When Harry Met Sally Part Deux

OK, so I may or may not be a little intoxicated at the moment. Fine. I am. But that's not going to stop me from making my daily post. It might stop me from making an ovelry amusing or overly interesting post, but it won't stop me from posting. Where was I? Oh, yeah. Intoxicated. Anyway, to fulfill my daily postdom, here is a video of what "When Harry Met Sally" would be like if they did a sequel. They're not drunk. I don't think. If it doesn't work or it plays something completely different, try clicking here and see if it's there. If it doesn't, I really can't help you. I'm drunk, remember?

When Harry Met Sally 2 with Billy Crystal & Helen Mirren from Billy Crystal

Film Review: Pariah

In my initial, mostly mental draft of this review, I began with a long paragraph about my declining interest in mainstream--Hollywood--and a good deal of independent US cinema, but on rereading it, I decided to forgo the rant and instead focus on one aspect of it, which is to say, the mainstream and a good deal of queer American moviemaking. As with the broader US film mainstream, in far too many US queer cinema, the stories represent a narrow spectrum, in multiple ways; they traffic in stereotypes; and almost never do I see anything produced calling itself queer cinema that that reflects the diversity of lives I know, including anyone like me in them. To give one example, I'll cite the Oscar-nominated film The Kids Are Alright (2010), which received considerable praise, especially for its fine performances (especially by Annette Bening), but I had to ask after having watched it, who were these women? I know they exist, but what about the millions of lesbians who aren't upper-middle-class, asset-rich, highly educated, asset-rich, homeowners, white? What about all the women and transwomen whose main concern isn't a faltering relationship caused by the appearance of a sperm donor but how they'll put food on the table, keep their jobs if they have them, deal with difficult or unyielding family members, survive?  What about the lesbians who aren't coupled up, with attractive children who could easily step out of a Gap ad, who despite the societal and cultural changes are still treated like outlaws and pariahs?

Considering what's rarely shown or depicted, I was very happy to go with C to see Pariah, Dee Rees' Sundance Film Festival favorite from last year, which was playing at this year's Film Society of Lincoln Center New Directors/New Films Festival in New York. I had not seen the 2007 short, which garned a great deal of acclaim, but I had read a little about the film to know its contours. Alike (Adepero Oduye), pronounced Ah-LEE-kay, is a 16-year-old African-American lesbian living in Brooklyn with her middle-class family and partially in the closet, partially out. In, as Alike, to the degree possible when at home, because of her emotionally smothering, doctrinaire, religious mother Audrey (Kim Wayans) and her loving but emotionally distant father, an NYPD detective, Arthur (Charles Parnell). Out, as "Lee," when at school and with her closest friend, Laura (Pernell Whitaker, who also gives a superb perform), an aggressive who's been thrown out of her home, dropped out of school, and is now living with her older sister.  The story, which reprises elements of many a coming-out tale's plots, nevertheless feels fresh because of the acting, the setting, the focus of the story itself.  I cannot think of hardly any non-documentary features I have seen, at least in the last 15 years, that spends even a short period of time exploring the life of a black lesbian/queer woman, young, old or otherwise, or even that portrays the dynamics of queer life within the framework of a contemporary urban middle-class or working-class family, particularly one comprising people of color. (Quinceañera does this, admirably in my perspective, for a Latino family.)

As is the case with the coming-out plot, we know what's on the way, at least in part. Alike is going to encounter resistance from her mother, there'll be a showdown, that love is closer than she imagines, and...well, I won't spoil things. But let's just say that despite the traumas she experiences, the film is about more than just coming into queerness; it's about coming into selfhood, sexually, emotionally, culturally, spiritually. By the end, this kid is alright--and on her way to a womanhood she's creating for herself. Rees, who wrote and directed Pariah, manages to throw in a few twists, including a comic-that-turns-heartbreaking plot point involving Audrey's attempts to have her daughter associate with a friend's daughter, a more "feminine" acting--read as straight--bohemian schoolmate named Bina (Aasha Davis).  Rees also captures the lingo, the milieu, so authoritatively that from the opening sequence I never doubted her choices.  Yet Pariah doesn't unfold like a documentary, or as a sociological or anthropological lesson. I didn't feel as if I were a tourist or voyeur in this world (and I say this while acknowledging many points of personal connection and identification with the story).  Rees's script succeeds as a story, with narrative complexity, proceeding assuredly towards its minor and major climaxes, and in the process draws us fully into Lee's life, her world, her head. Her journey of self-awareness and empowerment, of not accepting society's--or her mother's--branding of her as a "pariah," of becoming who she will be, ultimately affected me deeply and wanting more, of her life, and from this writer-director.

Technically the film was as accomplished as any I have seen in a while. Bradford Young's cinematography, in every light, whether in the corner store, on the pier, in the women's club, at school, draws the beauty from these faces in a way that's sadly too rare, especially Lee's, her dark brown eyes and complexion almost glowing with pain and possibility. Compositionally the frames shot within Lee's home convey a sense of claustrophobia; we feel that Audrey, unhappy and lonesome at being physically forsaken by her husband, rattled and enraged by her eldest daughter's sexuality, has created a cocoon that is suffocating everyone involved. Every time we step outside, the sense of freedom becomes palpable, the effect crystallized in the scene towards the film's end involving Lee and her father on the roof of the building where Laura and her sister live.  Yet another moment of compositional achievement occurs when Rees shows us Laura's mother, peering at the top of the stairs through her house's barely cracked door, at her daughter she cannot bring herself even to speak to, let alone accept, as Laura climbs and then descends the stairs, pleading, imploring, trying to share her major accomplishment with a woman who can barely suffer to acknowledge her.

If there were any off notes, they came in two places. The first, relatively minor, was in Rees's depiction of Lee's interaction with her high-school English teacher, Mrs. Alvarado (Zabryna Guevara). These moments felt more like echoes of what I'd seen onscreen before multiple times, and I wished that Rees could have offered a bit more texture, a bit more complication. Speaking from direct knowledge here, having taught poetry to inner-city high school students, including young women like Lee, I wished we might have seen the teacher, Lee and her classmates wrestling a bit more with what might lie just on the other side of her poetry, of what she was still unable to put on the page, or what was there without her fulling seeing it. One other less-successful aspect of the film, a bit larger, was the depiction of Lee's mother, Audrey. I felt I knew what Rees was after, who Audrey was, but between the concision required in filmic characterization and Wayans' limitations as an actress, she was perhaps the least succcessful character.  More than balancing her out, however, are the other characters, particularly Oduye, who completely inhabits and realizes Alike-Lee, but also Stewart as Laura, whose unspoken desire is palpable even before she reveals it, and Parnell as the father who doesn't reject his daughter, but can only partially grasp what she's going through.

Whenever I come across a film like this, I feel a surge of hope that it will be the beginning of many such works, but I know the reality is quite different. Nevertheless, I hope Rees continues on her path, and that all involved, including producer Nekisa Cooper and the executive producers, who include Spike Lee, can figure out a way to bring more of the rich tapestry of stories, especially those about people of color, queer people, and queer people of color, to the screen. And please, more films to showcase Oduye and these other talented actors! Then the kids--the children--will be on the road to being truly alright.

What's He Pointing At?

There is not crap on TV on Saturday nights. Well, there is crap on TV. Lots of it. But there isn't any crap worth watching (for the most part) on Saturday nights. Sometimes you can hope for a good movie, but for the most part, it's crap. And last night I ended up settling on watching Back to the Future III. Not crap by any means. I did notice something a little weird, though.

At the end, when Doc and Clara come back to 1985 with their two boys, Jules and Verne, they're talking with Marty and Jennifer. And as Doc is yammering on about how no one's future is set in stone just yet (unless you're Lindsay Lohan and in that case, you're pretty much screwed) and it is what you make it, one of the boys makes this odd hand gesture toward his penis. That's right. Toward his penis. It was sort of like a 'come hither' gesture followed by very distinctive pointing. And if you've ever seen Back to the Future III then you know that it has absolutely nothing to do with a penis whatsoever! The video of it is below. I'm open to suggestions as to what the what was going on there.

You Can't Review What You Haven't Seen

I am constantly amazed by the incredible myriad of idiocy that I have to choose from every day in order to write something in this little box. And for today, from the file of "Who Thinks This Is A Good Idea?" and under the sub-heading "Who Thought Up This S*** In The First Place" we have this: Movie reviews by people who have not seen the movie.

I kid you not. I am not dry shaving you. This is a real thing. I was checking out Fandango.com yesterday because I wanted to read the reviews for the newly released Mars Needs Moms. Regardless of what the reviews turned out to be, I had planned on seeing this movie because it is based on the book by the incredibly amazing and insanely talented, not to mention rather the witty and quick with a quip Berkeley Breathed. If you're unfamiliar with Mr. Breathed's work, I suggest you stop whatever you're doing right now and wonder what you've really accomplished in your life up to this point. The answer should be "Not nearly enough, as I have missed out on the awesome humor and keen insight of the Bloom County comic strips and the subsequent Sunday strips, Outland and Opus." In short, your life has been wasted. But there's still time to save it! (Not much time, really, but I try to be optimistic in situations like these.)

So there I am at Fandango and I click on the Reviews tab. As I began to read, I noticed that some of the reviews were strangely opinionated. So much so that it was if they hadn't seen the movie at all. And that is when I discovered that they hadn't. See, Fandango let's you review movies if you haven't seen them. I have absolutely NO idea why that would be. I am open to suggestions, however. What good does someone's opinion of something that they've never seen do for me? Not a thing, I'm thinking. But let's look at some of the reviews by people who have never seen it and see if I'm wrong. Maybe there IS something to be learned from people merely giving an opinion based on pure speculation gained from doing nothing. (There won't be, but play along, will ya? I need to draw this post out a little bit.)

Let's see...oh! Here we go. Here's one that reads: "I am so excited about this movie! It is going to be hilarious!! I love the book, so this should be epic!!! Yay! :) " Um, OK? Yeah, I loved the book too, but that doesn't mean anything. You know what other books I loved? The Cat In The Hat. The Firm. How The Grinch Stole Christmas. The DaVinci Code. Were they epic? Hardly. Were they hilarious? Kind of, but they weren't supposed to be, so that really wasn't a selling point. What boggles me ever more is that four out of six people found this "review" to be helpful. Helpful? In what way?! She hasn't seen it yet! She's merely excited! THAT is "helpful" to some folks? For cryin' out loud...(Then again, four out of nine people found a review that simply read "No no no!" to be helpful, so I think it's fair to say that we're beyond help at this point.)

Next we have: "Havent seen it yet but i just no its going to be tbe biggest peice of crap anyone is ever going to see so dont watch it." This individual is apparently a cinematic clairvoyant. Too bad that all of the studios can't just hire him to look at a poster of a movie that they've made and give his opinion on the degree to which it will be a piece of crap. (ie, Big, bigger or, in this case, biggest.) And if he says that he can no that it will be such a sizeable piece of poo without having watched it, who are we to not heed his warnings?

Here is more speculation, only this time, it appears to come from a child. "I think it'll be a so so movie. I think the idea is a little too crazy, but I think people will enjoy it. It'll be good for moms because the kids ( about my age ) will learn to obey their moms. For the kids, I think they will love it for it's humor. I'm not completely sure about that, but I'll just have to go to find out!!!!" Really? You think the idea of a kid having to go to Mars to save his mother who has been kidnapped by Martians is a little too crazy, do you? Interesting. I'd never thought of that. (This is really wearing me out more than I had anticipated.)

From someone who seems to have just barely mastered the English language (and perhaps, even more recently, his way around a keyboard): "Don't go. This movie doesn't look that good to watch. I mean, I've seen many cartoons and most are good. I just don't think this one will be as good." Lots of cartoons are good. Some cartoons are bad. This one doesn't look good. Well, it doesn't look as good. Well, it doesn't look that good. To watch, of course. Maybe it's good if you're not watching it. But this looks bad. (Isn't this review kind of like saying, "I've had food. Most food is good. But that food doesn't look like it will be good food. Don't eat it. Even if you think it looks like something you'd like. It could be bad food that you won't like.") Never mind that it's not really a cartoon. I'm just thankful that no one found that 'review' to be useful.

And finally, from the Ironic Chastising Department: "People are funny. They write a bad review or rate a movie bad when they haven't even seen it.. Who writes a bad review based off the movie poster you're just an idiot. Go see the movie then you're allowed to say something. I'm sure this movie will be good and I'm sure the rating will change when people actually go watch it." Go to the movie and then say something. But make sure that you write your 'review' telling people that you're sure it will be good before you go see it. Yeah, sure. That makes sense.

Really, I didn't care what the reviews were, as I was going to see it regardless because I can't imagine not seeing anything that Berkeley Breathed does. (To say that I am a huge fan of the man would not even do my fandom justice. I met him for the first time just a couple of years go and I almost cried. OK, I cried a little bit in line while I was waiting. But I managed to compose myself by the time I got up there, lest he thought I was the star-struck moron that I was trying so desperately to hide.) But I was just amazed that reviews for something that someone hasn't even watched are allowed on a movie site. I could see if it were someone's two-bit blog or some crap like that. (In case you were wondering, this blog is clearly at least three-bit, so don't start expecting inane movie reviews to be popping up any time soon.) But on a site that is supposed to be giving information, not speculation, about movies? I find it asinine and annoying. And you can expect my full review of Mars Needs Moms after I've seen it.

Could You Please Keep It Down?

I don't like it any more than anyone else does when people make noise in a movie theater. What is wrong with those people? Why is it so hard for them to be quiet when they're in a big room filled with a bunch of other people being quiet? I mean, being quiet is pretty easy. You just sit there and don't talk and you've done it! You're quiet! It's the making noise that takes some effort. Granted, not a lot of effort, especially if everyone else is being quiet, but some effort. So, why not just be quiet? And if someone does ask you to be quiet, just do it. Simply stop the offending behavior and watch the movie. Please, whatever you do, do not resolve the issue by shooting and killing the person who was offended. That's really not going to help much.

According to our friends across the pond at The Guardian, a couple of folks at a cinema in Latvia had an encounter after one of the patrons was accused of eating his popcorn too loudly. I am not quite sure how that's possible. Popcorn isn't exactly the loudest of all of the concessions offered. Then again, some people are just pure ruffians when it comes to eating. They'd be much better off just snapping on a feed bag. Might even be quieter. Who knows?

Apparently, "The assailant, 27, reportedly had a brief argument with the man, aged 43, who was sitting next to him during a screening of Black Swan". Two guys, at the movies, watching Black Swan? Were their wives or girlfriends with them? I'm just saying. If they were each there alone, then maybe it was an unwelcomed advance gone horribly awry. Stranger things have happened. Like what happened next, for instance.

It seems that the 27-year old didn't take too kindly to the 43-year old telling him to keep his popcorn chomping down. So when the movie was over, the 27-year old pulled out a "legally registered firearm" and shot the 43-year old dead as can be. After that, he just stood around and waited to be arrested (which he was). I find it amusing that he waited until the end of the movie. It's like he was thinking, "I am going to kill that guy, but first? I need to know what's up with these little ballerinas." Very strange. Not as strange as killing the guy, but strange none the less. Note to self: Don't go to the movies in Latvia.

What Next?

I love it when this stuff just practically writes itself. So, I was reading an article over there at People.com about Natalie Portman and her latest movie, Black Swan. It's some sort of a ballerina thriller, whatever that is supposed to mean. (I wouldn't have thought that was even possible before this movie and since I haven't seen it yet, I'm still not convinced.) They quote the recently knocked up Ms. Portman as saying, "Everyone was so worried about who was going to want to see this movie...I remember them being like, 'How do you get guys to a ballet movie? How do you get girls to a thriller?' And the answer is a lesbian scene. Everyone wants to see that."

I can't say I really disagree with her on that one. Who doesn't like a couple of chicks making out? Every guy I know finds it completely enthralling. And I, myself, find it very enjoyable. But it turns out that every guy and myself are not representative of the commenters over there at People.com. And we are certainly not representative of one specific commenter.

Allow me to share with you the comments of a one Patricia Eation. Ms Eation commented "Sick, sick, sick. Portman needs to revise her statement to read, "only the sick minded loves a lesbian sex scene". Have the "gays" taken over the entertainment industry? Next they'll be gay rappers! Bottom line, STOP trying to force a twisted choice of couples on everyone. I will never accept a behavior that God hates". Wait. What now?

Gay rappers?! What the hell does that even mean? How is it that a couple of fictional ballerinas end up making out in a movie will lead to rappers being gay? I'm failing to see the connection, but I'm finding it absolutely hilarious. Gay rappers. OK, then. (I also don't know why she has "gays" in quotation marks. Is she implying that if Hollywood had, in fact, been overtaken by homosexuals, they would be fake homosexuals, thus necessitating the usage of quotes around 'gays'? I don't get that at all. But I find gay rappers to be so absolutely hysterical so I'm going to overlook it.)

I'm going to try to work that into conversation whenever a topic comes up that folks find simply unbelievable. I'm just going to slowly shake my head and say, "I know. I can't believe it. Next thing you know, there'll be gay rappers." It's going to be great. I've needed a new project for a while now. And I believe I've found it!

Non-Torturous Jailhouse Movies

If you're in jail, it's not supposed to be fun. It's not supposed to be enjoyable. You're not supposed to be having a good time. So if you're not thrilled with the television programming that your particular place of incarceration is providing you with, please do not write letters to your local news source and complain. James Poulin, I'm talking to you.

According to something called TCPalm, Mr. Poulin, who has spent the last "...four years awaiting trial for driving-under-the-influence manslaughter", wrote to something called Florida Today complaining of "torture". Now, normally, claims of torture would be taken quite seriously. But when you realize that Mr. Poulin's definition of "torture" is that at the Brevard County Detention Center, where he is currently a resident, the "...inmates are forced to watch the same movies over and over and it is taking a toll." Wait a minute. Movies? What the...?

Correct. According to Mr. Poulin, the Sheriff of Brevard County, a one Jack Parker "...gathered up a bunch of old (movies) he had laying around and played them over and over for the next year," Poulin wrote to Florida Today. "I have seen 'Black Hawk Down,' 'Pearl Harbor,' 'Saving Private Ryan' and 'Battle Front' hundreds of times each, sometimes two or three times a day. . . " Um...OK. Hmm. Anything else?

Of course there's something else! He's an inmate who is bitching about what is on TV! You think it's going to stop there without some sort of ridiculous comparison to something that doesn't even make sense? Of course not! He includes "Like the old Chinese water torture, the inescapable sounds of these movies over and over works on nerves and psyche." Hey, could someone actually perform the old Chinese water torture on this guy and see how he likes his movies then? Or better yet, just waterboard the moron. I'm sure that he'll want to watch nothing but 'Saving Private Ryan' all day, every day in lieu of being waterboarded.

In case you were wondering, Mr. Poulin has been in jail since 2007 "...for allegedly driving and crashing his car while intoxicated, an accident that killed his female passenger." What's the hold up? Well, from what I can tell, he is the hold up. "There have been 14 motions for continuances in his case and six federal lawsuits against the jail, all of which have been dismissed." OK. I've got it now. As if it wasn't clear before, now I'm relatively sure that this guy, aside from being a cretin, is just a pain in the ass. And the same sentiments go for his lawyer, a one Assistant Public Defender Randy Moore. Mr. Moore said that "...the continuances are a strategy." I see. I'm guessing that Mr. Moore and Mr. Poulin get along just swell together. What a scumbag.

You know, having to watch the movies that he's "subjected" to over and over doesn't seem that bad. It's not like they were being subjected to anything with Jennifer Aniston in it or something like that