by notesfromachair

Cage Match

I have evolved to the point where I don’t automatically think in terms of winners and losers on any particular issue. This, however, has taken a lifetime. After all, I’ve always loved games, my Dad is a gambler and – most importantly – I am an American.

The Inauguration of Barack Obama for a second term as President of the United States this week prompted some reflection – and not just about wardrobe and spectacle.

Truth be told — there is something about living in the United States that will make you competitive on certain specific personal issues of choice. Otherwise, our country as a whole, and more specifically Las Vegas and my Dad, would never have been able to make any money over the years. (Note: Both have done quite well on and off and continue to thrive even at all of their ripe old ages). Maybe it’s that we are a tough, relatively young country (despite our age) that started as a brash insurgent who dared to shove their nose up at Royalty. Or perhaps it’s that we as a people (including my gambling Dad) only motivate ourselves to make the all-important knockout punch when it’s clear that we will lose everything if we don’t. Most probably, it’s because like most animals we can’t resist a good blood sport. Vegas, Baby!

Giving in to our most base instincts was pretty easy this week. The world was a cage match where the loser got bloodied and grinded into tiny little pieces while the winner ended up taking a victory lap with a smile, arms metaphorically raised in the air. Yes, it’s true. And you know you love it. This is still America so you can be the judge this week. But here at notes from a chair we’ve already called the winners which, in some ways, is also uniquely American…isn’t it?

HILLARY VS THE MIDDLE-AGED (AND OVER) WHITE MEN

srsly boys?

Oh, guys, when will you learn? In 2012, Hillary Clinton was voted the most admired woman in not only the U.S. but the WORLD, and you are clearly on the downswing somewhere between the model of the Delorean car NOT used in the Back to the Future movies and canned spam. So why, why, why do you insist taking on this fight and trying to shame Sec. of State Clinton in a televised worldwide Congressional hearing by blaming her for the deaths of four Americans in the foreign service in Benghazi last year? Because you could? Well, you couldn’t.

Armed with a head full of undisputedly salient facts even after a severe concussion two weeks ago, Sec. Clinton spoke articulately, combatively and most importantly, smartly for more than seven (count ‘em!) hours to any number of hostile Senators seemingly bent on her destruction. Yet she managed to destroy them through sheer passion, emotion and brainpower, simplifying but never dumbing down the extremely dangerous and complicated physical and political challenges we face in the Middle East. We would like to say it felt a lot like what one former president she happens to be married to did with our quagmire of economic issues at the 2012 Democratic convention but this would be taking away credit from the current cage match at hand where the secretary of state was in a box all alone facing a whole new set of hostile opponents that kept on coming.

Lesson: The average man might be physically bigger and stronger than the average woman and Sen. Rand Paul might want to proclaim publicly that if he were president he would have relieved Mrs. Clinton of her duties. But there was no whiff of anything presidential about Rand Paul and certainly there was nothing at all average about Hillary Clinton or her appearance before them.

Right in the gut

Decision: KNOCKOUT HILLARY (2016).

BEYONCEGATE: MRS. JAY-Z VS. THE TEXAS TORNADO

Oh say can you … sing?

Beyonce appeared live and sang The Star Spangled Banner at the inauguration this week but at this writing there is some (well, a lot of) doubt as to whether Beyonce actually sang live at the inauguration this week. One fact no one disputes – Kelly Clarkson sang a rousing rendition of America (My Country ‘Tis of Thee) that so completely soared into the musical stratosphere that usually verbose NY Senator Chuck Schumer could only react afterwards with this single word – “Wow.”

Why is this important? Well, certainly it’s not important in the way global warming, world peace and the Oscars are (obviously). But it is relevant. Other than a great credit rating, what often seems to be lacking in the US these days is authenticity, and Beyoncegate, (i.e. was she or wasn’t she lip-synching) is as good example as any of the public being sold a bill of goods that through slick, beautiful and clever show business-like deception is not quite what it’s touted to be. Uh yeah, that’s right. Put a ring on it.

If we’re being told Beyonce will sing the National Anthem then the clear inference is that it is Beyonce actually SINGING the National Anthem live. Otherwise, we can go home and listen to one of her recordings or stare at her in the flesh at a party. Don’t get all cute on us and say she was singing and she was there – she just wasn’t live singing. You know it’s not the same thing. And don’t use the excuse that it was cold outside on inauguration morning and singers don’t do well in the cold. I mean, would any of us love her any less if she hit a thin or even bum note? I don’t think so. Plus, James Taylor and Kelly Clarkson (who is younger than Beyo) sang live. As did Aretha Franklin (who is older than both Beyonce and Kelly combined) four years earlier at Obama Inauguration #1.

Ms. Clarkson’s rendition of America started out with a few thin notes and wasn’t perfect. But it was the imperfection at the beginning and the mounting drama of the musical moments through the song to the end that made her performance such a wow. We don’t really want a live performance to be as musically perfect as a recording if it’s going to sound exactly the same. We’re there because we want some drama, some danger, some thrill of some sweat. And no, the diva flourish of Beyonce yanking her earpiece from her head did not count in the same way as the huge smile on Kelly Clarkson’s face after she hit the high notes on the final verse of that song that even she doubted in the moment she could get to.

DECISION: TKO KELLY CLARKSON

THE 60s OR the 20 TEENS??

Oh.. hello Jon.

I started teaching a new group of screenwriting students who pitched their script ideas this week and I’m here to report that out of a total of 23 students in two different classes 7 proposed scripts that are set in the 1960s.

That comes out to roughly – 30% or close to one-third.

Luckily, there were none that took place in the eighties because as I continue to emphasize to students or anyone else that will listen that decade goes down as the ABSOLUTE WORST in history. Greed, avarice, AIDS, big hair, horrible clothes and television shows like “Knight Rider,” “Baywatch” and “The A Team.” Plus, I’m itching to drop one name in presidential politics but in the interest of staying on topic I am going to REAGAN reign myself in.

The sixties, however, were a different time. Certainly there were so many awful moments – the fight for civil rights, the escalation of an endless war in Vietnam, and the assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy AND Martin Luther King. Plus, there was even Richard Nixon to top off the decade.

However, what there also was plenty of was old-fashioned hope and a belief on the part of the young that if they worked and shouted hard enough the world could, indeed, become a better place.

I think that’s a large part of why today’s young people and many of the rest of us are still dazzled by the sixties. That and the music. And the sex. And the drugs. And the rock ‘n roll. I am mature enough to guide them through all of that, having lived through those times myself. But in doing so in the next few months I don’t think I can stop myself from asking if what was being fought for back then is being lived up to in its fullest right now. The answer may lie in the upcoming Coen Bros. movie but, elusive guys that they are, I somehow doubt it.

DECISION: SPLIT

REPLICANT SETH TAKES ON THE OSCARS

Here is one of the new ads the Motion Picture Academy has just released for this year’s Oscars.

Seth-bot

So – am I the only one who thinks this looks as if a replicant is the 2013 Oscar host and that the Oscars are so afraid of IT that they allowed IT to have ITS name get star billing above them?

The picture of the replicant is very funnyman Seth McFarlane and in this “air brushed within an inch of its life” photo he appears to be starring in a new remake of The Stepford Wives entitled Planet Stepford Men and the Audiences Who Must Love Him. This is to say nothing of Oscar allowing said host, who most Oscar watchers barely know (let’s face it), get above-the-title star billing over a trademark that is one of the most recognizable in the entire over-developed world.

Clearly, the reason for this new “branding” is a merging between the old and the new. The Oscars are old and Seth McFarlane represents everything young and hip, especially when he wears a tuxedo and clutches a gold statuette as if it’s a microphone he’s ready to sing a set of Frank Sinatra songs into.

Oh Academy, Academy, Academy. Watch the tape of poor Anne Hathaway hosting with another young replicant James Franco. Then, watch it again. Now, once more. Then consider — just because the artwork has already gone out on this one doesn’t mean it isn’t too late to rethink, regroup and refocus. You do have Adele and half a billion potential viewers to work with. You might also want to add some MOVIE stars while you’re at it. Real ones.

Hold me

DECISION: THIS ROUND SETH, FIGHT STILL IN PROGRESS

BOEHNER & CO. VS. MICHELLE OBAMA & EVERY OTHER FIRST LADY IN YOUR LIFE

Quite a trio

“..We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths, that all of us are created equal, is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall…” – Barack Obama, 2012

The idea is that the equal rights struggle of women, Blacks and gays is really the same struggle elucidated in the U.S. Constitution – that all the “Men” who “are created Equal” includes them and all other human beings. That’s why it was particularly disconcerting to see Speaker of the House John Boehner this week voluntarily putting himself into the ring with two fights, one small and one big, he could never win.

The small one is the fun one and features the classic Michelle Obama eye roll that has now become a popular gif.

Just roll with it

Apparently, that was in reaction to some joke told by Boehner about Pres. Obama smoking a cigarette after his speech (despite the First Lady’s well known desire to have the president quit for good) as Mrs. O was eating a salad while seated next to Boehner. Okay – so Boehner doesn’t have the timing of Henny Youngman. Or even John Mulaney. And one presumes he was nervous because he didn’t ask to sit next to Mrs. Obama. Or vice-versa. Let’s count that a gimme.

But the second was the one where he announced publicly in front of thousands at the National Mall on Friday that he isn’t going to rest until he helps “make abortion a relic of the past” – which one can only take at his word to mean that no woman, no how will ever be able to get an abortion, even a young woman who is raped or that if an abortion is made available for that rare exception it will be seen as an immoral anomaly to a societal pariah. Those remarks and statements like “let that be one of our most fundamental goals of the year” – that would be 2013 – were made at an event billed as a March for Life rally, one at which he delivered the take-away speech.

One supposes the Speaker is entitled to his opinion even if it runs counter to the vast majority of American women just as he is allowed to tell any type of joke he likes to any female, or male for that matter, of his choosing. But if you were a betting person like my Dad, who would you like to wager on – the middle-aged white guy with the perpetual tan or the majority of American females, the ones now very well represented in Washington, DC by the likes of Hillary Clinton?

DECISION: YOUR FIRST LADY (and those of all ages) because they usually know best.

11.11.12

by notesfromachair

Cloudy with a Chance of Hope

“For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction,” scientist extraordinaire Sir Isaac Newton theorized more than 400 years ago. This was heady stuff at the time — the idea that there are LOGICAL consequences for every bit of the naughty or nice behavior you put out into the universe, rather than retribution or praise from God, Santa Claus or Donald Trump’s money, depending on what time period you live in and who or what you see as your Higher Power.

Newton wouldn’t seem to have a lot in common with Mr. Trump and his 2012 ilk, though there is a movie that oddly sees something of a connection. That movie is called “Cloud Atlas” and no one was more surprised than I was at the spell this perfectly imperfect film has cast and still continues to hold over me.

You really got a hold on me…

Let’s face it, you don’t go to studio movies these days expecting to be forced into considering the existential issues of life unless it’s directed by Paul Thomas Anderson or stars a superhero in mechanical armor, spandex or some rare combination of both. It is also worth noting that in the case of the latter, this discussion will take place only in the broadest of good vs. evil terms, sort of like a political fight on either Fox News or MSNBC. It is equally worth noting that in the case of PTA (one of my faves), this will only persist if he continues in profit, Oscar wins or some combination of both as time progresses. (Unfortunate Translation: You better enjoy movies like “The Master” and “There Will Be Blood” while you can, because it doesn’t look good).

Using that logic, it is quite unlikely “Cloud Atlas,” with its mixed reviews, mediocre box office returns and general lukewarm reception among the Hollywood elite, will emerge as the kind of “asset” (au currant studio chief jargon for movies) film studios will lust after in the near future. But that doesn’t matter. Because as sure as I’m typing this, that’s how positive I am there are other writers, directors and actors (those people known as the above-the-line talent – or engine – for new work) who will be inspired or moved enough by Lana Wachowski & Andy Wachowski and Tom Tykwer’s attempt to tackle a seemingly unfilmmable novel of depth and profundity and, in turn, seek to do something with equal meaning and depth that they personally connect with. In other words, Newton’s theory holds not only in science but also for artistry. Said even more plainly — just as studio chiefs might be repelled at $24 million in US box office grosses for an unusual film that cost $100 million and probably an equal amount to advertise, the creative forces behind movies (well, at least one, two or three of them) will be moved and attracted in the exact opposite direction for the exact opposite reasons of their bosses – those of intellectual substance rather than money.

Everything is connected.

I don’t love much about the movie business these days but I especially do love this. If nothing else, that’s what “Cloud Atlas” and the perceived highly unlikely (in some quarters) re-election of Pres. Obama (because I am a die hard liberal who wants to bask in getting almost everything I wanted on election night), did for me this week. See, for most humans, much of life’s bottom line profit is not about what’s measurable on a balance sheet. It’s about intangibles like fulfilling inspiration to do good stuff, bettering one’s life or others’ lives through telling your own story in some form, or moving people to take action, any kind of action, on their own. That is why Pres. Obama won the election and why cutting public funding for PBS – or refocusing our educational system on multiple choice test scores while chopping its creative classes – will never net the result we truly want, no matter how black and white positive it looks on a logic board. Gravity and medical science can be proven in fairly absolute terms by thinkers such as Newton and those who followed him, and guide us in the quantifiable correct direction in medicine and science. But what moves (or will move) the human spirit in the area of creative action and that which will produce a truly satisfiable result is an incalculable combination of events – sort of like the show business version of predicating a hit recording, TV ratings bonanza or the latest international box office hit. Despite all the tried and true formulas or computer programs that promise you such, there is always, as even Simon Cowell has figured out, that human X Factor. (Note: You have no idea how it pains me to give Cowell any credit at all – but – there it is)

In any event, back to “Cloud Atlas.” Here’s the big money quote from the movie and novel – which out of context might seem like a greeting card from the 1970s – which is probably why I like it to begin with:

“…Our lives are not our own. From womb to tomb, we are bound to others. Past and present. And by each crime, and every kindness, we birth our future…”

I can remember writing a letter to Newsweek in the early 1990s rebuking its cynical attitude towards what it termed leftover “hippie thinking” of the sixties. My position has always been that it was how much the youth of that time believed in the healing power of peace and love that made that group a big part of the reality that helped force the US government to end the Vietnam War and to begin to face some of the great social issues of that time (e.g. gender equality and gay rights). Like a book whose ending is yet to be written, or a screenplay that is years away from being finished, no one knew for sure what the ending of those protests or way of thinking would be. But the feeling that something had to be done to create the preferred ending you wanted – that kind of blind faith and, yes, hope – is what caused people to act. This is not unlike the mass turnout of 18-25 year olds for Pres. Obama (a group that as a college professor I know quite well) who are still at the point in their lives where they believe that change is possible despite all seeming evidence to the contrary.

Courting the youth vote.

If one can reduce the 6-8 different interweaving stories in “Cloud Atlas” to a single theme this is what they’d amount to. Each character is faced with a moral dilemma over which they are challenged and each has to decide whether they are courageous enough to step up to the plate despite all evidence to the contrary that there is much of a chance to succeed. Because it’s a movie that takes place over the course of numerous centuries, and because most commercial movies today have beginnings, middles and ends, we get to see how dependent upon each other these actions are over time to not only the survival of every character (and over whether they’ll have a happy life) but to the survival of mankind. There is no such crystal ball that I know of for any one of us forced into making moral decisions at our given moments in time – whether we’re a writer, singer or actor deciding on what project we want to direct our creative energies to, or whether we’re Mother Theresa, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela or some hippie chick or dude. The only thing we do have is the gnawing belief that when push comes to shove something must be done – a belief that moves us to what, on the surface, might seem to be the silliest fruitless or most unwise action imaginable until it turns out well. Certainly this same action can just as likely be a self-destructive or defeating one, at least in your lifetime. Yet also at the same time this very action can lead to yet another reaction or additional action by someone else that will produce an entirely different and favorable result in the future for another person or group or, to be lofty, entire race of people we have yet to or never will meet.

The film “Cloud Atlas” is certainly reflective of all of the above. Tom Hanks is distractingly miscast as some of its villains and perhaps even a bit on the nose as its hero. And certainly the movie’s 172 minute length can be a lot to take. Also noteworthy is the relentless shifting narrative in the first 40 minutes to the point of distraction, not to mention the obviousness of some of the stories and their lack of depth.

~~Ice-T~~ Tom Hanks loves Coco.

But some movies, just as some lives, are greatly flawed yet ultimately a whole lot greater than the sum of their parts. I would argue this is the case in particular here. It is not the message inherent in any one of the C.A. stories but how the stories ultimately work together and build to create a much more powerful overarching testament to empowerment. And a side note to aspiring moviemakers – this is done through not only what it’s saying but by the very act and execution of its technical construction.

In my mind it is not an accident that one of the directors of this film and its major creative force – Lana Wachowski – is a woman with a personal story unlike any most of us will encounter. Lana, up until a few years ago, was known simply as a famous director and writer who, along with her brother, was merely responsible for one of the biggest movie franchises of the last thirty years – the “Matrix” films. But Lana was also seen as a non descript looking middle aged man known as Larry –a secretly transgender person who by all accounts psychically suffered until she had the wherewithal and means to take change of her circumstance of birth and proceed with self-acceptance and whatever gender reassignment procedures she chose. These procedures have scientifically evolved to the point where there is a way to measure their chances of medical success but certainly not to the point where there is as empirically reliable of a way to measure their chance of psychological success given the limits across the board for any absolute measure of human happiness and contentment. Yet, like the theme of her film, which she admits became a bit of a metaphor for her life, Ms. Wachowski decided to make the leap anyway because she knew in her heart of hearts it was the right thing and perhaps only thing she could do.

This belief is in part what prompted her to spend so many years “obsessed” with bringing “Cloud Atlas” to the screen and in using her “Matrix” clout in order to do it. Certainly, she had a big stage to take her leap of faith. But the size of the stage has nothing to do with the size of the personal leap or the eventual effect it will have on the rest of the world. As the movie posits, there is no way to ever know that unless one has a crystal ball. There is just a belief in oneself. And the universe. And the fact that Newton’s theory will tip towards the forces of good instead of evil. This means acknowledging even though evil or the undesired outcome will always exist; it is equally true that the opposite can very well, and perhaps even likely, happen.

That’s why a 2012 message of 1960s hope and change will never go out of style. This, above all, I find reassuring.