed it is. Lorenzo would love Jessica as a man or woman. Because love is blind. Ok, enough redundancy.

In the end, everyone marries each other, save for one character; the Merchant. I would argue that the merchant faces just as bad of a fate as Shylock. He is left alone because of his identity. Shylock is a Jew, and Antonio is gay. Not giving much away, when Shylock asks for his bond to be fulfilled as the money was not paid back to him, Antonio and Bassanio have perhaps the most tender moment between two humans I've ever seen. Antonio asks for his hand to hold him through this whole cutting out a pound of flesh being removed thing, and proclaims love for him...of course this is probably a love of friendship, but still. It's Nicholas Sparks tenderness. If it were me I'd be asking everyone to hold my hand and then probably pass out. And yet, it's deeply meaningful in subtext. And for the first time you see compassion on Bassanio's face. I feel that's actually pretty important. Not even when he wins Portia's hand in marriage does he show such emotion. It reminds me a lot of how Romeo reacts at the death of Mercutio. Yes, we all know what happens in the end, but the sorrow at the loss of a ...shall we say friend, is very powerful.

So many iconic soliloquies in this play, this is from the 'quality of mercy' speech given by Portia in drag.

Now, this is not the only play that has somewhat homosexual subtext and characters; Mercutio from Romeo and Juliet, Banquo from Macbeth, even Hamlet to a certain extent. But hey, argue with me all you want, I haven't drawn a line in the sand. I'm just finding recurring themes that I want to address (where my theater geeks at?). If people to this day are still debating whether or not Shakespeare actually wrote all of Shakespeare which you can read all about here , then I get my gay themes in Shakespeare hypothesis. Clearly I miss grad school or something. Anyway, below is the trailer. At least watch the film. Aside from the Zeffirelli 1969 version of Romeo and Juliet, this is as close to the original source material as you're likely to get in cinema.

See below:

On Christmas Night I'm Watching Schindler's List

2016-12-25T22:20:00.000-08:00

The famous girl in red who serves as a catalyst in the change within Schindler's attitude, symbolizing every Jew he wasn't able to save.

Let's put everything aside for the moment; Spielberg's first Academy Award, the event that it was that everyone saw, how important it is not only to the Jewish people, but for the world at large, etc. I want to talk about the filmmaking, because if I talked about absolutely everything, I'd never finish this post.

Most of all, let's talk directing. Spielberg said his decision to shoot in black and white was because he didn't want to 'prettify' any images of the Holocaust. Apparently the studio insisted for a while that he shoot in color, and he assured them that if that was the case, he wouldn't have made the film. The lights and shadows harken to something out of Orson Welles. His long time DP (Director of Photography for the layman) Janusz Kaminski is truly a paragon of his craft. He made the events of the Holocaust and the events in Schindler's life so seamless as he moves from shmoozing with Nazi's in the first scene, the the chaos of Jews pretending that they have 'essential' factory skills so that they would get a blauschein (a blue card) meaning that they could go to work for Schindler (Liam Neeson) instead of being loaded up into trucks headed for death camps. His fluid camera captures the most aggressive and most intimate moments ranging from the liquidation of the Krakow Ghetto to a conversation between Schindler and his wife.

Itzhak Stern played brilliantly by Ben Kingsley as Schindler's accountant and de facto right hand man. Their exchanges range from the mildly intellectual comic banter to some of the most harrowing moments of the film.

As a historical epic (and that's what it is, not just a bio-pic), Spielberg utilized suspense so brilliantly it astounds me even today, considering that I've seen the film way too many times (like there even such a thing). A very iconic example of this is when Amon Göth (Ralph Fiennes) stands atop his balcony with a rifle killing people off one by one. He's aiming for a young Jewish boy who told him that he couldn't clean his bathtub as much as he tried. Amon tells him (as Schindler instructed when he said that power comes from pardon) that he pardoned him, changed him mind and after a few missed shots, as the kid walks away, aware of his fate, eventually gets shot in the back.

'I pardon you'.

Another suspenful and heartbreaking scene is when a machinist gets examined by Göth, because Göth (like most Nazi's) takes his bloodlust to the extreme, and decides to kill him on the basis that he didn't make enough hinges. He knocks him to the ground and pulls the trigger, but the pistol jams. Through tears, the man tries to explain why his work was 'unsatisfactory' as Amon keeps trying to fire over and over again. Finally, he gives up and pistol whips him. The man survives, and is the one that writes the letter to the Soviets in case Schindler was captured that every Schindler worker signs on his behalf.

One of the most iconic scenes in the film of which I just spoke. It is so compelling, so terrifying, and so brilliantly executed, that it is the hallmark of perfect directing.

Now let's talk about the writing and acting. There is so much more going on than the story itself, and even with characters that have just a couple of lines, it pulls you into this film, this story, this world as if it's almost matter-of-fact. There is small humor here and there, especially with the Nazi's. A good example of this is when his accountant Itzhak Stern (Ben Kingsley) gets mistakenly put on a train to a camp, and Schindler goes to rescue him, despite his efforts, low-ranking Nazi's won't let him off. Schindler takes down their names and says; 'Thank you gentlemen, I think I can guarantee you that you'll both be in Southern Russia before the end of the month, good day'. Then the film cuts to Schindler walking along the train pass and yelling for Stern, while the low-ranking Nazi's follow him doing the same. Now that's good writing.

But Spielberg doesn't shy away from the stuff none of us want to see, because we don't want to think that the greatest mass genocide in modern human history happened only 60 some years ago. He does this very subtly. A man sorting valuables, obviously those that Jews who are now in camps had to give up gets handed a burlap bag, inside which are a few handfuls of gold teeth. The man takes off his glasses in disbelief, as do we if we had glasses. But back to this later.

Making the list.

A very important character is Poldek Pfefferberg (Jonathan Sagall) who actually wrote the book that the film is based on. He survived from the start of the Holocaust to the liquidation of Krakow to standing next to Schindler as he says a tearful goodbye to his workers at the very end. He is a rogue character. The first time we see him, he's mad at another seller on the black market for giving him shoe polish in glass containers instead of metal and threatens his co-conspirator. Schindler overhears his tenacity and offers him a job buying things on the black market that will be needed to shmooze with more Nazi's and eventually trade for the lives of his Jews. His mass fortune which was made by profiteering off of free labor from Jews at his company, he eventually gave up to save everyone he possibly could. 'They say that no one dies here, they say your factory is a haven, they say that you are good' a woman tells him who is desperate to bring her elderly parents into Schindler's factory. She dresses up in fancy borrowed clothes and puts on rouge and lipstick to appeal to Schindler. At first, he's furious at the fact that he's considered a Moses among the Jews, but his conscience catches up with him and he trades his cigarette lighter, his cigarette case, ties, pins, suits; everything, for his own humanity, and for theirs.

Moreover, this is not a film about Schindler, and it is not a film about the Holocaust either. This is a film about history. A history that has been preserved in survival accounts, photographs, testimonies, etc. But someone had to put the pieces together and give us a narrative that not only educated us, but touched and enlightened us. The chaos, the deplorability, the horror, and the sorrow birthed a film that in itself is history, which taught us a very important thing through its fly-on-the-wall aesthetic; That (as the ring that the surviving Jews give to Schindler says) 'He who saves one life, saves the world entire'.

'It's Hebrew from the Talmud, it says he who saves one life saves the world entire'.

Even watching it now, after so many times I can't even count, there are moments of terror, moments of contemplation, anger, but mostly moments of awe in the worst way. This is our history, not just the Jews, but all of us. A time where survival was more important than any sort of life, where hiding in excrement meant the difference between life and death, where there was real evil in the world, and eventually the righteous triumphed over it. This happened, and no one has ever or since brought it to film more comprehensively, with more brevity, and with such a sincere heart.

Below some related clips:

Emma Stone: The New Old It Girl

2016-12-20T22:52:00.000-08:00

A take on The Virgin Mary (which was also a hilarious SNL sketch)

I haven't blogged in a while, and there's a good reason for that. My last blog was around Halloween, and then the election happened, and I don't know about you but I'm feeling just generally down no matter how many Samantha Bee or Seth Meyers I catch on the Youtubes making fun of this catastrophe.
Yeah 2016 in hindsight was a giant garbage fire. I'm not going to go that far into it, we all know what I'm talking about, but one source of comedy still stands strong and will continue to. The show has been on the air for 40 years and counting. Have you guessed it yet? I'm talking about SNL. You hear me Trump? You hear me racists, bigots, electors, Kellyanne, Mike Pence, Steve Bannon? We're still here, and we still have right to laugh. Ok, enough of my soap box rhetoric. On to some frivolous entertainment musings.
Everyone (especially young white pre-pubescent girls) want to be BFF's with Jennifer Lawrence. She smokes weed, she drinks Two Buck Chuck, she just doesn't give a fuck. In fact she makes such a point not to give a fuck that it's coming off as disingenuous.

Emma hosting SNL for her third time two weeks ago.

The other day she got some much deserved heat because homegirl loves to run her mouth about all of the weird and embarrassing situations she finds herself in that are usually endearing but not in this case. Long story short; she said that she scratched her ass on sacred rocks in Hawaii where they were shooting Hunger Games: Catching Fire, so hard in fact that she dislodged a giant boulder which rolled down the hill and almost killed the sound guy. She thought it was hilaaaaaarious. Not so much. Also her movies are getting ridiculous. Yes she was Katniss, yes she has an Oscar for a film I really love; Silver Linings Playbook, but that was a while a go, and frankly Passengers looks pretty sweaty to me.
A couple of weeks ago Emma Stone hosted SNL for her third time (not for nothing, but when J-Law hosted it, it was crazy awkward and just proved to all of us that she's not as funny when on-script). In my opinion, it was the best show of the season so far, and one of the best of the last few years. Emma, like Jen seems older than she actually is, perhaps wise beyond her years, but she's quiet, demure, and doesn't pound our heads into the fact that she's JUST LIKE US. She's not.
But she's very very funny. Granted it's not just her, the new head writers at SNL gave her a great script, and she killed it. From the candle song to the cleaning crew Christmas songs to the high school obnoxious improve sketch that I love so much, she was fabulous. Oscars aren't the measure of a good actress. Case and point: Gena Rowlands STILL doesn't have one, and Marisa Tomei does. Explain that logic to me, you know what? Don't. But Stone's performance for which she was nominated (Birdman: Or the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) was a really solid and visceral performance. She has a quiet lightning inside of her, and it doesn't help that she's gorgeous. She doesn't have to change her look, hair color, or wear Dior couture all the time (sorry another jab at Jen). She's just herself, and with La La Land coming out worldwide next week, it seems like she's rising while Jen is slowly descending on the ladder of hot young it girls.

Lest we forget, Stone was tapped to play perhaps the greatest female character ever written; Sally Bowles in the 2014 Broadway revival of my favorite musical; Cabaret.

With so many examples of faux white girl feminism that are so obnoxious that they crawl under my skin and make me nauseous; like Taylor Swift and her stupid squad, Lena Dunham and her show that she doesn't even write anymore, I could go on and on but I don't want to. In this climate, I would rather have a friend like Emma who has it together and seems eons smarter both streetwise and intellectually than Jennifer, despite the fact that both are high school drop outs. It just seems that Jennifer peaked a while ago, and now she's the highest paid actress in the business. We as snarky critics can say it's because she sold out, but that's not snark, it's just the truth. Emma continues to pick interesting and unique projects and can go from Spiderman to Birdman to La La Land seamlessly. Btdubs her chemistry with Gosling is too ridiculous. I'm sure he can have chemistry with a gardening tool, but still. I've switched teams, and I'm excited to see what Emma does next. Keep in mind, she started out in the Frat Pack opus Superbad as Jonah Hill's love interest. Let me say that again: Jonah Hill's love interest.

Her performance in Birdman was pretty untouchable. She didn't have that many quips or clap trap monologues, but her down-to-the-bone performance as a lost and confused former junkie daughter of a washed up has-been actor almost stole the show. Almost, because stealing from Michael Keaton is pretty damn hard. A for effort.

I'm not even going to touch on Margot Robbie who is probably the best and smartest actress under 30 right now, and though it would be fun to throw a monkey wrench into this agenda, I like pinning two actresses that are around the same age and with the same influence on the zeitgeist against each other for shits and giggles. It makes me feel better about myself. And in a time when we desperately need some escapism, Emma delivers. Also, Jen stop scratching your ass on sacred rocks, it's not funny and it's flat out disrespectful, crude, and ridiculous. We're the fairer sex for a reason. Enjoy your free drinks.

Below some SNL clips and La La Land Trailer:

I Have Something For You to Watch on Halloween

2016-10-20T22:11:00.000-07:00

One of the more memorable scenes from the film. Can't tell you what's going on though, and it's hurting my soul.

The VVitch came out of nowhere, and I do mean nowhere. Shot in some desolate woods in Canada over 25 days by a freshman director who looks like he just stumbled out of the most hipster hipster bar in Los Angeles, I had heard things about it. Mostly that it was legit the most terrifying, unsettling film that will make your blood run cold. I was assuming this was coming from people who had never seen The Shining, or Rosemary's Baby, or The Exorcist. But now that I too have seen it, I will gladly put The VVitch into that group. I've read Arthur Miller's The Crucible more times than I care to remember and the Salem Witch Trials were never handled with that much honesty and brevity since.

Does this not remind you of a certain famous painting?

But this is not about that. And the parallels between it and the New Testament were so subtle, nuanced, and brilliant it made me think; 'wow, hipsters can direct'. Robert Eggers, barely 32 (so exactly my age) cast a film with an all British (with the exception of one Scot) cast for this unsettling horror-type movie. I'm hesitant to call it a horror movie, even though that's how it's been marketed. To me, it's a period piece; a bleak drama much like There Will Be Blood with a lot of seriously disturbing images and themes. This is not a film for your parents or for the faint of heart, seriously you've been warned.

I am not going to give away any spoilers, what I will give you is the premise. Set maybe a few years prior to Salem, a Puritan family is banished for the patriarch's disagreements with his elders about interpretations in the Bible. Defiant, he moves his family; wife Catherine, daughter Thomasin, son Caleb, and two really annoying twins around 5 or so to the wilderness...oh and there's a newborn who's pivotal to the story. What he was thinking I don't know, but it's his pride that spurred the journey and that's already giving stuff away. Now, anyone who is a horror purist knows that only bad shit can happen to you in isolation in the woods. The daughter Thomasin is the central character, who is about to reach 'womanhood' i.e. puberty, and the parents discuss selling her to another family so she can properly deal with it, which was not uncommon at the time. They are completely isolated save for their farm animals one of which is a surly black goat with giant horns called Black Phillip. The twins claim that he speaks to them and they speak back, and as we know, when animals do that and only little kids notice it, it's a common horror trope. But then it launches into a whirlwind of bizarre and such visceral happenings that you WILL have trouble sleeping at night. Even though you live in the middle of the city and don't own any goats.

Black Phillip

What is beautiful about the film is the pacing (borrowed no doubt from Ingmar Bergman) where it emphasizes the feeling of degradation and isolation and eventually hopelessness and loss of faith. The other major aesthetic (borrowed from Kubrick no doubt) is the decision to shoot exclusively with natural light. And anyone who has ever made a movie, whether a 3-hour opus or a student film knows that negating your Omni's is basically film suicide. But to get the authentic feel the director strove for, it paid off.

Again, can't say what's happening. It's not a cliché exorcism I can tell you that much.

Now, you're probably thinking, they are in the wilderness near creepy woods, the film is called The VVitch...there's a witch in the woods, bam, you solved the puzzle...NOPE! And if you want to know what's actually up, guess what, WATCH IT. Stay home from the lame Halloween party you were invited to where everyone will be dressed as either Donald Trump or someone from Orange is the New Black, and just cuddle up with a pet or a stuffed animal like a child because no matter how tough you think you are, this movie will crawl under your skin and scare the life out of you.

The climax of the film...have I left a good cliffhanger?

It was so impressive to see a film that was not only shot for under 2 million, made the rounds at Sundance and got picked up by A24, but that resurrected a genre that's basically become a parody of itself. If we label it a horror film, it's definitely up there with the aforementioned Rosemary's Baby, The Shining, etc. And it was directed by a guy who's basically the bastard child of Polanski, Bergman, and Kubrick; not a bad label to have. AND it's his first film. This was such a relief and single handedly restored my faith in the genre while making me slightly suicidal. Just kidding, but it did stick with me for so long and so strongly that I'm still not able to shake it off.

Oh and in its defense, people were wondering why the fuck it's spelled the way it's spelled and that's because that's what pamphlets that made rounds in the colonies around that time looked like when they were asking people to beware of VVitches. It's not a hipster thing...well maybe a little bit. There I just gave you Halloween plans, you're welcome.

Trailer below.

The Patriarchy vs. Amanda Knox

2016-10-01T22:04:00.000-07:00

Now 30, Amanda looks like she's aged about 20 years in 6.

Like many of you I decided to Netflix and Chill with a rather unnerving documentary that was just released yesterday simply titled Amanda Knox. We all, or most of us, remember this scandal. To us American folk, we saw it quite differently from how Italians saw it. We know bits and pieces here and there, and almost kind of know what happened, but this documentary is not so much about the crime, but about the titular character and what she had to endure.

'Foxy Knoxy' as her friends called her decided to study abroad her second year of college in Perugia, Italy, a small provincial yet beautiful town in Umbria. She very quickly caught the attention of an awkward but pretty engineering student; Rafaelle Sollecito. They had a whirlwind romance of 5 days which culminated with them sleeping together at his place. The next morning this 20 year old woke up to just about the worst news anyone could; her British roommate Meredith Kercher had been brutally murdered in the dorm they shared together, with her body still there, and blood everywhere.

Where people got suspicious of Amanda was that she didn't call the police immediately and in fact showered, changed, and hung out a bit before she realized there was a body in the other room.

We all remember when the media descended on the dorm and outside of it there was Amanda and Rafaelle making out. Most saw this as bizarre behavior, like she couldn't give two shits, which she explains in the documentary was actually a comfort from someone she cared about in a time of crisis.

We all have different ways of dealing with shock, and this was hers.

The infamous kiss outside the crime scene that the media saw is extremely weird ....understandably so, but c'mon.

The government of Perugia didn't see it that way, and charged both Knox and Sollecito with first degree murder, with the former barely able to speak Italian, held without a lawyer for days of questioning without the use of a bathroom or food. She finally broke in what we here in the states would call a 'coerced confession', and after a very short trial both were found guilty and sentenced to 26 years and 25 years respectfully.

Where it gets really sick is that the judge, who is featured heavily in the documentary; a self-proclaimed devout Catholic (not that there's anything wrong with that) and a Sherlock Holmes aficionado, had dreamt up a scenario where Amanda was in the middle of some kind of Satanic orgy when Meredith walked in on her and paid the ultimate price. We now know that what actually happened was a violent burglary; poor Meredith was home alone when two men broke into the dorm, sexually assaulted her and killed her. But the judge still ...still believes his ridiculous Satanic ritual theory as if he has Rosemary's Baby on a loop in his head. This leads me to a very vicious double standard forced on Amanda Knox which made her spend 4 years of her life without a lawyer, and without support, in an Italian jail, to which she refers as 'the dark place'.

When defending herself she said something extremely important and resonant; 'I was sexually active, I was not sexually deviant'. It's sad to think that those two are mutually exclusive when it comes to women...perhaps not all women, but certainly for Knox.

Foxy Knoxy as a happy 19 year old with a sparkle in her eye, in her hometown of Seattle.

At her appeal, it was found that the judge was kind of a ridiculous sycophant, misogynist, and an overall crazy person. Also, there was heavy tampering with the crime scene, and both Sollecito and Knox's convictions were overturned. Thus ending the saga of a whole patriarchal state of mind against an innocent girl. She returned to Seattle in tears and disappeared from the spotlight, until she reappeared for this documentary. But it wasn't over. Apparently that same judge wanted her blood so badly that he petitioned for her to be extradited back to Italy for a second trial, to which the American government gave the finger. She was at last exonerated completely after two more years. On the whole, this scandal lasted for 9 years of Amanda's life. Yes her behavior was strange, yes she was promiscuous, does that make her a cold blooded killer? According to the government of Perugia, yes it did.

When she begins the documentary, she says that; 'if I am guilty, it means that I am the ultimate figure to fear, but if I'm innocent that means that everyone is vulnerable. Either I'm a psychopath in sheep's clothing, or I am ...you.' Those words basically sum it all up; Because she was young, beautiful, and rather odd, she paid a price of 4 years behind bars. 'Femme fatale', 'heartless manipulator', 'concertante of sex' ...even if these were true they don't spell murderer to me.

Seconds after hearing that the Supreme Court of Perugia had overturned her conviction.

Because I'm a woman, I think what happened to her was one of the greatest injustices and miscarriages of the criminal justice system. There is still a double standard where we as women are not just labeled whores for our sexual behaviors, (which are by the way are nobody's business) but can be put to prison for them. I believed in her innocence from the beginning and you're free to disagree with me. But, I believe a large part of her struggle was just because she was beautiful, sexually active, talked a lot about sex, and not much else. Would we for a second combine those traits with the premonition or heartless killer if it were a man? I doubt it.

Anyway, I'm going to get off my soap box, and just recommend you watch it. As a documentary it's very engrossing and competently made. Even if you think you know the story, you don't know all of it.

Below, trailer:

In Memoriam: Curtis Hanson, The Quiet Intellectual

2016-09-24T22:28:00.001-07:00

Curtis Hanson

In case you missed it (you probably did, what with the first Clinton/Trump debate coming up and the riots in Charlotte, and of course Brangelina splitting up), filmmaker Curtis Hanson passed away last week. Now that last sentence makes me sound profoundly shallow, but I try to have tunnel vision into what's going on in pop culture, and I'm sure I'm late AF to the Brangelina party, just like I missed the Hiddleswift split party, and it's too late for my Best/Worst dressed list for the Emmy's (Sarah Paulson took my breath away).

Alas, this is not to be overlooked. Not very prolific, and always a bit under the radar, Curtis Hanson has not made many films; most of which, like him, flew quietly under the radar with one exception; L.A. Confidential (1997) which sweeped 9 nominations at that year's Oscars and lost all of them (save for one; Kim Basinger for Best Supporting Actress) to Titanic (just threw up in my mouth a little bit, it's fine).

Poster art for L.A. Confidential

A little backstory about the film; it's based on the novel by James Ellroy who writes pulp fiction novels, for those of you who don't know the term past the Tarantino movie, let me enlighten you. From the time of writers like Raymond Chandler and Charles Jackson, there have been pulp fiction novels. They're kind of like the B Movie of books. They are seedy, salacious, and over the top; dealing with murder, a hot girl (a Femme Fatale for the expert), and a caper of sorts. They are a great read because they are somewhat easy to digest; they aren't exactly Dostoyevsky. But Ellroy took it to the next level and coupled that camp with the dingy, seedy (again), and deliciously fucked up world that is Los Angeles in the 50's. It's an insider's view; kind of like the back end of the website to the glamour facade of Hollywood; and entire industry and culture built on lies, prostitutes, dirty deals and crooked people. That's basically what the film is about. The film is probably as close to the book as an adaptation has ever been, and that's why it's confusing as hell, even for someone like me. Who's that, why is he doing such and such, wait, I though that was the good guy, wait, who even is that? Those kind of questions run through your mind constantly but you can't help but be swept away in the writing, the performance by now some of our favorite actors...among them; Guy Pearce, Kevin Spacey, and (arguably) Russell Crowe; and most of all, this nostalgia that most of us don't even remember because we didn't live through it.

James Ellroy. He could not look like more of a pulp LA writer if he tried.

Me? I'm a sucker for Old Hollywood. I don't know why I had to make that public and put it in writing, because most people are already saying to themselves; duh!. But hey, let's make it official. I won't go into the convoluted plot that is nuanced brilliantly and beautifully by Hanson, because as I said he had a whole filmography under his belt, among them lesser but still great films like 8 Mile and Wonder Boys. He wasn't exactly an auteur, just a really competent filmmaker. And with L.A. Confidential, he rose to being an amazing filmmaker. And some of us just need that one diamond in the rough to seal our legacy. And that he did.

-How did you know I was a cop?
-It's practically stamped on your forehead.

In 2005, it was my first year in New York, I had just transferred to NYU where a professor took a liking to me (not that kind of liking ...I don't think) and happened to be on the Board of Review which meant he got to go to a lot of pre-release screenings, of which I accompanied him to many times. One of them was for Hanson's more blah films; In Her Shoes, a totally forgettable Cameron Diaz vehicle capitalizing on Sex and the City culture, with a weak script and boring plot. Even for a sub-standard chick flick it blew, but I went because I was promised there would be Q&A afterwards. But I didn't know that my professor was on first name terms with Hanson, and invited me down after everyone left so that I could talk to him. I really didn't know what to say except ask him questions about L.A. Confidential's aesthetics, themes, etc. So basically I sounded like a pretentious film student, which I kind of was at the time, but whatever.

Anyway, I think it's important to acknowledge his passing, but moreover his body of work, which yes, was hit and miss, but I believe every director, even some of the best have misses under their belt. He was a very astute and competent man, and a very talented and perhaps deeply intellectual person which you definitely saw come out even in his sub-standard films. He was that quiet New Yorker type who strove desperately to make the films that he wanted, but unfortunately didn't always get his way.

Below, some trailers and scenes:

To Mourn the Death Of Hiddleswift I Did My Own Version of 73 Questions with Vogue! Just as Spontaneous, Not Nearly as Basic

2016-09-11T13:12:00.000-07:00

I tried to be basic. It didn't fit.

What's keeping you busy these days?

-Work.

What's the most exciting thing in life right now?

-The Emmy's

What are you bored of?

-Snapchat

What is something that recently moved you?

-a moving vehicle

What's going on over here?

-I'd rather not say

How many guitars do you own?

-1 acoustic guitar and it's missing a string.

What's the first song you learned to play on guitar?

-The House of the Rising Sun

First thing you do after you get an idea for a song?

-I rub one out

What is your songwriting process?

-A lot of crying and white wine

What song took the least time to write?

-'Fuck it' in E Flat

What song took you the longest to write?

-The Libretto to Hamilton ...I wrote that.

Is this the room where you keep awards?

-Does a CPR certificate count as awards?

Who is your favorite teacher?

Graig Uhlin at NYU who taught my first Warhol class.

If you could teach one subject what would it be?

Sarcasm.

What's your favorite beverage?

Cold brew.

What's your favorite cocktail?

Anything single malt.

What's your favorite food?

Bacon.

What would you order at a drive through?

Starbucks just made a drive through near my house, so Starbucks

Best birthday cake you've ever had?

For my 28th birthday my friend got me a Strawberry Shortcake from Sweet Lady Jane in West Hollywood. They use fresh seasonal berries and make their own buttercream. It was ridiculous.

What was the last thing you baked?

Meth.

What's one thing you need to have in your fridge at all times?

Grapes.

What is one thing you still have from childhood?

A creepy horror movie looking doll.

What is your favorite TV show of all time?

Arrested Development

What is your favorite show currently on air?

Halt and Catch Fire

What is your favorite movie?

Seriously?

What movie recently made you cry your eyes out?

The Theory of Everything

Why do you think you're the most followed person on Instagram?

My Instagram account is actually a front for a brothel I run.

Have you ever Googled yourself?

Daily.

What do you think when you google yourself?

Google still hasn't learned how to spell my name.

If you had one superpower what would it be?

Mind reading.

If you were not a singer what would you be doing?

Polishing my Tony collection and doing a Scrooge McDuck dive into my giant room of money.

Cool or bizarre talent?

I can say it but you're not going to like it.

Whats something you can’t do?

There's nothing I can't do.

What is the best compliment you've ever received?

Is that Kirsten Dunst?

Whats the best gift you've ever received?

My mom got me a gold Tiffany's bean for my graduation...which I lost so when I finished grad school she got me a platinum one to teach me a lesson.

One habit you wish to break?
Boys.

Do you have any nicknames?

My friend calls me Gigi because she thinks I look like Gigi Hadid, she's my favorite.

What surprises you about people?

Celebrities are really short.

What makes you laugh?

Children on leashes.

What does creativity mean to you?

Tennessee Williams.

What's most adventurous thing you've ever done?

My roommates and I did 5 sprints back and forth in Morningside Park at 2 am for exercise but I think we were drunk.

What are your favorite lyrics?

Shake your head girl, with your pony tail, takes me right back, when we were young. From 'If There is Something' by Roxy Music

One song you wish you'd written?
Killer Queen by Queen

Best fan moment?
I have haters not fans.

Whats your most memorable career moment?
Facilitating the opening night red carpet for Cinequest

What's one accomplishment you're proud of?
Graduating from Columbia University with honors.

What is one thing you want to try but are too scared to?
Snake blood.

What is your spirit animal?
George Clooney's pet pig.

Where should you take my wife?
A swingers bar.

Advice for singers?
Stop writing shit.

Do you have any pre-show rituals?
I plead the 5th.

Most difficult song to perform on stage?
I always think I'm going to kill Christina Aguilera on karaoke night and I'm always wrong.

How many cats are in this room?
I'm allergic.

If you were a cat would you get along with your cats?
No.

How many cat breeds can you name in 10 seconds?
Sphynx, Main Coon, British Shorthair, Tabby, Scottish Fold, Germany.

What's the coolest thing in this room?
I have a bottle of 2010 Chateau Margaux.

What is one woman’s closet you'd raid?
Tilda Swinton

What's your favorite fashion trend?
Mod eye make-up

What do you have to have in your purse besides your phone and wallet?
Eye liner.

What are you wearing to this year's Met Gala?
Alexander McQueen

What did i want to do at age 5?
I wanted to be a Marine Biologist I think, which is a glorified way of saying I wanted to be a SeaWorld Trainer.

What do you wish you knew at 19?
Some people suck.

What is something you will not be doing in 10 years?
Babies.

What is the most important life lesson?
Get over it.

What can you say in another language?
My favorite Hebrew expression is 'Chaval al ha Zman' it means 'waste of time' you say it sarcastically when you had a good time.

What do you love most about the town you grew up in?
That the Nazi's tried to take it and we were too badass to give it up.

What is the bravest thing you've ever done?
Admitted I loved someone.

What's the most spontaneous thing you’ve ever done?
Drugs?

What is your one most important goal?

To have my play produced.

What is your favorite scented candle?
Bond #9 Sag Harbor.

Choose Life...Danny Boyle Better Not Disappoint with the Trainspotting Sequel

2016-08-13T22:46:00.001-07:00

The boys (L to R): Sick Boy, Renton, Tommy, and Spud.

I like to think of Danny Boyle's career as the ultimate hit-and-miss. His earlier work; Shallow Grave, Trainspotting, and even The Beach (I know most critics panned it, but I have some kind of cult attraction to it) were all great. Then it kind of went downhill. Despite the Academy Awards (which they actually make fun of in Trainspotting when Sick Boy (Johnny Lee Miller) says it means fuck all and is a sympathy vote) Slumdog Millionaire might be the most over-hyped movie of the 21st century, and the Steve Jobs bio-pic should have clearly been directed by David Fincher. It was a mess considering the director focuses on style and formalist aesthetics and is working with a sharp bio-pic script from the king of 'don't change shit out of my words' screenwriter Aaron Sorkin. Aside from Trainspotting, perhaps his high point was 28 Days Later. Trainspotting was a cataclysmic film in the 90's when making films about rebellion, drug addiction, and nihilism were on every filmmakers to do list. This one stands out, and stands the test of time more importantly, mostly because the protagonist Mark Renton (Ewan McGregor) is a master of his own destiny. He doesn't excuse any of his actions or try to justify him, and whether he experiences tragedy, fulfillment, or mostly dissatisfaction, he keeps on trucking, and eventually wins us all over...also the script is funny as hell. We notice that in this film, he's allied himself with the idiom of British Filmmakers. He wasn't international, and his films have a hallmark of being bleak, dark, and sarcastic. His visual style is very haptic and hectic, this has worked for him in the past, and when he's trying to make serious films it just doesn't work.

Publicity still with Danny Boyle on the left.

I was a little apprehensive about the Trainspotting sequel, particularly because a sequel that comes out 10 years after the original is usually a film no one asked for. Also, the original was to the letter an adaptation of the genius Irving Welsh book. I have no idea what this will be based on, but Boyle is creative enough, and maybe he'll hire Welsh as a co-writer. What's really exciting is that we'll get the same cast back. Unlike what happened with Dumb and Dumber To, or Terminator Gene...shit, Trainspotting launched the careers of many brilliant actors, and brought them out of just fame in the UK to international stardom. Ewan McGregor is a household name, while Johnny Lee Miller, Robert Carlyle and Ewan Bremner haven't been as successful because this film was the high point of all their careers; not to mention Shirley Henderson, Kevin McKidd, and Kelly McDonald who went on to work with brilliant filmmakers like Mike Leigh, also one of the greatest British filmmakers walking this earth.

I'm sure this movie was so popular because it was cool AF. Rebellion is always cool, even on the streets of Edinburg when you're stealing from shops to pay for your junk habit.

Now, another point of apprehension. When I was an angsty teenager, I had a poster of the film on my room that was also covered in pictures of Kurt Cobain, a Velvet Goldmine poster I think, and other angsty things of that nature. I thought initially that like Fight Club, I would love it as a teenager and hate it as a grown up. Nothing could be further from the truth. Although Trainspotting is highly stylized, its message of nihilism and redemption is far more genuine than that in Fight Club. Also, it's not supposed to be this cool movie just to be cool for teenagers like Fight Club is, where we see people rebelling against society or withdrawing from it completely; sarcastically justifying it to themselves and the audience.

There are a lot of elements in the film that are a little too close to comfort, and while hitting all of the angsty nihilism points that teenagers are drawn to, it remains very sincere, and remains a towering statement.

The is one of the more memorable and surreal scenes that became a hallmark of the Boyle aesthetic, when Renton has to dive into 'the worst toilet in Scotland' to retrieve his opiate suppositories. That's a weird sentence.

Mark Renton (Ewan McGregor) realizes that his escape from reality (it's heroin in the film but it could be anything) is not exactly the choice way to live. It's a way to die, and unlike most movies about drugs, it drives that point home in a very sharp and non-sentimental way. His ending monologue mirrors his opening monologue when he talks about choosing life, a career, a wife, all other bullshit that he decided to forgo for 'a healthy junk habit'. In the end of the film, he decides to conform, but it's not selling out. Ironically it's more of a middle finger to society than the initial one he gives it.

It's a dated film, don't get me wrong, but it stands the test of time. Re-watching it, I was prepared to be like, see this is why I don't like it anymore. I'm not a dumb teenager who wants to rebel no matter what and asks stupid questions like 'why does there have to be war man?'.

I don't want to say that this movie is about people and not drugs. It's about drugs. And there's nothing wrong with that. Most movies show a trajectory that descends slowly but surely into an abyss of nothingness brought on by addiction, you can have that. Mark Renton is the ultimate existential prototype. He understands the consequences of his actions and that everything is based on his decisions, and is fuck all to do with destiny. It's actually a pretty uplifting film. Also, the dialogue couldn't be tighter, and the characters are very well nuanced; even though seeming one dimensional at first.

The OG cast returns. I'm excited, are you?

In the end, Renton makes a huge decision that most people would consider low and reprehensible, and he doesn't bother to justify it to himself. He realizes that the only person worth caring about is himself, and kisses his life of being depressed over his surroundings and numbing the pain with heroin behind him. He smiles and says 'I'm going to be just like you'. You don't like the world you live in? Tough shit, that's just how it is. You can become a junkie and ignore it, or as Mark does, you can give it the finger and move on.

I think this film also appeals to teens because of its quick and witty dialogue, which be honest, you didn't really get until you were much older. Also, perhaps the Scottish accents got in the way. But if Boyle could just revisit himself in the 90's as a filmmaker when he was making films that were hyper-real but not disingenuous, then he'll have a good sequel. His biggest flaw is holding back. In Trainspotting, he doesn't hold ANYTHING back, he's only started to to win Academy Awards. Give up being PC, we all know it's not in your nature, and also it doesn't have to be formulaic or by-the-numbers. It can be a masterpiece much in the tradition of your earlier work, if only you can let go of 'the rules'. We're all holding our breath...well, I am.

Below, trailer for the sequel:

Scenes from the original:

10 Documentaries on Netflix You Need to Watch Right the Fuck Now.

2016-08-12T23:52:00.000-07:00

Hope Netflix and Chill is on the agenda this weekend. Let's talk a little before we go into the list. Documentaries are nothing new, they are an incredible art form that we can trace back to basically the beginning of film. Pioneers of documentary that wrongfully get classified as 'avant-garde' like Dziga Vertov from the Soviet Union, created the idea that the real or hyper real was the most important subject that film could approach (don't argue with me, I wrote papers on him). Since then, we've come a long way. Two of my all time favorite documentaries are sadly not on Netflix but for chrissake self out the 3.95$ and rent them on iTunes; Grey Gardens (directed by the Maysles brothers) explores the lives of socialites Big Edie and Little Edie Beale. They are a mother and daughter who were once a big deal with the Connecticut/Hamptons high society of the 30's and 40's, and by the 70's are living in squalor with a bunch of diseased cats in their old mansion called Grey Gardens. Both are hilariously insane and out of touch with reality, it's a form of verité (truth in French, sorry to be condescending) filmmaking first pioneered in the 60's by D.A. Pennebaker. It's one type of documentary aesthetic, for some it works for others, it doesn't. One more I'd like to mention quickly before we jump into the list is actually a documentary series directed by Michael Apted and a social experiment the likes of which the film community has never seen, have you not guessed it yet? It's the Up Series. Damn you Netflix for taking it down! It starts with 7 UP and checks in with a group of 7 year old kids from all walks of British class society, and returns every 7 years. The latest installment was 56 up, so do the math there are 8 films. It's truly monumental and astounding work and will really make you think about your life and how insignificant a lot of bullshit is. That's a crass way to put it...it will make you re-examine your priorities, and have a full on existential crisis. ALSO, BEFORE I FORGET, I HAVE TO TELL YOU; WATCH MAKING OF A MURDERER. I CAN'T INCLUDE IT IN THIS LIST BECAUSE TECHNICALLY IT'S A SERIES NOT A FILM, BUT MY GOD IT'S SERIOUSLY SOME OF THE BEST FILMMAKING AND IS WHAT DOCUMENTARIES ARE AND SHOULD BE ALL ABOUT. IT'S THE BEST, DO IT. Without further ado...here's 10 I found of all years and perspectives and aesthetics in no particular order:

Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father (dir. Kurt Kuenne)
Edited, composed, written, directed and everything else by Kurt Kuenne this doc examines the life of his best friend, doctor Andrew Bagby who was maliciously murdered by a spurned ex-girlfriend and a film he made for the child she became pregnant with shortly before she killed his father, so that he would one day be able to watch it and know the father that he would never meet, but you would never believe what ends up happening. It's a punch in the gut, and it lingers. That's why it's brilliant.

Brother's Keeper (dir. Joe Berlinger)
Somewhere in the middle of nowhere, literally ...three illiterate farmer brothers live quietly on their father's land, until their father dies under mysterious circumstances. One of the brother's is accused of the murder and considering he's barely able to communicate, is pinned against a criminal justice system that wants his blood, and he's barely prepared to help himself. It's also shot very much in the style of Grey Gardens and really puts you in a completely bleak and uncomfortable place.

Tabloid (dir. Errol Morris)
This will not be the first time that Academy Award winning filmmaker Errol Morris will show up on the list, and this is the kind of film that John Waters would make if he made documentaries. It's so campy and lurid that it's wildly delicious. White trash beauty queen Joyce McKinney falls in love with a poor dope who happens to be mormon, her story goes that they kidnapped him and brainwashed him, so she kidnapped him back (I guess) took him to London and had sex with him while he was in 'captivity' to get rid of all the mormon nonsense in his head. This movie really speaks to the whole 'truth is stranger than fiction' thing.

Hot Girls Wanted (dir. Jill Bauer)
A Netflix original, this film is deeply disturbing and very matter-of-fact about a hugely controversial matter. It takes us into the seedy world of amateur porn, the irony of which is that it's actually not amateur. Girls are hired by a Craigslist pimp of sorts, specifically because they look very young innocent inexperienced and virginal; not Jenna Jameson clones. Apparently amateur porn is the hottest thing on the internet and sells more than regular porn. The industry thrives in Florida, where the laws are more laxed than California and you don't have to use protection (I know). It takes you inside a dorm of sorts where girls from small towns want to make it as porn stars. How's that for an American dream for ya?

Blackfish (dir. Gabriela Cowperthwaite)
Even if you care fuck all about marine mammals and have seen that Free Willy movie too many times, you need to see this film. It is not a nature documentary, it is not a crime documentary, and it's not an exposé, well kinda. Remember when Sea World was a thing? This film concerns itself with one particular whale in captivity of what someone referred to as a barbaric prison of sorts; Tilikum; an Orca who was kidnapped in the 70's in the Atlantic Ocean and brought to Sea World to be their main breeder. It talks at length in layman's terms about how intelligent regal creatures like Orca whales shouldn't be in captivity and what happens to them when they are, particularly what happened with Tilikum and his trainer Dawn Brancheau.

The Thin Blue Line (dir. Errol Morris)
This might be one of the greatest movies every made. It actually resulted in the exoneration of a wrongfully convicted man for Murder 1, and in the state of Texas we know what that means. Randall Adams and a kid named David Harris were implicated in the shooting of a police officer after they were pulled over for a minor traffic violation. My man Morris loves reenactments, and utilizes sound like no one before him. What he recreates is dream-like and entrancing; recreating a scenario from many different points of view, points in time, and perspectives. It's an incredible story told by an incredible storyteller.

Into the Abyss (dir. Werner Herzog)
Veteran buzzkill director Werner Herzog has been making documentaries about death, nothingness, emptiness, depression, all that fun stuff for 4 decades now. He's a total picker-upper, but I have to hand it to him, every single film narrative or documentary has been absolutely unforgettable. This is one of his latest efforts, concerning two inmates on Death Row in....Texas (sensing a pattern here?) Both were convicted when they were barely legal adults, and both are very close to the end. It's like the updated movie version of the Truman Capote classic 'In Cold Blood'.

The Queen of Versailles (dir. Lauren Greenfield)
This is a genius film, and if you've not seen it yet, well you're a loser and I hate you. Jackie Siegel is the small town blonde wannabe model who married a man her father's age; the wealthy financier and Vegas builder David Siegel. (picture a Jewish Donald Trump) So now they live in luxury in the Everglades, and Jackie's nouveau riche poor taste is too hilarious for even Woody Allen to parody. I mean she has a literal gold throne. She decides to buy a property that (I shit you not, is twice as big as The White House) and model it architecturally and aesthetically after the Palace of Versailles, but then the recession hits, the Siegels loos everything, and keeping up appearances becomes an increasing but hilarious struggle.

Tab Hunter Confidential (dir. Jeffrey Schwartz)
I worked at the PR firm who ran the publicity campaign for this film so I'm a bit biased, but I'm also biased because I love the stories of closeted actors from the 50's who had to hide their true selves and live in lavender marriages as matinee idols as not to lose their career a la Montgomery Clift and Rock Hudson. Tab Hunter was the Chris Hemsworth of that period. He was like a Hitler wet dream; blonde, athletic, tall, blue eyes, large package, and a face that looks like it was carved out of marble by Michelangelo. This autobiographical film let's Tab Hunter himself do the talking about the golden age of Hollywood and it's big world of secrets; him being the ultimate embodiment of that.

The Hunting Ground (dir. Kirby Dick)
Gaga wrote the Oscar nominated song that brought everyone to tears when she performed it at the ceremony while behind her, standing vigilant, were many victims of sexual abuse on college campuses. Director Kirby Dick always pushes the envelope, whether it being exposing the hypocrisy of the MPAA or taking down sexism in the military. He's better at exposé that Michael Moore, he's probably the best at it. This film is going to sink its fingernails deep under your skin. Especially if you went to what you thought was an elite school like I did, and after I graduated with my master's from Columbia, I do remember the Mattress Girl, and this film shows us that she's just one of hundreds of thousands, and that's not even what's the most shocking.

Below, visual supplements to entice you:

AND FINALLY...

What Silver Linings Playbook is Really About

2016-07-31T21:28:00.001-07:00

Tiffany confronts Pat at her sister's dinner when she realizes she's in a sea of bullshit.

Marketed as a romantic comedy, by the rogue director David O. Russell, that should be a clue right there. He's not exactly a by-the-numbers filmmaker. This is definitely his crowning achievement even though I absolutely love I Heart Huckabees. This might be a little difficult for me to explain because I can relate to a lot of it but here we go.

Set in Philadelphia, a place not exactly known for dealing with mental illness by any other means than a stigma, and coming from LA where everyone is therapy'd out to the point of paralysis, I saw the script as exactly what it was. Two brilliant actors play the two 'romantic leads', who meet at first, hate each other and by the end of the movie they're in love. Common rom com trope yes? But that's not the point of the film.

Woody Allen might stick his neuroses in every single film he directs, but those are sadly a bit dated when people were still on Judy Garland cocktails and everything was a bit Valley of the Dolls. It was a very black and white time. Either you were nuts, or you were sane, and if you were the former you had all the pills in the world to choose from, which usually made things worse. Perhaps the last film that accurately portrayed mental illness was One Flew Over a Cuckoo's Nest, which is literally set in the insane asylum, ironically where the protagonist (Jack Nicholson) is pretending to be crazy to do time in an asylum rather than prison. There you have the schism between the 'sane' and the 'insane'. Still a bit black and white, but so full of pathos and honesty, that it still holds up today.

For these two, the best type of therapy is not in a doctor's office.

Let's examine Silver Linings because its a film full of grey areas, and it's in those that we figure out what the movie is actually about. Pat (Bradley Cooper) is just getting out of the looney bin after 8 months because he assaulted the man screwing his wife. He's now obsessed with being 'sane' and finding a silver lining, and getting his life back together, which in itself are all insane notions considering that a psychotic break usually does not allow you to go back to everything just as it used to be. I had a friend like that. No names, but she thought she saw the light, and because she did her Master's degree in Social Work made it her mediocre mission to chain-smoke a pack a day, rearrange the furniture in her Hollywood apartment literally every single day (we were living together at the time) to keep herself busy so that she wouldn't think about drinking or getting back with her ex-boyfriend. She loved to analyze people and I was definitely one of her guinea pigs. I hated it. I hate being mentally dissected. It's bullshit.

As I said before, people in LA are therapy'd out, so I was able to even prompt my shrink about what I thought was going on before he could even get it out. That's why I identify with the Jennifer Lawrence's character. Tiffany is a girl with a broken wing (I think that line is actually used verbatim in the film), who's husband just died, but that's not why she's considered crazy. On the surface she's actually probably the smarter of the two. Pat (Cooper) always loves to point out how she misbehaves or behaves in means that are not good 'social skills', and she immediately calls him on his bullshit. 'You say more inappropriate things than appropriate things' is one of her more famous lines. The most important difference between the two of them; both experienced trauma leading to a psychotic break, and Jennifer is the one who moved on, while Bradley Cooper still hasn't, and is completely obsessed with the past. Backstory: Tiffany's husband died; a cop in the line of duty. After which she got fired from her job for 'sleeping with the entire office'. Pat still judges her, because he thinks that he once was crazy and now he's absolutely fine. Tiffany sees this and says 'you think I'm crazier than you'. Perfect. Who is he to judge?

'You're afraid to be alive! You're a hypocrite!'

There's a cute exchange when they talk about all the pills that they are on and don't take any longer, but who isn't on some kind of shit these days; does that make us all crazy? Didn't you ever read 'Prozac Nation'?

The plot is in essence irrelevant. It's about two people realizing that they will never be perfect and never find the life that they once had, and the 2 hour run-time of quippy exchanges, completely blowouts, and epic shutdowns illustrates that crazy is a grey area.

What gets me the most is how much Pat judges everyone (with the exception of Chris Tucker's character). He even gets on his dad (Robert De Niro) about being OCD, like most of us aren't. In Philly, where regularly going to a therapist is still considered taboo, he is very uncomfortable in his current state. Tiffany basically tells him the truth, it's one of the greatest Lear-esque monologues in film history. 'I opened up to you and you judged me, you're afraid to be alive, you're a hypocrite, you're an asshole'. All of these things true.

What's most telling about this movie is that it's not romantic at all, though both main characters have great chemistry and are very attractive. You know they are going to end up together; you just do. The way they get there is a brilliant examination of life in a black and white world of sane and insane, the pitfalls and the highs and lows that it brings. At least Tiffany is self-aware. Pat eventually comes around, and only then can they be together. There is no such thing as normal behavior, and there is actually no such thing as normal. Sorry if that's crushing some of you right now, it's just the truth. And I guess Pat was right in trying to overcome his 'mental illness' by finding that damn silver lining he keeps referring to, while Tiffany was right to hate him for his hypocrisy.

The actual romantic angle only manifests itself in the last 15 minutes of the film, because it's in the backseat for most of it.

The only rom-com element in this movie is when both Pat and Tiffany realize that (excuse the cliché) they are not perfect or normal, but they are perfect for each other. And the normalcy that they find is not a normal that is permanent or without its haptic disorders, but its theirs and they are better confronting their demons together. This sounds like love conquers all and that mental illness can be overcome by finding someone just as or even more fucked up than you, but it's not. For everything that happens between the two, it is never a co-dependent relationship and (again, excuse the cliché) they are only able to move on when they confront everything that has brought them to the mental state that they are currently living and allowing themselves to admit that they are not in fact normal, and perhaps that's actually the best thing that could happen to them.

Below: A making-of featurette.

Let's Talk About 'The Shining' #Kubrick

2016-07-30T22:19:00.000-07:00

First scene and I already don't trust her, even though she's the 'victim'

It's Saturday night, I cancelled my plans so that I could watch The Shining by myself...at night. This is crazy for many reasons, I should be around three-dimensional people or so they keep telling me, it's night time, and though I've seen the movie, oh I don't know, a BILLION times, it still scares the living christ out of me. I recently went to a Kubrick exhibit, granted it was almost exactly the same as the Kubrick exhibit I went to see with a bunch of former NYU folk at LACMA in LA, but it's still great. There's always something new to learn about Kubrick. Although The Shining is not my favorite film of his by a long shot, it does basically create the blueprint of modern horror, of haptic psychological thrillers, and mysterious happenings and endings; open-ended storylines, bizarre manifestations, and best of all...NO JUMP SCARES.

I'm writing as I'm watching it, so let's examine a few things. The film starts off with the already terrifying looking Shelley Duvall (Wendy Torrance) shoving some unimportant exposition down our throats that give us an insight into the family. The husband Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) doesn't drink because he had a violent episode with the kid in the family Danny after a few too many adult pops.

So immediately you're thinking, she's going to be trouble, something's up with her...and when they check into the Overlook Hotel, she's just a little too excited and too nice. So we focus our attention on her being possessed by a baby killing demon or something. Kubrick has a thing for agoraphobia. And the first scenes at the Overlook Hotel play to that brilliantly. It's a huge open space that when people talk to each other, there are echoes. This comes back into play later, but not before Kubrick turns the atmosphere on its side when it is revealed that the Torrance family will only be using this tiny room in the corner of the hotel as living quarters.

The first serious scare that we get is when Danny is playing darts in the game room as his parents take a tour of the hotel. We hear a weird meandering noise, that's basically the only way I can explain it, it's not music, but it's so ominous it's scary on its own. He turns his head and instead of immediately pointing out his POV, Kubrick meditates on Danny's reaction which is stoic AF. That's when we see those twins for the first time. Strangely enough had that noise not been playing in the background, we might think that they are just guests leaving the Overlook just like everyone else, but they just stand there. The longer they do, the scarier they become. Now we have horror movies where apparitions jump out at people grab them, push them down stairs etc. But admit it, the scariest thing you can experience is feeling like you're being watched.

Before I continue, I'm not going to incorporate ANYTHING about Stephen King's novel into this. I'm judging the movie and the movie only. You would think that Kubrick's brilliant blue-print and first and only horror film would change the landscape, but there's a reason why it still scares the pants off even the most hardened Clint Eastwood type grown man, because nothing has ever been more frightening.

The scene that everyone remembers, even if they haven't seen the movie, and that has been the only take away from The Shining that filmmakers use as a horror trope today.

At this time I'd like to defer to one of the scariest moments in my opinion, one that involves one character, and it seems like that's where his biggest thrills are. It's not Jack confronting Wendy with the infamous 'Give me the bat' routine, nor Jack discovering what's in room 237, though that is pretty gross/horrifying. It's when Jack is upset because Wendy blamed him for being rough with Danny again, though it was actually one of the ghosts. A tracking cam, which is so important in this movie moves backwards as he walks towards it unbelievably pissed off, screaming to himself. That noise again permeates through the halls, and you realize at that moment it's not the ghosts of the Overlook we should be scared of, but Jack. In that, Kubrick turns the film from supernatural horror to psychological horror.

I'm sure I'm not giving you anything you haven't already heard in the film Room 237, but I'm trying to stay away from things that are too easy like the damn hedge maze, the scooter scene down the hallway, etc. Yes those are iconic shots that Kubrick so brilliantly messes with before the payoff. If you pay attention, Danny rides around on that scooter about 5 different times before those two girls appear to him again. And Wendy and Danny take a morose stroll through the hedge maze for fun before it ever becomes a game of kill your kid with an axe.

Perhaps a symbol of the labyrinthine craziness of Jack Torrance's mind...I don't know, ask the weirdo's from Room 237.

This movie is so terrifying because it literally messes with your head. When we first meet Dick Hallorann, there's something off about him too. Kubrick decides not to distinguish between who is the scary influence and who is the innocent. He confuses you to basically be on edge about the whole thing. It's pretty brilliant. Kubrick loves to meditate on every scene, stretching every scene makes it somehow more frightening.

Also, to finish off because I'm rambling, and some of my favorite parts are coming up; what is it that makes this movie fucking shit balls scary? Different from all other horror films ever? It's the setting, not the characters. Not the humans, not the ghosts, not the weird hallucinations, or people's ability to 'shine'.

Filming the 'give me the bat' scene.

The Overlook Hotel itself symbolizes people's fear of being alone in a large ominous place, it's uncomfortable, it's disconcerting, and in the case of The Shining, it drives people completely out of their minds. I don't even find the Wendy chase sequences that frightening except for her face with the bulging eyes and her clenching a knife like she's doing shake weight exercises, nor do I find Jack Nicholson's thousand yard stare that particularly uneasy. It's the scenes that are absolutely quiet, eerie, and you know that something is just not right. The music is great tonality for that. But what are we most afraid of? I'll just speak for myself, but it's long hallways. Swear to god. The Overlook is full of them, whether they be in the the hotel itself or in the hedge maze. The unknown behind every corner is truly something that is universally terrifying, and my opinion of why Kubrick kept the film so open ended, is because it's not about what actually the fuck is going on. The sound of the typewriter, the tracking shot of the scooter, the look on Dick Hallorann's face when Danny shines to him. Those are the images, sounds, and occurrences that sink their teeth under your skin. It's a weird setting for a weird film, and it's not supposed to make sense; it's supposed to scare the living shit out of you. Mission accomplished.

Dance Like Everyone's Watching: Hollywood's Best Choreographed Musicals

2016-07-19T21:50:00.000-07:00

About a year or so ago, I did a piece on my favorite musical numbers for any movie. It could be a drama, contemporary, anything. I mean I even put Burlesque on that bill. If you've been following my IG, you know that I have an unhealthy obsession with dance, kind of Zelda Fitzerald style, and it's freaking hard! The whole point is to make it look easy. Also, as someone obsessed with musical theater, and the recent success of Hamilton, I'd like to pay tribute to choreography on FILM rather than the stage. A little bit of history first: Choreography for film started with Busby Berkley and the addition of sound. Trained dancers like Joan Crawford got their start playing chorus girls in the line-up of circular kaleidoscopic shots or one of the girls dancing in a swimming pool around Esther Williams. This transitioned to the Fred Astaire/Ginger Rodgers era, whom I don't think made a bad film, and could dance on air. Fred Astaire's protégé was also his contemporary, the incomparable Gene Kelly who fused his own unique brand of ballet and jazz with ballroom and took the movie musical to new heights. Let's not forget the guy tapped as well. He really was the whole package. I honestly don't think anyone's better. He ruled the movie musical landscape with Astaire until like every dancer, he got a bit old, and tired and before you know it, it was the 70's, and former Broadway boy-wonder choreographer Bob Fosse was making movies. His approach totally revolutionized the genre and indirectly gave birth to all that dancing you see in music videos. Whereas back in the day, the musical numbers were shot on a singular presidium arch, where the camera followed the dancer, Fosse would shoot his numbers from about 20 angles and in a frenzy edited them to free his dancers from gravity. You can call it 'montage dance'. Also, his style was unlike anything done before. Even the most experienced dancers said that he was by far the hardest choreographer to work with and would come home from shooting covered in bruises. Ironically, his numbers look effortless, and his contribution to cinema (though he only made 4 films) cannot be overlooked. Without getting any deeper, here are my favorite musical numbers from movie musicals, in order this time.

Red Light from Fame (1980) choreographer: Debbie Allen
I love this film, because I went to art school, it was very close to my heart. This film takes place in the 80's, in what would become the Laguardia school for Dramatic Arts. Shot in perhaps the worst time in New York's history when the whole city was filthy and in turmoil, it centers around a bunch of misfit kids who find their calling in a high school that allows them to express themselves through art. In this particular sequence, a rather ammeter and awkward wannabe dancer named Shirley auditions with a friend of hers, Leroy, who just happens to dance like a motherfucker, he ends up stealing her audition and getting in whilst she is left rejected. 'Who wants to go to a fucking school of learnin' dance anyway?' she shouts.

Concerto in F for Piano and Orchestra from An American in Paris (1951) choreographer: Gene Kelly
Our story concerns...you guessed it; an American in Paris who falls in love with a mousy but beautiful ballet dancer played by stunning French actress Leslie Caron. Story goes is that she was a classically trained prima whom Gene Kelly had to teach to dance more 'contemporary', except for this one sequence when they each dance in their own style introducing themselves and their cultures to each other.

Ain't There Anyone Here for Love? from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) choreographer: Don't Know
Forget the whole Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend number that's too iconic for its own good. This particular number is so deep in the closet it's hilarious. Jane Russell is bored at a gym amongst a plethora of male athletes at the gym who are all training for the olympics that they are all on their way to on a yacht. Oh and Marilyn is in the movie too. While they work out in their peach vintage skivvies, Jane is singing about why no one wants to hang out with her, I wonder why. The beauty of this sequence is how en pointe all of the male athletes/dancers are with their exercise. And Jane's not too bad either.

Simon Zealotes from Jesus Christ Superstar (1973) choreographer: Don't Know
I saw this live in San Francisco and could not have been more disappointed because the beautiful songs from the rock opera penned by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice are totally lost without dynamic choreography. A bunch of obviously trained dancers in hippie garb create beautiful scenes of dance married with music, none more memorable than the Simon Zealotes sequence, when ...Simon Zealot sings the praises of Jesus Christ with a huge chorus of hippies/disciples.

Cheek to Cheek from Top Hat (1935) choreographer: Fred Astaire
I have to throw at least one Fred and Ginger movie into here and this is by far my favorite. Never has there been a more brilliant dance couple than Fred and Ginger. They are literally built to dance with each other. It's a lovely little romantic comedy, with a lot of tongue-in-cheek humor and was made quite early so it put Fred Astaire on the map.

Cell Block Tango from Chicago (2002) choreographer: Rob Marshall
Rob Marshall worships at the alter of Bob Fosse who originally put up this play on Broadway in the 70's, and it shows. A lot of people were nervous if he could deliver, but fusing the Fosse essence with his cinematic skill really made for a great musical in an age where no one cared about musicals anymore. Every single number is brilliant, but the one that is most dynamic, eye-catching, and Fosse-esque is the violently colorful and fierce Cell Block Tango.

Everything Old is New Again from All That Jazz (1979) choreographer: Bob Fosse
Yay! Now to the Fosse part, and this is just the first. Prior to this film, Fosse had had a heart attack, and after he recovered, Shirley McLaine suggested that he write a film about that experience. Roy Scheider plays Fosse, and Fosse's own girlfriend Ann Reinking plays...his girlfriend. There are amazing numbers in this sequence but one that truly stands out is when he goes back home and his girlfriend and daughter Michelle perform a surprise 'welcome back' dance to Everything Old is New Again. It's minimalist, but very heart-warming.

Moses Supposes from Singin' in the Rain (1952) choreographers: Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen
This could be the greatest movie musical of all time; scratch that, to me, it always will be. Every single number is absolutely fabulous and you're probably wondering why I chose this number instead of the iconic Singin' in the Rain with Gene Kelly dancing around with an umbrella in the rain. Moses Supposes is a number that includes hoofer Donald O'Connor who plays best friend to Gene Kelly's movie star who now has to learn how to talk considering the movie concerns the advent of sound to film. During a lesson, the two decide to take over and just have some amazing tap dancing, high jumping fun in their teacher's office. They're dancing style is so different that it compliments each other much like Fred and Ginger, and overall, it's just really really fun.

Mein Herr from Cabaret (1971) choreographer: Bob Fosse
This is probably one of my favorite movies; not just musicals, movies. I think last time I did an all time best list it was #3. The movie concerns a showgirl played brilliantly by Liza Minelli in Weimar Republic Germany right at the onset of looming Nazism. She has high hopes of becoming a grand actress, but has to face a lot of harsh realities, and despite this bleak exterior, she always escapes to her place of work the Kit Kat Club, where she headlines. The last song says it all. 'What good is sitting alone in your room? Life is a cabaret ol' chum, come to the cabaret'. This particular dance sequence, where all of the Cabaret's performers dance with chairs has been mimicked more times than I care to remember, but this one is and always will be the best.

Prologue from West Side Story (1961) choreographer: Jerome Robbins
Bet you thought Fosse was going to top my list? Well this was on TCM the other day and I just completely could not believe what I was seeing. This musical is an anomaly. The music, composed by legend Steven Sondheim was very jazz-based and improvisational and the dancing went along with it. A lot of the original Broadway cast reprised their roles in the film, and all of the dancing is not only ridiculously complicated set to jazz hybrid music, but looks so graceful and easy. But try doing one of them at home, and you'll knock over all of your furniture. The dancers/actors later said that when principal photography wrapped, they all burned their knee pads in from of Jerome Robbins' trailer.

Below, any videos I can find regarding the aforementioned numbers, now go dance your heart out!:

11 Things I Loved In The 90's: Part Deux

2016-07-11T18:06:00.000-07:00

Hard to sum up everything awesome about the 90's in just 11 things. Here's 11 more. Because 22 just about covers it. Look at how good my math is. So here's some more stuff that gives me a nostalgia boner. Again, in no particular order:

Raves.
Before you Coachella jerk offs made music festivals basic, and mainstream, raves were the it thing in the 90's. I'm not going to incriminate myself and talk about ALL of it, but it was our Studio 54. I was a bit of a Candy Kid, wearing bracelets up to my elbows and honest to god thought House music was the shit. (no comment). This was back in the day where you had to go to like an abandoned warehouse, get a secret map, go to another location get another secret map and a glitter butterfly sticker and finally find yourself in an abandoned warehouse between stab street and murder avenue. Good times.

Nu Metal.
Yes darlings, your angelic friend was once full on into baggy wide legged pants, the Vans Warped Tour and Korn with a backwards R. It was all very angsty and alternative; two adjectives that defined my teens. Fun fact: I was a cheerleader despite all of that my junior year of high school and our big end routine was to Limp Bizkit's Rollin' yeah...I get sick just thinking about it.

The Bee Girl.
If you had ANY time in the 90's the damn bee girl from the Blind Melon 'No Rain' music video is seared into your memory. No one even remembers the song, or what the bee girl has to do with it. They honestly don't go together but she is doomed to spend the rest of her life living down being the definitive cliché of the 90's.

Ben Affleck and Matt Damon winning Best Screenplay.
Before Batfeck and Jason Bourne, there was Ben and Matt, two kids barely old enough to drive who wrote arguably the best script of that year, turned into Good Will Hunting with iconoclast director Gus Van Sant at the helm. But it's their speech after receiving the golden naked dude presented to them by Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau that I can watch over and over again.

The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert.
In 1991 Freddie Mercury, legendary frontman of Queen added his name to an ever growing list of casualties of AIDS. By then, Queen was my favorite band (my dad taught me well) and a year later his remaining band mates accompanied by some of musics' biggest acts such as Elton John, George Michael, David Bowie and Annie Lennox paid tribute to him in an unprecedented concert at Wembley Stadium, the profits of which went to various AIDS charities. It gives me goosebumps to watch it to this day and though most people's favorite part was Elton John's duet with Axl Rose of 'Bohemian Rhapsody', but George Michael singing 'Somebody to Love' steals the show.

Life After Death.
After the fatal shooting of its artist, the aptly titled album 'Life After Death' hit Tower Records, and yeah I camped out for a CD. Helmed by anthems like 'Hypnotize' and 'Mo Money Mo Problems', even us white dorks were able to appreciate its artistry, sadly it would be the last of Biggie's gifts. Put it on a loop and drive aimlessly. Trust me.

O Captain, My Captain.
Again, if you grew up in the 90's this scene from Dead Poets Society is tattooed on your skull. Do you know how much the youtube views jumped after the tragic and untimely death of its star Robin Williams? That's what makes this scene even more resonant now, and even more heartbreaking. I seriously can't watch it without crying, but now it's can't watch it without full on bawling. Fight the power boys.

The 'Closer' music video.
Long before Taylor Swift's annoyingly iconic 'Shake it Off' video, Mark Romanek was just a struggling short film director until Trent Reznor tapped him to direct Nine Inch Nails' breakthrough video for the song 'Closer'. Shot on a hand crank silent 16 mm Bolex similar to the cameras used by Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin and layered with disturbing imagery like a monkey tied to a cross and a pig head spinning on a metal torture contraption I don't have to tell you, I immediately loved it.

Death Row Records.
When Death Row Records was formed in 1991 by Dre, Suge Knight and The D.O.C., it launched some of the greatest artists of the early 90's including Tupac, Snoop, and Nate, and inadvertently ignited hostilities between West coast and East coast rap empires that lead to the untimely deaths of Tupac and the aforementioned Biggie. Beyond the tragedy and politics, Death Row Records gave us kids in the suburbs something we couldn't stop listening to and something that terrified our parents. Talk about two birds.

Welcome to the Dollhouse.
You probably know by now that I don't go for your typical movies, or even a-typical. And it's even more rare that I watch a movie that I still would bear hug today. Welcome to the Dollhouse might be that anomaly. Director Todd Haynes didn't push the envelope, he built an airplane of it and shoved it sideways up Hollywood's ass. It's the most bizarre, non sequitur, heart-felt, and heart-breaking story you'll ever see about an 11 year old. I saw it at 11 and at 32, it still speaks to me.

Paul Verhoeven.
Here's a list for ya. Basic Instinct. Showgirls. Total Recall. Starship Troopers. Need I say more?

Below...more crap!