This year my sister Marta spent Thanksgiving with her boyfriend's family so she got our family together again this morning for a post-holiday brunch. It was great to have everyone together but with 15 adults and 4 kids it was a little rambunctious.
With full bellies some of us took the kids to the park. It was a beautiful day and great to horse around and kick the soccer ball in the fresh air.
I love my family, we've been through a lot and stuck together when it would have been relatively easy to fraction off. It's nice to have a younger generation coming up, it makes everything more lively and exciting. And begs the question- whose next to get married and/or have kids? A question of course all of us eligible to answer don't care for.
The creeks freeze but fish still swim and water flows.
The body breathes when sleeping, the mind dreams.
The breath of the forest is quiet, all green gone.
But the dreams are vivid and long.
You can almost here them.
I'm thankful for family and Rockford and for the house I grew up in.
I'm thankful for garage door codes and blankets and cable "on demand".
I'm thankful for coffee and cigarettes and breakfast from a frying pan.
I'm thankful for audiences and iO and Craig.
I'm thankful for motorcycles and woods and poetry.
I'm thankful for cooking oil and spices and sharp knives for cutting veggies.
I'm thankful for chess and movies and pictures in focus.
I'm thankful for friends that listen and friends that talk and friends that hug.
I'm thankful for Tisher and Jimmy and fantasy book series.
I'm thankful for Beanpole and Adam and NPR.
I'm thankful for cousins and aunts and homemade whip cream.
I'm thankful for microphones and podcasts and editing.
I'm thankful for love- romantic, platonic, and familial.
I'm thankful for Mom's cranberry sauce and Uncle Mike's stuffing and Coke Zero.
I'm thankful for the companionship, support, and affection of Nicole.
I'm thankful for comics and classics and Centrum.
I'm thankful for exotic soaps and fresh tooth brushes and brand new razor blades.
I'm thankful for heat and good lighting and steam from the shower.
I'm thankful for comfy sofas and comfy beds and broken in pillows.
I'm thankful for inspiration and sobriety and stories.
I'm thankful for full moons and sunsets and quiet kisses.
I'm thankful for Stephen King and Gene Wolfe and John Irving and Terry Gross and Paul Newman and Johnny Cash and John Lee Hooker and Bill Wilson and Tom Wilkinson.
Nicole wasn't planning on going back to Florida to have Thanksgiving with her folks so I invited her to Rockford with me. She ultimately decided she would stay in Chicago. After work my dad picked me up at O'Hare and drove me back. An hour or so after getting there Nicole called me and told me she was on a bus and asked if I could pick her up. She had changed her mind.
It was a wonderful surprise and filled me with gratitude and joy. When someone does something for you, makes an effort, puts themselves out there, it has meaning. I'm very luck and have a lot to be thankful for. Today was a great reminder.
I've been a Top Chef fan since the beginning. I've diligently and delightedly watched all 11 seasons, Top Chef Masters, Top Chef Just Desserts, and Top Chef Canada. It inspired me to cook a lot more and I've come to take a lot of pleasure in it.
Top Chef is a great show because it's straight forward. It's a cooking competition show which almost entirely focuses on the cooking competition. For the most part the show is concerned only with good chefs and interesting challenges. Certainly there are some big personalities on the show or they cut the show to create big personalities but the show has never become about them. The show will play up confrontation or emotional outbursts, sometimes teasing them for an entire season, but ultimately all the dust ups are minimal and breezed over by the competitors swiftly. They are just normal moments that happen when people who don't know each other are thrown into situations with numerous unknown variables.
The show doesn't cast basket cases, doesn't deliberately throw unhinged individuals together hoping for friction. They put good chefs in interesting situations to see what they cook. The personalities of the individuals on the show come through slowly and organically. We like some of the people, we dislike others, but not because the producers predicted and designed this outcome. Of course what we see is not truth, we don't get a full sense of all these individuals, but the show is not put together to skew or slant or facilitate villainization.
I loved the first couple seasons of The Real World and Road Rules. They were great shows because they were simply real people in a situation and the camera observed. As time passed stunt casting and contrived situations turned an interesting TV show into a spectacle. Most reality shows start from that manufactured place- fake people in conflict. Top Chef has consistently steered clear of these pitfalls and focused on what it is: a show about food and the people that cook it.
Nicole gave me a Christmas tree. It's my first, not something I'd ever have gotten for myself but a very sweet and thoughtful gift, it brightens up my apartment and facilitates some much needed holiday cheer.
Nicole: Do you want the multi-colored lights or the blue lights?
Me: Blue.
Nicole: I knew it.
Me: Why?
Nicole: I was just thinking our styles are different and after I got the multi-colored ones I knew you'd want something, something less flashy.
Me: What's the difference between your style and mine?
Nicole: Well, mine, I'd want more colors and sparkles and yours...
Me: Mine's more sedate.
"Love is always bestowed as a gift - freely, willingly and without expectation. We don't love to be loved; we love to love." -Leo Buscaglia
Eli, Alex and I had brunch this morning. I haven't seen them in a while and the three of us haven't sat down together since we moved out of our apartment spring of 2012. We've grown apart a bit- divergent interests, relationships, and time- but the friendship is unchanged. Eli and Alex were my first real friends in Chicago and my first collaborates. They are two of the sweetest, easy-going, funniest guys I know. The dynamic is fluid and easy, fits like a well cut sport coat.
(This girl was very deliberately photo bombing, Eli makes this face in every picture)
Our roommate situation was relatively contentious, of which I had a large part. The discord of the past has all but dissipated and our friendship, although not as close, is strong.
Jeremy and I met at Caribou for a game of chess before The Night Shift Show tonight. I've been on a team with Jeremy for three years and only about a month ago we discovered our mutual passion. He's better than me, not by much, but better. I was on the defensive most of the game but I made him play it out and his victory wasn't decisive. I'm a bit rusty, I haven't played consistently in years, but the strategies, the way of thinking- move anticipation and prediction- stirred and came back quickly. I love the game and I love the mindset you have to be in to play it well.
My dad taught me to play chess when I was around 6 years old, I liked the game but wasn't any good at it. For a couple summers after that I took a chess class at "Whiz Kids College" a summer activities program based out of the local community college. That's where I really fell in love with the game, in a room full of prepubescent nerds just like me, but I was still pretty bad. I stopped playing for a while and picked it up again as a teenager, a lot of lessons and ideas about chess fell into place and I became pretty good, I beat my dad for the first time.
In college I had three great opponents- Drew, Samson, and Jeff. It was tough to find people that knew the game, wanted to play the game, and most importantly were good at it. Playing with someone with substantially less skill doesn't evoke the same kind of involvement or mental exercise that playing with someone with equal abilities does. Samson was my favorite person to play because we were the most evenly matched(Jeff slightly better than me, Drew slightly worse). He had an extremely grating personality and I didn't really like him. He quieted down and focused up when we sat down to play. We never talked, we just played, it was incredibly fun.
Since then I haven't been able to find a good chess partner. Recently I've discovered both Jeremy and Jimmy are great players and love chess. Hopefully there are many more games to come.
Catching Fire is the second installment in the Hunger Games Trilogy a dystopian world where each year 24 citizens are selected at random to fight to the death. This year is different. After spitting in the face of The Capitol, by saving both herself and Peeta, Katniss has become an unwitting symbol of hope and revolution. In order to combat the impending uprising President Snow has former winners, most importantly Katniss, compete in the 75th annual Hunger Games.
The plot and structure of Catching Fire is virtually identical to the original Hunger Games with the same plodding first act. The visual effects and script, however, are significantly improved from the first installment. The performances are also much improved having the benefit of more seasoned supporting players.
Fans of the book will like the movie, fans of the first movie will love this installment, but ultimately the story itself leaves a lot be desired- much is implied about hope, individuality, and love but not much is actually said.
Museum Hours is a lyrical film, a love song to museums and Vienna. The story is set in motion by a slightly contrived relative-in-a-coma scenario but it seems to only serve the purpose of getting the two main characters together. Anne(Mary Margaret O'Hara) travels to Vienna because an estranged cousin is in a coma. With little funds and no knowledge of the language or city she befriends museum security guard Johann(Bobby Sommer).
The film is punctuated and gently guided by Johann's narration. Johann guides Anne, and us, through Vienna. They discuss art, communication, solitude, and architecture. The pace of the film is slow and it's tone is relatively quiet. It evokes an engrossing museum visit. The film is not for everyone because there is no narrative to speak of and the light friendship between Johann and Anne develops gradually. It is beautiful, smart, and unconventional.
There is only one major flaw, a fifteen minute extended museum tour of a particular artist containing neither main character. All the actors in the tour are wooden and stiff coming across as bad local amateurs. The scene itself is incredibly long and stagnate made to feel even more so by the fluidity of the film around it.
Every statement doesn't require a response. We are becoming more and more conditioned to respond, even if we have no thought or opinion to voice, to anything and everything- it's become expected. I say something, you say something back, if you don't it's rude. You're being aloof or distant or unengaged or cold if you don't fill a moment with words regardless of their meaning.
A silence can be comfortable. Discomfort is something you apply to it, its not inherent in the absence of speech. Truly being in a moment and listening to someone is often enough and can mean more than repeating back to someone what they've just said or blurting out the first thing that comes into your head. I like chatting and keeping the conversation going but it's not always necessary. If there is no more to say, cease to speak.
People don't argue the peace and beauty of quiet in nature or in the dark of night. We should apply that same calm and ease, periodically, to interpersonal interactions. Sometimes not saying anything says a great deal.
"I wash my hands of those who imagine chattering to be knowledge, silence to be ignorance, and affection to be art." -Kahlil Gibran
"Sometimes being a friend means mastering the art of timing. There is a time for silence. A time to let go and allow people to hurl themselves into their own destiny. And a time to prepare to pick up the pieces when it's all over." -Octavia Butler
After the credits rolled I imagine Pinocchio had it rough.
He was a wooden puppet animated by magic and all of a sudden he's a real boy. He has no idea what feelings are or how to deal with them. Never felt love or fear or disappointment. Never felt heartbreak or loneliness. Never been in danger or injured. And one day he wakes up and humanity comes rushing in. He's left woefully unprepared. Out of his depth.
I drank a lot for a long time. I kept things muffled. I didn't develop the ability to feel my emotions and deal with them. They were buried, camouflaged, muted. I avoided honesty, tried to make myself incapable of it. I was crippled in a way, unable to communicate or articulate. I was like Pinocchio. I could walk and talk like a real boy but there was something off, something missing.
Sobriety has been a gift, eye-opening and life-changing, for which I'm grateful for every day. But it's not always easy and at times can be raw. I'm like Pinocchio, I woke up one morning and was flooded with situations and emotions I had never experienced before. I woke up present in my own life for the first time. How do you process anger or regret? Joy or longing? How do you feel it? I didn't know.
Getting sober is a transformative experience not less fantastic or magical than Pinocchio being gifted with mortality. I learn every day. I feel every day. There are ups, there are downs, and for the most part they even themselves out. I'm learning to ride the wave not fight it. I may be behind but there is room and time for growth.
Once he became a boy, a real live boy, I imagine Pinocchio felt like he had a lot of catching up to do. And I imagine he discovered what I have. Time is a great equalizer.
Last week Beanpole asked me to write a poem for him. He sent me a couple images and gave me the concept "flight or flight" for inspiration. I posted the poem last week and this piece is his further inspiration. I've always loved collaborating with him, trying to meld our particular creative inclinations. Beanpole is currently getting his masters so hopefully this is the first in a series of similar projects.
It's getting too cold to ride my motorcycle. I garage it in Rockford in the winter.
It was warm this morning and I decided today was the day.
I checked the forecast knowing there was a storm coming, TWC said it would hit at 1pm.
I strapped up, zipped up, buckled up, and headed out at 11am.
Rocketing down I-90 I noticed the clouds were thick and moving fast.
I rounded the curve through the Des Plains oasis and was confronted with the storm.
The sky was sickly green, puke green, and veined with lightening.
The temperature dropped thirty degrees in ten feet.
Rain poured down sideways, I was soaked in a moment.
The wind tried again and again to blow me off the road, I almost hit a traffic barrel.
Realization dawned, this was a piss pour, ill conceived journey.
I entertained the idea, briefly, of carrying on, powering through.
While I considered I noticed something out of the corner of my eye.
On the opposite side of the highway a billboard was shivering.
As I watched the supports cracked, the billboard disintegrated.
The wind shredded canvas, splintered board, and scattered debris across the highway.
I took the next exit, pulled into a gas station, and got my barrings.
I could continue on, I could wait out the storm, I could turn back.
I turned back.
The first ten minutes I was in the middle of the storm.
Wind, rain, lightening, me and the motorcycle.
I got out in front of the storm and beat it back to Chicago.
It was dangerous and not particularly smart.
But it was fun, I felt alive.
And it was a good piece of riding if I do say so myself.
Bad Grandpa is a family road-trip comedy using the Jackass prank style. After the death of his wife elderly Irving(Knoxville) drives cross-country with his grandson Billy(Jackson Nicoll) to drop him off with his biological father. This loose narrative ties together a string of hidden camera pranks perpetrated by the young Nicoll and old man Knoxville, ranging from simply approaching people on the street to a catastrophic visit to a male strip club to ruining a pre-teen beauty pageant.
There is a surprising amount of heart in the movie and a great deal of humor, not all of it blue. Knoxville and Nicoll have great chemistry, making their moments as characters carry weight while simultaneous sharing the joy of their antics.
There's not a whole lot to the movie but its simple premise creates a good delivery system for the shock and embarrassment Jackass is known for. The most surprising part of it is the actual bond Nicoll and Knoxvile create, crudely sweet.
Rent It.
Thor: The Dark World is the sequel to 2011's Thor and the latest edition in Marvel's ever expanding unwieldy cannon. Our hero Thor(Hemsworth) has just finished making peace in the nine realms in the wake of the uprisings insighted by the alien invasion of Earth featured in The Avengers. In this incarnation Thor finally seems like an actual person having put his stupidity and bravado behind after months of war and thoughts of his lost love Jane(Portman). Meanwhile Jane has been busy on Earth with scientific experiments and dates. She stumbles upon an ancient weapon created before the universe began, is possessed by it, and Thor comes to the rescue.
The resulting narrative is predictable. The visuals are stunning, the fights are cool, and the dialogue leaves a good deal to be desired. Hemsworth has a little more to do this time as Thor and comes off as three dimensional however still falls short of producing a performance that necessities it's own franchise. Portman does almost nothing and serves merely as Thor's object of affection. The bright spot of course is Tom Hiddleston as Loki- complicated, wry, and charming.
Thor: The Dark World is entertaining but not entertaining enough to warrant the money or time that went into it.
A couple weeks ago Jeff asked me to be on his movie review podcast Thursday Evening Movie Club. It's a potluck and discussion which was really fun. Anytime I can eat and talk movies I'm in hog heaven. We discussed Robert Altman's Nashville which I didn't care for and was a split decision overall. I don't recommend seeing the film but give the episode a listen or check out previous episodes where Jeff, Jeannie, and guests review other movies from AFI's Top 100.
Tisher and I went to Carmen's weekly show Thunderdome after recording last night. It was a fun show, as it always is, with a mash-up of different improvisers and a couple other acts. There was one piece from a performance artist however that I thought lacked any artistic or performance element and seemed to display a genuine ignorance of what it is to get up in front of an audience.
This performance artist Nikki is touring the country with a box on her head. An overt expression of isolation. I thought it kind of odd but intriguing. I was looking forward to her piece anticipating it would be some kind of discussion on her experience or a performance elucidating the connectedness/disconnectedness of people in our culture. What she actually did amounted to nothing at all.
She got up on stage with her yoga instructor, asked for a couple volunteers, and proceeded to do three three minute exercise drills. The audience counted each squat, sit-up, and push up. She gave a very brief and lame intro to the piece "We connect with each other by connected with our bodies. I've been working out a lot recently to stay in shape for this tour." And that was it. No point, no idea, no message.
When you get up on stage in front of an audience you're entering into an unspoken agreement, a contract. You are saying this is something. Not that it's good, not that it'll be funny or dramatic, but that is in fact something. That it is an idea that you have thought about. That it has the possibility of being entertaining, poignant, or thought provoking. This was none of those things. I don't know what other pieces this woman has done or what her message or thrust is. I would like to know but last nights performance was ill-conceived and poorly executed.
I've seen a lot of bad performances. Sketch, improv, theater, music, performance art what have you. I don't mind if it's bad. You just have to try.
We had Carmen and Devin in the studio tonight to record our Gypsy episode for this season of Bubble Boys. It went great, they brought it like we knew they would. Carmen went on an impassioned rant speculating about sharing coffee and tea in Hell with the devil and all the world leaders of the 40's. Devin told Tisher and I's fortune with an incredibly grueling description of Tisher and other fallen soldiers ghosts chewing me to death with insubstantial baby ghost teeth. Really great stuff which I can't wait to edit.
This episode marks the fifth in the can. We're at the half way point in the season and on schedule for our January release. We've got the rest of the season written and cast. There's a lot more work to be done, with plans to create a lot more original music and to script in totality a USO show. It sometimes feels like putting together a particularly difficult puzzle. But it's gratifying, extremely so. I am very eager to finish things up and start putting season 2 out into the universe.
Dallas Buyers Club is based on the true story of a good-old-boy, HIV+, rodeo-rider who starts out to make a profit on HIV and AIDS medication but ends up making a difference. Matthew McConaughey stars as Ron Woodroof a close minded hustler blind sided by his diagnosis. Unable to procure medication he begins importing what he needs illegally from Mexico. He soon begins to import large amounts selling to the infected in Dallas. He teams up with transvestite Rayon played by Jared Leto and an unlikely friendship and partnership develop.
The film jumps and meanders at times trying to extract a fully formed narrative from a story that doesn't have one. Nor does it need it, the characters and the action in the film are incredibly moving and interesting. The structure periodically detracts from the amazing performances going on. McConaughey and Leto deliver amazing, nuanced, vibrant performances. McConaughey as a loud mouthed asshole who through his work and disease becomes a charismatic man to be looked up to who is also loud and can be an asshole. Leto's performance is so submersive it's difficult to see him in it, the screen time he receives does a disservice to the transformative performance he gives. Every scene McConaughey and Leto share is incredible, there is simply too few of them. Jennifer Garner is a great distraction throughout, with a romantic subplot that has no place in the film. The small supporting roles balance the world and bring a realism to a film that could be bogged down with melodrama and depression.
Lead by two amazing performances the film fails to achieve greatness. It spends too much time on Garner and little time on the most complicated and enthralling aspect of the story- McConaughey's metamorphosis and his burgeoning relationship with Leto. A good film for the year, with little chance to be remembered.
Tonight was a great night of shows and elucidated two things for me that have been percolating for a while. Two tricks or lessons or sign posts whatever you'd like to call them.
1. Pronunciation. Saying words in an odd way is funny. Not all the time of course but talking normally or with a little bit of accent and then every once in a while inappropriately stressing a syllable here or there or injecting consonants or vowels where there shouldn't be any makes people laugh. You set up expectations and then subvert them. It can also help discover character- what kind of a person would say x like that. Jeff and I had a fun first beat scene in the Schwa show tonight. We were two southern ladies at the race track fanning ourselves. We were doing accents, Jeff better than mine, and every tenth word or so I'd say weirdly. It got a big reaction, the audience loved the scene, and it started the show off at a good pace.
2. Trust. In improv classes and on teams trust is something you hear a lot about. "Trust your teammates, trust their ideas, trust the work." Which is all well and good, its a good idea but realistically difficult to implement. Just telling people to trust each other- people who may be strangers, people who may not like each other- does not bring about that bond. In improv as in life real trust must be cultivated and takes time. I trust a few of the people I perform with certainly not all, that's no slight on those I don't but it's a rare thing and should be. I'm comfortable with everyone I perform with, comfortable enough to try or do things that make me uncomfortable but comfort is not trust. I have to trust someone to do something I directly do not want to do, I have to trust someone in order to do something I think is a terrible idea.
During the Prime set tonight I initiated a scene as a fortune teller at a fair. I was calling for someone to come get their fortune read, I anticipated it would be one of the other performers. After a couple seconds Craig come out as my assistant and said something like "here's one! here's a girl wants her fortune told!" indicating a young woman sitting in the front row. I was stunned, I looked at Craig to see if he was in fact serious, if in fact he was indicating I should interact with this audience member, he was. In retrospect it's not that shocking, I've seen it done many times, people talking directly with the audience, but I've never done it and I've never seen Craig do it. I thought that it could be really disastrous and making that move could open the flood gates for a lot more audience interaction. In short I thought it was a fucking terrible idea and I did not want to interact with this young woman. But I trust Craig- he's a great friend, a mentor, and long time collaborator, he's never given me bad advise and I still frequently follow his example. I got down on a knee and began to read this young woman's fortune. Craig was backing me up and Brett and Sabine came out shortly there after. The young woman was receptive, excited, and played along. It went over very well.
I did something I'd never done. I did something I did not want to do that I thought would go badly and it went well and people liked it. I did it because I trusted the person that set me up for it, but trust is no common thing.
I've been performing with Andel, on and off, for about four years. Whenever I'm on a team that needs a sit in I always think of her first. She has a unique combination of edge and goofiness which is incredibly fun to play with. Her energy is infectious and doing a show with her is an adventure. She can be unpredictable but not in a disruptive way in a exciting-surprising way. Andel is one of my most talented, and certainly most experienced, friends. She has her own view of the world and her own style which comes out onstage as well as off. She's been a great friend to me since we met and any excuse I can find to share a stage with her I use it. Her presence seems to exponentially improve any show.
Andel sat in with The Hague tonight and we had one of our funnest shows in weeks. It started off well and took a hard right turn into gooftroupe fun about ten minutes in. For some context Andel is notorious about wearing sweatpants or workout pants or stretch pants for shows, rehearsals, basically all the time. For the show she was wearing these weird hip-flared, burgundy, MC Hammer type pants and a baggy sweater. In the first part of the show Mark and her were doing a scene and it ended with Mark saying "And what are you wearing?" A couple scenes later Mark and Andel are out together again, Mark starts to initiate a scene and Andel stops it and says "Wait. Mark, were you commenting on my outfit in that earlier scene?" Which got a big laugh. I was a little panicked but Julia came out and we transformed it into Andel's fantasy land with baggy cloths and bandannas growing on trees. We were all breaking a lot during the show and the audience seemed to really like it.
Whenever I ask Andel to sit in with a team she almost always says yes. The shows with her are always aggressive, energetic and refreshing. I know if I can get her to sit in it'll be a great experience. She's a great friend and an improv trump card. She always delivers.
Me: My only goal for this weekend is to see a movie.
Nicole: What do you want to see?
Me: Well- Thor, Dallas Buyers Club, Kill Your Darlings which I don't think will be that good but I want to see Ben Foster, About Time that romcom about the guy who time travels and ah um Bad Grandpa.
Nicole: You really want to see Bad Grandpa, it's like the fourth time you've mentioned it.
Me: No. Yeah. I want to see it but I'm not gonna drag you to it. We can see whatever you want.
Nicole: I'd see any of those.
Me: I feel like I've dragged you to enough depressing movies for a while so About Time?
Nicole: Naw, lets see Bad Grandpa , I'm not in the mood for a romcom I might get all weepy.
Me: You're sure?
Nicole: Yeah. I don't want to think much.
Tisher and I finished writing Bubble Boys Season 2 over a dinner at Tac Quick. The Panang was surprisingly and delightfully spicy, without the customary "level of spice" inquiry from the waitress. It had red peppers, green peppers, jalapenos, and basil. The chicken was good and the curry itself had a great consistency- thick without being stewy. The peanut flavor was muted by the spice but not overpowered by it.
The plating bothered me a bit and made it hard to coat the rice with the curry without making a total mess. Usually the rice is served in a separate bowl. But would I go again? Yes.
I just finished watching The Way recommended to me by my mom. It stars Martin Sheen as a grieving father on the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage. His son has just past away on the pilgrimage and Sheen embarks on it scattering his sons ashes along the way. It's a great film, emotionally complex and life affirming. It got me thinking about death, not in a morbid way but what kind of ritual I would like after my own passing.
When I was a child I fantasized about my own funeral, not out of any suicidal desire but because I was enamored with the attention. I liked the idea of a group of people being sad that I wasn't there and saying nice things about me, telling stories that maybe I had forgotten. As I grew older and went to a number of funerals my macabre fixation with post-mortem praise faded.
Now I'm more interested in the ritual. I doubt what happens to your body matters much to your spirit after death, but if something lingers it should linger in the right place and in the right way. Ideally I'd like to have a viking funeral. Put me in a boat, light me on fire, and push me out into the middle of a lake. That's not feasible and probably against the law.
I'd like to be cremated. I'd like a couple friends and family members to take a road trip up to The Badlands and scatter my ashes while the sun sets.
"I hope the end is joyful, and I hope never to return." -Frida Kahlo
Ender's Game is a SciFi movie set in a future where there is an imminent threat of alien invasion, based on the novel by Orson Scott Card*. In this future, which takes place 50 years after an attempted alien invasion, the government is extremely militant operating under the assumption the aliens will invade again at any moment. The military fosters potential commanders from a young age. Ender, the young lead and tactical prodigy, is put through a series of tests and advances through the ranks eventually commanding the entire international fleet.
The bulk of the narrative follows Ender on his rise to Commander. He goes through a series of training institutions shaping and honing his natural strategic abilities. For the most part he's an outcast but through persistence and skill becomes a leader and gains the friendship and respect of his fellow cadets.
The movie ends in a rush with a climax that you don't realize is a climax until it's almost over. The journey getting to the final confrontation, following Ender and his peers through training, is the real treat the "resolution" leaves a bit to be desired.
The performances are well rounded and serve the story- nothing great but nothing neglected. The amazing visuals are what make the movie a real experience. Ender's Game is a fun scifi adventure with some disturbing moral implications which are better left uninspected.
See It. *Note: Orson Scott Card, noted homophobe and opponent of same-sex marriage, was paid a flat fee by the studio for the rights to Ender's Game and will not receive any percentage of the money made by the movie.
At times I'm in too much of a rush to eat breakfast. Usually this does not bother me. Often times I get a seat on the train for my morning commute but when I'm running late I do not. Usually this does not bother me. Most commutes I'll listen to podcasts like Radiolab or Mental Illness Happy Hour which at times have subject matter which is graphic or disturbing. Usually this does not bother me.
Standing on the hot, crowded train I began to feel light headed. The Radiolab episode I listened to, describing Kenyan runners, took a hard right turn with a detailed description of a particular tribes violent right of passage ritual culminating in circumcision. It was described in excruciating detail. I began to feel really sick. Then the trained stopped.
I began to sweat, nausea hit me-boom, my legs weakened. I figured I could power through if the train kept moving. It did not. One minute dragged into two, then five, with no sign of getting moving and no update from the conductor. I was going to pass out. Sooner rather than later. I swallowed my pride, tapped the woman next to me and warned her I felt sick and needed to sit. She barely moved or acknowledged my presence. I sat on the train floor wedged into a corner surrounded by people on their phones.
Most of my fellow commuters were pointedly ignoring me. One young woman did not. She was hipsterish with a curly fauxhawk and almost immediately gave up her seat to me. I unslung my bag took off my coat and panted for a good 5 minutes with my head between my knees. The feeling passed. The train resumed movement. The young woman tapped me on the arm and asked me if I needed something to eat, needed some sugar. I smiled weakly and said no and thanked her. The rest of the train ride was without incident.
Typically I would be ashamed that I almost had a fainting spell on the train. But the immediate kindness and concern of one person in a sea of people playing Candy Crush really made me feel good, made me hope. And just like you, I'm human, sometimes I get sick on the train.
Lady of dusk-wood fastnesses,
Thou art my Lady.
I have known the crisp, splintering leaf-tread with thee on before,
White, slender through green saplings;
I have lain by thee on the brown forest floor
Beside thee, my Lady.
Lady of rivers strewn with stones,
Only thou art my Lady.
Where thousand the freshets are crowded like peasants to a fair;
Clear-skinned, wild from seclusion
They jostle white-armed down the tent-bordered thoroughfare
Praising my Lady.
I headed to Rockford to see my sister and celebrate my dad's birthday. Nicole came with and we spent a good deal of time lounging around watching Master Chef Junior. Great show.
It took me a long time to become accustomed to Chicago. The size and speed. Now I don't really think of it. Rockford by contrast is much more sedate. It's nice to go back and just relax, decompress.
But after a day or so I get antsy.It's more open in Rockford, more space-less people, more nature which I love. But I want to be on the move. Need to be. I love my childhood home and the city I grew up in, it's a great place to recharge. But it's not home anymore.
Escape From Tomorrow is a surreal fever dream that follows a family's last day in Disney World. The black and white film was shot guerrilla style without the consent or knowledge of Disney. The story is told through the perspective of Jim the father, a semi-schulbby quasi-lecherous good-ole-American dad just trying to have a nice vacation.
The film opens on Jim losing his job and his son locking him out on the balcony while his wife and daughter sleep. The family eventually ventures out into the park and Jim notices and starts obsessing about two french tween girls. The film gets ever stranger from there. The park and the park goers seem to be hiding a dark and sinister agenda with demon faces appearing on tourists as well as puppets, the Disney princesses moonlighting as prostitutes, and a secret brainwashing center under Epcot. Jim's life and his family begin to crumble as the sun sets and the evil forces rise.
The performances are surprisingly good with well rounded turns by the nuclear family juxtaposing real family interaction with absurdism, panic, and foreboding.
Escape From Tomorrow has the potential of a great film but only succeeds in being a good one. The plot isn't surreal enough to be an artistic sensory experience and doesn't explain/flush out enough of its odd characters, plot lines, and non sequiturs to achieve narrative clarity.
Ultimately there is a sense of indecision and distraction about the film that detracts from its overall impact. It does however have an incredible amount of potential making writer/director Randy Moore's next film a must see.
