VenetianBlond

The Why of Northwest Winters

2012-01-18T12:32:00.000-08:00

By Cheryl Platz. She explains the Seattledammerung about our Snowpocalypses here.

Spectacular

2012-01-13T21:20:00.000-08:00

A link to a number of photos of today's spectacular Seattle sunset.

Strangely Adorable

2012-01-10T12:22:00.000-08:00

H/T The Stranger blog, the Slog.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

2012-01-06T09:54:00.000-08:00

My latest review at Edward Copeland on Film.

Respect for Time on an Acting Blog

2012-01-02T09:37:00.000-08:00

I've been interacting with a local actor whom I haven't even met IRL yet, and he's started his own blog about acting and the biz. Evidently one of my comments sparked an idea, so here's a link to his post about what time management means to we "creative types."

Respect for Time

Best New Year's Black Eyed Peas

2012-01-01T16:51:00.000-08:00

I've been making black eyed peas the same way every year, even though I really don't like them all that much. Talk about a die hard tradition. Anyway, I decided to try something different, and lo and behold, this recipe made some fantastic black eyed peas! I may make them on a day other than New Year's!

1 can black eyed peas
2 ounces cubed ham (to your preference, I like to chop it pretty small)
1/2 cup diced celery
1/4 cup diced sweet red pepper
3 tablespoons minced green onions

Dressing:
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley (I used 1 teaspoon dried)
2 teaspoons chopped fresh oregano (I used 1/2 teaspoon dried)
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1/4 cup vinegar (this seemed like a lot to me, so I reduced to 3 tablespoons)
2 teaspoons water
2 teaspoons hot sauce (I used about 1/2 teaspoon Sriracha)
1 teaspoon vegetable oil
1/8 teaspoon ground red pepper
dash of black pepper.

Combine veg and ham in one bowl, dressing in another. Pour dressing over veg mixture, toss gently. Cover and chill for at least 2 hours. Easy peasy!

(This came from an old book I have called "Light Cooking for Two" and says it's 2 servings, at 391 calories per serving, but that would be a ton! I would call it 4 servings at close to 200 calories per.)

Harold and Maude

2011-12-20T12:11:00.001-08:00

My piece at Edward Copeland on Film

Misdirection

2011-12-06T13:31:00.000-08:00

To me, this
has less to do with popular music than with the increase in disposable income over time, particularly among young people. Think about the teens in the 60's with 7 or 8 records.

I Was Going to Write This...

2011-11-28T14:53:00.001-08:00

...complete with my own examples, but The Atlantic beat me to it.
5 Ways to Fix "The Walking Dead"

#FridayFlash #100words Return Trip

2011-11-26T21:42:00.000-08:00

"Why?"

"Because we’re going home."

"Why are we going home?"

"That’s where we live."

“Why are we going now?”

“Because it’s time. Okay, enough questions, sweetie. Let me have your arm.”

“Will it hurt?”

“Just a little poke, like the other times.”

“Why does it work?”

“It just does. Now relax.”

“Okay. How does it work?”

“That’s very complicated and difficult for a four year old to understand.”

“How long will it take?”

“Not long. Are you sleepy?”

“Yes. Why must I be sleepy?”

“You know why.”

“Because I must dream for us to go home.”

“That’s right. Sweet dreams.”

Anti-Black Friday

2011-11-22T09:45:00.000-08:00

Although there's not a snowball's chance in aitch ee double toothpicks that the anti-corporate sentiment will cut into the spending frenzy on this Friday, I'd like to offer for your consideration:

Anti-Black Friday Sale: handmade crocheted gifts. Hats, scarves, gloves, and more. 8-12 noon on the 25th at my place. Buy local, buy handmade.

Pumpkin Black Bean Soup

2011-11-20T20:08:00.000-08:00

By request. I almost never include the cubed ham; I like it just fine without. It could easily be made vegetarian by substituting vegetable broth.

3 (15 oz) cans black beans, drained and rinsed
1 (16 oz) can diced tomatoes
1/4 cup butter (I usually halve this to about 2 Tbs.)
1 1/4 cups chopped onion
4 cloves garlic, chopped
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
4 cups beef broth (I substitute chicken broth sometimes with no problem)
1 (15 oz can pumpkin puree
1/2 pound cubed cooked ham
3 tablespoons sherry vinegar (which I never have, so I substitute apple cider vinegar, or red wine)

Directions:
1) Pour 2 cans of the black beans into a food processor or blender, along with the can of tomatoes. Puree until smooth. Set aside.
2) Melt butter in a soup pot over medium heat. Add the onion and garlic, and season with salt and pepper. Cook and stir until the onion is softened. Stir in the bean puree, remaining can of beans, beef broth, pumpkin puree, and sherry vinegar. Mix until well blended, then simmer for about 25 minutes, or until thick enough to coat the back of a metal spoon. Stir in the ham, and heat through before serving.

A Grateful Heart. Sort of.

2011-11-20T10:19:00.000-08:00

The Thanksgiving season always brings to mind a story about herself that my college roommate once told me. Back in ancient times, before one would complete banking transactions on one's phone, one would ride with one's parents in the back seat of the car to the bank drive up lanes. The parental unit would place papers with strings of numbers on them in a little box, and shove the box upward in a tube, and whoosh! the box would get sucked up into the ether. If one was lucky, one could crane one's little neck enough to see the box land in a wire holder in front of the middle aged lady with the huge hair behind the window. Then, a flurry of flipping and stamping would commence. Then the lady with the huge hair would put the box in the wire holder, shove it upward, and momentarily it would thunk! into the tube. If one was lucky, there would be a lollipop in the box as well as the banking materials. That of course, is why one would crane to see the big hair lady--to ensure that one was also SEEN by the big hair lady. What a tragedy it would be to be missed!

It seems that at my roommate's parental units' bank, the lollipop could also be obtained inside at the counter. If the parental units chose to park the car and walk in, there might be a lollipop involved. However, this bank had rules. The child must not ASK for the lollipop. This was in a southern state, and anyone from southern states will recognize the unique combination of "children must be seen and not heard" and "never ask for more than you have worked for or deserve" at play.

So my roommate developed a clever strategy to speak up for herself while following the rules. She looked the big hair lady right in the eye and said,

"I sure would say thank you if someone were to give me a lollipop!"

#FridayFlash #200words Empty

2011-11-18T07:00:00.000-08:00

“Ew, gross,” she thought.

The old man picked up the horseapple from the road and bounced it up and down in his hand. He had tobacco stains down his shirt. She thought it really didn’t matter that he was handling poop because he couldn’t get any dirtier.

“Get to the station!” he cackled. That’s what she thought he said, because his toothless speech was indistinct. Then she wondered why there was a pile of horseapples in the middle of the paved road.

That’s when he winged it at her. He actually threw it at her head, surprisingly fast. She ducked and backed up against her stalled car. She felt a flash of anger, not just at the old man who was throwing horseapples at her, but at the idiots who screwed up the gas station signs so badly.

He picked up another one, and she edged around the car to put it between her and the loony old man. He scuffled toward her vehicle, bouncing his ammunition.

“Stop it!” she yelled. He didn’t stop. He threw it at her. So she bolted into the high grass on the side of the road.

Right where the others were hiding in wait.

I've Always Liked Michael Winslow

2011-10-20T12:05:00.001-07:00

Does he teach classes? :)

I Wrote Something

2011-10-18T09:38:00.001-07:00

Just not here. 50th Anniversary of the release of West Side Story at
Edward Copeland on Film and More

Wrapped!

2011-08-29T10:54:00.000-07:00

We wrapped the 1/2 hour Monday Meetings pilot yesterday, which is AMAZING! It'll go to editing, post, get the B roll added, then it gets presented to the TV station. Can't wait to see what the verdict is!
Here's the last in the first set of internet sketches.

the whole ‘strong woman’ thing is a kind of decoy...

2011-08-25T16:40:00.000-07:00

a conversation that keeps us busy but doesn’t actually achieve anything.

The conversation is framed in a way that underscores and reinforces the idea that men are men and women are….not.
It also denies the fact that women have always been strong, birthed babies and held dying children and endured oppression and fought for the rights of others (and sometimes even themselves) and waited for husbands and sons to come back from wars and managed households and worked in factories and lived in the streets and nursed the sick and dying and worked the fields and kept families together and survived domestic violence and sexual violence and started businesses and reinvented themselves and carried water for miles and so on and so on: they saw work that needed to be done and they did it, and they continue to do it.
But that kind of female strength isn’t glamorous or even all that visible or acknowledged. These are not the tasks that win prizes or promotions or partnerships. Meanwhile, slaying vampires and kicking werewolf ass — while wearing tight leather pants – is supposed to be ‘empowering’, in the same way that the strong stoic bare-chested pirate confessing his innermost feelings to some virginal thing who has changed his nature forever is supposed to be ‘romantic’. It’s a very pretty story but it’s a sidestep of reality. It’s a play at feeling powerful without the work and risk and cost involved.

Kept Us Laughing

2011-08-22T12:28:00.001-07:00

Here's a brand new, never before seen episode of Monday Meetings! This was fun to shoot. And it has a kitteh!

A Manifesto

2011-08-19T11:06:00.001-07:00

In the form of a Flickr image.

Minimalism

2011-08-17T19:07:00.000-07:00

I've been doing some internet surfing and reading about minimalism. It's a lifestyle, or set of practices, that espouses finding freedom in not being chained to stuff, or a job you despise, or even bad habits. There are actually a lot of definitions, and it's difficult to even pin down what it all means because many of the practitioners just say, "Hey, this is what works for me, do what works for you." It's a very non-evangelistic movement, if it's a movement at all.

I went to a workshop on simplicity once and remember that the speaker talked about some of the same principles. There was a lot that I liked about it, but I don't recall it giving any good "action items." Perhaps I just wasn't ready to hear it. I've been a pack rat all my life. I keep a lot of stuff, and spend a lot of money on stuff. I could think about it psychologically and decide that it's because of moving around so much. Perhaps I have a need to hold on to the familiar. But ultimately the reasons don't matter. (Unless I develop a mental illness and start hoarding cats. Then it matters. But I'm not there yet.) I hang on to too much stuff and there's clutter and dust that makes me sneeze.

I started with Zen Habits which is about more than minimalism, although minimalism is part of the message. It also has writings about appreciating the moment, work tips, and more.

I then discovered the guys at The Minimalists. I love their real life, no BS writing style, and although I won't go to the minimalist lengths they go to, they have very practical, can do tips. They talk about how to go about it.

From there, they linked to mnmlist, which is, as is evident, a minimalist blog. The funny thing there is that it's run by the same guy who runs Zen Habits!

So what have I done so far? Honestly, not much, except for an attitude adjustment. From Zen Habits I got the concept of being happy for people. It's a way to combat annoyance and stress. For example, I was getting annoyed by a woman on the bus with her earbuds in singing to her music. Loud. Like really loud. Then I thought that I'll be happy for her. I was happy she was having fun. I was also happy she had a good voice. Also, I'm working on the attitude toward my stuff, or getting new stuff. I ask myself if I really need it. I also ask if that thing will make me happy. I need to get new running shoes. Eventually. It will make me happy to have new, comfy, cushy, not worn out shoes. But what I don't need is to race out and get them right away. I will get them eventually. It may seem like a small shift, but I've always been the instant gratification type, and this new mode is different.

We totally cleaned out the Littlest Barbarian's room, and he was a champion at it. Don't want that. Don't like that. That's for babies. I play with that all the time, keep it. Don't want that. I learned a ton from him. He's not all wrapped up in the false cosmic weight of his stuff. (We jettisoned 5 or 6 giant trash bags of garbage and 4 or 5 bags of donations to Value Village.)

Next stop: the office. What is in there that makes me happy? Literally happy, like makes me laugh, or helps me to do something to make me happy? Probably not much.

Thought Experiment

2011-08-13T09:28:00.000-07:00

I cracked myself up in the car on the way home with this idea. Metalocalypse is an Adult Swim cartoon about the most brutal metal band ever. It's utterly disturbing and hilarious. So I wondered who I would cast in a live action version.

Nathan Explosion=Adam Beach
William Murderface=Danny McBride
Skwisgar Skwigelf=Alexander Skarsgard (taller than a tree)
Toki Wartooth=Ryan Gosling
Pickles the Drummer=Louis CK (I KNOW, right?!)
Charles Offdensen=Jason Bateman

And, drum roll, please, I would have Jane Lynch play all the moms. Serveta Skwigelf, Anja Wartooth, all of them. AHAHAHAHA!

Another Bit of Evidence

2011-08-12T13:32:00.000-07:00

...supporting the hypothesis that Russell Brand is a very smart man.

However "unacceptable" and "unjustifiable" it might be, it has happened so we better accept it and, whilst we can't justify it, we should kick around a few neurons and work out why so many people feel utterly disconnected from the cities they live in.

Full article at: The Guardian

The Stranger Genius Awards

2011-08-11T10:55:00.000-07:00

The Genius Award notifications are being rolled out, and the party will be September 16th at the Moore. There are several cool things about the Awards, first being that the honorees are notified by QFC sheet cake. They get $5,000 no strings attached, hopefully so that they can keep doing what they do. The other thing I love is that there are no votes, there is no campaigning, it's just who the editors think SHOULD be given the notoriety. This avoids the popularity-contest-lowest-common-denominatorness that plagues so many awards.
Here are the ones that have been announced so far:
DK Pan
Gary Hill
John Osebold

Penny Red: Panic on the streets of London.

2011-08-10T10:11:00.000-07:00

Penny Red: Panic on the streets of London.: "I’m huddled in the front room with some shell-shocked friends, watching my city burn. The BBC is interchanging footage of blazing cars and..."

Happy MeDay

2011-08-08T14:00:00.000-07:00

Today is my birthday, and I took the day off work. Here's a rundown of what I've been up to, what I've seen recently, and what's coming next.
1) Monday Meetings. We're getting good feedback on our sketches and are working on a 1/2 hour pilot. If you haven't seen them, take a look and please please forward the link to those who may be interested in teh funny.

2) WatchingTreme. The season is over, and S3 goes up next Spring, but I still have some link roundups to catch up on, as well as some new content. Slowly but surely...

3) Something's Afoot at Taproot Theatre. This was extended through August. Got a ticket from one of the performers, and laughed the whole way through. The tone was just right-just serious enough, just meta-aware enough, and just goofy enough. The cast is incredible. Seattlites should make the effort to catch this one, IMHO.

4) Speaking of theater, I was asked to take part in a staged reading of The Normal Heart in November. I read the script and was blown away. It's a work about the beginning of the AIDS epidemic in the 80s in NYC, and it grabs you by the gut as well as the heart. One scene, I just don't know how I'm going to be able to listen to over and over again in rehearsal. Proceeds will go to the Lifelong AIDS Alliance. Watch this space for more details as the time gets closer.

5) Luther. This had blipped across my radar and because I really liked Wallander and Sherlock I thought I'd give it a try. Idris Elba of "The Wire" fame is a frazzled, intuitive homicide detective. It's reminiscent of Sherlock in the deductions he makes, and reminiscent of Wallander in that he's barely functional. Written by Neil Cross, it has the pedigree to be outstanding. However, as entertaining as it is, I find the directing to be too on-the-nose. After a tragedy, Luther stumbles down several flights of stairs. Okay, Orpheus, I get it. After a certain happy ending, he and a friend get ice cream. In London. In winter. I could see their breath, and they're eating ice cream. It's symbolic of a return to innocence with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. Maybe I'm being unfair-maybe you do go get ice cream in London in winter-people sit outside on patios in Seattle in the rain to drink beer. Although it seems more likely that they were going to cram in that metaphor no matter what. I do like the series, though, so maybe I'll write more later about what they get right.

6) Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead. A documentary about an Aussie man's 60 day juice fast and road trip around America. Interesting stuff, well backed up by nutritional science. I think my sister put it best though when she posted on Facebook, "I like what he's selling, I just don't like that he's selling it." Because of course now he's got books, and plans, and all the rest. On the other hand, I'm eating way more fruits and veggies now because of watching it.

7) Big Sam's Funky Nation. Incredible concert. Just incredible. Highly recommended wherever you are, whenever they're touring. New Orleans based, and they do the old school really well, but they also adapt other styles to their own brand of nuclear funk rock. Lady Gaga? Cee-Lo? Yeah, they got that. Crazy.

8) Crocheting. I'm thinking I may get some things ready and reopen Two Sisters Crochet for the gifting season.

Like I don't have enough to do.

Difference Between Creativity and Performing

2011-07-20T09:40:00.001-07:00

This guy is a creative artist, as opposed to performing artist.

For your consideration...

2011-07-14T12:23:00.000-07:00

Watch this,

Then consider this:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/07/13/137824732/austrian-man-wins-right-to-wear-pasta-strainer-in-license-photo?sc=fb&cc=fp

New Old Project

2011-07-11T19:34:00.000-07:00

What I'm about to describe is about 9 months in the making. (No, not THAT.) I started writing with a comedy group way back months ago, and after many changes, iterations, and false starts, we're finally starting to gain some steam. After posting several sketches on YouTube, a subsidiary channel of Q13, JoeTV, has given us space on their web site. (YAY!!!!) We're also working on a bigger concept that will be revealed later if it gains traction.
So enjoy our latest sketch, Sleepwalker, on Joe's Wall
and like us on Facebook.

Review: The Vault

2011-06-29T20:53:00.000-07:00

If you haven't already blown your summer reading budget, consider the latest in Boyd Morrison's Tyler Locke series, The Vault. Introduced in the bestselling The Ark, Locke is a former combat engineer who pulled off a daring rescue and a history-making discovery.

In this latest thriller, Locke teams up with classics expert Stacy Benedict to avert a disaster on a Washington State ferry masterminded by a criminal who has their family members captive. But that is just an audition--once they prove they can work together, they are thrown into a search for the chamber holding the ability to turn any material into gold--the Midas Touch. On top of that, a secret message in a "proof of life" video tells Locke that the mastermind has the components for a dirty bomb. Money is not the only object, and Locke must do the impossible to save not only his father and Stacy's sister, but an entire city.

Morrison excels at creating crisp, clear prose with drive. Each scene pushes inexorably to the next, as the characters race against time in Italy, Germany, Greece, and New York with each new challenge. Just as the geolabe (an on-the-ground astrolabe) they use for clues clicks precisely into place, so does the structure of this thriller, with chapter cliff-hangers and a big-boss battle at the end.

It's this precision that makes me think wistfully of my favorite work of Morrison's, Rogue Wave, in which a family must stay alive during a devastating tsunami. I liked the chaos of that story and the sense that no one was ever in control of the situation, but rather just doing the best they can. While Locke and Benedict are similarly fighting for their lives, they have precisely the skills needed to solve their problems. They call on equally skilled partners for back-up, and they have the unlimited resources of the corporation Locke works for. Of course Locke can drive a supercar at ridiculous speed on the German autobahn. It's something he can do.

There's no accounting for taste, however, and if I prefer my scenarios messy and my mystery-solvers to be alcoholics with borderline personality disorders, then that's on me. The thing to realize is that with The Vault, Morrison provides an excellent exemplar of what a thriller is supposed to be. It's a rollercoaster ride. One of the reasons Morrison's work stands out is that the science would get at least a "Plausible" from the Mythbusters. He doesn't change the laws of physics. If a bomb detonator has no way of being shut off, the bomb goes off--there's no eleventh hour chicanery. Morrison is uniquely creative in imagining how to deal with those types of situations without writerly shortcuts.

The Vault is a fast-paced combination of ancient lore, globe hopping chases, and modern technology, all wrapped in a package of wit and imagination. Take it with you to the beach, on the airplane, or to your summer cabin.

Maybe not a Washington State Ferry. It'll make you wonder what's really going on down on the car deck.

Coming July 5. Simon and Schuster.

Happy Father's Day

2011-06-19T12:44:00.001-07:00

One of the most profound moments in cinema.

To Kill a Mockingbird (video)

Map of Metal

2011-06-16T11:31:00.000-07:00

This Map of Metal is well-researched and probably comprehensive. Has example tracks!

Seattle Art-Prog-Rock "Awesome"

2011-06-15T09:57:00.000-07:00

I really like "Awesome"'s (Awesome in quotes) new release Four For Foer. You can listen here. They play crazy instruments sometimes, which is cool.

Gud Fud

2011-06-14T14:40:00.000-07:00

I totally agree-it's easy to eat well and locally sourced in Seattle.
Frank Bruni, NYT writer in the Seattle Times

Love his comments about the "sense of place" here.

It's Monday, time for the staff meeting!

2011-05-30T08:23:00.000-07:00

Subscribe to the YouTube channel for more comedic type videos each Monday! Or play a prank and subscribe somebody else, depending on how you feel.

Where have all the cowboys gone...

2011-05-27T11:19:00.001-07:00

Play this with the sound...ROFL!

Oh, Yes I Did

2011-05-15T12:54:00.001-07:00

I took a screen shot of me on the front page of the online Seattle Times. The actual article is here.

First Big Screen Experience

2011-05-11T17:18:00.000-07:00

Got the DVD of the feature, A/V, I'm in that actually got screened on the big...well, screen. Will also be screened at STIFF in June. Here's me as reporter Magda Johansson.

Scary.

No Pop Tart

2011-04-27T18:47:00.001-07:00

...ever, past, present, or future, could ever compare to this.

A Piece About My Other Life

2011-04-24T09:37:00.000-07:00

Here's an interview I did about my blog Watching Treme.

I remember thinking then that I wished all of the information I was finding could be in one place--an aggregating site that would collect links and be a clearinghouse of sorts for all the great stuff (while filtering the spam) the internet has to offer on the topic. So when I found out that David Simon was doing a new show, about New Orleans, I figured I’d step up to pull together the links and info, and I could get in on the ground floor—before Season 1 even premiered. I had the interest, for sure, and the research skills, so why not?

Vacation

2011-04-17T17:12:00.000-07:00

We fly out tonight to St. Thomas, V. I. to watch my twerpy little brother get married. You probably won't see anything new here for a week.

Game of Criticism

2011-04-16T09:03:00.000-07:00

I'm looking forward to "Game of Thrones" on HBO. I'm actually behind the game; I hadn't even heard of the books until the news about HBO's production, but it seems to be my "teacup." I love political intrigue (see "Shogun") unusual use of language (see "Justified," "Deadwood," "Brick"), and swords and shields (see "Spartacus" Or don't-many find it overblown and gory).
So it's interesting to me to see that according to the NYT reviewer, as a Vaginal-American, I'm not supposed to like it. I guess some bedhopping was thrown in there because I'm not supposed to like any of the things listed above.

In addition, there was a truly bizarro review at Slate (in which I'm disappointed-I usually love Troy Patterson's writing) that I'm not sure I even really understood. It was more of an exercise in writing on a meta level about how fantasy is perceived, or something. I think I can see what he was aiming for, but missed. Actually, that's a bit strong, I can't know what he was aiming for. But neither can he, the reviewer who admits he doesn't watch/enjoy fantasy, claim to know what the production was aiming for, either. There's a way to critique outside of your comfort zone by identifying those elements that are off-putting. (I find the violence disturbing, the language opaque, the huge cast of characters confusing, whatever it is.) But Patterson keeps going back to an adolescent motif, perhaps his code word for fanboy. Full of sex and violence, but not for grownups? Again, I'm confused.

So critics, by all means, give me reasons why I might like a production or not, but do not tell me I won't like it because I'm developmentally delayed or a woman. (Or both.) That angers me.

And Matt Zoller Seitz, evidently.

Discovery: Parts & Labor

2011-04-13T08:48:00.001-07:00

Kinda rocky, kinda INXS.

Frankenstein

2011-04-10T13:55:00.000-07:00

Confession: I've never read Mary Shelley's Frankenstein all the way through. I think what happened is that I started it as a precocious kid, got bogged down, and never went back to it. I've never seen Whale's classic film version either. I did see Gods and Monsters, with Ian McKellen as Whale, (which has one of the funniest one liners ever-"Mr. Vale, I tink your moofies are not my teacup). I've also seen Young Frankenstein (Frau Blucher!), for what that's worth. Even still, as a reasonably educated person I have an idea of what it's all about just by osmosis. It's about industrialization, playing god, some early feminism, the thrill and the dangers of science, love, responsibility, and even more. Because it is all these things as well as a riproaring story, it has well earned its corner of the literary canon. I suppose I can't assert this, never having read it, but it has certainly infused our cultural knowledge.

So how exciting to see some big names attached to a play at the National Theatre derived from the source novel. Script by Nick Dear, directed by Danny Boyle (who was quite accomplished in directing for the stage before becoming a film name), it stars Jonny Lee Miller and Benedict Cumberbatch. I've written about Cumberbatch's "Sherlock" here, and I'm a big fan. Here's the other thing: the two leads switch the main roles. One night Miller plays Victor and Cumberbatch plays the Monster, then the next night, Miller plays the Monster and Cumberbatch plays Victor. The version I saw as screened by the Seattle International Film Festival Cinema was the latter.

In my view as a sometimes actor, I can definitely see the switch as less of a gimmick and more of a kindness to the actor playing the Monster. The play opens with his "birth"-emergence from a membrane and 10 minutes of speeded-up human development. He discovers his limbs, how to make sounds, how to sit, crawl, stand, walk, and run hooting with glee. He's a newborn in a thirty year old body. He's perpetually stitched together, an amalgam, somewhat unfinished, and the actor has to sustain that throughout the play. Even his vocal quality develops, but never perfectly-he can never quite get full fine motor control. What a challenge! However amazing it is from an acting point of view, I'm still undecided about that opening. It serves to orient the audience in the world of the play-steadfastly from the Monster's point of view, but it also seemed a bit...much, somehow. I kept asking myself, "Where's Victor?"

That is the point, though. Mary Shelley's Monster was not a mute, shambling creature, and neither is Boyle's. He discovers the warmth of the sun, the taste of the grass, and how to protect himself with his shawl all on his own. He learns. Oh, how he learns, mostly under the tutelage of the blind man. The parallels with childhood are quite sweet, with the Monster demanding "why?!" every minute, an exercise with which every parent of a 4 year old is well familiar. Through cultural osmosis, many of us know the main plot points as the Monster learns more about being a Man-with all the concomitant tragedy it brings.

I watch so much community theater it gives me a giddy frisson when I see theater with actual resources behind it. The sound design which uses Tom Waitsian industrial sounds as well as sounds of nature was notable in all the good ways. The rotating and level-changing set was both stark and emotional, both awe-inducing and unobtrusive. Some of the lighting was handled from hundreds of bulbs suspended from the ceiling. This worked on two levels, both artistically and as a reference to the time of the "birth" of electricity. I even goggled at the costumes. In the post-wedding scene, Victor had on a floor length silk coat that shimmered in the lights. Cumberbatch is a long tall drink of water, so that coat went on for miles.

It seems weird to critique a show I enjoyed so much, but there were a couple of things that didn't work, mainly the character of Victor's father (who ignored the corpse on the floor in the Scottish hut-didn't he see her?) and some of the script (Victor's fiance Elizabeth asking if Victor sent the Monster a wedding invitation was a groaner.) Finally, the theme of fearing the oncoming industrialization didn't feel particularly organic. Much like the Monster, it seemed like parts and pieces stitched together from the train, Elizabeth's line that Victor "worships the god of electricity and gas," etc. Science in general as a two-sided coin worked much better.

And love. Oh, that unique condition of humanity, which the Monster understands, but Victor does not. How poignant when Elizabeth implores him to create life, with her, through their love. And Victor says he does love her, but he leaves and shuts the door. All the Monster wants is a friend, leaving him and Victor bound together forever in their tragedy. Why? Is it Victor's hubris? Is it his exercise of his free will, however misguided? Or is it the Monster's exercise of his own will, bending Victor to his purpose?

This is why we still read Frankenstein and why we can enjoy such a fantastic new vision for it on the stage.

The trailer:

4 Seasons of Seattle Weather

2011-03-31T12:17:00.001-07:00

I love the Oatmeal. Don't you?
4 Seasons of Seattle Weather

"You took my sock." "No, I didn't"

2011-03-29T13:29:00.001-07:00

Twin babies conversing.

H/T Farhad Manjoo on Twitter

A Pic from Walking Away

2011-03-28T15:57:00.000-07:00

Me and NatMo in our "dress blues." I don't think I believe what she's saying.

Jane! Stop this Crazy Thing!

2011-03-27T13:43:00.000-07:00

Well, finally, after three solid weeks of tech, open, close, tech, open, close, tech, open, close, we have gotten all the shows performed. I'm curious to see how much money we made for KCSARC, of course, but audience members have said how much the performances moved them. That's a success right there. Now I can get back to my regularly scheduled life. A nap sure sounds good...

The Appalachian Trail

2011-03-21T14:03:00.001-07:00

I'd love to do the whole thing sometime.

Green Tunnel from Kevin Gallagher on Vimeo.

Until the Violence Stops

2011-03-17T09:58:00.000-07:00

Remember the Run for Congo Women? Well, the VaWa Sisterhood is embarking on its flagship event this weekend-performing "The Vagina Monologues" by Eve Ensler at Renton Civic Theater. There are two shows: tomorrow, March 18th and Saturday March 19th, both at 8pm. The tickets are available here, and are $15. Proceeds go to KCSARC, the King County Sexual Assault Resource Center. See me and other local luminaries Natalie Moe, Cheryl Platz, Jeannine Clarke, and many more in a show that everybody should see at least once. Even if you've seen it before, see ours-there's always something new and exciting.

The Do Something Pill

2011-03-14T13:39:00.000-07:00

People often ask me how I do all the things I do, and I just don't have a good answer other than the Nike slogan. This blog post posits a "Get Off Your Ass and Do Something" pill, which I think is hilarious and true.

Next Performance

2011-03-02T12:51:00.000-08:00

I'm currently rehearsing 3 different shows, so I hope I don't get all the information all mixed up. The first one coming up is at the Freehold Theatre Studio Series. An actor friend of mine is taking classes there, and asked if she could submit one of my 10 minute plays to the series. Of course I said yes, and it turned out the project got accepted. Then, the director cast me in the show. You'd think it would be easy to perform in a show that you've written, but I find it really challenging. I wrote a one act version of the script which is significantly different from the 10 minute version, so the memorization is really tough. Plus, putting character and motivation "on its feet" is proving to be difficult when it's lived so long in my head and on the page. It's good to have a performing challenge, though!

Here's the info and a link to Freehold:

Friday, March 11 and Saturday, March 12, 7:00 pm and 9:30 pm
Walking Away
Project Initiator: Lisa Larsen
Playwright: Machelle Allman
Director: Rachel Bowen

Suggested donation at the door: $10

Review: Fish Tank

2011-03-02T07:50:00.000-08:00

At Edward Copeland on Film.

Although Fish Tank is not particularly plot heavy, the film unfolds inexorably. There’s just no way that things will go right for this family. Even the very sky lowers down upon them, but that makes the sweet moments, when they occur, that much sweeter.

Inequality

2011-02-24T10:08:00.000-08:00

These graphs at Mother Jones illustrate the widening gap in American society, but also the fact that our leaders have little reason to change the situation. It's against their self-interest, you see.

Review: Centurion

2011-02-20T09:50:00.000-08:00

Centurion is another swords and sandals movie, although it's set in Scotland, so there aren't any sandals. The Romans are still trying to subdue the Picts but are suffering the triple threat of homesickness, the weather, and very successful guerilla warfare. Quintus Dias, the centurion of the title, is spared after a Pictish raid because he can speak the language and may be "useful." He escapes, and totters through the snow shirtless (because he's played by Michael Fassbender) and bound. This is actually the opening scene of the film, and Dias informs us that "This is neither the beginning nor the end of my story."

The governor, Agricola, receives word that the northernmost outpost has been overrun, and sends the 9th Legion from York to take care of the Pictish problem once and for all. Led by General Virilus (not too subtle, that) played by Dominic West*, the 9th gets ambushed by the Picts before they even arrive, and are slaughtered. The General is taken, and Dias, leading a tiny band of survivors (including Mickey from Doctor Who-that's some real time travel) goes to free the General. He's shackled, however, and they don't have tools to break the iron. He commands Dias to lead the others home.

This is where the story really starts. The majority of the movie follows this group as they try to reach a Roman settlement from behind enemy lines while they are tracked by a superhuman she-wolf who is bent on revenge.

I've taken a less than respectful tone so far, but I did enjoy the film. Only afterwards did I notice that it was by Neil Marshall, of Descent fame. Both films deal with being stuck, out of your element, with your worst nightmare. The end result is about the same, too. Much like a Mahler concerto, Marshall manages to resolve the tension in ways that are not what you expect. The scene in which the General gets taken by the Picts was shockingly unusual, not least because you expect the General to sit his horse and rally the troops and be around to make some sort of sacrifice in the last 5 minutes, but also because West is filmed looking bewildered and flailing around as he's dragged from his horse.

I've been mulling over the treatment of Etain, the female tracker. Although she's treated as something supernatural, beyond the rules of humanity, I think it works. The key is the contrast between the Pictish women and Agricola's wife, coiffed within an inch of her life. She is the example of female perfection, to the Roman eye, so the women warriors would seem to be beneath, or beyond, human.

The main problem I had with Centurion was the neon blood. If the whole thing is meant to be stylized in a graphic novel way, like 300, then fine. But this was filmed more naturalistically, and in fact desaturated in tones of gray, so the highlighted blood fx didn't fit. I'd rather see swords that don't make marks than splashes of neon everywhere. But hey, that's just me.

So, for a cross between 300 and Gladiator, informed by the quest wandering of The Lord of the Rings films, with some good, unpredictable storytelling and female warriors with their own motivations, check out Centurion.

*And I won't say that when the General is drinking with his men, I thought of McNulty. Nope, won't do it.

Blog-a-thon: Brick

2011-02-18T09:22:00.000-08:00

My entry for the Film Noir Blog-a-thon is now up at Edward Copeland on Film

First time director Rian Johnson walked away with the 2005 Sundance Special Jury Prize for originality of vision for his film Brick. Starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Lukas Haas, it was an attempt to film a noir but with a completely different set of visual cues. Rather than creating a 1940s detective in a rainy New York or Chicago, Johnson set his plot in motion in a modern Southern California high school. In the DVD commentary, Johnson admits that his script was on a knife edge-the slightest misstep in tone would have made it “dreadful.” However, apart from a couple of minor quibbles, I agree with the Sundance jury that he pulled it off.

If you liked it, or if you've clicked around and enjoyed any of the other phenomenal posts out there, please do donate. Here's another shot at the link. The word on the (shadowy, rainy) street is that donations are slowly trickling in. It takes just a few minutes, and if you donate, you can imagine someone growling, "It was you, angel. It was you..."

My First Role

2011-02-17T10:40:00.000-08:00

I have a piece up on the Schn00dles blog.

The reason I remember this so vividly is because there was a controversy–an argument over the creative direction of the show between me and my director. Once I became Queen, and Rumplestiltskin returned to take my first born child (in exchange for the ability to spin straw into gold) I was supposed to cry. And I would not cry. I told the director I would not cry.

Latest Review at Seattle's Child: The Drowsy Chaperone

2011-02-16T22:58:00.000-08:00

My son said that The Drowsy Chaperone was “the best show I’ve ever seen!” He’s seen a lot of theater, so that’s high praise. I agree with him – this show brings all the best of musical theater indulgence right front and center, without losing the heart and soul that makes it all worthwhile.

Full review here.

Noir City Seattle-Saturday Night's Double Bill

2011-02-14T17:47:00.000-08:00

A couple of things before we get into the post-mortem of the films, They Won't Believe Me and Don't Bother to Knock. First, this is not my official blogathon entry (see right) although any chance to remind everybody to donate to the Film Noir Foundation should be taken. Click away!

Second, I just have to rant a little about the people at the festival who laughed uproariously at the things-that-look-funny-in-2011. Why did you even go to Noir City? I get it--one patient lying in a hospital bed offering another patient a cigarette, yeah, that's funny now. But the movie is not a comedy, it wasn't meant to be funny, so don't treat the cinema like your living room or dorm room or whatever. You take the rest of us out of the mood of the movie. Watch it with your 1947 eyes. Get off my lawn.

So, neither movie was a detective movie, and although I love those as much as the next person, I was glad to have some other structures to hang my fedora on. Robert Young, "Father Knows Best" himself, played a man on the witness stand defending his life in court. His defense is that although he did some pretty reprehensible things, he did not commit the crime he was charged with. His narrative takes us all into the story of this philandering husband who gets mixed up in some tragic accidents, according to his version.

Almost every write up of this film says that Robert Young was cast against type. Sure, yes, but you have to have somebody who can A) charm the silk stockings off of somebody and B) charm the viewer. Those qualities are not always found in the same person/actor. Robert Young pulls this off wonderfully. He has numerous moments when he's making someone think one thing, but he himself is thinking something else entirely. Really subtle acting.

And the women...wow. Produced by Joan Harrison, this film really made their motivations clear and didn't just move them around like the furniture. The suffocating wife really loves him, but is not above using her considerable money to keep him around. Janice the office girl who goes through a grieving process when he stands her up, agrees to help trap him, but then realizes his good qualities along with his failings. And the sexpot role is played by Susan Hayward. She surprises us by not cashing the huge check her lover scams from his wife. I don't remember now if it would pass the Bechdel test, but all the women sure had plenty to do in this movie.

Greta, the wife, is an interesting character all by herself. She's repacking Larry's suitcase, and it comes to light that she knows it's not just a business trip he's going on. She tells Larry that she knows about his affair, and that she was just about to tell him THAT VERY NIGHT that she had bought a partnership for him at a brokerage in LA, that she's bought a new home, and won't everything be just peachy. The frisson of Sunset Boulevard as the trap snapped shut was just delicious.

There was a WTF ending, as Eddie Muller said afterward. The Hays Code made for some post-production tinkering, which is too bad. If the original is out there, may it surface. They Won't Believe Me is not on DVD, so catch it at your local arthouse if you can. It's well worth a little effort.

Kim Morgan wrote about Don't Bother to Knock at her blog and that's how it first appeared on my radar. According to Eddie Muller in his introduction, this film shows how much 20th Century Fox was willing to invest in the up and coming Marilyn Monroe-cast her in this noirish character study opposite Richard Widmark, one of their most bankable commodities. Anybody not convinced of her acting ability should watch this movie, although part of the suckerpunch is what we know about her now.

She plays Nell, a timid woman hired at a hotel as a babysitter for Thurston Howell III. She quickly puts the child to bed, and begins a flirtation with the man in the room opposite the courtyard through the window. Sure enough, he ends up in her room. But that's just when things get weird. She is clearly damaged, perhaps insane, and the man, Jed, played by Widmark, decides not to consummate the relationship. There is real danger involved, due to the presence of the child, as well as the fact that Nell is so incredibly helpless in the presence of this man. It hit me in the middle of the night after watching it that it's A Streetcar Named Desire, only without Stanley. Both Blanche and Nell are irrevocably damaged by the deaths of their young men, and are relying on the kindness of strangers. They both also strike out at their tormentors. I was shocked to see Nell swing a cigarette stand at her uncle.

This film also introduced Anne Bancroft as the lounge singer, and boy can she hold the screen. She breaks up with Jed because he can't demonstrate an understanding heart. It's only through Nell's complete collapse that he can demonstrate that, and the two lovebirds reunite. Poor Marilyn.

PS. Vince Keenan was at the same double bill.

Can This Trend Just Be Over Now?

2011-02-13T09:52:00.000-08:00

Christian Soriano via Tom and Lorenzo

When you get to the point that motion is impossible, it might as well be foot-binding. And yes, there were reports of the models biffing it on the runway during his show. Their union should get on that.

Discovery: Floppy Drive Organ

2011-02-10T10:50:00.001-08:00

From Boing Boing.

Review: 3 Screams

2011-02-05T15:11:00.000-08:00

3 Screams

By Vincent Delaney

A West Coast Premiere

At Theatre Off Jackson

The inaugural show for a new production company is a notable event, but when that company includes names like Peggy Gannon and Brandon Ryan, such a show definitely makes a Seattle theater-goer sit up and take notice. Man Alone Productions presents 3 Screams through February 26^th. Written by Seattle playwright Vincent Delaney, the play is an ambitious work that takes on a lot thematically as well as visually.

Michael Oaks as Edvard, Erin Ison as Tulla, and Brandon Ryan as Gunnar play a nuclear family, but they don’t share the stage or exchange dialogue. Their words are directed to Edvard Munch, who painted one of the most iconic works of all time, “The Scream.” This painting has had a remarkable effect upon their lives, and the play deals with how they manage the fallout. Not very well, it seems, because these characters are all cracked to some degree.

Why would this be so? Certainly there is the genetic factor of mental illness, but the show is not as interested in that aspect as the effect of art, great art, on life. Much like how 12 Angry Men is less about the legal system than those caught up in it, 3 Screams is less about the vocal reminders (“Decorum!”) the compulsive baking, and the meds the characters use to hold on to something stable than it is about how art itself could drive them to their extremes.

Edvard dares to declare that “The Scream” is not great art, and his drive is to produce happy, rather than despairing, art. Tulla vows that she loves her husband’s artwork, when he’s sure she hates it. Gunnar is forced to deal with the fact that his brother has become a world renowned artist who paints flowers, of all things. “I feel like an artist, but without one drop of ability,” he says.

What is great art? Who can be a true artist? Is it required that insanity, or at the very least, depression, be comingled with great talent? These are the kinds of questions Delaney takes on. There is a danger of preciousness with a play about art because the playwright himself is an artist and a biased observer. However, in the same way, those in the seats are there to partake in it, so turnabout is fair play.

This is a play that must teach the viewer how to watch it. A full-length show comprised of three massive monologues (and yes, three screams), in which the characters address a long-dead artist is something different. The middle monologue, Tulla’s, is the most difficult. It is less plot driven than the first, and the unreliable narrator makes for question marks in the mind. Tulla is also the most horrific. That said, some plays are fast-food—you know exactly what you’re going to get because it’s the same everywhere. This production is not fast-food theater.

But neither is it relentlessly highbrow or somber. It is often hilariously funny. Brandon Ryan, with a remarkable ease on stage and unique line delivery was a delight to watch. He doesn’t do it alone, however. His performance benefitted from all the groundwork laid by Oak and Ison. Well produced, with effective sets and sound, this new play is the kind that might even benefit from a second viewing. There’s a lot to turn over in the mind, which is what we would hope to gain from art.

Film Noir

2011-02-03T20:57:00.000-08:00

Film Noir-either a genre or a style, depending upon who you ask, but pretty much all of us know it when we see it. Beyond the fedora and the rain, beyond the private eye and the femme fatale, noir is the pessimistic downer at the party-that grumpy uncle in the corner who reminds us that none of us will make it out alive.

I'll be blogging about Brick, Rian Johnson's neo-noir set in a Southern California high school. The blogathon is to raise funds for the Film Noir Foundation, which will preserve an early Lloyd Bridges noir, Sound of Fury aka Try and Get Me.

And SIFF is participating in "Noir City," a week (Feb. 11-17) of noir double bills curated around the theme of insanity-who is, who isn't, and who gets driven there. I'll be seeing Don't Bother to Knock, featuring Marilyn Monroe in a surprising role, and They Won't Believe Me, featuring "Father Knows Best" himself, Robert Young.

So keep your specs on for my posts later on, even though "the cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter, eh?"

Today's Meme

2011-02-03T09:53:00.000-08:00

This kid has quite an acting career ahead of him!

Review: Bugsy Malone at Youth Theatre Northwest

2011-02-02T18:43:00.000-08:00

For Seattle's Child.

Whether these kids continue in acting, or if it’s a one-time thing, Bugsy Malone demonstrates that they’re learning how to “sell” a musical number, create and maintain a character, and convey a story to an audience. Being able to fire silly string at your friends is just icing on the coconut cream pie!

Review: Red

2011-02-01T09:04:00.000-08:00

Now up at Edward Copeland on Film.

Willis, Freeman, Malkovich, Mirren, Cox. Throw in a Borgnine and a bit of Dreyfuss, and you've got a cast worth watching. RED (Retired and Extremely Dangerous) marketed its lineup heavily, and for good reason. These international treasures hopefully will not abandon making high art, but it's grand to watch them having a great time.

Review: Baaria

2011-01-29T09:31:00.000-08:00

It's interesting that I so recently saw I Am Love because as cold and restrained as most of that film was, Giuseppe Tornatore's Baaria is warm and gregarious. Tornatore is the Italian director who won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film in 1988 with Cinema Paradiso, and after a foray into the thriller with The Unknown Woman, he's returned to his typical themes of family, history and memory.

Again the director uses a small boy as the audience proxy, little Peppino, the sassiest boy in the sassy village of Baaria. Baaria is the local slang for Tornatore's Sicilian hometown, Bagheria. How he manages to evoke the layout and architecture of a town that undergoes such changes over time is beyond me. Maybe he built a new one. In any case, the film follows Peppino as he struggles to make a living, even as a small boy, raise a family, and get involved in politics, which in Sicily can lead to a cracked head or worse.

Cinema is a big part of life for Peppino, because his dad is one of the two villagers who can read the title cards in silent film, plus he gets the inspiration for how to win his lady love from a Fred Astaire movie. Even though the girl openly insults a property owner who is supposed to be her fiance, her parents refuse a match with the impoverished Peppino. But undeterred, not only does he cross the cavernous dance hall floor, in which the men dance with men and women dance with women, to ask Mannina to dance, he locks himself in her house with her for hours. Whatever actually happened inside, they must of course then be married, his poverty notwithstanding. They are well suited for each other, this man who will ask a woman to dance, and this woman who says yes.

After an initial tragedy, they have a family, and Peppino travels in support of the Communist party, as well as to simply find work to make money. His children demonstrate the same force of personality that he and his wife have. After a long middle section, the final act folds back on the opening sometimes literally, as the old Peppino fulfills a local superstition, and then figuratively, as the young boy Peppino, walking in the modern day, finds a lost item and shrieks that it belongs to his "daughter." Peppino asks himself when he was dreaming, before, or now. However, the structure works as a representation of old age (and perhaps Alzheimer's), when the old times become new, and as tangible or more so, than the present day.

It's Tornatore, so it's gorgeous, even for rocky, dusty Sicily, and there is a great deal of humor infused throughout. I love the Sicilian insults hurled about that never seem to land a fatal blow. "I'll cut off your head and throw it into the sea! Now go buy me a knife!" It is a long movie, clocking in at 2 and a half hours, and the middle section dealing with Communism and land redistribution felt long. But those are the events that shaped Peppino and the modern Italian state, so there they are. The mafia are referred to, but aren't the focus of the film, which is refreshing to the American eye.

In 2009 it won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, but lost the 2010 Golden Globe to Haneke's The White Ribbon. Appropriate, I think, because it is a fabulous exploration of memory, but doesn't add anything particularly groundbreaking to the film canon, either in content or form. That said, they just don't make epics like this anymore.

My Response to the State of the Union

2011-01-26T11:58:00.000-08:00

As much as I admire President Obama as an orator, I have a cynical reaction to the State of the Union address. The words about innovation and education are the right ones, but ultimately meaningless when so many from K to higher ed are fired, furloughed, or part-time. (Including me, which is clearly why I feel so strongly about it.) The false comparison between a family living within their means and the government balancing its budget is the hot new trend, but a government has nothing in common with a family. It's a comparison that makes zero sense. We our family can't print money or pursue macroeconomic policy, can yours? Rather than saying the government must cut expenses, like a family would, why not flip it around and say that the government must increase revenue, like a family would? Yes, I'm telling the government to "get a job" by creating a tax system that makes sense. When high profile billionaires are saying, yes, tax us, what is the major malfunction? Oh, yes I remember, corporations are people now. The elephant in the room is war expenses, and until that discussion is on the table, it's just words, words, words.

The hot takeaway is "win the future." Seriously? No wonder we love to go to and stay in wars, with that kind of language. Life, the future, is something to be "won" which means taken away from somebody else. I'd prefer to think of a future in which a Chinese scientist discovers a cure for cancer and the entire planet "wins," rather than the US "loses" because we didn't think of it first. Win the future. I'd hate to see what means justify that end.

Review: 101 Dalmatians 50th Anniversary

2011-01-25T07:43:00.000-08:00

My latest post at Edward Copeland on Film.

The art design was completely new because they moved away from the realistic representations (particularly for humans and landscapes) that had characterized previous films such as Snow White and Cinderella. The backgrounds were filled in with blocks of color that did not always “stay within the lines” and the art designers purposefully set reference lines and items within the scene asymmetrically. It was the first time since Fantasia that the art design was dedicated to being “art” — a fully realized vision with its own syntax and vocabulary.

It DOES Look Like A Metro Bus!

2011-01-24T11:02:00.001-08:00

The littlest barbarian used to love the buses, too, yelling "citybus!" whenever they went by. I never did this, though.

Two degrees of Roger Ebert

2011-01-23T18:42:00.000-08:00

I'm a contributor to a blog that got mentioned in Roger Ebert's recent article "Film Criticism is Dying? Not Online" in the Wall Street Journal. Namely, Edward Copeland on Film.

My next piece will go up on Tuesday--I'll link here of course.

w00t!

Happy Friday

2011-01-21T10:27:00.001-08:00

John in the Morning had The Jayhawks on KEXP which made me think of this video. I love the song, and I can't quit watching the dancers.

Public Enemies

2011-01-20T12:31:00.000-08:00

Michael Mann takes on Dillinger's last days in this 2009 film starring Johnny Depp and Marion Cotillard. Mann seems the perfect choice for director, given that he's so associated with the crime film-Heat, Collateral, (UPDATE: an excellent analysis here.) all the way back to Manhunter. Unfortunately, this experience doesn't give him the inspiration to make a film to swoon over.

Johnny Depp plays Dillinger so straight, it's difficult to register how exceptional Dillinger was, even in scenes designed to highlight that very quality. The exception is the tension created when Dillinger strolls right into a police station, just as he did in real life. Christian Bale plays Melvin Purvis, the FBI agent assigned to bring down the notorious gang, and he's nicely buttoned up here. The scene in which he's forced to tell his boss J. Edgar that moral, clean, helpful young men are not going to get the job done is a nice juxtaposition of insecurity in telling the man what he doesn't want to hear, but with the courage of his convictions, as well as foreknowledge of what bringing in the gunslingers means for the community.

It's a Mann movie, so it's gorgeous, not the least reason for which is his reliance on closeups of Depp and the leading lady Cotillard. She plays Billie, the woman Dillinger woos with a fur coat nearly instantaneously. She is devoted to him, and he swears to protect her. Of course she would not need protecting if she were not John's girl.

There used to be a fantastic article about Mann's use of the extreme closeup, but that site seems to be gone now. Here's a quote by Mann, cribbed from a 3rd party, which gets at the point, I think.

I look for where or how to bring the audience into the moment, to reveal what somebody’s thinking and what they’re feeling, and where it feels like you’re inside the experience. Not looking at it, with an actor performing it, but have an actor live it, and you as audience, if I could bring the audience inside to experience.

There are plenty of "that guy" actors, including David Wenham, Steven Dorff, Billy Crudup, and Jason Clarke, but I got a huge kick out of Channing Tatum as "Pretty Boy" Floyd. What a sport.

No big glamor, no big existential crisis-it is what it is. Dillinger robs banks. Purvis chases after him. People get shot, some die. Ultimately, Dillinger can not be taken alive, but the final confrontation is not even a confrontation so much as a shooting in front of a movie theater. It is what it is.

On the Big Screen

2011-01-16T17:03:00.000-08:00

So I actually got to see myself on the big screen recently at a cast/crew screening of an independent feature I was a small part of. Here's a bit of an interview I did before the show. (I look angry in the photo but I'm really not. That was in between takes. I'm....focused...)

Ladyhaters of the Day: Coach House Bar

2011-01-14T12:10:00.000-08:00

A woman was kicked out of a bar for being pregnant. Not for being drunk, or even drunk and pregnant (she was drinking water), just pregnant. The bouncer told her to leave, and said, "If anything happened to you here, we would be responsible." She complied, thinking there might be some sort of law, but there's not. The bar just took it upon themselves to misuse the whole "right to refuse service" concept. Wonder why they didn't assume that she's capable of assessing her own risk and responsibilities? Oh, right.

I hope she sues.

There's Hope for Us Yet.

2011-01-13T12:40:00.000-08:00

The shaky cam is horrendous, but the spirit is heartwarming. A little girl is singing the national anthem when her mike cuts out. You can see her stop, eyes cutting back and forth in a "now what do I do?" and she gets help. Take a look here.

Discovery: Water Sculpture

2011-01-10T12:57:00.001-08:00

Amazing beautiful.

Water Sculpture from Shinichi Maruyama on Vimeo.

Brilliant Stop Motion Short

2011-01-03T15:11:00.000-08:00

This was posted at Boing Boing and got my attention because of the undersea fascination at my house.

Happy New Year

2011-01-01T10:32:00.000-08:00

It's kind of silly to point out the Top 10 lists, Top 100, Worst 10, etc that have been ubiquitous the last few weeks, but there they are. I've also been wandering around some of the "what I've learned" posts, most of which I'm not quite sure are helpful to anyone else, but if they spark some internal reflection, then hooray.

You can probably guess that I'm not a huge fan of the resolutions, or even to-do lists for the upcoming year. I can barely get through my daily to-do list. (However, I did see a great idea for inbox zero for the new year. Just tag everything in your gmail inbox as "2010" or "oldinbox" and archive it. That way you start with an empty inbox and you still have everything if you need to refer back to it, which you probably won't. I'm going to do this with all my emails (sometime today, it's on the list.)

So here's my 2010 postmortem. Just do it. Yes, it's the Nike tagline, but it's the best way that I can describe some of the highlights of the year for me. I heard that David Simon was starting up a new gig, and I decided to blog it. The birth of WatchingTreme has meant a lot to me: I made a trip to New Orleans, have met a lot of cool people, and I'm collecting a lot of info that people can refer back to. Just because I decided to do it. Same thing with getting to be a contributor at Edward Copeland on Film. I still don't feel that I'm necessarily pulling my weight, but I hope I'm getting better. He made a call for writers, I said I'd give it a shot, and now I'm a regular contributor. Some other big deals are agreeing for a short play of mine to be selected to a studio series by an actor friend (it got selected) and to go on a writing audition for a developing project (I got selected).

So for me the upshot is to just say yes to opportunities, follow the projects that seem really cool and interesting, and just do it. People ask me all the time how I do all the things I do, and I don't really. Just not at the same time. I just prioritize what's important for right now. Sometimes I write for the blogs, sometimes I research for my dissertation, etc, just not all on the same day.

If you wait until you "find the time" to do something, you won't. Exercise gurus have been telling us this for years, and it's just as true for anything else.

Lest I become too pedantic, here's a rockin' vid to thank you for reading. All best wishes for 2011!

Review: True Grit

2010-12-30T10:12:00.000-08:00

My latest post at Edward Copeland on Film.
True Grit is the film the Coen brothers make when they're not cracking jokes. It's a straight-up Western, no chaser, and it's head and shoulders above most Hollywood offerings these days. That doesn't mean it's ingenious, however. It doesn't tell us much more about the human condition than we already knew, and I'd posit the same about at least one of the performances. Jeff Bridges nails it as Rooster Cogburn? I'm not sure that was ever in question. But just because we know the stars are up there in the sky, and a good part of why, doesn't mean we don't enjoy looking at them. The same is true of True Grit.

Click here for the full post.

Run for Congo Women Update

2010-12-28T12:43:00.000-08:00

Hey-we finally got some notification of how the event went in terms of fundraising. At the run in October, they said they were expecting about 50 runners and walkers. They got 600. So the final tally is:

$18,232.42

That's a lot of meals and basic medical care. I'm so proud to have been a part of it. Thanks again to those who donated to our team.

The Week Between

2010-12-28T10:57:00.001-08:00

A glorious post about the week between Christmas and New Years. Poetical, even.
http://toulousestreet.wordpress.com/2010/12/28/a-silent-night-kind-of-afternoon/

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-25T17:52:00.001-08:00

Blogathon: Spielberg's Kids

2010-12-22T17:33:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite year end lists is the MSN “Moments out of Time.” I love to see if the moments in film that I’ve fixated upon make the list, plus there’s the added bonus of discovering new ones. So many films in their entirety are aggravating at worst and boring at best, but there’s almost always at least one or two moments that catch the breath, or tingle the spine, or jolt the gigglebox. When I think of Spielberg, I tend to think of those transcendent moments almost as disconnected from the surrounding film. This is not to say that his films do not hold up, on the contrary, Spielberg has a remarkable stamina for making whole artworks. However, he also has an ability to find the perfect moment and lock it down for posterity.

Against the old industry conventional wisdom, he works with kids. I review a lot of children’s theater, so I see a huge range of performances from the barely holding it together to the uber-professional showkid who advertises every moment. Spielberg gets the kid characters right, and he gets the right actors. To be clear, I'm not saying these are the best Spielberg moments, but when it comes to the kids, here are a few of my favorites.

Elliott Discovers E. T. is Alive:

Young Henry Thomas is phenomenal in E. T., from his initial terror in the cornfield to that infamous classroom liplock. What an acting tour de force when poor Elliott, still mourning his friend, his house invaded by astronauts, sees that telltale heartglow. He switches from despondent to ecstatic, then manages to cover up E. T. by FAKING crying so that he can later rig an escape. Makes me want to laugh and cry at the same time, too.
UPDATE: Here is a link to an AMAZING Youtube vid of young Henry's audition. It will knock your socks off.

Short Round Catches Indy Cheating:

Ke Huy Kuan nabbed the role in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom when he auditioned this very scene. He wasn’t as consistent as Henry Thomas was in E. T., but he might have had a tougher job to do acting in an action film. Short Round catches Indy cheating at cards redhanded and looses a stream of kid-invective wild enough to make you look for your seatbelt. The kicker for me, though, is when he waggles his finger at Indy as if Short Round were an 80 year old grandma. “Play with you no fun!”

Jamie (Jim) is Reunited with His Parents:

Young Christian Bale gives us a glimpse of the talent and torment that audiences are so familiar with in the adult version today. In Empire of the Sun, Jamie is a privileged Brit in China when the Japanese invade, and separated from his parents he is transformed into a savvy street kid willing to do what it takes to survive. He’s even renamed Jim by the American hustlers he falls in with. All our hopes for him come true when his parents appear in a camp meant to reunite the sundered families, but Jamie doesn’t even recognize them. Then, embraced by his mother, his eyes are empty and unfeeling. When he returns the embrace, does he really, or is it exhaustion? It’s a sucker punch to the soul, for 12 year old Jamie may be already damaged beyond healing.

Runner-Up:

In Jurassic Park, Lex runs screaming through the kitchen with her arms straight ahead of her. I don’t know what it is about that physicality, but something about it cracks me up and gives me a chill at the same time. I think that’s what real terror might look like--it’s as if she could grab something ahead of her and pull, she could make herself go even faster.

What are the Spielberg moments that stick in your brain?

#FridayFlash #200words Close the Gates 3

2010-12-09T19:46:00.000-08:00

Part 1
Part 2

Ting Ting dropped Rachel’s hand and walked to the base of the hill. She sat down on the ground cross-legged and arranged her skirt around her knees and feet.

“What’s that?” asked Rachel.

There was a visible shimmer in the air around Ting Ting. It hadn’t been there before, but when the others looked at her, they could see it, as if they could see the very air around her. She turned her palms upward on her knees and closed her eyes.

Darla winced.

“What’s that racket?” she asked. The feeling of dread had coalesced into a low humming, almost buzzing sound.

“I feel it in my stomach,” she said. The pitch was so low it was almost beyond their capability to hear.

“I wonder,” said the priest. He stopped himself.

“Wonder what?” asked Amrita. She had taken half a step backward, terrified. Unconsciously she had turned as if to run away. Yet she remained.

“I wonder if making yourselves known so soon will prove to be disadvantageous. You’re not nearly ready…”

“Damn straight!” said Darla, before her eyes widened and her mouth dropped open.

For Ting Ting, legs still crossed, eyes still closed, was slowly levitating from the ground.

Upcoming

2010-12-09T19:15:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure if this qualifies as procrastination or not, when "writing blog post" is on the to-do list, but might as well go ahead and get these thoughts out.

First, I'm working on a project that, well, I can't tell you about. However, it involves meetings, and writing, and hopefully we'll stay on schedule so that we can all let the cat out of the bag soon.

Second, one of my 10 minute plays, "Walking Away," was selected for Freehold Theater's Studio Series. I'll also be playing in it and it goes up the weekend of 3/25 and 3/26. I'm really honored and excited, partly because my work will be seen by some biggish names in the Seattle theater scene. Plus, it'll just be fun.

Third, tomorrow I'm doing a brief interview with a Seattle Times reporter on online communities. He found my WatchingTreme blog, and wanted to ask questions about blogs for interest topics and commenting and such. Of course I'll post the link as soon as it gets published.

Last, I had a good phone meeting with my dissertation adviser today, and I feel a little more on track with that. Gotta stay focused!

Now that I've got everybody up to speed, I'll see if I can get some flash ready for tomorrow. Don't want to fall off that wagon!

I Am Love

2010-12-05T17:56:00.000-08:00

There are only 10 stories, so the saying goes, and the repressed, restricted, married woman having an affair with a younger man is one of them. The film I Am Love is such a story, but star and producer Tilda Swinton and director Luca Guadagnino explore it in such a way as to immerse viewers in the experience and make us complicit in the action. In the beginning, the viewer is kept separated from any understanding of what might yet come to pass. Underlying the opening credits are images of snowy statues and classical buildings. Street signs and modern forms orient the audience to the current time, but there is precious little movement. These could be still photographs, if not for the falling snow and the occasional pedestrian making his way to some unknown destination. This is a frozen world, frozen in temperature and in time.

The Recchi family is also frozen inside their fortress-like mansion. They are a wealthy Milanese family, and the household servants move with factory precision to prepare for a big event. The addition of a guest sends the matriarch and her housekeeper back to the seating chart. If they were costumed in period garb, these scenes could occur at any time in history. In fact, the name Recchi rhymes with the Italian word for “old.” But there is something off about Emma Recchi’s Italian. Is it because she is played by an actress for whom Italian is not the first language? It's difficult to pick up for the English speaker, but phrases of Russian filter in-she's an immigrant. There are gestures of affection, between the mother, father, and three adult children, but are they truly affectionate, or are they gestures? Once Grandpa Eduardo and Grandma Rori have arrived, we find she is as well preserved as the mansion, with her fashionable thinness and suspiciously taut face. The event is Eduardo’s birthday, and he is not pleased with his granddaughter Betta’s gift of a photograph. She always gives him a drawing, and he’s thrown by “novelties.” Yet he announces that he is retiring and leaving his business not only to his son, Tancredi, but also to his grandson, Edo. By this point, the viewer has begun to live the scene along with the characters. Eduardo does not explain why he has made that choice. The viewer is left to wonder along with those at the dinner table, what just happened? And why?

Edo has just lost a race of some sort, and the winner, a chef friend of Edo’s named Antonio, comes by to deliver a cake. Edo introduces his friend to his mother, and she is struck. She retires to her room, having seen that the party is successfully launched. She separates herself from the family. Some months later, she finds evidence that her daughter Betta is in a relationship with a woman. This discovery, along with her daughter later coming out to her, is Emma’s introduction to passion that transcends taboo.

There is another party. Edo is announcing his engagement to his girlfriend, and Antonio is catering. Emma and Antonio meet again in the kitchen, and Antonio sends a special plate up to her, closeted in her space upstairs. Later on, she chooses to lunch with her mother-in-law and future daughter in-law at Antonio’s restaurant, and has a transcendent experience. As she eats, she is bathed in light, and the extreme close-ups pull the viewer in to her point of view. The shots go on and on as she raptures in the taste of the food, and the effect is that of frozen time again – the moment that is so crystal clear it seems to go on forever. When he comes out to speak to them, she can hardly look at him, but upon leaving, she goes back to tell him how wonderful everything was. She learns he grows his own vegetables near San Remo, where he and Edo will set up a restaurant.

Is it one of those “food movies” like Big Night? Yes, but only in the sense that the food, as art, stands in contrast to the old art forms like painting represented by the Recchi family. The dishes are created only as needed for the event, and are consumed, although sometimes cherished, but then they are gone. The chef must then create again.

Betta returns from school in London, and will have an exhibit in Nice. Emma goes to San Remo on the way to Nice to visit her daughter, and sees Antonio. She impulsively follows him, loses her nerve and stops, then changes her mind and continues on. She is human; she has fears and doubts. She bumps into him after losing sight of him, and accepts an invitation to the land where the restaurant will go. As Antonio drives her in his truck, the camera is directed straight ahead in the character’s point of view. We are familiar with this sensation, turning neither to the left nor to the right for fear that moving will break the spell. If one of them regains their senses, the affair and the magic will be gone.

There is also a scene from Antonio’s point of view. Antonio, having met Emma Recchi at her home, sees her enter his restaurant. She drops her bags and they passionately kiss. When they are interrupted by her son Edo, the viewer thinks that the couple is caught, until it is shown that the entire scene was the Antonio’s fantasy. Not only do we understand his state of mind in regards to Emma, we feel his fear at being discovered.

When they make love, it’s filmed quite explicitly. The sex is there because it’s important. It’s important to Emma, and it’s messy and not precious about the naughty bits. By filming explicitly and by using extreme close up, the director pulls in the audience to the characters’ points of view rather than keeping the voyeuristic distance.

They are of course discovered. Antonio makes a fatal mistake by serving Edo’s favorite dish. Only Emma could have taught him how to prepare it, so Edo puts that together with the other snippets of clues to deduce what has happened. They shout at each other in Russian. The betrayal is not against Emma’s husband so much as it is against her son. She has kept secrets and has done this with his friend. There is a tragic death.

Before the first dinner party, Emma’s husband Tancredi helps Emma get her jewelry on, as if he’s girding her for battle. In the countryside, Antonio helps her off with her shoes, her clothes and her jewelry. She sheds her identity as a Recchi. At the end of the film, after she has fled the graveside, Tancredi helps her put her shoes back on. But this circle does not close. She tells him, “I love Antonio,” as taut as a violin string, and he says she does not exist. She flees. She literally runs into the house and begins to throw her belongings together. Without a word, sobbing, her trusted housekeeper, perhaps her best friend, helps her.

Ebert famously says that it is not what it is about, but rather it is about HOW it is about what it is about. This film is one of those slow European films that Sarah Palin complained about, and it is nearly perfect. I haven’t even gotten into the surprises—Rori speaks flawless English. Do the Recchi’s have a history of importing their wives? Tilda Swinton is mocked as some sort of alien from another planet with her extraordinary height and features. Her alien-ness serves her well in a role of otherness, but it’s her talent that serves her in a role of tenderness and passion.

Turnabout Fair Play?

2010-12-05T14:19:00.000-08:00

I get that this is supposed to be jokey, but if we don't want them stereotyping us, why is it funny to stereotype them?
Six Things Men Say That Signal Trouble

Latest Review at Seattle's Child: Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Christmas Carol

2010-11-30T18:39:00.000-08:00

At Taproot Theatre through Dec. 30th.

It's elementary, really. I'm surprised I never thought of it myself. Two of the most iconic characters in literature, Ebenezer Scrooge and Sherlock Holmes, have quite a lot in common. Both are solitary to the point of misanthropy, and both have their obsessions. Scrooge is obsessed with money, and Holmes is obsessed with knowledge – or at least his singular ability to wield it. Local playwright John Longenbaugh places Holmes within the Christmas Carol story, and it works seamlessly.

Fundamentals

2010-11-29T14:51:00.000-08:00

Amanda Marcotte takes on one of my favorite pet peeves in an article review about the anniversary of the Pill=the "women are fundamentally stupid" argument.

Implying that women are too stupid to realize that delaying pregnancy until your 30s raises your chances of infertility? Check. Implying that infertility is a much bigger problem than it actually is in a country that has a relatively high birth rate for an industrialized nation? Check. Focusing on the complaints of side effects without checking the actual scientific studies on the prevalence? Check. Characterizing the entire female population as being exactly like your free-wheeling fun time friends in their 20s who are the kind of girls who match their pill cases to their shoes, without considering that mothers, the fiercely monogamous, and the totally unfashionable also have a need for the pill? Check.

The Diamond Industry: LadyHaters of the Day

2010-11-27T10:28:00.000-08:00

I am so glad someone took on this stalkeriffic commercial. I hated it last year, and they've brought it BACK! The article takes on the problems inherent in the diamond industry (basically, buy expensive rocks or your woman is worth nothing!) But my bigger problem is how creepy the guy is. It's bad acting, for sure, but you work with the script you're given. And hey, thunderstorms are so SCARY! Honey, put on your big girl pants and find a flashlight.

#FridayFlash #120words Burlesque

2010-11-26T13:24:00.000-08:00

“That’s not burlesque,” he said. She was on stage, breathing heavily, having performed a strenuous three minute dance routine.

“What?”

“That’s not burlesque. You’re a good dancer. Not talented, you’re not free enough, but you’re definitely not a burlesque performer.” He looked at the list on his clipboard.

“This is where the jobs are,” she said.

“That’s true. We’re back in fashion. But you have no idea what it is we do here.”

“You show the sexuality…”

“No,” he interrupted. “We don’t. You do. That’s what you just did. I now know exactly what you can do, and how.”

“But that’s good, though, right?” she asked.

“No. You should leave me wondering. Burlesque is the art of the tease. Next!”

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest

2010-11-26T09:02:00.000-08:00

I finish up the Millenium trilogy at Edward Copeland on Film

It sounds crazy from the start. The charge that a 12-year-old girl’s imprisonment in a mental hospital was part of a government conspiracy to protect a Soviet defector spy already sounds preposterous. When that charge comes from Lisbeth Salander, violent goth queen and hacker, it seems even more ludicrous. Audiences already know that it’s true — it’s just a matter of whether or not Lisbeth, investigative journalist Mikael Blomkvist and attorney Annika Giannini can prove it.

Reminder

2010-11-23T11:25:00.000-08:00

If you haven't already, don't forget to take a look at instances of my writing over at Edward Copeland on Film.
The Secret of Kells

The Girl Who Played with Fire

Upcoming projects include a piece on "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest", (Friday) and a review of Taproot Theatre's "Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Christmas Carol" for Seattle's Child.

Hallelujah!

2010-11-18T15:39:00.000-08:00

So one of those self-proclaimed titles in the header there is "doctoral student," even if I don't often act or feel like one. But today I got notice that I have passed my written comprehensive exam, so I am allowed to proceed from coursework to my dissertation.

One more hoop cleared...

The Girl Who Played With Fire

2010-11-18T09:11:00.000-08:00

My piece over at Edward Copeland's place. I saw a funny tweet about the mass tonnage of weight on flights attributable to the Stieg Larsson novels. I'm feeling all superior for having gotten in on this one before the hype.

Regular Contributor

2010-11-15T18:35:00.000-08:00

I'm pleased to announce that I will be a regular contributor at Edward Copeland on Film. (It's true! Go look-my name is right there!) I've been a long time lurker on the site, and absolutely love the extensive indexing so I can go back and see what folks have said about films I finally get to see.

My next post, coming out this week, will be on The Girl Who Played with Fire.

Big thanks to Edward for letting me hang out there--it's a real honor.

Discovery: Sherlock

2010-11-14T21:31:00.000-08:00

Okay, so this is not so much a discovery as something that has taken a bit of the internet by storm. Sherlock is a 3 part TV series that aired on the BBC in July and August of 2010, then was picked up by PBS's Masterpiece this fall. It's currently streaming on the PBS site until December, and the DVDs are already for sale.

This iteration of the legend takes the eponymous character and places him firmly into our own time. The creators, Stephen Moffat and Mark Gatiss, wanted to forget about all the mythology about Mr. Holmes, especially the ideas that the collective memory holds from other film versions, and pull out the realities from the source material. For example, Holmes has always been ahead of the curve in terms of technology. Therefore, this Holmes, as played by Benedict Cumberbatch, has his own web site, sends text messages and checks tide schedules by internet search. He also befriends, of course, Dr. Watson, (Martin Freeman) who has just returned from deployment in Afghanistan. No stodgy old harrumphers in their fifties here. Watson chronicles Holmes' exploits on a blog, which to this blogger, is a hoot.

I find it hard to even get an entry into the delights of this show. The deductions are fun to follow, and the actors are top notch. But I suppose the backbone is the writing. Not only do the complex episodes hold together, it's clear that there's a lot of fun to be had. "Amazing!" says Watson. "Meretricious," replies Holmes. "And a Happy New Year..." responds Lestrade. Exchanges like that speak to character and relationship so efficiently that the time restrictions for a TV show do not hinder the adventures.

Episode 1, A Study in Pink, reflects the real A Study in Scarlet, the novel that introduced the characters. Holmes and Watson do meet through an old friend, and become flatmates because they both are impossible flatmates. Lestrade pulls in Holmes on a case because he's desperate for help. The game is on! ("Afoot" would have been much too antiquated. The writers do a terrific job of updating while giving nods to the canon for fanboys and girls.) One fascinating update is the treatment of the age old question of whether or not Holmes and Watson were actually a couple. They maneuver that question themselves, awkwardly, and we find that Holmes is "married to his work," but everyone ELSE thinks they're a couple. And are totally cool with it. When a friendly waiter brings a candle to their table over Watson's protestations of "I'm not his date," it just had me in stitches. Holmes gives Watson a purpose, and Watson humanizes Holmes, so they need each other, but not in THAT way. Moffat and Gatiss say on a production video that the casting was key in that they needed something of "an officer and a slightly junior officer" and they managed to find their junior officer with Martin Freeman. It's not quite a partnership of equals, but Holmes can't run completely roughshod over Watson or he'd just leave. It's a tricky balance that I think falls directly onto Freeman's shoulders. That leaves room for Cumberbatch to find some respect and admiration lurking in Holmes for another human being. In this episode watch at the end for the bit with the blanket. Genius!

Episode 2, The Blind Banker is the old room-locked-from-the-inside chestnut, and it was the weakest of the three. Of all the plotlines that could have been developed with Chinese smuggler/gangsters, they still fell back on the Orientalism of the antiquities/acrobats undercover motif. The midpoint section when Holmes gets thwarted and frustrated (human emotion!) worked well, but the end point with our heroes plus Watson's love interest tied up in a subway facing a killing machine was a bit cheesy. Sarah did get her licks in, but I suspect it was to mollify us because she'd just be tied up and saved by Watson and Holmes later.

Episode 3, The Great Game was as strong as the first, and introduced the nemesis, Moriarty. In this episode, Holmes must solve five mini-puzzles before the time runs out on innocent bystanders rigged with bombs. I have watched the beginning of this episode over and over because it is so funny. The cold open could have been cut, it didn't give anything except for how far Holmes was willing to travel to find a good mystery (Belarus, it turns out.) But he returns unsatisfied, and is bored. BORED! and firing Watson's service weapon into a smiley face spraypainted (prop from Episode 2) on the wall. Sherlock in a Snit as I've dubbed it is the funniest piece of character work I've seen in a while. Cumberbatch is flinging all two meters of himself around the flat in his jammies and a silk robe (the infamous dressing gown), walking on top of the coffee table, and it is a riot. Mrs. Hudson hopes that a nice murder will turn up for him, and sure enough, somebody comes along who is doing something quite new. A twist leads to a confrontation between Holmes, Watson and Moriarty, and the episode ends on a cliffhanger.

Thank goodness it seems the BBC will be producing at least 3 more episodes, production dependent upon Moffat's and Gatiss' writing schedule on Dr. Who, Freeman's The Hobbit schedule (still in pre-prod purgatory, though) and dealing with Cumberbatch's propulsion to stardom. He was in Atonement, recently in Four Lions, and other BBC productions, but he's got his golden ticket now. The production quality is BBC all over, very high quality, and visually they use tilt-shifting in the beginning credits and interstitial spaces to show London as if it's in miniature. Although London is crawling with modern skyscrapers, the style reminds us of the source material in the Victorian era. The color saturation sets the heightened mood for these life or death mysteries, and of course Holmes himself IS a heightened mood.

LadyHaters of the Day: Hospitals

2010-11-12T13:55:00.000-08:00

Yet another horrific story from the world of medical care. A new mother's child was taken from her because she tested positive for opiates after a drug test was administered without her consent, and before she was even notified of the positive result of the unauthorized test. Women continue to be considered the place of residence of their offspring, rather than full human beings with agency.

This particular article focuses on the extraordinarily low threshold for the positive drug test result (her breakfast bagel had poppy seeds), but I'm more worried about the hospital's SOP of drug testing obstetric patients whether or not there is any social or medical indication.

Guesting Again

2010-11-12T09:05:00.000-08:00

Edward Copeland on Film is an "inaccurately named" blog that covers a wide variety of the arts. I wrote about The Secret of Kells, a really wonderful animated film.
Go see!