Archive for September, 2009
book review: A Year of Cats and Dogs
Posted by Amy Steele in Books on September 30, 2009
Author: Margaret Hawkins
Release date: October 2009
206 pp.
Publisher: The Permanent Press
The thing about living with animals is you’re never alone. When your partner your sweetie your main squeeze your baby your heart your one your only your love your life your husband your wife moves out you think you’ll go crazy or at least be lonely and you do and you are at first but then mostly you’re not. The animals close in around you, good company that keeps you busy and warm in bed, and they are never critical.
When I left my job five years ago, feeling like the walls were closing in on me, I immediately started taking classes toward a nursing degree. Basically I segued from one unhappy situation to a highly stressful situation and nearly had a mental breakdown. In A Year of Cats and Dogs, Maryanne leaves her rather dreary day job with every intention of living off her savings and doing “nothing” for a while. She’s 49-years-old and recently divorced, which has proved rather stressful of late, and she feels that she deserves this sort of break from reality and routine. She figures she’ll be happier on her own timeclock. Maryanne approaches her life in a very Zen way. Things are going to happen and she cannot change the outcome but she can make everything more bearable, more enjoyable, and more entertaining in some manner. She finds that animals can communicate with her through telepathy [she’s basically an “animal whisperer”]. This special talent leads to a job at the animal shelter and a romance with the veterinarian. Maryann also finds out that her father, who she cooks dinner for every week, has late-stage prostate cancer. Though she is surrounded by death, Maryann finds hopefulness in her own life. A Year of Cats and Dogs reads like a memoir instead of a novel as debut author Margaret Hawkins uses coin throws from the Chinese book of changes, I Ching, as headers for each chapter and intersperses comforting recipes throughout the book. A Year of Cats and Dogs is a quirky, engaging story about resilience, empathy and love.
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book review: Art for Obama
Posted by Amy Steele in Books, Visual/ Performance Art on September 28, 2009
Art for Obama
Designing Manifest Hope and the Campaign for Change
Edited by Shepard Fairey & Jennifer Gross
publication date: October 2009
pages: 184 with 150 full-color illustrations
publisher: Abrams
Art for Obama is certainly a collector’s item for “fans” of the 44th president of the United States, Barack Obama, as well as those who love art that makes a statement. It is a beautiful coffee table book with 150 full-color illustrations throughout. President Obama stirred a grassroots political movement throughout the country and also inspired artists, illustrators and graphic designers.
The book is edited by Shepard Fairey and Jennifer Gross. Shepard Fairey shot to international stardom when his iconic “HOPE” portrait of Obama which soon became the face of the campaign. Fairey received a personal thank-you note from Obama. Shepard Fairey began his career with the ubiquitous OBEY GIANT graphics while a student at the Rhode Island School of Design in 1989. He’s known as a street artist. He likes to spotlight street art and enterprise with his work. It can currently be seen in an exhibit at ICA Boston. The show’s next stop is the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, Penn.
Art for Obama includes collages, paintings, photo composites, prints, and computer-generated pieces from around the world by artist such as Ron English, David Choe, Kwaku Alston, Maya Hayuk, Justin Hampton, and Shel Starkman.
Ron English created an oil on canvas Abraham Obama—Barack Obama as Abraham Lincoln. “If you’re Will.I.Am, you make a hit song in support of the campaign,” English said. “If you’re Shepard Fairey, you create an indelible image of Obama. If you’re Sarah Silverman, you deliver a punch line with a purpose. Obama has also allowed a plethora of artists to interpret and disseminate his image, and those of us who had any involvement with the campaign were only nudged with one mandate—please stay positive.”
Diederick Kraaijeveld created a portrait of Obama out of vintage wood found on Mombasa beach in Kenya. Maya Hayuk made Here is Now out of acrylic and aerosol on Masonite and plywood. It is a mouth designed to allow people to put themselves inside the shouting instead of merely looking on. Out of vintage license plates, Aaron Foster created a collage Fifty States—One Union. Justin Kemerling made an ink and paint series on wood panels: HEAL for universal health care, UNITE about “green collar” economy, and CATCH for “renewable energy future.” Lisa Anne Auerbach knitted a very cool sweater and skirt. The front of the sweater reads My Jewish Grandmother is Voting for Obama. The back reads Chosen People Choose Obama. There are Jewish stars all around. It’s so amazing! Photographer Kwaku Alston traveled with the Obamas during the campaign and captured some fantastic pictures.
In photographing Obama Silhouette, Alston said: “I intended to hint at a familiar profile of JFK, the young presidential candidate who is unafraid of the challenges before him. The idea was to revisit the portrait, but to make a shift and try to create a timeless image.”
100% of profits from the book will be donated to the charity Americans for the Arts.
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STEELE INTERVIEWS: Hamish Linklater [The New Adventures of Old Christine]
Posted by Amy Steele in Interview, TV on September 23, 2009
Hamish Linklater plays Matthew, the somewhat goofy, co-dependent brother of Christine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) on The New Adventures of Old Christine. If you haven’t seen the show, Matthew is endearing and sweet, an uber-geek and devoted to his sister. (Of his character, Linklater told me by phone: “I like that he dresses in clothes I like to wear too. He’s fun. They give me a lot of fun stuff to do. The writers are really generous with me.”) Their relationship borders on absurd and almost too close at times, but is always hysterical to watch. Christine struggles with personal and professional challenges while dealing with those around her: Matthew, her tween son Ritchie (Trevor Gagnon), her ex-husband Richard (Clark Gregg), and her best friend Barb (Wanda Sykes). Certainly the appeal of The New Adventures of Old Christine rests on Louis-Dreyfus, who holds a special place in our hearts as Elaine Benes of <em>Seinfeld</em>.
“I’ve learned about a fraction of her vast encyclopedic store of comic knowledge,” Linklater admitted. “I’m in the preface section of Julia’s book of comedy wisdom.”
Kari Lizer created The New Adventures of Old Christine and she also writes a majority of the episodes, which is rare in Hollywood. The New Adventures of Old Christine is female-centric: the show focuses on a Prius-driving divorced sexy mother lacking self-editing skills. She plays by her own rules. Christine competes with younger and richer women. She’s making different mistakes than she did in her twenties and she’s imperfect and unapologetic. Christine is someone you can relate to, empathize with, and root for from week to week. I’m 40-years-old and single. I’ve never been married, nor have (or plan to have) children and I adore the show.
“It is necessary for the voice and sensibility of show that we have [Kari] and even if her name isn’t on a script, every line is going through her. She’s the voice of her show. You have to have one set of ears and one voice that’s setting the tone. And having Julia as our lead, is like being in a kingdom with two queens,” Linklater enthused. “It’s amazing that we’ve been going for five years for this long. They just work so clock-worky. We don’t have any Diva nonsense or ego nonsense.”
Louis-Dreyfus has been Emmy-nominated for the past four seasons for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series. She broke the Seinfeld “curse” by helming a successful television series. Going into the fifth season, The New Adventures of Old Christine should be fantastic as the same cast has worked together for so long.
“It feels like we’re just starting to reach our stride,” Linklater told me. “It’s kind of exciting, like being on an exceptional basketball team, it’s like we’re getting to that place where you know other people’s moves and know their sweet spots and are getting better at making comedy.”
Linklater has been acting in plays since childhood. His mother, Kristin Linklater, is a professor of acting at Columbia University and founded Shakespeare and Company in the Berkshires. He lived at The Mount (Edith Wharton’s summer home) until he was 12-years-old. He recalls sleeping in Teddy Wharton’s bedroom and seeing ghosts. The series Ghosthunters featured The Mount in an episode and Linklater told me that the show barely touched on the spookiness of the mansion.
“It was a wicked haunted place,” Linklater said.
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film review: Bright Star
Posted by Amy Steele in Film on September 22, 2009
Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art–
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature’s patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors–
No–yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow’d upon my fair love’s ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever–or else swoon to death.
–John Keats
Bright Star, written and directed by Jane Campion (The Piano) is wondrously languid, romantic and exquisitely filmed. It tells the story of the tender and tragic love affair between poet John Keats (Ben Whishaw) and his muse and love Fanny Brawne (Abbie Cornish) as told through her eyes. She lives with her mother and two younger siblings. Quite popular among men, Fanny is known as a flirt and yet has not settled into marriage like many of her peers. Love seems much more important to Fanny than money. Fanny meets Keats when he and his boorish benefactor, Charles Brown (Paul Schneider), rent rooms at Fanny’s family home. At first, she’s unsure about Keats and even the value of poetry. She reads his first book of poems and finds that the young man has some promise. Fanny is an independent woman, for that era, who needs no man to be happy yet finds the love of her life right in her own home, right under her own roof. Fanny expresses her artistic sensibility through beautiful, elaborate dresses with detailing such as pleats or a “triple mushroom collar.” Perhaps this is why she and Keats strike up a harmonious connection. The more time the two spend together, the more fond they grow of each other. Unfortunately, Keats has no fortune and makes no money from his poetry.
In Bright Star, Abbie Cornish, (Stop Loss) portrays nearly every emotion and it is a revelatory and devastatingly stunning performance. Fanny alternates between being achingly supportive and gently provocative. She remains extremely devoted to her family (her younger brother and sister often accompany Keats and Fanny on outings) despite the courtship. Their pure and honest love gently grows and the bond between the two becomes powerful and enviable. In his portrayal of Keats, Whishaw (Brideshead Revisited) turns in an introspective, yet commanding performance. His Keats is eyes and voice and empathy. Cornish and Whishaw have simmering chemistry. Campion has created an idyllic, artistic film which appears as beautiful as a watercolor painting. Each scene is so carefully executed and painstakingly acted that the audience shares in Fanny’s genuine journey with Keats. Bright Star is a serene, perfectly crafted film about the power of love.
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film review: In the Loop
Posted by Amy Steele in Film on September 17, 2009
The U.S. Government staff is filled with a Master race of highly gifted toddlers.
Hysterical, witty, brash British comedy the imagines the days behind closed doors at Downing Street and in other offices of the British and U.S. government leading up to the Iraq War. Basically the U.S. President and the British Prime Minister are gung ho [as history shows] to go to war but not everyone working for them is in agreement or in such a hurry to send the troops into harm’s way. In the Loop is about politicians who appear to be self-composed and put together and full of the perfect sound bites and then they collapse under pressure or are completely different away from the public and media. In the Loop is fast-paced and provides an insight into British politics as well as a bit of a viewpoint into what the Brits think of Americans [we are Rock Stars! in their eyes apparently].
Directed by Armando Iannucci and written by Jesse Armstrong and Simon Blackwell. An impressive cast includes: Peter Capaldi [Skins, Torchwood], Tom Hollander [The Soloist, Valkyrie], James Gandolfini [The Sopranos, The Mexican], Gina McKee [Atonement], Steve Coogan [Hamlet 2, Tropic Thunder], Anna Chulmsky [all grown up star of My Girl, Blood Car]. You will laugh so much that you might miss some of the lines and will have to see it again or put it in your netflix queue!
STEELE SAYS: SEE IT IN THE THEATRE
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DVD review: Grace
Posted by Amy Steele in DVD, Film on September 16, 2009
Grace is not a film where there’s tons of blood and gore for no reason. It’s not that type of horror film. This one is much more cerebral. Grace is creepy. It’s also feminist to its core. People are talking about Jennifer’s Body before it has even been released [that is written by Diablo Cody and directed by Karyn Kusama and stars Megan Fox]. Although written and directed by a man, Paul Solet, Grace manages to tap into feminist ideals. It hones in on a woman’s bond with a child. How far is a woman willing to challenge morality to provide her baby with the most basic of needs: food, shelter and safety?
For a long time, new-agey vegan and women’s studies graduate Madeline [Jordan Ladd] and her husband Michael [Stephen Park] have been trying to have a child and finally Madeline gets pregnant. Everything seems to be going quite well although Michael’s mother does not approve of the choice of a midwife for the birth and giving birth in a birthing pool instead of at a hospital. The midwife is actually Madeline’s former professor and lover. After a terrible accident, both her husband and the fetus she’s carrying die. She, however, decides to carry the baby to term. After the stillborn birth, the baby suddenly comes back to life. She names her Grace. Nothing terribly bizarre happens to Grace. She just has an insatiable appetite . . . for blood. Thus the creepiness ensues. Bugs are drawn to her. The cat is overly protective of the baby. And when Madeline breastfeeds Grace it is the ultimate horror show. A complete nightmare. In the end, though, Madeline will go to any means necessary to give her baby what she needs and to hide this fact from her mother-in-law and any one else who would take her child away from her. Ladd is excellent in her transformation from the easy-going, hippie chick to the anemic, obsessed, and unwaveringly devoted mother.
Grace is truly disturbing and will make you think for days after you watch it.
GRADE: B+
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TV review: The Good Wife
Posted by Amy Steele in TV on September 16, 2009
In a scene we’ve seen too many times, Alicia Florrick [Julianne Margulies] stands beside her husband [a stuffy Chris Noth] who is resigning as a Chicago state attorney due to charges of prostitution and mishandling of his office in connection to those charges. She looks rather stunned at his side. They walk down a corridor after leaving the podium and she stops. He comes back to get her and Alicia slaps him. Hard. And then she straightens her suit and walks ahead of him. Six months later, Alicia has returned to work as an attorney at a private law firm. She had only worked for two years before having children and putting her career aside in support of her husband’s more high-profile one for the past fifteen years. The firm assigns her to a pro bono case of a woman accused of killing her ex-husband.
An older female attorney, Diane Lockhart, at her new firm [played with equal parts arrogance and aloofness by Christine Baranski] tells Alicia that women must stick together. She says: “Not only are you coming back to the workplace fairly late but you have some fairly prominent baggage.”
Alicia, obviously, has a lot to prove. People constantly whisper and speculate about her and her relationship with her husband. She has to start over in a highly competitive career, as a junior associate with people 15-20 years younger than her [as she walks into court Alicia says to her investigator Kalinda [a spicy and sharp Archie Panjabi], “The last time I was in court was 13 years ago.” The investigator rolls her eyes and replies: “Wow. I was 12.”] She has to field calls from her teenage daughter who hears rumors that her father slept with underage prostitutes. She has to manage money issues while her husband is in prison. She also has to be true to herself and maintain her self-esteem.
The Good Wife is a television series that holds a lot of promise. The pilot is written by Michelle King and Robert King [who also serve as executive producers]. The series is produced by Valerie Joseph. Juliana Margulies can act her way out of a paper bag. She’s terrific in this layered, complex role. She’s determined, poised, and immensely focused as Alicia Florrick. As the series continues, I’m sure we will understand Alicia’s motives in staying with her husband as well as her drive to work as a defense attorney again, a role that will draw the spotlight on her instead of her husband. The Good Wife will show how older women can and do go back to work after raising a family and can be successful. The Good Wife also looks like it will shine light on sexism and ageism. It is about a woman fighting back. It is about a woman getting back on her own feet. It is about a woman making her own decisions and taking the reins in her own life, after being the supportive one in a relationship that has immensely embarrassed her, disappointed her and devastated her. The Good Wife is more than just a series about a woman scorned. But that will certainly fuel the show.
The Good Wife premieres Tuesday, September 22 at 10p EST on CBS.
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film review: I Can Do Bad All By Myself
Posted by Amy Steele in Film on September 14, 2009
People say Tyler Perry’s films are formulaic, his films are sexist, and his films revolve around weak women relying on men and the church to save them. Well, I am not an expert on Tyler Perry films—I’ve only seen Diary of a Mad Black Woman and Why Did I Get Married?– but I am a feminist and I was not offended by I Can Do Bad All By Myself. I have not seen all the Madea films because that caricature just turns me off. I saw a Friday matinee of I Can Do Bad All By Myself in Boston. The audience was composed of mostly African-American women. I didn’t see any men and am almost positive I was the only white woman in the crowd. I’m not surprised. I’ve read that Tyler Perry’s demographic is African-American women over 30.
In her article “Tyler Perry’s Gender Problem” in The Nation, Courtney Young wrote: “Though Perry repeatedly references his admiration for and allegiance to African-American women as a foundation of his work, his portrayal of women of color undermines the complexity of their experience through his reductionist approach to the characters and his dependence on disquieting gender politics. Perry may see himself as crating modern-day fairy tales for black women, but what he may not realize is that fairy tales, in general, have never been kind to women.“
I agree with Young about women and fairy tales. There rarely is a happily ever after if you look beyond the sparkles, roses, and gowns. I disagree that I Can Do Bad All By Myself is an example of a fairy tale masquerading as another Tyler Perry film. It’s moving and effective. It focuses on a singer who is in a really bad place [and can’t at least a few people relate to this? I certainly could and so could apparently more than a few vocal audience members].
April [Taraji P. Henson], a nightclub singer, has fallen into a comfortable lifestyle with her abusive married boyfriend [Brian J. White] who supplements her income. She’s unmotivated to make life changes; she’s rather selfish and isolated from family and friends. Okay, so the woman needs much better self-esteem. It will either come to her or it won’t. She will realize that she herself can do it on her own at some point or she will self-destruct because the way she downs alcohol she is on her way down that road. Madea [Tyler Perry] catches 16-year-old Jennifer [a very talented Hope Wilson] and her two brothers breaking into her home, she brings them to the house of their Aunt April, who is not happy to see them. April soon finds out that her mother has died and these kids have no one else.
Yes, there’s another man in the picture: a cute handyman named Sandino [CSI Miami’s Adam Rodriguez] but he’s not there to sweep her off her feet. He’s just perhaps going to nudge her along a bit. He’s wonderful with children and has that easy-going, Zen nature. To think that she will improve her life solely due to the influences of a man is completely insulting to audiences. Relationships can help augment someone’s life but for anyone to think that April would not have decided what to do with her niece and nephews on her own time without meeting Sandino is downright insulting to April. She’s a strong woman who’s made some mistakes in the past. Henson is bold, and emotional in every scene. She acts with her eyes. Those wide, brown eyes are the windows into every emotion April feels. It works and she turns in a commanding, near tear-jerking performance in I Can Do Bad All By Myself. That Madea shows up ended up being okay because her scenes were few and far between and remarkably toned down. There was just enough Madea to provide comic relief from the seriousness at hand and not enough to engulf the audience in her absurdity.
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STEELE INTERVIEWS: director Stephan Elliott
Posted by Amy Steele in DVD, Film, Interview on September 12, 2009
Easy Virtue is a biting British comedy from start to finish. It is sharp-witted, sassy, unpredictable, humorous and tinged with bitterness, sadness and regret. Everything one might expect from the British.
“It’s a dark melodrama,” explained director/ co-writer (with Sheridan Jobbins) Stephan Elliott [Priscilla, Queen of the Desert] by phone from London. “[The play] was so vicious and cruel to English. [It was] the second play for [Noel] Coward and in his biographies we found some misgivings he had and within that found license to go with it.”
It is the late 1920s and John Whittaker [Ben Barnes] surprises his family by marrying a glamorous, platinum blonde American motorcar racer from Detroit named Larita [Jessica Biel]. This is much to the horror of his proper British family. While it appears that everything is perfect at the country estate, it really isn’t. The mother, Mrs. Whittaker [Kristin Scott Thomas] is uptight and overbearing and the father [Colin Firth] spends the majority of his time “fixing” a motorcycle that may never work. John most likely married the free-spirited Larita [Biel] on a lark and in an act of rebellion. She’s independent, easy- going, athletic, charming, and smart. The complete opposite of his mother. Suddenly it is the elder Mrs. Whittaker vs. the new Mrs. Whittaker.
“It’s a culture clash and collision of women of different eras,” said Elliott. “Great Depression. Veronica Lake. Screwball element. Likeable yet screwball.”
Larita is a city girl. John is a country boy. The sooner the two realize this, the better. Mrs. Whittaker says: “Have you had as many lovers as they say?” Larita: “No. Hardly any of them loved me.”
Firth is scruffy, downtrodden and sad. It’s not the typical role for him. He’s not the usual brooding guy. “Colin is laconic,” Elliot explains. “His character is a dead-man walking. “He’s stopped fixing a long time ago. He’s really the arc of film. Larita brings him back to life.”
Biel steps out of the pretty girl role to play a woman with greater depth and character. She’s truly impressive and memorable in this femme fatale role. If you liked her in The Illusionist, you will like her even more in Easy Virtue. “Jessica was the big surprise, the big revelation,” Elliot agreed. “Something fresh and different. We didn’t expect it.”
And after seeing Kristin Scott Thomas so serious, and heartbreakingly poignant in I’ve Loved You So Long, she must have relished her role as an eccentric, overprotective mother-in-law. [“We were chasing Kristin and Colin for years. We wouldn’t deliver something they had done.]
I don’t want to give too much away but it’s a divine war of words and gestures. “This is a very subversive, naughty piece of work,” Elliot concluded. “You have expectations and you go into the film and have those expectations are crushed majorly and you can go on that ride.”
Easy Virtue does not disappoint.
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Jockeys shows Sexism on the racetrack
Posted by Amy Steele in TV on September 8, 2009
On Friday’s episode 3, The Have Nots, of the gritty, exciting Season Two of Jockeys on Animal Planet– sexism finally got addressed. Horse racing is a male-dominated sport. Most owners, trainers and jockeys are men. It’s a scrappy profession and sport. It pays when you win big and you have name recognition. When you don’t, well then you have to scrape to get by [exercise riders make $15.00 per mount]. I can relate to this as a struggling writer. I’ve been paid in the past but my name has never had enough cache for the big bucks, so now I have to pursue other opportunities. I have acquaintances that have sold books and still have day jobs. 
Australian jockey Kayla Stra had a nasty altercation in the men’s locker room. The set-up at the Santa Anita race track is rather outdated. There’s a large men’s locker room and a small women’s locker room [due to the ratio of men to women, obviously]. However, in order for women to successfully do their jobs as jockeys they must enter the men’s locker rooms to watch replays of races on the television screens and also to weigh in.
During a race, Kayla felt she had been crowded in by another jockey and she had been yelling back and forth with him to let her out. Someone yells to her: “Hit that Kangaroo!” That jockey then cleared the way for another male to get by. Other jockeys explained that this is often how it’s done out there: jockeys will look out for each other.
Being a female, Kayla understands that she is an underdog and getting unfair and unwarranted treatment by the men. When she comes into the men’s locker room to watch the tape, they yell at her and tell her she should go back to Australia. Someone pushed her and then some of the guys complained to a steward that she shouldn’t be in the locker room at all because the men were changing. Kayla posted a note on the bulletin board basically stating [in colorful language] that she couldn’t care less about seeing any of them in whatever state of undress they are in.
Suddenly, things escalated to the point that they were saying, “What’s the matter, miha? Are you on your period?” and other unsettling, unflattering, inflammatory, boyish remarks. It’s a prime example of poor sportsmanship/ immaturity and sexist behavior on the part of a lot of the male jockeys.
Finally, Kayla speaks to the union representative for the jockeys, who is very nice and wants Kayla to be comfortable and comes up with some solutions for her– moving the women’s locker room to a different location so that they can have their own televisions to watch replays on for one thing.
Good for Kayla for stepping up and speaking out against the crass behavior of the men in the locker room. And I hope that changes get made so that you will have some peace from the childish antics.
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About Me
covering mostly music and books. focus on alternative/indie and women in music, literature and the arts. feminist. vegan. mostly alternative, a bit bohemian. Masters in journalism from Boston University. BA from Simmons College.
Entertainment Realm by Amy Steele is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at entertainmentrealm.comCopyright © 2009. All writing, unless otherwise noted, by Amy Steele.
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