Misfit Musicals

Despite having the singing skills of a potato, I want nothing more than to live in the world of a musical. Imagine being at the DMV or something and being overcome with the need to sing about the wait. Then the bored workers join you for the chorus, completely nailing the complex choreography. Am I the only person who thinks that’d be totally awesome?  Even though I absolutely love musicals, I realize they exist in a weird world. You can suspend all your disbeliefs and musicals can still get really weird sometimes (did you know there’s a sequel to The Phantom of the Opera?). I scratched the strange surface and spotted these four in our collection.

Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
I’m someone who holds The Beatles sacred, so I think I’m more critical of this movie than any other on this list. After catching the ear of a big-time Hollywood record producer, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band leave behind their small hometown of Heartland, USA (seriously), quickly becoming stars while experiencing the splendor and sleaze of the music industry. There’s also a plot to destroy their hometown thrown in because bad covers of Beatles songs can only last so long. I know that Across the Universe, another musical using Beatles songs has its detractors, but it looks like Singin’ in the Rain, West Side Story and The Sound of Music combined in comparison. Did I mention this stars, among others, the BeeGees? Watching them strut around with more hair on their face than I have on my entire body while “singing” Beatles songs was certainly jarring and seeing George Burns talk-sing through a lethargic rendition of “Fixing a Hole” was cute and sad, like how seeing a turtle trudge through tar is cute, but also sad. The movie also features blasphemous covers by Alice Cooper before he was shilling Apple Watches and Aerosmith before Steven Tyler looked like a jack-o-lantern left outside two weeks after Halloween. If you’re a fan of musicals or a hardcore Beatles fan, I’d recommend checking it out just so you can say you experienced the insanity. If you value your mental facilities, watch literally other film on this list, like …

Streets of Fire
As this film opens a title card informs us that what we’re about to see takes place in “another time” and “another place…” Billed as a “rock & roll fable”, Streets of Fire opens with a motorcycle gang, led by Willem Dafoe, kidnapping a famous singer, played by Diane Lane. To rescure her, her agent, played by Rick Moranis contracts her ex-lover, played by Michael Pare (who?), a soldier-for-hire who happens to be passing through town.  The ragtag group hijacks a doo-wop group’s bus and eventually track the singer down. This is the movie that actually inspired my journey into the world of weird musicals and it’s objectively a terrible movie. The acting is wooden, the dialogue is stilted but I unapologetically love it. Everyone plays their parts so straight that it just makes it seem like a ridiculous fever dream of the Regan years. It looks like it takes place in the alternate 1985 from Back to the Future Part II and I’m pretty sure every major scene took place under a bridge or in a tunnel. Do you want to know how much of a relic this is from the 1980s? Dafoe—in only his fourth film role—gets billed after Rick Moranis and Amy Madigan, but before Bill Paxton. Not to mention that the songs sound like the lovechild of Meat Loaf and Bonnie Tyler. The only thing that could have made this movie more awesome would have been to have Dafoe sing a show-stopping ballad while riding a motorcycle. But I guess if 1984 was exposed to that the world would have probably imploded under the weight of this movie’s awesome terribleness.

Phantom of the Paradise
This and the next film are both from 1974 and they’re both a trip. What was happening in the early-1970s that inspired these kinds of films? Apparently director Brian De Palma was inspired to make this after hearing a muzak cover of “A Day in the Life”. This is essentially a rock opera remake of The Phantom of the Opera, with a little Faust and The Picture of Dorian Gray thrown in. A record producer (played by one-half of the team that wrote “Rainbow Connection”) is opening a club—The Paradise—and needs new music to accompany the opening. When he hears the music from an obscure composer, he steals it and frames the composer for drug dealing. In an attempt to avoid capture, the composer gets horribly disfigured. Later, he escapes prison and hides out in The Paradise, waiting for the perfect moment to exact revenge on the producer. Also, The Phantom’s lover is in danger, or something. I guess there’s a message in the movie about how the business and corporate side of things can destroy art, not unlike Sgt. Pepper, but Phantom of the Paradise is just so weird you might forget that there’s even a message to be had. When it was released, it flopped but has since gained a cult following.

The Little Prince
Sadly, this is not a Purple Rain prequel or some kind of Prince: Origins movie, may he rest in power. Based on the book by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry and with music and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe—the songwriting team behind An American in Paris, Brigadoon and My Fair Lady—I imagine this movie is what being on all the drugs in the early 1970s was like. It opens with a pilot played by Richard Kiley making an emergency landing in the Sahara Desert. As he spares no expense trying to fix his plane, the titular Prince appears. The Little Prince has been on Earth for a while, after a perilous and low-tech journey through the solar system. He recounts his tales to the pilot, giving special attention to his encounters with the Fox (played by Gene Wilder, trying to out-Gene Wilder himself) and the Snake (played by Bob Fosse, who you may have never heard of, but we’ll come back to him in a minute). I’ve never read the original novella, but this movie is cute and creepy, like the movie version of a banded piglet squid. Seeing Wilder and Fosse dance and sing around this poor kid gives the film a really weird vibe. And speaking of weird, remember Fosse, the man who won eight Tony awards for choreography throughout his career? Okay, so maybe you’ve never heard of him, but his dance moves probably look more than a little familiar. Take a look:

Nothing is original and everything is a remake of a remake. While we’re on that subject, a gorgeous-looking computer-animated remake of The Little Prince was supposed to come out in March, but a week before its release date, Paramount dropped the film. The good news is that Netflix picked it up.

“Netflix and chill?”
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Is your favorite musical a bit on the weird side? Let us know in the comments below.

–Ross

I Absolutely Didn’t Hate The Haters

After my soapbox-declaring love for Jesse Andrews’ debut novel Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, let’s just say I was eagerly awaiting his followup, The Haters.

Best friends Wes and Corey love hating on everything, even the stuff they love. When we find them at the novel’s beginning at a super-competitive jazz camp filled with really intense campers they start hating on it immediately. But, as the great philosopher Swift once said, “haters gonna hate” and Wes and Corey find a likeminded hater in Ash, seemingly the only girl at camp. After bonding over their mutual hateship, the trio ditch camp, form their own band and go on tour, which turns out exactly like you’d expect a tour planned by pre-college teenagers to turn out.

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl was a fairly mature young adult novel, what with (spoiler alert) one of the title characters (spoiler alert) dying from (spoiler alert) cancer, but with The Haters Andrews has doubled-down on the young adult experience, including all the ridiculosity and awkwardness that comes with it. Not to give too much away, it’s a much less sad book, but no less realistic. From Corey defying his parents for the first time to Wes’ first time having sex—in a scene that so closely resembles my own first time that I’m half-convinced Andrews was hiding in my closet—The Haters will undoubtedly have something in it to which you can relate, and it rewarded my eager anticipation in spades.

Similar to Wes and Corey, I was in jazz and concert band in high school, but I didn’t hate on it. As my classmates listened to the whispers of the Ying Yang Twins, Kelly Clarkson‘s complain about her career in optometry and the Black Eyed Peas sing about camels, I was plugged into my portable CD player (remember those?) listening for countermelodies, harmonies and other musical flourishes on the first CD I ever bought—the Jurassic Park soundtrack. Yes, I was that band geek.

Maybe it’s cliché to describe writing like this as “real,” but I can think of no better term. Andrews imbues his characters with a penchant for self-deprecation and I absolutely love that, mostly because I’m the mayor of self-deprecating humor. If you ever see me on the street, ask me to tell you about my one pickup line that involves me carrying a microscope around a bar. My friends get a kick out of it. Anyway, when Andrews uses this humor it adds a natural level of realism to his writing and it makes the characters feel like friends I haven’t met yet. I thoroughly enjoyed the time I spent in the world of The Haters and couldn’t stop myself from reading, even though I dreaded what I’d do with my life when I finished. I considered being an alpaca farmer a few times.

“When I leave, alpaca this book.”
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While Andrews obviously excels at capturing teen angst and awkwardness, I’d love to see him branch out to more adult novels. I’m not asking for Fifty Shades of Grey written by Jesse Andrews (but now that I’ve typed those words I want nothing more), but I’m eager to see him tackle a different genre. For example, Matthew Quick maintains his style in both adult and young adult books, and although I’ve never read anything by James Patterson, I’m pretty sure he’s written books for every reading audience. He even wrote a book for zoo animals.

Wes, Corey and Ash might not be the most likeable characters in the beginning, but that could be the point. Do you remember what you were like as a teenager? Besides a lot more acne, you probably weren’t the pleasant bouquet of posies you are today. You most likely changed, as does our trio. Likewise, your opinion of them may change. No matter what flaws readers may perceive in The Haters, I’ll definitely be in line for whatever Andrews writes next. He wrote the screenplay for the movie version of Me and Earl and the Dying Girl—which I also loved—so maybe an film adaption of The Haters is right around the corner …

Shredfest!
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Part Scott Pilgrim with shades of a Monty Python sketch plus a lot of heart,  you’ll be hard-pressed to find a reason to hate on The Haters.

–Ross

“I Paint So That I Don’t Have to Talk”: The Art of Drew Struzan

Back in December when we were reflecting on all the Star Wars-related materials the Library has, I briefly touched on the majestic music of John Williams. Today I want to talk about another artist who was first introduced to me via Star Wars–Drew Struzan.

If that name doesn’t ring a bell, what about names like Indiana Jones, John Rambo or Harry Potter? Now there’s probably so much bell-ringing in your ears you should make an appointment with an audiologist. You might not recognize Drew Struzan’s name, but you’ve certainly seen his work, whether it’s in the form of an album cover, a book jacket or one of his over-150 movie posters.

Some of his most famous movie posters are collected in Drew Struzan: Oeuvre and The Art of Drew Struzan. From Hook to Hellboy, The Thing to The Walking Dead, Blade Runner to Batkid Begins, Struzan’s work is instantly recognizable and unquestionably beautiful. The books also include some of his studio work, like portraits of his grandchildren and his own interpretation of Baba Yaga. I’m someone who can barely draw stick figures, so I admire an artist like Struzan—his drawings and paintings almost look like photographs.

For more on Struzan beyond the art, I highly recommend the 2013 documentary Drew: The Man Behind the Poster. It reveals a placid, taciturn family man, like the sweet grandfather everyone wants. While the details of his early life are fascinating, hearing him talk about his work is the most interesting aspect of the documentary. Regarding movie posters, he says how important it is for a poster to not only sell the movie’s premise but also evoke the feeling or emotion of the movie. In a world where most movie posters consist of awful photoshopped giant heads, Struzan’s work has a classiness to it that harkens back to a golden age of cinema, when the multiplex was a portal to another world of imagination and wonder. Often imitated, but seldom replicated, you can look at a movie poster by Struzan and know exactly what kind of movie you’re going to see.

If you’re a fan of Steven Spielberg or Star Wars (read: everyone), or if you just like good art, you should check him out.

–Ross

I Did It All For The Nookietown

We like to have fun at my branch. For instance, when we found out a coworker hates Tori Spelling, we ordered him a ton of her books. Sometimes we’ll just put a book aside if we think the cover is funny. When Nookietown by V.C. Chickering was returned at our branch, a coworker put it on my shelf, thinking I’d get a kick out of the cover.

Yet another unrealistic expectation for men.

Laughing, I decided to read the inside cover:

Recently divorced forty-something single mom Lucy is lonely, a little antsy, and craving physical connection. Then the unthinkable happens:  Her trusted, long-married friend Nancy begs Lucy to sleep with her husband … to save her marriage. The plan is outlandish, scandalous, and, to everyone’s astonishment, works like a charm—it’s a win-win-win.  Soon the two women develop an underground barter system whereby Nancy’s local married friends subcontract Lucy’s horny divorcée friends to sleep with their sex-starved husbands so the wives don’t have to as often.  It’s a foolproof system for a while. Until feelings get hurt, loyalties are tested, and boundaries are crossed.

Warning: There’s a lot of sex in Nookietown. If you’re a time-travelling Puritan or you’re on the Internet for the first time for Rumspringa, skip to the end to see a video of how to wrap a cat for Christmas.

“If you’re still with me, gaze into my baby blues and read on.”

My interests resoundingly piqued from the synopsis, I read and enjoyed Chickering’s debut novel a lot more than I expected. With a sex scene just about every ten pages, Nookietown often skews toward camp, but that only adds to the charm of the novel. Some scenes and dialogue wouldn’t feel out of place in a Russ Meyer film. One of Lucy’s friends recounts her sexual conquest with a UPS worker—including all the eye-rolling “package size” innuendos you can think of. One friend is referred to as “Miss Boobs-the-Size-of-Rhode-Island.” At a sex-toy party, dildos are compared to Greek obelisks. There’s a scene involving a turkey baster and condom filled with spent sperm. Lucy even acknowledges the “campy-funny” nature of a scene as she’s throwing shoes at one of her friends in a Target.

Camp aside, these divorced women are very much in control of their sex lives and the wives call the shots when it’s time for the divorcées to bed their husbands. If I were a woman (I’m not; I just checked), I’d consider this an empowering novel. Chronically-horny Lucy even says that all the newly found sex makes her feel “informed and powerful.” I don’t think Chickering was trying to solve marriage with Nookietown, but she definitely illuminates some common problems with marriage as an institution. Then again, I had some terrific wedding soup for lunch the other day, so I’m not prepared to Google divorce rates or infidelity or anything like that.

There were some things that didn’t work for me. Lucy, constantly second-guessing her choices, comes across as wishy-washy. On at least three separate occasions with near-identical wording, she remarks that when a man says he’s sarcastic in an online dating profile what he really means is he’s a “verbally abusive bully.” Speaking of online dating, there’s a scene where Lucy is a little drunk on tequila and goes through all the profiles of the men who have sent her messages and completely berates them to herself for their grammatical errors or for posing without a shirt (“It’s not that we aren’t intrigued by your comely physique; we just want to be assured that you own a shirt.”). While Lucy’s concerns are legitimate, it’s a scene that goes on for way too long.

“When you’re this hairless, you don’t got to worry about grammar none. Now help me count my six-pack.”

Even though some things didn’t work for me, it’s not like the book was ruined. I needed a lighthearted break after reading S.J. Watson’s Before I Go to Sleep and I enjoy reading outside my comfort zone so this book was perfect. Often funny and sometimes heartfelt, sexy and nerdy (references to Mel Brooks and the Coen Brothers abound) with just the right amount of smut, Nookietown is the kind of novel I’d have loved as a teenager and enjoyed as an adult, despite not being the novel’s intended audience.

Now, welcome back, time-traveling friends! Here’s that video I promised:

Have you read Nookietown? How did you figure out time travel? Let me know in the comments below!

–Ross

Abandoned Life at Sunset Edge

Sunset Edge is a long-abandoned trailer park somewhere in rural North Carolina. Two stories intersect here when a group of four skateboarding teens explore the remains while another lonesome teen wanders around discovering the grizzly secrets of the park’s past.

With Sunset Edge, director/writer/producer Daniel Peddle, author of Snow Day and the rest of the Four Seasons children’s series and the discoverer of Jennifer Lawrence, has succeeded in crafting a great looking nonlinear film that combines two of my favorite things, one of which is urban exploration. I’d be remiss if I didn’t take a moment to point out that the Library has some great books with fantastic pictures documenting these kinds of abandoned places, specifically Abandoned America: The Age of Consequences. It’s got a section dedicated to the Carrie Furnaces in Rankin.

© The Secret Gallery Inc. / Cavu Pictures
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Besides urban exploring, I love original movies (I’ve mentioned that before). Sunset Edge is no different.  When was the last time you saw a sexless, drugless, alcohol-less teen horror movie? But calling Sunset Edge a horror movie is too limiting a description. It’s a Southern Gothic thriller. A coming-of-age mystery. From the first scene of an old woman in wraithlike raiments to the final scene that makes you reconsider everything that came before it, Sunset Edge is a film that requires your attention. Granted, it’s not densely plotted, the dialogue is sparse and that last scene could be interpreted as a cheap cheat, but if you prefer slow-builds to jump-scares, then you’ll probably enjoy it. If it had even less plotting and dialogue, I’d say it was like a discount Terrence Malick film; the camera listlessly lingers on the beautiful North Carolinian landscapes in a dreamy, relaxed way.

While there may be no ginormous payoff for the 87 minutes the audience spends in Sunset Edge, I’ve been thinking about all the things that Peddle—who’d only directed two documentaries prior to this—was possibly trying to say with this film. The teens are filled with potential but, being disaffected youths, they haven’t realized it yet. Sunset Edge was once filled with similar potential that was never realized. They’re as alone and abandoned as the park in which they hang out, products of a throwaway culture exploring a culture that has literally been thrown away.  The trailers are empty, save for discarded detritus, and in a lot of ways so are the teens. One of them even waxes poetically (read: nihilistically) about how meaningless life is. That’s an accurate depiction of what teens do, right?  I exiled myself to my room in my teen years after the batteries in my Giga Pet died.

#NeverForget
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Sometimes, we at Eleventh Stack highlight what’s popular—the book everyone is reading, the album everyone is streaming, the television show everyone is watching, but every so often, we get a chance to highlight a few hidden gems. Sunset Edge is truly an obscure find. How obscure is this film? When I checked it out, only seven people had previously borrowed it. On IMDb, it doesn’t even come up as an auto-complete option when you start typing it into the site’s search bar. When you eventually find it, it says only 40 users have rated the movie. IMDb is a site that allegedly has 65 million registered users. Do you realize how low 40 out of 65 million is? I put the equation into Google and the answer I got was:  “Error 404: Friends not found :(“. At the time of writing this, it doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page. Yes, the movie only came out last year, but Sunset Edge is about as far off the radar as it gets.

I can only hope that I’ve put it on yours.

Are you one of the 47 people who’ve seen Sunset Edge? Do you like urban exploration? Let me know in the comments below.

—Ross

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice

After work tomorrow I’ll be nestling into a cushioned seat for almost three hours to watch Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.

Like all nerds, I’ve been waiting a long time to see these two titans of comic-dom appear together on the big screen in live-action. It’s been an excruciating week, as I’ve tried to remain spoiler-free, but I only have one more day to go! If you can’t get out there to see it this weekend or if you don’t like a numb butt, the Library has plenty of Batman and Superman materials for your enjoyment.

Check out the rest of Zack Snyder’s filmography:
Whether you think he’s a visionary or a slightly-less awful version of Michael Bay, we’ve got all of Zack Snyder’s past films, most of them on glorious Blu-ray. While some of his films have been hit or miss for me (I agree with pretty much everything YouTube user Bored Girlfriend said in her review of 300), there’s no denying that Snyder has an eye for great visuals. Even his first film, Dawn of the Dead, had the bones of his signature stylish flair, and although I’m not as big a fan or Superman as I am of Batman, I didn’t hate Man of Steel as vehemently as some—the Smallville fight is great. After Batman v Superman, Snyder has the two-part Justice League lined up and maybe a remake of The Fountainhead. Seriously.

Check out the other films of the actors portraying these characters:
For a man who waxes philosophically about animal crackers and is the brother of SNL’s Stefon, I can understand why the Internet lost its collective mind when Ben Affleck was cast as Batman. But watching Gone Girl soon after the announcement I realized that, besides having incredible biceps, maybe Affleck was a good actor. As far as Superman, Henry Cavil has only been in about a third as many films as Batfleck, but the Library has most of them. He’s especially charming in last year’s The Man from U.N.C.L.E.  Also appearing in Batman v Superman is Wonder Woman, making her big screen debut. Warner Bros. cast the relative unknown Gal Gadot, most known for the increasingly confusingly titled Fast & Furious franchise. 

Check out the past iterations of Batman and Superman on film:
With Man of Steel and this film, WB is launching the DC Extended Universe, not unlike the gargantuan Marvel Cinematic Universe. While Richard Donner’s Superman films or Christopher Nolan’s Batman films have no ties to the new DCEU, it’s still interesting to go back and look at the cinematic history of these two iconic characters, like when they appeared together in animation in The Batman Superman Movie: World’s Finest. Many of the comic stories have been adapted into standalone animated movies, too. And speaking of comics …

Check out the comics and graphic novels:
Remember comics, the source material for all these superhero movies? We’ve got them in print as well as on Hoopla. While Batman and Superman first met on a cruise ship in 1952 (for real), pay special attention to Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns as Snyder has said he’s drawing inspiration from it for his version of Batman. I realize I’m in the minority, but I never really cared for TDKR. I know, heresy! I have, however, always liked the idea of a grizzled, veteran Batman, so I’m looking forward to seeing that interpreted on screen. Regardless of how you feel about Miller’s involvement with the Caped Crusader—from his Batman: Year One to the meme-birthing All-Star Batman and Robin—there’s no denying the impact TDKR had on modern Batman. It’s not out of the question to speculate that without Frank Miller paving the way for a darker Batman in the ’80s, we’d have never gotten Burton’s Batman.

Check out some supplemental materials:
Did you know a huge inspiration of Superman was the John Carter of Mars stories by Edgar Rice Burroughs? Did you know that Batman was inspired by the 1920 film The Mark of Zorro and characters like Sherlock Holmes and Dick Tracy? The Library has materials on all those subjects and more. Want to find out the secret history of Wonder Woman or what Batman’s and Superman’s views on philosophy are? Have you ever wanted to visit Metropolis (Illinois) and check out the Supermuseum? We’ve got you covered.

You could also keep watching the second trailer for Suicide Squad, the next entry in the DCEU, based on the series of the same name. It premiers August 5.

Did I leave anything out? Are you excited about the film? Let me know in the comments below!

–Ross

Messrs. Riggs, Burton and Miss Peregrine

One day I was about to go to lunch and realized I had nothing to read. The horror! I scanned the shelves at my branch and settled on a book whose cover had always fascinated me, but I’d never gotten around to reading. Also, kicking around in the back of my head was that it was being adapted into a movie by Tim Burton. But we’ll get to that later … The book was Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs.

Here’s why you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. For whatever reason, I always thought Miss Peregrine would be about circus sideshow performers, not unlike Geek Love. I literally have no idea why I thought that, but I went into the book with that mindset. Turns out I wasn’t that far off. Miss Peregrine follows Jacob, our sixteen-year-old narrator. After his grandfather dies, Jacob travels to an isolated island off the coast of Wales. There he finds the rundown ruins of Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, a mythic place often mentioned in the stories from his grandfather’s salad days. Despite the school’s decrepit remains, Jacob soon learns that the unusual children from his grandfather’s stories may still be alive—and may still be children.

The book takes its time, but I was engrossed by the mystery. It does end somewhat abruptly, though, as it is the first in a series. If you don’t feel like committing to two more books of Peculiars, I’d sit this one out. Despite its shortcomings, what really makes Miss Peregrine stand out is the weird vintage photography interspersed between the pages. If you liked that aspect (or vintage photography in general), I’d advise you to check out a book of found photography that Riggs edited called Talking Pictures: Images and Messages Rescued from the Past. At times sad, at other times hilarious, it gives you a feeling of nostalgia even if it’s for a time you weren’t alive for.

Normally if I read a book I like, I’ll order the audiobook version for my mother, but for this one I really felt that the photography added something to the book that couldn’t be conveyed in audio form. She usually likes what I recommend, the only exception being Me and Earl and the Dying Girl. That disparity caused such an argument that I’ve had to eat my sandwiches with the crust ever since. We’ll see how she likes this one.

As for Burton’s adaptation (I told you we’d get to it), when I began reading Miss Peregrine, I couldn’t picture it as a Burton film. I’m a fan, but the presence of (sort of) time travel and stories of Nazis made me think of a Steven Spielberg or Robert Zemeckis movie. It wasn’t until I was well over one hundred pages in that I could see the Burtonesque potential.

Fans of Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children will notice some pretty obvious changes right away, but I’m optimistic. I’m probably more bummed that Burton’s frequent collaborator Danny Elfman isn’t scoring the film than I am about any disparities between the book and movie. The gruesome tentacle-mouthed Hollowgast and Samuel L. Jackson as a dead-eyed Wight both look particularly promising. And the titular children look like they walked off the pages of Burton’s The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy & Other Stories.  It appears that Burton turned Miss Peregrine into a concise standalone film more in the vein of Edward Scissorhands and Big Fish than Alice in Wonderland or Dark Shadows. In other words, a good Tim Burton film.

Have you read the books? Are you stoked for the movie? Let us know in the comments below!

–Ross

In Appreciation of Brie Larson

Last week, Brie Larson won her first Oscar for her performance in Room.

After I saw the movie, I was in such a funk that people actually asked me if I was all right. Like the book upon which it’s based, it compels you to watch, even if it’s uncomfortable at times. Despite the depressing nature of the narrative, I found the film to be more uplifting and, dare I say, more optimistic at its conclusion than the novel. For a great review of Emma Donoghue‘s book, check out Melissa F.’s post.

It would be hard at this point to find new arrangements of words to praise those involved with Room. The score is nuanced and wouldn’t be out of place on a Sigur Rós or an Explosions in the Sky album. I could fill pages about how great Jacob Tremblay is and can only hope he doesn’t go the way of a young Drew Barrymore. I’m super-excited to see him in next month’s Before I Wake. But it’s Larson’s award-winning performance that moors the whole film. As Jack’s Ma, she is both friend and disciplinarian, provider and confider, broken yet brave. She’s tender and tough, often in the span of a few frames. Like if a mountain was a teenage girl who was still a little unsure of herself.

“I don’t care what you say, mom! Becky said this shade of lipstick draws attention away from my massive butte!”
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It’s always nice when the Academy, despite its myriad problems, deigns to give praise to an actress who isn’t Jennifer Lawrence. Hop on the Brie Larson Appreciation Train that I’ve been riding since late 2010 and check out her range in two of her older films.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
It was here that I first came across Larson. She plays one of Scott’s ex-girlfriends, Envy Adams, lead singer of The Clash at Demonhead. I loved her sexed-up, over-the-top performance, which wouldn’t be out of place in a movie like Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. When she takes the stage and vamps through a pretty fantastic cover of Metric‘s “Black Sheep,” I realized that she might be more than a pretty, funny face. She could have played Envy as a shrill, one-note witch of a woman, but there’s a vulnerability beneath Envy’s rockstar facade that comes through in a surprisingly tender moment. Whatever the film’s problems are, her self-aware performance is never one of them.

Short Term 12
This hidden gem was one of the best films of 2013, elevated by Larson’s performance. Prior to Room, I’d have said that this was her best work. Doing a chameleonic 180-turn from her role in Scott Pilgrim, she gives a poignantly raw performance as Grace, a supervisor at a residential treatment facility for at-risk youths. Grace is the kind of character who deeply feels each of the kids’ problems, not to mention her own stack of issues as well. While she at least has the chance to resolve the tumult of her personal life, there will always be at-risk youths. Grace acknowledges this at the end of the film, flashing an almost Sisyphean grin, her resolve to do the work stronger than ever despite its inherent troubles.

In everything she’s been in, she’s made me care about her characters. She was one of many enjoyable surprises in 21 Jump Street. She was the best part of The Spectacular Now and Digging for Fire. She was delightful every time she cameoed on Community and stole every scene she was in in Don Jon despite hardly speaking. I’ve heard she’s good in United States of Tara and Trainwreck as well.

She’s a great actress that also seems like a genuinely pleasant person. Now, if you’ll excuse me, thinking about Room has made me sad, so I’m gonna go watch that Jenny Lewis music video where Larson sports a red tracksuit and a moustache. That’s my sweet spot.

Have you seen Room? How about any of her earlier films? Is there one I should check out? Sound off in the comments below.

–Ross

On Reading 100 Books, Part II

Another year over, and once again I failed miserably at reading 100 books.

But I did succeed in garnering the silent judgement of cats everywhere.
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All right, maybe “failed” is a strong word. I ended up reading 70 books and that’s nothing to scoff at, right? Scornful sideways glances from feral felines aside, I decided to highlight five of my favorite books and three of my least favorite books of 2015. If it tickles your fancy, you can look at the whole list on the next page.

The Five I Liked the Most:

Love is a Dog from Hell: Poems, 1974-1977 by Charles Bukowski
I learned about this book of poetry by way of The Limousines’ song of the same name. This was my first foray into the writings of Bukowski and it didn’t disappoint. With lines like “I have gotten so used to melancholia / that / I greet it like an old / friend.” and “I am going / to die alone / just the way I live,” this certainly isn’t Lord Byron or John Keats.  This is the kind of stuff you read after a breakup, right before rushing out to do it all over again. These are a few of my favorite lines from the poem Chopin Bukowski:

people need me. I fill
them. if they can’t see me
for a while they get desperate, they get
sick.

but if I see them too often
I get sick. it’s hard to feed
without getting fed.

You by Caroline Kepnes
Stephen King—of whom I officially became a fan in 2015 thanks to It and Four Past Midnight—called this book “hypnotic and scary.” What more of an endorsement do you need? You illustrates how easy it is to stalk a person in the digital age. It’s an eerie, well-written page-turner that’s left me eagerly awaiting the sequel, Hidden Bodies, due out in February.

Mosquitoland by David Arnold
It’s very seldom that a book bring me to tears (in a good way), but this YA debut did just that. The premise—a teenager has to return to her home town via Greyhound when she learns her mother is unwell—was what interested me in this book. Whether in real life or in fiction, I love a good road trip. Just like the tumultuous teenage years, Mosquitoland is equal parts happy and sad. It’s now one of my favorite YA novels of all time.

Sea of Trees by Robert James Russell
I came across Aokigahara—a dense forest at the bottom of Mt Fuji and a popular place where people go to commit suicide—while reading one of my favorite websites. Doing a simple Google search for more information on the location led me to this novella. It’s a quick, creepy mystery about a couple searching Aokigahara for the woman’s lost sister. What’s even creepier is that two movies have been made about this forest, one starring Matthew McConaughey released in 2015 and one starring Natalie Dormer that came out just last week. The creepiest bit, though, is that this is a real place. Check out this great documentary short put out by Vice for more on the Suicide Forest.

Poorly Drawn Lines: Good Ideas and Amazing Stories by Reza Farazmand
This book actually came in for someone else, but I saw it and ordered it for myself. It’s hilarious, nonsensical and was a welcome break from the previous book I’d read, The Price of Salt, which was neither hilarious nor nonsensical. Visit the website of the same name for more giggles.

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The Three I Liked the Least:

Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee
I went into this book with almost zero expectations. I’ve experienced first-hand how disappointing a decades-later followup can be (I’m looking at you, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull). Part of the charm of To Kill a Mockingbird was the way that Lee wrote Scout. Everything that happens is seen through a rose-colored, knee-high lens of childhood. That’s not the case with Watchman. Scout is twenty-six and has returned to Maycomb to visit Atticus. Events transpire that make her question the truths she clung to during childhood. The readers question these truths right along with her and I normally love a good existential rumination, but it’s handled in such a bland and forgettable way here. And that’s not even mentioning how certain characters are almost unrecognizable (ethically speaking) from their Mockingbird counterparts or how the death of a beloved character from Lee’s first novel is only eluded to rather than shown. How this ended up on Goodreads’ Best of 2015 list is baffling, especially when almost every patron I talked with about it also didn’t like it. I don’t want to waste anymore digital ink complaining about it, so I’ll just echo Philip Hensher‘s comments:  it’s “a pretty bad novel.”

Star Wars: Aftermath by Chuck Wendig
Unlike Go Set a Watchman, I had at least one expectation for this book–that it would prepare me for the galactic landscape after the fall of the Empire. Sadly, this book did little to elucidate the mystery of what happens between the end of Return of the Jedi and the beginning of The Force Awakens. The plot takes its time getting started and by the time it does, I wasn’t nearly as invested in the characters as I should have been. These weren’t familiar characters like Luke Skywalker or Han Solo, so I didn’t particularly care what happened to them. Not to mention the new characters all came across as annoyingly self-assured. Because of this, I felt like there were no real stakes in book at all. But maybe that’s on me; it’s been a long time since I’ve read supplemental Star Wars material. There is one scene of Han Solo and Chewbacca aboard the Millennium Falcon, but as a whole, the book skews toward poorly-written fanfiction. In the plus column, I’ve got to give credit to Wendig for introducing the first gay hero in the form of ex-Imperial soldier Sinjir Rath Velus as well as a lesbian couple. In a universe where there are literally hundreds of different alien species, Star Wars has never been that concerned about diversity … but that’s a blog post for another day.

American Pastoral by Philip Roth
This is up there (or down there) with The Train from Pittsburgh as one of my least favorite, most hated, severely unenjoyable reads of 2015. The actual plot of this book–an all-American family is torn apart after their daughter blows up a convenience store at the height of the Vietnam War, with musings of the rise and fall of the American Dream sprinkled in–could be boiled down to probably fifty pages. The other 350 pages of Roth’s novel are made up of tangential ramblings including, but not limited to, the history of Newark, the minutiae of Miss America contests and more information on glove-making than any human ever needs to know. It was frustrating for me to read through these prolonged chapters filled with walls of text and just when I thought that there was no point to be made–that maybe I’d picked up a New Jersey history book by mistake–and I was about to give up, Roth would wrap up his tangent and continue with the narrative. In It, Stephen King was similarly long-winded while detailing of the history of the fictional town of Derry, but King held my interest far more than Roth did in describing a place that’s only a six -hour drive away. Again, I have no one to blame but myself–I only read this because first-time director Ewan McGregor filmed the adaptation here, but getting through this book was such an ordeal that I’m now in no hurry to see the movie, despite my well-documented love for Pittsburgh on film.

Did you set or reach any reading goals in 2015? Do you have any reading goals for 2016 or any tips on how I can finally get to 100? Sound off in the comments below!

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Heaven Knows What

Harley is deeply in love with Ilya, despite his tumultuous personality. The only thing she loves more is heroin. When Ilya asks Harley to kill herself to prove her love she agrees without much hesitation, her mind muddled by the drug.

When I first saw the trailer for Josh and Benny Safdie’s Heaven Knows What, it looked like an update of Christiane F., another movie based on a true story about a young girl in the death grip of smack. I’ve come to take such proclamations of truth in regards to film with a mountain-sized grain of salt.  Nanook of the North was marketed as a documentary, but it’s fiction. The airport finale in Argo never happened. In Lee Daniel’s The Butler, the titular butler’s family life is made up and his name was changed, inexplicably. Nevertheless, I was curious to learn just how much of Heaven Knows What was true.

The answer is almost all of it happened to Arielle Holmes—who stars as Harley, a version of herself, in the film—and the story of her discovery is almost worthy of its own movie.  Josh Safdie met her while he was researching another film in the Diamond District of New York City. He learned that Holmes spent her days as a jeweler’s apprentice. She’d then head to a methadone clinic in Chinatown before spending her nights working as a dominatrix. Holmes talked about her life on the streets, about being homeless and about Ilya and the dark love that she described as epic.

© RADiUS-TWC

Safdie was completely fascinated with Holmes, but he stopped hearing from her two months after their initial meeting. He wasn’t that surprised, what with all the wild bedlam that seemed to swirl around her. Two weeks later, however, he received a call from a pay phone. It was Holmes. She’d just gotten out of Bellevue Hospital after an attempted suicide—the same one that starts the film.

Both concerned for her well-being and taken with the narrative of her life, Safdie offered to pay Holmes for her story. Typing on computers in Apple stores she produced a document over 150 pages. It became her soon-to-be-published memoir Mad Love in New York City as well as the basis for Heaven Knows What.

Movies about heroin are difficult for me to watch, from the few scenes in Little Miss Sunshine to the arm-rotting scenes in Requiem for a Dream. They’re also riveting in a train wreck sort of way. There’s no glamour in this lifestyle, and the Brothers Safdie have given us a film that presents it as a gritty, dismal scene—a scene that’s not exclusive to New York City:  heroin is everywhere, including our fair city and region.

Heaven Knows What is not an easy film to watch, and none of the characters are exactly likable, but knowing that it’s an approximation of real life completely transforms it for me. There’s real pain behind Holmes’ eyes and her raw performance elevates the film from faux-documentary fiction to a hardstyle-scored cautionary tale, tragically cyclic though it may be. Hers is a story that will stay with you long after the final frame.

Despite all the misfortune and heartbreak that swarms around her, Holmes’ life is still a story of redemption in the making. She’s now an actress living in Los Angeles and can next be seen alongside Shia LaBeouf in the upcoming American Honey.

Not too bad for a formerly homeless drug addict.

–Ross