This past weekend, two of my oldest friends in Los Angeles got married. The ceremony was great, with lots of drinking, great music and carousing with old and new friends. More on that in a moment.
The story of Satish and Jessie, the wonderful couple in question, is long and filled with drama (in a good way). Not to sound like a douche bag, but I was there at the beginning. They had one particular class together, one of those classes that are so complicated that it destroys friendships, and were part of the same group. I came along for a meeting early in the semester at Jessie's house and watched her argue with Satish. Even though they clearly disagreed about several things, they were clearly on a certain wavelength. Since Jessie was the only one with a car at the time, she drove everybody home. She dropped Satish off at his place, and as we watched him make his way up to the front door, she said something along the lines of "I think I want to make out with him."
My reaction: "Go for it!"
Flash-forward to this past weekend. The wedding ceremony was held at a Buddhist college in Aliso Viejo, and among the guests were Jessie's big Filipino family, Satish's big Italian family, and both of their friends, who are one of the most eclectic and international groups of people you could hope to find anywhere. It was classic and elegant, with the poofy dress, the tuxedos, the centerpieces, but it was loose and free in a way that all weddings ought to be.
In episodes of Six Feet Under where primary characters died their funerals would be packed with extras you had never seen before. That struck me as weird, even though I could look to other funerals I've been to, such as my grandmother's in 2006, when old neighbors and my mother's high school friends were showing up. Similarly, in the weddings I've been to in the last few years (and there have been several) there were always those people who you didn't know, the guests you never spoke to, the guests who were just extras and who you'd totally have forgotten about if they weren't walking through the background of your snapshots. All I ever saw on Six Feet Under were the lead characters, and their relationships with other lead characters. This weekend I feel like I had something of an epiphany. Those scenes from the HBO show finally made sense when I looked around and saw all these people who I had never met, but who were there, just like me, to show Satish and Jessie their love and support. I am finding that, from my very selfish perspective, I see my interactions with people as being the only events that really take place. Why would they know anybody I've never met? Why would I not know any other people that they know? Because, I know now, we are humans. Those people I have never met are all humans. I grant that this revelation probably doesn't make sense to anyone else in the world, but for me it's a bit profound. No wonder people are still dismissing me by saying "Oh, you're young."
If you look at depictions of weddings in popular American culture, they are usually pretty staid, sober affairs. Not only have they been manufactured by award-winning production designers with the backing of a major studio, but there is a formal going-through-the-motions quality that seems to be present only when you're dealing with a white, WASPy family. The only loose weddings seem to be the 'ethnic' ones, and that's usually because they are some sort of homogeneous gathering for a particular minority. I look back on Jessie and Satish's wedding, and I am struck by what a microcosm of America the whole thing is. Especially when the newlyweds (Indian and Pinay respectively) and their Bridesmaids (Indian, Middle Eastern, African American) and Groomsmen (Indian, Pakistani, Mexican) jumped on the dancefloor for a surprise rendition of Michael Jackson's Thriller dance (led by a white girl). Meanwhile, Satish's adoptive Italian family, Jessie's Filipino family and everyone else in the room clapped along and hooted and cheered.
Saying that a particular wedding is more American than another doesn't qualify it as better or worse, but this one, with it's white minority and melting pot pastiche of guests, was the most fun I've ever had.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Bonnie and Clyde
I am getting toward the end of the book Go Down Together by Jeff Guinn, a recent (and excellent) biography of Bonnie and Clyde. A real page turner, it reflects a lot of new research that re-examines, and in many cases debunks, numerous popular myths and misconceptions about the famous Depression-era outlaws. Of course, this put me in the mood to do something I had wanted to do since middle school: Start writing my Bonnie and Clyde screenplay. The book has so many interesting stories and pieces of information that I was thinking that a John Adams-style mini-series might (at least sort of) do it justice, but I was dismayed to learn that a movie about the very same subject has been filming since April.
The movie The Story of Bonnie and Clyde, which is due out next year, has garnered a lot of criticism due to the fact that Hilary Duff will be playing Bonnie Parker. Everybody on the webs are up in arms. I have to admit I was too at first. As an ex-Disney pawn (is she still a Disney pawn?), Duff doesn't seem like the type of actress that you want to entrust with a serious role. Her movies so far have all been majorly fluffy, and her Lizzie Maguire TV persona isn't help much. She's too young, too perfect, to modern to accurately play the Bonnie Parker who lived a rough life, aged quickly and died violently beside her sociopathic boyfriend.
I'm gonna say it: Maybe she can do it. Why not? She hasn't really been presented with the opportunity to tackle a challenging role. With a woman at the helm of the production, Duff might be privy to some directorial insight into the character that Faye Dunaway didn't quite get from Arthur Penn. I'll hold out hope that Tonya S. Holly is more Kathryn Bigelow than Catherine Hardwicke.
Am I wary of the choice of Duff to play this hallowed, complicated character? Yes, absolutely. We also have to remember that many of the common notions about Bonnie are false or unproven: Bonnie probably never shot anybody, she never smoked cigars, she most likely never slept around with other members of Clyde's gang. While she's nowhere near my first choice (Mireille Enos), or second (Anna Paquin), or third (Jennifer Jason Leigh), Duff must have done something right in the audition process. The problem of casting her in this role is, partly, the problem of casting any current age-appropriate actress: People look younger, seem younger, and more youth-oriented personas now than they used to. Duff is going to be 22 this year, about the same age as Clyde and Bonnie when they first met.
The only other thing I'm really worried about is the movie's actual overall quality. Since the subject is pretty close to my heart, I want it to look nice and be presented accurately. I want it to be shot in the right locations (it is), on film (fingers crossed), with a large enough budget to allow for accurate costumes and props (one can only hope). I doubt that it's budget is anything close to that of Public Enemies. I'm hopeful that they'll be able to make it work.
Most of the uproar around this movie seems to come from everyone's impression that this is a 'remake' of the 1967 movie Bonnie and Clyde that starred Dunaway and Warren Beatty at the title characters. I can't agree about this being any particular sort of "tragedy," since I don't like and never liked that film, but calling this movie a 'remake' is about as accurate as Sarah Palin's recent use of the term "Death Panel." This movie is a retelling of historical events, not the rehashing of an older film. If you still want to look at it that way, then just remember that your precious 1967 movie would then, by that definition, also be a remake, since it was preceded by the terrific Gun Crazy and, before that, the proto-noir You Only Live Once.
I'm annoyed that a Bonnie and Clyde movie is being made at the moment, but I'm annoyed for very selfish, unrealistic reasons. I want it to either be good and be well received, or for it to be so terrible that it gets buried by the distributor, with no release whatsoever. The real tragedy will be if it picks up where Public Enemies left off turning the subject of 1930's gangsters into 21st Century box office poison.
The movie The Story of Bonnie and Clyde, which is due out next year, has garnered a lot of criticism due to the fact that Hilary Duff will be playing Bonnie Parker. Everybody on the webs are up in arms. I have to admit I was too at first. As an ex-Disney pawn (is she still a Disney pawn?), Duff doesn't seem like the type of actress that you want to entrust with a serious role. Her movies so far have all been majorly fluffy, and her Lizzie Maguire TV persona isn't help much. She's too young, too perfect, to modern to accurately play the Bonnie Parker who lived a rough life, aged quickly and died violently beside her sociopathic boyfriend.
I'm gonna say it: Maybe she can do it. Why not? She hasn't really been presented with the opportunity to tackle a challenging role. With a woman at the helm of the production, Duff might be privy to some directorial insight into the character that Faye Dunaway didn't quite get from Arthur Penn. I'll hold out hope that Tonya S. Holly is more Kathryn Bigelow than Catherine Hardwicke.
Am I wary of the choice of Duff to play this hallowed, complicated character? Yes, absolutely. We also have to remember that many of the common notions about Bonnie are false or unproven: Bonnie probably never shot anybody, she never smoked cigars, she most likely never slept around with other members of Clyde's gang. While she's nowhere near my first choice (Mireille Enos), or second (Anna Paquin), or third (Jennifer Jason Leigh), Duff must have done something right in the audition process. The problem of casting her in this role is, partly, the problem of casting any current age-appropriate actress: People look younger, seem younger, and more youth-oriented personas now than they used to. Duff is going to be 22 this year, about the same age as Clyde and Bonnie when they first met.
The only other thing I'm really worried about is the movie's actual overall quality. Since the subject is pretty close to my heart, I want it to look nice and be presented accurately. I want it to be shot in the right locations (it is), on film (fingers crossed), with a large enough budget to allow for accurate costumes and props (one can only hope). I doubt that it's budget is anything close to that of Public Enemies. I'm hopeful that they'll be able to make it work.
Most of the uproar around this movie seems to come from everyone's impression that this is a 'remake' of the 1967 movie Bonnie and Clyde that starred Dunaway and Warren Beatty at the title characters. I can't agree about this being any particular sort of "tragedy," since I don't like and never liked that film, but calling this movie a 'remake' is about as accurate as Sarah Palin's recent use of the term "Death Panel." This movie is a retelling of historical events, not the rehashing of an older film. If you still want to look at it that way, then just remember that your precious 1967 movie would then, by that definition, also be a remake, since it was preceded by the terrific Gun Crazy and, before that, the proto-noir You Only Live Once.
I'm annoyed that a Bonnie and Clyde movie is being made at the moment, but I'm annoyed for very selfish, unrealistic reasons. I want it to either be good and be well received, or for it to be so terrible that it gets buried by the distributor, with no release whatsoever. The real tragedy will be if it picks up where Public Enemies left off turning the subject of 1930's gangsters into 21st Century box office poison.
Monday, August 3, 2009
Good Ideas: Ozsploitation
I've gotten really interested, lately, in vintage foreign action movie genres, namely the Nikkatsu yakuza thrillers of the 1960's, and the Roger Corman-produced, Pam Grier-starring quazi-Blaxploitation women-in-prison action movies from the 1970's, movies like The Big Doll House and Black Mama, White Mama (they count as foreign because they were shot in the Philippines). I have to admit I'm even curious about those awful Golan & Globus action movies that were shot in Israel or Apartheid-era South Africa in the late 1980's. Maybe this was a phase I should have gone through when I was younger, but right now I'm rethinking my old attitudes about "guy" movies, movies that are gritty and cheep and know it.
I can now add another sub-genre to that list, thanks to today's episode of The Business on KCRW (I listen to the podcast version every week). Ozsploitation is the subject of a documentary called Not Quite Hollywood, which documents the rash of sleezy, ultraviolent and bra-ripping early days of 1970's Australian filmmaking. According to the director, Australia had developed a very strong film industry in the 1940's and 1950's, but the foreign powers bought up all the cinemas in the 1960's and pushed the homegrown industry out. The country's return to domestic film output co-incided with the dismantling of censorship laws, and as a result, the outback cinema became one of blood and boobs, and more than a handful of near-death car stunts. Among the best known of the genre were Mad Max and The Cars That Ate Paris, but there were dozens of other films that were far dirtier, far more explicitly violent and sexual, far more shocking. The genre also gave start to a lot of careers, including Barry Humphries/Dame Edna Everage, who you'll remember from another blog entry.
I had no idea there was a piece of history like this lurking in the shadows, but it does fit with what information I did already have about Aussie films. If I had to name any Austrailian movie older than Mad Max, I couldn't get much farther than The Story of the Kelly Gang. and that's only because it's been acknowleged as the first feature film ever made that wasn't a boxing documentary. It's really qite a sad story, that of Australia's film industry, that it produced the worlds feature film (in the tender year of 1906) and had a thriving industry that was so destroyed by America in about fifteen years time that these films are the output of an industry that was starting over from scratch.
That's not to diminish the value of the movies that are profiled in Not Quite Hollywood. They look fun and exciting. Given the context in which they were made, I feel like now is the best time for me to see them. The really ironic thing is that the only other movies being made in Australia at the time were languid hits and misses like Walkabout (hit) and Picnic at Hanging Rock (not a hit).
Somehow I bet Night of Fear or Alvin Purple Rides Again are a lot more watchable that the beautifully shot but not very rewarding Careful, He Might Hear You, which I just sent back to Netflix yesterday.)We'll see how I feel once I've seen a few Ozsploitation movies all the way through, but first, Seijin Suzuki's Youth of the Beast.
I can now add another sub-genre to that list, thanks to today's episode of The Business on KCRW (I listen to the podcast version every week). Ozsploitation is the subject of a documentary called Not Quite Hollywood, which documents the rash of sleezy, ultraviolent and bra-ripping early days of 1970's Australian filmmaking. According to the director, Australia had developed a very strong film industry in the 1940's and 1950's, but the foreign powers bought up all the cinemas in the 1960's and pushed the homegrown industry out. The country's return to domestic film output co-incided with the dismantling of censorship laws, and as a result, the outback cinema became one of blood and boobs, and more than a handful of near-death car stunts. Among the best known of the genre were Mad Max and The Cars That Ate Paris, but there were dozens of other films that were far dirtier, far more explicitly violent and sexual, far more shocking. The genre also gave start to a lot of careers, including Barry Humphries/Dame Edna Everage, who you'll remember from another blog entry.
I had no idea there was a piece of history like this lurking in the shadows, but it does fit with what information I did already have about Aussie films. If I had to name any Austrailian movie older than Mad Max, I couldn't get much farther than The Story of the Kelly Gang. and that's only because it's been acknowleged as the first feature film ever made that wasn't a boxing documentary. It's really qite a sad story, that of Australia's film industry, that it produced the worlds feature film (in the tender year of 1906) and had a thriving industry that was so destroyed by America in about fifteen years time that these films are the output of an industry that was starting over from scratch.
That's not to diminish the value of the movies that are profiled in Not Quite Hollywood. They look fun and exciting. Given the context in which they were made, I feel like now is the best time for me to see them. The really ironic thing is that the only other movies being made in Australia at the time were languid hits and misses like Walkabout (hit) and Picnic at Hanging Rock (not a hit).
Somehow I bet Night of Fear or Alvin Purple Rides Again are a lot more watchable that the beautifully shot but not very rewarding Careful, He Might Hear You, which I just sent back to Netflix yesterday.)We'll see how I feel once I've seen a few Ozsploitation movies all the way through, but first, Seijin Suzuki's Youth of the Beast.
Friday, July 24, 2009
Now I Wanna Be Your Dog
Every now that then you see something that makes you angry, not because it offends you, but because you wish you came up with it. Back in February I saw Diablo Cody speak at Cinequest in San Jose and she said that The Wrestler had made her angry for that very reason.
Well, here's the item for this week that I wish I had come up with: A beautifully designed and smashingly edited rendition of the classic Stooges song. Why couldn't I have come up with this? It's not like I've been busy updating my blog or anything.
Oh well. I'm sure I'll be feeling the same thing tonight; I'm going to see the long-awaited (500) Days of Summer.
Well, here's the item for this week that I wish I had come up with: A beautifully designed and smashingly edited rendition of the classic Stooges song. Why couldn't I have come up with this? It's not like I've been busy updating my blog or anything.
Oh well. I'm sure I'll be feeling the same thing tonight; I'm going to see the long-awaited (500) Days of Summer.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Good Ideas: WPA Murals, Hawaii
There are a few things bothering me lately, but only slightly since I haven't been keeping up on politics a whole lot in the past few weeks. From what I can tell, crazy white people are still having affairs and snubbing government money that would help their states' schools, and then spreading rumors that Barack Obama might not have been born in the US, and about how brown women are racist. Oh yeah, and they're still practically going out of their way to mispronouce non-WASP surnames. I guess I haven't been missing very much.
President Obama is a native of Hawaii, that beautiful state where white people can go and get treated like massa's. Hawaii was inducted into the union in March 1959, a year and five months before his was born, so the question of birth on American soil isn't an issue. However I was talking with a friend the other day and the hypothetical "What if he had been born before 1959" came up. It's a reasonable scenario. Fortunately, Albert is smart and knew right away that, since 1900, Hawaii had been a US territory, which qualities it as American soil, and therefore Obama wouldn't have had any trouble. Can you imagine what Mrs Ann Coulter would have done with that, though? I'm going to write Albert in on the ballot for 2012.
The only things that are really bugging me about Obama are already things we knew before we voted for him: He's a little more moderate than I would like, and he doesn't support marriage equality. I've said that before, not on here, and I'll say it again, on here. And, yes, it's the perfect time to take down Don't Ask, Don't Tell. These Human Rights Campaign spam emails really to stop. People are also totally freaked out about the free communist healthcare, big surprise. I just want to know if American can expect free WPA Murals with their healthcare. That's a change I could believe in.
By the way, this is the WPA mural from the late, great Essex Mountain Sanatorium in Verona, New Jersey. Check out the link below to see more fabulous pictures.
http://www.mountainsanatorium.net/
President Obama is a native of Hawaii, that beautiful state where white people can go and get treated like massa's. Hawaii was inducted into the union in March 1959, a year and five months before his was born, so the question of birth on American soil isn't an issue. However I was talking with a friend the other day and the hypothetical "What if he had been born before 1959" came up. It's a reasonable scenario. Fortunately, Albert is smart and knew right away that, since 1900, Hawaii had been a US territory, which qualities it as American soil, and therefore Obama wouldn't have had any trouble. Can you imagine what Mrs Ann Coulter would have done with that, though? I'm going to write Albert in on the ballot for 2012.
The only things that are really bugging me about Obama are already things we knew before we voted for him: He's a little more moderate than I would like, and he doesn't support marriage equality. I've said that before, not on here, and I'll say it again, on here. And, yes, it's the perfect time to take down Don't Ask, Don't Tell. These Human Rights Campaign spam emails really to stop. People are also totally freaked out about the free communist healthcare, big surprise. I just want to know if American can expect free WPA Murals with their healthcare. That's a change I could believe in.
By the way, this is the WPA mural from the late, great Essex Mountain Sanatorium in Verona, New Jersey. Check out the link below to see more fabulous pictures.
http://www.mountainsanatorium.net/
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Thanks for Birth Control, Auntie Em!
For a research paper I am crunching today, I was looking up the 1957 interview Mike Wallace did with Margaret Sanger, the famous and controversial birth control advocate. Once you get past Wallace's lengthy, prattling plug for the Phillip Morris cigarettes (he might as well be smudging a lit smoke in your ear, it's that obvious) the actual interview is extremely interesting and Sanger comes off as very sincere and articulate, as much an advocate for personal responsibility as for . (She also had recanted her past views on eugenics at this point, and that doesn't excuse them, but it shows she wasn't above changing her mind when broader life experience proved her wrong.)
The entire time I was watching the interview, I was struck by how much Sanger resembled that actress everyone doesn't know they know, Clara Blandick. A classic character actress, Blandick is better known as Auntie Em to Judy Garland's Dorothy Gale in The Wizard of Oz (1939). I kept picturing that scene where Elmira Gulch (Margaret Hamilton) gets told off by Auntie Em, but with different dialogue.
Ms Gulch: What do you say to opponents that birth control violates, not only a Catholic law, but a 'higher law.' What would you say to that?
Auntie Em: Well, you'd have to ask a Catholic. I can't speak for them.
Watch the interview here:
http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/multimedia/video/2008/wallace/sanger_margaret.html
The entire time I was watching the interview, I was struck by how much Sanger resembled that actress everyone doesn't know they know, Clara Blandick. A classic character actress, Blandick is better known as Auntie Em to Judy Garland's Dorothy Gale in The Wizard of Oz (1939). I kept picturing that scene where Elmira Gulch (Margaret Hamilton) gets told off by Auntie Em, but with different dialogue.
Ms Gulch: What do you say to opponents that birth control violates, not only a Catholic law, but a 'higher law.' What would you say to that?
Auntie Em: Well, you'd have to ask a Catholic. I can't speak for them.
Watch the interview here:
http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/multimedia/video/2008/wallace/sanger_margaret.html
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Vanity Fair
I have to give this month's Vanity Fair major props for its 'Ain't We Got Style?' photo spread by Michael Roberts, Norma Jean Roy and Mark Seliger, especially for the fantastic portrait of Mila Kunis as Letty Lynton, the Joan Crawford role/character that has been hard to find for the past seventy-something years since it was court-ordered back into the MGM archives on copyright violations. My next thought, after taking it in, was 'Of all movies, Letty Lynton? Do people actually know about that movie?'
Apparently people know about the dress. "(T)he Letty Lynton dress, with billowing, diaphanous sleeves, became an overnight sensation" says the small text in the upper right corner. Previously, my only visual reference was a small still in the great book Sin in Soft Focus by Mark A. Vieira, which shows Crawford buried in silver fox, leaning against Nils Ascher. Indeed a google image search did turn up some terrific glamour shots of Miss le Seur in the white dress with big sleeves.
A YouTube search turned up something even more exciting: The entire movie, which I don't think has ever been on VHS (and certainly never been on DVD). Until it gets taken down, do seek it out. It's been divided into about ten increments.
I watched the first three or so last night, and I can't say I'm not completely impressed. The overall image quality is better than nothing, but still very dismal and washed out, particularly disappointing when you consider how gorgeous movies from that era at MGM usually looked. (The cinematographer Oliver Marsh, was also responsible for Dancing Lady, San Francisco, The Women and a few of the Thin Man movies.) The sets, by Cedric Gibbons, are disappointingly plain. As to the acting, let's just say nobody won any Oscars. Joanie is good, not great. Her wardrobe is more interesting. Robert Montgomery is charming, and more interesting to watch than Joan's wardrobe. Nils Ascher is good, but not the complicated General Yen you'd like to see. Character problems aside, the actors don't bring a whole lot.
Granted, I'm saying this after watching the equivalent of the first three reels. Maybe Letty Lynton will redeem itself in its second act. By the time I'm finished with my essays for English class, hopefully this faded apparent bootleg will not have been removed from the webitudes. In the meantime, I'm just glad it's available, glad that it didn't suffer the same fate as Convention City. Then again, Convention City was exciting enough to watch than it actually threatened the status quo. Letty Lynton scandalously (allegedly) plagerized an outside source material, but so far that's about the only aspect of it that's still scandalous today.
Apparently people know about the dress. "(T)he Letty Lynton dress, with billowing, diaphanous sleeves, became an overnight sensation" says the small text in the upper right corner. Previously, my only visual reference was a small still in the great book Sin in Soft Focus by Mark A. Vieira, which shows Crawford buried in silver fox, leaning against Nils Ascher. Indeed a google image search did turn up some terrific glamour shots of Miss le Seur in the white dress with big sleeves.
A YouTube search turned up something even more exciting: The entire movie, which I don't think has ever been on VHS (and certainly never been on DVD). Until it gets taken down, do seek it out. It's been divided into about ten increments.
I watched the first three or so last night, and I can't say I'm not completely impressed. The overall image quality is better than nothing, but still very dismal and washed out, particularly disappointing when you consider how gorgeous movies from that era at MGM usually looked. (The cinematographer Oliver Marsh, was also responsible for Dancing Lady, San Francisco, The Women and a few of the Thin Man movies.) The sets, by Cedric Gibbons, are disappointingly plain. As to the acting, let's just say nobody won any Oscars. Joanie is good, not great. Her wardrobe is more interesting. Robert Montgomery is charming, and more interesting to watch than Joan's wardrobe. Nils Ascher is good, but not the complicated General Yen you'd like to see. Character problems aside, the actors don't bring a whole lot.
Granted, I'm saying this after watching the equivalent of the first three reels. Maybe Letty Lynton will redeem itself in its second act. By the time I'm finished with my essays for English class, hopefully this faded apparent bootleg will not have been removed from the webitudes. In the meantime, I'm just glad it's available, glad that it didn't suffer the same fate as Convention City. Then again, Convention City was exciting enough to watch than it actually threatened the status quo. Letty Lynton scandalously (allegedly) plagerized an outside source material, but so far that's about the only aspect of it that's still scandalous today.
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