Hunger Games Trailer

On Sunday night at the MTV Video Music Awards, MTV spent a significant amount of time promoting the fact that they were going to be offering the first look at the new trailer for the much anticipated Hunger Games movie.  This movie has been getting a tremendous amount of buzz.  First the announcement that there would be a movie, then the bated breath as each new casting choice was announced (followed by debates over whether they are appropriate choices for the roles).  Personally, I think most of the casting is perfect.  I was a little skeptical about the three main characters, but after seeing them in costume I'm definitely on board. The supporting cast is really great though.  Woody Harrelson as Haymitch is amazing!  Donald Sutherland as President Snow?  Inspired!  Elizabeth Banks as Effie Trinket.  Love it!

And now, we finally get the trailer.  I loved the books and am totally psyched for the movie, so when they announced there was finally a trailer I got super excited to see a sneak peak at the wonder that would be the Hunger Games.  So here it is:

I personally think it's a huge let down as far as trailers go.  Entertainment Weekly offered more with their photo spread of the cast in costume.  All this is is Jennifer Lawrence as protagonist Katniss Everdeen running through the forest.  Where are the boys and hints to the love triangle?  Where is footage from Panem and the over-the-top looks of people from the capital?  I know they are still in the midst of shooting and it's possible not a lot exists yet, but there has to be more than what they've offered.  Maybe this is all a ploy by Lionsgate to get us talking about the film and wanting to see more.  The movie is still about 7 months away so they have to keep us wanting more till then.  Nevertheless, I hope they have something much better to offer us soon!

What do you think about it? I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Wilfred

Image source

Has anyone been watching FX’s new show Wilfred?  I've been watching since it premiered back in June and I have to say it’s probably one of the stranger shows on television right now.  I wouldn’t quite say I love it, but I do find it funny and I am definitely intrigued by it.

Admittedly, I am a sucker for good marketing and anything Australian, so when I saw the hilarious promos for it on FX this past Spring, I knew I was going to give it at least a try.  Wilfred stars Elijah Wood as Ryan, a depressed (and depressing) guy who can’t seem to do anything right, he’s even failed at his multiple attempts at suicide.  However, everything seems to change for him when he meets Wilfred, his neighbor’s dog.  Here’s where things begin to get weird.  The entire world sees Wilfred as a loving, albeit mischievous, dog.  However, Ryan sees a grown man wearing a dog costume (played by the creator and original Australian Wilfred, Jason Gann).  Having quit his job as a lawyer and refusing to accept gainful employment, Ryan agrees to dog-sit for Wilfred whenever Jenna (Fiona Gubelmann) needs him to.  I wouldn’t say that the two become fast friends by any means. 

Wilfred is a walking, talking id.  He has no self-control and acts on nearly all of his whims and fancies.  He’s over-sexualized, constantly having sex with “Bear,”  a giant stuffed bear he keeps in Ryan’s basement, always getting high, and often steals and loots other people’s belongings.  More specifically, he is the id to Ryan’s super ego.  Unable to stand up to anyone, be it his overbearing and nasty sister or any of the other characters that he encounters, Ryan goes through life doing as others tell him until he breaks.  Through the most unconventional means, Wilfred encourages him to stand up for himself, often in a way that wreaks havoc. 

Wilfred reminds me a lot of Fight Club.  If you haven’t seen it (which would be ridiculous) stop reading now, because I’m going to spoil the ending.  In Fight Club you spend the entire movie watching and cringing as Tyler Durden causes trouble for Edward Norton’s unnamed character.  Durden starts fights, fires and creates general chaos in the life of “The Narrator.”  Not until the end of the movie do we find out that Durden and Norton’s character are one in the same and that Durden was the embodiment of all of the desires and actions that Norton’s character could not act out on his own.  Ultimately, it was Norton’s character who was doing all of these acts and Durden was the embodiment of his id, to which he attributed the behaviors. 

Similar to Fight Club, Wilfred acts out everything that Ryan cannot or will not.  However, given that he is a dog, it’s unlikely that Wilfred is actually doing many of the things for which he is blamed.  For instance, in the pilot episode, after Ryan and Wilfred loot the house of a guy who lives down the block, Wilfred returns and places Ryan’s wallet at the scene of the crime, implicating Ryan in the crime and which will ultimately incur the wrath of the victimized neighbor.  Ryan blames Wilfred for doing that, but would be impossible to have actually happened.  In this scenario, and others similar to it, it’s likely Ryan is self-sabotaging without even knowing it and using the rascally dog as the scapegoat to him acting out on his impulses, something which he had for so long suppressed.  In this sense, Ryan becomes his own worst enemy.  Like Freud said in his theory on the Return of the Repressed (See my Black Swan review for more), as Ryan has for so long repressed his impulses they are now returning in the form of a monster, one which might ultimately lead to Ryan’s destruction.

Wilfred is definitely unusual and it does keep me coming back week after week.  Is meant to be a comedy (which means I am probably reading too much into this) and while is often funny, doesn’t always hit the mark.  However, when looked at through the psychology of a tortured young man who is trying to break free of his shell it becomes perhaps a little more meaningful than the creators intended it to be.   

Media Consolidation Today

Last year Comcast purchased NBC Universal for around $6.5 billion.
Google bought Morotola a few days ago for $12.5 billion.
Time Warner Cable says it will buy Insight Communications for $3 billion.

It seems to me that almost every day there is some grand announcement that another media company is being bought or sold. Therefore, the number of companies (and ultimately individuals) that hold the control over information and technology is shrinking.

Media consolidation has been a huge topic of conversation since media as an industry was invented. Think back to the newsreels of the 1930s and 1940s. They were owned by movie studios which had their own financial best interests in mind and therefore controlled the news audiences would see in their theaters. Despite being broken up by anti-trust laws, it seems as though we are reverting back to our old ways. BIG money gets spent buying and selling these companies, and it really becomes an issue as these companies are now charged with disseminating the news to consumers and educating them about their world while also answering to their corporate overlords.

Has the recent Murdoch/News Corp scandal taught us nothing? We now see firsthand the dangers that arise when one company, or one man, has too much power over controlling media. How are we allowing this to go on? When the Comcast/NBCU merger was being discussed in congress and the FCC, Senator Al Franken was one of the most vocal voices against the merger. A former actor and comedian who has worked directly in the television industry recognized just how much power one organization will hold over The People, and he didn’t like it one bit. To make matters more complicated, Comcast is also an internet provider which can control the speed at which people receive their news in the medium most are accessing it. This potentially gives them control to decide which neighborhoods, and thus demographics and populations, get their news faster and more efficiently that others.

Now, with Google and Motorola you thrown in technology and the Internet into the mix, people have less and less options of where to go to get what they want. When all this information is being provided by companies looking out for their best interest who wins? Definitely not the consumer. Now we get our news from the same parent company that brings us the Kardashian family. I work in this industry, (and, full disclosure, get my paycheck from NBCUniversal) and I know that yes, they are two separate departments run by very different teams with what likely adds up to opposite skill sets. However, that being said they still answer to the same bosses who have one giant financial spreadsheet.

The ironic fact that the people own the airwaves. Yup, they’re ours. That’s why if you bypass a cable box and plug your TV into the white coaxial cable that’s coming out of the wall in your apartment you’ll get all the broadcast channels.  It’s why the government gave out voucher for those set-top boxes that caused such a stir when television went digital a few years back. We have the right to free television. Ideally, the news that comes through on those sets should also be free from opinion, editorial commentary and corporate interests. Company party lines and News Directors will swear they keep the news objective, but sometimes with all this money changing hands and powerful executives putting it on the line for success, it’s sometimes hard to believe that will always be true.

Furthermore, it might be time to reconsider rating and selling ad time during the news the same way it is done for entertainment television.  This became evident to me as I wanted the news coverage of Hurricane Irene.  At least in New York, every network was trying to outdo the next and this was mainly accomplished by fear-mongering.  There's a fine line between providing necessary information to the public to ensure that they stay safe and take the precautions needed to heed the storm warnings and creating a sensationalist environment where people feel they need to stay tuned into the news channels or else they might miss some catastrophe.

I was disgusted watching the coverage of Hurricane Irene.  To start with, they send reporters out to the most dangerous areas that have had forced evacuations imposed on them.  One reporter on NY1 was driving around a Zone A area on Saturday night showing us just how empty the neighborhood was actually said, "I hope no police men are watching this."  Another reporter in Virginia was at a loss for words trying to comprehend how people could walking around and driving in the streets despite the repeated warnings.  How about they start setting the examples?  How can they expect people to take the necessary precautions when they don't set the standard?

Getting blown in the strong winds and sprayed by water does not actually give audiences new information.  Rather it continues this cycle of sensationalism in the news that is not actually helpful.  But, people watch that nonsense and it gets ratings, and ultimately benefits the aforementioned bottom line, so news stations won't stop doing it.  Of course there were a lot of ravaged neighborhoods and vital information did need to be shared, but the news far surpassed any sort of helpful information.  Furthermore, once the storm had passed, newscasters continued to implore with viewers that they should remain tuned in because something bad might be coming that they need to know about.  This is came across as a last ditch effort to keep viewers tuned in while knowing that there was not anything essential that they would need to be covering.  A stand must be made against this kind of "news reporting."  It's insulting to be pandered to like that and it's an embarrassment to journalism.

So what can we do about this?  Well, it's our responsibility as informed and engaged consumers to be aware of what's going on and to be vocal about our concerns.  When it comes to corporate interests, if mergers are being discussed that don't seem to overstepping their boundaries, write to your congresspeople.  Don't let big business get in the way of your human interests.  If there are stories in the news that aren't being covered with the objectivity that they deserve, write to your news station or newspaper.  And finally, do not stand for the kind of sensationalist journalism that has been coming our way for the sake of ratings.  Don't get sucked into the insanity that these so-called journalists are imposing on our airwaves and insist on accurate, informative and helpful news-sharing by your local, national and cable stations.

USA Network's Character Project: Short Films

For the latest phase of USA Network’s Character Project, the cable net partnered with seven filmmakers and created seven short films which tackle issues of difference.  As it says on its site, “Character Project is an ongoing artistic initiative committed to celebrating America's characters – the interesting, dazzling, and distinctive people, from all walks of life, who make this country extraordinary.”  The network’s “Characters Welcome” brand has traditionally referred to the characters in the narratives of its shows, but now the lens has been turned around and focuses on the inhabitants of our great country.  Flowing seamlessly into its pro-social initiative, Characters Unite, these films explore how, rather than pretending we’re all alike, recognize people with difference actually make our world more colorful and more interesting. 

These short films tell interesting stories about characters – some real, some fictitious, and all interesting.  What's most interesting about them is how relatable they are all.  Covering a variety of topics and types of people, there is something in all of them that anyone can relate to.  To top it all off, they are charming and definitely worth watching.  One resounding theme that echoes through many of these eight films is that of mentorship.  Each protagonist has someone who believes in them and refuses to give up on them.  Having someone believing in you is a powerful force, and the only way that many of us are able to succeed in many of the things we pursue.

All of the films can be found on the Character Project website.

Monster Slayer

Monster Slayer, directed by Caskey Ebeling, is about Ben, a 30-something year old who has battled mental illness since he was a kid.  He hates taking his medication because, as he says, it makes him feel like he’s not himself and it makes him feel more alone when he does take it. 

The title of the film is Monster Slayer and the real question the film asks is, who is the monster?  Is the monster his girlfriend, Sue, who actually says she feels like a monster for imploring him to take his meds?  Is it the actual monsters and other creations he sees when he’s off his meds?  Or is the monster Ben himself when he is on the medication as he has admitted to feeling like a different person and almost literally slays the monsters when he does take the medicine?  In any event, this film, in a brief 13 minutes, has captured a realistic portrait of someone struggling with the realities of mental illness.  It blurs the lines between reality and fantasy and allows viewers a quick glimpse into what the affliction might cause.

Duck

Duck, directed by Jakob Daschek, follows Manuel, a young boy who suffers from Haphenephobia, a morbid dislike or fear of being touched.  Isolated as it is, he often tunes out the audible world by putting on his headphones so he won’t be bothered by others, and so others won’t bother him.  His phobia has caused problems at school and puts a massive amount of stress on his mother who doesn’t know how else to help him.  One day she gets a suggestion from a friend to bring him to a gym where he can learn boxing, maybe this kind of human contact will break him from his fear.  Here, he also learns that was considered his weakness – an inability to be touched by others – turns out to be a great strength – a gift of avoiding jabs.  What could have been his downfall the coach refers to as a gift.  It’s his interaction with the coach there, someone who doesn’t give up on him despite what might be a handicap, that ultimately brings Manny to live up to his potential and achieve greatness.  It also teaches us to approach our lives with as many perspectives as possible.  What one might consider a flaw in ones personality could turn out to be his or her greatest asset.

Fish 

Directed by R.J. Cutler, Fish is a short documentary about celebrity chef, Jon Shook.  He narrates much of the film, first talking about what inspired him to become a cook and what why he wanted to go to culinary school.  He currently owns two restaurants and talks about he focuses his business on sustainability and using as much part of the animal as possible.  He gets as many fresh, organic products as possible.

On the particular day that the filmmakers follow him, Jon and self-proclaimed wingman friend, Zach go out on the open seas with Jon go fishing for fresh fish for the restaurant.  They bring their spoils back to the restaurant and try to make a main dish out of what they’ve caught, but to no avail.  His frustration with the trial and error process with how to prepare one particular fish becomes overbearing at one point, but he doesn’t give up on what he needs to do and knows that he has a whole team of people working for him who also needs to see that he doesn’t give up.  Ultimately his passion for what he does and an insistence on excellence shines through.

Perfect

Perfect, directed by Amie Steir, is about Anne on the day of her wedding.  As she prepares for her big night, all the people she encounters tell her how excited they are for Sara, Anne’s sister to return home.  To everyone else, Sara is perfect in every way.  She’s beautiful, smart, successful, and as expected, at the wedding she totally steals the spotlight from her sister.  At the wedding she also proves to be a crude sloppy drunk who overshares, insults wedding goers, and makes a general fool out of herself to the entire town.  However, in the end it turns out that this is Sara’s gift to Anne, to make her feel perfect on her perfect day.

The Dude 

The aim of The Dude, a documentary directed by Jeff Feuerzeig, is to introduce the world to the dude behind “The Dude” of The Big Lebowski.  The real “dude” is a Jeffrey Dowd, originally a Seattle based hippie, former draft dodger and antiwar activist.  After getting out of jail for his activism he became involved in the independent film industry, and was a part of the original Sundance Film Institute team working to nurture independent voices and storytellers. 

The bulk of the film is about Jeff’s time at the 2011 Lebowski Fest in Tampa, Florida.  Here he meets his fans and enjoys a celebrity status.  People flock to him, call him an achiever, hero and tell him how they’ve been inspired by him.  The one thing I've noticed is missing from all the praise is an explanation why he’s a hero.  Is it because of the activism he did when he was younger and continues to do till today?  It doesn’t really seem like anyone knows about that past, they just know about his status as the real life Dude.  Maybe it doesn’t matter why he’s a hero to many and the really important thing is that these fans have found someone they can look up to for whatever reasons are important to them.

The Fickle

The Fickle, directed by Bryan Poyser, is filmed in one continuous shot  and shows one young woman as she re-experiences 12 past love affairs.  It’s told as a tale of her quest to find love and companionship.  Of the men she’s with, each has their own shortcomings and ultimately she has to decide which is the shortcoming she can accept or overlook be happy with the otherwise sweet and endearing man she has found.

Wyckoff Place

Wyckoff Place, directed by Lauri Faggioni, is a documentary about the children who live in an apartment building in Brooklyn, NY.  These children, all seemingly between the ages of 8 and 12, are of different races, religions and backgrounds who live together through circumstances outside of their control.  They fight, they play, they joke around.  In sum, they’re kids.  They don’t know the different roles society places them in, so for now they are divided along the lines that kids should be – boys vs girls.  Some of them are immigrants and they talk about those experiences and what it was like in their home countries.  Some are born in the US, while others come from Sudan, Puerto Rico, and Yemen.  They do their homework together, play in the streets and coexist like children should.  Their politics and their differences not only go unmentioned, but are completely irrelevant.  When asked directly about the other kids, one girl’s only complaint is that they’re too loud.  When one boy is asked what it’s going to be like when the kids grow up and move away he says it’s going to be hard because he’ll be “without a friend, and you can’t do anything without a friend.”  There is an honest innocence about these children and there’s an implicit sadness that the film garners as viewers know that unfortunately, ultimately prejudice will pervade and the sweet friendships they share will likely be lost.  One can only hope, however, that these kids do in fact represent a future where we can live in harmony and see past the differences of our neighbors and recognize the quality person that lives within.

Cinema Verite

Back in April, HBO aired Cinema Verite, one of their latest movies.  Based on the original hit 1973 PBS series An American Family, which followed the Santa Barbara-based Loud family over seven months in a fly-on-the wall documentary style television special.  Family was the first iteration of what we now call “Reality TV” and introduced the world to a new concept of entertainment.  The HBO movie supposes to be a behind-the-scenes look at what happened outside of the scope of the cameras and shows what the American public did not see.  Cinema Verite interweaves original footage with images from this version gives the film a bit more authenticity.  It creates a seamless relationship with the original family and this new version of them.

It’s an interesting time for a movie like Cinema Verite to be made.  As a society we have enough retrospection to be able to look at it as a historical text, yet remains extremely relevant today with reality TV feeling like it’s reached a fever pitch.  Watching Cinema Verite with the knowledge of where reality TV has come today is particularly interesting. It’s like witnessing the moment a car skids off the road and you know what is going to happen next.  Without An American Family we might not have had The Real World, The Kardashians, or any other “reality” programming.

In Cinema Verite, it was called a brave new experiment when Mrs. Pat Loud (played by Diane Lane) asks why anyone would want to participate in this intrusive over-exposure.  Producer Craig Gilbert (James Gandolfini) says he is looking for “an ideal American family” to observe.  He wanted to show what the American family was really like to counteract the idealism that was being depicted on The Brady Bunch and The Partridge Family and the like.  This was a time where people’s public images were important and conflict and inanity was not and there was real concern over how the family would be portrayed.  America had recently emerged from the tumultuous 1960s where the notion of the idyllic, nuclear, suburban family was thrown into question by rebellious youth who saw their parents’ lifestyles hypocritical and staid.  According to this film, Gilbert wanted to show the new American family that has emerged, interesting and volatile.  Moreover, he wanted to show the matriarch at the center is now a newly liberated female role model who shows limited similarities to the demure housewife of the 1950s.  Gilbert talks about how he wanted to make this documentary series to ensure that if aliens found a time capsule of our society in a thousand years, they wouldn’t only find films of The Partridge Family, something which, as he refers to, as depicting the complete antithesis of how we really live: “fumbling around in confusion.”  Pat Loud takes offense at this because she doesn’t want to give off the impression that they are struggling to make sense of their lives.  This is the new American family, one which admits to its imperfections, but doesn’t consider them a flaw.   

In its depiction of the origins of Family, Verite explores the Loud family’s initial hesitations of what the consequences would be should they allow cameras access to their lives.  It was made clear that there would be no payment offered to the Louds so the American audience watching the show would know they were getting honesty and with money being exchanged that honestly would be lacking.  That is quite a departure from the millions of dollars in payments, fees and endorsements today’s reality TV stars make. 

Further, Bill Loud (played by Tim Robbins) asks about what would be private, and there is general concern about what would remain between the family and what would be accessible to the public.  Right there, in that moment is the instant that the ideal of the reality Gilbert had been preaching ceases to be actual reality.  It illuminates the notion fact all television is produced, edited and shaped to fit a mold that would be interesting and intriguing to viewers at home.  Ultimately despite its intentions at honesty, this film goes to show just how unreal so-called reality television is.

The title of the movie, Cinema Verite comes from the style of filmmaking the documentarians sought to create.  They are quoted in the film as saying they were attracted to this project because it was truthful, and the chance to do something “pure.”  There was a real concern on the part of the filmmakers which dealt with their ethical responsibilities of entering people’s lives.  There were a number of conflicts throughout the movie where the producer and filmmakers butted heads over where the responsibility lay – was it to the family who deserved to be shown in a respectful manner or was it to the audience who deserved to be shown the truth of what really goes on inside a family’s life.  Of course, then, there is the question of “the truth.”  What is the truth when the cameras are rolling?  Is anyone’s behavior truly honest?  And even if it is, there is an inevitable editing process that occurs which undercuts any possible honesty on the part of the subjects.

When the fighting between Bill and Pat Loud is about to reach new heights, the filmmakers, Allen and Susan Raymond, stop filming and refuse to go on despite Gilbert’s insistence that the best stuff is now happening and should be caught on camera.  They refuse because, as they say, they have established a trust with the family care about them and don’t want to see them destroyed by his film.  Susan threatens to expose his filmmaking technique by telling the world how he oversteps all acceptable boundaries.  This highlights the almost existential conflict over what is honest and what is ethical.  Because for them to honor the trust established with the family and refuse to record all intimate and private moments they are breaking the trust with the audience to be honest storytellers.  This is continues to be a struggle filmmakers face today when making documentaries.  It’s unlikely, however, that there this is much of an issue in the bare-all, no boundaries of reality television.  Reality television today exists as an almost turf-war over who can make the most lewd show and who can embarrass the subjects the most on national television to be mocked by the entire country and the world, all for their 15 minutes of fame.

Of the family members who most easily adapted to the new intruder into his life was the flamboyant oldest son, Lance.  This was the case with the original and is also made clear in Verite.  One of the most charming sequences in the Family was when Lance took his mother to a drag show, and true to the original, this version also makes that the seminal moment in the film, solidifying Mrs. loud as the understanding mother and whose main goal is to support her children no matter what.  Further, it was an early moment in the movie when she learns just how her life is going to be changed by this series and that her every move will be judged by society, so she makes a choice.  Does she want to be considered the unsupportive mother or does she want to be the woman who encourages her son’s lewd and outlandish behavior.  Early on in the movie we see what becomes an overarching theme of the movie: the importance of crafting a televisual image.  When the cameras are turned on, nothing is objective and all has some meaning that can be made from it and Pat Loud learns that early on.

In a particularly interesting moment at the drag cabaret show, one of the performers, as part of her act, declares, “One must never let the public behind the scenes because then they will be disillusioned and then they will be angry with you for it is the illusion they love.”  Speaking both to the audience in her theater as well as breaking the fourth wall and speaking to the audience at home, she acknowledges the lasting effect of Family and foreshadows the ire that this production with elicit from viewers.

Ultimately, the most dramatic episode of this movie is Pat’s decision to divorce her husband.  In a meta-sense, this is the climactic scene of both An American Family as well as Cinema Verite.  When he set out to make the film, Gilbert didn’t know how things would turn out, but HBO does have the benefit of hindsight, so they were able to shape the narrative of the film to lead up to this dramatic crescendo. From the first few minutes of the movie, there is an almost constant allusion to Pat’s unhappiness with her husband’s constant traveling.  Further, Verite shows the development a close friendship between Pat and Craig Gilbert that, hints to possibly something more than a platonic relationship.  The whole movie builds to the moment when this supposedly ideal family breaks apart.  When the moment does come and Pat tells her children her intentions to leave their father, one of the daughters exclaims, “You can’t get divorced!  We’re the American family.”  In 1973 divorce was still taboo, while in 2011, divorce is unfortunately the hallmark of the All-American family.  This comment pulls the viewer out of the narrative to consider what it truly means to be “The American Family.”  Have our values changed, or has our over exposure to the inner-goings on of life just exposed us for what we really are?

A big question this movie brings to mind asks what role does television play in our daily lives?  Is it a recording of our lives or a reflection?  There’s no way to know whether they Louds would have gotten divorced had the cameras never been present in their lives.  Video cameras can heighten the pressure and drama of any event, so the Louds might have been victim of that.  The filmmakers spoke about achieving a truthful recording of the lives of the Loud family.  Is that even possible? What is the truth then? Does it become what you put in front of the camera even if it is dramatized?   Are there ethics about putting people’s lives on screen and showing their intimate moments?

Pat Loud tells Gilbert that she will tell Bill she’s leaving him on camera but she wants her kids and her brother off screen.  She wants to be able to keep some moments private while also giving the audience what she has been conditioned to believe they deserve.  Further, Gilbert has convinced her that she is now a role model to American women and by publicly telling her husband that she is leaving him, her role as such will be confirmed in the eyes of American women. 

The movie’s last few minutes is dedicated to the aftermath of An American Family.  Original news coverage tells of the 10 million viewers the show garnered every week and its immense popularity.  It also shows the hate mail and negative press the family received.  People say they are the death of the American family while newspaper headlines declare theirs, “The Divorce of the Year.”  Referring to Lance, headlines question the acceptability of “Openly Gay on National TV” as Lance became the first open homosexual on television.  TV talking heads called it “An American Tragedy” and says it calls into question “the” American family.  

Why were they so despised?  Was America being forced to see that the white picket fences we’ve hid behind for so long was just a façade?  Furthermore, what has happened between the fury over the Louds and today when dysfunction in family life today is celebrated and networks fight to find the most outlandish groups of people to humiliate on national television?

The movie closes on a quote from Lance where he says, “Family is eternal…Divorce can't destroy it. Television didn't devour it. We're still standing.  Loud and Proud.”  He loved his family and knew that despite how the cameras showed them, they supported each other no matter what.  Maybe that should be the legacy of when An American Family is: proving to the world that despite all else, family is of the utmost importance.  The fact that they showed a united front to the media after the show aired, and that Bill and Pat ultimately reconciled because that was Lance’s dying wish, that no matter what family is paramount.  Dysfunction often comes with the territory, but it is how we get through the struggles is what makes a family. 

Was An American Family really “cinema verite?”  Is truthful television or film ever really possible?  It’s hard to make that claim, and even though it bore a generation of lewd reality television, maybe we should consider the lasting legacy of the Loud family to be their willingness to be honest and to show American audiences that the American family is one that is not perfect and has its struggles, but ultimately loves and supports one another. 

The Help

The Help is a movie based on Kathryn Stockett’s 2009 novel of the same name.  Directed by Tate Taylor, it tells the story of the relationships between white women and their maids in 1963 Jackson, Mississippi.  Shot in vibrant, vivid colors, the visual landscape of the film juxtaposes what was going on beneath the surface of society.  In the early days of the Civil Rights movement and in the height of Jim Crow laws, the American South was a far from a pleasant time for the black population.  Prohibited from sharing public spaces from their white counterparts, and living under the guise of “separate but equal,” blacks were forced to use separate everything from building entrances and water fountains to hospitals and supermarkets. 

In The Help, a young idealistic young woman named Skeeter (the always delightful Emma Stone in one of her more powerful roles to date) has recently returned home from college, liberal and enlightened, and beginning to reintegrate into her old life.  Upon attempting to do so, she learns just closed minded and racist her friends are.  Her childhood friend and socialite Hilly Holbrook (Bryce Dallas Howard) has made it her mission to create a law that forces the black maids to use separate toilets in the homes of their white owners.  Enraged by this explicit hypocrisy, that the maids can love and altogether raise the white children but cannot use the same toilet as the rest of the family, the aspiring journalist Skeeter decides to do something about it.  Encouraged by an editor from Harper and Row in New York, Skeeter decides to write a book in which the maids are allowed and encouraged to tell their stories.  She begins by asking her one of her friends’ maids, Aibileen Clark (Viola Davis) to tell her story.  Initially she is met with refusal out of fear of repercussions.  However, as things continue to get worse in Jackson and across the South, Aibileen convinces her friend Minny (Octavia Spencer) and the other maids in town to tell their stories and they begin to come forward.   

This film, and the book upon which it’s based, have gotten a lot of criticism from Black groups claiming that it’s not the place of the white people to tell their stories, and that they don’t need white people to help them.  Moreover, on the day of the film’s release the association of Black Women Historians claim that the story “distorts, ignores, and trivialized the experience of black domestic workers.”   However, it seems that that argument misses the entire point of the story.  This film is not meant to be a historical account of every aspect of racism in Jim Crow South.  It’s not merely about the self-important white person aiding helpless black people.  Rather, the message of the film is a lot more powerful.  It’s about people of different races and backgrounds coming together to help each other.  Yes, without Skeeter’s enlightenment against the inappropriate ways of her peers it would be unlikely for Aibileen, Minny, and the countless other maids’ stories to be told.  However, without the maids agreeing to tell their stories Skeeter would not have been able to find her voice and prove to her mother and the world that she is capable of becoming an important writer, as she so wishes.  Celia Foote, the social outcast who employs Minny after Hilly fires her, would never found the confidence to be a good wife and step out from the social pariah-dom that Hilly had forced her into. 

In a recent Entertainment Weekly interview, Viola Davis admits to initially having reservations about taking on this role, with similar feelings about the potential one-dimensional depiction of black maids, “because a white woman was writing what I felt was our story, and once again she’s going to get it wrong and she’s only going to skim the surface.”  However, “ultimately the story, and what she calls the deep humanity of the characters, won her over. ‘That’s what people bristle at: the maids,” she says. “I’ve played lawyers and doctors who are less explored and more of an archetype than these maids.’” (http://insidemovies.ew.com/2011/08/11/black-women-historians-come-out-against-the-help/).   Further, as there are limited roles for strong, adult black women in film today, she was proud to play such a strong, honest character.  It’s somewhat ironic that the role which allows her play just that is as a black maid in 1960s Mississippi.  Miss Davis, however, brings strength, courage and nobility to her character.  There is a quiet grace in the way in which she depicts the proud yet oppressed Aibileen who, despite knowing her place in society, has always strived for a better life and insisted on being more than others told her she could be.  Her most touching moments are when she is caring for Mae Mobley, the young daughter of her employer, Elizabeth.  The mantra she teaches Mae Mobley is “You is smart.  You is kind.  You is important.”  Elizabeth is unable to care for her daughter in the way she deserves and Aibileen steps in and takes on the role of mother to the toddler and teaches her compassion and love, something in which she wishes so dearly could be something the world would show her. 

Is seems as though there have been a lot of television shows and films emerge recently about the 1960s (Mad Men, The Help, the upcoming television shows, Pan Am and The Playboy Club).  They also all seem to be there to say something about our current society rather than just being a retrospective.  The 1960s was, as much as we romanticize and nostalgize about it, was a time of great social unrest and insecurities.  It also is a good allegory for our current social and political situation in 2011.  Civil Rights for minority groups is still an issue, with conservative politicians thinking they can discriminate against and be heartless towards others just because they are different.  Just substitute Gay Rights for Black Rights and you’ve got a very similar situation.  Unfortunately in the last 50 years we have not come all that far in our compassion for minority groups, and whether or not The Help meant to highlight that, it definitely succeeds in doing so.

The film offers an important lesson for how we should be treating others in our modern, supposedly enlightened and liberal, society.  “Aren’t you tired, Miss Hilly” are words Aibileen spoke to Hilly Holbrook right after her last attempt to assert her dominance over her.  In that moment Aibileen might as well have said “Aren’t you tired, Miss Palin” or “Miss Bachman” or any other tea party conservative who, under a fallacious guise of being a patriot, seem to imply that the only way to be loyal to America is by discriminating against others.

Moreover, the message of the film on a number of levels is about pride in oneself despite external forces telling you otherwise.  At the heart of the narrative, and the focus of the message, is of course one of civil rights.  The black maids find empowerment in telling their stories and realizing they have something to be proud of.  They do have a voice even if society at large is telling them otherwise.  The characters that don’t find their voices are the ones that suffer, for instance Elizabeth Leefolt never learns to stand up to the overbearing Hilly and therefore loses the one woman in her life who could have taught her compassion and love for her children.  Celia Foote learns is empowered by Minny to be a good wife and homemaker for her husband and not to be defined by the way the other women treat her.  Even Skeeter learns to step out from under her mother’s criticisms to find her place. 

The real lesson of The Help, and one which I think is as important today as it was in the height of the civil rights movement of the 1960s, is that as a country we need to be united to strengthen ourselves and our communities.  The divisive words from pundits and politicians on both the left and the right side of the political spectrum is not helping our society.  The only way we can be the strong, empowered nation that has made us great in the past is to put our differences behind us and unite to help each other.   

Friday Night Lights

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"It's Friday night in my house." These are words spoken by Coach Riggins in season 5 as he prepares to give a rousing speech to his players telling them that in his house, on Friday night, no one messes with his football team.  In this moment, his speech feels almost like a religious sermon.  It struck a chord with me because it solidified the notion of football as religion in Dillon, Texas for the characters of Friday Night Lights. Friday night in my house is a religious night, a very different kind of religion, but it's what guides most of my behaviors and actions. For the folks of Friday Night Lights' Dillon Texas, football is religion and similarly guides much if not all of their lives.

After 5 years I finally got around to watching FNL.  This on-again, off-again NBC/Direct TV series was the little show that could, while no network seemed to want it.  When something is downtrodden enough and told they aren’t worth it, it would be easy to give up on yourself, but the show runners of FNL knew they had something golden on their hands and refused to give up on the folks of Dillon.  Much in that regard, the show itself is an allegory for the characters which inhabit it.

FNL was not something that I was immediately drawn to.  I had watched the pilot and the second episode back in 2006 and was not particularly captured by it.  I also had a lot of TV on my schedule that year, so FNL did not make the cut for my viewing habits.  A few weeks before it went off the air a couple of friends of mine implored me to watch it. One insisted that “If you have a soul, you will love this show.”  Lest my friends think I am soulless, and since the first four seasons are on Netflix (and the rest on Hulu), I decided to watch.  It took me a while to get into the story.  I found I could not relate to so much of the narrative – this is similar to how I felt upon my initial viewing 5 years ago.  But I decided to stick with it, and about two thirds of the way into season 1 I realized I was hooked and that the show, through its delicate artistry had created something completely relatable where I thought it would be impossible.

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Presented to me was a world that is completely foreign to my life.  Yes, I grew up playing high school sports and had a coach who believed in me and all other high school clichés, but "sports" was not life.  My whole town did not gather together for our games, my coach was not known by name throughout the community.  I did not need high school basketball (my sport of choice) to get me a college scholarship and offer an escape from a poor, dead end town.  However, through the truthful and honest storytelling of the creators and actors, the greater themes and character studies of FNL became relatable and ultimately, universal. 

As alluded to, the greatest strength of this show are its fleshed out characters.  Helped by its stellar acting and excellent direction, the characters on the show begin as what could be seen as stock, and stereotypical players.  You have the brooding hunk, the spunky cheerleader, the All-American Quarterback, the arrogant egomaniac, the quiet one, the sexy one, the nerd, and the list goes on.  By about 5 episodes in you realize that these characters are anything but stock and will live up to surpass all of those stereotypes.  For the most part, the show centers on the Dillon Panthers and Coach Eric Taylor (Kyle Chandler) and his family, but evolves to incorporate a whole town of characters and personalities which make the show so much more colorful than it could have been under less skilled leadership.

Coach Taylor is more than just a football coach to the boys on his team.  For many of them, strong, positive father figures are a figment of their imaginations and Coach Taylor is a stand in for that man.  He teaches them how to be “men” without worrying about whether that is an un-PC term.  He teaches them about responsibility, family and what it means to be a part of something bigger then themselves.  He is, however, not without his flaws.  Like most of the characters on the show they are written with depth and multidimensional traits that makes them so relatable.  Coach Taylor is probably one of the most consistently impulsive characters on the show, constantly reacting and overreacting to how those close to him are behaving.  He finds himself apologizing for his impulsiveness, and while it at times frightens those around him, it also shows his passion is bubbling right at the surface. 

Similarly, Tami Taylor (Connie Britton), Coach’s wife, is also a role model for the girls on the show.  As guidance counselor turned principal turned guidance counselor she insists on academic excellence and has faith in those who don’t have faith from themselves.  She deals with kids who never had faith in themselves to do much of anything, and pushes them towards the greatness they never knew they had.  She is a mom and a friend when often the students have neither.  She believes in them when no one else, not even themselves, do.

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At the heart of this entire show is the relationship between Tami and Eric.  They are the most functional television couple I've seen in recent times.  (The only other couple who I can think to compare them to are Clay and Gemma on Sons of Anarchy.)  They fight, they disagree, they compromise, they respect.  In sum, they love.  In a landscape mostly devoid of successful, long term relationships, they stand out as a beacon of light, not only to their daughters but to the students and players.

This is all to say that the show is essentially about family – both the family you are born to or marry into and the one you create with those you surround yourself with.  As much as some of them resisted, the boys on the team became a family.  They learn to look out for one another, trust each other and ultimately love each other.  Eric and Tami provide a model to them for how to do that in an actual family, and the boys, looking for a support system create their own surrogate family through the team.

In season 4 when Coach Taylor switches teams from the Dillon Panthers to the East Dillon Lions, he has to start the whole process of creating a family all over again.  By comparison, next to his rag-tag new team, the Panthers suddenly look like a professional, high-falutin’ group of success stories and the audience learns from that not to take things at face value.  However, by now we are experienced viewers of the show.  We know the real Dillon Panthers and know not to judge this book by its cover.  They might look tough on the outside but we’ve had a closer look in and know the truth to those boys.  In East Dillon, Coach Taylor has a whole new crop of students, and to his surprise, these are even worse off than the kids he had on the Panthers.  But, he doesn’t veer off the course.  He knows his role in these kids’ lives and treats them with the same respect and dignity that he always has led with.  It takes them a season, but eventually these boys learn that Coach and Tami Taylor will be there to support them through it all.

An interesting theme that arises is despite the football as life or football as religion motif.  Football is central to their lives in Dillon, yet it also was a way out for so many of its inhabitants.  For so many, Dillon was acceptable until you could somehow escape it, and many sought to do that through football.  Dillon is a way of life, but it was also supremely suffocating and stifling as many saw it as a dead end place.  Therefore, to make a success out of oneself they needed out of their small town.  It’s no surprise that every single character who had goals for a better life left Dillon.  The only character to stay and to be happy staying was Tim Riggins (Taylor Kitsch), the brooding, quite, angry fullback who could never seem to catch a break.  He tried to leave, even got himself a football scholarship to college, but he couldn’t hack it.  There’s a big world out there and it’s daunting to head out there without feeling like you have a support system.  That’s the tragedy of Tim Riggins.  He was a one man island, not trusting anyone else but himself to care for him.  So he stays in Dillon and tries to make his life better with the limited tools he has.  But, even in his own way, he is determined to succeed.  And by the end of the series, he’s already a step ahead of where his deadbeat parents left him, so there is hope.

That isn’t to say that Dillon-ites don’t appreciate their upbringings.  There’s a touching moment in season 4 when Julie Taylor (Aimee Teegarden) is interviewing at a college and finally admits to not being ashamed of where she comes from.  In that moment she realizes both her need to leave and her appreciation for where she came.  It’s a lesson to us all, no matter where we hail from, to both be able to respect your past despite what you might see as failings or shortcomings, as the place that shaped you to who you are today and what helped you strive to reach your potential.  It also teaches us the importance of taking risks, because if we are simply complacent in our original surroundings and happy with what we have we might not have the urge to reach for greater, something Julie, and we have to know we can accomplish.

On more than one occasion I was brought to tears by this show, and they came at times when I least expected it and sometimes in situations I thought was so foreign to me.  By all accounts Tyra (Adrianne Palicki) and I could not be more different.  We have pretty much nothing in common.  However, in season 3 when she was crying to her mom because she was scared that she wants better for herself and doesn’t know if she’ll be able to attain it, I was right there in that moment with her.  I know exactly how she feels at that moment, as though the weight of the world is on your shoulders and you’ve tried your absolute best to get something you want and you no longer have any control over the outcome.  If you’ve applied to a job, or to a school, or even gone on a first date and are waiting for the guy to call you, you know how Tyra felt in that moment.  And when her mother comforts her and encourages her that she will attain all that she has worked for, I knew that was a conversation I have had time and again with my mom.  That’s how the show is so relatable: it takes individual characters with detailed experiences and needs and makes universality out of those specifics.  

And now the show has ended.  I'm sad to say goodbye to those characters whom I feel I have gotten to know over the past few months.  I'm sad not to know see how Tami and Eric fare in Philadelphia, watch Julie and Matt's relationship continue to develop, see how Tim's house comes along, whether Jess one day does become a football coach, how Luke and Becky handle him being in the army, and so on.  The little show that could, just could not chug over another mountainous season without the support it deserved.  It’s unfortunate that NBC didn’t give it the support it deserved because it didn’t get the initial rating numbers that the network had wanted.  It’s unfortunate that our media landscape today seems to only pay attention to big, flashy shows with that ultimately have little to no substance.  It's unfortunate to think networks would rather pour their money and timeslots into shows that promote bad behavior from talentless hacks on reality shows.  The airwaves needs more good, honest. well written characters brought to life by talented actors.  Now with FNL saying its last goodbye, we just lost a few more.

Crazy, Stupid, Love.

Image from daemonsmovies.com

The movie lives up to its name.  It’s kinda crazy, definitely stupid, but does have love.  And isn't than all you need?  Essentially it tells parallel stories of love at four different stages.  The young adolescent discovering his sexuality, the teenager exploring it, the 20-something year old settling into it and the 40-year olds trying to figure out what to do with it once it’s settled.

Steve Carell and Julianne Moore play Cal and Emily Weaver, a weathered couple who have hit the 25-years of marriage road-block.  Apparently she is having some sort of midlife crisis and decides to leave him for her smarmy coworker played by Kevin Bacon.  Or, I should say, tells him to leave her and kicks him out of the house.  Wallowing in self-pity, Cal plops himself at a bar night upon night until Jacob (Ryan Gosling, looking his best I might add), a swarthy, chiseled playboy takes him under his wing and gives him a makeover and helps him pick up hot chicks for one night stands.

Unfortunately, the Weavers are the couple the film decided to center all the action around.  In a world where both filmic and real-life couples are experiencing unprecedented divorce rates, the central couple doesn’t add anything to the landscape.  They barely communicate and definitely don’t fight for one another.  In fact, it’s a wonder they managed to stay together for as long as they did.  They say they love each other and have a long history together, but the film doesn’t really show a longstanding love for one another other than some huggy photos.  

The more interesting characters are those that surround them.  Cal and Emily’s young son, Robbie (Jonah Bobo) is learning what it means to love someone.  He has fallen hard for his 17-year old babysitter, Jessica (Analeigh Tipton) who has a school girl crush on Cal and thinks that’s.  She’s learning that just because someone is nice to you that doesn’t mean they love you.  I’m not going to lie, this son-babysitter-father love triangle made me pretty uncomfortable especially as we see the lengths Jessica goes to get Cal to notice her.

Then there’s Jacob.  I must say that watching Ryan Gosling was my favorite part of this movie.  He plays the smooth, sexy, ladies’ man so well and with a certain vulnerable confidence that you don’t even realize he’s a womanizing jerk.  He works his lines Hannah (Emma Stone) in the first few minutes of the movie and even though she doesn’t initially bite, since this is a RomCom, we know the formula and that they’ll meet again, even if it’s not till about an 60 minutes into the film.  But during the interim we see him dressed up, dressed down and everything in between and when they finally reunite and upon seeing him shirtless Hannah exclaims “What, are you photoshopped?!” she has taken the words right out of the audience’s mouths. At least in my theater, the audience both laughed and cheered at this proclamation.

The movie plods along with the standard miscommunications, mishaps and funny one-liners that are the hallmarks of a romantic comedy.  There’s nothing particularly new or groundbreaking about this movie, and when the 4 parallel stories converge at the end of the movie as we knew they would there is a mix of both surprise and eye-rolling. 

At its heart Love wants to be making grand pronounced statements of what love is at different stages and how men relate to it at different stages.  Make no mistake, this is a movie about how men relate to love.  Yes, there are female leads and female focalization, but ultimately we are witnessing how men relate to those women.  How a 13 year old boy reacts to discovering how much he loves his babysitter and the lengths at which he’ll go to get her.  It’s about how a married man can supposedly love his wife of a quarter of a century yet not, for one second, fight for her when she says she’s going through a midlife crisis until it’s too late.  And finally, how one suave 20-something realizes there is more to life than sleeping with a different girl every night.  The message is clear: even when women precipitate the action, love is something that ultimately men control the outcome for.

I wanted to love this movie: I like the cast, I like comedies, I like love stories.  I walked out of this movie confused as to what it was saying about love, but I guess the title says it all: it’s crazy and it’s stupid.  Maybe that's the point of this movie.  Love isn't a cerebral, intellectual exploration.  It's about feelings, and emotion doesn't always have reason or make sense.  So, the title alone relieves the film from all expectation that it would say that love is anything other than crazy and stupid. 

Rent

I know I’m a film and TV reviewer, but if you will indulge me for a moment, I would like to take a moment of your time to discuss the new Off-Broadway production of Rent. 

Image from Fandomania.com

I think there’s somewhat of a bias against Off-Broadway shows in New York.  I mean, if you’re going to pay that kind of money to see a show, shouldn’t it be ON Broadway?  Well, last night I went to see The New World Stages’ version of Rent, Off Broadway, and let me just start of by saying that not for one second did I feel like I was seeing a second string production; this version was fantastic.  My sister and I won the lottery and got 2 front row tickets for 25 dollars.  It felt very appropriate to win the tickets, given that the whole notion of Broadway lottery tickets was started by the original Rent. 

There are a few immediately notable differences when you see an Off-Broadway production.  Namely, the stage and theater itself are a little smaller, but that did not limit the talent of the performers and it promises all audience members a good view of the action.  The cast is a mix of both seasoned and novice performers.  Despite they’re varying levels of experience, they all pouring out their hearts and souls into their roles and execute with the precision of theatrical veterans.  It’s a very young cast, MJ Rodriguez (Angel) is probably the youngest, having graduated high school just one year ago.  He was just a toddler when the original stage version of the show came out, yet he plays his role as though he knows that life directly. 

This is the third time I've seen Rent.  I've seen it once on Broadway, once in Boston and now here.  What draws me to this show is the music, characters, and its emotional center.  With a revival it’s important for the show to remain true to the original while also breathing new life into it, ensuring its relevance to modern society while also exciting longtime fans while inviting new ones.  That responsibility falls on the shoulders of both the director as well as the actors.  The director, Tony award winning Michael Greif, chose some costume changes to add new life to the characters.  Gone is Mark’s iconic blue stripe sweater and scarf and in is a plaid flannel shirt.  Roger’s dress is much more emo and grungy and less punk rocker.  However, Angel’s just as flamboyant as he ever was!  The set reminds me of the original one, this one being slightly more minimalist.  That, though, might be a function of being in a smaller theater.  The actors also tread the fine line of creating nuances to their characters while also being true to them.  Today, after telling a friend of mine about going to the show, she said, “I don’t know if I could see it – Collins IS Jesse L. Martin to me.” I assured her that this Collins is very similar to his originator’s version without feeling stale.  Same goes for most of the characters.  The one alteration I took issue with was with Maureen, played by Annaleigh Ashford.  This incarnation is a completely different character.  Ashford plays Maureen less strong and stubborn and more stubborn and bratty than she has traditionally been.  Both types work, but it was surprising to see this character take more of a back seat kind of role than in previous productions.     

To me, what was most interesting about watching this play in 2011, 15 years after the original debuted, is I’m not quite sure if all of it still holds up.  Ironically, given our current political climate, the revival of Hair from 1968 origins is more relevant than something much more recent.  This is true mostly because rather than dealing with political issues, Rent tackles mostly shortcomings. 

For instance, most of the characters in this show suffer from HIV or AIDS.  Thank God, HIV and, to a lesser extent, even AIDS, are no longer promise imminent death.  It’s also no longer as stigmatized as it once was.  And when the characters belt out “living with, not dying from disease,” in reference to their ailments, it feels somewhat outdated as thousands of people are doing just that right now.  Furthermore, Alphabet City, like most of NYC is no longer exclusively for poor bohemian artists (and yuppie kids rebelling from their parents by acting poor or choosing to be poor).  Furthermore, in this time of economic uncertainty when so many who desperately want jobs and can’t find them, it seems somewhat cavalier to venerate those who choose to live the poor life.  Benny, the “yuppie scum,” comes across less of a sell-out in this version and more of a responsible adult looking out for his slacker friends.  While the utopic ideals that the characters belt out in the first act, eventually come crashing down on them in the dystopic second act, Audiences already know that this model isn’t truly an ideal.  They watch it with a bit of distance, no longer directly identifying with all the play has to say because to a certain extent, now they know better.

There are, however, a number of themes that do hold up.  The interpersonal relationships between the characters remain the production’s heart.  The love that the characters feel for one another and their friendships are what gives this story universal and everlasting appeal.  Collins’ and Angel’s loving relationship is juxtaposed to Maureen and Joanne and Roger and Mimi’s tumultuous relationships.  In a time where Gay Marriage is still so contentious and even though it has just been legalized in New York State, these relationships being presented honestly and normalized feels even more relevant as it shows the diversity of types of relationships that exist in our society without all the sensationalism and political drama it often involves.

All in all I loved this performance.  While it doesn't bring anything groundbreakingly new to the show, it reminds us where we've come and while we've come a long way we have so much further to go.  The actors were all very talented and brought true emotional depth to their roles.  I watch it with nostalgia and with the hope that the utopian ideals that are presented in the first act will someday come true.  We’re getting there.  

Here's a preview of the show.  But I recommend you go see it in person.