Cousin Geri

Has passed
into the clearing
at the end of the path
and those that remain
must consider
the impact
of the departed

A key tenant

a key belief

of the old Norse

(from which stock our family came)

was the sacredness

the importance and gravity

of hospitality

To feed and house

and make comfortable

those guests

you have the fortune

to welcome

to your hearth and home

This we carried

from the fjord's of Norway

to the lakes of Wisconsin

and which my Grandma Bertha

passed along to my cousin Geri

and which she, in turn, gave to me

As a child

upon each visit

there was pop in the fridge

cookies and chips in the cabinet

a clean soft bed for me to sleep

her welcoming (but eccentric) poodle to play with

visits to the Mall of America

and most of all

her unassuming

yet unshakable

kindness and attention

This shaped me

how I keep my home

how I treat guests

my expectations

about what hospitality is

what it means to care

'Marty, Life Is Short' A Review

 Marty, Life Is Short is a documentary about actor/comedian Martin Short. Through talking head interviews, home videos, archival footage, and Short going about his day-to-day in the present his life and career are explored.

Like many of this particular brand of bio-doc there's not much depth here, more like a greatest-hits, which isn't bad or undeserved! Short is a singular talent with a long and eclectic career and it's fun and funny to revisit his characters and roles or discover some for the first time. But given his life includes quite a bit of untimely death and subsequently grief little time is really paid to that aspect aside from a platitude or two. Little time is given to how he actually created his characters or what is creative process is, one of the best sequences is him describing an SNL character, intercut with the sketch itself, inspired by a hyper-defensive make-up artist. Familial(and personal) substance use is clearly a pertinent topic(to what degree is certainly up for debate) but that is not addressed or really acknowledged.

The film is a sweet, relatively shallow, retrospective. Gives Short some much-deserved flowers, entertaining but thin.

Currently streaming on Netflix.

Stream It.

Summiting

No human

has ever conquered
Mother Nature
nor any aspect
of her eclectic bounty
no mountain, forest,
desert, river,
meadow, or brook
has ever been dominated
or owned
destroyed perhaps
but only temporarily

She will out last us all

millennia from now

when humanity is dust

She will remain

So

at the summit

hearing the yapping

of all these would-be

soft-serve weekend alpinists

I can only grimace

at the hubris

The State of Masculinity

It's unfortunate
men may only feel
they can be honest
around a fire
or in a garage

'Crime 101' A Review

Crime 101 is an action/thriller about elusive methodical jewel thief Mike(Chris Hemsworth), his in-the-dark love interest Maya(Monica Barbaro), the cop on his trail with marital problems Lou(Mark Ruffalo), and frustrated high-end insurance broker Sharon(Halle Berry) and how their stories intersect over one final heist.

Hemsworth is a out of his element, whenever he's asked to play more muted/stoic/reserved characters he seems to struggle, a la Extraction & Extraction 2, he needs characters with humor or some perspective. He's unquestionably a compelling star but this is one archtype he's yet to crack. Ruffalo and Berry are able to bring much more depth and authenticity to their characters even if on-the-page they're pretty thin. You can just tell they have a backstory they've come into their scenes with, their history and context, as a result they feel like actual humans you want to watch. Barbaro and the heavy, that lil gremlin Barry Keoghan, are both miscast. They have yet to demonstrate they have any real range and do nothing but detract here. Barbaro's character is a plot point only and she fails to make it more than that. Keoghan has yet to demonstrate he can do anything successfully beyond his debut Killing of a Sacred Deer and continues to fail into a stunningly robust career with role after role where he deploys the same limited arsenal of ticks and calls it acting.

Shot mostly on location in LA the city looks great and feels like a real place people exists(a big plus these days!). The car chases are thrilling, the heists are tension filled and fun, there's just not enough of either in a runtime that is overlong. There's been some decent Heat knockoffs over the years- The Town, Den of Thieves, even Wrath of Man to a degree- but this isn't even able to reach those mid-tier heights. There's too much character stuff and most of that stuff lacks depth, there's not enough action/thrills and what there is doesn't hold as much as weight as it should because there's little investment in the characters, and just overall the plot is unnecessarily complicated.

Aspirations to Heat with an A-list cast(on paper at least) produce a straight-to-DVD quality caper.

Currently streaming on Amazon.

Stream It.

'The Sheep Detectives' A Review

The Sheep Detectives is a mystery/comedy based on the 2005 novel Three Bags Full about an isolated shepherd, George(Hugh Jackman), in the English countryside who dies untimely. His sheep, who are well versed in the who-dun-it having been read numerous murder mysteries by George set out to solve the case.

Jackman isn't in the film except for the prologue but his presence gives some star-power and emotional weight to lay down a great foundation to launch from. The voice cast- Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Bryan Cranston, Chris O'Dowd, Regina Hall, to name a few- are all spectacular bringing comedy, playfulness, and a sincerity that is really the secret sauce of the film, putting it on par with the likes of Babe and Paddington. All-in-all just a stellar cast.

Filmed mostly on location in the English countryside with extensive but pretty seamless CGI for the animals. The score is unobtrusive but potent and the script just really soars, producing laughs, a breezy but still engaging mystery, and a ton of heart.

The best live-action family film since Paddington 2.

Currently in theaters.

Don't Miss It.

Ur-Lake

The lake always forgives
the water's stillness
a soothing balm

on ache and worry

its natural sounds

birds and bugs and frogs

and periodic quiet

a purifier

of the constant plague

of news

and noise.