Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Floridiana

I'm about to leave this state for a while. By state, I refer not only to a federated state with its own flag, flower and slogan but to a state of being in which the blood has thinned to such a degree that any temperature below 70- in other words, time to put on a light jacket or sweater- induces colds, coughs and a general torpor. The state I am going to, California, is a bit hardier, the winds a bit cooler. So they say, so they say.

As a result of this imminent departure, I am thinking about things only found in Florida besides my entire New York emigre family and department stores which sell undiscounted short sleeves shirts in January. What have I come up with after a long season in Palm Beach County?

Umm. Malls, the whole yellow ochre lot of them. Ben's Kosher in Boca... wait, there's one in Long Island. How about this?



This place, this pale blue structure meant to evoke the sea, is typical of dream Florida, the one which lives in postcards and brightly colored picture books.

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Today's powerful movie

Sunday night. Most people around here are asleep by 8pm, but we, intrepid movie goers, popped a few uppers and went to the 18 screen theater in Delray Beach to catch Sophia Coppola's new movie (film??) "Somewhere".

Surprisingly, uppers weren't really necessary to sit through "Somewhere", and the drug of choice, despite its setting in the once notorious now more quietly so Chateau Marmont, is Propecia along with a bit of booze.

The plot is so simple it isn't: an actor gets a visit from his daughter. What we have is a collection of types so well observed they are almost characters. There is the A-list actor, played by Stephen Dorff, and his exquisitely beautiful 11-year-old daughter, played by Elle Fanning. They are not characters, but the focus for the camera, the human subject for the setting. Around them are these characters: a collection of agents, service people, drivers, party people and hookers.

Nothing happens, as you may have heard. The A-list actor, Johnny Marco, is a genial cipher who spends his days killing time by driving around a duskily lit Los Angeles, mostly limited to Sunset and Mulholland. Sometimes he expands his world to the 101 and its environs. Cahuenga! When he's not driving around or having limp, uninterested sex with gorgeous women who permanently inhabit the Chateau Marmont as quasi hangers on he is doing what one might call "work", in this case the work of a Johnny Depp or Vin Diesel type mega star: half asleep press junkets, Italian variety shows, latex mask fittings. All of these activities are conducted around the actor: he is in the middle, swaddled and scheduled and chauffered around, while the real work is going on around him: the agents and planners and makeup artists who constantly tell the star he looks "great" and "awesome" though he appears to have not ironed his shirt or showered in weeks. When asked about his acting method by an eager young actor at one of the parties perpetually going on in his own room, the A-list actor replies that he got an agent and things just sort of happened. He's barely an actor in his own life, much less on the screen.


It's a vision of stardom we've seen, but here it is delicately shown by a lifetime insider who knows its language perfectly. Its interest to the audience is in its perplexing level of familiarity. The audience pays to watch actors enact dramas, and by extension the audience knows the actors are well paid and receive attention unimaginable to most people. To glimpse that level of attention in an hour and a half movie and then, of course, to see its pleasures undercut, to see the actor end up whimpering over a lonely phone call that he is nothing, is the story, the narrative comeuppance.

However, the movie is so contemporary, so deeply and oddly felt, that there is no compeuppance. The actor is a jobber with a lot of money. He doesn't appear to take a great deal of interest in his work, but he performs his job adequately: he doesn't do drugs, and whatever the temptations are at the Chateau Marmont he doesn't do drugs, fall out of windows (he does fall down the stairs, which is part of the small plot) and avoids crashing his car. He is a reasonably good father who likes spending time with his splendidly beautiful, accomplished but not overly precious or precocious preteen daughter, and usually manages to keep the half-naked women out of his hotel room while his daughter is with him. We see no indications that he deserves estrangement, and we can guess that many of the women who pursue him and are occasionally angry at him were using him.

But that is where the narrative will turn: he will be alone, at least for a few minutes at the side of a highway. Why? Well, that is what happens in movies about existential angst. There can't be an answer when the question isn't posed. It's a hard genre to take on, the post-Antonioni kind of blah blah. How to make a movie about nothing, and make it interesting?

Somehow, Sophia Coppola succeeds with "Somewhere". You don't get too many coal miners making movies about coal mines when they grow up, but there is the occasional Hollywood brat taking the audience inside that milieu, and in this case it works. It's much better than "Lost in Translation", which used Scarlett Johannson as an affectless stand-in for the director. One difference is the actual love object in Elle Fanning's Chloe. She is the eternal child who wears hipster clothes better than an actual adult woman, cooks eggs benedict in hotels without actual adult supervision as her somewhat childish father doesn't count, and skates as prettily as a doll in a snow globe. We can see she's taken advantage of what she has to take advantage of- she's rich and beautiful and talented, and uses all the education at her disposal to better herself. That she understands the adult world around her no better than the adults themselves do is a satisfying counterpoint to popular contemporary images of children.

The result of Sophia Coppola's insistence on well-observed surface over explicit emotional content through dialogue is a sweet ride around L.A. I don't know exactly where I went, but it's like someone else's dream which keeps coming back.

Sunday, January 16, 2011

GOLDEN GLOBS 201111!!!

We've gone to commercial again. I am going to ponder the sight I was privy to at the fadeout: Johnny Depp and Robert Downey Jr. chatting.

What could they have been talking about? Anything, of course- "Nice to see you, old chap! Good work in Star Wars/Sherlock Holmes/whatever!" But their similarities before the camera are surprising. They must be the same age, in their mid-forties. Both look quite hairy. Quite shaggy. I can't say much about work, as in "work". They say Johnny Depp has "had it done", but I have no idea. I haven't seen him in a movie in, what, three or four years? Which is strange. I used to see him all the time. I would surmise that he's started making crap and nothing else. Whereas, and this is really curious, RBD has been showing up to my eyeballs, and I've been liking him.

We're back! It's Michael Douglas! Everybody's clapping! Since he's my dad's age and has just been declared cancer free this is a happy thing. I'm glad for Mr. Douglas. Anyway, that old Hollywood saw is presenting best picture. Social Network! I wrote it as he said it so I can say I predicted it. Which I did! Because it got really good reviews and is trendy. It was a good movie. I hope I see Jesse Eisenberg, my new crush. Nope, a bunch of men in suits. Where is the art? It's there in the suits.
Ain't that the truth.

OH! The suit has invited the little cuties to the stage. Andrew Garfield, also cute, but less so, though he was excellent in the movie.

Oh, there's Scarlett Johannsen. More pink. You heard it here first.

Ricky Gervais is saying goodnight. He's dressed like a caterer, so it's good that he's going. He must be tired of serving appetizers.

GOLDEN GLOBS 201111!!!

OK, I've muted the sound. I'm looking at her now. Still nothing. A poor man's Winona Ryder. They're both Jewish and have small noses. Coincidence?

Here is Ricky Gervais. Ah, the sweet sounds of dropped consonants.

Oh, it's, um, the famous guy. Forrest Gump. I still can't see him as an institution. He seems to be laying low lately. This is good. I hope he's catching up on his hobbies.

"The Kids are Alright" won- was that best comedy? It was pretty good. A lot of women are going to run on stage now. No, it's a mixed crowd. Is that the producer? Happily, Mark Ruffalo is behind him. Eye candy for the ladies. Oh, and there's Colin Firth. Really, I always forget that actors have a bit of appeal. I think they've rounded up all the charming ones tonight.

There's Lisa Cholodenko. Is that a Ukrainian name? Her girlfriend is Wendy from Prince and the Revolution whose hairstyle I ineptly emulated in eighth grade. She was also a great keyboardist. I don't have much to say about Lisa Cholodenko although I've seen several of her movies.

I'm heading over to another website to look at the red carpet arrivals. A lot of beige. A lot of red.

The best dress is green. Elizabeth Moss. She looks really pretty and knows how to accessorize. I hate to say it, but Natalie Portman also looks good. Interesting.

Back to the show... a national treasure according to Ricky Gervais. Who? Oh, Sandra Bullock. Not the Queen?

OK. Bangs! It's necessary for older ladies. Bad mauve color. Ah, the men! The actors! Mostly cute men. Give it to Jesse Eisenberg. Oh, Colin Firth won. That's a good thing, he was great in "The King's Speech" and he's cute too! He looks more relaxed than he did in the movie. He was acting! A king with a speech impediment- who would have thought such a role would win an award?

AH, Helena Bonham Carter. GORGEOUS! Guy Pearce- nice to see him. Geoffrey Rush is wearing a trilby. He must be bald. It's a good look.

The men of Hollywood have terrible eyesights according to the mass of spectacles. It's a spectacle!

Harvey Weinstein, fat and unsmiling and surrounded by obscure, pretty girls. Or is one of them Colin Firth's wife? Too much typing to pay attention, but it goes by more quickly. In fact, it's over! Right?

GOLDEN GLOBS 201111!!!

Back to the program.

Who is this guy? Ah, a clip for "Inception". I didn't see it. But the special effects look kind of cool. Buildings falling is a good effect.

Jeff Bridges! I love him, but I think I'm seeing him too much because I didn't just feel my heart skip. Oh well.

Nicole Kidman. You're looking old, and your teeth are yellow.

Michelle Williams and Natalie Portman are like twins. But the brunette won. Good for you, Natalie Portman! Halle Berry looks jealous.

Hmm, I like her dress. It's not red, it's pink, and has a splash of red across the front in the form of a flower. It's a trend judging from the floozies I see in South Beach. Her voice is like aluminum foil crinkling. Why is she an actress? I can't bear it. I will travel back in time and have nothing to impinge on my ears but Bette Davis, I swear. Oh, that nasal, untrained voice. I will have to kill myself. Mute, stop! NATALIE PORTMAN BAD BAD BAD

A small aside

Clicking around, I see this:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110116/ap_on_re_us/us_ap_poll_health_care

AP-GfK Poll: Opposition to health care law eases

More depressing shit. Kiss my uninsured ass, fuckers! Thanks a lot, fellow American scumbag morons! This country. Yes, the law is imperfect, it's kind of crappy, but if the Republicans block it I will buy a Glock and shoot their stupid asses!

GOLDEN GLOBS 201111!!!

Paul Giametti is blowing the stage away. Something directed by Richard Lewis. Not the long-haired comic from the 80's? It is a common name. He says he got paid to smoke.

Oh, there's the guy from "Hung". And Paul Giametti just said Mordechai Richler and Montral! This is very literary and international. I feel privileged to hear this from my little hotel room overlooking the Atlantic far away from all the important places.