Monthly Archives: March 2018

03.11.18
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My Second Coming Out

It wasn’t easy to come out the first time.

I was so nervous my friends would hate me, my peers would shun me and my family would either not understand or just decide not to deal with IT or me at all.

That was the late 1970s and though times have changed quite a bit for the LGBTQ+ community, nothing about coming out – then or now – is particularly easy.

Most of us say we enjoy being different and perhaps we do, but it is also human nature to want to belong and not feel like or be like…well, my favorite expression is the cheese stands alone.

Think of me as this sad cheese while you read on…

Still, we all need to live in our truths in order to be truly happy.

That is why I find that all these decades later I need to come out for yet a second time. It’s painful because I’m afraid this time you will hate me and shun me. At the very least, I am absolutely certain you will lose respect for me and behind my back call me all kinds of names.

It’s about to happen…

But I can’t pretend anymore.

The truth is ––

I didn’t like Get Out.

OH CHAIR

I know, I know, I know!!!

I’ve tried so hard to listen and to get on the bandwagon. Yes, I’m a white guy of a certain age so OF COURSE I benefit from the WHITE PIRVILEGE the film is lampooning. But that’s NOT why I don’t get it!!! Seriously!!!

I mean, you’d be hard pressed to find ANYONE who DISLIKES WHITE PEOPLE more at this point in our history than I do.   Even though my 401-K profits from what’s going on in Washington, I live in a deep, dark blue state (in so many ways) and sometimes back away from telling off one of the far right crazies the way I used to for fear of being arrested for strangulation, I still DO side with the values of JUSTICE AND TRUTH for everyone.

It’s just, well…..

It didn’t work for me.

Or maybe I should say.. sorry not sorry?! #donthateme

I loved what it was ultimately saying and I wanted to see THAT film.   Strap me in MY chair and play me that movie – that everyone’s writing about. I want to see an original seamless screenplay that constantly has me laughing and intrigued by characters and a plot that keep me on the edge of my seat – or even far back into my seat, nodding my head at how the inevitable will happen based on the people and events the filmmaker has unfolded.

What I don’t enjoy in my movies are deus ex machina explanations of characters I’ve been watching for three quarters of a film do bad things. Who thought I would ever yearn for a Michael Myers-like reason?

stay with me here!!!

The opening was sick, fun and promising. The act one set up was creepy and believable. The end of the first act worked. I mean, something was up, right?

Then there was:

– The Second Act boredom. A series of sometimes amusing events and set pieces – some clever set pieces but too many other perplexing scenes that didn’t move the story forward with any discernable dramatic purpose – for me, Okay? For me! At least throw me a slightly more than microscopic breadcrumb so I can play along– or two or three – and I would’ve been satisfied, thrilled even, to join the crowd. #DontDunkirkMe.

Having a sinking feeling here

–Catherine Keener spinning that effing silver spoon in that teacup and ice tea glass and… Arghhh, don’t me make relive it for the 1000th time. I crave to see the queen of indie movies pre and post millennium play this kind of character – if I had any sense of who that character was during most of the narrative.

— That reveal at the beginning of act 3 that I had to wait for-EVAH for to make any sense of why, or how or for what reason can I care when no one is making any sense to me for so long. Even when what was really going on was revealed it felt imposed and cheap, reminiscent of a device from some low budget 1950s horror flick I might have watched long before I came out on Million Dollar Movie but turned off before the end (Note: Million Dollar Movie — A showcase for old, often n.s.g films on NYC television in the 1960s).

Sorry but not even a Keith Haring style homage to the movie is going to do it for me.

You might reject all of the above as ill-informed but just know at least I’ve stopped making silly, ridiculous arguments for my case like the one I made just yesterday on social media — Hey, I really enjoyed Black Panther!

Um, right – So because you liked A Black movie that proves…what exactly? It’s like DJT telling a rally in Pittsburgh he’s the least racist person you know because Don King is one of his best friends and he gave Omarosa…her career?

It plays to no one in possession of their own brain, #GetOut pun not intended.

hehehe

Oh, And just know it really doesn’t help to add, I liked Mudbound, too!

Or give a laundry list of your fave POC films starting with Sounder and then going on through Cleopatra Jones, Lady Sings the Blues, Mahogany (yes, Deal with it!), Do the Right Thing, Boyz n The Hood, Bamboozled, Malcolm X or I Am Not Your Negro.

NO ONE CARES. And a case could be made for every one that I only responded to them because they didn’t challenge MY white privilege.

I suppose that may be right. Who are we but an amalgamation of our lived privileges and denials when you come right down to it?

On the other hand, it could just be that it wasn’t my cup of….tea?

Groan.

Childish Gambino – “Red Bone” (Get Out Movie Soundtrack)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDUcP2PiWrA

03.05.18
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Two Words

It’s not enough to say this year’s Academy Awards was all about diversity or representation or #TimesUp.

Because what it really was all about was the inclusion rider.

This is a provision in an actor’s contract that can ensure casting in films be more diverse and provide percentages by which to achieve it (e.g. gender parity, people of color, LGBTQ, disabled). It may also extend to ALL CREW MEMBERS on any given film.

In an electric speech near the end of the ceremony, Frances McDormand did many things but the most interesting among them had nothing to do with her best actress win or performance in Three Billboards Outside Ebbings, Missouri.

her moment

It was the I have two words to leave with you tonight, ladies and gentlemen – inclusion rider – a line that went from getting a blank stare from tens of millions of viewers to almost instantly becoming not only the #1 trending topic on Twitter but the Merriam-Webster dictionary website’s top search for the night.

There are ribbons and there are movements but at the end of the day there are really only CONTRACTS.

This is not a Hollywood thing. This is a business thing. ALL BUSINESSES.

Ms. McDormand makes it clear with each public appearance that it’s no accident she’s gained her greatest acclaim playing no-nonsense, complicated women.   But with that last line, specifically those two words, she’s not playing. She’s instead employing an extremely savvy use of a very public platform towards a really specific CONTRACTUAL REQUIREMENT to diversify.

It’s the iteration that follows the movement, which followed the ribbons, which channeled the marches – but this time on paper and in a court of law, if it comes to that.

Or put another way – the less kind and gentler version of you are the change you’ve been waiting for.

Her second most interesting moment was that, after thanking her family, she requested EVERY FEMALE NOMINEE in EVERY CATEGORY stand up for the world, and more importantly, the Hollywood patriarchy in attendance or watching, to see. She then admonished all those in power (aka many of the straight white guys of a certain age who claimed to be shocked by actions of guys like Harvey Weinstein – my editorial comment, not hers) that each and every one of these women have stories to tell and projects we need financed and instead of talking to them at a party that night to meet with them in an OFFICE (Note: We’ll go to yours or you can come to OURS) in a few days where we’ll tell you about them.

Who run the world?

This was not just the actors and the female writers and directors and producers she was pointing to. This was the female cinematographers, songwriters, composers, designers… Well, you get the picture.

Sure, there were other MOMENTS. Jimmy Kimmel was funny, charming really. Presenter Sandra Bullock made some hilarious remarks about dimming the lights so she could look 35 again, and 89-year-old James Ivory finally got the Oscar that eluded him as director of such classic films as Howard’s End, Maurice and Remains of the Day for his brilliant screenplay adaptation of Call Me By Your Name.

Oh and that shirt! #legend

Not to mention cinematographer Roger Deakins actually winning an Oscar after FOURTEEN nominations for his work on Blade Runner 2049 and Mexican-born Guillermo Del Toro’s two heartfelt acceptance speeches about the value of youth, art and American immigration as the best director and producer of this year’s best picture, The Shape of Water.

All of them were good, if not great. In fact, so were all the musical numbers. (Note: Yes, we were surprised too!).

But nothing captured the desire and mood of what’s really going on in the industry like the inclusion rider. Nothing.

Let the buyer beware.

Frances McDormand Oscar 2018 Acceptance Speech