Half-baked ramblings from a playwright and armchair thinker.
Friday, December 18, 2009
Fighting With Schedule, Fighting On Stage
I'm currently trying to organize my schedule for my last few days here in the city before I leave for New Hampshire for the holidays on Tuesday, and things are definitely coming down to the wire. There are a number of shows I will regrettably not be able to see, about which I'm very bummed.
I was able to catch the very fun Craven Monkey and the Mountain of Fury from Piper McKenzie Productions last night at the Brick Theater's Fight Fest, which features one fight sequence with Becky Byers as a dragonfly that is itself worth the price of admission alone.
And it also features monkeys. Monkeys fucking. And monkeys fighting.
Seriously, what are you going to do, not see that? Come on.
Tomorrow night, I plan on seeing this from Nosedive Central vet Stephanie Cox-Williams:
The Zombie Project: The Story of Icarus Phoenix
Written, Directed and Fight Directed by Stephanie Cox-Williams
A glimpse of what will hopefully be a full-length production in the near future. The Zombie Project: The Story of Icarus Phoenix details the beginning of the zombie attacks and the creation of someone who could be the savior of the world. A girl has to decide if she gives up or if she will use her self-taught skills and wits to overcome the situation into which she's been thrown.
It's going up for one night only as a double-bill with new pieces from Youngblood tomorrow night at the Brick. Get your tickets here.
For fun, before sending out my Top 10 List of the year (which I'll be either just before or after New Year's), I'm compiling my Top 50 Films of the Decade, which I'm hoping to post next week in two parts. I just need to get the order right (as if it's really that crucial which movie is in position #32 versus #33). Because I figure what the Internet needs now is yet another list of some sort.
On one hand, A Single Man is a much better and more sensitive film than you'd expect from a fashion designer. On the other, it's excruciatingly obvious from every frame that this is a film from a fashion designer. Every shot in this scene looks like a print straight out of Vogue. Even the extras could be models. Hell, they probably are.
In fashion mogul Tom Ford's directorial debut, based on the novel by Charles Isherwood, George Falconer is a gay British literature professor teaching at UCLA in the early 1960s and grieving over the sudden death of his lover, who died in a car accident. His best friend, Charley, another British expatriate, is doing her best to cheer him up and, in turn, use George to help mitigate her own loneliness. And meanwhile, one of George's students, Kenny, is trying to make a connection with the sad yet handsome professor.
Colin Firth plays George in a quiet, understated and impeccably groomed performance, as does Julianne Moore with her character, Charley. Nicholas Hoult as the new young potential love interest and Matthew Goode as the newly lost love interest are fine, although their characters aren't very developed. Kenny is little more than a cipher who's shown up to possibly pull George out of his suicidal funk and we only see George's recently departed Jim through rose-colored flashbacks, when the two of them languidly enjoy each others' company in picture-perfect poses or meet cute at a local dive bar.
Still, theses scenes between George and Jim and George and Kenny have a lovely muted and restrained quality to them, as does George’s brief (and tangential) scene where he meets a Spanish Jimmy Dean clone outside a liquor store.
Eduard Grau's cinematography is astounding, with the images switching from monochromes to vibrant colors, depending on George's mood. Sometimes this is distracting, sometimes it's arresting, but at all times it's beautiful.
All throughout the movie characters comment on how terrible Colin Firth looks, when in fact he looks like, well, an airbrushed cover model for GQ. True, the voiceover narration in the opening points out that he uses his meticulously organized wardrobe as a sort of costume to cover up the shell of a person he now is, but still, never has grief and suicidal tendencies looked so...pretty.
Ladies of Viral Singled Out in Patrick Lee's Year in Review
Congratulations are in order to Amy Lynn Stewart and Kid Sistois for being on Patrick Lee's Year in Review list of the best performances of 2009, for their performances in Mac Rogers' Viral! Huzzah! Very well deserved.
Well, gang. The fourth Saturday Night Saloon of the third season is upon us, going up tonight at the Vampire Cowboys Battle Ranch, featuring six awesome pieces of episodic theatre, including the penultimate episode of Entrenched.
Nosedive Productions
in association with
The Vampire Cowboys Theatre Company
presents
Entrenched
A five-part WWI/Time Travel serial play by James Comtois
Two men fight in the trenches.
One has died twice.
The other is being held in a POW camp in 2009.
Directed by Pete Boisvert
Featuring Peter Brown - Rebecca Comtois - Bryan Enk Mac Rogers - Ben VandenBoom - Merlyn Wolf
As part of the Vampire Cowboys' Saturday Night Saloon.
Also featuring
LET'S NINJA SCIENCE RANGER TEAM GET! by Dustin Chinn (Member of the Ma-Yi Writers Lab) directed by Qui Nguyen
MOTHER SACRAMENTO by Mac Rogers (Universal Robots; Viral; Hail Satan) directed by Jordana Williams
HACK by Crystal Skillman (The Telling Trilogy; 4 Edges; Birthday) directed by John Hurley
JACK O'HANRAHAN AND THE TROUBULATION OF DOOM by Brent Cox (The Dog & Pony Show) directed by Padraic Lillis and Courtney Wetzel
LADY CRYPTOZOOLOGIST: SEASON 2 written & directed by Jeff Lewonczyk (Babylon, Babylon; Macbeth without Words)
Nosedive Productions One of nytheatre.com's People of the Year!
That's right. Nosedive Productions has been named of nytheatre.com's "People of the Year" for 2009. We here at Nosedive Central are pretty happy 'bout this. And, judging from this list, we're in some very good company indeed.
Congratulations to all the other people of the year. Now, should we all get together and play some big ole' game of celebratory theatrical grab-ass? I think so.
Although I haven't seen many of the movies on this list (and neither have you, so don't act all superior), I have seen a few of them, including the movie on his #1 spot.
(At this point, I'll actually let you read the list before I put in my cent and a half on the entries I've seen. Go on. I'll wait.)
Back? Good.
I'm very much with Clay on his assessment of Chan-wook Park’s Thirst (it kinda takes forever to get going, but once it does, the final act makes it all worth the wait). In September, I wrote in my summer movie roundup that the movie has "some stunning imagery...and although it's a bit slow going and not particularly scary, it is a haunting and meditative take on the vampire mythology."
You guys have already read my assessment of the retro-awesomeness that was The House of the Devil, so I won't repeat myself. The link to my review (and my use of the made up compound adjective "retro-awesomeness") should suffice.
Now for the number one movie on his list. Deadgirl.
As I told Clay when I read the list, I'm very glad he posted this, since this is a very unnerving movie that (understandably) got very little attention from the critics. Basically, it's about two high school losers finding a naked and apparently undead girl chained up in the basement of an abandoned mental institute and using her as their personal sex slave. I'm not kidding.
I was contemplating writing about this movie after having seen it, but was very much on the fence about it and ultimately decided against it. It's not because I found this film about too disturbing (although it is very disturbing) or that it crosses some ethical line and is morally repugnant (it isn't, although it certainly appears that way; it's really about how weak people find ways to dominate others even weaker than them). It's because I found its two protagonists too vile and unlikable to care about in any meaningful way. The more dominant and sociopathic of the two friends, J.T., is just a straight-up psycho, and the character you're theoretically supposed to be rooting for, Rickie, is maddeningly, insufferably spineless.
Clay tells me that's one of the things he found so unnerving about Deadgirl: the two main characters are listless teenagers with no moral code and have no morally redeeming values whatsoever. This is a very valid point: it's obvious that the zombie girl isn't the monster in this film. (I still wish I didn't spend the movie wanting to punch the supposed hero of the piece in the area where his junk should be the whole time. Seriously, Rickie, grow a pair!)
And in his honorable mention section, I agree: if you consider yourself a science fiction fan and often complain about the dearth of good sci-fi films out there that don't insult the audience's intelligence and haven't seen Moon or District 9, quit your bitching and go see them immediately.
As for the rest of the movies on Clay's list, I'm Netflixing the fuckers.
Except for Antichrist. I think I'm done with von Trier.
There are times I really do enjoy watching Nicolas Cage get unhinged on screen. Yes, there are times his over-the-top acting is grossly inappropriate. Other times (cough, The Wicker Man, cough) it's delightfully inappropriate. Then there are times Cage's nutty acting is delightfully appropriate. Don't believe me? Well, watch these series of ads Cage did for a Japanese slot machine:
If you're not won over, then I have no use for you.
Japanese slot machines aside, Werner Herzog's Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans is a movie in which Cage gets delightfully, wonderfully unhinged, and the movie gets delightfully, wonderfully unhinged along with him. Or maybe it's the other way around. Either way, this may be one of the best - and most appropriate - performances Cage has given in well over a decade. He and Herzog make a very good manic team.
For those of you that don't know this by now, no, this is not a remake of Abel Ferrara's 1992 film, Bad Lieutenant, starring Harvey Keitel. Herzog has admitted he hasn't even seen Ferrara's movie. The films share one thing and one thing only in common: that their protagonists are corrupt police lieutenants addicted to drugs. And that's it. What happened was both films share the same producer (Edward R. Pressman), who insisted Herzog slap the Bad Lieutenant moniker on his film.
In Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, Cage plays Terence McDonagh, a New Orleans cop who saves a prison inmate from drowning in the wake of Hurrican Katrina (the holding cell's being flooded). The good news is that his bravery and heroism has earned him a promotion to lieutenant. The bad news is said heroism has also earned him permanent back pains, which triggers an addiction to painkillers. Then coke. Then...well, whatever he can score from the evidence room and his escort girlfriend (Eva Mendes).
The main plot is painfully standard: something about Lt. Terence McDonagh (Cage) investigating a multiple homicide with a drug kingpin (Alvin "Xzibit" Joiner) as the prime suspect. But if I'm hazy about the details of the plot, I think it's because the movie isn't interested in the plot.
This is what happens when you have a police procedural directed by and starring slightly unhinged people who have no interest in police procedurals make a police procedural. Ironically, by dismissing the tropes typically found in the cop drama, Herzog and Cage have breathed new life into this moribund genre.
Herzog and Cage seem more interested in portraying someone go off the rails in a way we haven't seen portrayed in movies. Sporting a Richard III-esque hump to indicate his constant back problems that lead to his drug addictions, Cage's titular bad lieutenant behaves naughtily and erratically, flipping out at dismissive pharmacists, slapping imaginary (well, actually, real) iguanas, smacking around old ladies (after, of course, hiding behind her door whilst shaving) and watching dead men's souls breakdance.
Okay, I should probably back up. What's going on with the iguanas hanging out on the coffee table that only Cage can see? And, for that matter, what's going on with the shot following an alligator wandering along the freeway? And now that I think of it, doesn't the film open with the camera following a snake slithering through flood waters? Okay, I get it: we're watching a nature study on the reptiles that wandered freely around New Orleans after the levees broke. Oh, Herzog, you!
I should also mention some of the fine supporting acting going on in this movie, including Val Kilmer as Cage's low-key partner, Mendes as Cage's sympathetic girlfriend (they're both junkies and hey, misery loves company), Brad Dourif as an oddly reasonable bookie, Tom Bower as Cage's recovering alcoholic father, Jennifer Coolidge as Bower's nutty non-recovering alcoholic girlfriend and Xzibit as Big Fate.
Although I won't reveal the ending here, it does clue everyone in who hasn't yet caught on that Herzog is indeed messing with us, and has zero interest in the main cop drama. In fact, the ending reveals that Herzog hasn't been interested in making a drama, but a very manic and oddball comedy about someone becoming an unhinged reptilian beast.
Well, folks. My week has been spent only being semi-productive. I guess when you're unemployed, when you finish just a couple of items on your meager daily to-do list, you feel like you've accomplished something.
In between updating my resume, trying (with sporadic success) on adhering to a regular sleeping schedule, working on the final episode of Entrenched, and gearing up for rehearsals for the penultimate episode of said serial, I've been slowly writing my assessments of the films and movies I've seen lately.
That they've been slow-going is my fault: I've noticed that the best reviews (at least, the easiest reviews to write) are the ones that are written as soon after the viewing experience. The longer I wait, the more difficult it is to finish them, since a.) the emotional experience begins to fade (though fortunately not the actual plot details, just my enjoyment or disgust with the work becomes more diluted with time) and b.) the delay makes me feel compelled to make up for it with a longer, more impressive review. I can't be a week gone from the viewing experience to come back with a 400-word review; it's got to be 900 words now. This, of course, makes me choke, and I delay another week, which in turn makes me feel I need to now make it a 1500-word review.
Ah, yes. These are the neuroses that fuel and paralyze me, dear readers.
Anyway, while I've been delaying in posting some entries on the few movies and plays I've seen in the past month or so, I actually stumbled across this entry from Mr. George Hunka, who I think hits the nail on the head when he writes:
"...[C]ritical acumen is not unlike any knife blade; with each use the edge grows imperceptibly duller somehow, and you don't realize this until, a year down the line, you want to cut a clean slice of tomato and end up with a seedy, pulpy mush. You've used both the laudatory superlatives and the snarky takedowns, then you're faced with something much better or much worse than you've seen before. And what then? Well, then the honest reviewer is obliged perhaps to withdraw from the arena for a while, to rewhet the knife or direct his attention elsewhere for a time."
I, too, have found that writing reviews can actually become more difficult with experience. The challenge to avoid repeating oneself becomes increasingly greater with the more reviews one writes. Seriously, how much enthusiasm, disdain or indifference can one person maintain over the days, weeks, months and years?
Or, to put it another way, how many times can I write some variation of, "This was a charming show I had a great deal of fun with," before I convulse with despair from the realization that I've finally become a bore to myself?
Anyway, next week I hope to post these freakin things and move on with my (currently stagnant) life. Have a good weekend, folks. I'll catch you all later.
What the Rest of 2009 is Looking Like For Yours Truly
Well, folks. I hope you all had a lovely and plentiful Thanksgiving, as I did up in New Hampshire. I'm currently writing this on Sunday night while still in that great Granite State I was raised in and am planning on traveling back via train to my fair city on Monday. Since I'm jobless, I realize I can stay in New England longer, but I've got forms to fill out and serial plays to get ready for.
Plus, I miss my couch. Seriously, folks. That thing doesn't lie on itself, y'know.
Any ole fuckeroo, as you no doubt may have noticed, this blog (as well as its author) tends to get pretty directionless towards the tail end of the year, so I'm hoping the remaining posts for 2009, though haphazard and aimless, are still worth your while.
My current plan is to write up a few reviews and assessments on some plays and films I've seen recently, as well as to plug the fourth episode of Entrenched, which goes up at the Vampire Cowboys Battle Ranch as part of the penultimate Saturday Night Saloon for the third season.
In terms of showgoing, it's looking as though the pieces in Fight Fest will most likely be the remaining shows I see for the rest of the year (subject, of course, to change). UPDATE: I just got back and am in my apartment in Brooklyn, and realize I typed the previous sentence in haste. There are actually quite a number of shows outside of Fight Fest that I'm looking forward to seeing, such as the Production Company's show, Meg's New Friend, for example.
Which means that, once I'm done seeing the shows at Fight Fest, I'll tally and unveil my Top 10 list for the year.
Before we know it, it'll be 2010.
Which means it'll be Nosedive's 10th Season.
Seriously.
And that, of course, means a whole slew of new aggressive and shameless self-promotional plugs.
