20 Feet, Indeed

Don't miss the documentary "20 Feet from Stardom," now playing at the Palm Theatre
 ( www.thepalmtheatre.com ) .  It tells the tale of some of the best known of rock and roll's  "back up" singers.  Originally, all back up singers in the 1950's were nice, neatly dressed, boring white ladies standing behind Perry Como or Dean Martin and politely adding harmony.  With the breakout of rock and roll, black music came onto the main stage, yes, too often hijacked by white performers, but black back up singers came too, and transformed popular music. (The clips of powerhouse Tina Turner, with her mile high legs topping a holy-cow! fringed mini-mini-miniskirt and her crazy-assed, berserker back up ladies reminds one just how electric and transformative they were.  And young.  Oh, so young.) 

The whole phenomenon of "back up" singing never really crossed my radar, which is what made this film so interesting -- 90 minutes of muttering, "Gosh, I didn't know that."  The talent on display is phenomenal, the survival of these women, most of whom are still singing is heartening (they're still singing back up for movie sound tracks, records, with a few "out front," still touring with Springsteen and The Rolling Stones). 

But ultimately, it's the documentary's unfolding disquisition on "fame" and "talent" and "art" and " music" and "soul" that haunts:  How rare it is to achieve stardom, how little fame has to do with talent or hard work.  How divorced fame and stardom are from true greatness and art.  How breaking out from the background can be too high a price to pay (as so many artists who achieved fame discovered, then paid for  with their disordered, self-destructive lives). How transforming from a back up to the solo role is, in many ways, impossible -- a case of turning a tap dancer into an opera diva  -- because there are two entirely different talents  at work; one standing alone, the other tuned exquisitely to creating a whole. And how, ultimately, fame is a game of luck, its value fleeting, while the work -- the song, the voice, the music -- is its own gift, its own demanding taskmaster, its own reward.

After seeing the film, I thought the title had it's own irony.  Given the talent and musicianship of these women, I think it is the lead singers who are 20 feet from greatness. Not the other way around.  

 

Head For The Palm

If you do nothing this weekend, at least head for the Palm Theatre in SLOTown to see, "Beasts of the Southern Wild."  This fierce, funny, deeply moving story of an extraordinary young girl, Hush Puppy, coming to terms with her Louisiana delta-dwelling father and the community they live in, is a revelation -- a unique voice in a sea of movie-blah scripts, an indie-prod film made on a shoestring but with a powerfully clear vision and a story well worth showing.  Don't miss it.

And if you're a fan of the cult-classic, "Rushmore," don't miss "Moonrise Kingdom," a deadpan comic cult-classic-to-be.  Deliciously, wickedly funny but without a mean bone in it's filmic body. It's at the Underground Downtown Center 7, also in SLOTown. 

Last Year at Marienbad meets On the Beach

             “Melancholia,” now playing at the Palm, is a powerful, haunting, beautiful, spectacular failure of a film.  A perfect example of the Auteur in need of a sharp-elbowed minder at his side to constantly hiss at him, “Very nice, Lars, now let’s move along.”  Well, director/writer Lars von Trier’s Danish, so maybe many of the film’s problems are that Scandinavian thing.

            Or maybe Lars just got so entranced by his new camera he started falling in love with all his images, like a kid who goes through a whole role of film shooting the same flower from every angle, then pastes them all into his album.  Lars forgot that images in a film are carriers of the story and require a certain pace to work properly; get too many repetitive shots and the audience starts wool gathering and you’ve lost them.

            Which is a shame for this movie has some beautifully realized use of image-as-conveyor of story.  And Trier uses slo-mo, dream-like images at the opening of the film that beautifully foreshadow both the story and what is coming at the end – a pair of  fantastic cinematic book ends that will stay with you long after the film’s over.

            Basically, the story is an end-of-the-world tale and/or (take your pick) an outward representation of the inner condition of profound depression – the hopeless, helpless, relentless coming apart of the sufferer’s inner world. (von Tries suffered from severe depression, so is familiar with that state.)  In this world,  (Kirsten Dunst) is at the estate of her wealthy brother-in-law (Keifer Sutherland) who’s paid big bucks for her elaborate wedding, which her sister, Clair, has planned.  After endless wedding party shots, with no explanation, Dunst dumps hubby and with a scene change, she’s deep into a helpless depression and returning to the estate so her sister can care for her.  While Dunst recuperates with her little isolated family (sister, brother-in-law, their young son, the sister’s much beloved horses) the audience is further informed that the little new star seen in the sky during the wedding is, in reality, a planet headed our way.

             At first, Sutherland bustles about all scientific and engaged, convincing his frightened wife that the planet will fly by.  Before long (after endless more scenes of everyone mooning around staring at one another in that artysy European art film way), the wife learns the truth – it won’t be a fly-by, her husband was lying to them.  By that time, he’s committed suicide, leaving his family to their fate alone, the sister grabs her son and attempts to flee but there is nowhere to escape to, and it finally falls to Dunst to remind her little, terrified nephew that he’s not to be afraid, that she’s Aunty Steel-breaker (at least that’s what it sounded like) and she has powers to protect them all in a “magic cave,”  which she proceeds to build, a teepee frame into which she brings her sister and nephew to wait until the planet crashes into them.

            Certainly a fair enough story to tell.  Which Triers does tell in those brilliant opening foreshadowing images; eerie, haunting shots of this giant planet glowing in the night sky; a super slo-mo shot of Dunst in her elaborate wedding dress fleeing through a thick forest filled with entangling vines clinging to her legs as she flees their clutches; a black horse suddenly falling, falling, falling to the ground; the sister clutching her son as she runs across what looks like a soft stretch of  grass that horrifyingly turns to soft mud, sinking her up to her knees with each step, incapable of moving forward, and finally, Dunst, shot in such a way that she resembled a colossus while behind her lightning was streaking out of the dark clouds as she slowly raised her hands, her face as serene as a powerful and terrifying goddess, and watched with calm interest as lightning started flowing out of her fingers.

            With those symbolic images, von Triers retells them in the film itself in more realistic fashion – the husband dumped at the wedding party, the killer planet approaching, the estate’s beloved horses which the audience knows are doomed, the mother fleeing in a golf cart in a futile attempt to save her son, and finally, Dunst remaining the only character left with the power, grace and courage to shield her loved ones from the final horror hurtling out of the sky.

            Unfortunately, too much of the stuff in between these amazing book ends was so repetitive, self-indulgent, distracting and annoying that I suspect most of the audience was praying – praying – that that killer planet would just hurry up and arrive and get it over with.

            Which is hardly the frame of mind a filmmaker should want his audience to have while watching his Masterpiece.  And which is a shame as well, since clearly von Trier has in his artistic paint box some pretty spectacular movie-making skills and the understanding that film and dreams and poetry all operate on a far different level in our brains than other art forms.  It’s too bad he lacked the hard, focused, disciplined eye that would have allowed him to winnow his rich assortment of “moving pictures” in order to tell his story in a far better fashion.

            So, is this a film worth seeing?  As painful as so much of it was to sit through, I’m actually glad I went because I’m glad I now have those amazing images firmly planted in my head.  And the memory of how cleverly the film-maker book-ended that film. So, if you love movies, those things may well be worth the price of admission. And since there’s no such thing as a free lunch, I guess all the self-indulgent crap in the middle was the price I had to pay for the good stuff. 

Sunday Planning

The Piedras Blancas Light Station is open for daily tours during the summer.  Meet at the former Piedras Blancas Motel, which is about 1 1/2 mile north of the station itself at 9:45 a.m..  Guides will then lead the car caravan of visitors to the station for a guided tour.  The tour is about 2 hours and involves an easy and beautiful 1/2 mile stroll along the newly laid out trails.  Tours cost $10 for adults, $5 for ages 6-17, kids under 5 free.  

The last time I was there, they had just started work on restoration.  All around the lighthouse as far as the eye could see was ice plant, and volunteers were just starting the process of removing all gazillion tons of it.  The task seemed as futile as handing someone a teaspoon and telling them to empty the ocean.  But one should never doubt Weed Warriors with teaspoons since as you can see from the lovely flowers in the photos here, the volunteers did the impossible.  The habitat is now restored as far as the eye can see with native plants and is now filled with little critters of all sorts.  

The tower itself is now in the process of restoration.  Built of brick, for years, it was traditionally whitewashed, an astonishingly difficult and time consuming job, considering its size.  Then the Navy figured they'd save some time and painted it with oil-based paint which contained lead and had the unfortunate side effect of not allowing the brick to breathe which lead to moisture being trapped in the brick with bad consequences for both brick and mortar.  The folks in charge of restoration are now in the process of figuring out (and fund raising) to get the best method to getting the old paint off the tower. 

While the stairs to the top of the tower are block off, the view from inside looking up is still dizzying.

If you haven't been out to Piedras Plancas, now's the time to plan to head out there.  Flowers are all in bloom, there's still some elephant seals lazing about on the sheltered coves and there's plenty of sea lions perched and barking on the white rocks.

For further information go to http://www.piedrasblancas.gov/ 

After touring Piedras Blancas, make a reservation to get down to Santa Maria for the PCPA's production of "Hairspray," which will be playing through July 2 at the Marian Theatre (800 S. College Drive, Santa Maria. http://www.pcpa.org/, 922-8313) They've mounted a splendid, sharply comical, highly energized and sweetly funny production of the musical that's simply terriffic.  

Bree Murphy, who regularly appears at the Melodrama Theatre, leads an outstanding cast.  PCPA always does an amazing job.  It's one of the theatre jewels of the central coast.  

Speaking of jewels, the Palm Theatre is now playing  Woody Allen's film, "Midnight in Paris."  It's a Woody Allen film for people who hate Woody Allen.  He isn't in this one.  Instead, his persona is being sweetly played by an age-appropriate Owen Wilson.  And, unlike so many Woody films, in this movie, the Woody Allen Character actually learns something and changes thereby instead of just kvetching and twitching and doing schtick until you want to reach into the screen and slap him silly. The film is witty, the whole premise very clever (brush up on your early 20th century artists and writers to catch all the sly references), and Paris never looked more beautiful. 

And if you get lucky, you may still be able to gallop down to the PAC box office by noon to get tickets to the last two performances of "Choirs on Fire," the California International Choral Festival & Competition. The Choirs Choice Competition starts a 1 pm. today at the PAC, with the Grand Finale & Awards tonight at 8 pm. which ends with ALL the choirs plus the Mira Costa Choir and the San Luis Obispo Vocal Arts Ensemble joining in for one grand finale. 

The festival started Friday and is an event organized by Gary Lamprecht ( who directs our own Vocal Arts Ensemble) and about a bazillion volunteers and sponsors, that brings international choirs from all over the world for this competition.  And we're the benficiciaries of their efforts. If you're not on the Vocal Arts mailing list, go to www. VocalArts.org and sign up so when the festival comes again in a couple of years, you'll be ready.      

Tithing on Sunday

      Well, if you head to downtown SLO on Sunday for shopping, lunch and a movie, it'll now cost you;  The city will raise parking rates, and there'll be no more "free" Sundays.  And in the Tribune story, apparently the City Council didn't discuss the possibility of offering "validated" parking for the structures?  As in, merchants, restaraunts, theatres would offer validated parking for X amount of time, with X amount of purchase. Like, buy a theatre ticket and get your parking ticket validated; buy lunch and get another validation.  Would that encourage folks to hang around downtown longer?
     Personally, I'll be rethinking any and all Sunday trips.  I would often to head to a movie, do some shopping, grab a bite to eat.  You know, consolidate a trip to save gas, spend a pleasant few hours downtown gooning around?  And do it on "free parking" Sundays.  But now?  Any shopping will be specifically targeted -- as in run in to one specific store and keep it all under the 1 hour free parking limit, then get out.  Movies?  Hit the Palm weeknights only. So any merchants who might get my attention (and money) while I'm wandering around on a nice Sunday afternoon, will just have to do without my shekels.
      Meantime, wonder if some smart cookie will think about putting in a multi-plex theatre at the new Target center?  Or even back to the Madonna Plaza.  Used to be one there once.  Maybe there will be again, as the shopping center shifts to the new development?  Dalidio, anyone?
     And when the Los Osos sewer gets built, maybe Jim Dee will once again consider opening a theatre out here.  How cool would that be? Of course, that might not work out because there'll be so little discretionary income left in the community after paying the sewer bill that until the economic cleansing is completed, very few people will be going to any movies anywhere.  Let alone paying for a movie and for parking. 

Glen Beck Bites The Dust?  

Just heard on the news that our own batshit crazy version of Father Coughlin has had his run and like all things in this world, is going away -- at least his show in its present form will be. Well, guess his usefulness as a political and financial tool for his handlers ran out. Time for the Next Dog & Pony Show to gin up ratings by whipping up the seriously Low-Information Voters, the folks who so beautifully represent America's "fearsome and feverish credulity," as Thorsten Veblen put it.
     Pity the writers on "The Daily Show."  They're losing one of their biggest Muses.

Movie Alert

If you’re planning on going to see Chris Nolan’s new dreamscape movie, “Inception,” you’ll need to bring along some ear plugs. Hans Zimmer, who did the score, kept the rumbling, menacing wall-o’-sound at maximum intensity, no doubt thinking that that amount of noise would ensure nobody in the theatre fell asleep.

And, you might be well advised to bring along a chaise longue anyway. It’s a long, long, long, long movie so you actually will need a few naps. Plus, consider the power of suggestion: All these folks stopping all the time to plop down for some wired-up naps gives audience the idea that, Yeah, a nice nap right about now would bee a good idea.

Mr. Nolan, whose brilliantly spare “Memento,” a movie made backwards, has fallen into the unfortunate (but typical) state that comes when an artist is given a full box of crayons. The temptation to use them all, again and again and again is simply too great to resist. Not to mention that I’m sure Mr. Nolan has a thrifty soul and it undoubtedly pained him to even think of leaving so much as one frame of footage on the cutting room floor after he’d spend so much of the studio’s money shooting it. So it all went in, creating the kind of scenario you face when your neighbor, who bought a new camera AND recently returned from his vacation in Hawaii, asks you over for the evening to “look at my photos.” And you go and he comes out of the den holding an ENORMOUS box, . . . .. Well, you get the picture, or I should say, you’ll get the pictures; all seven thousand of them, including the 12-shot series showing this interesting water stain on the pavement outside the hotel lobby.

And finally, when will sci-fiy, fantasy film makers learn that you shouldn’t ‘splain too much. Just accept that your premise is ridiculous, the audience likely will be lost pretty quickly anyway, and then just get on with it. ‘Splaining the nature of time and space, the permanence and impermamence of memory, the impossibility of escaping time’s relentless movement forward, the meaning of life and death, the odd fake reality of dreams is the stuff of ruminative writing that too often fails miserably in a visual medium like film. The more you try to ‘splain the worse it gets until you end up with great visuals interspersed with long, boring passages of gibberish that only convinces the audience that you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. Whatever idea you’re trying to convey will have to be carried by “moving . . . pictures” . . . so dump the expository lecture and get on with it.

Which, for long stretches, “Inception” does in spades. Unfortunately, way cool images a great movie doesn’t make. Next time, I’d recommend a tougher editor and find somebody to tell old Hans to tone it down. Enough with the rumble. I’m trying to sleep here.

Then, after a short nap, get over to the Palm to see “Cyrus.” That one will keep you awake and on knife edge waiting for the film to fall off its very narrow, twisty path and plop into pathos or satire. Balanced exquisitely, it never does. Bravo performances. And no excess shots of water drying on concrete. There is exactly enough film needed to tell the story perfectly, which it does. Then it stops.  Excellent!

Draw The Dog

Ran into a wonderful new website that you can sign up for (link in the sidebar to the right of the blog under other blog links or it's http://www.drawthedog.com/)  Site is drawn by Jim George, " . . . one of your typical ex-Disney animators who lives near the beach in Venice . . ." with Bruce Kasandoff doing all the rest of the site work.  Jim gets stories or photos from readers of "pet tales" and makes up a cartoon based on that which is "revealed" as if it's being drawn while you watch.  Like all Disney animators -- actually animators in general -- Jim is a hell of a draghtsman!  You can sign up to get his cartoons delivered right to your email box (it's free!) and can send in photos and cartoons of your own.  Great way to start the moring from Monday through Saturday -- new cartoon each day. 

Movie Alert!
"Cyrus" is playing at the Palm.  Don't miss it.  It's an edgy, pitch-perfect dramedy that teeters dangerously from laughter to cringe to pity and back again, and never once misses its footing.

"Eclipse," playing everywhere.  Miss it.  If the gimmick books nowadays are of the ilk as "Pride and Prejudice With Zombies," then this film should have been titled "The Bataan Death March With Vampires & Werewolves."  You will die of boredom waiting for endless pauses between lines to end, and die of banality over the lines themselves. The true horror of this movie is if that dialogue represents what's inside young women's heads, then there is no hope for the Republic.  Worse, our heroine is so vapid she lacks the energy to even keep her drooping jaw closed so lord knows how many flies have lodged in her gaping mouth, complete with rabbit teeth. That Mr. Vampire and Mr. Wolf apparently have the hots for her is inexplicible since she has zero sexual heat.  Of course, Mr. Vampire and Shirtless Mr. Wolf look so gay themselves I kept wishing they've move to Massachussets and get married and raise a litter of blood-sucking puppies.

Fervent Prayer Of The Day

The AP reports: "Whitman attacks on nurses part of strategy," as megagazillionare Meg Whitman, who so far spent $90 million trying to buy the governorship, has made the Califonrnia Nurses Association her target-du-jour for her general platform of "all union bashing."   Naturally, the CNA is fighting back.  But here's my fervent prayer:  Meg Whitman loses all her money in a Stock Market Ponzi Scheme, has a pre-existing condition so she can't get health insurance, has to go on Medicaide, gets sick and ends up in a hospital under the care of nurses who are members of the CNA. 

Have a nice Saturday.

The Art of The Steal

If you want to see a wonderful documentary, get down to the Palm Theatre ASAP to see "The Art of the Steal."  It's a fascinating film about so many things: art, money, ego, power, ego, lies, theft, more ego, magic (as in, isn't it amazing how things can happen in State legislatures involving hundreds of millions of tax dollars and NOBODY has any idea how it happened, just "magic"), legal theft, lazy judges, greedy mayors, corrupt and corrupting "charities," including some of the largest and most famous, more grudges among wealthy, evil people, and The Golden Rule: Them that has the gold, make the rules.  And finally, "C'mon, Jake, it's Chinatown." "Legal" theft, bit by bit. 

At its simplest level, it's the story about a Doctor Barnes (with an extraordinary aesthetic "eye") who made gazillions and spent gazillions buying some of the finest examples of post-impressionist art the world has ever seen, put it all together as both a collection and as a school to teach art and use the collection in situ as a didactic tool, who sets up a will spelling out exactly what the terms of his foundation can and can't do.

And what happens when the founder of such a collection/foundation dies, and over time his priceless (literally, priceless) collection is coveted by others for their own purposes.

It is both a quintessential "art" story, a tragic example of how a vision can be destroyed by people with other agendas, and a story of the powerful forces at work that shape our present day culture and its comodification of everything.  The art of the steal, indeed.  Aptly named.  Don't miss it.