Friday, August 03, 2012
Edward Copeland's Top 100 of 2012 (80-61)
People like to mock Frank Capra as simple-minded at times and this film especially, but it remains a rousing indictment of corruption in Washington that echoes to this very day. It's too bad that a filibuster doesn't still mean that a senator has to do what Jefferson Smith did and hold the floor for as long as he can instead of the procedural gimmick it's turned into today that prevents legislation from moving out of the Senate. Still, whenever I catch Mr. Smith, no matter how long it has been on, I have to watch until the end. It's the curse of being both a movie buff and a political junkie. In a way, with recent events, it seems to have a bit of timeliness beneath the treacle and idealistic love of how this country should work.
When people think Ingmar Bergman, they think heavy, but here flows one of his lightest and most enjoyable concoctions. In an introduction made for the Criterion edition of the film, Bergman remarks how Smiles changed everything for him. At the time, he was broke and living off the actress Bibi Andersson when his studio entered the film at Cannes and it won a prize (best poetic humor) and became an international success. Bergman says it was a turning point for both him and his studio, earning him free rein to go on and make even more of the greatest films of all time. The film contains obvious echoes of The Rules of the Game, though Smiles more than stands on its own with its tale of love and adultery, male vanity and female cunning, aging and youth. It's not only a delight as a film but inspired the great Stephen Sondheim to write one of his earliest great scores as composer and lyricist in A Little Night Music. Isn't it rich?
The Weinstein P.R. machine spun so much press off this film's twist that I think it takes away from how great a movie had developed before that plot turn even happens. I was fortunate enough to see it early, before the hype went into overdrive, so I thought another story turn was the "twist" and relaxed and the real twist took me by complete, wonderful surprise. I hope someday new viewers will be able to see the film without knowing what lies ahead. Even if they don’t though, they will see a great study in human nature as well as great performances from Stephen Rea, Forest Whitaker, Miranda Richardson and Jaye Davidson.
While Spike Lee still has talent to spare, he has yet to come close to equaling the power of his third film and its study of one hot day in Bedford Stuy. His strongest work has flourished in his documentaries, especially his pair of post-Katrina films When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts and If God Is Willing and Da Creek Don’t Rise and the feature Inside Man. Something tells me he’ll come back eventually. More than 20 years later, Do the Right Thing retains the power it unleashed in 1989 as that breed of film that has become rarer and rarer: the conversation starter.
The film marketed as Bergman's "last feature" truly is one of his best, painting a vast semiautobiographical canvas of two children from a large theatrical family who find their lives upended when their mother weds an authoritarian monster of a minister. Beyond the narrative, Sven Nykvist's photography, Anna Asp’s art direction, Susanne Lingheim’s sets and Marik Vos’ costumes present a sumptuous feast for the eyes. Its three-hour running time flies by and watching the 312-minute cut Bergman originally made for Swedish television proves even more rewarding.
Bogie got one of his best roles, John Huston made one of his greatest films (winning his only two Oscars for writing and directing) and his old man got a supporting actor Oscar in the deal as well. When you see Walter Huston do his mocking, triumphant little dance, you want to join in. Sierra Madre wasn’t John Huston’s only classic starring Humphrey Bogart released in 1948 either. The two also collaborated on Key Largo, While it’s good, it’s this film with its prospecting south of the border that’s the real keeper.
Here comes Howard Hawks again and Cary Grant (playing a nerd, believe it or not) as well. (I haven't added it up, but I suspect Grant appears in more movies on this list than any other actor). Katharine Hepburn's most inspired performance powers this screwiest of screwball comedies as her flighty socialite wreaks havoc on the world of Grant’s mild-mannered paleontologist. All of this and a leopard or two, too.
Salieri may consider himself the "patron saint of mediocrity," but little can be called mediocre about Forman's adaptation of Peter Shaffer's play. F. Murray Abraham and Tom Hulce were both brilliant and you can't really argue against its musical score. The unitiated might suspect slowgoing in a period costume drama such as this, but they haven't seen enough and certainly not Amadeus which overflows with humor and light as well as its darker elements.
There wouldn't be a Breakfast Club without a Virginia Woolf, but I don't hold that against Edward Albee or his great play turned into a superb movie by Mike Nichols. Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton were never better and while the truth games and verbal battles make you cringe, you can't avert your eyes from their power. Albee's play marks its 50th anniversary this year and it still packs a punch a half-century later.
To me, one of the crimes of both versions of the AFI list is that Psycho is the only representation of black-and-white Hitchcock, as if no one noticed him until he started working in color, but nothing is further from the truth and Notorious is one of the best examples of that. The kiss between Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant remains one of the most sensual images ever put on celluloid and Claude Rains is superb as the conflicted heavy of the piece.
This film shouldn't work and it probably wouldn't if its stellar cast hadn't saved it. Kazan and Budd Schulberg's attempt to justify their actions during the McCarthy hearings doesn't quite work as an allegory, but the film itself works as a powerful story thanks to the indelible performances it contains. Brando earns the big kudos but the solid work of Eva Marie Saint, Rod Steiger, Karl Malden and especially Lee J. Cobb shouldn't be forgotten.
As digital projection sounds the death knell for celluloid, I feel even more grateful that when I saw Lawrence of Arabia for the first time, I saw the restored, 70mm print in a theater released for its 25th anniversary. I never could watch the cropped, pan-and-scan versions on TV. It’s a shame that more classics fail to get re-released outside major markets, but with the digital future, it’s almost moot. As for the film itself, if it weren't for the weaker second half, this movie that almost defines epic would have landed higher on this list. Still, with its stunning cinematography, gorgeous score and great Peter O'Toole performance, it belongs on the list nonetheless.
When I made my 2007 list, I admitted being torn between including 8½ or Nights of Cabiria to represent Fellini and I ended up opting for 8½. In the intervening five years, I’ve watched both films again and my preference clearly leans to Cabiria. While Giulietta Masina's remarkable performance as the title character might break your heart at times, more often than not, she'll leave you smiling, even if it's a sad smile. While Masina initially wins you over when seeing the film the first few times, on later viewings I've found the movie itself richer. It's constructed almost as a perfect circle, a ring of hell if you will, from which Cabiria would like to escape. "Everyone has a secret agony," a character tells her at one point and as much as Cabiria might try to avoid it, she hopes to abandon her life. First, she sees fun in a brief sojourn with a celebrated movie star (Amedeo Narrazi) that in a way predicts Pretty Woman some 30 years down the road, though without the manufactured happy ending. Fellini grounds Nights of Cabiria in reality, a world where the poor are forced to live in caves and anyone can be a victim. In another incident, when Cabiria realizes that once again she's been gypped, it leads to an ending that manages to be touching, magical and inspiring, all at the same time, ending with one of film's greatest close-ups.
Kirk Douglas probably was miscast, but this early Kubrick doesn't get the kudos it deserves and it certainly bears up better over the years than some of his later works such as A Clockwork Orange. Paths of Glory centers on one particular battle between the French and the German, where the poor French troops are outmanned and outgunned, but that's no excuse for disobeying orders in the eyes of one general. Kubrick often tackled the futility of war and its inherent contradictions, but he really knocked it out of the park with this one.
Of the many collaborations between Zhang Yimou and Gong Li, this one remains my favorite, even though it's less heralded than many of his others. Gong and Ge You portray a married couple and we follow their lives in a kaleidoscopic tour of Chinese history, beginning with the civil war in the 1940s and passing through The Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution and a few years beyond. Epic while staying focused and personal in the telling, if you haven't seen To Live, you should. This might end up being Zhang’s masterpiece.
Another instance of the all-too-rare occurrence of a sequel that's better the film that spawned it. Whale's funny follow-up to his own Frankenstein contains most of the classic moments you probably associate with the story: the blind hermit, "She's alive!" and much more. It also adds some pure wackiness such as Ernest Thesiger’s Dr. Pretorius, with madder plans than Colin Clive’s original Dr. Frankenstein himself. We also get to hear Boris Karloff speak his first words as the monster and Elsa Lanchester play a dual role: Mary Shelley in a funny prologue setting up the sequel and as the bride herself. It’s a hoot from start to finish — and even manages to toss in a scare or two amidst the laughs.
Just as McCabe & Mrs. Miller isn't exactly a Western, it's not strictly a character study either. First and foremost, it's a Robert Altman film, one of those times when the late director got a hold of financing, cameras, actors, a crew and the things he needed for what intrigued him at that moment and did his cinematic dance, part strictly thought out, much improvised and lots that came about by happy accident. That style didn't always work throughout his long career, but when it did, magic resulted. As Pauline Kael wrote in her July 3, 1971, review of the film in The New Yorker, "Though Altman's method is a step toward a new kind of movie naturalism, the technique may seem mannered to those who are put off by the violation of custom — as if he simply didn't want to be straightforward about his storytelling.…He can't be straightforward in the old way, because he's improvising meanings and connections, trying to find his movie in the course of making it…" It took me about three viewings to warm to McCabe. Now, it stands as one of my very favorite Altman films and I can see it climbing higher in the future the more I watch it.
Even with a distance of more than a decade, I find it difficult deciding where to place newer films amid the established classics, but Memento continues to excite me more than any other new movie I saw between 1998 and 2002. The film surpasses the accusations of detractors who see it as merely a gimmick. It also manages to be both funny and heartbreaking as it spins the tale of Leonard Shelby (Guy Pearce), a man suffering from short-term memory loss that prevents him from remembering anything after a single day. Not helpful when you’re trying to solve your wife’s murder. The film that put Nolan on the map remains my favorite of his works. Pearce gives a great performance as do Joe Pantoliano and Carrie-Anne Moss. It feels as if in the wake of Nolan’s Batman films and Inception, Memento has slipped from many long-term memories. It shouldn’t be forgotten.
When I first saw de Sica's masterpiece, English speakers knew it as The Bicycle Thief. It's only been recently that we've learned the more correct English translation. I guess his film still has things to teach us today. De Sica mastered the art of making films that plucked on a viewer’s heart strings without being so sentimental that it bred resentment. Shoeshine plays like a rough draft for Bicycle Thieves and he later made the great Umberto D., but I have to opt for the simple heartbreaking beauty of Bicycle Thieves and that unforgettable final shot.
A meditation on life, the universe and everything and, for a film whose story begins with a chess game between a knight back from the Crusades and Death for the knight's life as the Black Plague spreads chaos around them, it has a bit more humor than you'd expect. The film also marked the first teaming of Bergman with Max von Sydow, who portrays the knight. It sets the stage for many of the themes Bergman would return again and again throughout his career dealing with God, faith and so much more.
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Labels: Albee, Altman, Capra, Christopher Nolan, De Sica, Fellini, Hawks, Hitchcock, Huston, Ingmar Bergman, Kazan, Kubrick, Lean, Lists, Nichols, Sondheim, Spike Lee, Whale, Zhang Yimou
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Saturday, February 11, 2012
Not straight out of Brooklyn
By Edward Copeland
Coming-of-age movies could be the most pervasive story device in cinema's lifetime yet. Unlike other genres, the well-tread territory very often manages to find a fresh approach while maintaining that universal feeling at the same time. Writer-director Dee Rees' Pariah proves that again by telling the story of a teen girl's blossoming that hasn't been told before but should be recognizable to anyone.
The "pariah" in Pariah is a 17-year-old Brooklyn girl named Alike (Adepero Oduye) who seems to be facing outcast status on multiple fronts. At school, she's smart and excels in her classes, so some students tease her as a geek. She also doesn't care about fashion, something that makes her a target of mockery, not only by other students but by her image-conscious mother Audrey (Kim Wayans, stepping away from her famous family's comic brand name and giving a fine dramatic turn in a dramatic role) who dotes on her younger sister Sharonda (Sahra Mellesse) instead. In fact, within her family only her mostly absent (and philandering) policeman father (Charles Parnell) even refers to her by her given name of Alike — her mom and most others call her Lee.
The biggest hurdle that Alike faces and can't seem to jump requires the teen to admit first to herself, let alone anyone else, that she's a lesbian. It's more a less an open secret between her and her openly gay best friend Laura (Pernell Walker) and based on their friendship, many assume the truth, hurl homophobic slurs or choose not to see what's obvious.
Her mother has the biggest denial complex of anyone, forbidding "Lee" from hanging out with Laura because she's a "bad influence" and trying to force her into a friendship with a co-worker's daughter Bina (Aasha Davis). That backfires on Audrey since Bina might not have the obvious "bad influence" look of Laura, but she's also confronting her sexuality. This leads her to being an outcast among the outcasts, who feel that Alike's burgeoning relationship with Bina isn't "butch" enough.
Oduye leads the very talented cast that makes film both touching and heartbreaking, with touches of humor at times. She's especially powerful when she does voice the truth about her sexuality to her parents and even better later when she calmly explains to her father that "choosing is not running." Rees impresses with both writing and directing. One of the film's executive producers is Spike Lee, for whom Rees served a 40 Acres and a Mule internship program on Lee's Inside Man and his great documentary on Hurricane Katrina, When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts. Though Rees has made several short films and a feature-length documentary of her own, Pariah marks her first feature-length fictional film.
Pariah first began earning acclaim and prizes at 2011 Sundance Film Festival where it was one of the 15 films that lost the Grand Jury Prize for dramatic film to the awful Like Crazy (and I'll testify under oath that four of those 15 were robbed. A fifth I couldn't finish). It did win the Grand Jury Prize for Cinematography in a dramatic film for Bradford Young, though if you check Pariah's awards at the increasingly flaky Internet Movie Database, it will say that Dee Rees won the cinematography prize. If you want to check out some of the other strangeness I've found at IMDb, check out this sidebar.
Actually, that's only true for this feature version of Pariah. It began life as a short film that Rees made in 2007 that won more than a handful of awards and had nearly the same cast as the feature version playing the same roles. (Among the more notable exceptions: the great Wendell Pierce, Treme's Antoine Batiste and The Wire's Bunk Moreland, played Alike's father Arthur.)
I've never seen Pariah the short, but Pariah the feature deserves most of its accolades.
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Labels: 10s, Awards, Documentary, Shorts, Spike Lee, The Wire, Treme, Wendell Pierce
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Friday, February 03, 2012
Ben Gazzara (1930-2012)
We've lost yet another of the unofficial John Cassavetes repertory company with the news that the great Ben Gazzara lost his battle with pancreatic cancer Friday at the age of 81. Gazzara left his mark on stage, screen and television throughout his long career and never abandoned his taste for taking risks beyond the works of Cassavetes, who directed Gazzara in three films and co-starred with him in two movies directed by others, eventually appearing in films by directors such as David Mamet, Vincent Gallo, the Coen brothers, Todd Solondz, Spike Lee, Lars von Trier and Gérard Depardieu.
A native Manhattanite from a working class family, once the acting bug bit Gazzara, he studied under Lee Strasberg at The Actors Studio. He made his Broadway debut in 1953 in Calder Willingham's adaptation of his own novel End as a Man which earned Gazzara a 1954 Theater World Award. In March 1955, he created the role of Brick in the original production of Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof under Elia Kazan's direction. Barbara Bel Geddes had the role of the original Maggie and Burl Ives put his mark on Big Daddy. Only Ives and Madeleine Sherwood as sister woman Mae made the leap to the 1958 movie version. Though the Pulitzer Prize-winning play was a huge hit, Gazzara departed it later in 1955 to take the lead role of Johnny Pope in A Hatful or Rain written by Michael V. Gazzo, who movie buffs undoubtedly know better as Frankie Pentageli in The Godfather Part II. The play concerned a Korean War veteran who came home addicted to morphine and how it tore his family apart, It earned Gazzara his first Tony nomination as lead actor and co-star Anthony Franciosa a nomination as featured actor as his younger brother. When it was made into a film in 1957, Don Murray got to play Johnny though Franciosa kept his part and earned an Oscar nomination in the lead category. Gazzara's final Broadway appearance in the 1950s was a gigantic flop. The Night Circus also was written by Gazzo, but it closed after seven performances. It did co-star Janice Rule, who Gazzara would wed in 1961. For the remainder of his New York stage career, he would receive two more Tony nominations (but never a win). One for playing George to Colleen Dewhurst's Martha in a revival of Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, the other for an evening of paired one acts: Eugene O'Neill's Hughie and David Scott Milton's Duet. In 2004, he received a Drama Desk nomination for solo performance for his off-Broadway play Nobody Don't Like Yogi about baseball legend Yogi Berra, which he took on tour. He received a 2006 Drama Desk Award as part of the winning ensemble for the Broadway revival of Clifford Odets' Awake and Sing!, his last stage appearance.
Concurrent to his stage work in the 1950s, Gazzara appeared frequently on television, almost exclusively on the many live theater programs that originated from New York, though some episodic appearances pre-date his Broadway debut and stretch back to 1952 on series such as Treasury Men in Action, Danger and Justice. He didn't make his film debut until 1957 in The Strange One, which is the title they gave to a reworked version of the play End as a Man with many of the original Broadway cast repeating roles along with Gazzara including Pat Hingle, Peter Mark Richman (not using the Peter yet), Paul E. Richards and Arthur Storch. His second film in 1959 though is one of his works that will keep his memory alive as the defendant in Otto Preminger's Anatomy of a Murder starring James Stewart. The film still plays well today, though it's hardly as daring now as it was in its original release. While Gazzara always bounced between the three mediums, his only regular roles on series took place in the 1960s. First, as Det. Sgt. Nick Anderson on the 30 episodes of Arrest and Trial from 1963-1964, then as Paul Bryan in the far-more-successful Run for Your Life which aired from 1965=1968 and earned him two Emmy nominations as outstanding lead actor in a drama series. He also was nominated in 1986 for the lead actor in the TV movie An Early Frost and won as supporting actor in a TV movie for the 2002 HBO film Hysterical Blindness.
Gazzara never stopped working and if I attempted to be comprehensive, I'd never finish this. It would be impossible to have seen everything he has made — I imagine even he never saw all of his films. I never realized how many movies he made in Italy. In The New York Times obit, it quotes a 1994 interview he gave to Cigar Aficionado magazine about those movies where he said, “You go where they love you.” So, forgive any omissions, because I'm finishing this fast.
You always want to start with the Cassavetes trilogy: Husbands, The Killing of a Chinese Bookie and Opening Night and how those working friendships spread to other projects such as Gazzara directing Husbands co-star Peter Falk in two episodes of Columbo and, many decades later Cassavetes' widow Gena Rowlands wrote a short film for her and Gazzara to star in that Gérard Depardieu directed as part of Paris, je t'aime . There was the incredibly goofy Patrick Swayze vehicle Road House where Gazzara played the bad guy, but he portrayed Brad Wesley in such a damn entertaining way you kept forgetting that he was the one you were supposed to be rooting against. His mysterious Mr. Klein, one of the many puzzling characters in David Mamet's puzzle picture The Spanish Prisoner. The magnificent duet of dysfunction that he and Anjelica Huston performed in Vincent Gallo's Buffalo '66. The neighborhood boss trying to play peacekeeper and vigilante at the same time in Spike Lee's Summer of Sam. Then he was part of the quirky ensembles that made up Todd Solondz's Happiness and the Coens' Big Lebowski.
Gazzara lived to take chances and loved to work and he did both about as well as anyone. RIP Mr. Gazzara.
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Labels: A. Huston, Albee, Awards, Cassavetes, Coens, Falk, J. Stewart, Kazan, Mamet, O'Neill, Obituary, Preminger, Spike Lee, Tennessee Williams, von Trier
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Monday, August 08, 2011
The Trick Candle
By Jonathan Pacheco
Nola (Tracy Camilla Johns) is a mythological goddess, a seductress rarely descending from her studio apartment, spending her time perched on her bed, which doubles as a sort of altar to her sexual prowess, decorated with more candles than a cathedral. She only makes love on her own mattress, but her suitors — male and female — are more than willing to make the journey for their reward will be great. Even her full name — Nola Darling — when spoken by her lovers, sounds more like a near-allegorical title that she demands than a true first and last name. Yes, she's a seductress, but one whose greed is without malice.
Or maybe she's simply a modern young woman who enjoys sex, openly and honestly soliciting several relationships — most frequently with Jamie (Tommy Redmond Hicks), an honest gentleman; Greer (John Canada Terrell), a model; and Mars (Spike Lee), a scrawny bike messenger — to fulfill her desires. In our society, the promiscuous male equivalent of this character has been accepted and even glorified for a while now, and not just in the black community. But a female who carries on strictly physical relationships with multiple partners? Well, we've got some nasty words for a lady like that, even 25 years after this film was made, don't we? She's Gotta Have It, while playful in ways we haven't seen from its director in a long time, wouldn't be a Spike Lee joint if it didn't address and attempt to annihilate some serious, thought-provoking issues and stereotypes. Lee's characters in this film are nonviolent, artistic, intelligent and successful (mostly). I don't recall hearing the n-word, and in the closing credits Lee proudly points out, "THIS FILM CONTAINS NO JERRI CURLS!!! AND NO DRUGS!!!" Clearly, his first feature is a call to abandon past stereotypes and think progressively about how we socially and sexually identify black men and women — heck, all men and women.
And a first feature this very much is, as She's Gotta Have It exhibits many of the expected traits of independent films by young directors. Most of the key performances, particularly those by Johns, Raye Dowell (as Nola's desperate-to-get-her-to-switch lesbian friend Opal) and occasionally Terrell, are weak and at times downright bad. The camerawork gets a bit too literal when it cues conversations (tilt up, settle, and — line!), and in that sense it sort of tips off the viewer. Still, some of those first-feature characteristics are charming when seen in the context of Lee's career thus far. It's fun to see members of his family play key roles in the production, from his sister, a young Joie Lee, playing Nola's former roommate, to his father, Bill Lee, doubling up as Nola's onscreen father as well as composer of the film's jazzy score. Through the film we discover a relaxed, familial production environment. When Mars is introduced, he's seen speeding down a hill on his bike, heading straight for the camera, swerving at the last moment to miss it as he screams. Lee cuts to a title card, but over it we hear laughter and chatter from the crew. It fits within the documentary façade of the film, but to my ears it sounds like real reactions from Lee's crew. Just before the end credits, the director lets his main players come out and take bows by having them slate a shot, then introduce themselves. A few add their own flair: an impersonation, a bass riff, a certain smirk. There's a joyful atmosphere to the production that Lee wants you to see.
The film itself is comically playful in a way you don't see from Lee anymore, partially because he's molded himself into a singular filmmaker no longer in need of his early, slightly derivative techniques. There are jokes, moments and even stretches in She's Gotta Have It that feel downright Woody Allen-esque, from Jamie's chase of Nola through the streets of New York to some plain silly touches, such as Nola nearly falling asleep waiting for Greer to slowly undress, or the reveal of Mars' sneakers during sex. Even Lee's now-familiar speaking-to-the-camera montage technique, typically used for dramatic effect (the racial slur sequence of Do the Right Thing or the "I'm Malcolm X" montage in Malcolm X), is used comically in this film to catalog the lame pickup attempts of Nola's would-be suitors (a scene that Kevin Smith would later ape in his own first feature, Clerks). I mean, at one point a man wipes snot with his hand, then briefly inspects it before finishing his pickup line; it's endearing how goofy Lee gets.
Despite its humble budget and brief shooting schedule, She's Gotta Have It is a great looking film, at times beautiful. Lee's bold visual style is present, though not quite fully developed; the crane shot is missing from
his arsenal and his use of handheld feels a bit raw. Cinematographer Ernest Dickerson makes great use of black-and-white film and the occasional dose of slow-motion, most notably in a few of the film's sex scenes with characters set against a stark black background, lit almost exclusively in highlights and shot only in tight close-ups. Her breasts. His face, then hers. Mouths open in ecstasy. The film deliberately tries to be sexy, which is typically a turnoff for me, but here it absolutely works, as does one of its boldest moves, a single scene shot in color. While not as beautiful as the black-and-white photography, and ironically a bit more dated when we see the typical bright, clashing colors of the '80s (as if Nola's near-Eraserhead haircut didn't tip you off), its inclusion is surprising and striking enough that it conjured an involuntary "Whoa" from me when it arrived.It's during this scene — Nola's birthday celebration with Jamie — that she's presented a cake with a trick candle that reignites after she blows it out. In passing, it's another small, playful way to cap a scene, perhaps in reality a gag played on the cast, because as they laugh, Tommy Hicks sneaks a quick glance at the camera and then at the offscreen crew. Yet, the moment foreshadows Nola's fate, doesn't it? The candles wrapping around her bed like angels' wings represent her sexual fire. She lights them before intercourse and extinguishes them after. She has a nightmare that includes flames engulfing her bed, her fear of her destructive sexuality in full metaphor. When she decides to become a celibate, one-man woman, part of her cleansing process entails removing candles from her altar and scraping off the excess wax.
But her celibacy doesn't last when she realizes that's not who she is or who she wants to be. In the film's closing moments, she's resigned to her reality, saying, "Who was I fooling?" as she stands against a curtain covered in a pattern resembling melted wax. Nola is that trick candle, only momentarily fooling he who thinks he can blow out her sexual fire. She'll always reignite.
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Labels: 80s, Kevin Smith, Movie Tributes, Spike Lee, Woody
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Tuesday, July 12, 2011
How to Survive in South Central
By Jonathan Pacheco
South Central Los Angeles, 1991. It’s not a neighborhood or a district, but rather a demon, a sadistic, permeating creature with a fierce grip on homes, boulevards and parks. Precious few slip from its grasp to find life and liberation while those who can’t find themselves possessed by rage, violence and misunderstanding. When we meet them in Boyz N the Hood, Tre (Cuba Gooding Jr.) and his childhood friends Doughboy (Ice Cube), Ricky (Morris Chestnut) and Chris (Regi Green) all find themselves in the clutches of South Central L.A., desperate to be free from the self-destruction it inspires within the black community.
Though writer/director John Singleton’s debut film makes its message perfectly clear to us from the opening moments (feeling a bit like a Spike Lee joint as it opens with statistics of black-on-black murder rates followed by a none-too-subtle camera push into a “STOP” sign), it does so with deft skill and trust in its audience to watch and understand what it’s trying to present. Singleton’s storytelling, while personal and timely when it was released, remains universal 20 years later not only in its call to end same-race violence, but in its promotion of the importance of father figures — the key, Singleton argues, to surviving the South Central demon.
The journeys of Tre, Doughboy and Ricky are ones we’ve seen many times by now, so a newcomer to Boyz N the Hood might have an easy time foreseeing what ends these characters will meet, but Singleton still handles the material better than most because he stays true to the world he’s depicting, never attempting to exaggerate or overdramatize for the benefit of his message. Unfortunate events don’t come as a surprise, as there’s a tension and sense of foreboding that comes across in every scene, even in moments of hope; you can feel the dark presence of South Central hovering over these lives — unrelenting and heartless.
But being shot on your way to the grocery store or finding yourself in the middle of a gang rivalry while hanging in Crenshaw isn’t the only thing these boys fear. When Tre confides to Ricky that he’s still a virgin, he explains that it’s out of fear — not of the sexual act, but of the possibility of becoming a father. He leaves his confession at that, but we can see that his worry stems from more than the usual difficulties of teenage fatherhood. We’ve seen Tre’s interaction with his own dad, Furious Styles (Laurence Fishburne, at that time billed as “Larry”), and we know he and everyone else respects him as a “real man.” At one point Tre teases his father, calling him an old man despite his mid-30s age, but we know he’s only half joking; he does see his father as an old man, just not in literal years. Furious has seen a lot and read even more. Equal parts wisdom and charisma, he’s a powerful, authoritative, but endearing presence. He knows people. More importantly, he knows his people, displaying the ability to relate to his teenage son, the dangerous hoodlums of Compton and a bitter, finger-pointing old-timer all with the same speech, each of them walking away feeling as if they just listened to Malcolm Farrakhan (as Doughboy puts it). How could Tre, if he were to become a father before getting out of high school, live up to the example of the one and only Furious Styles, who once spoke the proverb, “Any fool with a dick can make a baby, but only a real man can raise his children”?
The film reminds us repeatedly that a boy needs a true father to learn how to be a true man, which is why Ricky — an all-around good kid in contrast to his pistol-wielding brother — despite his mother Mrs. Baker (Tyra Ferrell) doing a fine job in raising at least one of her sons, is still missing some key lessons on the path to manhood. Singleton makes the point that if Mrs. Baker’s boys had a strong male presence during their formative years, not only would Doughboy have avoided the critical, crippling mistakes of his life, but Ricky may have avoided the few that have held him back as well (namely, becoming a young father and naively choosing to join the “white man’s army” to find his life purpose). When we first come upon Tre after the incidents of his childhood, he’s walking into a “Welcome Home” barbecue following Doughboy’s release from prison, and Mrs. Baker stops him at the entrance, asking him to spend more time with her son in hopes that the intangibles Tre possesses, the ones that seemingly protect him from the plaguing issues of South Central L.A., will rub off on her troubled son. But what Tre has isn’t entirely intangible, is it? He’s the only kid on the street with a real father hanging around; neither Doughboy nor Ricky nor Chris can claim the same, and it shows.
And yet, as written by Singleton and as pitch-perfectly played by Fishburne (who leads an excellent and exciting group of performances by Gooding, Ice Cube, and Chestnut), Furious isn’t beyond questioning. As Tre’s mother (Angela Bassett) points out, the man deserves credit for stepping up and raising his child, but that doesn’t make him special, especially when some of his parenting techniques can be questioned (like his surprisingly relaxed policy regarding his son’s sex life, which simply calls for protection from unwanted children and unwanted disease). While his eloquent views on eliminating black-on-black murder inspires his own race, his views on the white government — a government that supposedly encourages the elimination of blacks and whose army has no place for people of his color, as he tells his son — can only be dangerous to goals of interracial harmony. The important thing, however, is that Furious is there — flaws and all — and he cares, and that’s ultimately what enables Tre to survive that which his friends could not.
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Labels: 90s, Fishburne, Movie Tributes, Spike Lee
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Sunday, June 12, 2011
Treme No. 18: Can I Change My Mind
BLOGGER'S NOTE: This recap contains spoilers, so if you haven't seen the episode yet, move along.
By Edward Copeland
It was the best of Treme, it was the worst of Treme. Finally, five episodes after LaDonna's rape, we get an installment that spends more than a minimum of screentime dealing with her story instead of merely throwing the marvelous Khandi Alexander a scene or two an episode that appears and disappears in the blink of an eye. Unfortunately, most of these pivotal moments were those quickies that Treme has become far too dependent on, even if cumulatively it's the most time they've devoted to LaDonna's story since the attack itself in the season's third episode and, at last, it better serves the actress, giving her more room to display her towering talent that shone so brightly last season but has been swept aside most of this year. This also is an episode where most of the secrets come out and, in the case of LaDonna's, it gives Lance E. Nichols his finest moments as her husband Larry, with many of those coming without saying a word. Despite this, they still cut away at crucial times and long stretches. On the other hand, we get to see Sofia and Toni openly acknowledge Creighton's suicide with each other and, as usual, Melissa Leo scores in one of the series' most emotional moments. Wendell Pierce gets a quiet moment of regret and reflection that again shows one of Antoine's many sides and why, as I've said before, Batiste truly functions as the heart and soul of Treme. Without a doubt, even with three episodes to go, it's clear that Pierce and Leo will earn the titles of the second season's MVPs. In contrast to LaDonna's scenes, which all are either short, interrupted or delayed, Leo and Pierce's great scenes stretch past the two-minute mark, perfectly illustrating the power you achieve when you allow scenes to play out without interruption. Rob Brown and Clarke Peters also get a really good scene as Del and Albert that nearly hits three minutes. Despite this episode's strong moments, much of it seems extraneous. For the first time I believe all season, someone from the opening credits, in this case the great David Morse as Lt. Terry Colson, doesn't even put in an appearance, and the episode itself sort of fades out in a whimper, as if no one could conceive a more fitting or meaningful conclusion to an episode with many high marks but no overall direction, structure or theme. I also had to make a conclusion I didn't want to make: This new emphasis on microscenes and stories that really don't have stakes for the characters involved or any sense of consequence have made me conclude that Season 1, as a whole, was better.
The episode was written by James Yoshimura from a story by Yoshimura and Eric Overmyer and directed by Ernest Dickerson, who directed season 1's "Right Place, Wrong Time," six episodes of The Wire including season 4's "Misgivings" and "Final Grades" and a lot of episodic TV and a few features. Though to me, as fine a director as Dickerson has become, he'll always be one of the greatest cinematographers of modern motion pictures, especially for his work on Spike Lee's early films from Joe's Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads through Malcolm X. The fact that his cinematography never was nominated for an Oscar, let alone won one, especially for Do the Right Thing, shows the utter stupidity of all show business awards such as the Emmys, which I assume will be screwing Treme soon as it always did The Wire, though perhaps the shine of Melissa Leo's Oscar win will earn her a deserved Emmy nomination this year.
Excuse my digression. Believe it or not, that last paragraph was supposed to go from the intro of this week's writers and director to noting that the focus on LaDonna begins immediately with the pre-credit sequence. LaDonna sits on the edge of a table in an examination room, looking anxious, leaning over and staring down except for a brief glance at the HIV/AIDS poster on the wall. She doesn't seem to know what to do with her hands, clenching them one moment, then rubbing them against her legs and sitting up the next. As she leans and looks down again, a knock on the door startles her and a smiling S.A.N.E. (Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner) nurse (Amelia Jeffries) enters. "I hope that's good news," LaDonna says. "It is. You're still negative, LaDonna," the nurse tells her as LaDonna lets out a sigh of relief. "Lord, I've been praying," LaDonna whispers. "Do I have to take more tests?" she asks as the nurse prepares to take her blood pressure. The nurse informs her she's taken her last HIV test and finished her last round of antibiotics, but notes that she can tell that LaDonna has been smoking more. "Your blood pressure is too high," the nurse tells her. "I'll have the doctor write you a prescription before you have a stroke." The nurse asks how things are between LaDonna and Larry and LaDonna admits they aren't great, saying that Larry is a patient man but she hasn't been able to tell him about the rape. "He needs to know," the nurse tells him. LaDonna says the news that she doesn't have to worry about HIV will help. The nurse assumes she means having to make Larry use condoms, but LaDonna tells her, "We ain't even gettin' that far." The nurse recommends that LaDonna — and her husband — talk with a counselor. "Let me think about that," LaDonna says.
Davis and his band have put enough material together that they've landed a gig on the stage of the Hi-Ho Lounge, a 200-person venue on St. Claude Avenue just on the edge of the Marigny. It also offers food from Drea's Backyard Bistro, whose takeout window is located on the Marigny Street side of the lounge — and they deliver, often free, in nearby areas. Davis takes the microphone to announce that "If you aren't part of the solution, you are part of the problem. This is the world debut of DJ Davis and The Brassy Knoll and we are definitely part of the problem." The band starts kicking in, with Lil Calliope by Davis' side. In the audience cheering them on are Aunt Mimi, Annie and Don B. They lead off with "The Road Home" number and while Davis takes part, he lets Lil Calliope do the heavy fronting.
Granted, this isn't like when the show interrupted a musical performance by John Hiatt or Henry Butler (or Wendell Pierce for that matter) for no good reason, but they cut to Baton Rouge where Larry and Mrs. Brooks sit in the living room preoccupied while what appears to be a rerun of Sanford & Son plays on the TV and LaDonna takes a phone call in the kitchen. LaDonna comes in with desserts for Larry and her mother and Larry asks who was on the phone. LaDonna tells him that it was a Ms. Baron with the New Orleans D.A. who has just been assigned her case. Her mother comments that it's no wonder they can't get a conviction. Larry asks what she wanted and LaDonna tells him that she just wanted her to come down the day after tomorrow to meet her. Larry asks if LaDonna wants him to come, but she tells him there's no good reason that they both waste a day. Then it's back to the Hi-Ho Lounge. It's a vital scene, but why did this unrelated 37 seconds need to be spliced into the middle of another scene we were going to go right back to?
Annie, Don B. and Mimi certainly seem to be grooving to Lil Calliope's latest rap, which does sound more interesting playing off the brass pieces of the band. As Calliope continues his spiel, he then introduces "the president of the United States, George W. Bush" to a chorus of boos as Davis comes out in a suit and tie to play the role of Dubya. "New Orleans, I've had many high times here," Davis says as Bush, before spotting Lil Calliope and asking how he got past the Secret Service. He asks the crowd if Calliope is "good" and when getting their confirmation, gives him a fist bump. "Who says I don't like black people? Kanye can't treat me like that or he might wake up in Guantanamo," the fake Dubya says.
Sonny meets Cornell and Uncle Don in Plaquemines Parish (and in case you think David Simon and the gang aren't planning ahead, current parish President Billy Nungesser was a regular TV fixture blasting everyone after BP's Deepwater Horizon explosion and subsequent environmental disaster). "How you doin', Dutchman?" Uncle Don greets Sonny. "Sleepin' in a trailer, pissin' in a Port-a-Potty, cuttin' up my hands, hands I play music with, to shreds — what's not to like, man?" Sonny says rather unconvincingly. Uncle Don reminds him not to forget the mosquitoes. "Mosquitoes so big they could stand flat footed and fuck turkeys," Sonny adds. Uncle Don heads off and Sonny tells Cornell he'll buy him lunch. "Damn straight you will."
Del oils the valve pistons on his trumpet while talking to Davina on the phone about his plan to combine the musical chants of Albert's role as big chief with modern jazz into a new form of recording. Del will write, arrange and produce the sessions and get Albert to front them and tell his father they are getting an advance from the label that he can then use to further the reconstruction of his house. "Boy, you better hope he doesn't find out you lyin' about that advance," Del's sister warns him. "How's he gonna know?"
As they did so consistently well to make the pace flow more smoothly between these short scenes in the episode "Feels Like Rain" two weeks ago, they have a nice connective tissue bridging the Del scene to the next one set in the elementary school band class. Delmond spent the entirety of his scene practicing preventive maintenance on his trumpet and we join the students as Mr. LeCouer is emphasizing to them the importance of keeping their instruments in good working order. "You've got to treat your instrument like it's a treasure," LeCouer tells the class. "Take care of it and it's going to care of you." He looks to Antoine to see if he concurs. "I say amen to that," Batiste responds.
Toni it seems, after learning about the case of the apparent police shooting of Leon Seals in the Iberville Projects that may or may not have been related to the slaying of Joey Abreu at Robideaux's Market, has somehow ended up taking the Abreu case back from the Loyola Law Clinic with the Fields killing attached. Her caseload hasn't lightened any so she's hired an investigator, Anthony King (Mahershalalhashbaz Ali), who just finished two tours as an MP in Iraq. Toni explains that she'd doesn't know if the case is going anywhere and that she gave the Abreu case up once, but she only took it back on contingency because of the Fields matter. "I can't work on contingency," King tells her. "I need to get paid whether it goes anywhere or not." Toni says she understands. "Believe me, I've got plenty of work. I can afford to hire a first-rate, world class investigator such as yourself," Toni promises. Anthony says he's worth it.
Davis watches in his apartment as Harley on guitar and Annie singing and strumming her violin practice her latest attempt at songwriting, something they've apparently been doing repeatedly for quite some time. Davis interjects. "If I may? How many hundreds of times in a row have you played that since yesterday?" he asks, though one can only imagine how many times Annie endured "The Road Home" number. Regardless, Annie ignores him and keeps singing as Davis protests that 100 would be "a very, very, very conservative estimate. You can share this with the world. Test drive it in front of a crowd. Harley, tell her!" Watt stops his guitar and actually sides with Davis. "You're right," he says before turning to Annie. "You've got to play it in public." Annie agrees, but only if Davis isn't there. "If I see you, I'm gonna fuck up," she tells him. Davis says he'll stand in the back then, but Annie won't even go for that and resumes the song. McAlary gets saved by the bell, so to speak, in the form of his cell phone ringer.
In New York, we get the other end of the call and it's Janette, asking if Davis would go by the jail and see Jacques (who slipped everyone's mind last week after he was a crisis the week before). When the call is over, Nick, who has been busily preparing something on the apartment stove, tells his roommates that he works at the best restaurant in New York City. "I'm at the forefront of a new age of dining, the new paradigm." Chas says that Nick's, "a little hyperbolic," but he doesn't necessarily disagree." Janette has to ask, "Is it that good? Lucky Peach?" The difference here is that while David Chang is a real chef and owns and started five New York establishments for which the peach is the symbol, the Lucky Peach restaurant is a fictional creation made for Treme unlike Le Bernardin which is an actual restaurant. If you go to the momofuku website, you will see something called Lucky Peach, but that actually is only a quarterly iPad application and print journal which people can subscribe to and which will have a different theme each time, beginning with ramen. Nick explains to Janette that it's something totally new. "It's fine dining, but it's not.
one-third of what I called my Treme triumvirate with Khandi Alexander and Melissa Leo as the three standouts for the season. When Anthony Bourdain had invented the fabulously insane Enrico Brulard and they had the talented Victor Slezak playing him, Janette's storyline was enjoyable, but even as fun as the Brulard story was, where were the stakes for Janette? Last season, she struggled to make ends meet to try to keep her New Orleans restaurant open with employees who depended on her. In New York, where were her struggles? It's not the easiest city to get by in, especially for someone coming there with nothing and the early season indications that she might be on the edge, drinking alone too much and picking up one night stands, sort of disappeared. It got worse when she started getting mixed up with real chefs and real restaurants, it got monotonous fast post-Brulard. She needs a storyline worthy of her talent and this isn't it. Tomorrow night, HBO premieres the documentary A Matter of Taste: Serving Up Paul Liebrandt and after seeing that film about a life inside real high-class New York kitchens, it makes Janette's tale seem even duller. What finally did it was that week of Jacques amnesia. Janette needs to be in New Orleans. If she wants to bring Nick and Chas, that's fine. You probably tire of me complaining about tiny scenes, but here I have to complain about one that runs about 1:41 and is too long. LaDonna and Larry don't get a scene when the truth comes out in tonight's episode approaching that length, but here we get a scene where a character we barely know (no offense to James Ransone) waxes rhapsodic about a restaurant that doesn't exist. That I don't need for nearly two minutes. Toni takes Anthony by Robideaux's and brings him up to speed on the incident and how cops that were there ended up chasing people to the Ibervilles where Leon Seals met his demise. Toni's dogged pursuit really is the only thing that maintains interest in this whole story since it doesn't involve any other characters we know or care about like last year's Daymo Brooks' storyline did.
Outside the gates of Lusher, Sofia razzes her friend Jocelyn because she doesn't want to get wasted that night because of a pending algebra test the next day, which Sofia insists is only a quiz. Then Sofia opens her pocketbook to show Jocelyn something she's acquired to see if that changes the teen's mind.
Toni and Anthony knock on the door of the witness in the Iberville who had told the law clinic about seeing Leon Seals chased into his apartment. She answers but as soon as they mention who they'd like to talk with her about, she just slams the door.
The Cowsills are playing at the Carrollton Station Bar & Grill located way uptown in the Riverbend area of the Carrollton Historic District. Susan Cowsill is taking the lead for her family group and she's invited Harley and Annie on stage with them. Susan and her brother Barry both were caught in New Orleans when Katrina hit and Barry sadly drowned in the flooding. We get to come in as Susan Cowsill (with an assist from Harley) sings the last stanza of her song "Just Believe It," minus the last two lines: "And the stars tracking us all the way/Things are changing it every day/I’m OK and the sky is still blue/The way I see it we make a choice/Take or leave it, just believe it?/Tell me now what are you gonna do?/Well I want to see it, don’t you?/And I’m gonna believe it, won’t you?/I want to believe it, don’t you?" The entire scene, which was the song, lasts 36 seconds. Then it's CUT If you'd like to see a clip of the complete number, click here.
At a restaurant, Nelson and Derek Ross are dining at a secluded restaurant across from a political emisarry (Richard Allen) who can help with city contracts. The eatery's atmosphere is so dark that Nelson comments it would make a great place for a mob hit. The emisarry asks Nelson if he'd rather be eating at some chain steakhouse in the suburbs. Hidalgo says not really, but the view would certainly be less expensive, just like his computer cables that would save New Orleans at least $500,000 a year. The emissary claims the components they buy are quality, but Nelson says his are the same quality because they all come out of the same Taiwan warehouse. The emissary remains skeptical until Nelson reminds him that Derek is his partner and he's raised money for Nagin for two elections. Does he want to piss off him, Oliver, the Zulus and half the city just to stick with a guy who is robbing the city blind? The emissary, who couldn't be more open about his corruption, tells Nelson they could have a deal if he RAISES the price by 50 cents a unit on fire wire and component cables. Even Hidalgo is slightly shocked by this. "I'm trying to save the city money," he tells him. Derek asks about a contract for another product, but the emissary says he'll keep that contract where it is. "So everyone makes money," Nelson says. "And everyone stays friends," Mr. Corruption adds with a sinister air. Does this mean C.J. Liguori is the good guy or are they all evil? "It's always nice to make new friends," Nelson proclaims as the three men clink their glasses.
We had an extremely brief musical performance interrupted by an unrelated scene. Must be time to go back to Carrollton Station. Susan Cowsill invites Harley and Annie to sing their song and Harley is ready, but Annie chickens out, so Susan performs another one. This time, it's "Crescent City Sneaux" and they let her get the first stanza in "I feel like a kite without a string/Only my tail to guide me/Just paper and sticks and tattered sheets/Waiting on a friendly wind/Hold all our memories in one hand/So tight that you won’t let ‘em go/And in the other hand we pray/That the wind and the panic and the rain/Would all turn to a soft and quiet snow" before it's CUT That time she got 59 seconds in. Again, click for all of it.
Delmond sits down for drinks with Donald Harrison Jr., to discuss what he accidentally discovered during Mardi Gras when he heard jazz coming out of a boom box in one ear and his father's Indian calls of "Shallow Water, Oh Mama" in the other and finally found the sound he'd been searching for in his exploration of early jazz. Harrison provides the perfect audience to explain this to, since he is not only a jazz saxophonist, singer and composer but also big chief of The Congo Nation, masking and sewing his own suits each year. (It's a bit of an inside joke when he tells Delmond that he wonders why no one has ever thought to put these traditions together before because Harrison did exactly that on an album, The Power of Cool, he released in 2006.) "The purists from both sides — how they gonna take this, man?" Harrison asks Del. "It's not straight jazz and it's not straight New Orleans — they're gonna rip us apart." Delmond has considered this — and what the old-timers will say. Del pauses for a moment, then says, "Fuck it." He and Harrison seal the deal by tapping their glasses together (a lot of that going on in tonight's episode) and Harrison says, "Let's do it."
LaDonna heads out to the car to drive to New Orleans to meet with the new assistant district attorney prosecuting her attacker only to find Larry waiting in the driver's seat. Needless to say, she isn't pleased. "What are you doing?" she asks, sticking her head in the window. "Driving you," Larry replies. "No no no — you've got patients," she tells him, hoping to make a last-ditch plea to keep him in Baton Rouge. He tells her that he rescheduled them. LaDonna seems to grow more frantic in her efforts to keep him away from her meeting. "Nononono. Go to work honey — you got people depending on you," she insists. For the first time in the scene the camera switches focus so that instead of seeing the anxious LaDonna pleading through the passenger window, we see the firm Larry buckled in the driver's seat looking at her (and us) and pointing. "No, you're dependent on me. You're more important, LaDonna. Get in the car," Larry orders. He softens his tone a bit. "C'mon baby, get in the car." The camera switches back to looking at LaDonna who has one hand reaching inside the car window, but seems to be sinking closer to the ground. She stands up straight, opens the door and gets in. "Seat belt," Larry reminds her as he starts the engine and pulls out of the driveway.
"I heard ya. I'll be there," Sonny tells Cornell. "On second thought," Cornell says, "get there a half an hour early. Show Batiste you're not a fuckup." Uncle Don arrives with payment for Cornell and Sonny's oystering labors, but Cornell snatches the cash out of Sonny's hand. Cornell gives him a few bucks that he says should get him to tomorrow's gig in one piece. Sonny complains that he has rent to pay. Cornell asks Sonny for his landlord's number and tells him he'll take care of that. "You'll get the rest after the gig," Cornell promises. "In the short play, I'm gonna lay it out on the street and piss on it. And you are taking me to lunch too. I'm gonna hold you to it." Sonny says that he told him he would. Cornell also expects Sonny to pitch in for the gas.
As Delmond and Donald Harrison start work on their project, one of the first people they contact is the legendary Dr. John who they get the pleasure of listening to perform part of "You Might Be Surprised" from his City That Care Forgot album in a studio. Alas, all the lyric sites claim it's "so new" I can't find lyrics or videos for the song online, so we're stuck with the 1:09 of it we get here, which from the few samples I can find I believe come from somewhere in the middle of the song. However, the album was released in early 2008, so it's conceivable that Dr. John could have already written it in early 2007, but why there aren't lyrics for it online three years later is beyond me. Since all the samples also are just snippets, maybe the show wasn't allowed to play any more of it.
Larry and LaDonna wind their way through the bureaucratic maze of halls and doorways until the find the one they are looking for and Larry tells the man sitting at the desk nearest the door that enters the office that they have an appointment with an assistant district attorney, Brigitte Baron. LaDonna looks scared out of her wits. She needn't worry immediately because of the continued nonsensical ordering of scenes after that brief 22 seconds, we head back to the studio so Del and Donald can speak with Dr. John about their project.
Now, why couldn't the Dr. John studio scenes have been one continuous scene? Say Del and Donald came in as he was working on The City That Care Forgot album and that outer office bit with LaDonna and Larry could have then been tacked on to them being shown in to meet with ADA Baron. I have no idea, but this nonsensical, throw scenes up in the air and place them into the show in whatever order they land has grown beyond frustrating. I finally have to say what I've been avoiding saying all season: While Treme remains better than most things on TV, season 2 has definitely dipped in quality from season 1. I'm not someone who expected another Wire, but it did unfairly build that expectation where each subsequent season turned out to be better than the one that preceded it. With just three episodes left, I feel I can say with some certainty that will not be the case with Treme. The acting remains as great and the writing can be superb as well, but they've wasted a lot of time with nonstarters of stories and potentially great stories they've neglected. Most of all, the editorial choice to do most scenes as short and episodes as clip shows has done a disservice to everyone who works on the show as well as those of us at home who love it.
Anyway, in the studio, Dr. John asks Del and Donald who the rhythm section might be in the project that they're proposing. Del says possibly Ron Carter (who worked on Harrison's actual album) or Carl Allen "if we can get him." Dr. John suggests that they "give some thought to gettin' 'Uganda' on the percussion." Delmond agrees that getting Alfred "Uganda" Roberts is a good idea, but they plan to record the album in New York.
"You're gonna split this like a banana split," Dr. John says, "half in New York, half in New Orleans." Harrison explains, "That's the point, Mac. We need somebody who can go both ways and that's you." Dr. John, glasses slipped to the bridge of his nose and leaning over the top of his piano, points first at Donald. "If your ass wasn't a big chief," he says before putting his index finger away and aiming his gaze and his pinky at Del, "and your pa wasn't a big chief, I think we might all get a hatchet in the rear for our brain cells." Harrison smiles and Delmond insists, "We good. We good. My Daddy on call on. He gonna do the chants." Dr. John asks Del for assurance that he's going to be in the studio with Albert. "He's gonna be down with this whole project?" Dr. John asks skeptically. Delmond says he will be, which the music legend correctly interprets as meaning Delmond hasn't asked Albert yet. Delmond admits he hasn't with a simple negative shake of his head. "Well, this is shakier than I thought it would be," Dr. John says. "You and Chief Lambreaux in the same room. You might torch the whole building down before it's over, ya know." Del grins. "It's not gonna be that bad," Delmond promises. "You just keep telling yourself that shit," Dr. John tells him before committing to the project. "I just want to be the one who lives to tell the tale of this. Could be a myth."Assistant District Attorney Brigitte Baron (Indigo) apologizes to Larry and LaDonna for the short notice, but she wanted to meet LaDonna and go over her statement since she just got handed the case and finds it can be awkward to meet for the first time in court. LaDonna still is trying to get Larry out of the room so she can keep the complete details of her attack to herself. "My husband doesn't need to be here, does he?" LaDonna asks the ADA. Baron says he doesn't have to be there if he doesn't want to be. "I'm staying," Larry insists while
LaDonna tries to get him out of his chair as subtly as she can. The spouses talk over one another with LaDonna telling Larry he doesn't need to be there while Larry lets her know that he's there for her before telling Baron to go ahead. "We've told their lawyers we intend to go to trial. We want to convince them it's in their best interest to take a plea," the ADA informs the Williamses. LaDonna's eyes light up. "I wouldn't have to testify?" Not if they take a plea, Baron tells her. "And if they don't?" Larry asks. "We may proceed with the other case first. There's an additional corroborating witness," Baron says. The balloon where LaDonna has concealed the secret of her rape just got punctured and air has started to escape. Larry looks a little confused, since this is the first he's even heard of another case. LaDonna tries to steer the conversation back to her case. "And if you do that what?" she asks the ADA. "Chances are good yours will never even come to court" — Getting his bearings, Larry interrupts. "Wait a minute. Other case? There's another case?" He turns to LaDonna. "You never said anything about another case." LaDonna sits as stoically and stone-faced as possible, though it hardly matters because ADA Baron completes the picture for Larry, despite LaDonna's glare that's trying to get her to shut up. "Same perps, same M.O.," Baron starts. "Woman further up St. Bernard. Convenience store. Robbery. Beating. Gang rape." On those last two words, LaDonna closes her eyes. "This is an important case for this office," Baron continues, oblivious to how the room's atmosphere has changed. Larry stares as if he's in a state of shock. "We are going to get these assholes off the street. God know how many women — " Baron finally notices as LaDonna looks at her as if her world just crumbled. "Mrs. Williams, do you need a minute?" LaDonna mouths, "Please." Baron tells her to take her time and leaves. Larry slowly turns to look at LaDonna who tries to keep her head upright, but it's shaking as she looks back.After all these episodes (months in story time) of LaDonna keeping Larry in the dark, wouldn't you have liked to have seen what was said as soon as the ADA left the room? So would I. I guess they felt they were pushing it by having one of the season's most pivotal and important scenes run a whole 1:14. God forbid it keep going and the audience be allowed to see what Larry immediately said and how LaDonna reacted. It's not like this scene carried the dramatic weight that came close to a new, minor character describing an invented New York restaurant. It reminds me of a few episodes back when Dave Walker of The Times-Picayune got to interview Treme writer Mari Kornhauser on the occasion of her first teleplay for the series, "Slip Away." Walker wrote that Kornhauser, like many critics and viewers, have compared Treme to "Robert Altman at his most uncompromising." What these commercial-length scenes have reminded me of in comparison to Altman is his classic opening to his great satire The Player where in an unbroken eight-minute tracking shot, Fred Ward's character talks about all the great tracking shots in film history and how now everything is just cut cut cut — and that was 1992. (I wonder if it's coincidental that the star of The Player, Tim Robbins, directed Treme's best episode this season, "Everything I Do Gohn Be Funky" which David Simon wrote solo.
Now, while it's not an unbroken tracking shot, check out this difference from season 1. The scene from Episode 10 "I'll Fly Away" went straight from LaDonna's brother Daymo's graveside service to the funeral march and second line that followed, which included Toni who in the same episode had learned of Creighton's suicide. They let the sequence run continuously for eight minutes. No cuts to short scenes of other characters doing something else. They just let it play.
Back in "Can I Change My Mind," the scene we left Larry and LaDonna for is Anthony coming in to Toni's office where she's ready to return to Iberville, but Anthony already has been there, figuring the woman might be more willing to talk to him alone. She told him that her brother crept in later and found Leon Seals' body, but she still wouldn't give up any of the cops. However, she did tell him where they could find her brother. The scene lasts 41 seconds. They sacrificed the momentum of the scene where Larry learns the truth for that 41 second scene. It gets worse. What comes next is Larry and LaDonna in the car, driving back to Baton Rouge in silence. That takes up 19 seconds of screentime.
Before Sonny can take Cornell to that lunch, they stop at Theresa Seafood, a wholesaler in Chalmette in St. Bernard County for Cornell to buy a bunch of crabs for a weekend party that he's planning. The young Vietnamese woman who works there must see Cornell regularly because she greets him by name. When he orders two boxes of her No. 1s, Linh (Hong Chau) deduces that Cornell is planning a crab boil and asks if she's invited. "Baby girl, you're the guest of honor," Cornell tells Linh. Sonny looks like he's smitten.
Antoine and His Soul Apostles show up at the West Bank's Club Red Velvet, only drummer Herman Jackson shows up in a cab. Seems his car got stolen with his drums inside. He has sticks, so he intends to improvise. Antoine asks straw boss Thaddeus what the fine is for coming to a gig without your instrument and Thaddeus comes up with $100. "You pay my toll, I'll pay your fine," Herman says. "I'll kick your ass, how bout that?" Antoine responds. It's night now and Sonny and Cornell both made it, so we skipped a lot of hours when Sonny was supposed to buy Cornell lunch. More importantly, we are going to cut away now to a different scene.
Sofia giggles in the back seat of a car while an older boy sits up front taking a swig of something before handing the bottle to her. Another older boy drives and her friend Jocelyn sits in the back beside her. The driver asks the girls if they want to go back and cross the bridge one more time and Sofia answers, "Yes. Yes, I do." Sirens interrupt that plan as a police car appears behind them, signaling their car to pull over. Now, we certainly couldn't stick with what's going on on the side of the road with the police. (Let's not even mention how many hours in terms of storytime we have avoided the scene where Larry and LaDonna discuss her rape.) No, we've got to go back to the gig where we could have stayed in the first place. Have they run out of Ritalin supplies near the series' post-production facilities? I can't imagine anyone writing a script structured this way (though it has the same teleplay credit as the first of this season's episodes built this way, "On Your Way Down") Herman looks as if he has been very creative, turning what appear to be ice buckets upside down as part of his emergency drum kit. From the looks of things, it would appear that of the five VIP rooms in Club Red Velvet, the Apostles are in VIP4, the VIP Stage Suite. As usual, Antoine flirts with the ladies in the audience until a surprise visitor drops by in the form of Desiree. He actually smiles at the sight of her and she smiles back. He's singing "Can I Change My Mind" — the song first recorded by Tyrone Davis in 1968 that gives this episode its title so, as is tradition, we must cut away before he gets very far into it.Hold on — I think I have some cards for some personal injury lawyers in case you have whiplash yet because we are back with Sofia and the cops now. What? Sorry. No, we aren't. We're in New York where Janette's toiling around the kitchen of Le Bernandin for about 20 seconds for no apparent reason. NOW we are back on the
side of the road with Sofia — the 2800 block of Belle Chasse Highway in Jefferson Parish to be exact because the bald cop who pulled them over (Matt Cook) just radioed for a female officer for a search there. The young men seem to be in particular trouble because the car had been reported stolen, though the driver claims it's his uncle's. "You should have asked for the keys. Then you wouldn't have had to jack the ignition," the bald officer tells him. The other officer, Officer Phil Banks (Mustafa Harris), holds up a packet of heroin he found. "Whose shit is this?" Officer Banks asks. "If nobody steps to it, we charge all y'all." The guys glance at each other and then the driver claims the drug as his. The bald officer heads over to question Sofia and Jocelyn, asking where they were heading. "We don't need to say anything," Sofia tells her friend before informing the cop. "My mom's a lawyer." The bald cop gives Sofia the facts. "You want to play it that way, alright. It ain't enough you're ridin' round in a stolen vehicle. You've got an open container of alcohol and you're smellin' like a goddamn brewery." Officer Banks holds up a purse and asks who it belongs to and Sofia admits it's hers. He asks if she agrees they have probable cause. She nods and he shows her the case holding her joints.Back at Le Bernardin, the nicest, most accommodating boss in the history of the world, Chef Eric Ripert, calls Janette into his office and suddenly decides — even though he ate at her restaurant last year — that working on the lowest rung isn't fair to her. She mentions The Lucky Peach and the most generous chef working at any upscale restaurant agrees to call David Chang for her to see about getting her a job there and if it doesn't work out, he promises she can come back and work for him and the story still is a stale bore that if it were a meal, you'd return and ask for a refund. Maybe Janette can start an abusive love affair with Enrico Brulard.
Ten scenes and who knows how long in screentime or storytime, we finally get the scene where Larry and LaDonna discuss the rape. It takes place in their Baton Rouge living room, where Larry sits quietly staring at the TV. "If I find someone to talk to, would you come too?" LaDonna asks her husband. No response. "I wanted to tell you, OK. I wanted to tell you. I didn't know how," she admits. "I should have known — the way you've been acting. I can't believe I didn't guess. I'm an idiot," Larry says, never taking his eyes off the TV. "So when were you ever gonna tell me?" A disheveled LaDonna, sitting on the couch, out of his view, tells Larry, "I was hopin' I would never have to." Still not looking at his wife, Larry returns to his old refrain. "How many times did I ask you to get rid of that bar?" LaDonna turns her face away, even though he's not looking at her. "How many times? But you didn't, did you?" LaDonna pulls back up, trying to gather some strength, since this regular request of Larry's is probably what prompted her to keep the rape secret in the first place. "I didn't. Alright, I didn't. What difference does it make now?"
It's another late night with Toni on her couch, only Sofia calls her on the cell for a change. It essentially gives Melissa Leo a monologue, but who better to deliver one? "Hello. Sweetie. What?" She throws down the papers she was looking at. "You what?" Toni tosses off the afghan covering her legs. "Goddammit Sofia, where are you?" She removes her glasses and brushes her hair back. "What are you doing over there?" She completely removes the crocheted covering and sits up. "What did they arrest you for? Jesus Mary and Joseph," Toni says as she stands. "Don't say anything. Do you understand me? Not a thing. Never mind. Don't say anything and tell Jocelyn that too. I'll get you out as soon as I can. I love you." Toni then calls a judge and tells him about Sofia's arrest in West Jefferson Parish and that she's been taken to Harvey Juvenile Detention (conveniently located near a Starbucks and a Wal-Mart Supercenter for all your juvenile's needs) and to please call back.
What are we to make of the next scene? Nelson is in Oliver Thomas' office. "You were right — home cookin'," Nelson tells Oliver. "It's harder to say no to everyone around the way," Thomas says, adding that Hidalgo probably got a better deal out of it. Nelson doesn't think anyone cares about getting better deals over there. "Saving the city money doesn't seem to be anyone's idea of a priority," Nelson declares. Here comes the part to interpret. Nelson thanks Thomas, telling him that none of it happens without him extending himself and tosses him a manila envelope, presumably filled with cash. Nelson leaves and Thomas looks concerned. Will they try to make the case that the bribery Thomas pled guilty to in real life in August 2007 came from Nelson, a fictional character?
Sofia enters the hearing room of the Jefferson Parish Juvenile Court escorted by a policewoman and wearing the blue garb she’s been provided, hand cuffs and leg shackles. Toni waits for her. The judge asks if the defendant’s family member or legal representation is present and Toni stands and identifies herself as her mother. That’s it. We’re done. Why should we be interested in how a proceeding such as this would go? Oh well, we got 33 seconds out of the way. They just don't get that scenes such as these slow the action and frustrate the viewer.
Mardi Gras seems to have revived Albert's desire to stay in New Orleans, for he's back working on his house with an assist from George when Anthony King walks in asking for Cotrell. Yes, it seems George is the Iberville witness's brother who found Leon Seals' body. Anthony tells George that his sister told him that Cotrell was informed by her about the shooting and later he snuck over there and found Fields. "I didn't sneak over there," Cotrell differs. "I waited until it got dark, went over there and he was dead." King asks why he didn't report it, which sets off Albert. "Were you here? Do you have any idea what it was like here?" Albert asks angrily. "No sir. My family was. I was in Iraq," King tells Albert, which seems to quiet him. "It's OK, Chief," Cotrell says. "We were all evacuated to Oklahoma the next day. Soon as I got to a phone, I called it in about the body." Anthony tells George that his sister wouldn't identify the cops, but they were probably 1st District. "What you sayin'?" Albert asks. "She mention any names?" King inquires as Cotrell looks to Albert for guidance.
I guess that hearing went OK because Toni and Sofia come walking out of the Juvenile Center and Sofia is back in her street clothes and Toni feels free to be angry now. "Sofia, talk to me goddammit. What were you doing in a stolen car?" The brush with the law hasn't changed the teen's attitude much. "Riding around." The
passionate voice for the defender has definitely turned prosecutor at this point. "Who were these two boys?" "Just two guys we met at a bar," her daughter answers. "A bar?" You do have to love the way Leo elongates the word bar. "What the hell are you doing getting into a car with two older boys you don't even know? I want an answer! Well, do you think that's smart?" Toni is shouting now, in the middle of the parking lot of the Jefferson Parish Juvenile Court no less. "No!" Sofia yells back. "How long have you been smoking marijuana?" her mom asks. Sofia just starts walking away from Toni until her mother chases after her and grabs the teen by the back of her shirt. "Let go!" Sofia shouts at her mother. "Where are you going? Where" Toni asks. "Why did he do it? Do you know? Can you tell me?" Sofia tosses at her mother. Toni is taken aback, now that the conversation must finally take place. "I can't — I — I — I don't — I'm sorry, baby. You can't blame yourself, you know that," a shattering Toni tells her daughter. "I know. That's what everyone
says," Sofia responds, "but it's kinda hard not to." Toni manages a weak smile as she says, "But he loved you so much." Sofia's voice rises in anger again. "If he loved me so much, why did he leave me? Why did he do it?" Toni shakes her head, really her whole body, and points, beginning to tear up. "That's the question, isn't it? How could he do this — to us — to you? I think about it all the time. What did I do? What could I have done differently? Why didn't I see it coming? I've asked myself a million times and I just don't know. I don't fuckin' know." Toni breaks and the tears burst through the dam and Sofia finally reaches out, "Mama." Toni denies her demeanor. "I'm not crying. I'm too fucking mad to cry." Mother and daughter hug one another and I'm not ashamed to admit that both times I've watched this scene, I've teared up as well. This is the Treme I
love. Not because I want every scene to be something that rips your heart out, but because they let it play out until it was done, without pointless cutaways. It ran more than two minutes and they even allowed it to linger on the hug and let Sofia get a quiet "It's OK, Mom" in there instead of moving on as soon as they hugged. I don't know whose call that was. If it was Ernest Dickerson's or whoever was editing this week, but I thank them for doing that for at least that scene. LaDonna and Larry should have been allowed a scene of a similar treatment — all characters and stories and musical performances should. These quickies slow the pace, lessen the impact and don't serve the actors or the audiences well. Treme really is a very good series. Last year, it was a great one. It can be great again. In every episode, I find something superb and worthwhile, but more and more I have to wade through other things and bad editorial decisions to get to them.I'm hoping that we're beginning to see something develop, based on previous scenes, where we get more of Antoine working with the students. Pierce has such a great rapport with the young actors that it'd be great to see Antoine come to love the job he dreaded taking. He's standing outside the school when Robert comes out and he compliments his improvement and then asks him to play "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star." "Nice tone," Antoine tells him. It's a tiny scene, but it's sweet and it's a story thread that deserves development, especially in light of the great scene Pierce still has coming up.
In New York, Janette shows up at the fictional Lucky Peach and meets with the nonfictional David Chang and gets a job there in a storyline that isn't challenging Dickens or holding anyone's attention. The only thing interesting is that at least Chang isn't portrayed as Saint Chef. It looks as if he might allow himself to be shown as a taskmaster or an asshole, albeit not a Brulard-level asshole, but as someone who doesn't believe happiness exists.
Now we get to that great Wendell Pierce scene I've been alluding to since the intro. Antoine already is lying down in bed for the night when Desiree comes in. Antoine asks if she finally got Honoré to sleep and Desiree says she did, but thinks the baby may have caught a cold or something. "I had a cold, sore throat — couldn't sleep. Daddy would give me a spoonful of whiskey and honey. Wasn't but 5-years-old," Antoine tells Desiree. "That explains a lot," she says as she starts to crawl into bed. Antoine inquires about her day and she responds with a less-than-convincing "Fine" prompting him to ask, "OK. What's wrong?" "Another Mardi Gras, Antoine, come and gone. We're still here," she says. "I know," he sighs. "We gotta do somethin' bout that," she tells him. "We got money comin' in. If you can find a place, we'll sign a lease. The ball's in your court" he tells her.
Desiree still has doubts as to whether his assistant band director job will pan out. "Oh ye of little faith," he says. "I'm into it baby. I'm making progress with these kids. I'm feeling it" Desiree again seeks confirmation. "So you really gonna stick it out?" No matter what a scene's content or context is, I've never seen Pierce hit a false note. Whether he's performing, being comic relief or showing a more serious side. He does them all well while never betraying that all those aspects belong to Antoine Batiste. While Season 1 as a whole was better, Season 2 really has given Pierce more opportunities to shine, as in this scene. People might be under the mistaken impression that acting is easy, but it isn't, and here Pierce performs this whole sequence in the dark, lying flat on a bed, most of the time with his arms crossed behind his head. This scene isn't over yet either. We haven't reached his finest moment. "They really dug the bands in Zulu. I'm telling ya, they made a deep impression — on them and me." Pierce speaks so softly and truthfully as Antoine here, you know it's coming from deep inside him. "Man, I looked at them kids. I looked at my boys. I fucked up, Desiree." She asks him what he means. "Playing. I mean my daddy played, his daddy played, I play — they don't play." Desiree reminds him that LaDonna didn't want them to be musicians. Pierce's voice has grown slightly louder as he tells Desiree, "I should have insisted. The Batistes were the First Family of New Orleans music. I don't see 'em round." He shakes his head and closes his eyes for a moment. He reopens them and says, "I failed em, Desiree. I failed 'em." Not only was it a great scene for Wendell Pierce, it was a great scene for Treme and, like the Toni-Sofia scene in the parking lot, it ran past the two minute mark. Can they not see that you can't get impact in 30 seconds that you do when you play something out?Del has made it to New Orleans, presumably to sell Albert on his idea about the project, but first he sits in with The Leroy Jones Quintet at the Palm Court Jazz Cafe in the French Quarter. In the audience, Nelson gets into the beat while his cousin Arnie watches, unsure of what he's hearing. "It's good music, cuz," Nelson tells him. "It has that Latin tinge to it." The cafe's owner and hostess, Nina Buck, grabs a mic and asks for applause as the musicians finish their set and take a break. Nelson tells Arnie about the deal he just cut with the city for $300,000 which could be more the following year if he raises the price. "And all you gotta do is come to the party with a few friends," he tells Arnie. "And all they ask in return is?" Arnie inquires. "Cuz, they don't ask. They never ask. They don't have to. They ask you when all is said and done to do the right fuckin' thing and I always do the right fuckin' thing," Nelson explains, raising his glass for yet another meeting of glasses, this time with Arnie's. How many of those have there been in this episode? That scene almost went two minutes and, except when he does his tics (like dancing) that annoy me, I've mostly overcome my aversion to Jon Seda because his story thread has consequence, though this really combines two separate scenes and is not a classic such as Antoine's or Toni and Sofia's was. Still, it would be time better spent exploring those trying to get rich off the city's destruction and its inherent corruption.
We see Sofia looking sullen in her bedroom through her window as Toni meets with Anthony on the porch for a beer. Anthony asks about her daughter and Toni tells him her name. "She don't look so happy," he says. "Right now, she's grounded til Mardi Gras 2011 — and then only the day parades," Toni tells him. King informs her that Cotrell told him that his sister recognized a black cop named Billy Wilson but there also was a white cop she didn't know.
Davis fulfills his promise to Janette and visits Jacques in jail. As always, he gets excited and suggests a benefit concert that his band could write a song for called "Free Jacques Jhoni," but Jacques says it's best not to use his name. A good question is why in IMDb, in all first season episodes, Jacques' last name is Vaz, but this season it changed to Jhoni.
Delmond explains the project and the musicians to Albert, who volunteers to play bass, but Del says they already asked Ron Carter to do that. "He alright, I guess," Albert comments before taking a drink of beer. Del expresses surprise that Albert seems critical of Carter. "Carl Allen on the drums," Delmond adds. "Can he drum
second line?" Albert asks critically. "Carl Allen can drum anything he wants," Del replies. "A lot of great drummers get lost when it comes to doin' how we do down here," Albert says. Delmond tells Albert that the band has been set and that what he needs his father to do is front the project and call the chants. "The record label really wants this. They've been on me about a New Orleans album ever since the storm. It's gonna be a real advance. Money for me, money for you to start here," Delmond tells him. "Ya know, it could work — if I did it. You know, too bad you ain't Indian," Albert says. Del can't believe what he's hearing, but his dad persists. "You ain't masked since you was 15. You think I'm gonna let you do this with the tradition when you ain't part of the tradition?" Albert approves of musicians such as Donald Harrison who knows the tradition and Dr. John who has been around it all his life, but not his son. Del promises to start sewing that night and Albert agrees to think about it again if Delmond masks next Mardi Gras. Del tells his father the label wants the album now and then trots out some reverse psychology, saying he'll have to get another big chief — perhaps one from an uptown tribe. "You want this to sound like the Guardians of Flames or Creole Wild West or Golden Eagles?" a peeved Albert asks. "Guardians," Del responds. "I didn't say I'm not gonna do it. I got to know it's right first," Albert says. Wow. 2:47. They stuck another long, uninterrupted scene toward the end.Just when it looks as if they've regained their bearings, the final scene is superfluous. We could end with a powerful LaDonna, Toni or Sofia moment, maybe the last scene with Del giving a sly smile. Instead, Harley and Annie debut her song on the street and we see Davis peeking through a window observing.
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Labels: Altman, Awards, Clarke Peters, D. Morse, David Simon, Documentary, HBO, Kim Dickens, Melissa Leo, Oscars, Overmyer, Spike Lee, The Wire, Tim Robbins, Treme, TV Recap, Wendell Pierce
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