Stream of Consciousness

I Love George Clooney

OK—I never watched E.R. when George Clooney on it. So I have no mystique or history surrounding who he is, what he is about, what he is capable of doing or being. But what a year he's had, deservedly so, and this week, three Oscar nominations later, who can't love him, admire him, want him to be recognized for being more than his pretty face, for putting his politics where his face and his money and mouth are? I feel like he's an exemplar that beauty is more than skin deep. Syriana and Good Night, and Good Luck, two admirable movies he was involved in this past year, both getting the attention and recognition they deserve. And Clooney, instrumental in the energy and momentum behind and inside both of them. I cut his photo out of the gossip section of The Oregonian, hung it on the refrigerator. So refreshing when a pretty face isn't an ego-addled Hollywood freak. Hope for America if someone like this decides to dedicate his life to taking on the Big Picture issues. And gain 35 pounds to play a supporting actor role.

Lunafest Women's Film Festival

I actually came out of hiding last night to go to the Lunafest Women's Film Festival at Oregon State University. A friend asked me to go and brought along her friend from work, a wonderful woman full of energy, life, and stories. We had an early dinner at the Indian restaurant downtown and then made our way over to campus. The festival turned out to also be a fundraiser for several breast cancer non-profit groups. Clif, the company that makes Luna energy bars, had a presence, and there were various objets d'art and quilts displayed in the lobby of LaSells. It seems this is a show that Luna takes on the road; the company had mini-PIAs about the testimonials of surviving cancer and, later, the chemical dangers of many cosmetics. (I have to admit I found myself wondering why not wearing makeup at all wasn't offered up as an option.)

Still, what is it with these women's events? Last night was a reminder of why I gave up going to them, on principle, long, long ago. If the evening had simply been the showing of the films—with information in the lobby from whatever corporate or non-profit sponsor—that would have been fine. But at the start of the evening and after intermission, there had to be the proselytizers, women with legitimate tales to tell of their own brush with cancer or the ways they have survived and thrived. Stories with pathos and heart and the power to move all of us listening in the audience. But both of them rambled on and on. Conflated politics, political correctness, out-of-context statistics and dubious, unfounded scientific findings with their personal stories. One even threw in a dash of new age wholistic healing advice (her personal history in a way) and, in the end, a visualization exercise about a greener world in place of what is currently Las Vegas! One of the women I was with, mercifully, had her knitting. I found myself wishing I'd brought a book.

The movies themselves were overall downbeat, closing in on despair and dour. The best was "Backseat Bingo" a five-minute animation about seniors who still want and seek sex. Very cute. Another animated feature callled "Mabel" about women aging, entering into the post-50 period of their lives was passable. The rest were tales of women and their hard, tortured lives. A single mother of two children by two men (both MIA) gets called up to go with her National Guard unit to Iraq. An Eqyptian woman now living (prosperously) in L.A. has to decide whether or not follow the cultural practice of female circumcision she was brutally subjected to as a girl back home. An Indian-American young woman goes home from college and is at odds with her mother who is trying to arrange a marriage for her with an overweight African-American student from her cooking class. A distraught young woman about to kill herself over a soured love relationship answers the phone and talks to a distraught older women who is a Holocaust survivor, pretending to be the daughter the woman has lost. A women in St. Petersburg takes in a homeless child and pretends she is her own daughter, gone missing three years before. A woman beaten into perfection from infancy, through years of Suzuki violin and straight-A homework and achievement, finally turns off the timer on the game Perfection and reclaims her own life. (By the time this short film was shown, many of us in the audience expected her to kill herself!.) Overall, thin characterization and many scenes of plot development grounded in women talking on the telephone.

What did I take away from this? Women suffer and feel misunderstood and alone. Women have hard lives. Women on their own with children have hard lives. Women have irreoncilable issues with the children they raised on their own. Women might do well to avoid ending up on their own with children, it will lead to a hard life. The most fun in a woman's life seems to be when she is older, post-menopause, empty nest, living in Boca Raton with a bunch of other seniors eager to reclaim their randy youths.

I applaud the efforts of all these filmmakers to get their vision and their stories out into the world. But I think I'm ready to return to the world of real movies today. Woody Allen's Match Point arrived in town this weekend. Time for a well-crafted neurotic but at least professional and satisfyingly complex dose of him.

Anticipation

Finally some genuine excitement, something to look forward to, to get me through the six inches of rain scheduled to arrive by Monday and into February: not one but two opportunities so see Jonathan Demme's movie about Neil Young: Heart of Gold in Portland at the International Film Festival and the week of February 24th at Cinema 21.

This from Shawn Levy, the Oregonian's film critic, earlier this week:

"Sundance: Paradise At Last! I have finally seen a great film here -- after 17 disappointments before it.
Neil Young: Heart of Gold is one of the best performance films in the medium -- a gorgeous and touching slice of Americana, filmed last August at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville and focusing mostly on Young's last album, "Prarie Wind," and acoustic material from his classic "Harvest" LP. Director Jonathan Demme has made a picture that stands with his "Stop Making Sense" and may even be better. I was exhausted when I went into it and positively abuzz when it was over."

I have been a Neil fan, devotee really since I bought After the Gold Rush for $3.69 (or was it $2.87) at The Upper Story, a head shop on South Main Street in Wilkes-Barre when I was in 9th grade, 1969. "Sailing heart-ships through broken harbors, Out on the waves in the night..." It may be one of the few records I know entirely by heart. One of those watershed records. On the turntable, changing your life.

I just watched the movie's trailer on the web site and felt positively buoyed up. It has scenes of Nashville, where we were barely two weeks back, and the Ryman where we heard an amazing concert with Emmy Lou, Mindy Smith, Patti Griffin and Paula Cole, on January 10th. And then, in the trailer, there's Neil, in a suit and white boater, and the music, familiar, new, sad, woebegone and bereft yet everyone is smiling, the acoustics are astonishing, and, in the end, taking a bow, there's much grinning and holding of hands.

Movie Reviews: No Romance Book Group

Here's a sampling of the informal movie reviews I've posted on the on-line No Romance Book Group friends and I started back in 2001:

Movie Reviews

March 2005: Hotel Rwanda

Talk about a movie that got me to stop feeling sorry for myself! Sometimes there is nothing better for my soul that to see before my eyes the generous, kind acts of a truly heroic human being. Don Cheadle plays Paul Rusesabagina in Hotel Rwanda, a person who is one of those heroic souls. But he’s never showy or egotistical about it—rather composed, measured, always gracious. Don Cheadle’s Paul is the sun that this movie orbits around. It’s very sad stuff— the Rwandan genocide of 1994 and the way most of the (mostly) white world looked the other way. It is one of those films that can make you cry. But to see human beings trying, under the absolute worst of circumstances, to care for, look after, shelter, try to save one another—well, it was quite the antidote to all the silliness in Florida re: the Terri Schiavo feeding tube frenzy this past week. The movie comes out on DVD in two or three weeks. The big screen definitely added to its emotional impact. This is the kind of movie I’m really glad I went to see.

November 2005: Capote

Went to see Capote this afternoon. It’s definitely in what seems to be a current vogue of biopics of fascinating famous people—last year it was Ray, this year also Johnny Cash. What will be next? Capote is the story of the author Truman Capote’s life told through the years in which he went to
Kansas to research material for a book about the senseless murder of a family, the book that became In Cold Blood. Capote was already famous when the New Yorker agreed to let him do this. He
travelled to Kansas with his childhood friend, Harper Lee—yep, author of To Kill A Mockingbird. Lee helps the very much fish-out-of-water, urban/gay Capote win access to the people in-the-know in the town. Capote himself insinuates himself into the heart and mind of one of the murderers, Perry Smith.

Philip Seymour Hoffman’s performance as Capote has been getting amazing accolades in every review I read and it deserves the praise. If you have been following his diverse body of acting work including Brandt in The Big Lebowski; the nurse in Magnolia; Boogie Nights; a prep school teacher in 25th Hour; the Reverend in Cold Mountain; a kid in Scent of a Woman; the excellent HBO movie series, Empire Falls; even Patch Adams—then you must see this because his transformation to the very singular, peculiar, affected Capote is astonishing. I think he is a truly gifted actor.

The movie might be better appreciated if you have read In Cold Blood. Which, if you haven’t, is an amazing read. He was, at one time, the most famous writer in America. Interesting contrast—scenes of Capote holding court at a NYC cocktail party in a loft and the stark contrast of the Midwestern winter plains in Kansas.

December 2005: Syriana

Went to late afternoon matinee. It was such thick fog here today a movie seemed like a good idea. Damn, I love George Clooney—with each movie he’s involved in or starring in, he becomes a more
interesting and bravely political individual to me. This flick was made by the guy who wrote the screen play for Traffic. Like that film, it tells the story of six, maybe seven different characters. It can be a tad hard to follow, as many of the reviews have said. I think, however, that is a bit necessary because one of the points of the film is how everything links back to the power and the money that is at the root of the American love affair with Mideast oil. There are corrupt lawyers, cracker Texas oilmen, disaffected Pakistani youths who lose their oil rig jobs and join a mudrassah, becoming fodder for the jihadists. There are sinister, amoral DC politicians and bureaucrats, a whole CIA netherworld of more folks who seem to get A plus in how fast they can lie on their feet. There’s a business guy who gets in bed with a oil country prince and stands to make tons of investment dough before things fall apart. And there’s George Clooney who knows the middle east, who gets ratted out and beaten upon and finds he does have principles that he is willing to act on after all.

Intersting timely stuff. I’m glad this is getting wide play across the US. Many people need to see this, like taking a truth pill, especially those who still don’t get the connection between oil and Islamic terror and our car-dependent and oil-crazed US lifestyles.

More Movies!

Last November, the day after Bush et. al. likely rigged another US election, I said I was going to spend the next four years with my nose buried in books and my eyes glued to movies. I'm doing fairly well on the latter. This week, saw "The Upside of Anger" and "Crash" in the theatre; "Team America: World Police" and "Blue Hawaii" on DVD. Also was thrilled to catch the Congressional Media Forum testimony on C-Span last eve and my favorite, the goddess of talk radio, Randi Rhodes. Six Feet Under returns for its final season next week. Sun is shining here and the flowers are blooming in their terra cotta pots on the deck. We're halfway through year #1 of the 4...

The Interpreter at the Kilauea Theatre

I've now visited two Hawaiian islands -- the Big Island of Hawai'i in November 2001 and now, Kaua'i, this past ten days. On both trips, it was interesting to discover that many island towns have managed to keep their downtown movie houses alive, well, and still showing movies. Kaua'i has been the site of many, many movies over the years including scenes from Jurassic Park, Raiders of the Lost Ark, South Pacific (of course) and Elvis Presley's Blue Hawaii. Maybe this has something to do with why these movie theatres are able to stay alive even when there are multiplex cinemas opening up at the island malls?

On this trip, we made a point to head up to Kilauea, on Kaua'is North Shore, where the Kilauea Arts and Cultural Center also operates the Kilauea Theatre, an independent movie house. The movie theatre is an eccentric one -- collage sculptures and paintings by a range of local artists adorn the walls. And the owner made his announcements of coming attractions without a microphone from the open window of the projection room above our heads -- a nice homey touch! It was also a relief to have trailers that actually showed ONLY movie previews instead of advertisements for the US Army, violent video games and Pepsi and/or Coke.

Fever Pitch had just given way to the Sydney Pollack's new political thriller, The Interpreter. Having just finished a few books that focused on the genocide in Rwanda (and seen the movie Hotel Rwanda), I was interested in The Interpreter's story of an assassination threat on an African leader who may or may not have presided over and sanctioned genocide in his country.

The Interpreter is the story of Silvia Broome, a U.N. translator who grew up in this African country where her parents and sister were murdered by the political upheaval. Broome is played by Nicole Kidman who seems to be getting pretty good at a range of languages -- she reminded me of Meryl Streep in her Sophie's Choice and Out of Africa days. Broome goes back to her office one evening to retrieve her bag left behind during a routine evacuation earlier in the day and overhears something that may or may not be a plot against that President's life. What she may or may not have heard sets in motion a huge US and UN attempt to get to the bottom of the matter and discover who really wants to do what to whom and where. Sean Penn plays a Secret Service agent whose own estranged wife died in a car wreck several weeks before. Of course, he and his crew get assigned to figure out what Broome knows, what her involvement may be in this threat.

Some of the plot is predictable. But overall, I found the story compelling and went along for the ride. Both Penn and Kidman live in funky and comfortable digs in Manhattan -- Kidman's decor includes gorgeous rugs and African masks -- it is always fun for me to be a voyeur into urban and urbane New York City lives.

This is one of those thrillers that seems more political and cerebral than visceral and throat-clutchingly fearful. I think I prefer those -- I'm not a movie goer who likes to be scared to death. I think it's worth seeing. It definitely could be saved for DVD.

End of the Century

I watched End of the Century, the movie about the punk rock band, The Ramones last night. It had gotten interesting reviews and it was, overall, pretty fascinating. I tend to like movies about music, movies about rock bands, movies that give you the inside dirt of touring and playing concerts and what it's like to live that edgy rock and roll life, etc. I loved the movie about the Talking Heads, Stop Making Sense, and of course Scorcese's tribute to the last concert by The Band, The Last Waltz. This movie definitely seemed to be in a similar vein.

I was only minorly into punk when it first came out -- Patti Smith was my goddess for a while in the mid 1970s. But mostly I was distracted by other things like raising a kid back then. So I didn't really know much about The Ramones. I have to say -- after seeing this film, I actually want to get one of their records. The story of the movie seems to be that this is a band that SHOULD have made it bigger than they ever did. They tried assorted producers including Phil Spector. They had the requisite band personnel changes -- and a devastating love triangle that resulted in Joey Ramone (who died of cancer at age 49 in 2002) losing Linda, the love of his life, to Johnny Ramone (the Bush 1-loving, Republican whip cracker of the band) who married Linda and the two band members ignored and never talked about the situation ever again.

Oh yeah, Dee Dee is also dead -- heroin overdose. The Ramones made noisy, in your face, anti-establishment rock and roll. There were the requisite drugs and alcohol and bad haircuts and stoned-sounding interviews thrown in. Still, I think the movie has energy and offers an interesting portrait of musicians who pretty much tried to keep true to their authentic voices and selves.