Growth

As far back as human history goes
we have marveled at our progeny
from the time of tribes and hunts
to this our capricious digital age
there is pride and wonder
in our children.

Holding my niece
listening to her incessant,
pointed, shockingly coherent chatter
I am amazed
not only by her loquacious tongue
but her height, her strength,
her dexterity
over weeks she leaps
cognitive chasms with alacrity.

And this feeling
so special, so wholly mine
and my family's
stretches back and back and back
to plains and huts and the miracle of fire
when woman first gave birth
and life began.

Vitals

In rehab
they took our vitals
every four hours
and I learned
in a clinical way
how my heart rate,
pulse,
and blood pressure
were effected
by exertion
and emotional upset
it provided
a practical tool
and awareness
after release
for the maintence
of calm.

'A House With A Clock In The Walls' A Review

A House With A Clock In The Walls is a family fantasy movie set in 1955 in small-town Michigan. Ten-year-old orphaned boy Lewis(Owen Vaccaro) goes to live with his Uncle Jonathan(Jack Black) who, along with his neighbor Florence(Cate Blanchett) are magic practitioners. Lewis settles in to his new school with some growing pains but begins to find his place as he learns magic from his Uncle. All the while the titular clock in the walls of his uncle's home is counting down to an ominous end.

Vaccaro is solid in the lead- likable, assured, and appropriately awkward. Child actor's can sometimes fall prey to being overly precious or more adult than they should be or conversely are wooden but he strikes a good balance. Nothing earth shattering, but then again neither is the script. Black and Blanchett ride easily on their natural charisma and confidence. They have good chemistry aren't asked to exert much skill. That's not to say the movie isn't entertaining, it is. It is a simple, playful, slightly dark family flick.

Not a sequel or a reboot, although an adaptation of a 1973 novel, the film has some freshness about it. A pleasant, exciting story that entertains both kids and adults. Not terribly sophisticated however it doesn't need to be.

Straightforward, you get what you expect, fun. Bolstered by an Oscar winner and nominee putting it a notch above typical kid fair.

Rent It.

'Mandy' A Review

Mandy is a psychedelic revenge thriller in the Shadow Mountains in 1983. The film opens on logger Red(Nicolas Cage) and his partner Mandy(Andrea Riseborough) in their secluded home. The first half focuses on their relationship, homelife, and dreams both figurative and literal as a sense of foreboding begins to build. When a LSD abusing cult abducts Mandy the situation and reality itself begins to unravel.

Cage gives an ecstatic performance that begins slow, thoughtful and internal then explodes in one of the best scenes of the year, a bathroom breakdown, then goes on to the expressionistic heights he is known for. He is always a master of going back and forth from an empathetic realism to what he has called "American Kabuki" and this provides him the chance to be a loving partner as well as an LSD fueled unhinged terminator. Riseborough and Cage have a casual but magnetic chemistry, they don't share much dialogue but their bond is clear. She balances him well with an ethereal, wraith-like presence that is also strong and assertive. The film breaks in two, the first half being Riseborough's the second Cage's and there is a harmony in it. The supporting cast are all excellent and bizarre especially Olwen Fouéré and Bill Duke who has a delicious cameo.

The cinematography is both innovative given the current cinematic landscape and a nostalgic throwback to 80's schlock and music videos. Neon, monochromatic filters, foggy dream sequences, 2D animation, weird washes and cuts. It's evocative and different and serves to heighten the otherworldly nightmarish story. The tone of the film and the score specifically are metal inspired with an eerie thrumming score that descends into the darkness along with Red.

A surprising, vivid, fresh, strange take on a conventional plotline reinvigorated by two great leads and an injection of dark fantasy.

Don't Miss It.

'Love, Gilda' A Review

Love, Gilda is a biographical documentary about the life, career, and death of Gilda Radner. The format is relatively conventional- talking head interviews, archival footage, and some home movies- but the access to Radner's personal papers and footage is extensive and incredible as is how honest and emotional the portrait it paints of the individual. Radner, essentially, narrates the film herself as the director Lisa D'Apolito utilizes the audiobook for Radner's memoir. It all is woven gently together into a caring, thoughtful, and dimensional portrait of one of the greatest and most influential comedians of the 20th century.

The format is traditionally chronological but Radner's contagious, effervescent, and resilient spirit come through. What we see is not a run down of her IMDB but a dynamic comedic talent struggling with the demands of show business and the desire for a partnership and family. A feminist who blazed the way for comedians who came after but one who didn't do it with rhetoric or hard political stances but perseverance and the power of her art.

An inspiring and moving film about the life of one of the greats.

See It.

Security Risk

I walked into work
and was confronted
with empty chairs
abandoned desks
and an eerie quiet
little did I know
the office was closed
for the nebulous
"security reasons"
and I
the lone employee
left unnotified
sat befuddled
in my cubicle
perhaps
perspective crypt,
I contacted a co-worker
who appraised me
of the potential danger
and I quickly left
Odd
in our age of
active shooter training
the threat is so routine
it has a corresponding
company policy
and procedure.

'The Predator' A Review

The Predator is a scifi adventure movie the latest in the series which began with 1987's Predator. A rogue predator crash landed in Mexico pursued by another predator. The crash disrupts a military operation and ropes in Quinn(Boyd Holbrook) a US sniper. Quinn and the predator are captured by government agent Will(Sterling K. Brown) who calls on the expertise of biologist Dr. Bracket(Olivia Munn) and when the predator breaks from his constraints and another predator appears pursuing the first all hell breaks loose and Quinn and Dr. Bracket hook up with a bus full of mentally ill servicemen. I forgot, Quinn's autistic son is able to understand and manipulate the predator's alien technology. Sounds chaotic and confusing? It is!

The one real shining star in the whole mess is Sterling K. Brown who goes big with his mustache twirling, relish, and sarcasm and it pays of big time. Munn is decent as the ass-kicking scientist and could have shouldered, successfully, more of the movie. Holbrook is passable but boring, a throwback to a dated 80's archetype that has been boxed up and put away for a reason. The group of mentally ill soldiers who gather around Quinn are all great actors - Thomas Jane, Trevante Rhodes, Keegan-Michael Key- but aren't given much to do. Seemingly writer/director Shane Black wanted to combine Predator with another 80's classic The Dream Team along with many other storylines and inspirations. All taken together it's clunky and borderline incoherent.

There's an interesting idea in the script somewhere and the cast is excellent but the script feels overworked and the cut is bizarre. A clear cut example of too many cooks not enough restraint. Visually the movie is scattershot, some great set pieces counterbalanced by extended scenes of woefully underfunded CGI.

Entertaining in a lazy Sunday sort of way.

Stream It.

The Way Of The Gun

As I walked onto the range
and took the 9mm pistol
in my hand
it was not fear I felt
but familiarity even
confidence
for I'd seen it done
a thousand ways
played with countless
toys near exact
in their replica
of the real.

I loaded the clip
then popped it in
chambered a round
and I had a live
murder machine
in my grasp
and it was not strange
it was completely
and utterly normal
even casual.

As I fired
shooting decently
I deep revulsion
began to build up in me
not for the weapon
nor for those
with some affection for it
but for the ease of it all
how fast and ordinary
it was
to shoot a handgun
then a rifle
then an assault weapon
as if these killing tools
were the most common things
the subject of non-chalance
rather than respect.

The gun itself
is just an object
its the indifference
that terrified me.

Bachelor Weekend

 Spent the weekend in Wisconsin for Jimmy's bachelor party. It was a great lil getaway.

 One of the activities was going to the shooting range.

 I was pretty disturbed by the whole experience honestly but I'm glad I did it and it was an interesting thing to share as almost everyone, save Jimmy, had no experience with fire arms. In a very strange way it was the thing that bonded us the most.

 We took the pontoon boat out on the chain of lakes and swam. The weather was gorgeous.

We grilled steaks and veggies and sat around the camp fire at night. All-in-all a really wonderful time. (Pictured above the boob pinata that Paul's mom made)

Birthday Poem

A commissioned poem for a friend for her spouse's birthday.

Raise your wine-eken high
To celebrate a singular guy

Spouts Italian like a gondola driver
A crossword & Scrabble Kaiser

A humor so dry it can be biting
Like a jagged stroke of lightening
But never doubt the heart and passion
For people, art, and Athens

A playlist aficionado
Adopted scion of Chicago

Settled at North Wayne Avenue
Improv’s reluctant ingénue

For all the bdays before
And all those yet to come
I wish you joy, adventure,
And zero erosion of your aplomb

'Peppermint' A Review

Peppermint is an action/revenge movie about a mother Riley(Jennifer Garner) whose husband and daughter are gunned down by a gang at a Christmas fair. She identifies the three gunman but they are eventually acquitted because of a long chain of corrupt officials. She spends five years turning herself into a killing machine and then returns on the anniversary of her family's death to settle the score.

There's almost nothing particularly interesting about any of the performances however I will say that it is refreshing to see Garner as the ass-kicking lead in this particular type of vigilante flick, a genre almost exclusively dominated by white men.

The plot is derivative, but since Death Wish these types of movies continue to be recycled and remade. There is satisfaction in the vigilante story. However Peppermint suffers from some significant racial problems in its portrayal of the Latinx cartel. All the members have face tattoos, they are all universally bloodthirsty and remorseless as well as lacking intelligence. In this respect the script feels not only 30 years dated but shatteringly tone-deaf. There is also a persistent and avoidable white-savior streak, Riley's base of operations is in skid-row and she is repeatedly referred to as an angle. There was a time this type of movie would have been enjoyed and then ignored but in our current climate the implicit messages of the movie and the stereotypes it utilizes underscore, and bolster up, the very worst kind of racism and fearmongering we can see everyday on Fox News and in the government. Artists have a responsibility with the content they create and it seems no one on this picture stopped to think what the images they were putting together would look like. Whether by intent or some kind of entitled ignorance who knows.

A seemingly inadvertent(but who knows) piece of propaganda for the Trump regime.

Don't See It.

Passion

Now I'll be the first one
to admit
insurance
can be
a dull business
but today
when my boss
compared
a policy-
100 pages
of codified
exacting verbiage-
to a work of art
with electric excitement
in his eyes
and the thrum of joy
in his voice
I had to agree
you see
sometimes
its about perception
the angle
from which you view
the depth to which
you look
and the thing is
for all his peculiarities, his
persnickety demands
his enthusiasm
is contagious
for not only
is there function
and concrete meaning
in the work
there is a beauty too.

'Kin' A Review

Kin is a scifi action movie about a teen boy Eli(Myles Truitt) who finds a futuristic weapon in an abandoned building. His brother Jimmy(Jack Reynor) gets out of prison and gets Eli and his father Hal(Dennis Quaid) involved with skeezy criminal Taylor(James Franco). They flee across country perused by the police, Taylor and his gang, as well as nameless future soldiers.

The cast is stacked with competent actors, Quaid especially gives the movie more gravitas and commitment then the page warrants. Truitt is open and engaging as the lead, Reynor is effective enough but all the characters are thinly drawn and inhabit a convoluted almost listless narrative. It is not a coming of age story, a scifi story, or a crime thriller. It attempts all of those but fails at all of them. It's so ambitious in tone and genre it has no focus. Franco gives a flat performance, channeling a watered down, boring version of his best performance Alien from Spring Breakers. Carrie Coon is wasted in what amounts to little more than a cameo as an FBI agent appearing literally seconds before the movie ends.

The visuals have style and Detroit as the initial setting is interesting(and rare) but the script has a fundamental identity crisis which prevents it from getting close to it's potential.

Excellently cast, poorly executed.

Stream It.