EXTRA CRITICUM

Why I Started Extra Criticum and What I’ve Learned by Doing So

For at least two years before the birth of Extra Criticum, it seems that my old pal Robert Sullivan had been prodding me to start blogging. “You need a blog. Every writer should have a blog. Have you thought about starting a blog yet? I really think you ought to consider it.” I don’t know why I resisted. Well, actually, I do. I resisted the idea of starting my own blog because it struck me then as somewhat narcissistic. A journal of my thoughts, feelings and opinions—not to mention mundane actions—posted online for all the world to see? Why bother? What a bore!

So I told Robert the only way I would consider blogging was if it was a group undertaking. I didn’t want to create a space where all the musings of one Roland Tec would be posted ad nauseum. I’d feel a lot more comfortable if I could do so in the company of good friends and colleagues.

2nd Look: Five Underrated Movies

A certain consensus seems to get agreed upon about movies before they recede into the past. A combination of popularity and critical response are the primary ingredients, and it’s usually more-or-less right. Movies like The Last Emperor or Crash may capture the zeitgeist enough to walk off with a Best Picture Oscar, but they tend to disappear as time goes on. Whether this is because they are beautiful but somewhat ephemeral (The Last Emperor) or thuggishly manipulative and self-important (Crash), time takes care of what we could not see in the moment.

The opposite, however, happens as well. Really wonderful films get disregarded and slip away largely unseen. It’s a shame, so I’ve decided to do my small part to undo the process and pick out five films that I think have been unfairly maligned. I’m sure everybody has some version of this list in their mind (I could probably get to 20 without breaking a sweat), but here’s mine:

Some Thoughts on Marlon Brando

One of the perks of being married to my wife is that she loves old movies. At the end of a long day, knowing we don’t have enough concentration to work through the Netflix queue, she’ll often say “What’s on TCM?” Then we check out Turner Classics in hopes of finding something familiar that we can enjoy awhile before schlepping off to bed.

Steig Larsson's Revenge Fantasy

I have a reputation for being a bit of a contrarian. It’s not unearned, but I don’t think I’m reflexively contrary. I like plenty of popular things. For example, I’d happily posit The Matrix as the greatest science fiction film ever made.

That said, I am a little suspicious when everyone agrees on something. It doesn’t happen very often, culturally speaking, and it makes me wonder what buttons are being pushed, what complexities are being glossed over. Which brings me to Steig Larsson and his The Girl Who…trilogy.

Irving Berlin & Lady Gaga: Some themes never get old

Just back from seeing Twyla Tharp's Come Fly Away, her Frank Sinatra tribute. Midway through Act II, an Irving Berlin song started playing and I found myself thinking of Lady Gaga, of all things. This song, in particular:

01 Just Dance

Hear the similarities?

Which TV Finale Is Your Favorite?

With LOST giving it up Sunday night in a pop culture gorge-fest, naturally I started to think of other notable finales.

The best, of course, the mother of all final episodes, is MASH. Moving, funny, incredible and sometimes painful (if your heart doesn't break for Hawkeye and the "chicken", you are dead), it rounded out the moving, funny, incredible and sometimes painful (particularly in the last couple seasons when Preachy took over from Funny in the writer's room and minor characters were given major roles too often - there's a reason that some of them were written to be minor - Klinger is only funny/interesting in a dress - out, not so much of either).

Each character got an ending that fit them (such as Charles, who had always been the music snob, could no longer listen to his records without remembering the quartet of musicians who died from a roadside bomb), and nothing felt off or rushed. 

Diva Is a Myth

Diva (1981) existed in my psyche as one of the most beautiful films ever and a paragon of cool. I remembered the unlikely romantic couple strolling through a blue-hued Paris at dawn accompanied by a Satie-esque piano piece. I remembered that there was a song from some obscure opera. Ahhhh... the music. I remembered it was a stylish film, pleasing to look at, full of great sets and interesting objects, like that beautiful, vintage, white Citroen. Mostly I remembered the punk, “Priest,” the fantastic Dominique Pinon who would later dazzle me in Delicatessen and make me think he was some kind of French re-incarnation of Charlie Chaplin. His was the face on the poster and on the soundtrack LP. Like any punk worth his safety pins, he was full of disdain. In fact, most of his lines begin with, “I don’t like…” Discovering the music he had pumping into his earpiece was to me one of the great cinematic jokes.

Top 10 Examples of Visual Spectacle in NYC Theatre's Recent-ish History

OK. So, readers of this blog may be surprised (or alarmed?) to see this headline and my byline together in the same post. Those familiar with Rolando Teco's biases know that visual spectacle does not thrill me in the way that, say, authentic human conflict does.

So it dawned on me as I sat transfixed at my window, watching the drama and chaos and sheer beauty of another snowstorm, that I do appreciate some fireworks of the visual sort every now and then. So, here, in totally random order, are my top 10 picks for most stunning, memorable and breathtaking.

Gay Man Comes Out: Why I Love THE BOYS IN THE BAND

I'll admit it. When I first saw the film adaptation of The Boys in the Band, I loved it. I knew I wasn't supposed to, of course. I was in college at the time. My first boyfriend had instructed me that the politics of Mart Crowley's play (and subsequent screenplay) were all wrong. "Self-loathing" and "Internalized Homophobia" were the buzzwords at get-togethers of the Lesbian, Gay and Transgendered Student Association on campus.

So I did what any self-respecting newly-liberated young homo would do. I kept my feelings to myself.

2nd Look: The Comeback. Valerie Cherish is Gorgeous

  

Full disclosure: a friend of mine was in this series and another friend of a friend wrote it. So, naturally, I was curious to take a 2nd look at a show that I'd seen only a few episodes of when it first aired on HBO. When my b.f. gave me the DVD as a gift, we seized the opportunity to watch the entire series -- the lone single season -- start to finish.

Frequent readers of this blog may recall my waxing hyperbolic about the unparalleled level of subtlety in the writing for Matthew Weiner's Mad Men on AMC. So, it came as a wonderful surprise to encounter equally subtle directing and acting on the short-lived Lisa Kudrow vehicle, The Comeback.

Any doubt that she (Lady Gaga) is a serious songwriter ends here

Speechless, by Lady Gaga. Listen here, kids!

04 Speechless

Julia Child vs. Don Draper

The hot TV series of the moment, Mad Men, is set in 1963, the same year that Julia Child debuted on public television with The French Chef. Coincidentally, Child is a hot pop culture icon again (not that she ever really went cold), thanks to the book and film Julie & Julia. Would she have any affinity for Mad Men’s impeccably dressed but emotionally hollow protagonist Don Draper?

While waiting for another Mad Men episode, I started in on a “best of” DVD collection of The French Chef, which opens with perhaps her most famous episode, “The Potato Show.” This is the one in which she tries to flip a large potato pancake, which breaks apart on the way down and ends up half outside the pan. “You can pick it up when you’re alone in the kitchen,” she says to the camera as she grabs the errant pieces and puts them back in the pan. “Who is going to see?”

A "Second Look" at DIVA?

Rolando Teco and I will be re-viewing the French film Diva for the "Second Look" feature. Any one else interested in joining us? Plan to watch the film between now and Labor Day. Any takers?

25 Years Later: "After Hours"

I haven’t seen Martin Scorcese’s After Hours since it came out in 1985 and I was a 21-year-old who had never been to New York. Since then I’ve spent a lot of time in Manhattan and have met plenty of strange characters after midnight, so I get the movie in ways I didn’t before.

For example, I now get the joke about New Yorkers seeing neighborhoods outside of their homes and workplaces as mystifying, and often terrifying, places. I loved the shots of street signs near the end of the film, showing Griffin Dunne’s progress from SoHo to Midtown. When I lived on 180st Street, I often had the experience of watching the numbered streets go up, from the window of a cab or subway train, and feeling that I was inching ever closer to the comfort of my bed. Another favorite After Hours image was the Mr. Softee ice cream truck, turned sinister when lit by street lamps instead of the noontime sun.

Giving my After Hours some Lovin'

A few weeks ago Rolando, Robert and David and I all met for lunch and as we're a movie-savvy bunch the conversation naturally turned to our favorites. And one by one we each agreed that Martin Scorsese's After Hours was one we really liked. But after seeing it a couple times in late 1986, would it still hold up 23 years later?

Initially I was drawn to the movie because Teri Garr was in it. I enjoyed Garr as the Disbelieving Wife in Close Encounters and then as the Disbelieving Girlfriend in Tootsie. I always felt Garr's pain in these movies, she's always kind of outside the extraordinary events going on around her and her characters are like us, doing the best we can in trying times.