Danielle Speaks

Uhm watch Robert Downey Jr!!!!

Waitress

It is indeed hard to watch a film that you know is the heart and spirit of a woman murdered just weeks before its premier at Sundance. Adrienne Shelley was not a well known actress for sure but if you grew up in the 80s and you were even mildly arty you knew Hal Hartley and you knew his muse. Adrienne was a fixture of my adolescence and when I heard that she was directing a film I was so happy that a revival of sorts was occurring. No faster had she re-emerged on the scene than was she taken rather brutally from us.

No hype was made of the story behind the story of the film Waitress. It was just another movie going night on a Saturday night and as the lights dimmed and the film finally came on after a eon of bad trailers- so began 2 hours of what I want to describe as homage. The opening credits recalled to mind that kind of magical ability movies of the 70s had; a cinematic innocence that would reveal shockingly dark sides to people while maintaining a really naturalistic approach to story telling.  Maybe its partially because the characters were normal looking blue collar heroes instead of Brad and Angie and their leather clad spy -capades. The diner-esque credits rolled over a sweet song as we meet a pie maker. Her side kicks and she are a direct allusion to Alice, Vera and Flo- but instead of feeling like Shelley stole from the past, you feel as if she recalled these great icons from our collective unconscious and updated them so that we could fall in love all over again.  Shelley took a sidestep and cast Kerri Russel as the lead and she was superb. Along with Russel you have impressive surprises from Cheryl Hines, Andy Griffin, Jeremy Sisto and Eddie Jamison- who never fails! While watching the film I felt as if the cast drew from their real life emotions to interact with each other on screen. So many looks and touches illuminated the real exchanges that occur between us on any ordinary day. And yet Shelley also uses really bold over the top strokes in her direction. So what occurs is a modern day fable with an anti-heroin who is never passive even as a victim.  And although this story draws dangerously near to "true love will redeem us"- it turns on you just subtly enough to not make you feel like you've been spoon fed a "feel good" story.
I don't want to tell you everything about this movie. All I can say is that as sweet and magical and nostalgic as waitress is , its not a saccharine sweet overload. There are real characters in this movie who make real decisions and display their emotions with incredibly skilled discipline and reserve.

Go see waitress. It is both touching and inspiring.  I stayed to watch the end credits and only before the last single credit rolled did its say in simple white print- "In loving Memory of Adrienne Shelley"  I feel as if in some small way I paid my respects to a true New York artist and I hope where ever she is - she is resting in peace knowing that she made a solidly good film.

Adrienne Shelley (1966-2006)

Shelly's death was first considered a suicide. Days later, a 19-year-old Ecuadorian illegal immigrant and construction worker confessed to slaying the actress, who he left hanging by a bedsheet from a shower rod in the bathroom of her Manhattan office/apartment. She was found by her husband.

I WILL see this- Even if it does suck.

My Dream Golden Globe Winners

Best Picture: Little Children

Best Performance: Judi Dench ( holy crap did show blow me away)

Best Actor: Forest Whittaker: I did not  get to see The Last King of Scotland yet - but i know its excellent and I know he is excellent- no brainer!

Best Comedy/Musical: Little Miss Sunshine ( Oh g-d if only we lived in a world where Little Miss Sunshine could win this...if only)

Best Actress: hmmm Toni Collette

Best Actor in Comedy: Will Ferrell - Stranger than fiction!

Best Supporting Actress: Cate Blanchette Scandal- I am telling you people- go to this movie- they blew it off the roof!

Best Supporting Actor: WHY ISN"T ALEC BALDWIN NOMINATED FOR ANYTHING?????? Ok lets give it to Marky Mark for his work in the Departed\\

Best Animated Feature: Monster House!!!!!

Best Foreign Feature: either Volver or Pan's Labrynth

Best Director: Stephen Freers

Best Screenplay-Little Children

Best Tele Series: Greys

Best TV Actress Drama: Edie Falco

Best TV Actor- drama: Michael C Hall ( Dexter is gross but you really see that Michael C Hall can play anything!)

Best TV series Comedy: THE OFFICE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Best TV actress comedy: America Ferrara

Best Tv actor comedy: Alec Baldwin

Best TV mini series: Bleak House ( it was good yo!)

Best Performance by actress in mini: I don't care

dito for actor

Supporting Actress series : Elizabeth Perkins

Supporting Actor- series:  Jeremy Piven

Thats it! 75% of this list will not happen- Oh well...

And I am telling you!

I am so not gonna love you!

I hate musicals- always have, they're intellectually draining- I love music, i love performance and I don't mind plays or films with musical performances in them- Walk the Line for example. But I can't stand conversations had singing instead of talking- it takes the depth out of the dialog and it basically lets the actors off the hook for acting.

Now I know Dreamgirls is very important culturally, nostalgically and I guess musically to a lot of people- but personally I thought this film was mediocre all around. Its a bland story arc, the acting stunk, the music was just OK, no one had to reach too far out of their own real life persona to get at the meat of the part AND most insultingly is that the film maker tried to give his film some historical context and substance by throwing in a few minutes here and there of stock footage from history. Don't give me a second or two of the Detroit riots and then show Effie and Curtis running out into it only to have him say "Black Owned" Have Effie get hit with a bottle, have a fight about why THEY are not involved in the maelstrom outside- what separates black people in music in the 60s and 70s from black people out on the streets- while they are breaking the ceiling are they leaving the others behind? I want answers to these questions- not a montage of stock footage!

Finally, if anyone gets an Oscar for this I am going to be REALLY annoyed. I am glad people enjoyed this film and I get why they did- I DO but it was a banal experience for me all around and I should have known better- its time I can't get back.

A little flashback from one of my faves!

Napoleon Dynamite: Stay home and eat all the freakin' chips, Kip.
Kip: Napoleon, don't be jealous that I've been chatting online with babes all day. Besides, we both know that I'm training to be a cage fighter.
Napoleon Dynamite: Since when, Kip? You have the worst reflexes of all time.
Kip: Try and hit me, Napoleon.
Napoleon Dynamite: What?
Kip: I said come down here and see what happens if you try and hit me.

Mean Girls!

Finally saw it! I loved it.  Oh little sweet gingered Lindsey please please please get your act together. You could be a real movie star!

Even the two eyed ones can be monsters

Love born on the Internet and exposed on film.

Tonight I went to see Four Eyed Monsters with Tuckergurl ( Thank You!) followed by a panel discussion of internet dating.  It has been a while since I have seen a movie that I identified with as a person in the world AND as a filmmaker. So much of this brilliant debut is about cross breeding the things in your life, and in your art as shown by cross breeding the mediums that tell the story.  Susan and Arin are extremely arty hipster young adults who live in/around Williamsburg and aspire to make great art. They struggle in this city like the rest of us and they are freaks, like the rest of us.

Susan, a painter/drawer, feels like a fraud. After all the money spent training her, time spent cultivating her and energy spent supporting her- Susan is just spent. She goes off to an artist residency (gut wrenchingly -laugh out loud spoofed!!!) only to find that her only artistic contribution is a piece about her own impotence. She works as a waitress serving pretentious sycophants while subterfuging a growing loneliness and rage. Arin is a struggling film maker/musician. He edits wedding and Bar Mitzvahs videos to his creative dismay.  i guess Arin is a dime a dozen but he is unique in his idiosyncrasies and somehow alluring as a character despite his frustrating ineptitude regarding relationships and general communication. Arin is an "other" and this is a point that all people can identify with.  His obtuse and eccentric behavior so vigorously displayed on the outside is his price paid for we the audience so that he may be the caricature of our own internal angst.  After all does everyone feel like a carnie in their own skin? His sexual fears and paranoid passive agressivity is so well rationalized by his finely honed mind that it seems impossible they might ever break through his own solitary confinement. Despite my initial hatred for him; for at times I recognized the quintessential male frustration we girls must endure;  I could not blame him for his alienation.  It was not self imposed. Never are the walls we put up elective maybe its more that we instigate them, maintain them for security but we never put them up.

In any case, they meet online, they date, they go through their journey and they make a movie about it where the making of the movie is Act III.  The film is a melange of docu style video footage, isight footage, screen-captures, and animation. It is a roving wall of sound diorama that feels jagged and perfectly fluent all at once.  These two people are easily poets and what they have done is turned their lives into art and their art into lives.  Although I could critique some of the film- that seems rather besides the point. It is inspiring to say the least and inspiration is always a welcomed gift!

They have podcasts as Tuck pointed out on her blog- but I am glad that I did not watch too many episode as the overall character of the film and people in it were a pleasant surprise. And let me just say this: in the film Susan often had moments where we reacted out loud with thanks and praise-be to her strong woman attitude and clever banter in reaction to Arin's bullsh*t. However, no matter how together and articulate Susan was, she still had to succumb to her emotions and ride the relationship rollarcoaster despite the warning signs. She, signifying WE, was held a captive audiences to her desires and fantasies of what she wanted, and a slave to the reality that she had to play out with Arin.

This got me thinking. Recently, and totally by coincidence I had decided to get my internet persona back together, blogs, dating websites, myspace page...etc  I felt a slight giggle inwardly as I wrote down the internet "work" I had ahead of me:

• Designs
• revised short stories to put up,
• new Blogs to fill with information.
• Personal essays to write for dating sites
• questionnaires to fill out
• Attractive photos to acquire from my closest friends
• A mental round up of all that I liked, was interested in, pursued and felt absolute about- after all this is serious business that can not withstand wishy washiness. This is dating! This is blogging ( publishing on your own terms!) This is  networking - no longer could my myspace be mediocre for how would that reflect on my character- an inactive profile could mean a dry and pedantic person.

I was not feeling the usual reticence in terms of dating online - instead I was starting to view it as a project I could control, alter and explore on my own terms- CONTROL. I could be anyone, I could select anyone vis a vis any criteria: Age, race, musical tastes,  celebrities they most resembled, favorite books, looks alone...etc  In my head I had the next six months planned out. I had constructed for my self a list of things I can control and do in my life.

And on this I had a beebs epiphany whose air leaked out as quickly as it filled in:  I am not a type A person. (thats not the epiphany!)  On most days I'd rather let sweet life come to me and just smile at its fortune. I don't like plans and I hate the pressure of time. I like chaos, I love random and I am most at home when the day is taking me and never the averse. I always rationalized that my lack of efficiency in style and manner was somehow countered by ability to think on my feet and be there both professionally and personally at any given moment. I don't mind messes- I never have- I like getting lost even though I am often scared sh*tless of physically getting lost and feeling blue for winding up lost in life. I often feel elephant size stress as a result of this lifestyle. Like when Maura had to take me threw the organizational steps of planning my France trip! Somehow I rationalized that this was part of the big plan- like the scorpion - its just my nature. But that's not how it goes and I am beginning to wonder if type b just stands for "behind"  IWe all know that any time one needs something in their life they must illicit single minded focus and organization into their grasp and then forge ambitiously to the finish line. You can't just wing it! I have heard others say that they have but I don't believe it.   It would stand to reason then that Type A activity within reasonable and healthy confines is really more of a lucky attribute to be born with rather then a type!!!!  That in fact, life management style is as falsely-subjective as beauty, intelligence, monetary fortune and aptitude in sports art and music.  So while some are born with the gift, the rest of us have to practice the scales infinitely until they simply don't sound flat.  This is not to say that my nature has not saved me and been a blessing to others at any given point- this is also not to say that I am never obstinate or controlling- au contraire mon fraire!  It is just to say that well I don't believe in "thats just the way I am" anymore. I guess I just can't afford to. I want to believe in a Popeye caliber of life but he was a cartoon.

So it is definitely strange to me that the little room with all the filing cabinets inside my head all of the sudden has strange dusty sunlight rays cracking through and begging attention. I make my lists. One asks where I want to be in 3mos, 6mos, 1yr, 3yrs, and 10yrs on a grid with three levels: professional, personal, other. It surprised me what I learned.
I made website lists- (i am not linking I am lazy)  nerve, Match, J-date (yup thats right I said it) Ok Cupid, Bust, Myspace.  I also wrote interests where perhaps there were more websites to join virtually.  More ways to be engaged.

The lists continued:

1. The pros and cons of living (Not in any suicidal matter - more a list of celebratory aspects and the frustrations that get in our way)
2. A list of health issued I want to attack
3. A list of material items I need to own within a certain amount of time
4. A list of my weaknesses and strengths ( asked for by my shrinkeroo)
5. A list of things I needed to do to my apartment
6. A list of people I needed to call
7. Several top ten lists of pop culture things that piss me off
8. A list of activities I wanted to get better at ( French, Knitting, Editing, photography, snowboarding)
9. A list of people I'd like to know better (Pedro Amaldovar- what" Can't i dream?)
10. A list of moments I hated this year and ways by which to avoid them.
11. A list of writing projects begun- but never finished and therefore truly never realized! ( two shorts, three screenplays, a novel, two essays and five article pitches-  WTF?????? Not to mention this bloggity poo)
12. I made a lists of lists ( like this one!)

Somewhere in my fiction here lies the bigger truth:

Tyoe B- Beebs had to default for a moment- If I just collect the data- that doesn't mean I can change it. Does it? I am not even the "if its on my list I have to do it" girl So why I am I planning? Tvperry's grandpa said "if you fail to plan then you plan to fail." But John Lennon said "Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans." My mom always regarded my absent mindedness as an intellectual eccentricity lovingly proving that I was indeed the brilliant offspring until I turned 30- then it was just plain "you need to grow up kid  In other words is all the proactivity really just minutia activity to further stall the real playing field?  Does it matter? Maybe.  Maybe not. 

When did the need for absolutes and security supersede the thirst for adventure.  And did it? I am not so sure. So did the myth perpetrate the truth which then superseded the allegory which then played itself out like reality on the stage with a hamster running at the speed of light from nothing? 

Ok Ok OK!!!!!!  I am being silly and Dave Eggers-ish. 

Did Einstein have lists? Was Shakespeare an organized cad?  I don't know and perhaps I am wasting time quibbling over the mental masturbation it takes to break it down.

I am working on my virtual existence. I imagine that in some way my flesh and blood existence is not sparkling enough so I consult my virtual sister to come to the rescue and polish things up. There is Danielle and then there is Beebs. A socialized form of Schizophrenia complete with different vernaculars, colors, styles, dictum's and values. A separate sphere of microcosms meeting at awkward chasms and rendering us a bit stupefied when we are forced out of our atonal IMings and txting into live speech and touch, Rapid eye movement, pheromones and knowing glances.  Where they merge is where modern art exists.  I don't mean the type that sells or displays itself and is written up in the Times. I don't  mean this flick, or Damian Hirst or Mathew Barney or  or this blog. I just mean the art that makes us feel really elated and alive and aware-  the art that happens in your brain and your heart while jumping over a creak on a long hike or passing a moment of sheer human color on the streets. The synergy! It is number one on my pros list for living.

Susan and Arin distributed their love to the world as a social exploration and although their movie has a beginning and an end - they are just a serial and even they don't know what will happen next.  It must have been tough podcasting their lives for the world to see- they are not unscathed.  The internet daters are not without  snags and horror stories and the Film makers are not soaring...yet! Despite the great press and continued theatrical presence they need money just the same. SO none of this is necessarily the answer but my oh my the questions could leave us blogging into the next millennium

"Life is far too important a thing to ever talk seriously about!" - Oscar Wilde

Two Things!

The people who made The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants can go screw themselves. Why?  Because using, overweight Latina girls wih absentee white fathers, young girls with dead mothers, and 12 yr old girls with Luekemia who are precocious and burgeoning film makers is just too manipulative for me!  I know this movie was crap!!!!! But I can't stop myself from watching it EVERY time it shows up on cable. Just watch that stupid Gilmore girl section only and you will know that we have been sorely exploited. I cry my eyes out every time I see it. I don't know if its more the almost dead Luekemia girl or the idealized teenage friendship so intact and perfect now ( soon to be dismantled by adult life later) or the fact that no one talks about Carmen being the only overweight girl and the only latina in the whole film!!!!! That much alienation sucks!

Secondly, L-Britt wrangled Tuck and I to go see Red Light Winter. The tix were cheap! 25 buckeroos kids. The theater was small and perfect, nestled in the west village. The stage runners and designers = brilliant. It's a short play: 2 hours with one small ( too small) intermission. There are two real sex scenes on the stage. Both times, as a woman ( all three of us) we could completely understand the desire for both men- one a  brilliant recluse with social anxiety and a deficit in resilliance. The other one: a total cocky brain fucker. The woman: well lets just speak metaphorically about her- she pretends to pretend to pretend to pretend. But never really. She was a bit underdeveloped as the playwright clearly knew his men- most probably the alternate sides of himself.  The acting was above par, I thought really great, Tuck thought OK. The direction, strange at times. The script, probably needed a few more stabs but the gist of it was pretty tight and the dialogue was a dialectical delight ( SAY THAT THREE TIMES FAST)

Go see this show! It was wonderful overall and both sex scenes are worth the voyeuristic pleasures they entail.

I walk the Line!

I wrote my review last night! It was one of those writing moments where the words just flow from your hands and you think you can be the next J Hoberman or worse (better?) A.O Scott! I wrote about Mangold's career and how when you broke down the film you could clearly see the Columbia University Film School formula of structure at play in this bio-pic. (James did you have Corrine Jacker???) I also noted how Mangold only does well with Bio-pics written by the main character themselves and then reinforced by actual contact with the writer; both Suzanna Kayson and Johnny Cash lent themselves above the call of duty to the process of writing their films respectively. That said, perhaps I am being catty or jealous as it is a little bit small of me to smite Mangold's work just because he is middle of the Line ( no pun intended) but regardless, ALL of this evaporated into thin air when I was punished for trying to insert a hot picture of Joaquin and transformed my open post window to another window- GONE! All 20 minutes worth of writing and linking and photo logging! GONE- no auto save. I spent the next 20 minutes thinking maybe the site automatically archived your beginning scraps- NOPE! GONE!  Perhaps its better this way- after all TUCK did a good enough job describing how we felt and alluding to the fact that neither of us are truly capable of writing an unbiased review of WTL because we love Joaquin to a place that is unhealthy and predatorial. I also try and hint all the time that I am the true devotee and inaugural Joaquin fan but that's just me being bratty.  In fact, I keep complaining to Tuck that I am unclear as to how on earth we have not bumped in to baby-JP because he eats in all the vegan joints around her work. And her reply? "ha! we just need to start going to AA meetings!" Bad Baby Tucker bad!  =) In any case - blah blah blah- Reese is a revelation, Joaquin can't really sing- Cash's real voice is a reverberating gruffer unabashed gift to the world. Joaquin did get Cash's signature deep baritone pivot at the end of every verse! Its obvious everyone involved loved working on this film- the art direction, costume design and make-up were on point and made believe that I was truly watching their lives and not some actors playing pretend- however I got a little bored and uneasy with us making Johnny a hero according to this story- after all- the only facts disseminated were this: he was an adulterer, a drug addict, a drunk, and his dad hated him. OK? Even RAY had a better argument: Blind, poor, 60s activist, DAD! Oh well. I was entertained thoroughly! We squeezed eachother's arms the whole time because we could not handle the exquisiteness of JP.