You never know what to expect from a Pedro Almodovar film, that's why I purposely did not ready anything about "The Skin I Live In" before seeing it. I did not want to know anything about the plot, since I think that's the best way to experience his films. I want my reactions to it to be fresh. This movie is definitely bizarre, a hybrid of horror, melodrama, all wrapped in wit and intelligence, though. You don't know if he is doing all of this with a *wink* but you do know he definitely knows what he is doing. Nothing is not planned, and all of it makes sense. About a quarter into the movie, I was so confused and was doubting my comprehension. And then the whole thing started to make sense, and it is full of vivid imagery that you just succumb to it. You believe it before questioning it. This is one of those movies I cannot wait to see for a second time. After you know how everything goes down, you now search for clues you may have missed, and concentrate on the layered performances here. Antonio Banderas has never looked better. I have read about him and his wife getting his and her facelifts, and if that is true, then his surgeon has done a magnificent job on him. He gives a straightforward performance her that doesn't call attention, even if its very essence is so complicatedly bizarre. I can't remember the last time I saw hm give as good performance. As a matter of fact, I am now racking my brain on the last movie I have seen of his. Marisa Paredes gives an almost comic-relief presence, but I was mesmerized by Elena Anaya. Her face is a blank slate, and that is exactly almost a literal translation of her role. Almodovar sets a mindset, and everyone is on board, and even if, let's be real, this is a story that's almost science fiction, it's human and very honest. I am still in pleasant shock.
"Just Kids" is one of the most successful books of 2010, both commercially and artistically. It stayed for 37 weeks on The New York Times bestseller list, and it won the 2010 National Book Award for non-fiction. This has been on my TBR pile for so long, definitely for more than a year now. I just finished the book literally minutes ago and it is definitely well-written. Smith definitely has a way with words, but we all knew that for she is a celebrated poet and a songwriter. The last chapters are heartbreaking, when she describes her last encounters with Robert Mapplethorpe, of whose life this book is a celebration of. I wish I related to it more, or was more interested in this time line for artists, spanning the late 60s, all the way to the 70s. I was mildly interested in The Chelsea Hotel when it was an artists' colony, because I have passed by that building hundreds of thousands of times because that area is very close to my heart. A lot of times the book seems to be constantly name-dropping, but it never sounded put on. I wish there were more "story" to their story, and some people have commented that her version is a bit white-washed. I have to admit that I was more interested in his part of the story than hers, and how his art was created more than how she hers. Truth be told, while reading the book wasn't boring, it took me a longer time than usual to finish it, but I was glad to read it, and it gave me a glimpse of the city I know and love right before I met it.
BC-21
I have mixed emotions about Episode 5. For me, it's another one of those "exposition" episodes where things are getting set up. But, didn't we just have one of those? When are all the dramatic payoffs happening? Or maybe the payoffs aren't as good as I expect them to be? And I really don't know what they are doing to the Megan Hilty's Ivy character. Yes, I do understand the insecurity and the passive aggressive diva thing, but in this episode it's more aggressive than passive lately, and they are trying to create a villain out of her. I liked it more when she was a real, three-dimensional character. And next week's episode hint that she may be going through a pill-abuse situation, which, come to think of it, was Marilyn's situation as well, so they may be doing a parallelism kind of thing, and I don't know how I feel about that. But then again, that's just a hunch. And speaking of other hunches, I feel like they are also setting up something between Tom and the black chorus boy who likes basketball (Chorus buy into basketball? Doesn't exist) so at least the gays may have a love triangle to look forward to. And Kat McPhee - she showed such promise, but her character is so all over the place that she probably doesn't know what to do with it either. Is she a Midwestern hick? Then her being sassy at the Intrepid last night seemed so out of character. I have said from the very beginning that I liked the Deb Messing love story line, and that went front and center last night, and I kind of liked it, though it felt kind of funny to see art imitating life. You can see that there was mad chemistry between them personally. Oh, and the scene from the show they are creating? I loved the number - well choreographed, fantastically sung. I wished that I liked the song, but it could grow on me. With each episode, though, it is becoming more and more evident that Ivy is better for the role than Karen.
Clooney. Pitt. There couldn't be bigger stars involved in the Los Angeles reading of '8,' Dustin Lance Black's play based from transcripts from the Prop 8 hearings. And they were all there, in their glory, bringing attention to this project, even broadcast worldwide on YouTube. This certainly is good for the cause, bringing awareness to its importance. The play "exposes" a lot of the bigotry and ignorance of those who side with Prop 8, and it is quite clear in their testimonies. I initially questioned if Black as being fair, as these people look like buffoons, their characterizations quite cartoonish, and unbelievably stupid. Then I realize that these were actual transcripts from the testimonies. They did say they were "condensed," and I just hope Black didn't just pull the stupid quotes. On a dramatic level, it diminished whatever suspense there was in the piece. I think i would have preferred a fairer fight, because I would also like to understand where these people are coming from, as they appear to be cardboard characters presented as such. Of the performances, I was quite surprised to be touched by Chris Colfer's. This trumps everything he has ever done on GLEE, and made me realize there is something else beneath that vapid exterior. I also liked the small monologues done by Matthew Morrison and Jamie Lee Curtis. I crinegd when Jesse Tyler Ferguson was on, and that was just me - he makes my skin crawl. Matt Bomer, Brad Pitt and even Clooney really weren't given much to do, and Martin Sheen's bombastic monologue became the crowd pleaser it was intended to be. John C Reilly almost steals the show as the bumbling Mr. Blankenhorn. All in all, I can nit pick things about the play, but when the cast took their bow, and the real figures behind the case went up on stage, I became the stupid fool when I found myself crying. Crying on a Saturday night, that's what my life has come to.
Did Marty Scorsese really direct HUGO? There are no gangsters, no swear words, no violent killings here. It's a children's movie, made to warm your hearts during the Holiday season (This movie opened Thanksgiving weekend) I passed on the movie last year, but since it won five Oscars past weekend, I figured I might as well see it. It certainly deserved its technical Oscars, and I am sure it must have been magical to watch on 3D, though on Blu-Ray a lot of the visual details are still very much evident on-screen. The story worked well, though a bit too "long tooth" for me. It's a good movie. I just didn't emotionally connect to it. I'm old now, and I'm cranky, and sometimes I have very little patience for things I don't respond to initially. I wish I could say that this movie had me enthralled from the very first frame, but I had to watch, stop, and repeat a couple of times. Ben Kingsley was great, and Saha Baron Cohen is perfectly cast for his role. I am sure this movie has brought, and will bring a lot of joy for a lot of people, and I am just going to have to accept that I am not going to be one of those. It's like going to a museum, looking at a painting and recognizing its beauty, significance, and artistry. Then you leave and you instantly forget about it. I thought of one other thing, though. I think this would make a great stage musical.
Sometimes I just want to read something mindless, something fun, something light. Beth Orloff's "Romantically Challenged" fit that bill to a T. It's a cute book, it made me laugh, it passed time quite pleasantly, it was entertaining. Sometimes that's all you need. I can't say it made me think real deep thoughts, but it kind of made me think anyway. Julia Burns is a lawyer in Los Angeles, and she is 32, and she is looking for love. She goes through every imaginable scenario out there, just to get a date: blind date, set-ups, dating service, speed dating, internet dating. Of course, the right man for her is right in front of her eyes, and we all know it half-way through the book of course, even though she doesn't. It's pretty standard fare, but Orsoff is a great storyteller and she makes even the most cliched scenarios interesting. I see the publication date of the book as 2006, but I bet that that this was written way before that, as some things are kind fo dated. Plot points hinged on answering machine messages, a relic of ancient times if there ever was one. This is a very enjoyable book, and this is just what I needed right now. In a lot of ways, it seems old-fashioned in tone, but of course, things have not changed much since, and love is still love and romance is still romance.
BC-20
A live album is always tricky. Sometimes the magic just does not translate on record. Karen Oberlin's Frank Loesser show at The Algonquin was praised by Stephen Holden in The New York Times. Writing about it, he calls it a "smart, polished show" and praises Miss Oberlin because she "concentrates on Loesser’s softer-edged zaniness and on his unjustly neglected romantic side" This recording doesn't really zip anywhere, it just registers bland, and I got bored with it after the second song. And I can't really fault the Loesser canon, because it is filled with wonderful tunes. he wrote some of my most favorite ones, like "My Time Of Day," More I Cannot Wish You," and "Spring Can Be A Little Late This Year." Those songs are sung without any punch. She sings it almost without feeling or nuance. Even a most dramatic "What Are You Doing New Year's Eve" just lies there flat, unanswered. the slowed-down "Heart And Soul," for example, is slowed down, but it doesn't smolder as it should have. (I also wonder how Mary Cleere Haran would have sung it with the same arrangement, and I am sure it would have been better) Perhaps the show's charm wasn't captured by the recording? Maybe she exudes charm that is not aural? She is a very attractive woman, perhaps her strength lies there? I disliked this recording so much that it felt like a chore listening to it, and since I wanted to be fair, I listened to it a couple of times before going "negative." But I want to be honest, this was interminably bad.
Wow. I have read that this episode was a good one, where the series starts to get its groove, and I was scared to expect too much. Well, the good news is that they were right, this is the best episode since the pilot. The story moved, and I like where it is going. All the expositions from the past two episodes are starting to pay off. First of all, I love the rehearsals scenes. They give you a glimpse of the process of constructing a musical. While I have been borderline Team Ivy before, I think, after this episode, I still am. Yes, even if she has started to become a lot less sympathetic. But then again, Karen has also started to be less sympathetic for me as well. I thought she was acting too "entitled" in the rehearsal scenes. I wanted to tell her, "For better or worse, you are in the chorus and you need to listen to what the creative team is telling you." In the real world, I doubt the director would have tolerated her tantrum. Chorus girls are a dime a dozen in NYC and you can walk down Ninth Avenue and can easily find a swift replacement for her. And this us vs them team is a little too "Mean Girls" though it is delicious and campy. The insertion of pop songs aren't as organic as I want them to be, but they were great, so I am not complaining. Nick Jonas was a revelation for me. I just saw him on "Watch What Happens Live" and his character here is very different from how he i sin real life, so his performance here was quite believable so I would say he has acting chops. And the hopeless romantic in me really loves the Michael/Julia storyline and I really like where that is going. And I am even getting used to Anjelica Houston's caricaturish character, as much as she tries to humanize it. And I also am liking the Tom/lawyer storyline as well, a testament to Christian Borle. I keep on forgetting that he is not only a gay man, but a playboy in real life. It's really starting to come together. I can't wait till next week.
Last night, "The Devil Wears Prada" was on television and I just couldn't help but stop and watch a little bit of it. I think that book (and the movie) are modern classics, even inspiring derivatives. "Bond Girl," by Erin Duffy has been described as "...Prada" meets "Wall Street," and as a novel, is pretty good. Duffy is a master story-teller, and she created an interesting character in Alexandra, the main protagonist. She is well-fleshed out, and even though in real life, I probably would not like her, I liked her character enough that I sped through this book, finishing it in a day. Maybe because I am very acquainted with the environment she was in. I, too, worked with bond traders for almost thirty years, and she describes the "trader mentality" to a T. I have known every single trader character she has here: the brittle but with a heart-of-gold boss, the happy-go-lucky traders, the bitter women traders who had to prove themselves to be accepted. I assure you, soem of their antics may be crazy and unbelievable, but I have seen worse in real life. If for anything, her stories even have are more "now," as I even consider myself to be "Old School Wall Street." It kind of made me wistful for my old life, but at the same time I also remembered the stress it used to give me and the hard work everyone put in. Wall Street has vicious highs and lows, and she also touches on that in here. The end seemed a little abrupt to me, and I read in her acknowledgements that the original manuscript was 700 pages long, so I kind of wonder how the "long" version might have been like. After my depressing last read, this was a welcome change.
BC-19
I recently saw an indie movie titled ""Dirty Girl" and it featured a lot of Melissa Manchester's music, and I was suddenly reminded of how great her pop songs are. Who, you ask? Melissa Manchester is a relic from the late 70s, and 80s, one of those smooth pop singer-songwriter types, from that era when record albums were called "albums." (She even says "Pardon me when I reference my albums as albums) She was performing at a small venue outside the strip and we thought it would be fun to see her. As she started the show, she said "We are going to sing old songs, new songs, brand spanking new songs, and really old songs," and it proved to be a fantastic mix resulting to a fun evening. Let's be straight, though: the voice is not as rich and bold as it used to be but it would be unfair to compare it to recordings done almost thirty years ago. Its still a beautiful alto, and the depth and intensity of her interpretations are still intact, if not even more felt nowadays. She goes through all her hits: "Midnight Blue," "Looking Through The Eyes Of Love," and a beautiful "Come In From The Rain," which was done with just her and apiano. She sings with her younger self on video in "You Should Hear How She Talks About You," and duets with her friend Barry Manilow on video for "You've Got A Friend." There were songs from her "When I Look Down That Road," which one of my favorite albums of hers, as well as songs from the "First Great American Songbook," and a tribute to Ella Fitzgerald. And there's even that new song she wrote for "Dirty Girl," which she says was in the first round of nominees for Best Song on this year's Academy nominations. The crowd was low wattage, mostly older, more nostalgic than anything else. When she started singing "Looking..." the lady right next to me literally started weeping, and there was a part of me who understood her, and was thinking what could have caused her crying: Lost Love? Regret? A Happy Memory? Melissa Manchester comes from a time when pop songs were simple and beautiful, lush without being too complicated, heartfelt without having too much drama. Give me those over today's excesses.
Tom Mendecino's "Probation" is a good book. But... I respect it more than I like it. It tells a story of Andy Nocero, whose seemingly perfect life is torn apart by one mistake - he was caught having anonymous gay sex at a highway truck stop. See, the thing is, though, he is married to a woman, and this incident was the catalyst to their getting a divorce. He was sentenced to a year of probation and counseling and he narrates his journey from that year on, and we are also treated to flashbacks of how things were before. The writing style is great; it's well balanced between tragedy and black humor. however, maybe it's just my state of mind right now, but I found the whole book depressing and most of the time it took me on a tailspin of downward emotions. Bad things after bad things happen to the main character, and after a certain point, I wanted to say enough is enough. It's all me, too, because probably I just need a lot more gaiety in what I am reading nowadays - it's been a tough beginning of the year, and perhaps I should be reading more escapist fare. I know this book won a lot of awards, but all the accolades in the world is meaningless if I don't connect to it. It really is ultimately my loss.
BC-18
Sometimes I get to see quiet gems on my Netflix queue. One that I liked recently is "Toast," which is a movie based on the life of British chef Nigel SLater. I don't really know Mr. Slater which may have contributed to my appreciation of the movie. Slater grew up with a mother who did not really know how to cook, so as a kid he used to read cookbooks and he used to stare at the pictures, hiding to look at them like they were pictures of naked ladies - giving new meaning to the term food porn. Really the only thing her mother can really do is toast. When his mother dies, he makes a mission of learning how to cook after his father marries their housekeeper/cook as a way of trying to compete for his attentions. There are a lot of things I liked about the movie - it had this atmospheric fantasy vibe scored by some of Dusty Springfield's songs, and Helena Bonham Carter gives a deliciously over-the-top performance. And Freddie Highmore is a cutie - chaste and accessible, although, really, even though he is billed above the title, he only appears in the last third of the movie. I wish the gay storyline was punched a bit to fully know his character, and I suspect it is more fleshed out on the memoir. I also would have loved to have known about his "rise" in his field, but perhaps that's where knowing of Slater would be beneficial.
When I saw Julia Roberts in the cast of "Fireflies In The Garden," I half-asked myself what the hel is she doing in a small independent film until I saw her husband's name as the cinematographer (Danny Moder) and I got my answer. She is photographed beautifully, of course, and heck, the picture does look like a glossy magazine. The movie isn't as bad as the scathing reviews it got, but that's perhaps because people were expecting a lot more from it. Not that I am saying it's any good - characters are cardboard pieces, and there really isn't an arc in the supposed heart of the movie - Ryan Reynolds'. This has some very good performances from Reynolds, Roberts, and Watson, but there's no there there, so they're all kind of wasted.
We all had our last summer of innocence, before we crossed over to that stage wherein we realize that we really aren't kids anymore, yet we ask the question, "Are we adults yet?" It's a subgenre that isn't really fresh, but I like it. Plot wise, there really isn't much here, it's more "slice of life" than anything else. But a lot of things happen. Dade Hamilton is tryng to extricate himself from an ex who is confused about his sexuality (he is the only one confused about it, though, as we all know) and meets another guy, who is a part-time drug dealer to the popular kids in school. I find I cannot relate to a lot of the drug use and partying they do, but then I venture that is what kids these age do. I can relate, though, to a lot of the mixed feelings of dealing with first love, or whatever you define these relationships you have when you are that age. I think the novel is well-written, and my interest was kept the whole time. I had a feeling that normally I wouldn't have liked these kids, but I did. The ending(s) were a little too predictable, and there is this weird sub-plot of a missing girl that went nowhere for me. Still, I am glad that they are still writing these kinds of books, though, for I could imagine they would make some kind of emotional impact for younger readers. I hear it's a pretty successful title, and there are even plans of movie-izing it.
BC-17
Episode 3 for me was not as bad as I thought it would be. There was that piece on Huffington Post saying that this episode was not going to be the best, and while I do agree, I think this episode was much needed because it set up a lot of exposition for various story lines in the series. First of all, I loved the story between Deb Messing and Michael (played by Will Chase) Maybe it's the old romantic in me, but I found myself pulling for them, even though it is evident that they shouldn't be right for each other. He's married with a new child, she's in a stable marriage. (Incidentally, there are parallels in real life, as both Deb and Will allegedly left their respective partners for each other. They are now engaged.) I found the scene at Brooklyn Bridge very romantic, and I want them back together, darn it. Also, I think the show does a great balance of mixing the pop music numbers with the original songs. I liked both Will's Bruno Mars scene and even Kat's Gretchen Wilson number, even if I totally do not dig that song at all. I loved loved loved the closing number, and it gives us a sense of the musical as it is coming to fruition. I wish Anjelica Houston's scenes weren't so contrived, and couldn't they get a better villan than Ellis? More and more I am thinking Megan Hilty is the perfect choice for Marilyn but at the same time I am pulling for Kat. I am so confused, and it is a wonderful confusion. I look forward to next week's episode - they're doing Adele!
Sometimes I read a book and I love it so much that I tell myself, "This is why I read." That was exactly how I felt after reading "Something Like Summer" by Jay Bell. This is book is easily the best book I have read in recent memory. As a matter of fact, if I were grading my reviews, I would give this a close to perfect score. It's the story of Ben Bentley, and it starts when he first falls in love at age 16. And that is the foundation of the whole story: his first love, how it never dies, how it stays with you, how it shapes how you love for the rest of your life. Just like all first loves, Ben's ended up in a lot of heartbreak, and when the first part of the book finished, Bell writes the circumstance with much poignancy that I literally had to stop, and weep. It made me want to hink, it made me want to digest what I just read. For me, the first third of the book is easily its best part. We then follow Ben as he goes through college life, and as he embarks on his next serious love, and we see him transform from a boy to a man. The rest of the book is a little predictable, but there are enough twists and turns that you are still caught off-guard, and I know a lot of people have had problems with how the book ends, and I initially agree. However, as I thought about it more, I realized that just like real life, we just have to settle with what life gives us, and make peace with it. I saw that I bought this book from Amazon for my Kindle on Feb 12, 2011. (Amazon gives you a little notice when you go back to the book's page) I don't know why I waited to read it until this week, but maybe I wasn't prepared yet last year because right now I am in a much better place emotionally to fully absorb this story. I recently read that the rights for this book has been bought to be turned into a motion picture, and I welcome a more visual interpretation of this story. But, I doubt it will be able to duplicate the roller coaster of emotions I felt while reading the book.
BC-16
