La La Land

Photo: Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone, watching a movie and each other, in La-La Land. From popmatters.com, just click here. The photo below is from the same page.

Disclaimer: Here there be spoilers. Consider yourself forewarned. If you want to see the movie, you might want to wait to read this.

My better half and I saw La-La Land recently, mostly because she's seen some "guy films" recently and I owed her one. She said I like depressing, serious films, so I should see this movie, which she said would be a happy musical. I offered the opinion that she would be surprised, that I had a feeling that all would not be well. Unfortunately, I was right about this.

It is a very good musical about going for your dreams--and the price you have to pay. There ain't nothin' free in this world, right? The movie's buzz has overplayed the feel-good vibe it sometimes has, and has vastly underplayed the sad ending, when both accomplish their dreams, but realize, perhaps, that they aren't completely happy. (Though, at the end, she seems happier than he does. But, I have to ask, perhaps in ignorance: If you're crazy about everything jazz, can you be happy? What draws people to a music genre that sounds, to me [again, perhaps in my ignorance], as unhappy and sad?) This note of sadness is especially surprising for Mia--Emma Stone's character--who has a husband and child at that point, but who looks back, wistfully, at the guy she left behind. The closing scenes, where Ryan Gosling's character plays in his head the emotions and relationship with Mia that might have been--and that would have been in the feel-good musical romances of MGM's past, which La-La Land respectfully emulates--are very touching and very sad. I walked out of the theater even more affected and sad than I thought I'd be.

When Gosling's Sebastian convinces Stone's Mia to go back and try out for a movie role she'd been singled out for--and when one of the people at the audition mentions it'll be a 3-4 month shoot in Paris (this is actually on the short side of many shoots)--I could see how the stars were aligning. And the irony being set up: If he doesn't convince her to go to the audition, she doesn't get the role. If she doesn't get the role, she doesn't go to Paris and perhaps they don't permanently break up. He knows this, as he'd previously been on the road a lot and she had suffered for it. (Though, to be fair, he'd stayed loyal and returned as happily and as often as he could to her.) So by convincing her to go for her dreams, he's showing that he loves her. And so because he loves her, he loses her. Such is life, especially if you live in La-La Land, figuratively and literally. (You know, how dreamers just think la-la-la-la-la and live in La-La Land? Get it? [My father used to say that to me all the time, usually when I was writing.] I had to explain that to someone recently, about what that means, and that it's not just another nickname for Los Angeles.)

I really appreciated the theme of going for your dreams, despite the immense rejection and obstacles that will come your way. I'm the only artist (I write stories and novels and tons of other things) and dreamer I know, so it's very frustrating to share my sadness and despair in the face of rejection. I don't know anyone else that well who can understand what it feels like to spend 20 years writing a novel that doesn't sell. And getting scammed when you're 21 by an "agent." (I was very heart-warmed to see that Gosling's character had also been scammed.) Nobody I know can relate.

I haven't been as brave as La-La Land's characters. I haven't gone all-out without a safety net. I've got a great career and benefits now, and I write when I can. I feel I'm too safe, too soft, to content and satisfied with my measly sales. But that all could've been different in my early-20s, when I was writing and floundering, and nobody was feeling me. Maybe I wouldn't have stopped writing for 9 years if I'd had someone then to talk to, to understand. I'd be a published novelist now with those 9 non-writing years back. (I know now that it's more my fault for letting the scam agent stop me than it was the scammer's for scamming me.) I didn't have a Mia at that time, or a Sebastian to come get me, to have confidence in me to keep me going.

But I digress. I think. Maybe not, for the message of the movie is to keep going, to try to achieve your dreams. And you'll have to accept the consequences as well. The ending of this movie reminded me of the ending to a depressing folksy song from the 70s. The end refrain mentions that "she wanted to be an actress / and I wanted to learn to fly." (Please leave a comment if you know the title.) Both in the song achieve their dreams, sort of: She's an unhappy trophy wife and he's an unhappy cabbie. She's an actress, because she has to act happy, and act like she loves her husband and her life. He has learned to fly, but as the end of the song goes: "I fly / so high / when I'm stoned." Well, La-La Land's characters aren't stoned (and let's not fall back on a stereotype about jazz musicians and drugs), but they aren't exactly happy, either. Not. At. All.

So go see this movie, but don't believe all the overhyped whimsy of this film. There is some, but I'm here to tell ya, this movie, in a way, is more depressing to me than the serious, depressing films I'm accused of preferring.

Do I really believe this movie is as sad as, say, Forrest Gump and Saving Private Ryan?

Yup. Yes I do.

Musings at the New Firepit

photos: The Old Firepit, with raging inferno, and The New Firepit, with distinct and subtle flame.


This is one of those blog moments where everything is sorta connected to everything else, maybe yet another minor epiphany, but here it goes:

So, moments after I (hopefully) solved my summer-long pool leak issue, my firepit finally fell apart the other day, which will happen to even a terracotta/ceramic firepit if you use it practically every day, all year, for about seven years.  Luckily the wood wouldn't catch on fire, no matter how hard I tried, with paper, or cardboard, or kindling, or anything, because it was so humid and wet out.  I used a stick to move some wood around in it, and one piece just falls off.  I put it back (it's not hot, because nothing would catch) and another piece suddenly goes, plus the original again.  And then another.  So I throw my water (yes, I just had water) on the wood, to make sure it wouldn't catch, because with my luck, it finally would have, overnight in a shattered firepit while I'm not watching it.  And the next day I decided to buy another one.

Now, in case you haven't noticed, firepits are a very, very important part of my summer (and fall, and winter, and....)  Sitting at one just chills me out, and if you know me, you know I'm not often chilled out.  It's one of the only things that relaxes me.  So buying a new firepit is, seriously, more important to me than buying next year's professional wardrobe, because I care more about my firepit than I do about what I'm wearing.  (You can see from my pic at NYC's Cleopatra's Needle that cool-looking buttoned shirts are not relevant to me.  I'll pause here so you can look at that pic, to the right of this page, and then come back.)  I give myself a few hours to buy another one, and I'm hoping beyond hope that I can go to the place I bought the one that broke, and just get another one exactly like that.  (If you know me, this is not a shocker.  I have the same philosophy about clothing stores and restaurants.)

Well, that didn't happen, because it's (sadly) practically the end of the summer, and that make and model was about seven years old.  So first I went to the Salk's/Ace Hardware, where I buy practically everything backyard or tool related, and they don't have any firepits at all.  Next I went to Benny's, nearby, but they had some really shoddy-looking ones (which even the salesman was honest enough to say I shouldn't buy) and a really nice one for $150, and the things in between weren't the snazziest.  I keep the $150 one in mind, because it was huge, bowl-shaped and deep like my last one, and went to Ann & Hope Outlet.  They had just one firepit, one that I couldn't decide if it was cool or schticky, as it was huge, monstrous, and you could cook on it, but it was $180, and it had fall leaf cutouts all around it, so the flames would flicker and dance, which would either be really cool, always, or which would get old very, very fast.  I didn't feel like spending $180 to find out.  So I went to Lowe's, and they had an okay selection, except everything was metal, which will rust quickly.  Metal stands and lids will start to rust after just one season.  So a whole lotta metal equals a whole lotta rust.

But I realize that this is probably it, unless I also feel like hitting the Home Depot, which I didn't, and an older couple came by, and in our convos they said they'd been there, and it didn't have anything.  "Did they have anything terracotta or ceramic?" I asked with excitement.  No.  So this was it.  I didn't like the $59 one, because it looked flimsy, and things that are too cheap worry me a little.  I also didn't like their very expensive ones, as they were all metal, all the time.  So the couple and I decide together (this was an odd group decision) that this $80 sort of flat one was the best choice.  It's very shallow and very small compared to what I'm used to, but I felt a life-transition come on, so I bravely went with it.

I get home and put the thing together.  The directions say it should take fifteen minutes, but it takes me about 45 minutes, because I'm like that.  Mostly this was due to the directions saying at one point to attach the bolts, but not to fasten them yet, and so I did that but the pieces kept unattaching, so I finally rebelled and fastened the damn things when I wanted to, and it was smooth-sailing after that.  I actually felt very proud of myself for putting the thing together, though I realize that it was super-simple to do, as self-assembly goes, and anyone who works with his hands for a living at all would've shaken his head at me.  (I pictured Robert Shaw saying to me, "You've got city hands, Hooper!  You've been countin' money all yer life!")  Maybe so, but it's been all coins, mostly dimes and pennies, I assure you.

So I take the thing for a ride that night, of course, though it was hot and humid and about 82.  It has this small space beneath the grate--this area is too small to be able to use the grate to cook something on--that you put your paper or kindling.  I did that.  Then the rest of the square- and bowl-shaped area you put the wood.  But as it's much smaller than what I'm used to, there's actually just room for large pieces of what I had been using as kindling, stuff that in my other firepit would've burned out in a couple of minutes.  In this one, though, this stuff lasted forever, so the amount of stuff which would've been five minutes of kindling in the other one was about an hour of the real stuff in this one.

Now here's the big reveal: I realized that less is maybe more here, and though I did not stick with my norm, this firepit will let me burn less in more time.  Plus, I can see all the wood that's burning (the other one was so deep that wood got buried, never to be seen again) and I can hear it better.  Instead of a roaring inferno, it was a quieter crackling.  More soothing.  More relaxing--which, if you remember, is the entire goal here, to relax me.  It also lit the area better, since more light got out because it was much more shallow.  (Though I'm not saying here that shallow is better.  Learned that wasn't the case in high school; proved it with my shallow attitudes and shallow girlfriends in my 20s.)  I furthermore took this a step further and realized that I (again) need to slow it all down.  I don't need a huge bonfire every night in my backyard, which used up more wood, which burned more quickly, which caused me to use more wood and round and round we go.

Slow it down.  Don't burn through everything (and everyone) so quickly.  Take it easy; take it slow.  Relax.

So while I was musing all this, and relaxing more, I had another epiphany:

Someone should invent another cable movie channel, but this one will show only movies with the director's/star's commentary on it.  (I hereby send notice that I am copyrighting this idea.  Where's the c in the circle thing???  Well, consider the idea Copyright 2012 Steven E. Belanger.)  Anyway, am I the only one who loves the commentary on the DVD?  I won't even buy a DVD if the commentary isn't there.  In the last two days I watched/listened to the commentaries on The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (David Fincher, the director) and on Easy A (Emma Stone, the star, and Will Gluck, the director).  Love those things!

So if anyone starts a movie channel with just movies with DVD commentary, I want my credit, and my cut.

Easy A

photo: Movie's poster, from its Wikipedia page.


A friend suggested I watch this movie, as it connects (in a slighter way than the filmmakers would have you believe) to The Scarlet Letter, which I'm currently re-reading.  I saw it last night on cable, really late at night because I couldn't sleep (so why DVR it like normal people?), and I have to say that it was a very entertaining, witty, funny and intelligent (by comparison to movies of its type, for its audience) movie.  I say this wholeheartedly, yet also with reservations.  This is because--

--The main character, Olive Penderghast (a very good, smart and sassy Emma Stone), is so insecure about her high school social status that she agrees to lie about having sex (which Roger Ebert, in his review, calls "blissful congress") with several unpopular (and, later, quasi-popular) boys at school, including those who are gay, hairy and overweight, and just overall sad and downtrodden.  This is icky in of itself, and severely implausible (especially to the movie's extent), but what makes this even more improbable is that Olive comes across as very, very, very smart, sassy, intelligent, and sure of herself, at least vocally.  These two opposing personality traits do not mesh in this movie.  A girl (or anyone) who acts so much to one extreme will not also act so much to the other extreme, often in the same minute.  Not unless she's in a facility, or on heavy doses of meds.  (It has to be said that the movie pulls this off very well and throws it away, but that's more because of Emma Stone's acting ability than it is the script.)

--Nobody's parents (a very good Patricia Clarkson and Stanley Tucci--and this role is a change for him, though not of his ability, as he's always good) are this awesome, smart, sassy, funny and just overall cool.  Again, this movie gets away with this, but that's again because of the great acting of Clarkson, Tucci and Stone (this sounds like an expensive law firm), not because of the script.  The mom even hears all of the yuckiness at the end, and tells her daughter how much of a tramp she used to be, and spreads and lifts her legs like a Rockette to prove it.  They've adopted an African-American boy (whose job it is, apparently, to look befuddled) and they're also very verbally smart, sassy and funny.  I say this last because, again, it is not probable that such people would raise a daughter to be as insecure as Stone's character needs to be to do what she does. This script, as written, could've only been a sassy success, as it was, or a crash-and-burn.  The actors save it.

--The movie makes me feel old, as I was a teenager when Ferris Bueller, Say Anything, Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, and others came out.  There's a good line when Stone's character says she wishes her life had been directed by John Hughes (who didn't direct all of the films Easy A pays homage to, such as Can't Buy Me Love, the one where Patrick Dempsey drives off with The Girl on a lawnmower.  That movie, incidentally, is about a nerdy guy who pays a girl to "date" him to become more popular in high school.  There's no mention of sexy ickiness, as it's an innocent 80s film.)  Easy A pays homage to all of these, and really does take the coolest parts of all of them to showcase.  But, again, made me feel old.  That's bad.

--Nobody's sons and daughters are as sassy and smart as the movie ones, and nobody's English teacher is that cool, either.  I say this last with sadness.  Sad, but true.

--Lastly, the connection to The Scarlet Letter really isn't there, no matter how fervently the movie says it is.  Olive has not committed adultery, after all.  Maybe she could've stitched on a big, red S--but that's already been done, though in a much different context. A W or T would've been okay, I guess.  But I digress.  Hester bears her sin and shame stoically, which Olive admits, but says she could never do.  And Olive finally tells the truth at the end, while the crime in the book was known from page one.  The book was about how the community gradually admits its own sin, and accepts Hester--though Hester ultimately refuses to be accepted.  Olive comes clean at the end because she so desperately wants to be accepted again--very un-Hester.  Olive's community, it is very clear, would never have forgiven and accepted her, as it's the sin that makes her popular to begin with.  The American social strata would lovingly feed off that carcass for eternity.

Love that last sentence of mine.  So true.  But that's a blog entry for another day.  So if you haven't seen it yet, do so, because at the end it's very smart, sassy and funny.  Just don't overthink it like I just did.