Food Becomes Her

The past two months or so I've been working on a new play as director which opens tonight at The Annoyance(Fridays at 8pm through 3/6 (no show 2/28)). It's been a great process and has felt really satisfying to work on a play again, to have this tangible and finite creative project to pour some energy and time into. It's been rewarding too to work on something that could be considered genre as I'm such a SFF fan myself. I'm eager to open the show, have people see it, and see what they think/how they react. Creating a piece of art can be really gratifying but you need people to see it, engage with it, for it to really live.

Show blurb: In an alternate-future where the government has subsidized food production and the population has been assigned to regulated sectors a wide-eyed teen dreams of going to college and falling in love. But in this world simple hopes may be more dangerous than passive acceptance to authoritarian control.

Zatarain's

Store-bought
box-dinner
may not exude
authenticity
but the various
rice-spice mixes
available from
Cajun/Creole
brand Zatarain's
offer an astounding
harmony
perhaps not as brash
and bold
as fare straight from
a Big Easy kitchen
but more than enough
to satisfy and surprise
not to mention easy,
their jambalaya
was the first meal I prepared solo
at 10
the simplicity
was something I could handle
the result
made me proud
you see it was actually good
and from there a circuitous route
to regular at home cooking
which I've come to love
mostly owed upon reflection
to grocery store
fringe marque Zatarain's
which has never left
my repertoire.

'The Gentlemen' A Review

The Gentlemen is a crime comedy from writer/director Guy Richie about the waning days of UK pot baron Mickey Pearson(Matthew McConaughey). The film opens on skeezy tabloid investigator Fletcher(Hugh Grant) surprising upper management gangster Raymond(Charlie Hunnam) in his home in an attempt at blackmail. The story unfolds as a series of flashbacks and flourishes as Fletcher lays out to Raymond what he knows and why he should be paid off.

The real star is Grant who clearly relishes this vile, immoral, horny, and hilarious pariah and his energy and exuberance is utterly infectious. He serves as the defacto narrator and absolutely makes the movie, without his effervescent slime it would slide into tedium. The rest of the cast isn't as inspired- Hunnam and Colin Farrell(as a local boxer) are good as always, Henry Golding does well in his first real opportunity as a heavy, Michelle Dockery simply isn't given enough to do, but the big glaring issue is McConaughey as the lead. It seems his walked straight from his Lincoln commercials, throws on a preposterous vaguely moneyed accent, and sports the same hair and dirty facial hair he has for his past ten films. He barely does anything beyond showing up and as such he's at best boring and at worst distracting.

One of the pleasures of a Guy Richie film, much like the late great Tony Scott, is that yes he has a particular bag of tricks but he's the only one who ever uses them- numerous smash cuts, non-linear structure, 4th wall breaking, visual digressions- all make a relatively conventional semi-dated gangster picture if not innovative then unquestionably entertaining. The Gentlemen is clearly Richie's attempt at getting back to his Lock Stock and Snatch roots and if he's not altogether successful Grant's performance alone makes it worth watching and gets it closer to that late 90's nostalgia then it has any right to be.

Rent It.

'Color Out Of Space' A Review

Color Out Of Space is a science fiction/horror movie based on the HP Lovecraft story of the same name about a family having recently moved to a rural farm after living in the big city being interrupted by a strange meteorite. The movie opens on Lavina(Madeleine Arthur) performing a heathen ritual in order to keep her mother's cancer away, it's interrupted by Ward(Elliot Knight) a hydrologist surveyor and the two kind of flirt. We meet Lavina's mother Theresa(Joely Richardson) and father Nathan(Nicolas Cage) and her two brothers. What appears to be a quiet family drama quickly diverts into psychedelic horror with the semi-formless alien that hitches a ride on the meteor that crashes in the family's front yard.

Cage is allowed a few sparring moments of energetic eccentricity but for the most part the half-baked mostly lifeless script prevent him or really any of the cast from doing anything particularly exciting. It's always a pleasure to see Richardson but aside from a particularly bizarre sequence- when she is subsuming her youngest son into her back and transforming into some monstrosity bleating and screeching for no joke five minutes straight- the role doesn't offer her much to do. The younger cast are servicable but clearly out of their depth with the tone and the thinness of the story.

Perhaps this is a successful adaption of Lovecraft but his stories are not known for their characters, plot, or lucidity but mood and ideas. As such once the magenta lights start flaring and alien flowers and bugs start sprouting it may be "faithful" to the source material but a good movie it does not make. It makes too little sense, the characters are too wooden, the stakes are so vague there virtually are none. Part of the necessity of genre is worldbuilding, is that magic or aliens or time travel or future tech or whatever have some kind of internal logic, they may not be "possible" but they make sense within the rules and ideas set up within the story. After the half way mark the movie turns into something more akin to a Pink Floyd laser light show than an actual narrative and that's a problem.

At best a future cult classic for a supremely select few.

Don't See It.

Dream Small

Of course, dream big

as big as you can
but dream small too
little ones
bite-sized
achievable, attainable
realized
they are no less
a success.

I got glasses at fourteen
and from the jump
yearned for
prescription sunnys,

at first finances
made them an
unnecessary luxury
then a general fear
of both doctors
and the minutia of retail
prevented their procurement
only now
after twenty years
have I got my pair
of reentry shields
and it is no small
satisfaction.

'Bad Boys For Life' A Review

Bad Boys For Life is an action comedy movie, a sequel to 1995's Bad Boys and 2003's Bad Boys 2. While Miami detective Marcus Burnett(Martin Lawrence) becomes a grandfather and contemplates retirement his long time partner Mike Lowrey(Will Smith) is determined to defy his age and stay in the game. The movie opens with the prison escape of a drug cartel Matriarch Isabel Aretas(Kate del Castillo) who through her son launches a campaign of revenge against the various government officials that took down her deceased husband, the list includes Bad Boy Mike Lowrey.

There is no small amount of satisfaction seeing Smith and Lawrence onscreen not to mention onscreen together and the additions of Castillo as well as the various AMMO recruits who assist the titular Bad Boys but the convoluted almost soap-operatic plot strains credulity without providing the necessary accompanying spectacle.

Without Michael Bay at the helm practical effects are subsumed by digital, the bizarre dance of machismo and homoerotisism is removed, and clearly much of the production is rote rather than inspired. Not to say Bay is some kind of reliable auteur but at the very least he has a perspective and with this reheated franchise fare which has become ever more popular but ever more unsuccessful someone with something to say or prove or even with a clearer vision would have easily elevated this potentially exciting but ultimately disappointing bit of necromancy.

Stream It.

'Like A Boss' A Review

Like A Boss is a buddy comedy about two make-up brand entrepreneur BFFs Mel and Mia(Rose Byrne and Tiffany Haddish) who have a killer product but failing business model. Enter cosmetics mogul Claire Luna(Selma Hayek) who offers to "partner" with Mel and Mia causing a rift in their friendship and the possible rending of their business.

Haddish brings her signature and colossal presence to bear and she has wonderful chemistry with Byrne who plays a meeker, more flawed kind of character then her usual upper-crust imperviousness or put-upon every-woman. They make a great duo and much of the pleasure of the film is found in the scenes of their casual friendship. The supporting cast is delightful particularly Billy Porter and Jennifer Coolidge as Mel and Mia's employees and Ari Graynor, Natasha Rothwell, and Jessica St. Clair as Mel and Mia's friends. Hayek also doesn't disappoint in her over-the-top Devil Wears Prada riff. Although there are moments of real delight overall the script fails to reach the potential of the outstanding cast.

This is the latest in director Miguel Arteta's odd but mostly engaging filmography and it's clear he created an atmosphere for real connection and improvisation for the actors as well as a couple intriguing action/comedy set pieces but was unable to overcome the paint-by-numbers script.

The themes of friendship and the commentary on personal beauty through the lens of Mel and Mia's particular cosmetics perspective come through but ultimately the mediocrity of the script prevents Like A Boss from really soaring.

Rent It.

Shoveling

I don't know if I believe
in the validity of genetic memory
but shoveling the walk after a heavy snow fall
as I have done countless times
as all my Midwestern forebears have done
back a century and more
and countless more before that
in various snowy villages of Scandinavia
and frozen forest bound towns in Germania
the packing, pushing, scraping, breaking, heaving
of that cold white freeze is as familiar
to my muscled frame as walking
as intimate as a breathless waltz
so simple yet so correct for me
in this time and this place
I resonate, echo, back and back
connecting with my past

although I doubt
my great-grandfather Mart
had an ergonomic shovel

Pino's Pizza

Like many
my childhood was not idyllic
not to say it was traumatic
although there is always
a degree of trauma
for any child as they move
from adolescences to adulthood
But like many
there were also small excitements
and simple joys
not least among them
the weekly visits to the vaulted
Pino's Pizza
where my father would schmooze
with the Perrecone paterfamilias
and matriarch as I basked in their
warm wood paneled store front
and maybe fed a quarter
to the aging Mrs. Pac-Man
and returning home with bounty
we would feast
on BBQ chicken or Canadian bacon
Hawaiian or taco pizzas
with my mother periodically having her own
small anchovie concoction
and although Pino's has since closed
it's memory of hospitable comfort
and peerless deliciousness
will never fade
it remains my Platonic ideal
my ur-pizza
a greatness I may search for
but never again attain.

Top 51 Movies Of The Decade

Comedy:
Always Be My Maybe
Bernie
Cedar Rapids
Game Night
Girls Trip
Goon
Top Five
Wild Nights With Emily

Comedy/Drama:
The Big Sick
Eighth Grade
The Farewell
Hunt For The Wilderpeople
Listen Up Philip
Paddleton
Support The Girls

Drama:
Cold War
Creed
Columbus
The Florida Project
Ida
The Last Black Man In San Francisco
The Lost City of Z
Moonlight
Paterson
Roma
Tangerine
Tully

Crime/Thriller:
BlacKkKlansman
Blue Ruin
Christine
The Guard
Thoroughbreds
Winter's Bone
You Were Never Really Here

Horror:
The Babadook
Get Out

Science Fiction/Fantasy:
Arrival
Blade Runner 2049
Dredd
Edge Of Tomorrow
Holy Motors
The Lobster
Mad Max: Fury Road
What We Do In The Shadows

Documentary:
The Act of Killing
Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry
The Flat
Into The Abyss
Minding The Gap
Stories We Tell
The Wolfpack

'Cunningham' A Review

Cunningham is a documentary about the life and career of dancer/choreographer Merce Cunningham. Through archival rehearsal and interview footage as well as some archival and contemporary interviews used as defacto voice over narration cut with notable Cunningham pieces restaged by modern dancers we get a sense of the electric artists oeuvre if not the man himself.

The film consists of some beautiful, thoughtful montage-style composition of mostly black-and-white footage taken by Cunningham and his company of their rehearsals and various performances from 1950-1980 along with provocatively staged(almost exclusively in non-traditional performance spaces) and costumed dance pieces choreographed by Cunningham and contemporarily done. It's an interesting, almost abstract, impressionistic way to approach the now pretty tired bio-doc relying most heavily on the subject's artistic discipline to convey who he is.

We get to know Cunningham as an artist but we know virtually nothing about him as a person. Which isn't necessary however there are implications and hints of him being a narcissistic guru-like control freak that that period in NYC seemed to cultivate in spades for all the various arts which somewhat shadow what a singular creative he clearly was.

A beautiful bold piece of filmmaking fluidly translating one of the most inaccessible artforms, dance, through the screen, although it's examination of it's central subject is somewhat perfunctory.

See It.

Rehearsal

Working on a new play
after some years away
I am reminded
of the comfort I found
in the theater
from the beginning-
the familiarity
of blocking short-hand,
the feeling of belonging
cultivated by a cast,
the small and secret world
carved out by a production,
the satisfying impermanence
of a show's inevitable end-
and I feel a soothing fidelity
for the stage
as it affords
the fluid practice of imagination
a solitary space for exploration
and an innate abiding camaraderie.

Top 5 Movies Of 2019

Top 5:
Always Be My Maybe
The Farewell
The Last Black Man In San Francisco
Paddleton
Wild Nights With Emily

Honorable Mentions:
Ask Dr. Ruth
Booksmart
Brittany Runs A Marathon
JoJo Rabbit
Knives Out
Long Shot
Meeting Gorbachev
The Peanut Butter Falcon
Sword Of Trust
Waves

Disappointments:
Doctor Sleep
Late Night
Motherless Brooklyn
Pet Sematary
Terminator: Dark Fate

Most Overrated:
Joker
Marriage Story

Most Underrated:
Honey Boy

Worst of the Year:
The Beach Bum

Performances of the Year:
Jennifer Lopez - Hustlers
Jillian Bell and Utkarsh Ambudkar – Brittany Runs A Marathon
Joe Pesci – The Irishman
Jonathan Majors - The Last Black Man In San Francisco
Lupita Nyong'o - Us
Ray Romano – Paddleton
Willem Dafoe – The Lighthouse
Zhao Shuzhen and Awkwafina – The Farewell

Scenes of the Year:
Baboon Attack – Ad Astra
Box Truck Monologue – Sword Of Trust
Criminal Dance – Hustlers
Keanu Dinner - Always Be My Maybe
The Play – Last Black Man In San Francisco
Shooting Lancer – Once Upon A Time In Hollywood