What's Up Doc?

In college
I called
all my PhD
teachers
"Doc"
a term
of endearment
and because
I knew
even then
I wouldn't
get much chance
to use
the moniker
often.
They all
tolerated it
to various
degrees
but
my calc prof
really got a bang
out of it
I don't recall
her name
probably because
I always
called her
"Doc"
and calculus
is some
fifteen years
in the rearview
but I remember
her clarity
and humor
in the classroom
and her eyeroll
and grin
whenever
I called her "Doc".

'First Man' A Review

First Man is a biopic about Neil Armstrong(Ryan Gosling) and the Apollo 11 moon landing. The film opens on a breathtaking scene of Armstrong as test pilot skating along above the atmosphere. It quickly transitions into the illness and untimely death of his young daughter which becomes the driving force of Armstrong as a character and the film. Cutting back and forth between Armstrong pouring himself obsessively into his work and his wife Janet(Claire Foy) who stoically but clearly pained takes care of their home and two sons essentially alone. The film culminates in the historical moon landing.

Gosling is reserved but maintains his inherent magnetism, proving if he hasn't already that he is the heir to the Hollywood leading man title seemingly recently vacated by Brad Pitt. He's good and gives more with doing a lot less. Foy also gives a dynamic performance and the film allows relatively equal time to both spouses. Cutting between Gosling's character's obsession at work with the very real and emotional isolation Foy's character is left in forced to take care of their home and children solo, this forces her to actually feel (the only real character who emotes at all) and as such she is the heart of the film. The supporting cast is stacked with talent albeit almost all white male middle aged talent, which has an adverse effect on how compelling any of the character arcs turn out to be.

Most of the entire film is shot on shaky hand-held with the occasional gasp-inducing panorama which creates a very lived-in intimate feel. And this is the most captivating aspect of the film, the cinematography clearly and cleanly puts us in this time and place in all its fear and potential triumph.

The craft of the film is inarguable. The issues are the questions of why and why now. It's not reasonable to expect movies coming out in the wake of our current cultural upheaval to address it either directly or indirectly however it is reasonable to expect some attempt at diversity and inclusion, it is reasonable to expect some kind of reaction. It is a movie about a major historical moment in US history and art is not made in a vacuum. Certainly there is some intention at play here but what is it, blandness? Some kind of ill-conceived "neutrality"? This film, however well made, could have been made at any time, it is a film populated by white males, mythologizing the stoic white male hero, hearkening back to a time of (even more strident) white male dominance. We have seen this story countless times and there is nothing in it, beyond a skilled cameraperson, that necessitates its retelling. There is a brief scene of Leon Bridges as Gil Scott-Heron performing Whitey On The Moon however it's inclusion is not addressed or explored or even really acknowledged in any way.

First Man is well made and entertaining to a point but it is as toothless as Damien Chazelle's previous Oscar contender La La Land and right now I think we should require more of our art not less. 23 years after Apollo 13 and 2 years after Hidden Figures this can't help but feel regressive.

Exceeding visuals, lacking content.

Rent It.

Feeling The Pull

Wrote this as part of a send of show for MB, also a podcast Your Stories.

I was born and raised in Rockford, IL about an hour and a half west of Chicago. Over the years it has periodically been, unjustly from my perspective, on various lists for worst cities in america. Say what you want about many of it’s aspects but Rockford has one of the best municipal park systems in the country. There are seven major parks and countless small neighborhood ones with playground equipment and sports fields scattered throughout the city, there are also a couple large county maintained forest preserves in the area. Taken together they offer substantial recreation, adventure, and beauty.

Growing up I was a chubby kid the subject of no small amount of ridicule and cruelty. But every summer I was able to escape my archetypal role when I went to camp. The Rockford Park District offered a variety of types of camps for all age groups and I attended them all. Day camp, sleep away camp, backpacking, and bike. I loved them all and what they all had in common were two things. At them I could be whoever I wanted to be. I brought into into them no baggage, no history. I could make friends easily because all of us were working from square one. The second thing was that they all involved, no surprise, being in nature. And I discovered a deep resonance with the forests and hills, the rivers and lakes that I spent my summers in. I felt at home in the woods, I felt comfortable, there was a time it was one of the only places I did. And as time went on I found I had an affinity for it- hiking, canoeing, making a fire and cooking over it- I wasn’t a boy scout but I developed skills.

When I aged out of going to camp I became a camp counselor and that summer job along with the measured relief of high school opened up my social circle and got me out of my shell. I was a camp counselor for seven years, all through high school and for the bulk of college. Those was some of the best summers of my life. Stinking like campfire and bug spray, arguing with 8 year olds about what was for lunch, driving the tractor with 30 screaming kids in the trailer behind me.

In college after a summer of working at Camp Conestoga some friends and I, instigated by our love of the outdoors, planned a trip west for a little national parks tour. We left in the afternoon and drove all night. It was dawn when we came into The Badlands National Park in South Dakota, the sky was a screaming yellow and all around us were these beautifully alien mud/rock formations spreading out to the horizon. We stood there in awe. It was breathtaking, we were silenced by the splendor and vastness of Mother Nature. And for a moment we were part of her grace. And that feeling is something I’ve chased after ever since.

After the Badlands we went to Yellowstone then the Rocky Mountains National Park where we hiked Pike’s peak. On our way down fueled by youthful idiocy and THC we began to jog down the mountain, then run, letting gravity pull us forward gaining momentum as we corned switchbacks and lept boulders. And for a good ten minutes it was pure exhilaration, we were conquering the mountain, we were young, we were invincible. But like Icarus, my hubris was inevitably punished. I lost my balance and fell, crashing and sliding on the gravel path. The camera I wore on a shoulder strap was broken and my arms and legs were scraped and bleeding. I was hurt and I was embarrassed but I popped up and my friends washed me off with the water from their canteens and we finished the decent at a more stately pace.

Since that first trip I’ve been the Glacier National Park, the Grand Tetons, the Grand Canyon, Shenandoah, and many state and local parks all across the country. I just got back a couple days ago from a trip with my girlfriend to New Mexico the major reason for our visit was to go to Carlsbad Caverns and the White Sands National Monument. Which we did and both were spectacular.

All this to say nature is one of my great passions. Wherever I go I seek out the closet park and I hike through it. It gives me an inexpressible joy and a deep satisfaction. I return to it again and again and again. I place my time, energy, and money on the altar of the Earth Mother. And I encourage you to find your passions whatever they may be, to pursue them if you’ve found them, and if you already are I wish you good luck and godspeed.

If some day pride gets the better of you, and the gods justly bring you low, simply pick yourself up and continue down the path because around the next turn, the next bend, is the next opportunity, the next adventure.

'Studio 54' A Review

Studio 54 is a documentary about the famous NYC night club. Through archival footage, talking head interviews, and archival stills the tale of the influential club and the watershed moment which created it are told.

The primary narrator is co-founder Ian Schrager and all the recountings circle to various degrees around his vision of events. It is interesting, most especially the cultural significance and the diversity both sexual and racial the Studio 54 mentality promoted, however there is little mention of drug use or little to no reference or even discussion of exploitation. Because the individuals interviewed for the film are all regulars and former employees it is all painted with a particularly rosy shade which is not bad however it is relatively thin.

There is much talk of Studio 54 being historic but the time is not really taken explore the why, we are seemingly just supposed to take it on the word of our talking heads. So the documentary, although informative and filled with some intriguing characters, either doesn't attempt or isn't able to go much below the surface.

Maybe more appropriate for an hour long streaming special rather than a feature release.

Stream It.

'The Old Man And The Gun' A Review

The Old Man And The Gun is a romantic crime film about aging bank robber Forrest(Robert Redford) and his low key courtship of Jewel(Sissy Spacek). The film concurrently follows Detective Hunt(Casey Affleck) as he attempts to catch Forrest. Through flashbacks and exposition the life of Forrest is told which doubles as omage and retrospective for Redford as he has said this will be his last acting role.

Redford is charming and rakish, with the class but also edge that we know from some of his most notable roles. This certainly more so than All Is Lost feels like the appropriate swan song for the screen legend. Spacek is the perfect foil for Redford, the two have wonderful chemistry and provide all their scenes with an ease and subtle magnetism that make the relatively sedate crime story that envelopes the romance more tolerable.

The film, in essence, is a showcase for Redford and Spacek and as such is a success. The bank robbing heist element, the low key meditation on life element, the cat-and-mouse element aren't particularly engaging or original but giving the opportunity for the two leads to do what they do is what makes the film worth while.

Rent It.

The Moon And Me

I stood on the porch
outside our rented cabin
in the mountains
smoking a cigarette.

I looked up
at the foggy sky
wishing
I could see the stars.

Then for a moment
a break, a glimpse
a tantalizing ten seconds
of the full and shining moon.

I wondered
who else was looking up
during this brief
sliver of time.

Who else
saw the moon I saw
perhaps no one
no one at all.

And the thought
did not fill me
with loneliness or ennui
but a deep and abiding comfort.

For a moment
it was just the mountain
the forest, the moon
and me.

'Venom' A Review

Venom is a superhero action movie, the lead character a spin-off from the Spider-Man comics featured on the big screen first in 2007's Spider-Man 3. Eddie Brock(Tom Hardy) is an investigative reporter who stumbles upon secret experiments going on in the Life Foundation headed by the pervertedly altruistic Carlton Drake(Riz Ahmed). Eddie bonds with an alien organism (the titular Venom) providing him with superhuman abilities and all hell breaks loose!

Other than Hardy's performance not much is surprising or out of the now well-worn tropes of superhero movies but its different enough to excite and entertain. Hardy plays Brock as a periodic badass but mostly a cowardly panicked buffoon. Hardy gets to execute some serious slapstick when Brock and Venom battle for control of the body and Hardy gets to go full on Nicolas Cage crazy with the bizarre buddy routine he does with Venom. Unfortunately this absurd and surprisingly delightful performance is smack in the middle of a relatively pedestrian comic book movie with the necessary rainy action scene, mustache twirling villain, underutilized female supporting character(hope Michelle Williams got a fat check), and the classic boring the-villain-is-a-literal-version-of-the-hero we saw in he first half dozen Marvel movies.

Visually serviceable but unimaginative and with a score that is distinctly out of place and an overall tone that is, to put it generously inconsistent, the only real reason to watch the movie is for Hardy's performance. If the movie tonally followed his lead it would have been a more unique and more entertaining experience.

Stream It.