It's a good thing I long ago stopped expecting that a Hollywood movie would tell a tale that I could believe. Or do anything that I could believe. Oh, except for the part where Paul Rudd is just waiting to sweep me into his arms because he can't live without me…that I believe. Oddly, I seem to believe the same thing about a number of other younger-than-I actors on the scene. Quelle coïncidence.
Back to the stuff we don't believe, like that a character who never really wanted children can be turned around in the space of a couple of days to become a doting mother wannabe. Or that a footloose do-gooder, yet nasty soccer coach, could be made to grow roots by his worst soccer player. Those things, not so believable and yet they are the premise of this movie.
There were definitely good things about it, so I ought to name some of them. There was that Paul Rudd presence part (see above and sigh). It is also a pleasure – albeit a different kind of pleasure – to see Tina Fey and Lily Tomlin. Might I just add that Lily Tomlin seems to just get better with time, and Tina Fey has such excellent timing that she made me believe her in her role, up to the faux doting mother wannabe part, at least.
I did enjoy the characters. Tina Fey's cold and by-the-book admissions officer, her relationship with a very unconventional mother (Tomlin), her reaction to being left by her wishy-washy unfaithful live-in boyfriend, in the middle of a house party for his faculty friends. All very amusing and entertaining. You don't want to be at the wrong end of her giant chicken-serving fork, let me tell you.
We meet Lily Tomlin's character while she is busy constructing a bicycle, and only later discover her colourful and interesting past as a feminist writer and commuter train tryster. I have always loved her voice and I also love that I can believe her in a role and not be left feeling that she always plays that role. That must be acting. There should be more of that in the movies.
I think I felt that about of a few of the characters, including Paul Rudd's and Tina Fey's (with the exceptions of those unbelievable aspects I mentioned at the outset), and I kind of liked the young characters, too, although it might be a little early for me to say whether they were playing roles or playing themselves. Nat Wolff plays the hopeful applicant to Princeton, a knowledge-focused dweeb you might want to avoid at a party, unless suffering from insomnia, and Travaris Spears, who doesn't make the first page of the cast on IMDB, play Paul Rudd's adopted child and eventual anchor.
Oh, did I mention Paul Rudd again?
After all, for all the Hollywood happy ending qualities, I did kind of enjoy it. Maybe that's the admission part.
Oh dear. Almost a week has gone by since we saw Stoker…I just might be a little fuzzy on the details (yes, fuzzier even than usual). On the other hand, it might just give me the kind of distance I would need to develop some fantastic insight as to what it all means. Let's see, shall we?
The basic premise is that the father of the family has died in a car accident and now the uncle she never knew has come into India Stoker's life. He seems very chummy with her mother, but also intensely trying to connect with India herself. It's funny that I don't even remember the funeral scene. Is that fuzzy or is that more evidence of slumber?
Uncle goes so far as to insinuate himself into many aspects of India's life, from the piano playing to being there at strange moments to pull her out of difficult situations or to provoke her to act on her own behalf. By the end of the movie, I didn't even know if he existed (not to cast aspersions on the fine acting of Matthew Goode as Charles Stoker) or if he was some kind of manifestation of a part of India.
There's a fair amount of stabbing in this movie. Shears to the eye seems to be a favourite, but I think my favourite stab aftermath came after India stabbed the bully at school with her pencil. Deeply, in the hand. There is a very creepily beautiful close-up of her sharpening the bloody end off of her pencil until it is back to a regular pencil look, dripping blood-soaked shavings discarded.
Another film device seems to be a loop in what happens when she goes for a walk with Whip, played by my recent favourite Alden Ehrenreich. Here's a picture of him, although it isn't from this film…just wanted to have him out there in a new pose for you. Dreamy…
There is not much that is dreamy about his character in this film, however. He does step in to call off the bullies at school, but when she goes for a walk with him into the woods he gets rather insistent and doesn't seem to understand what "no" means, attempting to sexually assault her. Here comes the loop: we see several scenarios playing out and then rewinding and starting over until…well, let's just say my boy doesn't come out of it too well. But was that India or was it actually her uncle?
And then we get to thinking about how her father died, and might that have been the work of her uncle, or her "uncle" or a not particularly avuncular part of her? Deep reflections here.
In all, a beautifully filmed film. Chan-wook Park (probably Park Chan-wook) directed this, his first English-language film, I believe. I would totally go see more of his work and might have to hunt down the Korean stuff if subtitles are available.
And if stabby is your thing, it's got it in spades…or shears!
So: the verdict? Fuzzy or insightful? I might have to stick with fuzzy – if only to maintain my amateur status – and raise myself a deluded for my speculation on the uncle front. You be the judge.
Let's all recall that I am no expert. I thought I would get that out there before you draw that as a conclusion after reading this, or almost any of my arts/performing arts/cinema posts. I call them like I see them from my own particular (and often peculiar) perspective. Shall we jump right in, then?
As always, let's start at the shallow end of the pool. There were some excellent costumes and staging here. Probably because I have a barely buried uniform fetish, I loved the guards. Guards as chorus, guards as movers of scenery, guards as taunters, guards as guards. Their outfits were sufficiently stirring (to me) without being overly embellished, as opera costumes often are. Hey, and I saw at least one woman guard! Not sure how realistic this is for the death row of a men's prison in Louisiana at the time this story took place, but good for you, Opéra de Montréal. The other costume comment I have is for the crime victims in the prologue. Who knew we were about to see so much skin in the Salle Wilfrid Pelletier – swimwear, no less! I knew I should have outfitted myself with opera glasses! I'll come back around to the outfit of the star….
Because I posted it first (top and above) and we explored the issue in the context of my last item about an Opéra de Montréal production, let's talk about the poster. Not their best. I have been a big fan of the way the Opéra de Montréal has promoted its productions with posters and derived imagery that are themselves works of art. I'm not sure which of the two versions is supposed to be the official look this time around (confusing) and the style departure almost made me think there was a caving to the demands in the context of the previous situation. Then I saw yet another version that probably is the star. Choose a path, people! Artistic integrity photography or artistic integrity opera: the jumble of imagery is not particularly pretty, and this is not good branding!
My next big naïve observation is about language (will he ever move beyond the shallow end of the pool, you ask?). I get that this is an American story, based on an American book that people probably know better from the American movie of it, but I still find opera sung in English to be disconcerting. One of my friends probably put his finger on the problem more precisely, though: the libretto is just not particularly poetic. It tells a story just fine, but lacks that lyric quality that might fit with music and singing.
The effort was definitely there, though, which is more than I can say about that last production for which I have already inserted two links to my review and won't torture you with another. They sang here way more than they talked, which made me happy, even if it didn't have a great cadence or rhythm. But that may just be me. I tend to go wild for the light and bouncy tunes of some Italian operas for listening pleasure.
The only tune that wormed its way into my head and stayed was a hymn that seemed to repeat at several points in the production. It had some of the attraction of gospel (which I do like, even as an unbeliever), but I found that its lyrics could have used a little re-writing, too. Since that was the best music and since I am not terribly keen on religion, you might imagine that I have been attempting to root out that particular earworm by deliberately implanting another, but it isn't working yet. While I'm on my religious intolerance (which I ought not to be, considering that this is a story written by a nun, so what would I expect?), let's just say that the half-finished Hail Marys and the crude crucifix imagery at the execution didn't really do it for me, either. Let's just say I wasn't "gathered around"…drat, there it is again!
The set was really impressive. For once, I didn't want to live there (one of my particular proclivities is reading "my next apartment" into the beautiful sets often laid before us). Layers of bars and chain-link fencing sometimes lifting into the rafters for scene changes and sometimes being pushed or pulled by the guards I mentioned earlier, much opening and closing and locking of doorways and walking back and forth, up and down…this really succeeded in communicating an atmosphere of control and security that really felt like a prison. I was a little disturbed about how it made the schoolyard resemble the prison, but there might be a profound message in that, too.
One other thing about the set. When I arrived and thumbed my way through the program I was alarmed to see that the opera was just two acts, but eighteen scenes (respectively ten and eight by act). I needn't have worried, as the set and its movements were extremely well integrated into the unrolling of the story and it went very smoothly. As I gush, I realize that the set was a majhor star of this production. My heartfelt congratulations to all of those responsible for the set, the lighting and the staging. An excellent job.
While I wasn't thrilled with the libretto, I don't blame the singers. It's too bad, in my opinion, that they didn't have a better showcase for their voices. I am left unable to pronounce myself on how well they sang, not that I have any expertise on that question anyway. I will say a word or two about the star, however. Etienne Dupuis has apparently been caught up in the "Barihunks" phenomenon. I read somewhere that he had hired no fewer than two personal trainers to prepare for the part. In more classic (read less modern) opera, you wouldn't expect the baritone to be performing in his underwear…even singing in his underwear while doing push-ups in his cell. And this was no "camera comes on…99…100!" situation either. He did at least 20 push-ups in front of us, while singing and counting and listening to the warden. He pulled it off very well and his voice didn't sound in the least compromised by the concurrent physical effort. This "Barihunk" pressure must be enormously difficult to survive.
At the risk of venturing further to the other end of the pool, let me talk a little bit about the story itself in this operatic setting. I found moments of remarkable impact, in spite of all of the criticisms I have spoken about above. There were times where I could really feel the heart-rending contradictions of sympathy for the bereaved families of the victims and compassion for the murderer, where it was also clear just how taxing the whole thing was for Sister Helen. I mentioned above the effectiveness of the set in conveying that prison feel, but much more than that the interactions between the set and the players, even the "spear-carrier" roles, did a lot to convey that feeling. The controlled chaos of sports inside a prison yard, the diligent unlocking, opening, closing and locking of the doors, the sporadic taunting or private profiteering of the guards – these things came through loud and clear as the people on the stage interacted brilliantly with the brilliant set.
The story humanizes an individual who has done an absolutely inhuman thing. I only wish that it were more pleasant to listen to in its operatic form, but what do I know?
It isn't like we didn't already know the background of this story. Anyone who has ever seen/read/heard the Wizard of Oz story knows about the relatively timid wizard hiding behind the curtain and all of the means he uses to project a larger and more powerful self in order to preserve his position, or just survive. This time, though, we get to see the huckster before his Oz experience, using his "magic" to entertain and mostly to make a living in a travelling carnival.
So we start by looking behind the curtain to see the showman, the prestidigitator, the…huckster. But it's James Franco, so the actor's charm (or perhaps my propensity to attribute charm to him?) is added to the conjured charm of the character, and I can't help but like him.
There's an interesting mixture of techniques in the film – live action and probably at least a couple of different kinds of animation – and I usually don't go for that sort of thing, but I kind of enjoyed it here. The river fairies and funny and mildly scary (see the Mila Kunis shot below), but my favourites end up being the monkey – a sad sack wannabe who hitches his fortune to the star of the faux wizard, but who has some very funny lines in addition to being adorable – and the porcelain doll. I love how the doll goes from broken and cowering to charging forth with blood lust to kill the witch.
Quite an array of good and bad witches here, but only three and no sign of any ruby slippers. Aren't there supposed to be two good ones and two bad? Rachel Weisz was deceptively and then very effectively evil as Evanora and Michelle Williams a thoroughly good as Glinda, which is always a little boring, although she held her own in a fight with Evanora.
Mila Kunis was elegant and excellent as Theodora, at least up to the moment that her sister turned her definitively evil (and green). Up to that point, her place on the good-evil continuum seemed unclear. Oh, did I forget to say "spoiler alert"? My bad.
In the end, if I liked this better than the role of the Wizard in other Oz tales, it was because he succeeds by empowering and mobilizing the talents of the people of Emerald City – actually quite a progressive goal, if it weren't to save some kind of pseudo-monarchy in the end.
Speaking of the end, I was awake at the end, but, like at least one of my companions, I can't swear that I was awake all the way through. There is a part of the middle of the film that doesn't spring clearly into my head. Oh well, that must have been a slow part without a great impact on the story line, right?
A note on the cinema itself. I was not all that happy when Cineplex took over the formerly AMC multiplex at the old Forum … something about the spectre of monopoly that gives me the creeps. Despite losing the Coke Zero from the snack bar and the larger size of the small drink (Cineplex tries to upsell by offering a tiny "small" next to a much larger "medium" for a few pennies difference), I have to say that I am happier with the rewards program (more predictable, and now I earn points on the same card at either place) and they seem to be investing in some improvements to the infrastructure, from the self-serve kiosks to some of the interior spaces.
We saw this in UltraAVX 3D, with reserved seats that have a nice little "recline" function (they actually slide a bit). The drawback of reserved seats: no coat chair. Even when there are seats available in the cinema, the computer is allergic to allowing a choice that would leave a single seat between you and the next person, and people don't tend to think they can move over into the unoccupied seat beside them when they are assigned a seat number. First world problems, I know.
All right. I twas the Festival mondial de cirque de demain, but we saw it hier and all the performances are now over, so you're too late (or I'm too late to be a reviewer who gets invited to things to write about them in time for others to be inspired to go). In any case, we have further proof here that circus is for all year long, and can be highly entertaining, too.
This is a presentation that comes to us from an annual competition held in Paris. Several top acts from this and previous years came together and crossed the Atlantic just for our viewing pleasure. I didn't like all of the nine acts, but I certainly liked enough of them to feel satisfied with my experience. A little taste of it all in the form of the Tohu's ad for it:
My personal favourites were Bert and Fred, who did a number of intermezzos and their Washington Trapeze act. Excellent comedians morphing into great forms on moving or spinning trapezes. This show reel from 2012 gives you a good look at their act:
Bert & Fred: Trailer from Bert & Fred on Vimeo.
Another of the excellent acts for which I can't seem to find a video was Ba Jianguo. He apparently started as a street performer in China and had some good incorporation of traditional Chinese musical instruments in his Diabolo act. In fact, he used a top which made noise as it gathered speed and did some amazing moves with it. Beautiful.
I also enjoyed the juggling act of Morgan, from France. I'm not generally a big juggling fan, but he managed to use all sides of his head in his act, which made it more interesting. A peek:
Contortionists freak me out, so I'm not even going to talk about them, except to say that it was great to have an act coming to us from Tanzania for a change. They managed to twist themselves into all kinds of positions and move around like creepy four-legged spiders, to the delight of many others.
I should also mention our host, Calixte de Nigremont, who was really quite extraordinary in his interaction with the crowd as people were arriving and taking their seats, both at the beginning and after the intermission, and introduced all of the acts with great aplomb.
Four I won't show video for, although two of them have video available on the site of the Tohu, at least for now: the Swiss "hip-hop" act, which wasn't really hip-hop enough for my taste, and the really lost me when one of them feigned blackface and they played a Louis Armstrong number; the baton twirler who did more posing and "dancing" than twirling (not that I could have done it myself, mind you); The puppet old lady ballerina, balancing on inverted glasses of many sizes, on toe; and the one of these that I did like, the woman on the rope ladder and trapeze, Lisa Rinne. Oh heck, here's her video, too:
And let me close with what was not the closing act: Chris & Iris with their hand-to-hand work and their incredible size differential. I was amazed at how Chris could swing an apparently limp Iris into a solid handstand above his head, she not wobbling in the slightest as she transformed from rag doll into tower of steel. That was lovely.
All in all, an excellent show. Too bad you missed it! Seriously, though, the competition apparently takes place each year in January in Paris and the Tohu brings some of the top acts here every two years. For us, it was the ideal dose of circus to keep us going while we eagerly await the two shows of the graduates of the École nationale de cirque at the end of May/beginning of June.
Such a dilemma. I have been meaning to go through the steps required to have myself removed from the membership list of the Catholic Church for many, many years, but have not found the time to do it. Now, in this "No Pope, Impending Pope" period, the challenges mount.
First a little background, maybe. I converted to Catholicism during a particularly difficult process of coming out when I was 19 years old. That might seem ludicrous in today's context, but it happened in the late 1970s to a boy who had spent most of his adolescence isolated and depressed in a small town where he might well have been the only gay, or at least the only one identified and mocked by his peers. I seriously spent a lot of time contemplating suicide and the rest of the time planning my escape to a place where things would surely be better.
My plans landed me in university in Montréal, which (in retrospect) I saw as a place where I might be able to be free to be myself. The straight guy on my floor in residence to whom I professed my undying love was kind and put me in touch with resources to help me grapple with my feelings. These led to peer support, someone to accompany me to meetings of Gay McGill (as it was called back then), which eventually led me to my first ever sexual experience with another human. It was a man. My feelings not being as developed or resolved as I thought, I was traumatized and retreated into myself, convinced that I was not gay…not straight, mind you, but not gay. I feel bad about how I abruptly cut off my contact with my peer supporter and my date.
This was the time that the Catholic Church offered me something that I was not finding elsewhere: a community (of strangers, but a community nonetheless) and ritual, which can be very comforting in the face of inner conflict. I followed an adult catechism course in the Fall of 1979 and, sponsored by my high school French teacher and his wife, was baptised, confirmed and received first communion while I was visiting my family in my former hometown over the Christmas break.
It was interesting what followed. Several months later, I had what might be compared to a religious revelation, waking up one day to find that my inner conflict of many years was over. I accepted myself and decided that moving the battle outside my head was healthier than keeping it in. This was unfortunately the moment of returning to my home town to work for the summer, back to isolation and away from the possibilities that Montréal offered me. When I got back to Montréal in the Fall, I was fine, needing no accompaniment to attend the Gay McGill meetings and become an active part of the group. My adherence to the obligations of Catholicism started to wane as I grew more comfortable and confident in my identity.
It took me another year, and another summer of pronounced isolation in my hometown paired with anguish over how I could come out to my parents, before I could be entirely comfortable and start that coming out process that can be so challenging. My parents were extremely supportive, phoning me when they got my fateful letter (yes, I wimped out on the live announcement) to make sure I understood that they loved me unconditionally. I had tpold all three of my sisters much earlier on, and none seemed surprised and all were at east eventually supportive. I left my parents in charge of telling my brother and any other relatives, insisting, however, that I would not be responsible for what I might say the next time my aunt asked me if I had a girlfriend. (She never again asked.)
When I got to my godfather, he expressed his doubt that the church might have had anything to do with bringing me to the point of accepting myself, but he was not hostile. I have generally been very fortunate in being accepted by those around me and have had relatively few personal experiences of hateful actions or words from strangers.
Over time, I started maturing in my political viewpoints and found myself at odds with the tenets of the Catholicism. Reproductive choice, sexuality, other aspects of politics set me apart and I was well apart from the church by that time.
I should have gone through the process of removing myself from the official list of Catholics when, comfortable with my own sexuality, I was also working for a youth organization that helped young women have access to appropriate contraception, and did abortion referrals when contraception failed and bearing a child was out of the question.
I should have insisted on my apostasy in the face of a church actively opposing condom use in the context of an epidemic decimating not only the community to which I now belonged, but also wide swaths of the population in sub-Saharan Africa.
I should have quickly distanced myself from an institution which excommunicated a young Brazilian girl who terminated a pregnancy that would have killed her at her young age, made necessary by her rape at the hands of a male relative the church had no trouble forgiving. Or for any number of child sexual and physical abuse cases everywhere, it seems, in the world, with protection of those responsible and marginalization of the victims.
I should have been out the moment that I realized that I didn't believe in a god.
So here I am now with a new dilemma. I want to make sure that I officially exit the institution, but I have a lot of work at this moment and won't get to it for a while. If I get to it shortly after the election of a new pope, I want to make sure that I am not perceived as leaving because I don't approve of the choice: I am not going to approve of any of the choices. Any of the likely candidates, or even the unlikely ones, will embody all of those core things that I reject, whatever positive qualities the individual might also possess.
So, in order not to be perceived as racist in case a non-European is chosen for the job, I declare myself now on the road to apostasy, without reference to the choice the aging male hierarchy of the Catholic Church might make.
