The Duke, Omar, Enough Said, Mary Fahl at the Dakota

I'm not really sure where to start, so I'll just type and we'll see what comes out. It will be a surprise for me too.

7/19/14 The High and the Mighty, 1954, Best Original Musical Score

I don't know, there are better movies out there in all kinds of ways, and while the musical score, by Dmitri Tiomkin (Gunfight at the OK Corral, High Noon, the Alamo) was certainly very grand and majestic, but it's not enough to make anyone watch the movie unless it's on a list. The High and the Mighty is set on a plane traveling from Hawaii to San Francisco when disaster strikes. John Wayne plays veteran co-pilot, Dan Roman in a very non-Western role, and he plays Dan in a very subdued and controlled manner; Robert Stack is Captain John Sullivan; the rest of the cast may be virtually unknown to 21st century audiences. Each passenger on the plan has a story or an issue they get to wrestle with, especially as they face impending doom (okay, I am being a bit melodramatic). Film critic, Leonard Maltin does an introduction to the movie, trying to put it into context, giving a little background. He cautions the viewer not to get caught up in any perceived anachronisms and to accept the movie on its own terms (I really like that phrase and I may have to use that again). I think that's a fair warning, but at the same time, it's very hard, as a traveler, and not smile at the huge differences in airports, commercial flights, and other things. I was laughing at the gate check-in process, where the gate agent greeted every passenger by name, and then as a way to identify themselves, they loudly proclaimed their date of birth. Oh, the PII (that's personal information)!! Then about 15 people get on this huge plane with a lot of empty seats, and the solo child traveler gets two seats and promptly falls asleep and stays asleep the entire trip, even through what must have been an incredible drop in cabin pressure as Dan Roman must open the door to throw out all the luggage (I kid you not). The cast of characters seemed like a roll call of stereotypes: the hardened dame, the married couple that is drifting apart, the bitter man, and on and on. This is referred to as one of the first 'disaster' movies, but I think someone has to die in a disaster movie, and there actually has to be a disaster. Maybe I'm just a cynic, but I wasn't all that concerned. You might find more entertainment watching Airport with Dean Martin and Helen Hayes. An interesting fact is that the movie was directed by William Wellman who directed Wings (another movie about airplanes) which was the first movie to win Best Picture in 1927.

7/20/2014 Enough Said, not nominated, 2013

There was a lot of buzz when this movie came out, and I really wanted to go, and of course, I ran out of time. This was one of James Gandolfini's last movies and he was partnered with Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Veep). The result is a movie that I want to watch over again with friends to see if they get it like I got it. Nicole Holofcener wrote and directed this slice of life with a deft hand. Gandolfini is Albert, a divorced, middle-aged, portly man who is enjoying his bachelorhood and the freedom to swirl his guac to weed out the irons. He's a little quieter than the perky Eva, a divorcee who works as a masseuse and is preparing to send her only child off to school on the East coast. Albert and Eva meet at a party and even though Eva didn't find any of the men at the party attractive, she and Albert go out on a date. Of course, Eva has to be funny, or at least she thinks she's funny (those two are not always the same), and she is bemused by Albert's straight man routine. Eva's best friends are played by Toni Collette (The Way, Way Back) as Sarah and Ben Falcone (Bridesmaids) as Will, who have some kind of weird tension in their marriage. Of course, this wouldn't be a movie unless there was some plot twist, which I don't really want to give away, although you will probably figure it out soon enough). There were some laugh out loud moments, some chuckles and a couple of occasions where I found myself talking to the television saying 'this is not going to end well'. This is my favorite type of movie and the kind I really try to get people to see, like The Way, Way Back or The Kings of Summer. There is something that you can connect with, whether it's that feeling of pushing a joke a little too far and hurting your partner, or enjoying lively banter with them, or like in The Way, Way Back, the feeling of isolation and awkwardness. This is the kind of movie that I would gravitate to normally. What can I say about Gandolfini and Louis-Dreyfus who made their onscreen relationship seem effortless, not like they were acting at all? Louis-Dreyfus is a treasure, and she has great comedic chops and her dramatic ones weren't that bad either. Gandolfini was in many roles that were counter to Tony Soprano, like Carol in Where the Wild Things Are or The Last Castle where he was a power-crazed Colonel facing off against Robert Redford (great movie), but this role struck me as something different; he played the part in a reactionary way, in that Eva (or his daughter) would create the action and he had to create an appropriate reaction, if that makes sense. A friend and I were talking about why this was not nominated for any Oscars, and I think 2013 was a great year for movies and there were so many worthy films, but I do think it was a great omission in not nominating this movie for anything. But do not let that stop you. The next time you want a movie without CGI, guns, naked people, or costumed heroes, get this movie (I'm not judging you if you do like to watch CGI naked people with guns).

7/20/2014 Omar, nominated Best Foreign Film, 2013

The timing of me watching this movie was a little unsettling and I was wondering how I would handle it, would I be able to watch it objectively. Omar is set in what is known as the Occupied Territories in Israel. Omar is a young, Palestinian man who is hoping to get permission from his friend, Tarek, to court and date Tarek's sister, Nadia. Omar is also hanging out with Tarek and their other friend, Amjad, and planning attacks on Israeli soldiers. One of their forays does not go well and Omar is captured and put in jail and through trickery basically admits he would never admit to his crime (and in the Alice-through-the-looking-glass world Omar lives in, this is considered an admission of guilt). Omar is told he must help the Israeli army get more information on his comrades or Nadia would be hurt. It took a really long time for me to get into the movie and I occasionally lost the plot, but there were some good twists in the story and once I felt connected to Omar, the movie came through. It was hard to watch some of the tactics used by Omar's handlers, and it would be naive of me to think that torture doesn't happen, but I wish it didn't nonetheless. Adam Bakri plays Omar and he carries off the complexity of his character very well. The backdrop of the conflict between Arabs and Jews in Israel is one setting among many possibilities: Ireland/N. Ireland; Basque separatists in Spain, or in the US where perhaps a gang member has to turn on his friends. I think that the personal conflict is the larger canvas on which to create, and it's that part which got me. I honestly did not see the last twenty minutes coming, and I thought, nice one (to the writer and director Hany Abu-Assad), well played. I think this deserved more of a chance than The Great Beauty, which you may remember, I hated.

7/19/14 Mary Fahl at the Dakota Jazz Club, Minneapolis

Even if you don't know Mary Fahl's name, you may very well know her voice from the band from the 1990s October Project. From the moment I heard her voice on "Bury My Lovely", I was hooked. The lyrics were kind of mysterious, allegorical and layered, and Mary's voice was the perfect vehicle with its haunting depth. I still listen to both CDs, especially when I drive from Minnesota to Ohio because they are just the kick in the ass I need after driving seven or eight hours. I discovered Mary again in the early 2000s while watching the movie Gods and Generals about the events leading up to the Battle of Gettysburg. She had a song on the soundtrack that once again grabbed me by the throat called "Going Home" and that led me to her album "The Other Side of Time". I have been waiting for a while for Mary to come to the Twin Cities, especially once my finances improved. The date was announced back in March that Mary would be coming to town to promote her latest album "Love and Gravity", and she was coming to the Dakota Jazz Club, just down the street from where I work. I bought my ticket for a floor table, stage left and counted the days. It was a perfect Minnesota summer evening for a trip downtown. Mary came on stage, just her and her guitars. She started off the show by asking if there were any October Project fans (of course there were) and easing our fears by saying that she would sing some of the favorites, and then said that she's a talker, she likes to talk about the songs and what they mean, and then she started. The show was a fantastic collection of October Project songs ("Ariel", "Bury My Lovely", "Be My Hero"), covers (Joni Mitchell's "Both Sides Now", "Nessun Dorma by Puccini) and a lot of Mary's own material. It was very cool to hear the story about how she came to write the song for Anne Rice's audio book for The Wolves of Midwinter, "Exiles" or "The Dawning of the Day" for the movie The Guys. Even though Mary only had her guitar, all of the songs seemed very full and did not seem like they were lacking anything. One of the best things about small venues is a lot of times the artists will stay to sign CDs and chat. I'm not a great chatter, but I was going to stay and get a couple of CDs. Mary was really generous and engaged with everyone in front of me, even the poor guy who made the very clumsy comparison to Jim Nabors aka Gomer Pyle. Mary's husband Rich thought it was hilarious and Mary handled it with great humor. What the gentleman was trying to say was that Mary does not look like her voice sounds (Jim Nabors has quite the singing voice, but you would not think that if you only knew about Gomer); Mary is not very tall and she really isn't what you expect if you have only heard her because her voice is so big (it has just occurred to me that I may be butchering the analogy as well). Anyway, I'll leave you with this thought, check out "Love and Gravity" with songs inspired by Johnny and June (Cash), werewolves, Blind Willie Johnson. It includes the cover of "Both Sides Now" and an original song called "Cottonwood" which I can listen to over and over.