Peripatetic In Cinematic Prose: Eat Pray Love

An Israeli woman once told a friend of mine that there is no Hebrew term for “alone.” The only equivalent phrase, she explained, translates as “I am with myself."

I have no idea if it’s true, but what a brilliant concept. My friend is plagued by the fear of being lonely. The same could be said of author Elizabeth Gllbert in her 2006 memoir Eat Pray Love, now a film starring Julia Roberts. More in the book than on screen, the lead character has been waging a lifelong battle with personal demons. Anxious to flee a contentious divorce and unsatisfactory affair, she takes off from New York on a journey to find freedom from perpetual torment. Intended as a year of living without sex, her quest begins with the pleasure of great food in Italy, before moving on to spirituality at a guru’s retreat in India and renewal of passion in Indonesia. So much for celibacy.

The literary version of Gilbert has stopped taking her medications, under the assumption that the trip’s adventures would fill up the space usually reserved for misery. After ten days in Rome, the “Pinkerton Detectives” -- how she has anthropomorphized depression and loneliness -- once again track her down. The movie dispenses with such gloomy thoughts of clinical despair. Just as well. Julia Roberts has a cheerful persona, with a boisterous laugh that’s surely one of her most endearing attributes. The cinematic Liz feels guilty about breaking up her marriage to Stephen (Billy Crudup) and sad about her deteriorating relationship with David (James Franco). But that’s only boyfriend baggage, not the gravitas of chemical imbalance or family dysfunction or whatever keeps most depressives in its grip.

Welcome to the Machine: Samuel Maoz's Lebanon

The Israeli anti-war film, Lebanon, which just opened today in Toronto, could just have easily have been called Tank. Based on director Samuel Maoz’s experience as a 20-year-old gunner in the Israeli army tank division, Lebanon (which was the first Israeli film to win the Leone d’Oro at the 66th Venice International Film Festival) depicts the 1982 conflict but not from a broadly observant perspective; instead, we experience the war through the eyes of four Israeli soldiers within the tank: the driver in the tank’s hull, the commander in the turret, the loader and the gunner. Lebanon is obviously made by a director trying to do justice to his memory of the conflict (as Ari Folman also did with his Waltz with Bashir), but Lebanon becomes gripping in a more mechanical, relentless way because our perspective ends up as limited as that of the soldiers.

Ambivalent Viewing: Season Four of Mad Men

The problem with Mad Men this season, and in fact sometimes in every season, is that creator Matthew Weiner is obsessed with letting character trump story (ironic for a network whose cutline is “Story Matters Here”). As a result, we have episodes such as one and three this year (and large swathes of Season Two) that have been nothing but character bits attached to little narrative drive. This is the exact opposite of films such as, let's say, Tranformers, which are nothing but plot/story and character is never even considered – I think both approaches are ill-conceived. The show's only thread this year that seems to connect it to 1964/1965 have been bits of dialogue in episode one (“Buy her some Beatles 45s.") and episode four (“Did you hear Malcolm X was shot this week?”). This is laziness. At least last year, the handling of the assassination of John F. Kennedy was masterfully staged, as two characters discussed their problems as if it were still November 21, 1963. In the background of the scene, unnoticed by them, a TV announces a new era has begun (Kennedy's death). And yet. And yet. I still find myself compelled to watch this year.

Produced and Abandoned: Ron Shelton's Cobb

Tommy Lee Jones in Cobb (1994)

After directing the street smart basketball comedy White Men Can't Jump (1992), Ron Shelton approached the same studio, Twentieth Century Fox, with the idea of doing a biography of baseball Hall of Famer Ty Cobb. Given the success of White Men Can't Jump, as well as Bull Durham (1988), his sublime romantic comedy about baseball, the studio figured they couldn't miss. After all, what could be better than a baseball movie about a legend who was one of the greatest players in the history of the game?

What they didn't know – until they read Shelton's script – was that Ty Cobb was also a hateful, ferocious and bigoted alcoholic who had alienated even his teammates. And when they saw that Shelton had Tommy Lee Jones in mind for the part (just before he'd become "bankable" again in 1993 with The Fugitive), the film was put on waivers. Fortunately, Warner Brothers picked up the ball – so to speak – and took a daring risk on a complex project. Then, shortly after releasing the picture during the Christmas season in 1994, they abruptly dropped the ball. To this day, Ron Shelton's best movie remains virtually unknown. Even though Cobb emerged in theatres parallel to the OJ Simpson murder case, which could have helped promote interest in the picture, the issues that both stories raised about celebrity and hero worship were obviously too uncomfortable to comprehend. The studio, some critics and many film goers didn't like the adulation of their heroes tainted by events that tarnished that adulation.

The Last Woman Standing: Joan Rivers - A Piece of Work

Johnny Carson: “Some men prefer smart women.”

Joan Rivers: “Oh, please, Johnny. No man ever put his hand up a woman’s dress looking for a library card.”

In the opening scene of Joan Rivers - A Piece of Work, a compelling and discomfiting new documentary by Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg (The Trials of Darryl Hunt, The Devil Came on Horseback), we see in close-up the 75-year-old actress and comedian Joan Rivers having make-up applied to her face while flashbacks of her long career drift by. Although that made-up face remains for the entire film, Joan Rivers, the performer, artist and human being, ultimately shows her true portrait behind that mask. She reveals an actor whose work as an entertainer is perched right on the edge of that desperate need for acceptance. Rivers presents herself as the last woman standing in a world that's now wedded to youth and beauty. In doing so, she gives a triumphant, humourously vitriolic performance as a comedy queen who refuses to go quickly - and quietly - into the dark night.

Father and Son: The Zappa Legacy

In the mid-nineties, when American composer Frank Zappa's full catalogue finally became available on CD, it was a mixed blessing. On the one hand, it was fulfilling to finally see his vast body of work - at that time including over fifty albums that spanned his rock, jazz and classical material from 1959 to 1994 - available in a digital format. But it was also deeply disappointing that, in his preparation for these releases, he felt compelled to remix and recut albums (Freak Out! Hot Rats), or poorly remaster them (Weasels Ripped My Flesh, Chunga's Revenge, You Are What You Is, Tinsel Town Rebellion). In the case of We're Only in it For the Money (1967) and Cruising with Ruben & the Jets (1968), he even went so far as to erase the original rhythm section and re-record the backing tracks with contemporary musicians. The justified outcry of fans concerning We're Only in it For the Money had some impact in causing Zappa, before his tragic death from prostate cancer in 1993, to re-release the CD from an original vinyl recording. Since apparently there weren't as many fans of Crusing, his marvellous R&B doo-wop hybrid, that album didn't get the same treatment - until now. Thanks to the Zappa family, who have been springing surprises from Frank's vault of tapes for the last number of years, the original recording of Cruising with Ruben & the Jets (along with alternate takes and mixes) is finally available under the new title Greasy Love Songs (just order from Zappa.com).

No, Mr Bond, I Don't Want You To Die: The End of James Bond?

About three weeks ago, a friend and I were talking about James Bond. Over the past few months we'd been hearing the stories about the fact MGM was having money problems, to the point where there was speculation that the studio would fold. As a result, the planned 23rd James Bond movie was indefinitely postponed. My friend said “I don't think we'll see Daniel Craig as Bond again.” He basically believed that the money problems were so severe that it would be years before another one would be made. When it was, the producers, (Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson), would decide to reboot the series and recast. I said, "there's no way. Craig's a great Bond. I can't see them doing that."

Cut to three weeks later and this week's cover story in Entertainment Weekly magazine, “Goodbye, Mr. Bond.” The magazine predicted almost exactly what my friend had said. They wrote that the last time there was a delay like this – six years, in fact – the studio returned with a new Bond when Pierce Brosnan replaced Timothy Dalton. The difference between the last long delay and now is that they've got an absolutely perfect Bond in Daniel Craig. As M (Judi Dench) said in Casino Royale (2006), “I'm not sure a blunt instrument such as yourself will understand, Bond.” Bond is and always was an uncouth blunt instrument who happened to be on our side. The reason Craig was such a refreshing return to form after a VERY LONG fallow period was because he was a boxy, thuggish, though handsome brute who would go to any lengths to achieve his ends. The last time we had a Bond this good was, of course, Sean Connery. Yes, I know I'm in a minority in this, but Pierce Brosnan (who's been very good in other films such as The Matador (2005), The Tailor of Panama (2001) and The Thomas Crown Affair (1999)) was completely awful as Bond – a purse-lipped pretty boy who was completely unconvincing as 007. Hell, Roger Moore was better (at least in the early pictures like Live and Let Die (1973)).

Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World: Another (Opposing) View

In yesterday’s Critics at Large, Mark Clamen weighed in on what is likely to become a major cult hit, Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, He liked the movie. I didn’t. Here’s why.

I should point out that, unlike Mark, I haven’t read the graphic novels upon which the movie is based. But since Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World is apparently quite faithful to its source material, I don’t think that matters all that much. More to the point, I don’t get what’s so great about this film, whose story has nerdy, anal and self-involved Torontonian Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) falling for Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) a new (American) girl in town and, in order to keep her, being forced to fight  to the death with her seven evil exes. That’s pretty much the whole story and after ex- number two showed up on the scene, I was getting bored of the whole affair.

'Scott Pilgrim' Levels Up

Michael Cera and Mary Elizabeth Winstead in Scott Pilgrim vs. The World.

Imagine a world which is organized by the logic of video-games and comics. What if life’s painful social situations were staged as epic confrontations between good and evil? Also, while you’re at it, imagine you play bass in an unambitious garage band, live in a low-rent bachelor apartment, and have an unconscious littered with low-resolution exiles from old Nintendo games.

Edgar Wright’s Scott Pilgrim vs. The World opens theatres everywhere today, and nowhere (outside of comic conventions perhaps) is it more highly anticipated than here in Toronto. Based on Toronto native Bryan Lee O'Malley's six-part graphic novel series, Scott Pilgrim is a special kind of triumph. Love it or hate it, you have never seen anything like it before. With its extended dream sequences, balletic fight sequences, and sometimes breakneck pacing, the film is a kinetic roller-coaster ride. The movie is not unlike a Golden Age Hollywood musical—except instead of the characters’ emotions manifesting themselves in song and dance numbers, here they become epic battles to the death.

If you, like me, missed the film’s sneak preview at San Diego’s Comic-Con three weeks ago, seeing it in Toronto is a solid consolation prize. There wasn’t an empty seat at the advance screening I was at Wednesday evening and the room was primed with eager anticipation. When the 8-bit rendition of the Universal Pictures theme rang out, the crowd let out a cheer. No doubt, the film had come to the right place. Whatever its box office numbers,  Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is a cult classic in the making, and could forever engrave Toronto in the hearts of video gamers and comic book fanatics worldwide.

Klaatu Barada Nikto: Remembering Patricia Neal

There are three reasons why I fell in love with the science-fiction classic The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) when I was nine years old. One was the quiet, thoughtful presence of Michael Rennie as Klaatu, the man from space, who came to Earth to warn us of our destructive habits (i.e. nuclear warfare). The second reason was the eerie score by Bernard Herrmann which introduced me to the wondrous and evocative world of electronic music. The third reason was actress Patricia Neal, who became Klaatu's soul mate in getting the proper attention paid to the consequences of ignoring his warning. Her most famous scene, of course, would be preventing his robot Gort from destroying the planet through these famous words: Klaatu barada nikto. But I was taken by something else in Patricia Neal, who died a few days ago from lung cancer at the age of 84.

Hill Street Blues: Still a TV Standout

It still holds up. Nearly 30 years after the groundbreaking series Hill Street Blues revolutionized and reinvigorated a moribund, sanitized and dull American TV landscape, the indispensable cop show is as impressive as it was when it debuted as a mid season entry on NBC in early 1981. Much has been made about how the drama, created by Steven Bochco and set in a precinct situated in a decaying and unidentified U.S. city, likely Chicago, influenced future television dramas for the better, chiefly because of its gritty, handheld look, overlapping dialogue and complex characterization. But that’s not its chief attribute; after all Robert Altman had pioneered much of Hill Street’s innovations ten years earlier with M*A*S*H (1970). Hill Street Blues stood out because it forthrightly tackled social issues that were rarely dealt with on TV cop shows before but have become a staple of quality TV dramas since its seven year run ended in 1987. The ethnic and racial tensions underlying day to day life in Hill Street precinct were a constant focus of The Shield. The bureaucratic obstacles facing Hill Street’s street cops and brass were part and parcel of the plotlines in The Wire. And the strong ensemble performances, and the varied personalities on view each week, were what distinguished everything from St. Elsewhere (which did for hospitals and the medical drama what Hill Street Blues did for the cop show genre) to ER, The Sopranos and Deadwood. That’s high praise indeed but it’s warranted.

Four TV Shows You Should Watch With Your Kids

Television viewers have never had it so good. In this age of DVDs, digital cable, and iTunes downloads, there is almost no end to what is available. A few weeks ago, I recommended five recently cancelled TV shows that you should definitely watch. Today I turn my attention to a different kind of programming: four quality shows that you should watch with your kids. Popular culture produced for children doesn’t always have a reputation for quality, and Saturday morning shows even less so. But it isn’t all Hannah Montana or The Suite Life of Zack & Cody. As with adult fare, it is usually simply a question of knowing where to look. Each of these shows is perfect for kids 8-12 years old, but they are all worth checking out, with or without child supervision!

All of the shows I discuss below have finished their runs. Although these series were not necessarily cancelled before their time, they may still have passed unnoticed. Children’s programming is often underappreciated, but each of these shows, in their own unique ways, demonstrates the real strengths of television as a storytelling medium. Even when its target audience can’t legally drive, television continues to create cleverly constructed worlds, with fully-defined characters, intelligent dialogue, and compelling stories.

Swinging Hard: James Blood Ulmer's InAndOut

In the history of music and in particular the guitar, James Blood Ulmer is the link between Jimi Hendrix and Ornette Coleman. He’s the musician responsible for pursuing music as a free-jazz experience based on the blues. Born in South Carolina in 1942, Ulmer developed his unique guitar style by playing everything from R&B, blues, jazz and soul music. But instead of focusing on one style, he came up with his own sound and incorporated everything he learned. Consequently, when listening to his music, one is equally impressed by his technique and the “outside” musical choices he makes.

InAndOut, his latest album on the German label In+Out, is no less satisfying for its groove-based jazz ("Eviction"), and its Mississippi blues ("No Man’s Land") to heavy jungle funk ("Baby Talk"). Bringing all of the styles together is Ulmer’s unmistakable style and a kick-ass rhythm section, namely Aubrey Dayle on drums and Mark Peterson on electric bass. But this isn't just your ordinary rhythm section, Ulmer uses a solid ensemble that interacts while the beat kicks with crisp and efficient support. The weakest track on the record is a simple song called "Maya." Alas, Ulmer’s voice hasn’t aged well over the years and this tune sounds strained to me. But the band comes right back with a straight-ahead blues boogie called, “My Woman,” with a great John Lee Hooker style vocal. “High Yellow” is a Monk-inspired bop-tune with great interplay and Ulmer’s loose soloing. This number really swings hard. The record closes with “Backbiter,” another instrumental that showcases the group’s element of surprise. InAndOut is not only good, improvisational music, it’s Ulmer's most accessible record in several years.

-- John Corcelli is a musician, actor, writer and theatre director.

This is It: Some Final Thoughts on Michael Jackson

I recently caught up with Kenny Ortega's 2009 documentary Michael Jackson's This is It and thankfully it isn't an act of exploitation. Now I wouldn't put Ortega in the same league as Bob Fosse (Cabaret), but This is It certainly proves that great choreographers can sometimes make pretty good film directors. The movie documents Jackson's rehearsals and preparations for the comeback he was about to launch on July 13, 2009. When he died on June 25th, however, the only remnants of what might have been were captured by Ortega's film team shooting Jackson running through musical numbers, auditioning and directing the dancers, the conceptual stage design work, and some interviews with those who took part in the preparation for the show that never was.

What's particularly staggering - and thrilling - about this extremely entertaining picture is that it manages to both fundamentally shape the process of Jackson's art as well as demonstrate it. That is, we get to see Michael Jackson (who looks in peak form) working out the program as well as executing the numbers. This is It also reveals that the concerts were designed as a Michael Jackson musical primer that would cover his entire career dating back to the Jackson Five. Ortega stages the numbers as if he's imagining what they'd look like in their finished form. He thinks like a dancer so the images move fluidly with the music. (The footage was filmed at the Staples Center and Los Angeles Forum arenas in California.)

Going the Distance: Charnett Moffett's Treasure

The electric bass has always had a peculiar place in the history of jazz. To the purists, it’s sacrilegious to consider anything “non-acoustic” as having a place on the bandstand. Miles Davis changed all that in the late '60s after seeing Sly & the Family Stone play their heavy funk/rock mix in performance. Davis was the first musician, in fact, to welcome the electric bass into the jazz world to spite the critics and his fellow players. In doing so, he opened the door to the new sounds of “fusion”: incorporating rock, funk and jazz into the idiom. For young electric bass players who were attracted to the new sound, a whole world of opportunity was laid out. Consequently they had legitimate reasons to play with the best jazz artists willing to include them in the rhythm section. Stanley Clarke, Dave Holland, John Lee and the one and only Jaco Pastorius inspired a whole generation.

Bummers in the Summer: Salt & Inception

Since I’m no longer reviewing movies regularly, it’s taking more time for me to catch up with new releases. In the past, I used to see things at pre-release press screenings before all the marketing hype (and their corollary reviews) kicked in. So before going to see Phillip Noyce’s hit espionage thriller Salt, I was already inundated with laudatory comments claiming Angelina Jolie as the top female action star in Hollywood history. Judging from the picture’s huge financial success at the box office, you can’t argue with the figures. But the questions left unasked are: Is anyone truly buying her performance, or even this movie?

Pernicious Pacifism: Nicholson Baker's Human Smoke and Julian Assange's WikiLeaks

While doing research into World War II for a writing project, I came across Nicholson Baker's non-fiction book, Human Smoke (2008 – Simon & Schuster), on the bargain tables at my local Chapters bookstore (it was a second-printing hardcover). Looking for a stand-alone source of quotes and thinking on the war while it was happening, Baker's work looked promising. The book consists of hundreds of short vignettes (the shortest 20-30 words; the longest 1 page) taken from letters, diaries, speeches, books, magazine and newspaper articles published from between August 1892 and December 31, 1941 (the first vignette is a quote from Alfred Nobel, inventor of dynamite, and the last is by Mihail Sebastian, a Romanian-Jewish writer and diarist). The majority of the book covers the years between 1933 and 1941. Baker's thesis? If the Allies had not been so complicit, so blood-thirsty in their actions, and only listened to the pacifists, a peace treaty could have been established between them and the Axis powers. Because Baker is a pacifist, the book not only repeatedly argues that a peace treaty of some sort could have been established with the Axis powers (thus preventing the war), he also blames the Allies for much of what happened to cause the war to break out in the first place. Although, to be fair, Human Smoke doesn't let the Nazis off the hook, Baker's book does suggest that Roosevelt and Churchill were little different than Hitler.

A Matrimonial Muddle: The Kids Are All Right

Perhaps I’m being politically incorrect, but The Kids Are All Right is not so all right with me when it comes to selecting an enemy. The otherwise lovely new Lisa Cholodenko feature, beloved by forward-thinking audiences across America, zeros in on a suburban Los Angeles married couple with two children. The partners happen to be middle-aged lesbians, each of whom gave birth to a baby conceived with sperm from the same anonymous donor. The youngsters are now teens who decide to find their biological father. His sudden presence in their lives leads to a crisis.

Great premise. Terrific actors: Annette Bening and Julianne Moore as the moms, Mia Wasikowska and Josh Hutcherson as the offspring, Mark Ruffalo as the unsuspecting third parent. Disappointing resolution.

The Good Wife and United States of Tara: One Circle Opens Wide, The Other One Closes

Julianne Margulies in The Good Wife

Note: the following post contains spoilers for the recent seasons of The Good Wife and United States of Tara.

I was glad to see CBS’s very fine drama The Good Wife do so well in the recent Emmy Award nominations. It was a fitting recognition of last year’s best new network TV series and also a reminder that when they want to, the free channels can also match the quality of cable series and in the comparative case of United States of Tara, which imploded in its second year, surpass them, too.

(I was also pleased to note that ABC’s clever sitcom Modern Family dominated the recent nominations, as well, from among the new network shows that premiered last season, though I am baffled by FOX’s Glee, which had the most nods among the neophyte TV series. Well mounted as Glee is, it strikes me that this musical drama about a group of outcast teens who begin to discover themselves when they join their school’s fledgling glee club, isn’t doing anything that Fame, the movie and TV series, didn’t already do back in the early eighties.)

While Modern Family is the latest smart comedy to hit the airwaves (post-Frasier, How I Met Your Mother and The Big Bang Theory), The Good Wife is the show that really reworks a tried – and tired – formula. (Modern Family, for all its many virtues, is following in the footsteps of several previous comedy series, such as The Office, both versions, and the short lived 1980 Helen Shaver/Beau Bridges series United States, by eschewing a laugh track and playing out as a mockumentary.)

You Can't Go Home Anymore: Arcade Fire's The Suburbs

Before the music press hype-machine begins to wind up, I had the chance to listen to the new Arcade Fire record slated for release on August 3, 2010. Usually anything that receives too much hype, particularly in the arts, annoys me to no end. But The Suburbs turns out to be a compelling concept album by Arcade Fire and it’s the band’s most personal statement yet about the aging process and personal loss. The band had already expressed some of the same themes on Funeral, their 2004 debut, namely the loss of ancestry and identity. On their follow-up, Neon Bible (2007), the group sang about the loss of spiritual idealism to the televangelists and bible thumpers of America. But this new album is about the loss of the neighbourhoods of their youth and the unfulfilled promises of the new century. For Win Butler, that loss includes long drives on the streets in the summer, putting a band together to cut a record in the basement (or garage), and it’s about the anxiety of high school and what to do when one is "bored."