tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-78899537476920548902024-10-06T23:23:51.016-07:00JESTHER ENTERTAINMENTCulture, Cinema, Stage, Sounds, Lifestyle, Travel, Etc.JEsther Entertainmenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08447548247220496790noreply@blogger.comBlogger1226125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889953747692054890.post-44204799298747379842019-06-17T14:11:00.000-07:002019-06-17T14:11:29.766-07:00FILM REVIEW: THE EDGE OF DEMOCRACY<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_UF8TNoqA_UYfH3EKu6YNLfk7u6XRoN2kzc3Onq2jbgR7l0g1zlo482CU06gJZx3fXHPmB4kFE0VS331842qflomcumCaupFADIY2ZmwRxOt1W_gX0LpkEYEkwdJBFvmj24jaiJNitOM/s1600/brazil.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="974" data-original-width="1600" height="242" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_UF8TNoqA_UYfH3EKu6YNLfk7u6XRoN2kzc3Onq2jbgR7l0g1zlo482CU06gJZx3fXHPmB4kFE0VS331842qflomcumCaupFADIY2ZmwRxOt1W_gX0LpkEYEkwdJBFvmj24jaiJNitOM/s400/brazil.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>A scene fro</b><span style="text-align: start;"><b>m</b></span><b> <i>The Edge of De</i></b><b><i>mocracy.</i></b></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Fascis</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">m in the south</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">By
Ed Rampell<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">As
America ponders the impeachment of U.S. President Trump and investigating him for crimes a
young South American female director has made a documentary about another large
democratic nation that recently underwent the ordeals of impeaching one
president plus the trial and imprisonment of an ex-president. Petra Costa’s <i>The
Edge of Democracy</i> is a sprawling nonfiction epic depicting the rise then
fall from power of Brazil’s Workers’ Party (TP), with the senate’s removal from
office of left-leaning President Dilma Rousseff.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
former guerrilla’s ouster was followed by the conviction of her mentor, TP
co-founder and ex-President Lula de Silva. Being found guilty prevented the
popular labor leader from running for the presidency again to replace his protégée Dilma. Strangely, in his trial the absence
of a crucial piece of evidence is viewed as “proof” of Lula’s alleged
corruption in the <i>Alice in Wonderland </i>judicial proceedings.</span><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">These
acts trigger street fighting, riots and unrest in Brazil shown in vivid footage
in </span><i style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">The Edge of Democracy</i><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">, which<i> </i>was an official selection at the 2019 Sundance
Film Festival and was screened at other filmfests, including Hot Docs. As such,
the documentary serves as a cautionary tale, warning of the forces that can be
unleashed by impeachment and court rulings, which might explain U.S. House Speaker Nancy
Pelosi’s restraint regarding launching measures to charge Trump with high
crimes and misdemeanors in the House of Representatives. (Sheer cowardice could
also explain milquetoast Pelosi’s Hamletian indecision.) On the other hand, </span><i style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">The Edge of Democracy </i><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">also demonstrates the effectiveness of what happens when the right-wing
moves ruthlessly -- as opposed to the centrist Democratic leadership’s cautious,
if not timid, approach.</span><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
documentary also covers Brazil’s decades of military rule, the restoration of
democracy and the progressive reforms of the TP that literally lifted millions
out of poverty. The edgy </span><i style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">The Edge of Democracy </i><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">is very up-to-date, ending with
reactionary Jair Bolsonaro -- the “Trump of the Tropics” -- becoming Brazil’s
president in an increasingly divided country. This 113-minute documentary by
award winning director Costa feels like a Costa-Gavras feature, such as <i>Z </i>or
the Greco-French director’s South America dramas <i>State of Siege </i>about
Uruguay’s Tupamaros urban guerrillas and <i>Missing </i>re: Chile’s coup.</span><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">This
nonfiction film proves, once again, that the personal is political. Interwoven
into </span><i style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">The Edge of Democracy </i><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">is a family drama -- Costa’s relatives include members of
Brazil’s elite, although her parents were “militants” who went underground to
resist the military junta that ruled Brazil from 1964 to 1985. Presumably due
to her family connections Costa had startling access to Lula, Rousseff,
Bolsonaro, etc., for </span><i style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">The Edge of Democracy</i><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">. However, at some point in this ambitious doc, Costa, who’d provided a first-person presence early in the doc, disappears
onscreen. Although as the narrator Costa’s voice continues to be heard
(educated at Columbia University and the London School of Economics, she speaks
good, if accented, English), visually the director vanishes -- like one of a
South American junta’s “disappeared.” This gives </span><i style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">The Edge of Democracy </i><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">an uneven feel; it’s as if the compelling, wide ranging
subject matter is beyond Costa’s creative control and grasp. Unlike
documentarians like Michael Moore, whose proletarian persona is a recurring
part of his docs, Costa can’t keep up with her material. </span></div>
JEsther Entertainmenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08447548247220496790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889953747692054890.post-5354156490125893852019-04-10T10:01:00.000-07:002019-04-10T10:01:32.646-07:00FILM REVIEW: LITTLE<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjPSFQUHeVkl5g1br6v1ZbiENG8OIPMHqphrg4IZJvRUeDtOfoy9KYLn6eZfoc2hZOUUQhBhhWb0SZbrp4IDBlcyPIsN0UIsHDov7CIWDSgJF9U52uz99vwcTsLlibmCLbGR5AcS2O2Q8/s1600/LITTLE.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="843" data-original-width="1600" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjPSFQUHeVkl5g1br6v1ZbiENG8OIPMHqphrg4IZJvRUeDtOfoy9KYLn6eZfoc2hZOUUQhBhhWb0SZbrp4IDBlcyPIsN0UIsHDov7CIWDSgJF9U52uz99vwcTsLlibmCLbGR5AcS2O2Q8/s400/LITTLE.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: start;">Little Jordan Sanders (Marsai </span><span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: start;">Martin) in <i>Little.</i></span></b></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Big deal off</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">By
Ed Rampell<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">According
to <i>The Wall Street Journal,</i>
Universal’s “<i>Little </i>originated with
[Marsai] Martin’s idea for a female-focused twist on <i>Big</i>, the Tom Hanks comedy” about a teenager who magically
transmogrifies into a grown man. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Depending on how generous you are, this
process is called a “homage” -- or intellectual property theft. In any case,
like most copycats this tedious reworking of the 1988 comedy helmed by Penny
Marshall, written by Gary Ross and Anne Spielberg, has none of the far superior
original’s charm, such as the oversized keyboard dancing scene.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Like
<em><span style="background: white;">Laverne & Shirley</span></em></span><span style="background: white; color: #545454; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";"> </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">co-star<i> </i>Marshall, Martin appears in an ABC
sitcom, <i>Black-ish</i>, and the formulaic
strictures and structures of that medium permeate <i>Little</i>. I fully realize that I’m about half a century beyond the
coveted demographic <i>Little </i>is presumably
striving to lure into the multiplexes. And as a white male, this feature
starring three African-American females, plus a multi-culti cast, may not exactly
have yours truly in mind, too. But having said all that, this movie’s mentality
is generally aimed at early adolescents who are about Martin’s age -- 14.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">In
<i>Little</i> Regina Hall (2017’s <i>Girls Trip</i>, 2018’s <i>The Hate U Give</i>) plays the grown up Jordan Sanders, a mean, nasty,
capitalistic character (a decade younger than Hall's actual age). Although in
her journey back to childhood Jordan supposedly learns some valuable life
lessons, I’m tired of bourgeois depictions wherein previously disempowered
characters are now able to act like pigs -- as if that is what equality and true
empowerment are really all about, behaving like those who previously oppressed
you and others. Jordan typifies the kind of despicable behavior Don Cheadle has
been squandering his considerable talent on in two Showtime series -- one of
which Hall has also been acting in. Blacks assuming the roles of white racists
and capitalistic types was novel when Robert Downey Sr. directed the hilarious <i>Putney Swope </i>in 1969, but methinks this
trend’s expiration date has long passed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Indeed,
Hall may have been cast because she has also had recurring roles in <i>Black-ish </i>and <i>Insecure </i>(playing the strangely named character “Ninny”). Issa Rae,
the star of HBO’s <i>Insecure</i>, portrays
April, the tyrannical Jordan’s much-put-upon assistant. Although Rae’s not
particularly good in this role it was a relief to not have to listen to her
totally gratuitously drop the “N” word frequently as she does on her so-so <i>Insecure --</i> presumably as an insecure way
to remind viewers that, oh yeah, this is supposed to be a “Black” program you
are watching. To be fair to Rae, as in <i>Insecure</i>,
from time to time she does make a racial quip or point that may go over the
heads of the teen popcorn munchers <i>Little</i>
is geared toward, but may be intended for the presumably handful of adults
accompanying adolescents or seeing this boring flick on their own.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Martin
is OK as the younger Jordan and I enjoyed the fact that her character’s hair
was a “Black and proud” natural. But when Martin in the 13 or 14-year-old body
of Jordan (who, to be fair, is in her mind a grown woman around 38 or so)
starts trying to make out with adult Jordan’s lover Trevor (Luke James), some
ticket buyers may find this to be disturbing. Given the ongoing church
molestation scandals, et al, pederasty is no laughing matter and the fact that
screenwriters Tracy Oliver and Tina Gordon include this uncomfortable vignette
is as inappropriate as dolt Joe Biden making fun of touching a boy at a public
event.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Perhaps
this pic made for the early teen crowd will be a hit, but adults should avoid
it. However, if Martin -- who is a droll, enjoyable presence on <i>Black-ish</i> - and her filmmaking mature
and evolve as she grows up and she makes adult-oriented fare in future, we may
be witnessing the birth of a new cinematic talent who emerged on the cinematic
scene about a decade younger than Orson Welles was in 1940 Tinseltown when he
played with “t</span><span style="background: white; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">he biggest <em><span style="font-style: normal;">electric train set</span></em> any
boy [or girl!] ever had.”</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></div>
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JEsther Entertainmenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08447548247220496790noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889953747692054890.post-61095392386874728932019-03-22T10:59:00.000-07:002019-03-22T10:59:19.794-07:00FILM REVIEW: US<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS7nBegd1CuDqmPJBNH_qBvbxJsIkSiTDusoN2YsGl3YvBfVwzV_p5oB8vI40FmKkJG-ZioTCXUGnhOPa6S_QZb8qw3Huq9XfjCi-BWch01d-iGSDsNsZqNAIOyAjc6gu_-ba-VdFxZBY/s1600/us.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS7nBegd1CuDqmPJBNH_qBvbxJsIkSiTDusoN2YsGl3YvBfVwzV_p5oB8vI40FmKkJG-ZioTCXUGnhOPa6S_QZb8qw3Huq9XfjCi-BWch01d-iGSDsNsZqNAIOyAjc6gu_-ba-VdFxZBY/s400/us.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>A scene fro <i>US</i></b></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Black "free" </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">market</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">By
Ed Rampell</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">OK,
I admit it, I’m a cinematic scaredy-cat. Ever since small kid days, horror
movies have frightened the hell out of me. So I wasn’t prepared for what writer-director-producer Jordan Peele had in
store for us in the terrifying <i>Us</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The plot
involves deranged doppelgangers wreaking mayhem on the family of Adelaide (</span><span style="background: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Lupita Amondi Nyong’o</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">) and Gabriel
Wilson (</span><span style="background: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Winston Duke</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">).
Like the other thesps, they also play their alter egos assaulting them. Are
these doubles clones? Zombies? Or what?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Why
are the Wilsons and their children suddenly beset by ghoulish others? What
crime and/or sin did they commit to deserve this creepy fate? They are not
overtly bad people but it seems that they are guilty of the same “offenses” as
Tippi Hedren’s character Melanie Daniels (and perhaps the other Homo sapiens)
in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1963 <i>The Birds</i>
(the first great eco film): Complacency, egoism, a thoughtless pursuit of
consumerism. If in Hitchcock’s classic it’s our winged, feathery friends who suffer
from humanity’s slights, oversights and then rebel, in <i>Us </i>it is creatures who rather chillingly identify themselves at one
point as -- well, if you want to find out exactly how the creatures define
themselves, Dear Reader, you’ll just have to strap on a proverbial pair and go
see this chilling picture. That line alone is worth the price of admission or a
bag of popcorn to munch, and it just about says it all.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Peele’s
2017 directorial debut, <i>Get Out</i> -- which
earned him the <span style="background: white;">Best Original Screenplay Academy
Award, plus the film three noms, including for Best Picture and Best Director -- was
widely interpreted as a rumination on racism. One could also argue that <i>Us</i> has a racial angle along the lines of
the black upper middle class turning its collective back on or at least
neglecting their impoverished brothers and sisters left behind by more affluent
America as the buppies blithely pursue America’s brass ring. This tension was,
for example, explored in John Singleton’s 1993 feature, <i>Poetic Justice, </i>starring Janet Jackson as a gifted poetess who, as I
recall, was urged not to let poor Black criminal characters from the ‘hood hold
her back or down on her upward path towards success.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But this is too simple an explanation for the onslaught that
befalls <i>Us</i>’ characters and <i>Us </i>is not solely a “Black-buster.” The
same trajectory befalls the Wilsons’ white friends -- whom they’ve been playing
“keeping up with the Joneses” in their materialistic, status-oriented world
that includes competing boats, cars and a nip and tuck here and there. The
Tylers are portrayed by <i>The Handmaid’s
Tale’s </i>Elisabeth Moss (here, the <i>Mad
Men </i>co-star becomes a full on madwoman in her other role, wherein she
arguably delivers the feature’s best bit of acting) as Kitty and Tom Heidecker
as Josh. The same destiny hits the Tylers and their two teenage daughters from
hell -- so <i>Us </i>seems to be more about
class than race, per se. And, if you haven’t run screaming like a banshee from
the theater yet, you’ll see that impending doom spread far beyond the Santa
Cruz sea and landscape (similar to Hitchcock’s California locations in <i>The Birds</i>), where the story is set.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="background: white;">BTW, there’s some drollery in how the Tylers use their “Siri”
like virtual assistant. The choices of music not only set the mood but enhance
the action with some much-needed comic relief while the Tylers’ computerized
valet underscores the theme of heedless, mindless materialism at their home
away from home.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I
think the key to the torturous inner meanings of <i>Us </i>can be found in an Old Testament admonition brandished by a
longhaired homeless man who actually, if you look closely enough, resembles an
Old Testament prophet such as Jeremiah, who issued those thunderous Jeremiads
warning of impending disasters.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I
interpret the creatures’ bizarre actions as metaphors in the Jean Genet and
Luis Bunuel tradition of absurdist and surreal symbols as representing the
uprising of the underclass, exacting revenge by the have-nots on the haves for callously
being excluded by them. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">As Chairman Mao put it in <span style="background: white;">"Report on an Investigation of the Peasant
Movement in Hunan", March 1927, Selected Works, Vol. I, page 28</span>:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 15.75pt;">“</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 15.75pt;">A revolution is not a dinner party, or
writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery; it cannot be so
refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained and
magnanimous. A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one
class overthrows another.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">What
would have made <i>Us </i>a more explicitly
revolutionary movie would have been if the creatures stormed the mansions of
the one percenters, say, starting with raiding the Trump White House, instead
of the summer homes of upper middle class of individuals whose jobs are never
made explicitly clear. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>Us </i>also uses other
allegories, among them hares, mostly white rabbits. Perhaps this is an
allusion to Lewis Carroll’s <i>Alice in
Wonderland </i>(and perhaps to Jefferson Airplane’s exhilarating druggy anthem,
<i>White Rabbit</i>?). There are certainly
enough Mad Hatter-type characters in this surrealistic saga to go around.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">As
for other symbols, such as the ballerina, your guess is good as mine. As this
is a horror movie, there are more twists and turns than on the road to Hana,
Maui but your risk spoiler averse reviewer won’t ruin any surprises - just keep
your peepers Jordan-Peeled (if you dare!).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A
word about <i>Us</i>’ treatment of Black
Men. Duke, who played M’Baku
in 2018’s <i>Avengers: Infinity War and Black
Panther </i>(wherein he is almost trampled by a white rhinoceros - not by a
white rabbit), has an imposing physique and height. Yet, he is largely
ineffective in <i>Us</i> when fighting the
Wilsons’ enemies. His <i>Panther </i>c-star
Lupito is far more lethal when doing battle. Nowadays, we keep hearing about
how African-American women are such an important demographic in U.S. politics
and are such a potent voting bloc, et al. This may very well be true and
accurate and more power to them sisters, but is there a way to extol one
group’s virtues without (unintentionally or perhaps intentionally) slighting
another? Sometimes it seems that this is once again being used as a way to
insult and degrade African American species, and Duke’s emasculation seems to
be part of this trend.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">What
does the movie’s title mean? That we are supposed to all be in it together, but
far too many of us have been discarded and left out of the American Dream,
turning it into a nightmare for the underclass who eventually exact vengeance
on their “betters,” once the proverbial worm turns? Maybe “<i>Us</i>” actually refers to “US” as in: United States?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Peele’s
title reminded this film historian of the odd slogan chillingly chanted in Todd
Browning’s 1932 preternaturally creepy <i>Freaks</i>:
“One of us! One of us! <span style="background: white;">Gooba-gobble, gooba-gobble!</span>” I have no idea
what that freak show motto meant but <i>Freaks</i>
is far more bloodcurdling and deeply disturbing (it’s almost unwatchable for
this coward) than Browning’s 1931<i> Dracula
</i>starring one of the immortal <em><span style="background: white; font-style: normal;">Universal</span></em><span style="background: white;"> Classic Monsters, that</span> bloodsucker-in-chief,
Bela Lugosi.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">However,
having said all this, </span><i style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Us </i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">is a wild
ride, as thought-provoking as it is hair-raising. </span><i style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Us </i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">is a textbook study in how genre films can manifest hidden
meanings and messages that speak to us in code (perhaps here, in Elisabeth Moss
Code). </span><i style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Us</i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> is a warning of Biblical
proportions against continuing to ignore the least of these among us, for as
Jesus said, one day, “The last shall be first” (and they might do so by any
means necessary). </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Judgment Day is a-coming!</span></div>
JEsther Entertainmenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08447548247220496790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889953747692054890.post-63978707793973153852019-03-22T10:13:00.000-07:002019-03-22T10:13:01.625-07:00FILM REVIEW: OUT OF BLUE<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibqCZLG9TpqsPi-jZNZGiwIQHtJb0B4tP5_hG4fjxdhbMcwF6CS6CLTCJxp69ucefGHvAJS0vHUo0Gd07msSQeFtfzPTuZHnt7RAW0OkqngL6Mz6UKROi_Orx9wXuLtEns_O-2cmp_skc/s1600/outofblue.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibqCZLG9TpqsPi-jZNZGiwIQHtJb0B4tP5_hG4fjxdhbMcwF6CS6CLTCJxp69ucefGHvAJS0vHUo0Gd07msSQeFtfzPTuZHnt7RAW0OkqngL6Mz6UKROi_Orx9wXuLtEns_O-2cmp_skc/s400/outofblue.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small; line-height: 19.5px; text-align: start;"><b>Mike Hoolihan </b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>(Patricia Clarkson) in <i>Out of Blue. </i></b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 19.5px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Matters of-f course</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 19.5px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 19.5px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">By John Esther</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 19.5px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 19.5px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In the beginning of the film's running time (sans credits), writer-director Carol Morley's film declares: "We do not simply live in the universe; the universe lives within us." This is a rather pedestrian way of discussing being, nothingness, time, space, the potential for parallel universes and much of what Martin Heidegger discovered and disclosed before he got all Nazi. </span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 19.5px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 19.5px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And the universe, at least the human perception thereof from some rather smart people -- but check out Friedrich Nietzsche's rebuke of that flawed system in "On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense" -- is what we are going to get as the opening scene has Jennifer Rockwell (Mamie Gummer) explaining how stars died to make us a life and how we are remnants of stardust. But how do we explain our place in the universe when 90% of matter is invisible ("Mindwalk," anyone) ? "You can tell a lot by looking," the logocentric Jennifer informs us as she looks into the phone camera recording the lecture at the observatory. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 19.5px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The next morning, Jennifer is found dead, murdered. Leading the investigation is Detective Mike Hoolihan (Patricia Clarkson), a topnotch detective who lives alone, thinking, working etc. She is a loner who lives by her own rules. Back in her drinking days she drank to be "reckless, crazy, trashy." When someone admonishes her to dress more feminine, she replies, "There's lots of ways to a woman." This is somewhere in the American South. </span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 19.5px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 19.5px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">As Mike delves deeper into the case, there are layers of secrets she uncovers. Jennifer comes from a peculiar and powerful family. The patriarch, Col. Tom Rockwell (James Caan) is a war hero and very rich man who is also a powerful political figure. He has power and, as we discover, the closer you are to his power, the more he wields it. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 19.5px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The screenplay, based on the titular Martin Amis novel, is a bit intriguing and the multiple conversations about perceptions, the galaxy and the interconnectivity of existence makes for more intellectual dialogues found in crime stories. But it is also countered by quite a bit of hokey dreams, imaginings, with one scene bordering on the supernatural. </span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 19.5px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 19.5px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And the plot is amusing enough until the point Jennifer's death is solved. Then, the movie becomes disjointed, often nonsensical. Is X the bad guy or not? After an unintentionally comical scene (with recent-life-before-my-eyes scene) involving Mike and Tom, Mike declares, "I was on the wrong track." Or was the detective? </span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 19.5px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 19.5px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The film does not really seem sure but the two-hour running time is about up so, after more odd scenes, it gets wrapped up in tidy fashion -- unlike the "messy past" the film keeps bringing up. You can tell a lot by looking, indeed. Although the blind woman, Miss Tolkington (Carol Sutton) "sees", too. </span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 19.5px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 19.5px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Featuring a cast of stardust "stars" like Clarkson, Caan, and Gummer, along with Jackie Weaver as the Tom's subservient wife and Toby Jones as a nervous wreck of a professor; plus other familiar faces, "Out of Blue" seems to want to be taken seriously, but not be too serious at the same time. </span></div>
JEsther Entertainmenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08447548247220496790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889953747692054890.post-26516749869332622672018-06-18T16:20:00.000-07:002018-06-18T16:20:18.981-07:00STAGE REVIEW: LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5X9HO_7Ce0typSkzH50KxgWDDxxbgAcPhMyrGIwJfpb8MxLVyXBkvpAyJJ26gI4K4NEbJUo1XlIfrWPzqvCLF72vqITZxgY1F5yGf45hhGF8lhiZw1gwFutzxXFHB_xyfwTs_6EzZKZ4/s1600/longday.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1032" data-original-width="1600" height="257" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5X9HO_7Ce0typSkzH50KxgWDDxxbgAcPhMyrGIwJfpb8MxLVyXBkvpAyJJ26gI4K4NEbJUo1XlIfrWPzqvCLF72vqITZxgY1F5yGf45hhGF8lhiZw1gwFutzxXFHB_xyfwTs_6EzZKZ4/s400/longday.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>A scene from <i>Long Day's Journey Into Night. </i>Photo credit: Lawrence K. Ho. </b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Proud and fallen</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">By Ed Rampell<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The Bristol Old Vic Production of <i>Long Day’s Journey Into Night </i>is a masterful rendition of Eugene
O’Neill’s masterpiece about the human condition. The British cast is led by the
venerable thesp Jeremy Irons, who won an Oscar for 1990’s <i>Reversal of Fortune, and </i>Lesley Manville, who was Academy Award-nominated
this year for portraying Daniel Day-Lewis’ sadistic sister in <i>Phantom Thread</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The approximately three and a half hour two-acter is the
stuff of Greek tragedy and Shakespearian drama, as it follows the descent of
the Tyrone family into the long night of the soul. All of the onstage action is
set at the Tyrones’ coastal cottage in Connecticut, where the fog rolls in and
out as a foghorn sounds in the background. (Ask not for whom the foghorn tolls
- it tolls for thee!) Joining James (Irons) and Mary Tyrone (Manville) are
their sons, James Jr. (Rory Keenan) and Edmund (Matthew Beard), who proceed to
tear one another and their selves to pieces, like birds of prey in a familial
feeding frenzy over faults and flaws, real or imagined.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">O’Neill’s searing semi-autobiographical play, originally
presented in four acts, roughly follows the Aristotelian unities of time, place
and action. The family is afflicted by substance abuse problems in the form of
morphine and liquor that grow out of troubles like, for example, Mary’s sense
of rootlessness and lack of a sense of home. Of course, like many lonely people
who have the habitude of solitude, she routinely (if blindly) pushes people
away from her: Man (and woman), his/her own prison maketh.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The early death of their little son before the curtain lifts
causes Mary untold woe and to blame her older son, Jamie. Intriguingly, O’Neill
calls the unseen, lamented lad “Eugene” -- which of course is his own name.
Like Edmund, O’Neill was beset by health problems and the play is full of other
self-reflective themes: Years spent out at sea (poetically recounted by Beard
as Edmond); growing up in hotel rooms as the son of a stage actor, like both
Tyrone boys; a penchant for John Barleycorn; and more.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Often, on the screen, stage or page one has no idea why the
dramatis personae behave the way they do. But one of the great things about
O’Neill’s writing is that he fully develops his major characters’ back stories,
which explains what makes them tick. For example, Irons movingly reveals what
made James Tyrone, a successful actor, so miserly and to unwisely invest in
real estate. Worst of all, his penurious childhood is the reason why he
squandered his promising theatrical career on a surefire hit, and James comes
to rue selling his artistry out for commercial reasons. When the cheap father
blurts out “Let it burn!” in order to humor his ailing son, it is a thrilling
line wherein a character momentarily overcomes his flaws, reaching inwards for a
higher self.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">(Interestingly, although <i>Long
Day’s Journey Into Night </i>was written shortly before his daughter Oona
O’Neill met Charlie Chaplin, James’ being a tightwad due to his
poverty-stricken childhood is similar to what has been said about Chaplin.
Interestingly, the by-then not-so- Little Tramp was old enough to be Oona’s
father when they wed in 1943.) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The cast is simply splendid in their heartbreaking beauty.
Richard Eyre brilliantly directs the ensemble in an eye catching, book-filled
set designed by Rob Howell, with moody lighting by Peter Mumford. This
production is a British import (by way of Brooklyn’s BAM) of the venerable,
250-plus year old Bristol Old Vic theatre, with the Wallis Annenberg Center for
the Performing Arts in association with Fiery Angel and associate producer
Padraig Cusack.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">O’Neill was the son of an immigrant actor from Ireland, and
James Tyrone says he crossed the Atlantic from the Emerald Isle when he was
only 10. Irons, who trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and became a
member of the Company half a century ago, was born at the Isle of Wight off of
the English coast. So his accent can be explained, as can the amiable Irish
servant Cathleen’s (Jessica Regan) brogue. Manville and Keenan sounded like
Americans to my Yankee Doodle ears.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But the one flaw I’d find in this almost peerless version is
that Beard, a Londoner, does not fully succeed in overcoming his accent playing
the American Edmund. This is, however, a mere quibble. Beard is otherwise
excellent as the tortured sensitive soul who loves to read and rhapsodize about
going out to sea. In one long <i>Long Day’s
Journey Into Night </i>scene he appears barefoot and Beard’s expressive, lanky feet
can act most thesps under the table.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Early in Act I Edmund’s waxing philosophical prompts his
self-made man father to deride his son as a “socialist” and “anarchist,” which
alludes to O’Neill’s own lefty background, hobnobbing with John Reed and Louise
Bryant. O’Neill’s 1922 play <i>The Hairy Ape
</i>dealt with labor exploitation and in his youth, it’s believed Eugene joined
the Wobblies. (1920’s <i>The Emperor Jones </i>considered
race-related issues and none other than Paul Robeson starred in a 1933 screen
version.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Having said that, this bravura production of <i>Long Day’s Journey Into Night </i>spearheaded
by the virtuoso Irons is among the best tragedies this reviewer has ever seen.
It is a must see for all lovers of great acting and drama. Don’t miss it. On
opening night it was met with a well-deserved standing ovation. Bravo! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Long Day’s Journey Into Night<i> runs</i><strong><i><span style="font-weight: normal;"> through
July 1 in the Bram Goldsmith Theater, </span></i></strong><i>Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts,</i><strong><i><span style="font-weight: normal;"> 9390 N. Santa Monica Blvd.</span></i></strong><i>,<b> </b><strong><span style="font-weight: normal;">Beverly Hills, CA 90210. For
info: 310-746-4000; </span></strong><a href="http://www.thewaillis.org/longdays">www.thewaillis.org/longdays</a>
</i><strong><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">.</span></i></strong><strong><span style="font-weight: normal;"><o:p></o:p></span></strong></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></i><b><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
JEsther Entertainmenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08447548247220496790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889953747692054890.post-58568018729795956262018-06-13T14:26:00.002-07:002018-06-14T16:31:52.261-07:00STAGE REVIEW: 100 APRILS<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmFulOkwU3D4KHhVfD78gM24QNEAm_wr5q7ICxZsx4mRSmzX91gHQRtodrB4Ezj98W1Ml5sj9riChrgSIfg3GOJvx2nn7mZTelcVYUqgwyUCXxyQjiYwCCn5obkX3Tfr1VUrdvo4JTpv8/s1600/100+Aprils.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="600" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmFulOkwU3D4KHhVfD78gM24QNEAm_wr5q7ICxZsx4mRSmzX91gHQRtodrB4Ezj98W1Ml5sj9riChrgSIfg3GOJvx2nn7mZTelcVYUqgwyUCXxyQjiYwCCn5obkX3Tfr1VUrdvo4JTpv8/s400/100+Aprils.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>Beatrice (Lesile Ayvazian) and John (John Perrin Flynn) in <i>100 Aprils. </i>Photo credit: Michelle Hanzelova.</b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The toxicity in the remembering </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">By Ed Rampell<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Rogue Machine, which earned the Best Season Ovation
Award for 2017, is known for pushing the theatrical envelope with edgy, often
hard-hitting shows. These hot potato topics range from Western colonialism in
Africa in Lorraine Hansberry’s <i>Les Blancs
</i>to racism at home in </span><i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Mexican Day</span></i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">,</span><i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;"> </span></i><i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Dutch Masters </span></i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">and <i>One Night in Miami </i>to contemporary
anti-fascism in <i>Daytona </i></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">to psycho-sexual
angst in <span class="gmail-st"><i>bled for the household truth</i></span> and <i>Cock.</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 18.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">But
with its world premiere of <i>100 Aprils </i>Rogue Machine is tackling its
heaviest topic yet: Genocide. Playwright/co-star Leslie Ayvazian's one-acter
takes a deep dive into the 1915 ethnic cleansing of Armenians and the
trans-generational PTSD that is passed down to its characters in a 1982
psychiatric ward of a hospital. Well, it’s not exactly a musical comedy -- in
dramatizing the mass murder of Armenians <i>100 Aprils</i> is unrelentingly
depressing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">For
most of the 80-minute or so play John (John Perrin Flynn) is confined to a
hospital bed, attended by his wife Beatrice (Ayvazian), daughter Arlene (Rachel
Sorsa), Nurse (Janet Song) and Ahmet (Robertson Dean). Dean actually plays a
dual role -- under the influence of his meds and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder,
in a drug-induced state John’s mind wanders back and forth in time. Apparently,
Ahmet -- who is a doctor -- is of Turkish ethnicity, and John imagines him to be
one of the Turks he saw carrying out unspeakable crimes against humanity during
the Armenian Genocide when John was a five year old eyewitness to the mass
slaughter.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">John
is also a doctor, but in his present state he is clearly unable to fulfill that
Biblical edict: “Physician, heal thyself.” Sorsa’s Arlene is a sexually
repressed librarian, a repository of the trans-generational PTSD passed down to
her that seems to deny her personal happiness. On the one hand, Ayvazian’s
choice of the daughter’s profession is trite, as female librarians are
stereotyped as old maids and matrons -- notably Marion the Librarian in <i>The Music Man</i>. But in another way, the
playwright’s choice is quite clever, because as the daughter of an Armenian
genocide survivor Arlene is, like a librarian, the keeper and
preserver of the records and archives, in this case of unforgettable inhumane
cruelty. And the name “Arlene,” BTW, means to “pledge.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Arlene
can never forget and, in my own life, I’ve met members of groups earmarked for
persecution who seemed to me to perpetuate a trauma, passed down from one
generation to another. I’ve seen this in survivors of the Holocaust and
Hollywood Blacklist, hysterias and horrors that have marred and scarred their
tortured psyches.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Having
said all this, while this may be the stuff of great drama, <i>100 </i></span><i><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Aprils</span></i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">
is no fun to watch onstage. It’s certainly well-acted, with Michael Arabian
(who helmed a memorable <i>Waiting for Godot
</i>a while back at the Mark Taper Forum) skillfully directing </span><i><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Aprils</span></i><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">’ ensemble. Rogue Machine’s
co-founder and artistic director Flynn, who told me this was </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">the first time in
30 years he was acting (other than as a stand-in), proves his talents extend
beyond directing. But infrequent attempts to lighten the mood don’t dispel the
doom and gloom emanating from the stage. These are no </span><i><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Aprils </span></i><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">fools and the drama is extremely
depressing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">That’s
not to say it is a bad (or, for that matter, good) play, and I am not saying
there’s no place on the stage for works such as <i>100 </i></span><i><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Aprils</span></i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">. But can
depression and other dark subject matter be presented on the live stage in a
way that doesn’t bum the audience out? The superb production of <i>Long Day
Journey Into Night </i>at the Wallis Annenberg is a case in point. O'Neill's
epic focuses on one family (although it may have universal themes about the
human condition, husbands and wives, parents and offspring) while <i>100 </i></span><i><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Aprils </span></i><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">seeks to unravel the collective
saga of grief and despair of an entire people. Surely the stage must address
the distressing parts of life, as well as be a source of amusement and
entertainment. Occasionally it’s all of this -- along with enlightening.</span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Narine,
a member of the audience who was born and raised in Armenia when it was part of the
Soviet Union, thought that tales of the Genocide against her people should be
“sad” in tone, rather than “angry.” She was chagrined by a scene wherein Beatrice
and Arlene assault the Turkish Ahmet (which, BTW, is also filled with frisson,
especially vis-à-vis the daughter, who seems to be sexually frustrated; there
is no indication in the dialogue that the 30-something Arlene currently or has
ever had a romantic partner).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Be
that as it may, aside from mass murder itself, what may enrage and obsess
survivors and descendents is the denial that these horrible human rights abuses
even occurred in the first place. As it is said in <i>Death of a Salesman </i>about Willy Loman in another context,
“Attention must be paid!” to historic wrongs and horrors. And following
acknowledgement, there must be an effort to right the wrong.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">This
tragedy about genocide is for more adventurous ticket buyers with a yen for the
serious, who don’t mind being challenged and even depressed by a tough-to-take
drama, and for those may even go to the theater seeking some sort of emotional
catharsis and release. But if you prefer romantic comedies and musicals, this
ain’t exactly <i>No, No, Nanette</i>. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span><b><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 18.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<i><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></i></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">100 Aprils</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> <i>runs through July 16, 2018. Rogue Machine is located in The Met, 1089 N. Oxford Ave, Los Angeles, CA
90029. Reservations: 855-585-5185 or <span style="color: #3366ff; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.roguemachinetheatre.com/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3366ff;">www.roguemachinetheatre.com</span></a></span></i><span style="color: #95b3d7;"><i> </i><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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JEsther Entertainmenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08447548247220496790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889953747692054890.post-51083260636648551502018-01-31T14:01:00.000-08:002018-01-31T14:01:36.074-08:00STAGE REVIEW: CANDIDE<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggPut25Tfl3oNfxGIfjRdAWGaTNtzASZ1yXCK0DIn6rN-6ckN5D4KaR2hjVrnkUkOiIZna7yIEXbYoVd7N4DOSRPerppjYSBb77AORuxY5SaoXc9G0DqTCn4YrdR1wJqqom-XhplgToaY/s1600/candide.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="800" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggPut25Tfl3oNfxGIfjRdAWGaTNtzASZ1yXCK0DIn6rN-6ckN5D4KaR2hjVrnkUkOiIZna7yIEXbYoVd7N4DOSRPerppjYSBb77AORuxY5SaoXc9G0DqTCn4YrdR1wJqqom-XhplgToaY/s400/candide.jpg" width="266" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>Kelsey Grammer stars as Voltaire and Dr. Pangloss in <i>Candide. </i>Photo Credit: Ken Howard.</b></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"The ear is the avenue to the heart" -- Voltaire</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In the best of something, something or (an)other</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">By
Ed Rampell<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In
the history of Western storytelling, along with Homer’s <i>The Odyssey</i>, Frank Baum’s <i>The
Wizard of Oz</i> and Jack Kerouac’s <i>On
the Road</i>, Voltaire’s 1759 <i>Candide </i>ranks
as one of the greatest saga’s ever told about protagonists embarking upon great
travels. This is what mythologist Joseph Campbell called <i>The Hero’s Journey</i>, and the 18<sup>th</sup> century title character
Candide’s (Jack Swanson) epic gallivanting takes him from
Westphalia, in what is now Germany, around much of Europe to the New World,
where he experiences Uruguay and the legendary golden realm of El Dorado, and
beyond.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The
French Enlightenment philosopher Voltaire very explicitly imbued his novella
with philosophical inquiry and insight. During his global peregrinations,
Candide is joined from time to time by an entourage consisting of his would-be
sweetheart Cunegonde (Erin Morley), her snobbish,
elitist brother Maximilian (Theo Hoffman), the sensuous servant Paquette (Peabody Southwell), the Old Lady (Christine Ebersole) and Cacambo (Joshua Wheeker), who is first encountered at Montevideo.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Doctor
or Professor Pangloss (Kelsey Grammer), who tutored Candide, et al, in
“metaphysico-theologo-cosmolo-nigology” at the Baron’s castle in
Thunder-ten-tronckh, is an intriguing, droll character through which Voltaire
spoofs some of his fellow Age of Reason philosophers. Pangloss is mocked for
his perpetually excessive optimism in what he calls “in this the best of all
possible worlds.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Born
out-of-wedlock to the Baron’s sister, during his globetrotting Candide -- so
named because “His judgment was quite honest and he was extremely
simple-minded” -- seeks to find out the meaning of life. Is it to attain status,
wealth, glory, sexual gratification, love or what? As such, this musical
adaptation, which first appeared on Broadway in 1956, is one of the most philosophical
operas and operettas ever staged. It is also extremely entertaining, with a
bubbly “Overture” conducted by James Conlon so enrapturing and ebullient that
it’s one of those rare pieces of music which makes one glad to be alive -- if
only to be able to hear such joyous sounds.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Casting
Kelsey Grammer as the French philosopher Voltaire (1894-1778) and Professor
Pangloss is a sly, canny choice. As one of left-leaning La La Land’s most
outspoken Republicans, who endorsed wackadoodle Congresswoman Michele Bachmann
for president in 2012 and also backed GOP contenders George W. Bush, John
McCain, Mitt Romney, Rudie-Doody Giuliani, Ben Carson and President Trump, Grammer
certainly has one of the finest minds of the 18<sup>th</sup> century. The
conservative thesp’s selection to portray Voltaire and Pangloss is also
inspired, in that Grammer’s most popular character, Dr. Frasier Crane, was a
psychotherapist in the beloved <i>Cheers </i>sitcom,
who went on to dispense psychological advice as a radio shrink on the air in
TV’s <i>Frasier </i>spin-off series. To be
fair, the multiple Emmy Award-winning actor who warbled <i>Frasier’s</i> closing theme song "Tossed Salads and Scrambled Eggs"
acquits himself well as the preposterously pretentious optimist Pangloss. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Interestingly,
<i>Candide</i> had deep 20<sup>th</sup>
century political implications. In 1951, playwright Lillian Hellman’s lover and novelist
Dashiell Hammet (<i>The Maltese Falcon;</i> <i>The Thin Man</i>) refused to name the names
of members of the Civil Rights Congress’ bail fund, and as the CRC’s president
he was found guilty of contempt of court. Hammett, who’d volunteered for the
Army at age 48 to serve during WWII, served time in a West Virginia federal
prison where, according to Hellman, he was forced to scrub toilets. The creator
of Sam Spade, Nick and Nora Charles testified before Senator Joe McCarthy’s
“reds-under-the-beds” Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations on March
26, 1953.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Hellman herself was summoned to testify
before the House Un-American Activities Committee and her letter to the
witch-hunters was read during her hearing on May 21, 1952 by the Committee’s
Chairman. (On Oct. 27, 2017, liberal pundit and TV/radio commentator Ellen
Ratner, sister of the late Michael Ratner, president of the Center for
Constitutional Rights, read Hellman’s letter during a reenactment commemorating
the 70<sup>th</sup> anniversary of the Hollywood Blacklist at the Writers Guild
Theater in Beverly Hills, later broadcast on C-SPAN). Hellman’s defiant text
contained one of the HUAC hearings’ immortal lines: “I cannot and will not cut
my conscience to fit this year's fashions…”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">As Voltaire’s novella contained scenes about
the Inquisition in Lisbon (the Grand Inquisitor is played here by Brian Michael
Moore), Hellman saw parallels between the auto-da-f<span class="tgc">é</span> and the HUAC/McCarthy era, and proposed
adapting <i>Candide </i>into a play, with Leonard Bernstein composing some incidental music. But according to LA
Opera’s program notes, Bernstein became so enamored with the idea that “he
persuaded her that it should be a ‘comic operetta.’”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In the late 1930s Bernstein staged a
student production at Harvard of Marc Blitzstein’s radical musical <i>The Cradle Will Rock</i>, the pro-labor
Federal Theatre Project play that had literally been suppressed on Broadway at
bayonet point. Lenny’s first opera, 1952’s <i>Trouble
in Tahiti</i>, was a critique of bourgeois American life. <i>Red Channels</i>, that compendium of anti-communist opprobrium, named
Lenny. Similarly, in 1970, after Bernstein held a party for the Black Panther
Party at his Park Avenue penthouse in Manhattan, Tom Wolfe mocked Leonard for
being “radical chic” and “mau mauing.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Nevertheless, Bernstein also composed his
only original movie score not adapted from another medium for 1954’s <i>On the Waterfront</i>. The music, which
earned an Oscar nomination, is undeniably powerful -- but directed and written
by Elia Kazan and Budd Schulberg, who both gave names to HUAC, <i>On the Waterfront</i> is a defense of informing. The
protagonist, however brilliantly portrayed he may be by Marlon Brando, is an
informer. Kazan was considered to be the Hollywood Blacklist’s “quintessential
informer,” who even took out a full page rationalization of his naming names in
<i>The New York Times</i>. Thus a character
usually depicted as a “snitch” or “rat” becomes the hero in this symbolic justification
of collaborating with the HUAC and McCarthy purges. So Lenny’s cooperation with
Kazan and Schulberg’s homage to finking is, to say the least, eyebrow raising.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This
year marks the 100<sup>th</sup> anniversary of Bernstein’s birth and oddly
enough, about 10 days ago I encountered an anecdote about the
Massachusetts-born composer and conductor in, of all places, the Swiss Alps.
Ski acrobat and instructor Art Furrer -- who’d parlayed his fame and fortune
into becoming a hotelier and restaurateur -- told me a story about Lenny at his
four star Hotel Royal in <span class="st">Riederalp, a picturesque</span> <span class="st">village 6,315 feet high in the Swiss Alps near Aletsch Glacier.
Wearing his trademark cowboy hat (presumably acquired while teaching skiing at
America), I recognized the rootin’-tootin’ Furrer and asked the still spry
80-year-old about the celebrity clients he’d taught how to ski. According to
Furrer, in addition to the Kennedys, they included Bernstein, who loved to
hobnob with ordinary people at bars -- and drink bourbon. </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Although
Bernstein and Hellman’s operetta is written and performed at the Dorothy
Chandler Pavilion in English, supertitles are projected during the numerous
arias, etc., but not during the show’s spoken dialogue. This version of <i>Candide</i>,<i> </i>which opens LA Opera’s 2018 roster, is well-acted, sung and adroitly
directed by the Kennedy Center’s Francesca Zambello, especially in the mass
scenes’ complex mise-en-sc<em><span style="font-style: normal;">è</span></em>ne. Eric Sean
Fogel’s choreography and costumes by Jennifer Moeller do the trick, as does the
chorus directed by the redoubtable Grant Gershon. James Noone’s scenery, or
lack of, is a completely missed opportunity. Wouldn’t you love to see the
mythic El Dorado visualized? I assume that the mostly bare stages are due to
budgetary concerns, but only Pangloss knows.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But
this is a mere quibble, in this the best of all philosophical operettas, which includes,
for example, plenty of ruminations on class divisions. Like Dorothy, Candide
did not know both of his biological parents, which may explain their searching
far and wide and why they reach similar conclusions: “There’s no place like
home.” Perhaps expressing Voltaire’s credo, <i>Candide’s</i>
final scene answers the Big Question: What’s it all about? What is the meaning
of life? In any case, we must all cultivate our operas.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Candide <i>runs through February 19 at L.A. Opera at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 135 N. Grand Ave., Los
Angeles, CA 90012. See: <a href="https://www.laopera.org/season/1718-Season/candide/">Candide</a> </i></span></div>
JEsther Entertainmenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08447548247220496790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889953747692054890.post-74845123727291969952017-12-27T11:36:00.001-08:002017-12-27T11:36:19.673-08:00FILM REVIEW: IN THE FADE<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvcxX1CRD7jZMTd9Yawtver7GzLzxtPoMiUkU9ynCrvMq1UKclalqIRd443W1wi_nX-vtkJjyR7fEopFraYyUjD8FSzT5i6U75Irr379e8SYdSvkN1RB4ywgyBBGw4lAtKrW8jkKGUm9o/s1600/inthefade.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvcxX1CRD7jZMTd9Yawtver7GzLzxtPoMiUkU9ynCrvMq1UKclalqIRd443W1wi_nX-vtkJjyR7fEopFraYyUjD8FSzT5i6U75Irr379e8SYdSvkN1RB4ywgyBBGw4lAtKrW8jkKGUm9o/s400/inthefade.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>Katja Sekerci (Diane Kruger) in <i>In the Fade.</i></b></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Hamburg hangover</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">By
Ed Rampell<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I
never fail to be astonished at how the arts, as Shakespeare put it, hold a
mirror up to nature, that is, to our society and current events. As the
rightwing anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim tide rises, with its
ripped-from-the-proverbial-headlines vibe, <i>In the Fade </i>(<i>Aus dem Nichts</i>) is a case in point.
This German neo-nazi drama written and directed by Turkish-German
auteur Fatih Akin’s (<i>Head On</i>, <i>Soul Kitchen</i>, <i>The Edge of Heaven</i>) is extremely timely.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Specifically
speaking, </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><i style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In the Fade </i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">has its filmic finger on the societal pulse not only due to the
Charlottesville Nuremburg rally but because there’s currently lots of chatter
about “lone wolf” terrorists who independently take matters into their own
hands in the West. Usually, these non-state actors are represented as admirers
and/or adherents of jihad-inspired groups such as ISIS. But a trend may be
emerging onstage and onscreen wherein antifascist individuals take vigilante direct
action against ultra-right extremists. This was the major plot point in the two-act
<i>Daytona</i> by playwright <span class="st">Oliver
Cotton, with the envelope-pushing Rogue Machine Theatre presenting its U.S.
premiere last September in L.A. </span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><i style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In the Fade's </i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="st">protagonist Katja Sekerci (</span>Diane Kruger<span class="st">)
follows a similar fateful, violent course.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Unlike <i>Daytona</i>, which is set in Florida
and New York, </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><i style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In the Fade </i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">is a thriller that takes place in modern Hamburg, Germany
and Greece. Katja’s husband, Nuri (Numan Acar), and son, Rocco (Rafael Santana), are blown up in what appears to
be a premeditated neo-nazi terrorist sneak attack. Although fascist
sympathizers André Möller (Ulrich Brandoff) and his wife Edda (Hanna Hilsdorf) are arrested and tried, what happens is “Exhibit A” of the wariness and
distrust Alfred Hitchcock always displayed towards the police (and by extension
the courts).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Because Katja and Nuri have a history tied to
hashish -- which Nuri was incarcerated for -- and even “worse” in the eyes of the
contemporary German state is of Turkish ancestry, much of the investigation
into his death and the Möllers’
trial is a case of “blame the victims.” Never mind that Nuri studied business
administration behind bars and turned his life around after serving time by
establishing his own legitimate small business; he is first and foremost
guilty of operating his office while Turkish. It doesn’t matter that Nuri paid
his debt to society -- will the German judicial system convict the Aryan Möllers
of committing a murderous hate crime against the Turkish Nuri and Rocco? Wanna make a bet?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Confronted
by the failure of the German capitalist state to render justice, Katja embarks
on individually seeking vengeance for her slain loved ones. She’s essentially
alone, with the exception of her dedicated attorney, Danilo (Denis Moschitto),
who promises to appeal the verdict. But instead of pursuing further legal
recourse or joining an antifa (militant antifascist) course, like an anti-nazi
John Wayne or Gary Cooper Katja decides to ride alone. Her Homeric odyssey for
justice takes her, appropriately, to Ulysses’ homeland, Greece, as she tries to
track the Hitlerian hit man and woman down and, with some poetic justice,
confront them with a dose of their own medicine.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Kruger is superb portraying a tortured character
with her own She won the Best Actress Award at 2017’s Cannes Film Festival for
her depiction of the anguished Katja who decides to take direct action against
the neo-nazi assassins of her husband and child.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>In the Fade </i>is Golden Globe-nominated for Best Foreign Film
and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was likewise Oscar nominated and, in this
woman-oriented year in Hollywood, if portraying an empowered woman Kruger also
picks up a Best Actress Academy Award nomination. I predict she will face off
against Meryl Streep for <i>The Post </i>but
that Frances McDormand will win that coveted golden statuette for <i>Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri</i>.
Remember volks, you heard it hear
first!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Although
Kruger delivers an undeniably compelling performance, some may also take issue
with Akin’s script (which adapted Hark Bohm’s novel,
inspired by a spate of actual neo-nazi racist attacks in Hamburg). Instead of
going it alone like a cowgirl, perhaps Katja should have joined the antifa
militant movement and participated in organized direct action against resurgent
fascists. Why be a lone wolf when you can run with a pack instead?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Especially given the resurgence of the
anti-immigrant right in today’s Germany, reacting against Hamburg-born Chancellor
Angela Merkel’s merciful policies towards refugees (seems like the former
resident of the German Democratic Republic may have actually learned something
about socialist solidarity growing up in the GDR after all). But this is an
ideological quibble which shouldn’t stop viewers of intelligent, well-made
movies from seeing the thought provoking, gripping <i>In the Fade</i>, which has ticket buyers sitting the edge of their
seats by daring to dramatize important issues and big ideas on the big screen.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
JEsther Entertainmenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08447548247220496790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889953747692054890.post-52467323594808154272017-11-08T15:22:00.000-08:002017-11-08T15:22:49.521-08:00STAGE REVIEW: YOHEN<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwNdtOP2v2WwuF4EQ3IPxyUBi9-PFtTQv-FdPC2FZ5RidRPg4yYn8cfzdTvaykJbu0lKStnmFgEXMmqjs1j8c4JGtrJ2kYlY3UMW8Fn0r19KAPf2O9w05YTHJ2b_uOq6BI6T3LknSxHMQ/s1600/Yohen+9.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwNdtOP2v2WwuF4EQ3IPxyUBi9-PFtTQv-FdPC2FZ5RidRPg4yYn8cfzdTvaykJbu0lKStnmFgEXMmqjs1j8c4JGtrJ2kYlY3UMW8Fn0r19KAPf2O9w05YTHJ2b_uOq6BI6T3LknSxHMQ/s400/Yohen+9.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>James (Danny Glover) and Sumi (June Angela) in <i>Yohen. </i>Photo Credit: Matthew Leland. </b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="text-align: left;">Slow burn<br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="text-align: left;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="text-align: left;">By Ed Rampell</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="text-align: left;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="text-align: left;">One of the great
things about L.A.’s thriving theater scene is that primarily because of our
proximity to the movie/TV industry, theatergoers often have the treat of seeing
top talents such as Joe Morton, who starred in John Sayles’ memorable 1984 film, </span><i style="text-align: left;">The Brother From Another Planet </i><span style="text-align: left;">and
currently portrays Kerry Washington’s father, Rowan Pope, on the ABC-TV series, </span><i style="text-align: left;">Scandal</i><span style="text-align: left;">. Morton is currently delivering
a stellar, must-see portrayal of comic/Civil Rights and peace activist Dick
Gregory in </span><i style="text-align: left;">Turn Me Loose</i><span style="text-align: left;">, which has
very deservedly been extended again at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the
Performing Arts through November 19.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Another case in
point of screen notables treading on L.A. boards is Danny Glover, perhaps best
known for the <i>Lethal Weapon </i>film
franchise. So let’s get this out of the way first: In <i>Yohen</i>, Glover is completely convincing and natural as ex-GI
James Washington, a boxing aficionado who once had dreams of Olympic gold and
now coaches at a small gym somewhere in, I believe, L.A. Glover is no stranger
to this role, as he originally played the part at its 1999 world premier, which -- like the current production -- was staged at the East West Players’ David
Henry Hwang Theater in Downtown L.A.’s Little Tokyo.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Glover’s co-star
in this two-hander, June Angela as Sumi, is likewise no slouch in the thesp
department. While many of Angela’s top credits are on the stage, she holds her
own vis-à-vis the movie star who plays her estranged husband. A Tony Award
nominee for <i>Shogun: The Musical, </i>Angela
also appeared on Broadway opposite Yul Brynner in a revival of <i>The King and I</i>, and appeared on the TV
sitcom, <i>Fresh Off the Boat,</i> and won an
Emmy for <i>The Electric Company</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Having said that,
the problems with <i>Yohen </i>are, to
paraphrase Shakespeare, “not in the stars but in” Philip Kan Gotanda’s script.
At one point roughly midway through this one-acter Sumi takes her husband to
task for being “Boring! Boring! Boring!” It requires a first rate dramatist to
render the boring interesting and attention-grabbing, but much of <i>Yohen </i>reflects Sumi’s lament and is,
similar to her take on James, dull and slow. At times, some ticket buyers may
imagine that translated into English <i>Yohen
</i>means “yawn” and yearn for Glover’s <i>Lethal
Weapon </i>co-star Mel Gibson to leap onstage, guns a-blazing, to make things
more exciting. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Although as noted
Glover makes the most out of the raw material Gotanda has given him, I have to
agree with Sumi about his likable but one-dimensional character fixated on
amateur boxing, who refuses to grow as a person by expanding his horizons and,
Sumi believes, drinks too much beer. Some may argue that with his
mono-obsession on pugilism James is even a bit of a stage stereotype (a subject
explored last summer by Will Geer’s Theatricum
Botanicum’s production of Alice Childress’ <i>Trouble in Mind</i>)
and a throwback as a character. After 37 years of marriage, Sumi is ready for
some personal growth and pursues new educational and career opportunities.
James, too, has reached a point in his life where he, too, can do so, but
chooses (or is congenitally unable) to do so.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Apparently, James
and Sumi met in postwar Japan when the former was part of the occupation
forces. As such James had the “hail the conquering hero” stature. They marry
and move to the USA, where Sumi learns bitter lessons about racism,
American-style, in a land that places black males lower on the social status
totem pole. Like her ceramics, Sumi is on a slow burn that eventually erupts
into a wildfire, and the conflict makes <i>Yohen
</i>more dramatic. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The 90-minute
drama does build in intensity and taken as a whole, after a slow start, I was
glad to have seen it -- and not only for the rare opportunity to eyeball the
great Glover work his magic in person. To his credit, Gotanda tackles topics rarely
pursued (at least to my knowledge) by playwrights in Western productions. From Giacomo
Puccini’s 1903 <i>Madame Butterfly </i>to
1993’s <i>M. Butterfly </i>(screenplay by
David Henry Hwang), etc., productions have centered on the interracial
romances of Caucasian males and the “exotic” other in the form of “Oriental”
females (or what are assumed to be women).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In <i>Yohen</i>, Gotanda takes a candid look at East
meets West meets Africa. Spike Lee’s 1991 <i>Jungle
Fever</i> dealt with the relationship between an African-American man and a
white Italian-American woman, but here Gotanda explores the (relatively
speaking) terra incognito of an African-American male and a Japanese-born and
raised woman. Sumi is, of course, uprooted from her homeland due to her
marriage to James and is wistful for her heritage, especially with her being
descended from what she thinks is an exalted samurai lineage.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Christopher Scott Murillo creates a
realistic set that somehow expresses the characters’ relationship. Ben Guillory
(who recently excelled as W.E.B. DuBois), the producing artistic director of The Robey Theatre Company, ably directs his duet in a year
that has seen other noteworthy Black-themed productions, including the
aforementioned <i>Dr. Du Bois and Miss
Ovington </i>at
LATC and <i>Trouble in Mind</i>, as well as Rogue
Machine’s presentation of Lorraine Hansberry’s <i>Les Blancs </i>at the MET
Theatre. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Yohen<i> runs through Nov. 19 at East West Players, David
Henry Hwang Theater, 120 Judge John Aiso St., Los Angeles.</i> For more information: <a href="http://www.eastwestplayers.org/">www.eastwestplayers.org</a>; <a href="http://www.robeytheatrecompany.com/">www.robeytheatrecompany.com</a>.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
JEsther Entertainmenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08447548247220496790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889953747692054890.post-6236003768398641882017-09-19T16:33:00.000-07:002017-09-19T16:33:05.303-07:00STAGE REVIEW: DEMOCRACY (SIC)<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtULJ7nYAOQH2ZgyAl7Hev61vBhC0YcAghJ-kFG6PBY5OaUjbpV7Mvzm1ErNDB59dR6K4VijfasEqi4ZJk7EDlD95sRFUNh5wutAk1qRfdRsgtnSESitSQKboCvubxj33atuXWGO1Dqa8/s1600/demo.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="853" data-original-width="1280" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtULJ7nYAOQH2ZgyAl7Hev61vBhC0YcAghJ-kFG6PBY5OaUjbpV7Mvzm1ErNDB59dR6K4VijfasEqi4ZJk7EDlD95sRFUNh5wutAk1qRfdRsgtnSESitSQKboCvubxj33atuXWGO1Dqa8/s400/demo.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>A scene from <i>Democracy (sic)</i></b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Thus was it staged</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">By Ed Rampell</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Don Williams’ com-dram <i>democracy (sic) </i></span><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">opens with a
movie-like montage, accompanied by a throbbing recorded rock soundtrack and
flashing lights designed by the aptly name RAY Jones. (Look closely and you’ll
glimpse a red flag with a hammer and sickle in the background.) The rest of
this world premiere production presented by the Harold Clurman Laboratory
Theater Company at the Art of Acting Studio Los Angeles is also quite
cinematic, a fast moving, often comic pastiche with seven filmic vignettes
commenting on America’s contemporary political scene (and what a scene the
players make!). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Riffing on TV’s
famous <i>Twilight Zone </i>anthology supernatural series that debuted on the
tube in 1959, hosted and co-written by Rod Serling, Alex Best plays an ersatz
Serling who welcomes spectators to a “dimension of imagination” called “the
Democracy Zone” -- a demented domain that I must say is truly “demo-crazy.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">In it, smarmy 700
Club-type televangelist Rev. Roberts (James Warfield) presents a TV show with a
Christian conservative author guest (Jennifer Ann Weisner) ballyhooing her god
and country tome endorsed by a Trump-like prez. </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Carlis
Shane Clark portrays a terrified African American abducted by neo-nazi types.
Steve Humphreys depicts a rightwing shock jock whose manic broadcasting of
toxic talk is disrupted by a female caller (also portrayed by Weisner who, like
the other thesps, plays multiple parts). </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Putting the “sick” into </span><i style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">democracy
(sic)</i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">,</span><i style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">seductive
Stacy Jordan plays a sexually repressed super duper </span><u><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">ü</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">ber</span></u><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">-Christian
stalker and so on, in this 90 minute one-acter with a variety of tableaux
exploring Trump’s USA careening off the rails.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Deploying lots of</span><i style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">
</i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">risqué language</span><i style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"> democracy (sic)</i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"> includes startling, imaginative word
play -- an inventive, off-color Pidgin English of sorts -- during banter in
scenes that spoof alt right gibberish. Weisner and Warfield expertly, admirably
deliver the tongue twisting doubelspeaking dirt. I thought these scenes were
the best part of the show, creating a lingo as George Orwell did with
“Newspeak” in </span><i style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">1984</i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">, the concocted
language of totalitarianism. The concept of “doubletalk” emerged out of </span><i style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">1984</i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">, and it is today the lingua franca of
politicians and pundits who strive to obscure the truth (with “alternative
facts”) and, as Orwell aptly put it his 1946</span><span class="st" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"> essay,</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span class="st" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><i>Politics and the English
Language</i>, to</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"> “defend the indefensible.” Williams’ version of his
political patois, however, is far bluer than Orwell’s, so listeners’ with
virginal ears should beware of </span><i style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">democracy (sic)’s</i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"> uh, shall we say, “aural sex.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">After Friday’s
opening Don Williams told me he first got the idea for <i>democracy (sic)</i>
after the 2004 presidential election. Believing Democrat John Kerry was robbed of
electoral victory by George W. Bush, the playwright was so angered that he
started writing this play. The 2016 election of Trump outraged Williams even
more, inspiring him to complete the excursion to the Democracy Zone he’d
embarked upon 12 years earlier. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><i>The
Harold Clurman Laboratory Theater Company production of </i>democracy (sic) <i>runs through Oct. 14, 2017. The Art of Acting Studio L.A., 1017 N. Orange Dr., LA., </i></span><span class="m1843712782982293354footercolumn" style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">CA 90038</span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">. Reservations:<a href="http://www.artofactingstudio.com/event/hclab-presents-democracysic-by-don-k-williams/2017-09-15/">Sic</a></span></div>
JEsther Entertainmenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08447548247220496790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889953747692054890.post-91916472713319829912017-09-18T17:33:00.000-07:002017-09-18T17:33:50.787-07:00STAGE REVIEW: DAYTONA<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUYLDh9HZlySfwLade68wcqQFVzmrwgd_hg3QkiE-cTkF4sJSGBAf05NFl3UizjLhaybtnSlDvOYsukMISUBo0ELL2ay3ynZT1l4G9OXw_mRWCbyEh8Cf3-owVvCcEQTEUDToePVM24gs/s1600/daytona.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUYLDh9HZlySfwLade68wcqQFVzmrwgd_hg3QkiE-cTkF4sJSGBAf05NFl3UizjLhaybtnSlDvOYsukMISUBo0ELL2ay3ynZT1l4G9OXw_mRWCbyEh8Cf3-owVvCcEQTEUDToePVM24gs/s400/daytona.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>Joe (George Wyner) and Elli (Sharron Shayne) in <i>Daytona. </i>Photo credit: John Perrin Flynn.</b><br /></span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">It happens here</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">By Ed Rampell<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">As the Nazis ride again, British playwright Oliver
Cotton’s brilliant play, <i>Daytona, </i>is
about how fascism impacts and haunts survivors throughout their lives (and
those are the “lucky” ones!) and what may be the first postwar “Antifa” in
America. The two-acter opens mundanely enough, with an old married couple
practicing for a dance competition in their rather routine, drab Brooklyn
apartment, expertly designed with her usual deftness and eye for detail by
Hillary Bauman.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">But what is about to befall the seventy-something
Elli (Sharron Shayne) and Joe (George Wyner) is anything but typical, as out of
the blue, the long lost Billy (the peerless Richard Fancy) shows up to upset the
proverbial applecart. Billy’s arrival from out of nowhere reminds first Joe and
then, in Act II, Elli about who and what they really are and their deep dark
past, as long buried secrets are excavated and revealed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Without committing the unpardonable offense of
disclosing a plot spoiler (a capital offense for critics!), let me try and
dance around what happens a bit. In Act I Billy executes an action that would
arguably be applauded by today’s Antifa -- those brave antifascist activists who
use militant tactics to resist Nazis and defend their intended victims. Let’s
just say that Billy goes rogue -- which is apropos, as this stellar production,
the American premiere of <i>Daytona</i>, is
by one of L.A.’s leading, edgiest theater companies, Rogue Machine.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">His feat takes place while Billy is, of all things,
on vacation at Daytona, in that not-so-sunny Sunshine State just rocked by
hurricanes. Like Irma, Billy blows back into Joe and Elli’s life while he is on
the lam, and all hell breaks loose, as he divulges his daring deed to Joe while
Elli is gone for the day.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">She returns at the end of Act I before the
intermission, and when the proverbial curtain lifts for the second act, Billy
is now alone with Elli in the apartment she shares with her husband. Here,
Cotton’s plot twists as it turns out there are more deep dark secrets to be
uncovered, as Billy and Elli expose their own clandestine history.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Enough said about the plot. Suffice it to say that
this is a superbly written, acted and directed drama by Elina de Santos may have you on the emotional edge
of your seat. It is full of moral conundrums regarding life, death,
assimilating to hide your true ethnic identity and self, fidelity and more. <i>Daytona </i>provoked total strangers to hold
serious debates in their theater seats during the intermission about ethical
and other questions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Audiences are used to seeing couples portrayed by
younger, more conventionally handsome and pretty, sexually appealing if not
outright glamorous actors. But these veteran thesps fully inhabit their roles,
delivering performances that will be long remembered by auds and, hopefully,
critics when it’s accolade-dispensing time. Fancy is the three-hander’s
standout, although all cast members acquit themselves admirably.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b></b><b><o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Daytona <i>runs through Oct. 30, 2017 at The Met, 1089 N Oxford Ave, Los Angeles,
CA 90029. Reservations: 855-585-5185 or at </i><b><span style="color: #95b3d7;"><i><a href="http://www.roguemachinetheatre.com/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #95b3d7;">www.roguemachinetheatre.com</span></a>.</i>
</span></b> <i><o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> <i><o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<br />JEsther Entertainmenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08447548247220496790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889953747692054890.post-51345033321657980142017-09-01T14:10:00.001-07:002017-09-01T14:10:55.870-07:00STAGE REVIEW: A NIGHT WITH JANIS JOPLIN<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmu-AQS_oIJcdWfhX5mm3QNaN9AvXAXQzqjhh20XmZGNM71gUNFGZxbDdOeVnNr1ylEoFALZxb48CiJZyPjhLRcyECgrQR8A2IpjTtJJfy-UKMGAziaw7xU8C_kviBnAVdkuFax14I0FU/s1600/A+NIGHT+WITH+JANIS+JOPLIN+-+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmu-AQS_oIJcdWfhX5mm3QNaN9AvXAXQzqjhh20XmZGNM71gUNFGZxbDdOeVnNr1ylEoFALZxb48CiJZyPjhLRcyECgrQR8A2IpjTtJJfy-UKMGAziaw7xU8C_kviBnAVdkuFax14I0FU/s400/A+NIGHT+WITH+JANIS+JOPLIN+-+1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>Janis Joplin (Kelly McIntyre) in <i>A Night with Janis Joplin. </i>Photo Credit: Randy Johnson.</b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Pearls of joy </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">By
Ed Rampell<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">As
her hometown is devastated by Hurricane Harvey, <i>A Night With Janis Joplin</i>, featuring<i> </i>Port Arthur’s most famous “native” daughter, has blown into the
Laguna Playhouse. This isn’t a bioplay, as Kelly McIntyre belts out the
raspy-voiced Texan’s tunes, accompanied by a rocking eight piece band
performing many of Joplin’s greatest hits. Instead of a plot on Brian Prather’s
nightclub-like set McIntyre delivers a series of rambling ruminations on fame,
fortune, life, etc., in between songs.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">I
saw Janis Joplin perform live twice and McIntyre does a creditable job incarnating the
singer -- her swagger, swigs, twang and tonality. Like Joplin, the lead
performer is not a conventional beauty, although both certainly had/have their
own appeal. Costume designer Amy Clark cloaks McIntyre and the other singers
with the period panache of sixties’ psychedelic spectacle. Most importantly, McIntyre
holds her own with her vocals, which range from angsty to poignancy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">What
comes across most during McIntyre’s onstage musings as Joplin is that the title
character was a lonesome cowgirl. However, this Tony Award-nominated production
created, written and directed by Randy Johnson is completely lacking into any
insight into why poor Joplin felt so lonely -- except when she was performing and
the center of attention, with that electric connection between star and
audience. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The
2012 play <i>Room 105, The Highs and Lows of
Janis Joplin</i>, which ran in West Hollywood,<i> </i>was far better at showing what made Joplin tick. Even though Sophie
B. Hawkins looked absolutely nothing like Joplin , perhaps because she, too, was
a singer (Hawkins’ hits include <i>As I Lay
Me Down </i>and<i> Damn I Wish I Was Your
Lover</i>), she captured her character’s bluesy soul. And in terms of acting,
psyche is more important than persona.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Janis:
Little Girl Blue</span></i><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> also disclosed the humiliations and hardships Joplin suffered at Port Arthur, with her private letters read aloud and revealing new
interviews with Joplin’s relatives, lovers, friends and fellow musicians
conducted specifically for Amy Berg’s 2015 documentary. (Joplin was probably
bisexual although you’d never know that from <i>Night</i>.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">In
any case, the best thing about<i> A Night with Janis Joplin </i>is
how it pays homage to the black women the white Texan emulated and goes into
detail about how these African-American females influenced Joplin’s distinctive
but derivative (in the best sense) sound. Caucasian crooners arguably misappropriated
rock from black pioneers such as Chuck Berry and Little Richard, profiteering
off of a larger “mainstream” audience that Jim Crow America denied African
Americans and their “race music,” Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis and Pat Boone didn’t
give their black forebears the credit due to them -- but this show definitely
does. In one showstopper Joplin and Aretha Franklin perform a duet, as the Queen
of Soul meets the Queen of Rock 'n' Roll --- and become soul sisters of sorts. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">In
a series of great song and dance numbers throughout </span><i style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A Night with Janis Joplin </i><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Tawny Dolley portrays Etta James, Carol Hatchett Odetta and
Bessie Smith, and Amma Osei Aretha and Nina Simone. (In the playbill, Leah J.
Loukas has one of the most unique stage credits I’ve ever seen: “wig
designer.”) Interestingly, while an anti-immigration demo took place just a few
short blocks away, the opening night crowd at the Laguna Playhouse got into
that sixties spirit of love and peace, with the enormous contributions of black
female chanteuses being honored and celebrated by a predominately white aud. As
Ellen Richard, the theater’s executive director, pithily put it when
introducing the show, “Thanks for ignoring that racist rally down the street!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">But
it was impossible to ignore McIntyre and her crew of singers and musicians as
they performed, to paraphrase Elvis, Playhouse rock. What was especially
rewarding for this longtime Joplin fan were the expressions that lit up the
faces of teenage young ladies - as well as their mothers (and dare I say
grandmothers: Joplin would have turned 74 this year had she survived!).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">McIntyre’s
worthy renditions of “Piece of My Heart” and the Gershwins’ “Summertime” were
my personal favorites. Listening to them I experienced acid flashes,
momentarily becoming that 15-year-old watching Joplin at New York’s Madison Square
Garden drinking from a flask before dashing onstage and at Shea Stadium during
an antiwar rally, when my chum Elliott started a chant that swept the ballpark
like the wave to “turn off the lights!” -- which they did, even as Joplin turned
us on.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Joplin
may have endured a misery that made her understand and sing the blues, but she
also had a playful, mirthful side that McIntyre and the production also
conveys, with songs such as that spoof of American materialism, “Mercedes
Benz.” Oh lawd, won’t you buy me a ticket to see <i>A Night With Janis Joplin</i>? Even if priced at $60-$105, the tix
aren’t exactly cheap thrills. But for Joplin and/or classic rock fans, it’s
worth the price of admission, so get it while you can!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A Night
With Janis Joplin</span><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><i> runs through Sept. 10, at
the Laguna Playhouse, 606 Laguna Canyon Road, Laguna Beach, CA 92651. For more
info: 949-497-2787; <a href="http://www.lagunaplayhouse.com/">www.LagunaPlayhouse.com</a>.
</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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JEsther Entertainmenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08447548247220496790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889953747692054890.post-48435495739400781492017-08-22T12:54:00.001-07:002017-08-22T12:54:07.678-07:00STAGE REVIEW: HONKY TONK LAUNDRY<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2B-_UtIlazoFBhShb7XBnpp_GrPxB-t8wUEnMYxsk5kWHwb3uUoCoOGRQVFdFHsKJvIpAYFHbYnIwjRCf6P4v41Xb2LV5H0HA52lDekXuv3eVgZVA1zpG1HEzV-Q62ZtVYV7yJu-7qXk/s1600/tonk.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2B-_UtIlazoFBhShb7XBnpp_GrPxB-t8wUEnMYxsk5kWHwb3uUoCoOGRQVFdFHsKJvIpAYFHbYnIwjRCf6P4v41Xb2LV5H0HA52lDekXuv3eVgZVA1zpG1HEzV-Q62ZtVYV7yJu-7qXk/s400/tonk.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>Lana Mae Hopkins (Bets Malone) and Katie Lane Murphy (Misty Cotton) in <i>Honky Tonk Laundry. </i>Photo Credit: Michael Lamont.</b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Light load</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">By Ed Rampell<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Playwright-director Roger Bean’s <i>Honky Tonk Laundry </i>is like a
dramatization of a Country Western song: A hard luck tuneful tale featuring
brokenhearted Southerners who are no longer (if they ever were) the belles of
the ball, brought to the live stage. Unfortunately all of the music is canned, and
most if not all of the songs are CW or perhaps pop standards, such as Tammy
Wynette’s “Stand By Your Man.” However, to be fair, the singing that
accompanies the plus-one soundtrack warbled by Bets Malone -- as Lana Mae Hopkins,
owner of the Wishy Washy Washateria -- and Misty Cotton -- as employee/co-singer
Katie Lane Murphy -- and their hoofing choreo-ed by James Vasquez is often
enjoyable.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">The lowbrow story, such that there is, is set nowadays
way down yonder in the land of misty cotton, which events like the
Charlottesville clash ensures is unforgotten. How interesting that this limited,
perhaps stereotypical look at Dixie opened the weekend of the antifascist fight
in Virginia triggered by plans to remove a statue of the treasonous Confederate
General Robert E. Lee. In any case, Lana was an aspiring singer who gave up her
dream to become a star at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville to run the family’s
full service launderette when she inherited the Washateria. She encounters Katie, who’s offstage boyfriend “dumb shit
Danny” has a cheating heart.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Lana hires Katie to work at the Wishy Washy and they
become fast friends -- a relationship intensified by Lana’s discovery that her
good ol’ boy, offstage Earl, is also straying. In Act Two the gal pals join
forces to make Lana’s CW dreams come true, and 95 percent of the second act is merely
an excuse for these Dixie dolls to sing and holler and hoof up a storm in a
contrived concert masquerading as a play. (Although in terms of disguises and
costumes, Byron Batista’s wigs are big enough to make Arkansan Bill Clinton
drool.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">It’s about as much as a plot as could fill a CW song, but not necessarily a real, original musical. Tennessee Williams it ain’t,
although he often dramatized similar themes. Seattle-born Bean specializes in jukebox
musicals such as <i>The Marvelous
Wonderettes</i> (which nabbed the 2007 LA Ovation Award for Best Musical) and
various spin-offs. <i>Honky Tonk Laundry</i>, too,
seems to be on the spin cycle, recycled with a superficial Southern setting and
ambiance and artistically purloined songs created by others for completely
different reasons, such as Nancy Sinatra’s proto-feminist “These Boots Were
Made for Walking.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">To be charitable, the Los Angeles premiere of <i>Honky Tonk Laundry</i> seems to be presented at the
Hudson Mainstage Theatre with an eye on grander venues, where the taped music
could actually be performed by a live band and the miked-up singing won’t be
too loud for an intimate showcase. At best this wannabe musical is rated “M.E.”
--- for “mildly entertaining” -- while the best thing this two-hander has going
for it are the winning performances by Malone and Cotton. These would-be Dixie
chicks make do with the material they are given, which they surmount with their
Opry-esque talents and charming presences as heartbroken, jilted belles
determined to ring their bells.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Honky Tonk Laundry</span></i><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> runs through
Sept. 17 at the Hudson Mainstage Theatre, The Hudson Theatres, 6539 Santa
Monica Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90038, at Theatre Row. For more information: 323-960-5770; <a href="http://www.plays411.com/honkytonklaundry">www.plays411.com/honkytonklaundry</a>
or <a href="http://www.honkytonklaundry.com/">www.honkytonklaundry.com</a>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br />JEsther Entertainmenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08447548247220496790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889953747692054890.post-11959821107100681532017-08-07T14:01:00.001-07:002017-08-07T14:01:36.324-07:00NEWS: POLITICON 2017<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj262lTXu7Aul6sbrUrwHBnmjlWI0GvGKH2nfCB_8WQ_2gsIPYg49Q7Iwzdxh15poIlIfBg8nzpmja04YzFcRNDASfDqXVjvnIX9PmtOaEQV29ISm4v7vJhVpRUMXCVxAgf1wBfdx-F82U/s1600/PolitCoulter0001.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="681" data-original-width="1024" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj262lTXu7Aul6sbrUrwHBnmjlWI0GvGKH2nfCB_8WQ_2gsIPYg49Q7Iwzdxh15poIlIfBg8nzpmja04YzFcRNDASfDqXVjvnIX9PmtOaEQV29ISm4v7vJhVpRUMXCVxAgf1wBfdx-F82U/s400/PolitCoulter0001.JPG" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>Xeni Jardin, Ann Coulter, and Greg Proops at Politicon 2017. Photo credit: Ed Rampell.</b></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Center right field</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">By Ed Rampell<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Featuring heavy hitters from
the realms of cable news and punditry, Politicon, which is to Politics what
Comic Con is to superheroes and comic books, took place July 29-30 at the
Pasadena Convention Center. This “politi-palooza” attracted prominent speakers,
performers and audiences from across the liberal and conservative ends of the
spectrum. Highlights of the chattering classes’ chitchat at Politicon included:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">“Po-Crazy”<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The first panel I attended at
what was dubbed “Independence Hall” was entitled “Trump: Genius or Lunatic?”
Sally Kohn, an openly gay reliably lefty commentator who has opinionated on Fox
News and CNN, moderated the discussion with pro and con Trump participants. Referring
to the president and his state of mind (or lack of), Kohn set the stage for the
weekend talkfest by paraphrasing the old Gershwin Brothers’ song <span class="st">“Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off”</span>, quipping: “You say potato, I
say ‘po-crazy’.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>Coulter Interruptus: Ersatz Nazis, Real
Reds</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Next up at Independence Hall was
the “Censorship on Campus” panel, featuring author and professional provocateur
Ann “Helter Skelter” Coulter. As soon as the venomous fräulein was introduced two activists costumed as
brownshirts with swastika armbands disrupted the panel to “heil our Hitler!”, giving their furious “fuhrer” the stiff-armed fascist salute. To the consternation of
what appeared to be a majority of the crowd composed of Coulter acolytes, who
started shouting “USA! USA!," and to the amusement of others, the ersatz Nazis shut
the shrewish loudmouth up for about five minutes before they were finally
peaceably ejected by security.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But as soon as Coulter
started spewing her hate speech, “Refuse Fascism” leftists (presumably linked
to the Revolutionary Communist Party) unfurled an anti-Trump red banner and
shouted her down. After another five minute pause that aggravated the righties
in the aud, the two real Reds were peacefully ejected and, as the old saying
goes, “the show must go on.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Coulter boohooed about how
her right to freedom of speech was short circuited at Berkeley by far left
militants. This was rich coming from someone who has made a career out of
denouncing oppressed minorities for complaining about their “victimhood” -- you
know, little things like poverty, racism and other societal injustices Coulter has
never had to confront in her existence. Now that she is being held accountable for her outrageous comments, Coulter’s
playing the “victim card” herself -- perhaps her Berkeley, etc., experiences
have given the right’s very own Squeaky Fromme some insight into how being a
member of an oppressed minority singled out for rough treatment feels. But I
wouldn’t count on poor little orphan Annie having the power of reflection. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Fellow panelists, comedian
Greg Proops and weblogger Xeni Jardin, begged to differ with Coulter. Jardin
inconveniently reminded the rightwing ranter and raver that speakers were
responsible for what they publicly say. Coulter pretending to be a First
Amendment champion is rather hilarious, considering how she slimed anti-Iraq
War notables as “unpatriotic” (BTW Annie-get-your-gun: where are them thar
WMDs anyway?) and she wrote <i>Treason:
Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism</i>, lauding one of
the most tyrannical U.S. politicians and tramplers of free speech rights of all
time, Sen. Joe McCarthy, who to Coulter was just a poor misunderstood little boy.
Boohoo!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Of course, now that it’s a
rightwinger being charged with conspiring with Russia Coulter doesn’t have much
to say about the Trump camp’s alleged Kremlin cavorting and colluding, but
when that shoe was on the left foot during the 1940s/1950s, it was them gosh
darn treasonous liberals! Coulter and the “Censorship on Campus” panel also had
nothing to say about free speech attacks on campus critics of Israeli
government and military policies and restrictions of the rights of professors,
students, guest speakers, etc., who support Palestinians and the Boycott,
Divestment and Sanctions movement.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">At the end of the panel
Coulter was treated like a rock star by her fans as she dispensed autographs
amidst Nuremberg-like adulation.</span></div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijIerJYAGziaKPZhbzoP8MtZj61tG5WcZLQ6B-lAoB5VCtKGhpdEGHfBcxPkZVJ1cB8kMKQ5HlJT9oBm22ysyKjaQXvU3FrND2Jdb8-YzdeiyBYFONlcPB8im0ZJXSpno_eIZBZhPZ4DU/s1600/PolitRogerStoneToure0001.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="681" data-original-width="1024" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijIerJYAGziaKPZhbzoP8MtZj61tG5WcZLQ6B-lAoB5VCtKGhpdEGHfBcxPkZVJ1cB8kMKQ5HlJT9oBm22ysyKjaQXvU3FrND2Jdb8-YzdeiyBYFONlcPB8im0ZJXSpno_eIZBZhPZ4DU/s400/PolitRogerStoneToure0001.JPG" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.12px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>Touré and Roger Stone at Politicon 2017. Photo credit: Ed Rampell. </b></span></span></td></tr>
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<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Like a Rolling Roger Stoned<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Day
Two of Politicon was also great and very well attended, despite the fact that
now-you-see-him-now-you-don’t Trump mouthpiece The Mooch was, for some
mysterious reason, a no-show for his scheduled “Anthony Scaramucci ’Splains” appearance.
(The Mooch has some ’splaining to do about his disappearance. But I guess
“loyal” Trump told him “Scooch, Mooch!” and the pooch hit the road.) However,
another professional Donald Kool-Aid drinker (apparently accompanied by
bodyguards) was in the house for a talk titled “Roger Stone Holds Court.” Former
MSNBC host/author </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16.12px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Touré </span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">tepidly interviewed Trump trickster extraordinaire
Stone.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The
oppo research meister cut his political teeth by working on Tricky Dick’s
creepy Committee to Re-Elect the President. Stoner showed himself to be a profane
jumble of contradictions: he supports legalization of marijuana, opposes
“Americans [being] surveilled for strictly political reasons” and ballyhoos
Nixon as a great bastion of progressivism and peacemaker. Perhaps Stone was too
stoned from imbibing all that wacky tobaccy to remember Nixon’s mass murder of
millions in Indochina and Chile?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In
any case, in a similar fact-denying way, spinning like an out of control dreidel
at Hanukkah, Stone, the apprentice’s apologist, praised his pal, Trump. But a
young, female Muslim questioner would have none of it, confronting Stone about
Trump’s Islamophobia. A short-haired young man immaculately groomed in a suit
and tie (was he en route to a funeral?) expressed admiration for Stone’s
sartorial splendor and viewpoints but asked him to please refrain from using
obscenities. Not without a sense of humor, Stone wryly replied, “I’ll take that
under advisement.”</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Young Turks
vs. Young Jerks<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In
a very spirited debate attended by hundreds, <i>The Young Turks’</i> Cenk Uygur debated reactionary provocateur Ben
Shapiro in the capacious Civic Auditorium. Their respective supporters enthusiastically booed and
applauded the champion of their respective sides, but nobody in the audience came to
blows. In closing out the <em><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">tête</span></em><span class="st"><i>-</i></span><em><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">à-tête</span></em> the
lack of violence amongst a crowd with strongly differing opinions prompted moderator
Steven Olikara, founder of the nonpartisan Millennial Action Project, to
comment, “that’s what Politicon is all about.” And in referring to the fervor
expressed by those leaning left and right for Uygur and Shapiro, Olikara added,
“now we know who the 2020 candidates should be” (assuming, of course, that the
Republic survives long enough for another presidential election to be rigged). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>Something for Everyone - Comedy Two
Nights!</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Following
the debate the Civic Auditorium was the site of Politicon’s grand finale, “Sunday
Night Comedy” featuring former <i>Daily Show</i> correspondent Al Madrigal (currently co-starring in
Showtime's <i>I’m Dying Up Here</i>) and two current <i>Daily Show</i> correspondents, feminist Michelle Wolf and Roy Wood Jr.,
plus lefty Proops, performing political standup that, among other things,
excoriated the president. Pro-GOP
comic Adam Yenser, a writer for NBC’s <i>The
Ellen DeGeneres Show</i>, also delivered a funny set.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Politicon had a heady dose of
comedy, ranging from the right to the left ends of the laugh-o-meter spectrum.
In addition to performances there were also comedy-oriented panels, including Sunday’s
GOP-tilting “Conservatively Unplugged! Presents ‘Right Wing Comedy in These
Trumptastic Times’” in “Equality Hall.” Panelists included comic Evan Sayet
(who wrote for Bill Maher until he saw the “right”), Al-Sonja Rice-Schmidt,
Eric Golub and Yenser, a Republican who was not a Trump supporter and stressed
that when it comes to comedy, humor should trump ideology.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This panel was moderated by
Judd Dunning, co-host of “Conservatively Unplugged!”, a new righty weekly
political entertainment news program that was screened prior to the “Saturday
Night Comedy” program headlining Trae Crowder, the “Liberal Redneck.” </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I watched the 20-or-so minute “Conservatively Unplugged!” video projected on the Civic
Auditorium’s big screens and found this wannabe righty counterpart to programs
such as <i>The Daily Show</i> to be pretty
droll. In it, Dunning comes across like a dunce and to tell the truth, I
actually thought “Conservatively Unplugged!” was spoofing Republican-leaning
comics. The following day, when Dunning moderated the “Right Wing Comedy in
These Trumptastic Times” he actually called comedian Louis C.K. “C.K. Louis,”
so maybe Dunning not only plays a doofus on TV but really is one offscreen,
too.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Chelsea Handles the Prez<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">On Saturday Chelsea Handler merrily made mincemeat of The Donald in a
hilarious interview with Jake Tapper at “Democracy Village”, wherein the CNN
reporter asked her about humor being less balanced since the Jay Leno era of
late night comedy. The Netflix talk show host forthrightly replied: “Now if you
don’t speak up you’re going to regret it later. We have to be held responsible.
Trump scares the shit out of me. I’m authentic… [If I’m considered] ‘divisive’
I don’t care. I’m more informed and responsible -- I have the Trump family to
thank.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">As for Trump’s tweet against transgender people being allowed to serve
in the military, Handler snapped, “Please shut the fuck up. Take more Viagra.”
When Tapper avowed that he didn’t “take Viagra jokes personally,” Handler
quipped, “You will,” adding: “Trump should worry more about transfats than
transgender. He’s unstable, he has late stage syphilis.” Handler proceeded to
list symptoms of the venereal disease she attributed to Trump, claiming “I’m an
M.D. so I know.” When Tapper reminded Handler that she’d admitted to never
completing college she laughed off being caught in her white lie (and could
there be any other kind when referring to the white-supremacist-in-chief?).
Handler also advocated in favor of allowing Syrian refugees into America, even
offering to let them stay at her house -- although humorously admitting she’d
move out if they did. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The
President’s Show of Shows<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">For me, the highlight of Politicon was <span lang="EN">Trump impersonator Anthony
Atamanuik of Comedy Central’s <i>The
President Show</i>, wherein “The 45th and final president” did an hour-long
riff bluer than Lenny Bruce or George Carlin on Trump, Bannon, </span>Scaramucci<span lang="EN">, Priebus,
et al, culminating with him being interviewed by Bassem Yousseff. The
in-costume Atamanuik’s impersonation of The Donald gives Alec Baldwin a run for
his <i>SNL </i>money. Indeed, Atamanuik’s
wickedly insightful lampooning and harpooning of the great white whale of
comedy is reminiscent of Charlie Chaplin’s spoofing of Hitler in the 1940
satirical masterpiece, <i>The Great Dictator. </i>and
also of Hawaii comedian Frank De Lima’s mocking of Imelda Marcos in full drag during
his Waikiki nightclub act after the Filipino tyrants fled to Oahu. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN">In person, Atamanuik’s no holds
barred sarcasm is more risqu</span><em><span style="font-style: normal;">é</span></em><i> </i><span lang="EN">than on his Comedy
Central Thursday night laugh riot. At the Civic Auditorium, dressed as Trump,
he daringly joked about The Donald “trying to finger my daughter” (Ivanka, not
Tiffany), then turning to the audience, dementedly saying: “I’m not sick,
right? I’m the guy with the nuke codes. Me!... Can you believe it?” At one
point Atamanuik’s character falls into a sort of trance, wherein he lays out a
very, clear concise, sophisticated analysis of contemporary capitalism setting
the stage for Trump’s rise. Then he snapped out of his momentary lapse into
lucidity and seriousness and in a Q&A with Yousseff, under the Egyptian’s
questioning, Trump reached the conclusion “I’m a secret Muslim!”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A Splendid Time Was Had By All<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN">Politicon’s panoply of politics
for political and news junkies featured much more during its Pasadena weekend. Many
others notables participated, including <i>Daily Show</i> writer Lizz Winstead, actor America Ferrera, Grace Parrara of Larry Wilmore’s Comedy Central <i>The
Nightly Show</i>, actor-director Rob Reiner, MSNBC’s Joy Reid, etc. </span>There was a cavernous exhibition hall with ACLU, Muslims
for Progressive Values (which was supported by Pakistani-American comedienne
Mona Shaikh), MSNBC, Young Americans for Freedom, medicinal marijuana, etc.,
booths.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">If I have one “complaint” about <span lang="EN">Politicon it’s that in future, the gathering
should also include panels, speakers and booths of the far left to present a
socialist perspective and alternative to liberalism and the Democratic Party.
After all, one could argue that libertarians, who are to the right of the
Republican Party, participated - so why not Marxists, anarchists, Antifas and
other far leftists? </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In any case, despite the
presence of thousands of liberal and conservative activists, while interactions
were passionate, <span lang="EN">Politicon</span> remained civil, with
peaceful coexistence prevailing. Living in Los Angeles, I never saw so many
Trump supporters, although the left-leaning auds may have outnumbered the
righties. Yet, in the spirit of free speech and democracy, comity and tolerance
won the day, bridging the partisan divide by allowing freedom of expression for
all. In doing so, <span lang="EN">Politicon may be a model for our divided nation.</span> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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JEsther Entertainmenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08447548247220496790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889953747692054890.post-90152933086396771282017-07-03T17:27:00.002-07:002017-07-03T17:27:16.507-07:00STAGE REVIEW: DIAL 'M' FOR MURDER<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHjEA0-iUoWPW9I2SkmQ3RuYTdmSeuRew0ONwdHESJ94NEbqt2101vyqvqppsZifpBkbWLnVWwFbYd9Gk1NfHdBiaQbpW-IqvF9Xa3iVDhu6g6lRg4a-GOSgCSakSEjtuzfO2xILNRwvk/s1600/LtoR_AdamJonasSegaller_MichaelRobb_photoByDougEngalla.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1064" data-original-width="1600" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHjEA0-iUoWPW9I2SkmQ3RuYTdmSeuRew0ONwdHESJ94NEbqt2101vyqvqppsZifpBkbWLnVWwFbYd9Gk1NfHdBiaQbpW-IqvF9Xa3iVDhu6g6lRg4a-GOSgCSakSEjtuzfO2xILNRwvk/s400/LtoR_AdamJonasSegaller_MichaelRobb_photoByDougEngalla.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>Tony (Adam Jonas Segall) and Captain (Michael Robb) in <i>Dial 'M' for Murder.</i></b></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Crime connection </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">By Ed Rampell<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Group Rep’s production of Frederick Knott’s <i>Dial ‘M’ for Murder </i>is an old-fashioned,
veddy British mystery. Many theatergoers will consider this murder most foul
play to be deliciously enjoyable. But in a day and age of androids and iPhones,
et al, which are not dialed, other viewers
may find this two hour-long three act play with two intermissions to be
outdated and that the actors trod very creaky boards indeed at North
Hollywood’s Lonny Chapman Theatre.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The complex story unspools in the living room of
the London apartment of retired tennis pro Tony Wendice (Adam
Jonas Segaller who is appropriately snide and snarky) and his adulterous wife, Margot (Carrie Schroeder). They are visited by American
crime writer Max Halliday (Justin Waggle), with whom posh Margot had an affair.
Unbeknownst to the secretive lovers, Tony has found out all about their sordid sextracurricular
activities, and he hires a sketchy former classmate, Captain Lesgate (Michael
Robb), to liquidate unsuspecting Margot.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Tony’s solicitation of homicide involves a very
elaborate plan from whence this drama derives its catchy name. Certain ticket
buyers may find sitting through Knotts’ byzantine details to be snooze worthy,
while others are likely to be enthralled by the ingenuity of it all. Of course,
by the time Act II rolls around, Hubbard -- the inevitable English inspector (Doug Haverty) -- enters to cleverly piece everything
together and unravel Knott’s Gordian knot.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">What makes this good fun is that in addition to
the Sherlockian Haverty, Max, who writes mysteries for television shows and is
well-played by Waggle, also uses his deductive powers crafted by writing crime
shows for the tube to unlock what has really
transpired. This adds a dash of insider show biz jokes to this Mulligan
stew of a play; hey, we live in La La Land, after all. Also adding to the fun
is Robb’s quirky depiction of the down-on-his-luck would-be hired killer, Lesgate
the loser. With the aid of some deft stagecraft and special effects, the
wannabe assassin meets his own fate. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Bruce Kimmel adeptly directs his ensemble, who all
deliver solid performances for three acts on J. Kent Inasy’s set, which
realistically materializes a London flat on the other side of the theater’s
fourth wall, with incidental music by Grant Geissman. Audiences who go
expecting a tried and true, traditionally-rendered British mystery full of
genre conventions won’t be disappointed and will be dialing ‘E’ for escapist
entertainment. If this is your vintage cup of tea, this play will simply murder
you.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Dial ‘M’
for Murder<i> runs through August 13 at the Lonny Chapman Theatre, 10900 Burbank
Blvd., North Hollywood, CA 91601. For more info: 818-763-5990; <a href="http://www.thegrouprep.com/">www.theGrouprep.com</a>. </i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
JEsther Entertainmenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08447548247220496790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889953747692054890.post-37165752696732367282017-06-26T10:01:00.000-07:002017-06-26T10:01:29.694-07:00LAFF 2017: FESTIVAL ROUNDUP<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuCSoIt4BO8lYC5LA-gc8cFff6Y0UZqRs9nVujWSI_WsdUck2zpKipuyvAxNf6lEsJMphyphenhyphenLuD9kTlV_SJRRhh1HZ950I_10zlJF-dlxr1wnJxPSb9OotzqXk2ALfOFdaDlKgao256Nc2o/s1600/stella.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuCSoIt4BO8lYC5LA-gc8cFff6Y0UZqRs9nVujWSI_WsdUck2zpKipuyvAxNf6lEsJMphyphenhyphenLuD9kTlV_SJRRhh1HZ950I_10zlJF-dlxr1wnJxPSb9OotzqXk2ALfOFdaDlKgao256Nc2o/s400/stella.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>A scene from <i>Stella Polaris Ulloriarsuaq. </i></b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Counter cinema in Culver City</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">By
Ed Rampell<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="m7018885099058654250normal1">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The
Los Angeles Film Festival (LAFF) is presented by Film Independent, the L.A.-based non-profit
organization which bestows the yearly Spirit Awards and whose “mission is to
champion creative independence in visual storytelling and support a community
of artists who embody diversity, innovation and uniqueness of vision.” LAFF
emphasizes an indie sensibility and is one of Los Angeles’ most important
annual filmfests for domestic and foreign features, documentaries, shorts,
etc., made outside of the commercial, studio-dominated motion picture industry.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In
terms of fiction and nonfiction films, as well as panels, the 23<sup>rd</sup>
LAFF stressed the significance of having a multitude of voices -- in regards to
ethnicity, gender, sexual preference, etc. -- and providing them with exposure
in a multi-verse of mass medium screenings.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Here are some highlights of this year's LAFF, which was centered in Culver City, home to a motion picture studios. </span></div>
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<b style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>Mankiller -- </i></b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Native
director </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Valerie Red-Horse Mohl’s well-made </span><i style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Mankiller </i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">was my favorite film at LAFF
this year.</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> Standing Rock has propelled American Indian issues to the
forefront -- for instance, Paiute/</span><span class="st" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Shoshone</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> helmer Myron
Dewey co-directed </span><i style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Awake, <span class="st">A
Dream From Standing Rock</span></i><span class="st" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">with Oscar nominee
Josh Fox. </span><i style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Mankiller</i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> is a new
documentary about the first female Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation (ironically,
the liberal Democrat reached that pinnacle due to Pres. Reagan’s appointment of
her running mate to the Interior Department).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The
Oklahoma-born Wilma Mankiller cut her political teeth at the famous Alcatraz
Occupation that began in 1969 and Jane Fonda participated in. As the Cherokees’
elected leader Mankiller achieved many reforms, including spurring
tribally-owned businesses, various self-development projects and indigenous
self-government initiatives. The doc also considers the highly contentious
casino issue. In 1998 Pres. Clinton awarded Mankiller the Medal of Freedom and
when she passed away in 2010 Pres. Obama issued a moving statement.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This
74-minute, cinematic biopic not only deals with indigenous issues, but also
sexism. Interestingly, the film’s co-creators are both women, including
director Valerie Red-Horse Mohl, who is also
Cherokee. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Many
run-of-the-mill docs incorporating talking heads and narrators are often dull
and unoriginal, but through her editing, camerawork, etc., Red-Horse Mohl’s exceptional documentary is filmic, fluid
and always absorbing to watch. This poignant biopic about one of the greats
made me feel like weeping. Bravo!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b><i>The Big Sick -- </i></b>The
“Naughty Pakistani” Mona Shaikh isn’t the only jocular immigrant from that
Asian land who’s making waves, and laughs, on America’s comedy scene. Kumail
Nanjiani (of the awful HBO series, <i>Silicon
Valley</i>) co-stars in this autobiographical romcom, which he co-wrote with his
real life sweetheart, Emily Gordon. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Despite its Raymond Chandler-like title, <i>The Big Sick</i> is a Chicago-set dramedy
about the inter-racial romance of a Pakistan-born wannabe standup comedian also
named Kumail with the blonde Caucasoid Emily (Zoe Kazan), an all-American girl
type. Complications ensue because of Kumail’s family and cultural constraints.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>The Big Sick </i>is frequently funny, with great
zingers and one-liners, including a hilarious bit about 9/11 (too soon?). As
the plot takes a turn towards the serious, there is also convincing drama. The
feature is extremely well-acted and <i>The Big Sick’s</i>
cast includes the preternaturally talented Holly Hunter. As Hunter’s husband, and Emily’s
father, Ray Romano has probably never been better.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Kumail’s
family members all acquit themselves well and with humor (especially India-born
actor Anupam Kher as the sometimes befuddled father caught between two worlds).
I enjoyed and was moved by this two-hour-long movie, which theatrically opens
July 14. However, the flick’s subtext is similar to movies like <i>The Heartbreak Kid </i>and its 2007 remake,
wherein the Jewish male rejects his Jewish wife (at their honeymoon!!!) to
obsessively pursue the blonde shiksa “goddess” (memorably played by Cybill
Shepherd in the 1972 original). Kumail similarly rejects all of the Pakistani
suitors (some far more appealing than Emily). </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Given
today’s inter-racial dynamics and the so-called “clash of civilizations,” some
may regard this as a rejection of one’s own culture (and religion, as Kumail
admits he doesn’t believe in Islam) in favor of whitey and the dominant
culture’s women. This theme of rejecting one’s own heritage goes at least as far
back as Hollywood’s first talkie, 1927’s <i>The
Jazz Singer</i>. Some may also look askance at Indian thesps portraying
Pakistani characters.<i> </i>Others may just
regard Kumail’s sexual preference as a case of “to each their own.” Be that as
it may, <i>The Big Sick </i>is an
entertaining flick that also includes a behind-the-scenes peak at the standup
comedy world, with <i>SNL’s </i>Aidy Bryant
adding to the laughs that abound in this engrossing cross-cultural comedy.</span></div>
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<b style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></b></div>
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<b style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>Stella Polaris Ulloriarsuaq -- </i></b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Yatri
Niehaus’s shot-on-location documentary about climate change and colonialism’s
impact on Greenland features poetic, stunning cinematography. While some
nonfiction works about global warming such as </span><i style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The Penguin Counters </i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">focus on how polar bears, walruses, seals and
other majestic wildlife are being affected by extreme weather, </span><i style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Stella Polaris Ulloriarsuaq </i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">stresses how
Greenland’s indigenous people are striving to cope with these factors. Danish
colonialism, too, has altered an age-old way of life. Niehaus’ superb, cinematic
film also visualizes the way Greenland’s topography is shifting as the planet
heats up. As Greenland’s glacier and ice melt, its culture seems to, also -
alas.</span></div>
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<b style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></b></div>
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<b style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>Opuntia -- </i></b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Filmfest’s
often include a stinkeroo, and </span><i style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Opuntia </i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">is
arguably LAFF 2017’s most-must-miss movie. In his defense, writer-director
David Fenster’s 60 minute pseudo-doc does have some interesting things about
it. </span><i style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Opuntia </i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">(which translates as
“prickly pear”) is a movie meditation on 16</span><sup style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">th</sup><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> century Spanish
explorer Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca and his peregrinations across much of what
whitey now calls America. So viewers can learn a bit of history and
particularly, in keeping with LAFF’s multi-culti leanings, about this
European’s early contact with our continent’s indigenous people.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Fenster’s
film form is also interesting as he attempts to combine the documentary with
the poetic in an effort to create what LAFF’s program guide dubs a “visual
essay.” But in doing so, Fenster fails to create either a doc per se (although
he does use actuality footage) or a motion picture poem. Many of his interview
subjects are inherently incredible airy New Age types.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But
not only are some of <i>Opuntia’s </i>dimwitted
ideas offensive, but worst of all, Fenster foists objectionable imagery upon
unsuspecting viewers: Lingering out of focus shots plus repulsive sick people
in (presumably) hospital beds that make you want to crawl out of your skin.
Fenster may be fantasizing that he’s some sort of demented Stan Brakhage or
Frederick Wiseman, but these big images were so uncomfortable to watch that I
felt like screaming, “Get that off the screen!” Shaman on you for hurting your aud’s
eyes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>Whitewashing -- </i></b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In keeping with its concern for cinema’s and society’s underdogs,
LAFF presented a series of “Diversity Speaks” discussions to “shine the spotlight
on underrepresented voices” </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">at the Kirk Douglas Theatre in Culver
City,</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">June 17-18.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Sometimes panels can bore you to tears. But the discussion I
covered, "<strong><span style="font-weight: normal;">Whitewashing: Asian and
Asian-American Representation in Film and TV," was anything but boring. This</span></strong><strong> </strong>highly
entertaining, insightful conversation provided an Asian take on the “Oscars So
White” controversy. The panel was wittily moderated by Taiwan-born comedienne
Jenny Yang and included: Leonardo
Nam (<em>Westworld</em>),
Kelly Hu (<em>The Scorpion
King),</em> Kelvin Yu (<em>Master
of None</em>), Ally Maki (<em>Geography
Club),</em> Phil Yu (<em>Angry
Asian Man</em> blog), Bruce Thierry Cheung (<em>Don’t Come Back from the Moon</em>) and Gloria
Fan (VP of Current Programming, FOX).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Yu lamented that Asians “are never quite sexualized” correctly by Hollywood,
where the dominant majority culture of Caucasians run not only the studios, but
dominate the number of ticket buyers.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Maki, who has had recurring and featured roles in a number of TV series,
including the current television iteration of <i>Dear White People </i>and<i> Wrecked</i>,
described herself as a sort of girl-next-door, who grew up in Washington state.
A fourth generation Japanese-American, when the 31-year-old first came to
Hollywood, “the industry [gave me] a rude awakening” with “its casting by
ethnicity.” Maki found that by La La Land standards, she didn’t “fit in either
category,” and wasn’t considered to be American or Japanese enough. The
Seattle-born and raised actress wanted to play “a girl who is just a girl -
that’s what resonated with me.” Instead, Maki was typecast to play either “the
nerd in the corner or the girl with the accent.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Born
in Argentina to Korean immigrant parents and raised in Sydney, Australia, Nam, who spoke with an Aussie accent, echoed the concern of fitting
in to preconceived notions as to what an Asian is and how he/she should behave.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A
glamorous looking, stiletto-heeled Hu, who said she was a bit late for
the panel because she’d flown in from Kazakhstan to participate in it,
reflected: “With 30 years of experience [in show business], we took whatever we
could get. It was not like we had a choice. We couldn’t fight for diversity”
when the Hawaii-born mixed race Hu started acting in 1987 on the sitcom, <i>Growing Pains</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Yang,
who kept the panel moving along, pithily summed up the dilemma minorities confronted
in Hollywood vis-à-vis majority whites as: “I’m going to tell you who you are.”
She also added that when a Margaret Cho or <i>FOB
</i>go on the air Asians have “rep sweats” about how they’d be represented or
misrepresented.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">On
the other hand, the standup comic amusingly mused about, “Our beautiful white
liberal friends who get more offended by something on our behalf than we do.”
Yet Yang was happy to take credit for criticism of “whitewashed” movies such as
the remake of the 1995 Japanese film, <i>Ghost
in the Shell, </i>which was remade in 2017 with the white Scarlett Johansson cast as the
lead, when they bomb at the box office. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Yu argued that in order to improve the quantity and quality of onscreen
representations of Asians and Asian-Americans in the North America market, “The
industry is a business; we need to vote with our dollars.” With the increase
in immigrants from Asia and U.S.-born people of Asian ancestry, plus the export
of Hollywood products overseas to Asian theaters, the box office clout of
viewers of Asian background is becoming an increasingly important factor for
big and little screen productions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There
was a general consensus among panelists that things, indeed, were improving.
Yet, surprisingly, China was criticized for “not caring about Asian-Americans.”
The recent Chinese production of <i>The
Great Wall </i>was blasted for putting Yankee Doodle Dandy Matt Damon in the
lead (it should have also been excoriated for being a terrible flick). Ever the
wag, Yang quipped she “wants to give diversity workshops to China’s producers.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">For
more info see: <a href="https://www.filmindependent.org/la-film-festival/">https://www.filmindependent.org/la-film-festival/</a>.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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JEsther Entertainmenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08447548247220496790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889953747692054890.post-51451882404843597652017-06-20T19:53:00.000-07:002017-06-20T19:53:13.537-07:00LAFF 2017: SKID ROW MARATHON<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB-Q2AKXSaK5QXqgSdjkFIQSu0OfodMpk1fobkqhYe7iCYPaKmhVjCp3F-RQTQnE8dw0CMpPduC8hgWxE0dzOLLsaSyLbqf89BfrZzUUppvvX5tllpbeEEVPMqqT8NuYrYbEBCoWGip18/s1600/skidrow.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="997" data-original-width="1600" height="248" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB-Q2AKXSaK5QXqgSdjkFIQSu0OfodMpk1fobkqhYe7iCYPaKmhVjCp3F-RQTQnE8dw0CMpPduC8hgWxE0dzOLLsaSyLbqf89BfrZzUUppvvX5tllpbeEEVPMqqT8NuYrYbEBCoWGip18/s400/skidrow.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>A scene from <i>Skid Row Marathon. </i></b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Running for their lives</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">By Miranda Inganni</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Fueled by his love of running and his desire to help those less fortunate, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Craig Mitchell leads the Running Club from the </span><span class="aBn" data-term="goog_738995141" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">Midnight</span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Mission in downtown Los Angeles' skid row. Early in the morning, they head out to run their way toward healthy living and away from troubled pasts addled by addiction and violence.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Judge by day, runner by night (or rather early morning), Judge Mitchell tries to strike a balance between sending convicted criminals away for life and helping those on the road to recovery. Mark E. Hayes’ documentary focuses on some of the</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><span class="aBn" data-term="goog_738995142" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">Midnight</span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Mission Runners successes – David, a soft-spoken artist, Ben the tatted musician, and Rafael who spends much of his free time volunteering at the same juvenile hall where he was first sent when he was just 14 years old. These men, and the few women who run with them, like Jennifer and Ashley, run for a number of reasons.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>Skid Row Marathon </i>delves into the back-stories of the featured runners, while keeping the eye on the prize – the Rome marathon, where Mitchell hopes to bring all 25 members of the running club. But with issues like potential parole violations and relapses, one wonders if the runners will ever cross the finish line.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Told with a slightly heavy sentimental hand -- and is that a whiff of a white savior complex I smell? -- <i>Skid Row Marathon </i>delivers engrossing portraits of some of the survivors of Skid Row and how with perseverance and practice – and a lot of encouragement and support from Mitchell -- they are in it for the long run.</span>JEsther Entertainmenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08447548247220496790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889953747692054890.post-63912654755561950592017-05-22T10:37:00.000-07:002017-05-22T10:37:56.190-07:00FILM REVIEW: THE COMMUNE<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaLaao4YF5YVLkNNsEO0S-bnqUgcX4hTTxtIDWUjk03fvPLovJU_f8UMQtEzJx2lXNN3CLPrZhrZyFA1uNuf3Qgr5RWEaVSltEK-HMd70e3JhpgDVFOSubAziI_l_wn2wkpUptC8Kybi0/s1600/commune.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaLaao4YF5YVLkNNsEO0S-bnqUgcX4hTTxtIDWUjk03fvPLovJU_f8UMQtEzJx2lXNN3CLPrZhrZyFA1uNuf3Qgr5RWEaVSltEK-HMd70e3JhpgDVFOSubAziI_l_wn2wkpUptC8Kybi0/s400/commune.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; text-align: -webkit-left;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>Freja (Martha Sofie Wallstrøm Hansen) in <i>The Commune.</i> </b></span></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Collective bargaining </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">By Ed Rampell<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I recently reviewed Rajko Grlić’s <i>The Constitution --</i> the gala screening
that launched the 12<sup>th</sup> annual South East European Film Festival -- writing that the Croatia-set movie<i> “</i>reminded
me of the joy of discovering those ‘foreign’ films by Luis Bunuel, Francois
Truffaut, Ingmar Bergman, Jean-Luc Godard, etc., at an arthouse that
transported us beyond Hollywood glitz and glamour to a more ‘sophisticated’ cinematic
view of the world beyond our shores.” I also felt this way after seeing Danish
director/co-writer Thomas Vinterberg’s Copenhagen-set <i>The Commune </i>(<i>Kollektivet</i>) -- although it’s not nearly as good or as much fun as the all-too-human film, <i>The Constitution</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Scandinavian cinema is a sub-set of the
foreign film phenomenon. On the one hand, you have the philosophical
introspection into the human condition of Bergman, his fellow Swede Victor <em><span style="font-style: normal;">Sjöström</span></em><em>
</em><em><span style="font-style: normal;">and Denmark-born </span></em>Carl Theodor
Dreyer, who confront the void and ask: “What’s it all about, anyway?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">On the other hand, you have Swedish
director <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0803672?ref_=tt_ov_dr"><span class="itemprop"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Vilgot Sjöman</span></span></a>’s 1967 <i>I Am Curious (Yellow)</i> with its nudity and depictions of sex acts. (The film’s sexplicit scenes led to a censorship battle that went all the way to
the United States Supreme Court.) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Vinterberg -- who, according to press notes,
lived in a Danish collective “from the age of 7 to 19” -- combines both of these
trends, the metaphysical and the overtly physical, in <i>The Commune</i>. Anna (Trine Dyrholm of Vinterberg’s shattering 1998 film, <i>The Celebration</i>) is a nationally
prominent newscaster married to architecture professor Erik (Ulrich Thomsen
reunites with his <i>The Celebration </i>co-star).
Perhaps because of her measure of fame Anna seeks to spice their all-too-conventional
life up by proposing they turn a large house Erik has just inherited into a
commune.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The feature, co-written by Tobias Lindholm,
does a poor job of conveying that, according to press notes, “experiment[ing]
with communal living… was all the rage in Scandinavia at the time.” Danish
audiences may be aware of this, but we Yankee Doodle Dandies are unlikely to
have a clue about this, so it seems that Anna is just pulling this idea out of
her derriere. <i>The Commune </i>also
does a poor job of communicating exactly what era this is -- American auds have
only a handful of references to Vietnam and Cambodia during Anna’s newscasts to
pin the time down to the mid- to late 1970s. As a period piece, in terms of
costuming, cars and the like, this movie fails to set a time and place and I
really didn’t grasp that this story was set in the 1970s until around halfway
through it. Perhaps this is second nature to Danes but if filmmakers want
overseas auds to buy tickets to their pictures, let alone understand them, some
exposition, if you please.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">In any case, Anna’s wish is granted by Erik -- and <i>The Commune </i>becomes a cautionary tale
about what one wishes for and when those whims come true. A motley crew of
communards is assembled -- sometimes this Copenhagen kibbutz seems full of
kibitzers. It includes members who can’t afford to pay their share of the rent, which is yet another of the film’s inconsistencies, as one of Erik’s
rationales for turning his big inherited home near a lake into a collective is
that this is the only way he can afford to live in what had been his childhood
home.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The Commune
</span></i><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">comments
on the strengths and weaknesses of communal life, which includes raising Erik
and Anna’s teenage daughter Freja, (Martha Sofie Wallstrom Hansen) and a sickly little boy. At its best, the commune
enables people to stick together and have a sense of solidarity, that they are
not confronting the slings and arrows of outrageous misfortune which life can
hurl at you all alone. From sharing meals to tragedy, collectivity can make
coping in Copenhagen easier, existence can be better when it’s done together.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">But even if communal experimentation was
all the rage in Scandinavia at the time, there is precious little musing upon
socialism as a way of life here, although leftwing politics may be referenced
here and there, and the communards do have periodic town hall-like meetings. To
be fair, <i>The Commune</i> also deals with the
theme of ownership and private property. But it is no socialist screed, unlike
Peter Watkins’ <i>La Commune (Paris,
1871)</i>, a 345-minute movie about the world’s first, if short-lived,
workers’ state. Swedish director Lukas Moodysson’s film, <i>Together</i>, which is also set in a 1970s Scandinavian collective, likewise
dealt more with the political implications inherent in this subject matter of
people choosing to reject capitalism and its bourgeois notions of individualism.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The adults go skinny dipping and along with
nudity, there are lots of sex scenes. Ultimately, the commune is consumed by
romantic entanglements that are pitted against the entire collective
enterprise. So in the end <i>The Commune </i>is
much more about sexuality and love than collective life and is overall
apolitical. Vinterberg, who presumably has mixed feelings about his communal
upbringing, does a decent job directing his ensemble. All of the actors acquit
themselves well, notably Thomsen as the contradictory, temperamental Erik. </span><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Dyrholm, who comes to rue getting what she wished for (and some may
interpret the movie as saying she got her comeuppance), won the Silver Bear for
Best Actress at the 2016 Berlin International Film Festival. </span><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">It’s also a delight to see Julie Agnette
Vang, who portrays communard Mona, back on the screen. She was outstanding as
the parliamentarian Nete Buch in the superb Danish TV series, <i>Borgen</i>, about Denmark’s first female
prime minister and arguably one of the best television episodics ever. </span></div>
JEsther Entertainmenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08447548247220496790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889953747692054890.post-75659679732025845082017-05-07T17:45:00.001-07:002017-05-07T17:45:11.993-07:00LAAPFF 2017: LOS ANGELES ASIAN PACIFIC FILM FESTIVAL OVERVIEW<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWg6VAosPpsHZAMPzsbjTrm5EtsvgQD61TWLJhVMfT9T2IZJNVYDZ81k9388geGyfS8uShzlhdzhhstkZwykfdH47e1FmvwDn3EpqMJxoz1zMKtNJZEX9TDlh-WgP2oKmgj1Z6TNhWAbY/s1600/asianfestival.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWg6VAosPpsHZAMPzsbjTrm5EtsvgQD61TWLJhVMfT9T2IZJNVYDZ81k9388geGyfS8uShzlhdzhhstkZwykfdH47e1FmvwDn3EpqMJxoz1zMKtNJZEX9TDlh-WgP2oKmgj1Z6TNhWAbY/s400/asianfestival.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>A scene from <i>By the Time it Gets Dark. </i>Courtesy of LAAPFF.</b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Disorienting drama</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">By
Ed Rampell<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The
Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival focuses on features, shorts and
documentaries from and about Asia and the Pacific Islands. The films screened
during LAAPFF in L.A. from April 27-May 4 and in Orange County from May 5-11 are
all shot on location in Asia and Oceania and/or depict characters of and/or
were made by talents of Asian and Pacific Islander ancestry, such as <i>Mele Murals</i>,<i> </i>a documentary about Hawaiian street artists. As such, LAAPFF
provides cineastes with an invaluable window into the movies and societies of
Asia and Polynesia, and of individuals from those ethnic groups living in
continental North America. Here are a few of this year's entries. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b><i>By the Time It Gets Dark: </i></b>Thai
writer/director Anocha Suwichakornpong’s <i>By
the Time It Gets Dark </i>(<i>Dao Khanong</i>)<i> </i>is an artsy rumination on post
traumatic stress disorder, filmmaking, the role of writers, past and present
day Thailand and Buddha knows what else. In its intricate, obtuse structure it
reminded me of those early French New Wave movies with nonlinear film forms
about memory and more by Alain Resnais, such as <i>Hiroshima, Mon Amour </i>and <i>Last
Year at Marienbad</i>. And Suwichakornpong’s follow-up to <i>Mundane History</i>, which won a Tiger Award at the International Film
Festival Rotterdam, is every bit as perplexing, mystifying and indecipherable
to most filmgoers as Resnais’ formalistic pictures and Nouveau Roman author <span class="st">Alain Robbe-Grillet</span>’s complex <i>Marienbad </i>screenplay were to many 1950s/1960s viewers.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Moving
back and forth in time and the minds of <i>By the Time It Gets </i><i>Dark’s
</i>characters, the feature appears to open with the Thammasat University
massacre of 1976, when rightwing paramilitary and government forces butchered
student protesters (the number of casualties is disputed but by the official
count, at least 46 pupils were murdered for thought “crimes” including
protesting the return to Thailand of a military strongman and mocking the crown
prince). This despicable slaughter at Bangkok was to Thailand what, say, the
Kent and Jackson State killings of student dissenters was to Americans.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So
far, so good for lovers of political cinema -- I thought we were in for a Thai
film along the lines of, say, Costa-Gavras’ 1982 <i>Missing</i>, about Generalissimo Pinochet’s bloody coup that overthrew
Chilean President Salvador Allende in 1973 (three years before the Thammasat
University slayings). After the troubling curtain raiser, a middle aged female writer
named Taew (Rassami Paoluengton), a former student activist who had witnessed
the campus carnage in the 1970s, travels to the countryside in contemporary
Thailand to meet with a much younger female filmmaker, Ann (Visra Vichit-Vadakan). She is, for some undisclosed reason, compelled to
tell Taew’s story.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This
has the makings of a first rate political thriller, but for whatever reasons, alas,
that’s not the movie Suwichakornpong goes on to tell. In a fragmented way <i>By the Time It Gets Dark </i>flashes back and forth, from past
to present, character to character, and along the way, it probably leaves most
viewers behind in the, well, dark. It turns out that -- just as the opening
scene of shirtless students lying face down on
the floor of what seems to be a classroom, guarded by rifle-wielding soldiers and/or
paramilitaries, is actually mise-en-sc<span class="st">è</span>ne for a movie
being shot about the student massacre -- little, if anything, is as it appears
to be in this complex film.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Further
complicating matters is actress<em><span style="font-style: normal;"> Atchara Suwan, a plain-looking
young woman who appears in several different roles, from a waitress near the
villa where the posher Taew and Ann are staying to one of Thailand’s many monks
performing errands at a monastery. In the guise of the aforesaid server, the
apparently simpler Suwan gives Taew and Ann advice that, perhaps, </span></em>Suwichakornpong
might have listened to: Since the story being told in Ann’s proposed film is
actually <em><span style="font-style: normal;">Taew’s tale, she, and not the young cineaste, should write the script.<o:p></o:p></span></em></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But
Suwichakornpong doesn’t heed these sage if simple words of wisdom and her 105
minute film careens all over the place, from character to character like an experimental movie. There is, for some inexplicable
reason, even a clip from Georges M<em><span style="font-style: normal;">éliè</span></em>s’ 1902 classic sci
fi short, <i>A Trip to the Moon, </i>and <i>By the Time It Gets </i><i>Dark’s</i> grand finale is also somewhat
reminiscent of Stanley Kubrick’s cinematic pyrotechnics towards the end of
1968’s <i>2001: A Space Odyssey</i>.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">What
is Suwichakornpong getting at in her stylish hodgepodge of imagery? How
difficult it is to render past traumas as art in the present day? Or perhaps
the political themes inherent in her material remain murky and are never
allowed to reach fruition because this might displease her funders that include
Qatar, which like Thailand is a hereditary monarchy? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Having
said all this, being an adventurous filmgoer, I’m glad I saw the West Coast
Premiere of <i>By the Time It Gets Dark, </i>even if it was largely incomprehensible to me and I couldn’t make heads or
tails out of its tales. Perhaps this is because of cultural differences
(although, for what it’s worth, I’ve traveled to Thailand three times) or I
just might not be smart enough to figure out what this eclectic picture means.
Be that as it may, Suwichakornpong is an emerging talent cinephiles should keep
their eyes on -- although she might want to expand her expressive prowess to be
able to better communicate her meanings to broader audiences, including this
dolt and dullard, who didn’t get <i>By the Time It Gets Dark</i>,
yet liked it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b><i>Wexford Plaza: </i></b>Also
created by a female auteur, Joyce Wong’s quirky <i>Wexford Plaza </i>is far easier to understand, although stylistically,
like Akira Kurosawa’s <i>Rashomon </i>and
more recently the Showtime series, <i>The Affair</i>,
the same or similar events are told from the different points of view of
characters taking part in the unfolding stories. In terms of content, <i>Wexford</i> has a vibe similar to Kevin
Smith’s 1994 low budge cult classic, <i>Clerks</i>, about menial workers in low status jobs living dead end lives in
’burby New Jersey,<i> </i>in that <i>Wexford’s</i> titular mall located in
suburban Toronto is where key characters “work” as slacker security guards.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">One
of the protagonists is Betty, an overweight, lonely woman full of
yearning who turns 20 during the course of the movie. As the randy Betty, Reid
Asselstine steals the show and her disarming performance is the best thing
about this often charming indie. <i> </i> <i> </i></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Betty
is more or less sexually harassed by her male security “colleagues” but she has
the hots for Danny (Darrel Gamotin), who sidesteps her sexting and sexual
advances because, unbeknownst to Betty, he is romantically involved with Celine
(Ellie Posadas). Danny starts out as a bartender up to his neck in debt, and
he’s one of those people who can’t face up to and cope with reality. He’s
perpetually in over his head, and when I saw this flick at its L.A. premiere thought
that given Betty’s hankering for him <i>Wexford
</i>might have veered in another direction.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Be
that as it may, Danny and Celine’s characters, like the thespians who depict
them, are of Filipino ancestry. Yet this has little if any bearing on this
Canadian film, although one might think having characters whose family origins
are in the tropics but now live in the Great White North might have been
commented upon. Perhaps Canadians are less ethnic conscious and sensitive than
their racially troubled neighbors to the south? Likewise, although <i>Wexford’s</i> writer-director is of Asian
ethnicity, this seems to have no bearing on the story and its depiction
whatsoever. Of course, artists must be free to pursue their individual visions,
regardless of ethnic origins, and shouldn’t be hemmed in my stereotypes and
typecasting. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Although
the fact that Wong is female -- like many of the other directors of this year’s
LAAPFF’s movies -- does make a difference. One could argue in the best sense of
the clich<span class="vmod">é</span> that <i>Wexford
Plaza</i> bears a woman’s touch. Never
heavy-handed, this affecting, truthful, simple (but not simplistic) film shows
that Asian-Canadian filmmaker Joyce Wong has a promising big screen future, and
I for one look forward to seeing her follow-ups.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></i></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b style="text-align: center;"><i>Who is Arthur Chu?: </i></b><span style="text-align: center;">This
90-minute multi-faceted documentary about the 11-time </span><i style="text-align: center;">Jeopardy! </i><span style="text-align: center;">champ who won almost $300,000 during his 2014 game show
winning streak operates on many levels. Overall, the L.A. premiere of this Arthur
Chu biopic revealed he’s the firstborn of a Taiwanese family that relocated to Yankee
Doodle Land in order to pursue the much-vaunted immigrants’ version of the
American Dream. As such, </span><i style="text-align: center;">Who is Arthur
Chu?</i><span style="text-align: center;"> works as a cultural case study of Asians living and growing up abroad
in a country where they are members of a distinct minority group. For instance,
according to the doc, when Arthur attended grade school in the USA he was the
only pupil of Chinese ancestry in his class, and he grew up feeling out of
place, if not like a total ludicrous misfit.</span></span></div>
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<span style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But
this film, co-directed by Chongqing, China-born, Vancouver-raised Yu Gu and Chicagoan
Scott Drucker, deals with much more, such as a father-son struggle between
Arthur and his demanding dad that Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev could have written
a novel about. Chu’s relationship with his Caucasian wife, Eliza, is also
depicted.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Beyond
family dramatics <i style="text-align: center;">Who is Arthur Chu?</i><span style="text-align: center;"> </span>also depicts the
Sturm und Drang<i> </i>engendered by the
sudden celebrity status thrust upon Arthur. The film reveals what happens when
“a nobody from nowheresville” becomes, thanks to national TV exposure on <i>Jeopardy!</i>, a proverbial overnight
sensation and how the unknown Arthur deals with his newfound fame (and fortune).
Of course, Arthur tries to capitalize on his unexpected prominence by writing
for outlets such as <i>The Huffington Post</i>
and, Chautauqua-style, he hits the speaking circuit, as well as gets a book
deal.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Much to Arthur's credit he is not merely cashing in, like so many celebs do (hey, Samuel L. Jackson, it’s none of your fucking business what’s in my wallet!), but
uses his newly minted cult status to boldly speak out on pressing issues of the
day, from the racial unrest in Ferguson after unarmed Michael Brown is shot to
death to “Gamer-gate.” From the get-go <i style="text-align: center;">Who is Arthur Chu?</i><span style="text-align: center;"> </span>shows how Arthur becomes the target of vicious online invective, trolled by
computerized cretins who, among other things, wish death upon his wife (who
suffers from the disorder fibromyalgia) and comes across as a perfectly nice
person. Arthur'ss confronting misogyny on a panel about sexism and video game
culture triggers even more outraged emails and tweets than did his unorthodox <i>Jeopardy! </i>tactics, which angered fans of
the game show who apparently have far too much time (and devices) on and in their
dubious hands.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In
addition, <i style="text-align: center;">Who is Arthur Chu?</i><span style="text-align: center;"> </span>goes into nerd culture -- not only by showing it but at one speaking engagement Arthur verbally defines
it. This was very on point because terms are often thrown around in public but
never actually defined. (Populism is a case in point -- but don’t get me
started!)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Unlike
<i>By the Time It Gets Dark</i>, this
nonfiction motion picture portrait goes back and forth in time in a clear,
coherent way, making skillful use of home movie footage, although some may feel
that Arthur’s main claim to fame is not dwelled on enough (which could be due,
perhaps, to copyright issues vis-à-vis <i>Jeopardy!</i>).
Be that as it may, while the Asian ethnicity of the Filipino characters in <i>Wexford Plaza</i> is not even commented
upon, Chu’s being an outspoken, outlandish individual who breaks stereotypical
notions of the passive “Asian male” seems to be very much at the core of this thought
provoking documentary. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></i></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjN_ZIYpgPc7Ud1YoQsWleqB7WVAom7wkW3yDdSXHbHEkPkHX_I1LE686WSWRsT_Th-y2M1EZbM84lia0heaY9og3pjb_qti09hEmax7N3NCLRPtccu26_17wv_SzlqLv1b89A32VYbFuM/s1600/asianfestival2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjN_ZIYpgPc7Ud1YoQsWleqB7WVAom7wkW3yDdSXHbHEkPkHX_I1LE686WSWRsT_Th-y2M1EZbM84lia0heaY9og3pjb_qti09hEmax7N3NCLRPtccu26_17wv_SzlqLv1b89A32VYbFuM/s400/asianfestival2.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b><i>Opening Night at LAAPFF 2017. Photo by: Florante Ibanez<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="background-color: white;">.</span></span></i></b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">For more information on the rest of the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival: <a href="http://festival.vconline.org/2017/schedule/">http://festival.vconline.org/2017/schedule/</a>.</span></i></div>
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JEsther Entertainmenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08447548247220496790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889953747692054890.post-12600400727467178082017-05-01T18:52:00.001-07:002017-05-01T18:52:35.669-07:00SEEFEST LA 2017: THE CONSTITUTION<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu4h8oFG7I8tYTU-JWAfZk7YaR1eBUtdEWmpBnKdhkly9fKV5Q752bTay7BaOYPE6Pp6zZYSiJEY_gnZuLq-O9te5QnJmW9IpxvoQQEC24UBY8mTxvD1bD4SWVZhq60zPFd8Rlsl2OB6Y/s1600/const.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu4h8oFG7I8tYTU-JWAfZk7YaR1eBUtdEWmpBnKdhkly9fKV5Q752bTay7BaOYPE6Pp6zZYSiJEY_gnZuLq-O9te5QnJmW9IpxvoQQEC24UBY8mTxvD1bD4SWVZhq60zPFd8Rlsl2OB6Y/s400/const.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>A scene from <i>The Constitution. </i></b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Lawst cause</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">By Ed Rampell</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The 12<sup>th</sup> annual South East
European Film Festival Los Angeles kicked off with a gala screening at the Writers Guild
Theater in Beverly Hills of writer-director Rajko Grlić’s <i>The Constitution</i>, a stellar must-see movie full of humor and
humanity that set the tone for this filmfest. I say that because sometimes cinefiles
“suffer” through specialty cinema (especially those bearing English subtitles),
but <i>The Constitution </i>reminded me of
the joy of discovering those “foreign” films by Luis Bunuel, Francois Truffaut,
Ingmar Bergman, Jean-Luc Godard, et al, at an arthouse that transported us
beyond Hollywood glitz and glamour to a more “sophisticated” cinematic view of
the world beyond our shores.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Much of <i>The
Constitution </i>is set in an apartment building in Zagreb, the capital and
largest city of Croatia, which had been part of Marshal Tito’s Yugoslavia until
that nation-state’s rather violent breakup in the 1990s. Zagreb was also a
world capital of animation, and all this is important subtext for fully
appreciating <i>The Constitution</i>. In it,
Grlić -- who was born 1947 in Zagreb, has been making films since the 1970s and
was nommed for Cannes’ Palme d’Or for 1978’s <i>Bravo Maestro --</i> explores homophobia, inter-ethnic tensions, animal
cruelty, class differences and police excessive use of force as a metaphor for
the collapse of Yugoslavia and its aftermath.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Two sets of four very different people live
in the same Zagreb apartment building: Protagonist Vjeko Kralj (Nebojša
Glogovac) is a nationally prominent,
influential academic, who cares for his aged father Hrvoje Kralj (longtime
Zagreb actor Bozidar Smiljanic), a veteran and rightwing Croatian nationalist.
Even as Vjeko is his caregiver the macho Hrvoje looks down on his
cross-dressing son (think Archie’s disdain for Meathead in TV’s <i>All in the Family </i>series). Through a
chain of events they come into close contact with neighbors Maja (Ksenija
Marinković) and Ante Samardžić (Dejan Aćimović). They are a married couple who
apparently haven’t received the word that they are middle aged and overweight,
as they cavort like twenty-somethings, which only enhances their charm.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Maja is a nurse who comes to assist with
Hrvoje’s care after a gruesome gay-bashing incident sidelines Vjeko. In
exchange she asks the professor to help Ante pass a police exam, which is how Grlić
rather cleverly works in the new, tolerant, multi-cultural eponymous
constitutional rights. How many movies can you think of where entire passages
from a constitution form part of the dialogue? But this is done with wit in an
engaging way that grows naturally, organically out of the plot. In doing so, <i>The Constitution </i>provides a film frame
for the framed rules of Croatia, accomplishing this in an highly amusing way.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Like the complex father-son interactions,
the relationship between the professor and his police pupil is
interesting and fraught with strain. At the core of their clash is something very
Yugoslavian -- Vjeko is a Croat, while
Ante is Serbian. Even though he married a Croat and fought on Croatia’s side
during the war for independence, he is still, if surreptitiously, a Serb and,
worse still, a member of the police force, so therefore frowned down upon by
the gay Croatian as an “oppressor.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">What’s great about <i>The Constitution</i> is that none of the characters are one-dimensional
celluloid stereotypes -- they are fully fleshed out individuals with the
complexity, nobility and folly that is all part of Homo sapiens’ condition. This may be truer of
Ante than any other character -- the large officer of the law is also a biker
with a soft spot for dogs who longs to raise a child with Maja, whom Ante is a
loving husband to. The macho Ante also goes on a manhunt to find and bust those
who committed a hate crime against Vjeko. People are complicated! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
Constitution </span></i><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">is
one of the most human films I’ve seen in a long time. Grlić seems to be asking
the same question poor Rodney King pondered 25 years ago, hard on the heels of
another civil war -- the L.A. urban rebellion -- which was, “People, can we get
along?” Grlić’s answer to that simple if profoundly philosophical question is
no utopian fantasy, as it ends on a note that will make animal rights advocates hopping mad. All doesn’t end well -- Grlić, who now lives in Ohio
where he is an Eminent Scholar in Film at Ohio University, Athens, seems to be
saying that even in a constitutional democracy that respects human and ethnic
rights, life may be better, but still isn’t perfect.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
Constitution</span></i><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">,
which has won awards at several filmfests, including Santa Barbara’s,<i> </i>is in the tradition of the great Belgrade-born
director Dusan Makavejev. It richly deserves to be theatrically released in
this country. If promoted properly it would likely find an American audience
(are you listening, Gregory Laemmle?). In the meantime, for cineastes, this is
one of the great things about living in the world capital of moviedom -- even if
Hollywood studios don’t distribute pictures like <i>The Constitution, </i>film fetes like SEEFest do.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The brainchild of Festival Director/Founder
Sarajevo-born Vera Mijojlić, SEEFest presents panels, parties and screens features,
shorts, animation and documentaries from countries such as Romania, Hungary,
Bulgaria, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Moldova, Montenegro, Turkey, Kosovo,
Georgia, Macedonia, Albania, Bosnia Herzegovina, Belgium, Greece, Azerbaijan
and Iran, providing them with a coveted toehold in La-La-Land. And giving
Angelenos a rare opportunity to peep through a window to the East.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The South East European Film Festival takes
place in L.A. through May 4. For more information: <a href="http://seefilmla.org/">http://seefilmla.org/</a>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
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JEsther Entertainmenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08447548247220496790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889953747692054890.post-72989583183915606682017-04-14T17:20:00.001-07:002017-04-14T17:20:42.767-07:00FILM REVIEW: ALL THIS PANIC<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh42HFrnMY66GNmn9MisOvRXs4_HtNUa-aIkikE5Jfpg4BdyaWCmbv3f7buxFN5v-BYqkSrL3BgQS73hPsxnikGo-1zfFkfWTfJjEbHIWSbpCulMWw5KApE3b0szWOmRJbZpBiPCMm-ucI/s1600/panic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh42HFrnMY66GNmn9MisOvRXs4_HtNUa-aIkikE5Jfpg4BdyaWCmbv3f7buxFN5v-BYqkSrL3BgQS73hPsxnikGo-1zfFkfWTfJjEbHIWSbpCulMWw5KApE3b0szWOmRJbZpBiPCMm-ucI/s400/panic.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>A scene from <i>All this Panic. </i></b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Tips from teens</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">By Don Simpson</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Jenny Gage’s poignant <i>All
This Panic</i> follows seven girls over a three-year period as they come of age
in New York City, studiously observing them as they clumsily navigate the
panic-riddled period between girlhood and adulthood. Beautifully lensed by Tom
Betterton, <i>All This Panic</i> functions
as a purely observational documentary, reducing the directorial voice to Gage’s
choices in which moments to show onscreen. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Gage is keen to uncover the emotional truth of the girls’
situations. The girls appear to trust Gage and for the most part they seem
unaware of the camera, suggesting that <i>All
This Panic</i> captures some semblance of the truth. Perhaps this is due to
their generational comfort with the perpetual documentation of their lives via
smart phones and social media. And just like the content they share on social
media, we can only assume there was probably some element of preparation and
planning involved behind the scenes.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Conveyed in a poetic string of vignettes, <i>All This Panic</i> avoids the traditional
narrative form. This format allows Gage the freedom to bounce from one scene to
the next, all the while divulging the emotional depth and complexity of
seemingly simple moments in her subjects’ lives. With the intimacy of a video
diary, Gage allows the teenagers the time and space to tell their own stories
in their own voices, thus providing the audience with a unique insight into
what the girls are thinking during this formative juncture of their lives. Each
of the girls -- Lena, Ginger, Sage, Olivia, Ivy, Dusty, and Delia -- has a
different story to tell, as <i>All This
Panic</i> contemplates how they grapple with sexuality, financial hardships, family
drama, social cliques, politics, fashion, dating, and their futures. Gage also
reveals how external factors inform the girls’ life choices and their personal
growth. But like all teenagers, they are not perfect. They make mistakes, but
continue onward nonetheless.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Most importantly, Gage empowers the girls, dismissing any
superficial notions that they’re naïve or clueless by highlighting their
thoughtfulness, introspectiveness, and intelligence. Taking the attention away
from their bodies, Gage expresses precisely why we should want to hear what teenage
girls are thinking.</span></div>
JEsther Entertainmenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08447548247220496790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889953747692054890.post-72194153402733649642017-04-05T19:22:00.000-07:002017-04-05T19:22:12.812-07:00STAGE REVIEW: THE COMPLETE HISTORY OF COMEDY [ABRIDGED]<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicgXAdyRoS5_O-JJGQonRPrQ1y0srye6oB7-tz8lkosUXGdBTxDQFiWuBrenq2z-6c-q03hEaz7lUpGCYOYjComphe_CVbzdAM4ZSMHIZoFzybarEi2pr0zSAUVJD2Y7uVER_EzYsvJd8/s1600/Comedy-Press+Photo+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="338" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicgXAdyRoS5_O-JJGQonRPrQ1y0srye6oB7-tz8lkosUXGdBTxDQFiWuBrenq2z-6c-q03hEaz7lUpGCYOYjComphe_CVbzdAM4ZSMHIZoFzybarEi2pr0zSAUVJD2Y7uVER_EzYsvJd8/s400/Comedy-Press+Photo+1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>A scene from <i>The Complete History of Comedy [Abridged].</i></b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div align="left" class="MsoTitle">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Look back in laughter </span></div>
<div class="MsoSubtitle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoSubtitle">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">By Ed Rampell<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoSubtitle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoSubtitle">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">As its title suggests, <i>The Complete History of Comedy [Abridged] </i>is an incomplete
chronicle of what makes people laugh and those jesters who deliberately induce
said laughter, from ancient times until today. Starting with a riff on Johnny
Carson’s <i>Tonight Show </i>monologues
telling theatergoers to shut their cells, where the exits are, etc., there is
an endless stream of skits, standup, slapstick, one-liners, cream pies, double
entendres, in-jokes, topical jibes at those Three-plus Stooges in the Trump
regime and much more, as the jaunty Zehra Fazal, Marc Ginsburg and Mark
Jacobson bring the annals of amusement to life.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoSubtitle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoSubtitle">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">The youthful threesome depict cross-dressing Cro-Magnons;
discourse upon commedia dell’arte (which is also currently portrayed in The
Actors’ Gang’s <i>Harlequino</i>); present
Honest Abe as a standup comic working the crowd (which had the actors asking
ticket buyers if it was “too soon?” to joke about Lincoln); mock critics (which
caused this reviewer to think, in the immortal words of Curly Howard: “I resemble
that remark! Why, I oughtta!!!...”); praise Lucille Ball; lampoon Anton Chekhov with
a clever switcheroo; dis unfunny wannabe funnymen like Adam Sandler; hold forth
on Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytical theories of humor (“paging Dr. Fine!”); and
much, much (too much!) more.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoSubtitle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoSubtitle">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">My favorite moments included Muppet-like Supreme
Court justices poking fun at “puppet governments” and performing a parody medley
of the Supremes’ song, combined with a<i> Sound
of Music</i> spoof as the judges sing: “What do you do with a problem like
Scalia?” (Hey, that’s very witty, making fun of NPR’s judicious judiciary
reporter Nina “Totenbug”, you court jesters you!) I also enjoyed a clever
Keystone Kops/Charlie Chaplin scene that imaginatively used special effects to
recreate onstage silent screen comedies. And as a bigly John Steinbeck fan I
was amused by the performers’ take on Tom Joad’s farewell speech in <i>The Grapes of Wrath</i>, and there’s good
satire involving ventriloquist (and Candice’s dad) Edgar Bergen and Senator Joe
(instead of dummy Charlie) McCarthy. You wily wags (and coyotes)! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoSubtitle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoSubtitle">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Unfortunately, playwrights Reed Martin and Austin
Tichenor have stuffed so much into this two-act comic cornucopia that some of
the puns, physical comedy, endless bodily functions jokes, pratfalls, et al,
fall flat. In particular, the dramatists (or, rather, the “comedists”?) have
conjured up a conceit which inspires Fazal, Ginsburg and Jacobson to embark on
a sort of comedic quest and in doing so, review the record of humanity’s humor.
This involves Sun Tzu’s <i>The Art of War</i>,
but the breathless play belabored the point so much that it seemed quite
contrived and quickly became very tiresome. (Well, they can’t all be winners!)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoSubtitle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoSubtitle">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Having said that, Fazal, Ginsburg and Jacobson’s
comedic characters do make some salient, poignant points about the importance a
sense of humor plays in our lives. In doing so, they philosophically indicate
how the Arab-Israeli conflict could be resolved (and but of course, what would
comedy be without Jews in it? Oy!).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoSubtitle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoSubtitle">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">This titanic trio of tittering kibitzers have big
futures as actors and comedians ahead of them (as long as they don’t trip over
banana peels strewn across their career paths). Director Jerry Kernion keeps
the hectic, frantic and frequently funny pace moving along. </span></div>
<div class="MsoSubtitle">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoSubtitle">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoSubtitle">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The
Complete History of Comedy [Abridged]</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> <i>runs through April 23
at the </i></span><i><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Falcon Theatre</span><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">, 4252 Riverside Dr., Burbank, CA 91505.
For more info: 818-955-8101; <a href="http://www.falcontheatre.com/">www.FalconTheatre.com</a>.</span></i></div>
JEsther Entertainmenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08447548247220496790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889953747692054890.post-65519971697254056212017-04-04T14:20:00.003-07:002017-04-04T14:20:31.843-07:00STAGE REVIEW: ABSINTHE<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvffVT_c8rPJYfTM2Dwiz_EMCO9RnM3sIjHjOyHbpxvEuyFXw33l__o0iyTa53T_tgaNlSBPdJfpKoE24oPyq4fGipU41TXRRZ2phbdnOgHaqducecBppk5RCHxKahyXpWPq5k62eaAo8/s1600/absinthe.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvffVT_c8rPJYfTM2Dwiz_EMCO9RnM3sIjHjOyHbpxvEuyFXw33l__o0iyTa53T_tgaNlSBPdJfpKoE24oPyq4fGipU41TXRRZ2phbdnOgHaqducecBppk5RCHxKahyXpWPq5k62eaAo8/s400/absinthe.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>A scene from <i>Absinthe. </i>Photo Credit: Absinthe L.A.</b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Spreading out and up</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">By Ed Rampell</span></div>
<div class="MsoSubtitle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoSubtitle">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Imported from Las Vegas’ Caesars
Palace, <i>Absinthe</i> is a heady mélange of a variety of entertainment forms
geared for adult (although, not necessarily grown up) audiences. This naughty, bawdy
brew blends
circus acrobatics, <i>commedia dell'arte</i>, standup comedy, vaudeville,
cabaret, the Rat Pack, cross-dressing, striptease, (taped) rock music and live
singing. Imagine the Flying Wallendas meet Purple Owsley meet Cirque du Soleil
meet burlesque -- and you’ll get some idea of this mind-blowing one-act
extravaganza.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoSubtitle">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It’s all presided over by an over-the-top, sleazy,
Trump-like ringmaster called The Gazillionaire, who, along with a kooky female
sidekick, introduce the acts, interact with the audience and reel off a series of
quips and jokes that range from the racial (if not outright racist) to the
sexist, often in poor taste. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoSubtitle">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In skintight costumes and/or scantily clad, these
youthful, buff athletes and hoofers, such as the Silicone Valley Girls
and the Flying Farquhars, will cause you, to paraphrase Hamlet, marvel that
“Man delights me; and
Woman.” In carefully choreographed
numbers they contort themselves in ways that twist logic, muscularly hold each
other aloft with agile aplomb and take your breath away with peerless panache.
The masked Girl in the Bubble, garbed in a revealing black
leather S&M outfit likely to win Mistress Tara’s approval, somehow manages
to, literally, be swallowed up inside of a bubble.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoSubtitle">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Much of the derring-do performed by these young
physical specimens are strongly sexually suggestive, ranging from the vulgar to
the exquisitely erotic, performed in midair with great beauty by what we are
then told by The Gazillionaire are a brother and sister act. Lesbianism appears
to be acted out from on high, swinging to and fro, and all this acrobatic
sensuality lends new meaning to the term “swingers.” In a striptease act a
nearly naked nubile pneumatic nymph strips down to a g-string and tassels on her
ample bosom, which she swings with sheer abandon.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoSubtitle">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">While many routines may leave you gasping,
pondering how human beings could do that, one number, lampooning Cirque
du Soleil, depicts over-the-hill, overweight performers who “clumsily” (on
purpose) attempt to essay an athletic erotic act, much to the amusement of the
audience which overall seemed to enjoy this 90-minute concoction of psychedelic
acrobatics gone bonkers, that takes viewers on a ride from the slime to the
sublime.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoSubtitle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoSubtitle">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The spectacle ends with The Gazillionaire
apparently randomly selecting a middle aged female and two young males from the
spectators gathered beneath the big top to compete in a contest that involves intimate
touching by total strangers (which made me wonder whether these bystanders were
actually plants?), with the prizes being drinks on the house.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoSubtitle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoSubtitle">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Absinthe, of course, is a distilled highly
alcoholic spirit with a greenish color that has long been a favorite in the
demimonde of artistes. If memory serves correctly, Paul Gauguin was a big
absinthe drinker and<i> </i>the Post-Impressionist cleverly attached bottles to
a line on a rod, so that around 1903, before refrigeration let alone air con, he
could keep his absinthe cold in the well beneath the window of his two-level studio
hut in the tropical heat of Atuona, Hiva Oa, in the Marquesas Islands. When,
presumably, the painter needed more inspiration, he’d reel up the cooled
absinthe from his well for a swig.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoSubtitle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoSubtitle">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Absinthe is believed to have dangerous propensities
and some ticket buyers may likewise find that <i>Absinthe </i>the show is, as Hamlet put it, “a
foul and pestilent congregation of vapours.” But
other theatergoers are likely to be delighted by what they behold beneath “this most excellent canopy."</span></div>
<div class="MsoSubtitle">
<i style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoSubtitle">
<i style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoSubtitle">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Absinthe </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-style: italic;">runs
through May 28 at the </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-style: italic;">Spiegelworld Tent at L.A. LIVE’s Event Deck, 1005 Chick
Hearn Ct., Los Angeles CA 90015. </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-style: italic;">For more info: </span><a href="http://dcpublicity.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=f9f80ab7f0256358374b8676e&id=02bcd2aa9f&e=43221c61c8" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-style: italic;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #2baadf;">AbsintheLA.com</span></a><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-style: italic;">.</span></div>
JEsther Entertainmenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08447548247220496790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889953747692054890.post-21280003763767834172017-03-29T19:34:00.000-07:002017-03-29T19:34:04.103-07:00STAGE REVIEW: BUILDING THE WALL<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghVJqJccaTFlxzn9hLc03SRPTkGF0LjQO485R3D_yIt6qreSAMEn1ScX2Mot4sULokx-41gq8cuW9yj4p_ZemekSSlYdPqXLJbFFSFbLLIAQfLm-F7XaxVVeBgT7Uq1K41NPAXgGVZvZw/s1600/build1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghVJqJccaTFlxzn9hLc03SRPTkGF0LjQO485R3D_yIt6qreSAMEn1ScX2Mot4sULokx-41gq8cuW9yj4p_ZemekSSlYdPqXLJbFFSFbLLIAQfLm-F7XaxVVeBgT7Uq1K41NPAXgGVZvZw/s400/build1.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>Gloria (Judith Moreland) and Rick (Bo Foxworth) in <i>Building the Wall.</i></b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Guilt by disassociation </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">By Ed Rampell</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The response to Trump and his polices are flying
fast and furious from the creative community. Only two months into his
presidency and Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winning playwright Robert
Schenkkan’s <i>Building the Wall</i>
imagines Trump’s plans to “solve” the “problem” of the millions of undocumented
immigrants living in America.</span><br />
<div class="MsoSubtitle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoSubtitle">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The entire one act two-hander takes place in the
visiting room of a prison where Gloria (Judith Moreland), an African-American
history professor, has received hard-to-get permission to interview Rick (Bo Foxworth),
a Caucasian, tattooed inmate in an orange uniform. The play opens with lots of back and forth: will Rick discuss his crime and conviction?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoSubtitle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoSubtitle">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">After this tap dance goes on a bit too long they
finally get down to brass tacks and Rick tells his side of the story. As the veteran
unspools his tale, I thought that as a true Trump believer, Rick -- who worked
security for The Donald and met him during his campaign -- had gone postal and
gunned down “illegal” aliens during a shooting spree. </span></div>
<div class="MsoSubtitle">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoSubtitle">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But as Gloria
relentlessly presses the prisoner, something far more nefarious emerges.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoSubtitle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoSubtitle">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">When sweeping, widespread deportation plans are
frustrated by countries simply refusing to open up their borders, the Trump junta resorts to “Plan B.” Enter Rick, who
ends up playing a key role in a secretive “final solution” to the immigrant
question of Hitlerian proportion. With references to gas chambers and ovens,
Rick participates in the mass extermination of undocumented people who have
entered and stayed in the good ol’ USA without their prerequisite papers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoSubtitle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoSubtitle">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Throughout the 90-minute or so show performed
without intermission Rick comes across not as a heartless mass murderer but as
a conflicted man caught in a conundrum.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoSubtitle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoSubtitle">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The acting is excellent throughout as Gloria
alternately cajoles, consoles, confronts, condemns, scolds, etc., Rick in her
relentless drive for the truth that reveals as much about this academic as it
does the jumpsuit-ed inmate. What I thought was the ultimate, inevitable outburst
and explosion never happens -- Rick simmers, rather than blows his top.
Nevertheless, well-directed by Michael Michetti, the thesps acquit themselves admirably
in a format that is dramatically difficult.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoSubtitle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoSubtitle">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In essence, Schenkkan’s script has two people talking
to each other in a room. They are committing one of drama’s biggest sins:
“Telling” instead of “showing” what happens. This is a problem similar to that
of <i>Citizenfour</i>, wherein Edward
Snowden sits in a hotel room telling a few reporters and answering their
questions about NSA’s overreaching mass surveillance throughout most of the
documentary. No matter how compelling a saga may be, in visual and performing
arts, it’s far more dramatic and gripping for the story to be shown, not just
told. I noticed some audience members had trouble following this verbal
tour-de-force.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoSubtitle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoSubtitle">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Another problem is that Gloria does not merely play
the role of an objective historian -- or journalist, for that matter. She is
very partisan, and her questions cover well trod ground about Hillary Clinton
and so on that seem calculated to generate conflict.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoSubtitle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoSubtitle">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Be that as it may, Schenkkan’s is a brave voice
warning us about what may occur in the near future, just as Sinclair Lewis’ <i>It Can’t Happen Here </i>anti-fascist novel
adapted as a play in 1936. Among other things, the play alludes to a
Reichstag Fire type of trumped-up calamity that enables the Trump junta to
suspend constitutional rights and liberties, which really is something we
should all be on the lookout for in the months to come.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoSubtitle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoSubtitle">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">John Nobori’s sound design occasionally makes a nod
to the prison beyond the visiting room. The set is sparse but Se Oh’s design is
clever. What may be a one-way window is also a mirror, and in addition to the
two characters, members of the audience are glimpsed in reflections -- perhaps suggesting/forcing audience members to face her or his own complicity in these times. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoSubtitle">
<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Building the Wall <i>through May 21 at the Fountain Theatre, 5060
Fountain Ave., Los Angeles CA 90029. For more info: 323-663-1525 or </i><u style="font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.fountaintheatre.com/">www.FountainTheatre.com</a></u><i>.</i></span></div>
JEsther Entertainmenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08447548247220496790noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889953747692054890.post-76989936760180939562017-03-28T19:20:00.003-07:002017-03-29T16:08:57.987-07:00STAGE REVIEW: THE TOWN HALL AFFAIR<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjy8IpSJo3l24MTfGgPzEp7mbYZJd_3qY094wpauK4Sr1o27W_lly0ArFCES4M4reJhTfbF8P5krM3jhaU5fyPqkb7qIzxIgmZ0CeHICnnwEZ1LCzftKdLwxXGig4jhxWGeQY8DUjopx7c/s1600/townhall.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjy8IpSJo3l24MTfGgPzEp7mbYZJd_3qY094wpauK4Sr1o27W_lly0ArFCES4M4reJhTfbF8P5krM3jhaU5fyPqkb7qIzxIgmZ0CeHICnnwEZ1LCzftKdLwxXGig4jhxWGeQY8DUjopx7c/s400/townhall.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b>A scene from <i>Town Hall Affair.</i></b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">A paradigm snatch</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">By
Ed Rampell<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>The Town Hall Affair</i> is to a large extent a docu-play based on a 1971 panel discussion and/or debate at Manhattan’s Town Hall, with various
luminaries holding forth on the hot topic of Women’s Liberation. D. A.
Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus actually filmed the roiling, rollicking brouhaha,
releasing it eight years later as <i>Town Bloody Hall</i>, which is interwoven
into the tapestry of Wooster Group’s free form live interpretation of the
actual event with the documentary plus clips from the 1970 indie film, <i>Maidstone</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Pennebaker -- known for
his fly on the wall technique, he remains <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">one of America’s
preeminent documentarians, with works like 1967’s <i>Bob Dylan: Don’t Look Back</i>,
1968’s <i>Monterey Pop </i>and 1993’s Clinton campaign doc <i>The War Room --</i> was a cinematographer for the
experimental <i>Maidstone</i>, directed by Norman Mailer. The connection
between this novelist/journalist and the Town Hall forum is that Mailer
moderated that live event. Other participants included feminist authors
Germaine Greer (Maura Tierney), Diana Trilling (Greg Mehrten) and
the Village Voice’s Jill Johnston (Kate Valk).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">As the film -- which is
from time-to-time projected onto a screen while the live play unfolds, with the
doc’s dialogue sometimes heard instead of the stage actors -- and action on the
boards indicates, a big problem with the forum as it took place (and is
reenacted onstage and witnessed onscreen) is that the immoderate Mailer
“moderated” the discussion. He did so in a heavy-handed way which I suspect
feminists would disdain as typically -- even stereotypically -- male chauvinistic.
For example, seeking to control much of the conversation, the male moderator
raises a concept or topic, but then refuses to let the female panelists to
reply for at least “45 minutes.” He also spews redbaiting, anti-communist lines
about feminism seeking to impose itself on men like a sort of “left
totalitarianism,” and the like.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">In real life Mailer seems
to have been a contradiction -- a genuinely great novelist and intellectual, but
also a boorish buffoon who loved playing the role of a celebrity, enjoying the
attention, wealth and presumably sexual favors that came along with that. As
such, he was arguably not a very serious choice (although a commercial one) to
preside over a debate on the extremely important issue of female emancipation,
in and out of the bedroom. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Clips from <i>Maidstone </i>projected
onto another screen show Mailer engaged in a verbal and physical fight with an
actor I suppose is meant to be Rip Torn. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">If I remember correctly,
that screen tussle got out of control (there was a method to their acting
madness!) and it spills over onstage into <i>The Town Hall Affair</i>. Shepherd
faces off against a shirtless Ari Fliakos as Mailer, but what complicates (and
perhaps confuses matters) is that in other scenes Shepherd also portrays
Mailer, and he is the only character played by two actors. And, as said, Mailer
is also seen at length on two different screens in two different films.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I guess in doing that the
playwright -- whoever he/she/they are, as no one receives that credit per se in
the playbill -- was implying that Mailer was multi-faceted -- dualistic, if not
schizophrenic. And as such, perhaps symptomatic of males -- particularly those
who were regarded as “liberal” - of bourgeois America, circa 1971.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">In my opinion the
character who comes off the best is <i>Female Eunuch </i>author Greer, who
refuses to allow Mailer to castrate or cow her. At one point Mailer rather
stupidly refers to Germaine as “British,” but Johnston corrects the record,
pointing out that Greer is actually Australian: Mailer couldn’t tell his ass
from his antipodes. It was genuinely a
joy to see Tierney perform live, especially as I had actually met the
Melbourne-born Greer in the 1970s.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">(While working at JFK Airport delivering
duty free items onboard flights before they took off, I spotted Greer in a
terminal and said, “The only way women will truly be liberated is through
socialism.” Not one to gladly suffer one-ups-MAN-ship or be out-lefted (to coin
a term), the renowned feminist shot back: “I’ve been saying that for years!”)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The wife of culture
critic Lionel Trilling, Diana Trilling was an author and renowned New York
Intellectual, and I have no idea why a man was cast to play her, except,
perhaps, as a way to cash in on the current trans-gender wave. Having said
that, Mehrten is quite good in the role.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">What can one say about London-born
Jill Johnston? This OUTspoken lesbian author and Village Voice columnist seems
to be high on some substance during the proceedings, at least as glimpsed
onscreen and depicted by Valk, who strikes the proper note of whimsy. Well,
this was the early ’70s, the Yippies still held influence and Jill comes across
as a gay merry prankster, who hogs the microphone (sometimes babbling
incoherently, much to Mailer’s consternation, as he is more used to eloquent
babbling), and her Town Hall appearance culminates with Jill performing a same
sex act onstage. Johnston’s shenanigans actually make Mailer look better in
comparison. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">National
Organization for Women president Jacqueline Ceballos also participated in the
1971 debate but I don’t think she’s actually depicted in the stage version. The
three and a half-hour long Town Hall showdown (the play is about 70 minutes) was produced by Shirley Broughton as part of the “Theater for
Ideas” series. I actually think it’s a great idea to have public forums to
debate the issues of the day, but selection of venues and participants should
be done better than it was carried out 46 years ago, and there must be public
involvement in a way that does not empower audience members to derail,
dominate, etc., the undertaking. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>The Town Hall Affair </i>may have grown out of the “Theater for Ideas”
series, but with its use of extensive clips from two films and some offbeat
casting, this dramatization transcends the “Theatre of Fact” format, wherein
playwrights such as Donald Freed use preexisting transcripts from trials and
other actual events, as in Freed’s <i>The
White Crow: Eichmann in Jerusalem</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">In
doing so, Wooster Group may be creating a new live dramatic form -- but this is
to be expected from that theatrical troupe I so fondly remember from New York
days. I’ll never forget watching their rendition of <i>Mother Courage </i>at their Performing Garage on the eponymous Wooster
Street, when they raised said garage’s door and literally took Bertolt Brecht’s
immortal drama out into, literally, the streets of Greenwich Village. <i>The Town Hall Affair </i>is an adventurous
theater experience in this tradition and highly recommended for serious
theatergoers and others interested in women’s liberation, lesbianism, Mailer
and public intellectuals publicly dueling over the issues of the day. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The Town Hall Affair</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> <i>runs through April at REDCAT, </i></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-style: italic;">631 West 2nd
Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012. For more info: </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-style: italic;">213-237-2800; visit </span><a href="http://www.redcat.org/" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-style: italic;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #4caad8;">www.redcat.org</span></a><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-style: italic;">; </span><strong style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-style: italic;"><a href="http://thewoostergroup.org/?utm_source=PRESS+LIST&utm_campaign=0deb3f554b-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_02_28&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_63bfc691fc-0deb3f554b-&mc_cid=0deb3f554b&mc_eid=%5bUNIQID%5d" target="_blank"><span style="color: #4caad8; font-weight: normal;">thewoostergroup.org</span></a>.</strong></div>
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JEsther Entertainmenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08447548247220496790noreply@blogger.com1