Old Friends

There's a click

a latch

locking

into place,

a well worn bolt

sliding home

despite time

and the unknown

familiarity

is a certainty

and any

fear

or discomfort

is a flimsy

construct

that falls

away like

so much

torn and feeble

packaging.

'Paterson' A Review

Paterson is a drama film centered around bus driver and poet Paterson in Paterson, NJ, the latest from writer/director Jim Jarmusch. The film follows the routine of Paterson(Adam Driver) over the course of one week. He gets up, has breakfast, walks to work, drives the bus, returns home to have dinner with his wife Laura(Golshifteh Farahani), takes her dog Marvin for a walk and stops in for a drink at his local bar. Over the course of each day he steals time to write poetry, refining throughout the day.

Driver as the anchor of the film is more restrained and compelling than he has ever been. He is the quiet center of this slice-of-life naturalistic tale. He conveys the simple strength and interest of this blue collar poet with a reserve that allows for both humor and a resonant truth. Farahani is similarly naturalistic but whose character is more impulsive, overtly artistic, and charming. A great compliment to Driver's restraint. The two have excellent chemistry and through their performances convey a remarkably balanced and enviable relationship while also showing the necessity for individual lives which in turn compliment the partnership. The supporting cast are all truly wonderful working together to create an American normalcy which is fascinating because of the characters and perspectives which inhabit it. The film also has a refreshing diversity which feels authentic but doesn't pat itself on the back or call attention to itself, it feels like real life rather than contrived casting.

Through repetition and routine the film shows not only the beauty and transcendence available in normal day-to-day life but also provides perhaps one of the most clear portrayals of how inspiration is sought, found, and interpreted. With poems being written, voiced over by Driver, appearing on screen, and then in some cases this process is repeated with the poem being refined we get an authentic sense of the creative process. Although seemingly sedate and predictable the film offers a world of insight on creativity, relationships, compromise, passion, and ambition.

Tranquil yet thrumming with vitality, elevating the work-a-day world to potential enlightenment.

Don't Miss It.

On Truth & Belief

In interviews filmmaker Werner Herzog has said there’s something beyond fact when it comes to art and the human condition, that there is an ecstatic truth that should be aimed for and reached by any means necessary regardless of what is reality, what is “true”. And this ecstatic truth is what resonates with people, reaching a deeper commonality than mundane empirical detail. This was in response to the reveal that some scenes, scenarios, and dialogue in his documentaries were staged. He doesn’t make a distinction between his features and documentaries, they both strive to reach further, beyond minutia to the universal, to the ecstatic truth.

This divide between fact and what I’ll call capital T Truth is more about perception and belief rather than objective reality. More about the spirit than the body. The simple facts of a situation may not reflect the Truth. Facts do not, in and of themselves, create meaning nor do they allow for nuance, context, or interpretation. And as we are all individuals with our own individual ways of thinking and seeing the world which we then weave together to create a personality and perspective and place in society it is no surprise that the baseness of fact has little to do with Truth.

In law it is common knowledge, almost cliche, that eye witness accounts are the least reliable. If you have ten witnesses to an event you’ll have ten different versions of what happened. I acknowledge when it comes to crime the distance between fact and Truth may be shorter I mention it just to highlight that even then, even in court, there is seldom certainty. What I’d like to inspect more is the interpersonal, the emotional, the psychological where the capital T Truth is more important and more elusive.

When I was in grade school one of the books in rotation that my teacher Ms. Melville would read to us was Crow Boy a picture book about a boy ostracized by his classmates for being different and dirty(literally), who made friends with animals but then was brought into the social fold by a new teacher who saw value in him. I loved the story because I was a messy chubby kid and got made fun of a lot, I identified with the Crow Boy, I felt like I was him. And I hoped that, like in the book, there would come a time that my differences would be recognized as strengths. A couple times Ms. Melville even referred to me as Crow Boy which I took as an incredible compliment and sign of affection. It got me through some rough days of bullying.

Years later in high school I was dating Ms. Melville’s daughter Jessy. At one point, out of curiosity and because it still meant a lot to me, I mentioned to Ms. Melville over dinner how she had said I reminded her of the character from Crow Boy when I was her student. She cackled and said “Yeah! You were such a mess!” She went on to say that I reminded her of the character because my hair was always tangled up and my clothes were always rumpled. At the time it was crushing, one of the fundamental building blocks of my identity was a lie.

In high school I auditioned for YAT(Young American Theater) which was the youth program at the local professional theater NAT(New American Theater). I auditioned once and didn’t get in, auditioned the next year and did. I did the Sam Jackson Ezekiel 25:17 monologue from Pulp Fiction and it seemed to go over really well. It was the first audition I’d done where I felt like I’d been a success. YAT more so than plays and musicals at my high school felt competitive, felt legit. It was the first time I felt validated as an artist.

Flash forward to post college, Chicago had chewed me up and spit me out and I had moved back in with my parents. Richard the former artistic director of the now defunct NAT who had cast me in YAT was running a new theater company and he cast me in that particular season’s pseudo comic murder mystery Murder Center Stage. The play ran for two months and at the cast party I mentioned to Richard how informative and inspiring getting into YAT was, how that monologue was the first good work I felt I did. He responded “I cast you because we needed guys and you were the only one that auditioned”. He went on to say, in so many words, that as a teen I was thoroughly mediocre even boring and that my choice of monologue, which I thought edgy and funny, was irrelevant. Ouch.

There’s a line in the movie Adaptation when Donald is dying he says to Charlie “you are what you love, not what loves you”. And this was an epiphany to me when I first saw the film, it was so striking I went back and watched it again the same day. The fact that Ms. Melville was actually kind of cruel and that Richard was calculating and indifferent doesn’t actually matter. Those moments mean something to me, they were two incredibly informative experiences for the man I’ve become, they are part of my capital T Truth. In some ways the solace I found in Crow Boy and the confidence I gained from YAT have nothing to do with them, they can’t touch it, its mine. No, that’s not exactly right, its not a possession, it is me.

There are shades of Truth, spotlights and shadows, its complex. I have friends I loved dearly who are no longer my friends because of time and distance or some kind of falling out. That doesn’t leech meaning from the depth of our friendship when it was in its prime. Almost all my ex-lovers I don’t communicate with, some of them I still harbor some resentment towards, and they may have forgotten me entirely or feel regret about being with me or perhaps even nurture ongoing hostility regardless I value all those I have ever loved or had a connection with however brief, its part of my Truth, its made me who I am. And their animosity or shame or indifference doesn’t effect that. I don’t need a person, place or thing to reciprocate my feelings in order for them/it to give me value. My capital T Truth is not dependent on corroboration only my own personal belief.

One final example. College was rough for me and, looking back, I think I was searching for a place, searching for an identity. And by happenstance I was introduced to Johnny Cash. I fell in love with his music, his style, and what he stood for. I bought a pair of black cowboy boots and started wearing black dress clothes every day. I learned his music on guitar and I began to learn more about him. In his autobiography and in the biopic Walk The Line there is reference to him getting sober and turning from a life of drugs and booze and sex to a more spiritual and political lifestyle. He was a warrior for the common man, for the righteous. And even at 20 with my alcoholism still slowly percolating this aspect of Cash, this sober Rebel Poet persona is what I latched onto the hardest.

A couple years ago a definitive biography of Johnny Cash came out. In it the author, a friend of the Cash family and basically their familial historian, debunks a number of Cash myths some of which he himself perpetuated. The reality is that Cash struggled with abstinence from drugs his entire life on and off and never gave up drinking entirely. So in reality he was never actually sober. The same was true of June Carter whose purse was always full of prescription medications. He goes on to say that even after they were married both of them were periodically unfaithful to each other into their 60’s. Reading this I was stunned. But then upon reflection I realized I didn’t actually care.

I don’t care about the “facts” of his life. I care about the man, what he represented, and the stories he told. I care about what he meant to me, how he shaped my identity and worldview and ultimately how in some ways he helped me get sober by providing an example even if it was technically "false". The reality of the situation is not the Truth. Regardless, if the story of Cash crawling into a cave with suicidal intent and then being saved by God and led out to the figurative and literal light, is fact doesn’t mean its not True. I believe in the story and I believe in him. I believe in him because I choose to believe, because the image and idea of Johnny Cash means more to me than the reality.

Now I’m not talking about the perversion or dismissal of fact. I’m not talking about politics or policy or the news. I’m talking about the personal, the emotional, the ecstatic truth. I’m talking about the human heart. In affairs of the heart there is no such thing as cold fact. You can dictate your Truth.

'Fences' A Review

Fences is a drama film, adapted from the August Wilson play of the same name. In 1950s Pittsburgh Troy(Denzel Washington), a trash collector, and his wife Rose(Viola Davis) live and love and raise their son Cory(Jovan Adepo). Cory is an aspiring and talented football player, supported by Rose but stifled by Troy because of his suspicions of professional sports due to his time in the Negro Leagues and falling short of the MLB. Time passes and tensions mount as Cory rebels and Troy is forced to reveal a familial betrayal.

Both Davis and Washington give tour de force performances- complex, emotional, human turns that elevate working day-to-day existence and struggle to an impactful comment and resonant commonality. The supporting cast is mostly flawless with Stephen McKinley Henderson as Bono Troy's friend and Mykelti Williamson as Troy's brother Gabe both giving excellent fully formed vibrant turns. Adepo as Cory is sufficient but some potential tension and nuance is left unfulfilled, perhaps crowded out or cowed by the scope and range of his onscreen parents.

There is a startling and effecting lack of score in the film, it relies first and foremost on the actors to give the characters and story clarity without the assistance of emotional orchestral swells and the film is infinitely better for this restraint. There are some odd camera flourishes that seem either out of place or overwrought but they don't ultimately detract from powerful and harmonic performances.

An emotionally brutal but incredibly potent American story.

See It.

Lashing Out

We can all be testy
when hungry
or tired
or for any reason
given the desolate
political landscape
in which we're all trapped
but no one is a punching bag
no bystander(or friend)
should be the recipient
of misplaced frustration
there is no excuse
for cruelty
however slight
directed
however inadvertently
at those we care about
or even
those we don't.

'Split' A Review

Split is a supernatural thriller about teenagers who are abducted in a mall parking lot and come to locked in a cellar. It becomes clear relatively quickly that Claire(Haley Lu Richardson) and Marcia(Jessica Sula) were the original targets and the third captive Casey(Anya Taylor-Joy) was taken more because of circumstance. Casey is more reserved and calculating, seemingly more capable of dealing with the current terrifying situation. Their captor Kevin(James McAvoy) has dissociative identity disorder with 23 separate personalities, two of which have gone rogue to perpetrate the kidnapping with unclear but nefarious intention.

Taylor-Joy gives a great performance in her follow up to this past winter's The Witch. She provides depth, confidence, and convey's an authenticity that is vital in a film that could easily veer off into camp or cliche without her as the cornerstone. McAvoy gives an equally dynamic performance but has a bit more freedom given he plays multiple characters, he has the opportunity to go a bit more wild which he takes full advantage of. He imbues each persona with nuance and subtlety making each of them distinctive and different. His turn is mesmerizing in its range but he maintains commitment with each identity so it never becomes a gimmick.

Although mostly entertaining there is one glaring issue with the narrative that brings the film down. Taylor-Joy's character Casey is given a somewhat vague and completely unnecessary series of flashbacks that imply she has been physically and/or sexually abused by a relative. As the film goes on it seems the purpose of this is only to service the clean resolution of the plot not in any way to give the character depth. On top of this series of flashback being offensive and contrived it is not needed. Taylor-Joy's performance is dynamic enough to infer all the information and back story required for the film's conclusion.

An enjoyable if somewhat flawed return to form for M. Night Shyamalan.

Rent It.

'Lion' A Review

Lion is a drama about a boy separated from his family in India, his journey cross country, his struggles on the street before he's eventually picked up and put into an orphanage. Saroo(Sunny Pawar) is eventually adopted by an Australian couple. Time passes. As an adult Saroo(Dev Patel) has little regard for his origin but after eating an Indian pastry at a friend's dinner party memories begin flooding back. Sacrificing his relationship with girlfriend Lucy(Rooney Mara) and neglecting his adopted mother Sue(Nicole Kidman) he begins obsessively searching Google Earth for a sign of his home town.

Pawar and the other actors in the first act of the film, which takes place solely in India and in which there is little to no English, give some incredible evocative performances. India feels alive not in a romantic way, which we've seen before, but in a very real way. The landscape and the people draw you in with their reality and honesty. The first act of the film is utterly captivating. The second act, when Saroo grows up, feels somewhat confused and lethargic. Patel and Kidman are both great actors, they do well enough(Kidman has a great effecting monologue at one point) but the action and the motivation of the characters are both muddled. Mara especially is hung out to dry playing the kind of classic dimensionless girlfriend Hollywood has come to rely on so needlessly. The final act of the film is played well with substantial emotion but it feels, given the laborious second act, somewhat unearned.

An interesting if uneven dramatic adventure.

Rent It.

Healthy Argument

there is satisfaction
in impassioned dispute-
sitting with fellow performers
né artists and dreamers
drunk on righteousness
raising ones voice
to not quite a yell
directing clarity and force
like a thrown spear
at the respected
oposition,
there is a satisfying boiling
that comes from this clash
of perspectives
the friction of differing
objectives
especially when debating
not politics, money, or religion
but that oh so subjective:
creative predilection
perhaps I wouldn't
derive so much glee
from the theororetical
confrontation
if the truth weren't so nebulous
or, in reality, irrelevant.

Maintain A Little Mystery

One of the best and worst things about improv is its ephemeral nature and as an outgrowth of that, as a practitioner, this process of consistently striving but never arriving. There is no end point, no mastery, no perfect. And because of that it, for the most part, retains a challenge and can, potentially, consistently deliver satisfaction. So the path of someone who does improv is riddled with small victories and discoveries(as well as elongated plateaus and petite defeats). I had a little victory, a little epiphany at the Deep Schwa show tonight.

Although every couple years we incorporate new members a lot of the people on the team have some substantial time together. And after literal years of performing together it becomes much easier to identify your habits and go-tos. With time comes awareness and with awareness you can slow things down and make more deliberate choices.

The first scene I did in the show tonight was with Andy we were a father(me) and son(him) and it was his fifteenth birthday. As was custom in the family I gave him a long-ago shed rattlesnake skin that he had to wear against his skin tied around his belly. The suggestion for the show was psoriasis so my pull was basically just "skin" for the scene. I had read a fantasy book years ago where there was a shapechanger that in their human form had a snakeskin wrapped around their bare torso, so that was where my head went. The thing being although my intent for it was to have some kind of magical connotation I didn't explicitly say that however the way Andy played it and the way it was called back later implied and played with the idea of magic and mystery. Although I didn't state my intent explicitly it was discovered and explored organically by the team.

In a later scene with Jeff I was a student and Jeff was my teacher. He was talking to me about a test I had taken, kind of reprimanding in tone, and I said that I had drawn a raven on it. My idea was that this kid I was play was trying to do magic(I was on a big magic kick for the show, don't know why) and I was trying to evoke Odin's ravens Thought and Memory to help me with the test. I didn't explicitly say this but it was clear there was something kind of odd about what I was doing. Jeff kind of translated that as my character being "creative" and sent me and another student(Craig) out to solve mysteries telling us we were beyond school and had bigger things to do.

In both instances I had a clearer idea than I ultimately put forth and the result was something much more fulfilling. Without me machine-gunning out every specific of my idea, the idea was able to coalesce in a much more nuanced and organic way. I was able to catch myself and only reveal a part of what I was thinking, giving my character some subtext an internal fuel as well as allowing my fellow players to interpret my words and actions with more alacrity than they could have had I been more concrete and specific. And the payoff was not only that it worked, the scenes were successful, but that the team kind of got it anyway maybe not my exact thought but the spirit of what I was going for. I checked my instinct of spewing all my ideas out at once and the result was something way more satisfying.

'Hidden Figures' A Review

Hidden Figures is a historical drama based on the non-fiction book of the same name. The film follows three women in 1962 who work as computers at the segregated West Area Computers division of Langley Research Center. After Sputnik pressure is doubled for the US to get results and  Katherine Goble Johnson(Taraji P. Henson) is promoted to the Space Task Group but is initially dismissed by her colleagues. Mary Jackson(Janelle Monáe) is an aspiring engineer but faces bureaucratic and legal hurdles. Dorothy Vaughan(Octavia Spencer) is the supervisor(in all but name) of the West Area Computers division who struggles for her rightful position as well as teaches herself coding for the newly acquired IBM. The three face and overcome various racial, gender, and professional divides to make the NASA program successful.

Henson is wonderful and understated as the somewhat bookish math genius and plays the set backs with heartbreak but never wavers in her determination or her ultimate fascination with mathematics itself. Spencer is dynamic, as always, giving a layered strong performance without sacrificing emotion or vulnerability. Monáe has the least screen time of the three but provides a nice balance with a more overt combative turn. The three have incredible chemistry and all imbue the film with a textured reality where the big moments are earned and the small moments portray the true injustices and triumphs of the time with more honesty because of how commonplace they seem to be. The supporting cast, most notably Kevin Costner and Glen Powell, all do good work. No character goes through some epiphonic transformation but there is a steady sense of progress, of obstacles being hurdled and preconceptions being slowly shed. Racism and sexism aren't solved but battles are won, it feels like life or perhaps how we hope life should be.

The film has a clarity and tenacity that offers hope through intelligence and resolve. It portrays the ugliness of the bigoted and embittered but doesn't wallow in it. The courage on display isn't cinematic construct its very human.

A grounded and compelling true story anchored by three incredible leads.

See It.

Cookies

flakey
cakey
crumbly
treats

oblong
oval
large
petite

coco
lemon
caramel
yum

any
kind
'cept
butteredrum

there may
come a time
when cookies
are past their prime
but for now
they're all sublime

Expectation

New Year's Eve has always seemed to me like the most impossible of holidays. The desire is for something extravagant and wild, for something year defining, providing some kind of definitive closure. But it almost never fulfills that desire, it is simply a day like any other. And because of that expectation placed on it both externally from society and internally from ourselves it is almost always a disappointment.

I put partying to bed a while ago so NYE isn't really on my radar anymore but it serves as a good example of the kind of inevitable let down high expectations can provoke. And certainly this is true of events or experiences in general, another obvious example is movies. Knowing a lot about the plot of a movie or hearing a lot of positive things about it before seeing it can typically make it unsatisfying. Although more complex this can be true of people.

The relationships we have with friends, family, and significant others are(most likely) the most fulfilling we have in our lives but they can also be the most frustrating(if you're someone who viscerally connects to strangers only to never see them again or has an understated but lasting attraction to co-workers you only know peripherally more power to you but then this is probably not applicable). We are more sensitive with and expect more from our loved ones. And this is reasonable to varying degrees and up to a point. However expectation, especially expectation of behavior, almost always leads to disappointment, irritation, or resentment. Best case scenario you don't necessary notice when someone is behaving how you believe they should, its not necessarily something overt that you would, say, thank them for.

What I'm talking about is a bit beyond day to day minutia although it can manifest that way. Say a friend or relative is messy or chronically late and that bothers you. They live their life in a chaotic way that you find irritating, off putting, or inconvenient. They need to grow up and get it together, be responsible, or so you think. Perhaps someone is always complaining or worrying about this, that, or the other and this bothers you. They're general sense of anxiety is contagious. You tell them not to worry, everything's fine but it has no effect. Perhaps you have a friend or relative who you make all the plans with, you are always the one calling, texting, and scheduling. You resent the effort and want more in return but they may be totally oblivious even unwilling.

The reality is you can't control other people but what you can control is your reactions to them. You can't stop your friend or family member from being late or worrying(hey its whats working for them) but you can choose not to let it effect you. You can't make your friend or family member make plans with you but you can choose to stop reaching out as much. What you can do is set up boundaries. Which aren't inherently negative. Creating some distance or parameters for yourself with people that you love but also drive you a little crazy. In order, not to withdraw, but to get the most out of the relationship for both of you. And this can look like any number of things- limiting contact, limiting conversation topics, only seeing each other in a group or one-on-one. Any number of things. If your asking yourself what that looks like even more explicitly its saying to your friend "let's not talk about work" its making plans to get coffee but not a meal. Simple unobtrusive steps that can make you feel better about the relationships you have with the people you love. You can also decide that perhaps the cost is too high and you don't want to see someone anymore. That's OK too. You aren't obligated to maintain a connection with someone because of history.

Maya Angelou said "When someone shows you who they are, believe them" and keeping that sentiment in mind can help us curb our expectation of those we interact with and in so doing limit how effected we become when our friend who's always late shows up late or when our uber religious relative goes into a diatribe about how wonderful and essential their church is. We all have faults and quirks and are doing the best we can, we all have different interests and different ways of coping, and we can't change and mold each other through strength of will(probably a good thing). So then what can we do. We can be aware of our expectations and not let them dictate how we feel or react, we can set boundaries in order to take full advantage of our relationships. We can be an advocate for ourselves but let those things that don't matter truly slide.

'Silence' A Review

Silence is a historical drama based on the novel of the same name. Portuguese Padres Rodrigues(Andrew Garfield) and Garupe(Adam Driver) set off to find out the fate of their mentor Ferreira (Liam Neeson) who has disappeared in 17th century Japan after the Japanese government has started to prosecute Christians. After getting to Japan they minister to small villages in secret but are eventually discovered and captured by the Grand Inquisitor(Issey Ogata).

Garfield, never terribly magnetic, translates his natural default petulance into this character with little success. It's unclear if he is suppose to be compelling or sympathetic, or what we are suppose to think or feel about him at all, but the result is a portrait of a self righteous naive rather boring young man. Driver is much more adept in bringing some depth to the relatively flat character but is shuffled off screen before he has an opportunity to do much. The two also implement truly bizarre and distracting accents which are more reminiscent of high school kids doing "upper class" than the period and country they're intending to evoke. Neeson, who essentially has only one scene, is stalwart and captivating as always, doesn't bothering with whatever pseudo european dialect the others are attempting and is stronger for it. Although he is only in the film for a couple minutes he has one of the strongest presence, putting feeling into the one actual open discussion of faith which the film engages in. The other strong presence, and essentially the savior of the film, is Ogata who gives depth, humor, menace, and logic to his character. Basically the only character in the film with any nuance, that evokes any actual interest. The Japanese townsfolk who interact most directly with the Padres and who are then persecuted are all played with an over the top fawning eagerness that is confusing and feels disingenuous if not straight up exploitive.

Visually the film is beautiful, we can expect, at least, wonderful cinematography from any Scorsese picture. But that aside Silence is mostly an abject, and boring, failure. For a film seemingly explicitly about faith and spirituality it says little about it. For a film seemingly about culture clash it says little about the East or the West. For a film seemingly about history it provides little to no context for the action taking place. For a film that seemingly believes it has a point or message it is utterly lost. Perhaps for a very small population of suspended Catholics this film may offer some margin of interest but anyone else will be caught in its dull morass.

The latest in a series Scorsese pictures that are all proficiency with no substance.

Don't See It.

Work Ethic

There is some
satisfaction
in the toil
of the office,
in endless emails
answered,
in scanning
mailing
printing
faxing
untold documents
for review
signature
and date
or simply
for your records,
in the confines
of the desk
and rolly chair,
in the focused
application
of effort
and in tasks
completed
checked off
then forgotten.

If this sounds
pedestrian
why
that's because
it is
but amidst
the bleed
and grind
of mundane
employment
you must take
pleasure
where you can.