Made in Chelsea: An Anglophile of a Certain Age's Dream

Hello everyone! I hope you are all enjoying the holiday season.

I've been quite busy lately so -- obviously -- the blog has suffered. It's not been from a lack of interest on my part. There's just been a lot on in my life lately, not the least of which has been work. But frankly I've not felt particularly inspired to write. Those of you who have followed my blog for the better part of two years have seen it morph from a wannabe society column to hard news and current affairs and then, most recently, a forum for film reviews and general pop culture. That's a bit like me, I suppose: I'm all over the place in terms of my interests and what gets me going.

While I'm not calling this a relaunch per se, I do think going forward this blog is going to change somewhat again. I think I'd like it to be more of a fusion of everything I've been writing about for the past two years. I may decide to make it a little more personal...I may decide not. But in the meantime, as a kick-off of sorts, I want to tell you all about my latest obsession.

Made in Chelsea.

Those of you who read this in the UK are going to think me a little behind the times. But here in the U.S., this hopelessly addictive 'structured' reality show about the lives and loves of twentysomethings living in the posh London borough of Chelsea has never been aired with the exception of a brief stint on Style TV. I've only just discovered it thanks to a very good friend of mine who introduced me to it  by lending me her international DVD player and a box DVD set of the first three seasons.

Made in Chelsea -- however fabricated it may be -- is a fusion of several of my favorite things: London,  beautiful people wearing beautiful clothes while angsting in London's trendiest restaurants and clubs, all  to the sounds of an eclectic, rather fast-fashion musical soundtrack.

I am now halfway through Season Two. I've been binge-watching all week. The show has definitely cast its spell. And how can it not? What sets this show apart from its American reality show counterparts is its exquisite production values and its ridiculously well-spoken privileged cast with names like Caggie, Binky, Ceska, Ollie, Francis, Hugo, Louise, Proudlocke, Millie, Rosie, Gabriella, Amber, Victoria, Mark-Francis, and of course Spencer. There's champagne, caviar, polo, cricket, and country houses galore -- every Anglophile of a certain age's dream. It's also surprisingly witty and it (to top it of) has also won the BAFTA.

Okay, yes, it is a bit snobby, but I think that's also part of the show's appeal. It just wrapped its sixth season in the UK so quite happily I have rather a long way to go.

As I said, the DVDs aren't available here in the U.S. so you'll need to purchase them from the U.K. and have the right DVD player upon which to watch them. You can occasionally find 'bootlegged' episodes on YouTube but they are taken down as quickly as they are posted.

Simply put, Made in Chelsea seems to have been made for me.

Ciao.

Two New Books You Can't Afford Not to Read: The Marble and the Sculptor and Jiu Jitsu Jurisprudence

Hi everyone!

I just want to take a moment to tell you all about two books releasing on Tuesday, November 5th that you should know about: The Marble and the Sculptor by Keith Lee and Jiu Jitsu Jurisprudence by Ryan Danz. Both are published by ABA Publishing, the book publishing division of the American Bar Association.

In the interest of full disclosure, I am especially supportive of these books because, well, I'm responsible for bringing them both into print. I am the Executive Editor who acquired both of these books, worked with the authors through their respective writing, editing, and production processes and basically lived and breathed these books for the past year. Having said that, even if I had nothing to do with their publication, I'd be pitching these books anyway. And on top of that, both authors are terrific guys.

The Marble and the Sculptor: From Law School to Law Practice is written by Keith Lee, a Birmingham, Alabama-based lawyer and the power behind the influential and widely followed legal blog The Associates Mind www.associatesmind.com. It is a practical, no-bullshit guide for helping new lawyers manage the transition from law student to becoming an actual lawyer. It covers everything from what classes you should take in law school to succeeding in your first years practicing law. But it is so much more than this. Despite its obvious legal angle, The Marble and the Sculptor provides useful and sensible advice for anyone looking to get the most out of their professional and personal lives regardless of career path or industry. In my totally biased opinion, there is no other book currently on the market that dispenses this information in a way that 1) respects the reader and his/her intelligence and 2) is such a joy to read. Simply put, no aspiring lawyer or professional of any type can afford not to have this book in his/her library. The message is timeless. The Marble and the Sculptor is destined to become a classic of its genre.

Jiu Jitsu Jurisprudence: A Guide to Balancing Your Law Practice with Your Life Practice through the Art of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is written by San Diego-based Ryan Danz, http://ryandanz.com, a recent contestant on The Amazing Race and The Apprentice: Martha Stewart as well as former in-house counsel for a New York-based hedge fund and currently an investment manager and entrepreneur. This book is unique in that it introduces the reader to the martial art of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu while showing the reader how to use the physical and mental aspects of the sport to improve their life and law practices. Author Ryan Danz also shares with the reader his own personal journey and how BJJ transformed his life (both personally and professionally) and made him the successful and deeply fulfilled person he is today. Like The Marble and the Sculptor, Jiu Jitsu Jurisprudence has broad applicability to anyone looking for a path to help them become a successful and more balanced person regardless of their career or life trajectory. In this capacity, it is truly inspirational.

Both books publish next Tuesday, November 5th and are sure to be top sellers as we go into the holiday shopping season. They are currently available for pre-orders on Amazon and on the American Bar Association's retail site. The links are posted below. For a limited time only, special autographed hardcover editions of both books are available exclusively through the American Bar Association web site.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Marble-Sculptor-School-Practice/dp/1614388865/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1383099468&sr=8-1&keywords=the+marble+and+the+sculptor

http://apps.americanbar.org/abastore/index.cfm?pid=1620542HRD&section=main&fm=Product.AddToCart


http://www.amazon.com/Jiu-Jitsu-Jurisprudence-Balancing-Brazilian/dp/161438889X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1383098875&sr=8-1&keywords=jiu+jitsu+jurisprudence

http://apps.americanbar.org/abastore/index.cfm?pid=1620541HRD&section=main&fm=Product.AddToCart

Read and be inspired!

Spiral Season 4

Hi everyone!

I've just finished watching Season 4 of "Spiral" (Engrenages) and am very pleased to say that it is the best season to date. All of the crew are back and spending 12 hours with them is like spending time with close friends.

SPOILER ALERT:
Season 4 picks up more-or-less right where Season 3 left off. Laure is under investigation for allegedly shooting a suspect (held over from Season 3). Judge Roban returns after the scandal involving the suicide of his intern and is determined on re-establishing his reputation despite it seems the entire French justice system being against him. Pierre and Josephine are working to establish their private practice. Gilou still cannot help being drawn to the 'dark side'. Tintin continues to be as honorable as ever while he and his wife expect a new baby.

Season 4's central plot is complicated and multi-faceted. On the surface, it seems to be about the plight of illegal immigrants in France and the harsh conditions they face in detention centers. But, of course, this being "Spiral", there's a lot more to it than that. Throw into the mix anarchists trying to overthrow the government through terrorism, a Kurdish family that is straight out of the Godfather, and a Russian emigre gangster with some serious family issues, police and political in-fighting, and you have a season with more twists and turns than ever.

But what makes this season most satisfying is the human element. Even the seemingly strongest characters show a surprising amount of vulnerability. We learn something of Josephine's background and why she's the ruthless, rather heartless, woman we've come to love to hate. Laure finds herself in the midst of a love triangle with all-too-tragic consequences. Pierre crosses the line into the corruption he has heretofore resolved to vanquish.

The other thing that strikes me -- and is the series' central theme -- is how even the most honorable among us is not always immune to the temptation of corruption and the immediate benefits it seduces us into believing it can give us.

The characters of "Spiral" are extremely flawed. Justice is their ultimate goal but the means by which they achieve this noble aim are often questionable, never more so than in Season 4. No one comes out of this season with their hands clean. (And without giving anything away, the final moments of the final episode are heartbreaking. I was wiping away tears as I watched.)

I recently read that Season 5 is currently in production. For those of us in North America this means we'll sadly have to wait another year to see it. In the meantime, relish Season 4 or binge-watch it if you must, or go back to Season 1 and watch all 40 episodes from the start.

In my opinion, "Spiral" Season 4 is one of the best television series ever made.

Syria's Lost Generation

Hi everyone!

This blog originally started out as a forum for me to share and expand upon my views of current affairs, particularly in regards to the rise of the Arab Spring in Egypt and Syria. But I eventually found keeping up on these events hard-going and, frankly, rather depressing. For every step forward it seemed, two rather large steps back were taken and I felt that the whole process -- despite what at the time seemed to be some very positive developments -- just became utterly moribund. So I turned away from the news and chose to devote this blog to entertainment -- music and movie reviews and the occasional riff on Big Brother, etc.

But I've felt compelled for some time of late to give Syria another look. I just didn't know where I wanted to start. And then I read New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristoff's extremely tragic piece in this morning's paper, "The Boy Who Stood Up to Syrian Injustice", and realized this was the launch I was looking for.

Mr. Kristoff writes about a Syrian middle school kid named Mohammed who is currently living with his family in one of the overpopulated refugee camps in Jordan. He writes that although Mohammed wasn't one of the original child activists that started the Syrian civil war -- I'd completely forgotten it began with schoolchildren -- Mohammed was arrested and tortured by the Syrian police. This is a twelve year-old boy. After his release, Mohammed continued his protest. The police arrested and tortured his father and burned their home. Now Mohammed and his family have left Syria, like thousands of others, and are living as refugees in neighboring Jordan. He is now a part of what Mr. Kristoff describes as "Syrian's lost generation".

It's shameful that the Western World continues to allow tragedies like this to happen. The situation in Syria is rapidly approaching three years with no end in sight. Assad greeted the shameful US-Russia alliance on chemical weapons as a victory and although he claims to be cooperating with chemical weapons inspectors, we all know he's using this as a means of strengthening his resolve and brutality against his own people. Yeah, the opposition is fractured and rife with Al-Qaeda affiliated extremists and the West has to be extremely judicious in how and where it offers its aid.

And  yet, the issue here isn't chemical weapons. The issue is the fact that President Obama -- who is increasingly becoming a do-nothing president -- chose to take the easy way out. His pact with Russia (which I'll predict now was doomed from the start) is nothing short of collusion with the enemy -- not just with Assad, but Putin, Assad's greatest ally apart from Iran. And this is a tragedy of epic proportions. We are collectively failing Mohammed and millions of children like him who want nothing more than a decent education and the opportunity to advance in life.

How many more children like Mohammed have to suffer in the face of diplomatic intransigence? How many more millions will be added to Syria's Lost Generation?

For shame.

Movie Review: Baz Luhrmann's "The Great Gatsby", or rather "Gatsby!!!"

Hi everyone! And happy Labor Day.

I finally saw Baz Luhrmann's film of "The Great Gatsby" the other night. I've always been less a fan and more an admirer of his work. Taken as a whole, his films ("Strictly Ballroom", "Romeo & Juliet", "Moulin Rouge", and "Australia") are an impressive body of work if for no other reason than the audacity of their vision. I think Luhrmann is one of the few filmmakers today who can inspire both groans of despair and sighs of irrepressible glee in the span of a single film. His films knock you over with their frenetic pace and awe with their stunning visual palate. He takes chances in ways few of his contemporaries ever do and while the results aren't always positive, one can never say a Luhrmann production lacks vision.

"The Great Gatsby" proves no exception. It worked for me in ways that I didn't expect it to. And it failed for me in much the same way. Having said that though, I think of any film I've seen thus far in 2013, Luhrmann's "Gatsby" is -- from a purely cinematic perspective -- one of the year's best.

It all comes down to his vision. This is a film that leaps off the screen in bold gleaming colors and artificial landscapes and cityscapes that have no bearing on any sort of reality. Everything is capped with an exclamation point. If this were a musical -- which it very nearly is -- it would undoubtedly be called "Gatsby!" Let me see your Jazz hands everyone...or at least your Charleston. Gatsby's estate looks like the fairy castle at Disneyland with fountains that shoot water into the sky amid a rainbow of technicolor light. The gas station which houses the ill-fated Myrtle and Wilson exists in a weird almost post-apocalyptic wasteland of dirt and industrial ash. There's no missing the contrast between the excessive wealth of Gatsby and his East Egg crowd and the desperately poor (and just desperate) milieu inhabited by the less fortunates.

And while at first blush it is all rather over-the-top and vulgar, the vision works. Some critics have wrongly, I believe, written of the film that it celebrates and revels in the excess that the novel berates. Yes, there is excess and yes there is an almost orgiastic revelry to the proceedings, but never does the viewer (or at least this viewer) feel that he wants to be a part of it. These people are irredeemably shallow and the beauty is merely skin deep. This is "The Great Gatsby" set in a certain kind of gilded hell. And added to that is the hip hop-tinged soundtrack that I fully expected to criticize but came away thinking it was an utterly appropriate (if not inspired) accompaniment to the events on screen. Who would have thought that Beyonce, Jay-Z, and will.i.am would translate as well as they do in a 1920s setting? Perhaps only in a Luhrmann film...

My biggest criticism of the film is its acting. I will say that Tobey Maguire as Nick and Australian actor Joel Edgerton as Tom Buchanan were really very good. At heart, this is Nick's story. The reader (and the viewer) see the story of Gatsby and Daisy through Nick's eyes. Maguire (while no Sam Waterston) manages to convey both Nick's awe and repulsion with a sense of humor and a plucky kind of aplomb that is a lot of fun to watch. Edgerton's Tom is blustery (a "brute" Daisy calls him in the climactic scene at the Plaza Hotel), macho, and one senses capable of real violence. His is a presence that manages to cut through the excess all around him, which is no small task for an actor in a Luhrmann film. While not entirely sympathetic, Tom Buchanan is probably the closest to real flesh and blood of any of the characters.

Carey Mulligan as Daisy and Leonardo diCaprio as, of course, Gatsby fare less well. I think Ms. Mulligan is an amazing actress (her heartbreaking performance as Michael Fassbender's lonely and tormented younger sister in 2011's "Shame" is masterful), yet there's surprisingly very little depth to her portrayal of Daisy. She pouts and giggles and poses on cue without really ever seeming fully inhabited in the role. And diCaprio's Gatsby is neither here nor there. I realize that part of the mystery of Gatsby is that he is ultimately unknowable. DiCaprio doesn't exude mystery here. His line readings are flat and he comes across as a little kid dressed up in big kid finery. And while I've liked him in other films ("J. Edgar" is, I believe, his finest moment) he is woefully miscast as Gatsby. I'd be intrigued to see what an actor like Michael Fassbender, for example, might do with the role.  It would probably be a very different film.

So my final verdict on "The Great Gatsby" is that there is much to be admired in its visual audacity, its excessive cinematography and its pulsating soundtrack. I also admire the fact that it is quite faithful to Fitzgerald's original novel and I wasn't even bothered by the narrative device of having Nick relate the story from a mental institution. It made sense to me. If you're already a Luhrmann fan and have seen at least one or two of his earlier films (for sheer romanticism and epic sweep I highly recommend "Australia") you're probably in a better position to admire and even enjoy his version "Gatsby". But for the uninitiated or for those who expect more from a very talented cast, this is going to be a disappointment.

Bottom line: this is a Baz Luhrmann film. I happened to like it very much but I can also appreciate why others might not feel the same. But like it or hate it, you can't deny this film makes an impact. And I also doubt any other film this year will come close to matching its audacity.

Movie Review: Ain't Them Bodies Saints -- My Pick for Best Film of 2013 So Far

Hi everyone! Happy Labor Day Weekend...

"Ain't Them Bodies Saints" is a quiet and impressionistic little film that evokes the work of Terrence Malick while establishing David Lowery as a director to watch. Set in and around a small town in Texas sometime in the 1970s, Rooney Mara and Casey Affleck star as Ruth and Bob, childhood sweet hearts separated at the beginning of the film by a crime that puts Bob behind bars. Ruth is pregnant and has a daughter, Sylvie (sweetly played by twins Kennadie and Jacklynn Smith), whom she raises on her own under the watchful eye of Skerritt (a terrific Keith Carradine), her childhood guardian, and Patrick (a sweet and sweetly sympathetic Ben Foster), a local cop. Four years pass. Bob escapes from prison and makes the trek back home with the intention of reuniting with Ruth and Sylvie.

I won't say anything more about the plot which isn't really the driving force behind my recommendation. What impressed me most about this film were the performances of its stars, Bradford Young's understated yet lush cinematography and its overarching sense of atmosphere. I've liked Ms. Mara's work in "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" and "Side Effects". But here I found her to be somewhat of a revelation. Her performance is effortless. You feel her loneliness, her love for her child, and her dread at the inevitability of Bob's return but it all registers so quietly. She inhabits this role so completely you almost forget she's acting. The same can be said for Mr. Affleck, who's always been an interesting actor, much more so than his older and better known brother, Ben. As Bob, Mr. Affleck brings an intensity and a certain kind of vulnerability to a character that doesn't merit sympathy. And yet you care about him while hoping at the same time he's unsuccessful in achieving his aim. As the third point in this rather conventional love triangle is Ben Foster's Patrick, the small town cop whose unrequited love for Ruth really provides the emotional core of the film and gives it its heart. Mr. Foster's performance is graceful and understated and utterly real. You just can't help but root for him.

"Ain't Them Bodies Saints" is a refreshing change of pace from Hollywood's bombastic summer blockbusters,  most of which have either bombed at the box office or underperformed this year. This is a film of few words, gorgeous photography, and captivating performances that need no artificial amplification, CGI effects, graphic violence (though it isn't without its bloodshed), or gratuitous sex. It is the perfect film to kick off the Fall season and it is my pick for best film of 2013 so far.

Have a good holiday weekend.

Movie Review: "Lovelace" -- An Astonishing Star Turn from Amanda Seyfried

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Book Review: "HHhH" -- Heydrich, WW2, the Czechoslovakian Resistance Movement, and an Author's Angst

Hi everyone!

Are any of you familiar with Operation Anthropoid? No? I wasn't...and unless you're a World War Two aficionado or a scholar of 20th Century Czech history, you probably aren't either. And for this reason, French novelist Laurent Binet's curious yet ultimately rather compelling historical novel "HHhH" may be of interest to you.

I picked it up a couple months ago at the Waterstone's book store on Piccadilly in London. It was one of those Buy One Get One Half Price deals that spell trouble for hopeless bibliophiles like me. The cover is very striking -- a black-and-white photograph of an SS officer with the letters "HHhH" printed in rather dramatic block fashion across the officer's face, obscuring it completely. These same letters provide decoration both on the book's spine and the edges of its pages. The overall impression made by the packaging is harsh and rather subversive, not necessarily something I'd want to be seen reading in public...unwholesome and dirty, if you will.

The novel itself is perfectly respectable. Fascinating even. It tells the story of Reinhard Heydrich, head of the SS during World War Two and the man responsible for setting in motion the Final Solution. Heydrich reports directly to Himmler but, according to the novel, "Himmler's brain is called Heydrich", the acronym translated into German spells "HHhH"...hence the title.

There are actually three stories that weave together during the course of the novel's nearly 300 pages: the story of Heydrich's rise to power; the London-based plot to assassinate Heydrich, organized by the Czech government-in-exile and the Czechoslovakian resistance movement; and, rather obscurely, the story of the author (Binet)'s struggle to write a strictly fact-based account of an influential if not pivotal moment in World War Two history without creative embellishment. All of these combined amount to a novel that is alternately thrilling -- especially once the assassination plot and its aftermath kick in -- yet frustratingly confounding.

The novel succeeds best when the author gets out of the way and gets down to the business of telling a great wartime adventure tale. This isn't to trivialize the history of the early days of the Holocaust or the evil mind(s) responsible for sending more than six million Jews and other minorities to their deaths. It's just that Binet's attempts to analyze the psychological make-up of Heydrich and his cohorts aren't particularly engaging and don't really reveal anything we don't already know or can't readily surmise. Although I will say the depiction of the massacre at Babi Yar is chilling.

Our heroes, the Czechoslovakian parachutists Gabcik and Kubis, are suitably dashing yet rather vaguely drawn. I think part of this vagueness is due to the fact that the author seems to consciously keep the reader at a remove from the characters and the action, jumping in with annoying frequency to ruminate over the role of the narrator and whether or not he is doing his characters a disservice by relating their lives through a fictional lens. Frankly, I just didn't care about this existential debate. I wanted to know whether the assassination plot upon which the novel hinges is carried off successfully or not. And for this reason, I found the last third of the novel unputdownable. The action is fast and furious and even though you know things probably aren't going to end well for our heroes -- the author (and history of course) basically informs us of this right at the start, you keep hoping for the best.

I daresay "HHhH" could make a cracking World War Two film. All the elements are there. Pare down -- or cut altogether -- the author's existential angst, and you've got a really rather excellent historical novel that sheds light on an important event that contributed to the turning of the tide against the Germans in 1942. I found the first half of the novel a disjointed slog but somehow Binet manages to pull off a tour de force that kept me turning pages long into the night. In this regard, the novel should be considered a success...but only for the most patient and dedicated of readers.

Special commendation should also be given to Sam Taylor's excellent translation from the French.

Movie Review: "The Canyons" -- Delusions of Something But Not Sure What

Hi everyone!

"The Canyons" is probably the most strangely disappointing film I've seen all year. I wasn't sure what to expect. I went into it knowing that it wasn't going to be a good movie, and yet I hoped I might find something in there to redeem it. And how odd is it to say that the best thing about the film was the performance of James Deen, the rather dubiously famous young porn star who's making his mainstream debut here.

Yes, this is a Lindsay Lohan vehicle. Yes, this is a film directed by the once great Paul ("Taxi Driver") Schrader. Yes, it was written by Brett Easton Ellis, perhaps the greatest novelist of Gen-X angst there's ever been. And yes, the film feels very much the product of Mr. Ellis's twisted yet oh so glamorous imagination. It's got a Hollywood setting and beautiful actors but that's about all it has going for it. At the very least I was hoping for some decent camp or some first rate scenery chewing, neither of which is to be had.

There's not even much of a plot. Christian (James Deen) and Tara (Lindsay Lohan) are a couple (I think). They live together in a rather swanky pad in the Hollywood Hills. Christian is a producer(?) and I think Tara is an actress, but it's never made clear. Tara is secretly seeing or at least at some point has hooked up with an aspiring wannabe actor Ryan (Nolan Funk) whose current girlfriend Gina (Amanda Brooks) is a yoga instructor (I think?). Christian invites strangers from the Internet to come have sex with him and Tara which he records on his camera phone. Christian gets jealous of Tara and Ryan. Christian does something bad. Tara leaves Christian. And then there's the final scene of the movie where it seems Tara isn't quite out of the doghouse with Christian but we don't really know and we don't really care.

Along the way we're treated to a montage of abandoned movie theaters and a scene where Tara asks Gina when was the last time she'd seen a movie in a movie theater. I think this was supposed to be like some profound statement about movie-going habits in the 21st century but, like everything else in this dreary mess, it's not clear what the motivation is or why it's even relevant.

I had such high hopes (of a sort) for this movie. I really thought it was going to be an epic train wreck like "Showgirls", a camp classic, that I was going to be able to return to again and again and have a good laugh about over a bottle (or two) of cheap wine. "The Canyons" isn't out-and-out dreadful, it's just...boring. Even the much-hyped four-way sex scene is so claustrophobically shot that it leaves no impression at all, not even a modicum of voyeuristic titillation.

But despite all the tedium, James Deen is really rather good. Christian is a sleaze ball but he's an elegant sleaze ball and I have to admit he really looks rather good. As for his acting, he's no better nor worse than, say, Channing Tatum. In fact, Mr. Deen infuses the atmosphere with an effortless sort of charisma that almost succeeds in elevating the rather lifeless production that surrounds him. If he ever decides to leave porn, I daresay he could do quite well for himself in "independent" cinema.

As for Ms. Lohan, well, she tries.

Bottom line, "The Canyons" could have been a great bad film. Instead it's just a ponderous bad film that isn't sexy or particularly engaging, though I will say it is rather handsomely shot. I think it has (or had) aspirations of profundity, but overall, I felt like I was watching an experiment or a well-photographed student film, which I realize isn't saying very much.

Movie review: The Curious Case of "Blue Jasmine"

Hi everyone!

I went to see the new Woody Allen film "Blue Jasmine" last night. After all of the critical acclaim the film has been receiving I was expecting to really be blown away by it. I've been a Woody Allen fan for years. And while not all of his films have been particularly good, I can usually find something in even the worst Woody Allen film to commend. "Blue Jasmine" proves no exception.

For those of you who follow cinema, you're probably all aware of the basic premise of the plot: Jasmine (played by Cate Blanchett) is the former wife of a Bernie Madoff-type New York financier and businessman played rather effortlessly by Alec Baldwin. His Ponzi scheme is exposed -- in addition to dozens of extramarital affairs -- and Jasmine's privileged way of life falls to ground. She loses everything. In an effort to start picking up the pieces, she moves to San Francisco to live with her downtrodden, very working-class adopted sister, Ginger, played by a tremendously affecting Sally Hawkins (probably best known for her work in British director Mike Leigh's film "Happy Go Lucky" for which she received an Oscar nomination a few years back.) Jasmine is a mess -- swilling vodka and popping pills and pretty much unapologetic for her husband's gross financial misconduct, victims of which were Ginger and her now ex-husband, a surprisingly good Andrew Dice Clay.

Jasmine, as played by Ms. Blanchett, is in many respects an homage to Blanche du Bois. Ginger is Stella and Ginger's new boyfriend, Chili (a terrific Bobby Carnavale) resembles a somewhat more benign Stanley Kowalski. There's also a Gentleman Caller (Peter Sarsgaard) who offers Jasmine the chance of a return to her former lifestyle despite the fact that everything he knows about her is predicated on lies.

Ms. Blanchett is a wonder. You can't take your eyes off of her. And although Jasmine is a monster, Ms. Blanchett infuses her with such bittersweet compassion and tragic desperation you cannot help but sympathize with her. In the role of Jasmine's sister, Ms. Hawkins is spirited and human and sad and all the more tragic for approaching her lot in life with optimism and an almost defiant aplomb. Ms. Hawkins has a couple scenes toward the end of the film that, for me, come close to stealing the show from Ms. Blanchett who is undoubtedly the focus of the film. Come Oscar nomination time, these two amazingly talented actresses should receive huge notice.

And yet....and yet...despite these wonderful performances, the film doesn't really work for me. I'm frustrated because I can't put my finger exactly on what it is that I feel makes the film miss its mark. The flashback sequences portraying the unraveling of Jasmine's elite Park Avenue life ring hollow. Others scenes -- particularly an attempted seduction in a dentist's office that is broadly comic and yet uncomfortably invasive -- seem clumsily staged. And the re-emergence of Andrew Dice Clay's character in the scene that solidifies Jasmine's downward spiral in the last fifteen minutes of film feels contrived and a little too pat.

Ultimately, "Blue Jasmine" is a tragedy. All the classic Woody Allen traits are here -- the neuroses, the pithy one-liners, etc. -- yet nothing is particularly funny. I think this is definitely by design and this is not my criticism of the film. I think my problem is that it's neither here nor there. Is this is a commentary on corrupt Wall Street hubris and greed? Class warfare? I don't know. What I do know is that the performances of Cate Blanchett and Sally Hawkins are extraordinary and the film deserves to be widely recommended for this if for no other reason.

French Cinema at its Finest: "Little White Lies" and "Intimate Enemies"

Hi everyone!

So as most of you who follow my blog know, I'm a bit of a Francophile. My trip to Paris this past spring just further solidified this. If it's French, it's got to be good, right? (Well, maybe not always -- I've never really gotten Johnny Halliday -- but close enough.) Food, wine, fashion, music, film...the French have got it covered.

I treated myself to a French film double-feature this weekend, thanks to Netflix's streaming service, whose selection of French and other foreign language films continues to impress me:
Guillaume Canet's 2010 ensemble comedy-drama "Little White Lies" (Les Petits Mouchoirs) and Florent Emilio's Siri's riveting 2007 Algerian war drama "Intimate Enemies" (L'ennemi Intime).

"Little White Lies" features an all-star cast (Oscar-winning actress Marion Cotillard, Benoit Magimel, Francois Cluzet, Gilles Lellouche, Oscar-winning actor Jean Dujardin, and others) in a drama that many have dubbed the French "Big Chill". There's some truth to that. A group of friends gather at the seaside vacation house of one of their gang for two weeks of boating, sun, drinking, and lying to each other. Despite their collective veneer of frivolity, no one is particularly happy either with themselves, their significant others, or those whom they wish were their significant others. Hanging like a specter over all of them is the fate of their friend Ludo (effectively played by "The Artist"'s Jean Dujardin) who suffers a horrific accident that opens the film and is confined to his bed in an intensive care unit in Paris while everyone else is soaking up the sun -- and the Bordeaux -- in the South of France.

It's a long film -- clocking in at just over 2 1/2 hours -- but the performances are so effortless, so deeply affecting, and so genuinely real that the time just flies by. Be prepared to laugh, to squirm in discomfort, and to cry...and then go back and watch it all over again. (Which I did actually, the next day.)

There's not a single bad or uneven performance, but there are some definite stand-outs worthy of brief mention: After two viewings, Gilles Lellouche as Eric, Ludo's best friend, steals the show. He's the life of the party who has to deal with the guilt of being the last person to see Ludo before the accident. Eric is a mess but somehow he always manages to maintain a sunny disposition...until he can't anymore. Veteran actor Francois Cluzet as Max, the owner of the house and the boat to which they all gather, is by turns hilarious and very real. Early in the film, his best friend Vincent (a quietly effective Benoit Magimel) drops an emotional bomb on him that threatens to destroy their friendship and the group's dynamic. Cluzet's facial expressions alone are worth the price of admission. And finally, the luminous Marion Cotillard proves once again that she's a formidable presence in any film she's in even when the material requires her to blend into an ensemble.

"Little White Lies" has something for everyone -- and a terrific soundtrack. It's a film to savor and return to again and again.

"Intimate Enemies" couldn't be any more different from "Little White Lies" and yet in its own visceral but understated way, it packs an equally resonant punch.  In many ways, this is the Heart of Darkness or "Apocalypse Now" set in Algeria during the French-Algerian War in 1959. A young seemingly idealistic officer (played by "Little White Lies"'s Benoit Magimel) is brought in to command a platoon of French soldiers in the mountains of Algeria. Their mission, simply put, is to track down and kill soldiers of the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN). Not surprisingly, the idealism of the young officer is gradually replaced by disillusionment, brutality, and madness.

The cinematography is striking. The violence is shocking and sporadic. And like the very best of war films, "Intimate Enemies" questions the notion and value of war. There are no winners or losers. There's just atrocity. And in the face of man's brutality to man, even the most hopeful of souls finds himself committing acts that he may never have believed possible just a short time before.

"Intimate Enemies" belongs in the same category of such great war films as "Platoon", "The Hurt Locker", "Apocalypse Now" and "Breaker Morant".

Bon soir!

Hot Tracks of Summer 2013

Hi everyone!

As Bollywood bombshell and now international pop star Priyanka Chopra sings in "Exotic," her new single featuring the ubiquitous Pitbull: "I'm hotter than the tropics", that's what the temperature here in Chicago is feeling like these days, though it isn't exactly making me feel exotic, just sweaty and lethargic. But no matter. In honor of the dog days of summer, I thought I'd write about the 5 hot summer songs I've got on repeat play in my Summer 2013 playlist...

Starting at number 5:

5) "Vocal" (Pet Shop Boys). This is the first single off of PSB's latest album Electric. Still going strong after 30 years, the Pet Shop Boys have their finger on the pulse of electronic club-friendly dance music. There's not much depth to the lyrics -- nor is there much of a vocal -- but the synthesized beat is infectious and the song is pretty much guaranteed to whip you into a frenzy on the dance floor...so who needs a vocal really? Stuart Price (of Madonna's award-winning epic 2005 release Confessions on a Dance Floor among other pop classics) is at the helm as producer.

2) "Take Back the Night" (Justin Timberlake). This is the first single off of Justin's second new album of the year, due in September: The 20/20 Experience, 2 of 2. It's funky, soulful, and unlike the tracks he's been laying down lately, you can dance to it. Close your eyes and you might think you were listening to late-70s "Off the Wall" era Michael Jackson, which is no small compliment. Again, the lyrics aren't particularly memorable and the chorus isn't overly catchy, but it's all about the funk and the horns "And the horns say..." and the more I listen to it, the more I like. I'm also a fan of The 20/20 Experience's Cuban-influenced rhythm track "Let the Groove Get In" if you're looking for more Justin this summer.

3) "Tu Ne Le Dis Pas" (Mylene Farmer). Madame Farmer is the French equivalent of Madonna. She's been courting controversy and dance music in the French-speaking world for as long as the Queen of Pop. I'm only now just discovering her. "Tu Ne Le Dis Pas" (You Don't Say) is the second track on her 2012 album "Monkey Me". The lyrics have something to do with a woman telling her lover that he never tells her he loves her, but you don't need to speak French to get into this song. The beat pulses hypnotically, the vocal sails ethereally, and there's a really heavy electronic bass 'dance break' about halfway through that's pretty darn cool. Vive le musique populaire de France!

2) "Exotic" (Priyanka Chopra featuring Pitbull). Fans of Hindi cinema know Ms. Chopra from her Bollywood box office smashes. The rest of the world is starting to know her for her Desi-tinged English-language pop songs. Her first single "In My City" featured will.i.am and was released earlier this year. As much as I wanted to like it, the song was pretty generic and the lyrics were, well, just kind of stupid. But with "Exotic," Ms. Chopra has teamed up with the Miami-based Cuban rapper/DJ Pitbull and channeled her inner Jennifer Lopez. And the result? Muy caliente. It's classic Pitbull with a masala twist. Yes, all of Pitbull's songs sound the same and the lyrics are pretty much identical but, paired with Ms. Chopra's sultry vocals, the package works. This would be my pick for the song of Summer 2013, if it weren't for...

1) "Get Lucky" (Daft Punk featuring Pharrell Williams). Yeah, this is probably the most overplayed song of the summer but it never gets old. It's cool, funky, and bounces along like any great summer song should. It's also somewhat misleading. "Get Lucky" is a total anomaly on the album Random Access Memories from which the song comes. I took the song, but passed on the album. If you're only a casual fan of Daft Punk, you might too. Nonetheless, no other song this summer comes close to matching the sexy effortless ease of this track. That's why it's my number one.

Ciao.

Big Brother Season 15 - Real World Racism and Bigotry on Shocking Display

Hi everyone!

So who's watching Big Brother this season? I know, I know...I should be writing about the Zimmerman verdict (based on the law as explained to the six jurors and the definition of"reasonable doubt", justice was served whether you agree with the verdict or not) or the continual turmoil in Egypt  or any number of other more socially significant topics. But the fact of the matter is it's summer and close to 100 degrees Fahrenheit and after working all day reading and editing manuscripts about law and socially significant things, I need a mental vacation, which is exactly what Big Brother provides.

For those of you who followed this blog last summer, you know that I am an unabashed Big Brother fan. For three months each summer, it takes over my life -- well, at least my television viewing, encompassing not only the 3 prime-time airings each week but also the "Big Brother After Dark" live broadcasts 7 nights a week, this year airing on TVGN. For me, Big Brother distills the best and worst and -- certainly this season -- the very worst of human behavior. It's a grand social experiment of the old "Real World" model -- sixteen strangers picked to live in a house -- with ridiculous and humiliating challenges thrown in, endless scheming and strategizing, evictions both deserved and undeserved, and endless pure entertainment.

Still only in its third week, this season is proving no exception. However, the train wreck factor is tinged with something a little darker, more disturbing, and probably more emblematic of true society than we've seen before. For a percentage of the house-guests this season, racism and bigotry seem to be the order of the day. So much so that the New York Times and other national publications have featured articles about the show and two house-guests in particular, the blonde fem bot Aaryn (this season's most hated and talked about contestant) and Jersey girl GinaMarie. They don't know it yet, because the guests are completely isolated from the outside world for the duration of their time in the house, both Aaryn and GinaMarie have been fired from their real world jobs based on their behavior on the show.  Unfortunately, Aaryn and GinaMarie aren't the only guilty parties.

I'm not going to go into what all has been said, but for a show that is typically billed as mindless summer entertainment, there's a genuine rawness to the emotions and conflict on display here. The house's two African American house-guests -- Howard and Candace -- are the most overt victims of Aaryn's racist idiocy. Sunday's primetime broadcast only touched on the tip of the iceberg. In last Thursday's live After Hours broadcast -- from which most of Sunday's show was based -- viewers saw Aaryn spew one racist comment after another at Candace, who was finally reduced to tears after Aaryn pulled the mattress of Candace's bed, flipped it over, and strew Candace's clothes all over the bedroom, while Aaryn's "acolytes" Caitlin and Jeremy looked on, all the while referring to Candace as "Shaniqua" and mocking her in a stereotypical "ghetto" voice. Candace found consolation in Howard who is battling his own race-based demons. Howard's instinct is to lash out, but he fears what might happen if he were to verbally attack a white woman (Arryn) even out of self-defense. On the live feed, we saw Howard on his knees praying for the strength of restraint. It was powerful TV.

The most telling moment came when house-guest Amanda tried to tell Aaryn that her racist behavior was not only hurting people in the house but was inevitably going to negatively affect Aaryn's life outside the house with "all of America watching". Rather than take Amanda's words into consideration, Aaryn merely rolled her eyes and told Amanda she was annoyed to even be talking about it and that frankly she didn't care.

Candace and Howard haven't been the only victims. Asian American political consultant and this week's Head of Household, Helen, was the butt of Aaryn's "Shut up and go make rice" quip. Andy, who seems quite sensitive, sensible and well-meaning, was referred to as being the house's "token queer" by one of the male house-guests. It's rife, it's shocking, and it seems to be the most prominent plot line this summer, making past seasons relatively benign by comparison.

Is it exploitation? Is CBS focusing on this for ratings? Since these instances were publicized in the national media last week, the show has apparently experienced a big ratings boost. Sure, there may be a bit of this in play. However, more than any other show on network television in recent memory, season 15 of Big Brother is putting the spotlight on the very real social issues this country still continues to face and is doing so in a courageous and commendably uncensored way.

This isn't just a game anymore.

Summer 2013 Reading List

Hi everyone!

With tomorrow's unofficial start to the 4th of July "weekend" I thought I'd use this column today to highlight some of the books I've been reading -- or are on my summer beach reading list -- in case any of you are looking for a great read while working on that tan at the beach. These aren't in any particular order. Some I've read, while others are waiting to be read on my ever-growing stack of must-read books.

1) "The Son" by Philipp Meyer. I raved about this epic American western a couple weeks ago before I had even finished it, and now that I have, I'm still raving. A sweeping yet compellingly intimate novel spanning close to 200 years that's as vast as the Texas landscape it describes. For fans of Cormac McCarthy's "Blood Meridian", Larry McMurtry's "Lonesome Dove", and Edna Ferber's "Giant", it chronicles four generations of a Texas ranch family. The characters are uncompromising, violent, and utterly unsympathetic in their thoughts and actions, yet somehow Mr. Meyer makes you care about these people and long to cut loose on the harsh but beautiful Texas range. I'm recommending this book to anyone and everyone I know -- a truly Great American Novel.

2) "The Fortunes of the Rougons" by Emile Zola. This is the first novel in Zola's classic 20-book series about the rise and fall of the Rougon-Macquart family, set against the backdrop of Bonapartism and Empire in late 19th century France. I'm about two-thirds of the way through Brian Nelson's excellent new translation and as an entree into mid-to-late 19th century French literature, this is a grand read. With the exception of the star-crossed (and yes, doomed) young lovers Silvere and Miette, this is another novel filled with characters who aren't naturally sympathetic--in fact, what they do to each other is downright rather despicable--but Zola is a master of social realism and revolution. European history buffs will enjoy reading about Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte's coup d'etat of 1851 through the lens of fictional characters caught up in the ebb and flow of history. Fans of "Les Miserables" will enjoy some of the parallels between this novel and Victor Hugo's epic classic (and appreciate, I don't doubt, Zola's relative brevity). Not traditional beach reading to be sure, but once you get into it, the story is unputdownable.

3) "Diaghilev: a Life" by Sjeng Scheijen. After having enjoyed the Diaghilev exhibition currently on display through the summer at the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., I was curious to learn more about the great Russian theatrical impresario and his famous and influential Ballet Russes. Scheijen's recent biography presents Diaghilev's larger-than-life persona with a panache worthy of its star and its supporting cast is equally as fascinating -- Stravinsky, Nijinsky, and Coco Chanel are just a few of the cultural icons who figure into the story. For lovers of ballet, art, theatre, and 20th century Russian history, "Diaghilev: A Life" is a feast.

4) "Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls" by David Sedaris. For those of you looking for something on the lighter side, you surely can't go wrong with Mr. Sedaris's latest collection of essays. The title alone let's you know you're in for another treat. I haven't read it yet, but Sedaris is one of the few humor writers today who invariably makes me laugh out loud. A perfect salve to restore your faith in humanity  and a celebration of all life's foibles.

5) "Defending Jacob" by William Landay. This is legal fiction at its finest. Landay elevates the somewhat tired genre by infusing his novel with a pathos and sensitivity not usually found in legal thrillers, while still keeping you impulsively turning the pages. I'm not going to give away any of the plot other than to say that the story is eerily topical, covering some of the same territory as Lionel Shriver's brilliant novel "We Need to Talk about Kevin", with an ending that for me ranks right up there with the devastating final paragraphs of Ian McEwan's "Atonement". Like Shriver's and McEwan's novels, this is another that will haunt you long after you've read (and reread) the final page.

Happy summer reading!

In the wake of SCOTUS's Ruling Against DOMA, Transgenderism and the Law

Hi everyone!

In the wake of yesterday's historic Supreme Court ruling against the Defense of Marriage Act, I thought I'd share an article I wrote that was published in last week's issue of Publisher's Weekly about the changing field of LGBTQ-related books.

For those of you who don't know, I'm an Executive Editor for the Flagship imprint of ABA Publishing, the book publishing division of the American Bar Association. Next month, we will be publishing a groundbreaking book on transgenderism and the law. Here is my piece in full:

"One thing I've noticed, at least in national media, is the rise in prevalence of stories relating to legal and personal challenges faced by transgender individuals. A population that heretofore seems to have been relegated by the press to the fringes of collective social conscience is gradually starting to come to the forefront. As a result, I think we're going to see more books being publishing (both non-fiction and fiction) that address the very real challenges transgender individuals face on a daily basis.

This July, ABA Publishing (the book publishing division of the American Bar Association), is going to be publishing what I think is a truly groundbreaking work. Transgender Persons and the Law, written by transgender attorney Ally Windsor Howell, brings together--for the first time ever--a comprehensive overview of the laws and landmark court cases involving transgender individuals in a variety of legal situations, including housing, military service and veterans benefits, family law, education, health care, personal safety, employment, immigration, and criminal justice. It also discusses the myriad legal documents transgender persons need to understand before filling out paperwork in order to change their name, birth certificate, and gender identification. As an added benefit, it includes a CD with a complete set of legal forms for all fifty states and the District of Columbia for name changes and, for those jurisdictions that allow it, changes to birth certificates. To my knowledge, this has never been done before.

It makes for very compelling -- as well as often distressing -- reading. What it also does is help raise awareness to the fact that an entire segment of our population may not be fully cognizant of their rights in addition to being underserved and underrepresented by our legal community. This book -- and others like it -- will hopefully make strides toward providing not just transgender individuals and the lawyers who represent them with the legal information necessary to preserve those individual rights, but will also further educate the population at large.

I believe it is our duty as publishers and thought leaders to educate and inform the public on all socially relevant issues. And while we have certainly made tremendous strides over the past 10-15 years in providing tools for greater understanding and appreciation of the concerns and issues faced by the LGBTQ population as a whole, we still have a long way to go."

The article is also available online at the Publisher's Weekly website: www.publishersweekly.com. But in order to access it, you do need to be a subscriber...

Ciao.

Paula Deen and Race in America

Hello everyone!

Paula Deen. Yeah, yeah, I know. The media has been going haywire over this story since it broke on Friday and frankly, I've never seen Paula Deen's cooking shows or been to any of her restaurants or made a single one of her recipes. On the surface of things, I really don't care. But I suppose this whole hoopla raises a series of interesting issues. Obviously race in America is still very much a hot button topic. The "n-word" is dreadful. It should be barred from the English lexicon. What I find so interesting though is that Ms. Deen is receiving support from some of the African American community who seem to accept her apologies on the basis that Ms. Deen grew up in a different, less enlightened, time, that she has publicly apologized for having said the "n-word", and that this does not necessarily brand her as racist.

It brings to mind a thoughtful conversation I had this week over dinner with an author friend of mind in town from Birmingham, Alabama. I mentioned to him that whenever I've been in the South -- albeit limited to the wealthier suburbs of Atlanta -- I've always been struck by the sense that there is a greater 'integration' down there between whites and African Americans. There's a looser kind of camaraderie between the races, at least within the circles among which I've traveled, than exists here in Chicago, which to me is very much a Northern city.

He explained that because--especially in Birmingham which was and is the epicenter of the Civil Rights Movement--integration was and is so heavily enforced, the barriers between whites and blacks just, at least on the surface, fade away. Here in Chicago, there's still a noticeable division between the "black neighborhoods" (the South and West sides) and the "white neighborhoods" (downtown, The Gold Coast, Lincoln Park, and the North Side) that the city has been branded one of the most segregated in the United States.

Chicago's seemingly endemic gun violence that tops international headlines is pretty much relegated to African American neighborhoods on the South and West sides. I live in the West Loop. My parents live in Lincoln Park. I work in River North. I exist pretty much in a white bubble. But it's only nine minutes on the expressway from my house to West Garfield Park, one of the most underprivileged and violent neighborhoods in Chicago. Over the span of about a year I spent at least part of every week day student teaching and then tutoring African American high school students in an at-risk public school. At first I didn't know how I was going to cope. The prospect terrified me. Blond-haired and blue-eyed, I'm about as white as they come. How was I ever going to get four classes of inner-city African American high school seniors interested in British Literature, let alone take me seriously?

But you know what? Somehow, it happened. I fell in love with those kids. I saw a whole side of life that I'd previously been sheltered from. Not a single one of them had been unaffected by some major trauma in their young lives -- the shooting deaths of friends and relatives, teenage pregnancy, broken families, homelessness, and/or a combination of all of the above. I listened to them. And while I  couldn't necessarily relate, I empathized. I gave them a voice. I told them about my own experiences and I found a way to relate 19th century British literature to these kids. Behind the swagger and the tough-guy/girl veneer, most of them just wanted someone to listen to them, to talk to them, to give them a positive role model. They accepted me and I accepted them.

It's been more than a year since I last stepped foot in those classrooms. I've given up on teaching because, at least in the public schools here in Chicago, the system is run by petty and bureaucratic administrators who can't look past race and only care about preserving the status quo. But I think about those kids often and I'd like to think I made a difference -- however small -- in at least one of their lives, because they certainly made a difference on mine.

In getting back to Paula Deen....is she or isn't she a racist? Should she or shouldn't she have been fired by the Food Network? It's not for me to say. The only thing I will say is that we are all guilty -- whites, blacks, whatever -- on some level of using race as a barrier and an excuse for failing to see that beneath the color of our skin, we are all human. We all have the same desires, the same fears, the same hopes, the same longing for validation. This is what the media should be exploring. There's certainly a lesson to be learned here...probably several lessons. It's time to limit the accusations and the finger pointing. It's time to really engage and listen.

Somehow though I think this is too much to ask. I hope I'm proven wrong.

Ciao.

6.16.13: My Top 5 for the Week

Hi everyone!

Here's my Top 5 list for this week. Enjoy!

1) Emad Burnat's incredibly moving documentary "Five Broken Cameras". This film was nominated for a 2013 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. It is extraordinary. Over the span of five years -- 2005-2010 -- Mr. Burnat used 5 videocameras to document his West Bank village Bil'in's weekly protests against Israeli settlement expansion. Each camera was destroyed by an Israeli soldier (bullet, tear gas canister, fist) but Mr. Burnat found another camera and continued to film. Unlike anything I've ever seen or read about the Palestinian protest movement, this film humanizes the conflict and distills it into everyday experience that anyone can appreciate if not relate to. What results is an incredible narrative of one man's/one village's fight for freedom, dignity, and survival. "Five Broken Cameras" is a tragic and visceral film but what emerges most is Mr. Burnat's inspiring resilience in the face of seemingly insurmountable obstacles. For anyone who follows and/or cares about what's going on in the Middle East, this film should be required viewing. For more information please click onto Mr. Burnat's website www.emadburnet.com.

2) And while we're on the subject of documentaries, Jeremy Scahill's just released in theaters and On Demand film "Dirty Wars" is another of my top picks for the week. I wrote about it at length the other day so I'll keep my commentary brief. "Dirty Wars" follows Mr. Scahill's journey to Afghanistan, Yemen, and Somalia to understand and document the covert underbelly of the US War on Terror. The film is riveting for the questions it asks and the footage it shows and Mr. Scahill, a journalist for The Nation, is an expert and compelling tour guide.

3) From the sublime to the slightly ridiculous, I just finished the last two of episodes of "Game of Thrones" Season Three. As a big (but rather critical) fan of George RR Martin's novels upon which the series remains impressively faithful, I found this season suffered from the same fundamental defect of its source material. We're getting to a point where there are simply too many characters and too much plot that the storytelling is getting too spread out and the pacing somewhat cumbersome. However...the infamous Blood Wedding sequence that closed out Episode Nine was as shocking and defining as it was in the book. And the final scene of Season Three with Daenarys Targarian (Khaleesi)  being lifted into the collective arms of the liberated slaves of Junkai is one of the all-time great Game of Thrones moments, right up there with the Season One finale when Daenarys emerges naked from the ashes with the baby dragons. It is so ridiculous you have to laugh but at the same time so deliciously audacious. Other Season Three highlights: any and all of Arya (Maisie Williams) Stark's scenes. This little girl is a fantastic actress who seems to be really growing into the role; Peter Dinklage's Tyrion Lannister. We didn't get much of him this season but Mr. Dinklage's ironic line readings especially in response to his nephew, mad king Joffrey, are priceless. Best line of the season, also from the final episode: "Killed a few puppies today?"; Lena Headey's ice queen Cersei continues to steal every scene she's in as does her on-screen brother, Jamie (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) Lannister. As despicable as Jamie is, Mr. Coster-Waldau manages to bring out a strange kind of humanity in the guy that has you kind of cheering for him despite all his rather egregious nastiness. Since I know what's coming, having read the novels, Season 4 should be epic.

4) Philipp Meyers' novel "The Son". If you're a fan of Cormac McCarthy or "Lonesome Dove", you gotta read this novel. I'm about halfway through so I can't give a complete review, but I will say this will most assuredly be one of my top fiction picks for 2013. Three generations of one great Texas ranch family set in 1850, 1917, 1945, and 2012. Meyers's prose is understated, assured, and driven, a hybrid of "Little Big Man" and "Giant" but wholly original. It just hit the New York Times Hardcover Bestseller List at Number 10 and I can guarantee it'll be one of the most talked-about books of the summer if not of 2013.

5) The roofdeck bar of Trump's Sixteen in Chicago's Trump Tower: some of the best views in Chicago (if not some of the most expensive drinks!) I know it's summer in Chicago when the roof deck is open. Sure, the place is a bit overpriced but it's so perfect that you almost forgive the trumped-up price. And the Wagyu beef sliders ain't bad either. Enjoy!

Free Speech in the Era of Pussy Riot, Wikileaks, and Drone Warfare

Hello everyone!

Today I want to tell you about 3 very important documentaries I had the pleasure of seeing this week. I'd originally only planned to write about two -- HBO's "Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer" and the Jemima Khan produced Wikipedia film "We Steal Secrets"--reflecting on the right of free speech and freedom of information in today's society, but then this evening I watched Jeremy Scahill's equally thought provoking film "Dirty Wars"about US JSOC covert killings and drone attacks in Afghanistan and Yemen, and knew I had to include it in today's post. All three do a good job of giving us an in-the-trenches perspective that takes us behind the scenes of the news we read about every day.

"Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer" provides fascinating footage from inside the Moscow courtroom in August 2012 where three members of the punk protest group Pussy Riot were accused of blasphemy and essentially charged with being enemies of the Russian state, aka President Putin. Two are currently serving out their 2-year sentences in a labor camp while the third was released on appeal. The film sheds light on the origins of Pussy Riot as part of the burgeoning protest movement against Putin's re-election. It also shows--rather compellingly--the Russian legal system in action -- or inaction, as the whole proceeding is clearly trumped-up and rigged from the start. The problem I have however with the film, despite it's obviously noble intent, is that the women themselves are not particularly sympathetic. And while I certainly do not support the charges against them or the harshness of their subsequent punishment, what I didn't get from the film was any sort of context of what led these women to form the band in the first place. We never really get to know these women as anything more than symbols of injustice and repression. The film works in shedding light on the trial and Pussy Riot's past performances -- including the infamous Cathedral stunt -- but I never once found myself really sympathizing with them as individuals. I was certainly appalled by the trial, which clearly demonstrated that Russia under Putin is sliding dangerously back to an almost Stalinist state. Perhaps this alone was the filmmaker's intent? And if so, the film does a good job of showing how individual rights and freedoms are being blatantly abused. But beyond that, I was left wanting more.

Which brings me to "We Steal Secrets". I must confess I've always found Julian Assange to be rather distasteful. In all the articles I've read about him and the press footage I've seen, there's a remoteness and an arrogance about him that renders him a bit of a cipher, and therefore it's difficult for me to --again -- really get behind him. I do think this film does a better job than "Pussy Riot"  of providing a broader, more detailed context for the story it tells. We receive an overview of Wikileaks, the extent of the information leaked to it by Bradley Manning, and a somewhat interesting character study of Mr. Assange himself. I also appreciated the fact that the filmmakers are balanced in their presentation. This isn't the love story to Julian Assange that I feared it might be. Comprised mainly of interviews with Assange and his former Wikileaks team, what we see is a man rather strangely remote from the world around him, whose convictions about the necessity for total disclosure of wartime secrets is driven less from a passionate belief in justice and more from a rather self-serving motivation to say "fuck you" to organized government and international security as a means of perpetuating his own celebrity. Regardless of the right or wrongfulness of his actions, at least as he is depicted in this film, there is nothing in the least heroic about Julian Assange. If anything, I find my sympathy goes to Bradley Manning, who is portrayed here as being a rather lost, desperate, and desperately sad young man, battling with his sexuality in a homophobic environment who is disgusted by what he witnesses in Afghanistan and feels he needs to somehow communicate what he's seen. His decision to divulge these secrets is presented as almost a form of psychiatric therapy. Ultimately, the filmmakers make the wise choice of leaving it up to the viewer to decide where they stand. The facts are presented and we are left to question our own beliefs. I appreciate this film because I feel I've gained some insight behind the headlines and I feel better informed from a contextual standpoint as I follow the latest NSA data-mining scandal and the evolving story of Edward Snowden.

And finally, we come to The Nation reporter Jeremy Scahill's film "Dirty Wars", a companion to the same-titled book published earlier this year. The film traces Mr. Scahill's investigation of a covered-up massacre by US troops in Gardez Afghanistan  of three women (two of them pregnant) and a man who served as a police commissioner trained by US forces.  Scahill's investigation leads him from Gardez where he interviews Afghani villagers who provide eyewitness accounts of the massacre (and harrowing cell phone video of the aftermath) to Yemen, where he interviews the father and grandmother of Anwar al-Awlaki, the US citizen and radical cleric who was killed in 2011 by a targeted drone attack, as part of a broader discussion about the Obama administration's increasing reliance on drone warfare and targeted assassinations of suspected al-Qaeda operatives in the Middle East and elsewhere. Of the three films, I feel "Dirty Wars" is probably the most successful. While some might criticize Mr. Scahill for putting himself front and center of the camera -- there's never really any doubt that this film is as much about Scahill as it is about the covert JSOC (Joint Special Operations Command) activities he investigates -- I enjoyed his perspective. He's an engaging presence and I felt I was experiencing the horrors he uncovers through his eyes. There's a humanist quality to this film that I feel is lacking in "Pussy Riot" and "We Steal Secrets", both of which are rather dry and formal in their presentation.

"Dirty Wars" does an effective job of showing the difficulties journalists face when trying to delve beyond government-approved news bytes. And as such it is the more provocative of the three. We actually see Mr. Scahill being stonewalled by the US government in his attempts to uncover the truth about what happened in Gardez and we witness how certain personalities within the media openly ridicule and vilify his efforts to bring certain truths to light. These clips demonstrate better than anything in "We Steal Secrets" how there is definitely a conscious suppression of free speech in the United States and how the War on Terror is used just as much by the Obama administration (if not more so) than by Bush as a cover-all for unethical and unconstitutional activity in our wars overseas.

I commend all three films for their bravery and honesty. Collectively they present an effective portrayal of the uncertainty of the times we live in especially in regard to freedom of information and free speech.
"Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer" is currently airing on HBO and HBO On Demand; "We Kill Secrets" and "Dirty Wars" are playing in limited release but are both available through Comcast On Demand.

The Return: 5 Things I Am Obsessed About This Week

Hello everyone!

I'm back. I know I haven't posted since January which sucks for my blog following. But I am happy to say I have returned -- if in a slightly different format -- and will be sharing my thoughts with you twice a week on everything from culture and politics to trivia and world events. It's been a busy year...

So to kick things off: here are the 5 Things I Am Obsessed About This Week (in no particular order)--

1) David Hyde Pierce's epic monologue-rant halfway through the second act of Christopher Durang's new Tony-nominated play "Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike". I had the pleasure of seeing Durang's latest on Broadway last weekend. And while I found the play uneven overall -- I thought it tried too hard to be funny -- Mr. Hyde Pierce's character's (Vanya's) breakdown over the lack of respect shown by the younger generation, social media, texting, Tweeting, and basically everything that's wrong with the world in 2013, was riveting, hilarious, and oh so prescient. It was a show-stopper in the true sense of the word and the audience -- myself included -- lapped up every minute of it. Does the play -- which is favored to win the Tony for Best Play tonight -- deserve all its acclaim? Probably not. But David Hyde Pierce and his co-star Kristine Nielsen deserve any and all awards they have been nominated for.

2) "Pippin". Diane Paulus's much Tony-nominated revival of the Stephen Schwartz/Bob Fosse musical is truly a feast for the eyes and ears. The acrobatic stunts are jaw-dropping and the cast (Andrea Martin and Patina Miller in particular) is a delight. The second act drags and I felt somewhat loses its direction, but the overall production is spot-on. And yes, Ms. Martin's rousing sing-along rendition of "No Time At All" is definitely worthy of a Tony Award tonight for Best Featured Actress in a Musical. It has been a long while since a Broadway musical transported me the way this production of "Pippin" did. If you're in New York, go see it.

3) "Capital" by John Lanchester. I just finished reading Lanchester's much-praised 2012 novel chronicling the lives of the fictional residents of London's Pepys Road who find themselves united by the 2008 financial collapse and the receipt of a strange series of postcards and blog postings proclaiming We Want What You Have. The storytelling is epic in its intimacy and very, very funny. It is also a somewhat provocative portrayal of our lives in the second decade of the 21st century. And while the ending works in its way, I did find the "Big Reveal" a little underwhelming. Still, this is a thoughtful and wonderful novel about a cross-section of the population of one of the world's greatest cities.

4) Diaghilev and the Ballet Russes exhibition at the National Gallery in Washington D.C. A fascinating overview, originally produced by London's Victoria and Albert Museum, of the life and creative genius of Serge Diaghilev, one of the great theatrical impresarios of the 20th century. Diaghilev's collaborations with the likes of Stravinsky, Nijinsky, Leon Bakst, and Picasso (among others) are legendary even a hundred years later. This comprehensive exhibition tells Diaghilev's story through a variety of media (costumes, set designs, video footage, etc) while successfully placing it within the historical context of its time. I'm in the midst of reading the beautifully-rendered exhibition catalog and am in the process of revisiting some of the revolutionary ballet scores produced under Diaghilev's reign at the helm of the Ballet Russes -- Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring," "Petruschka", and "The Firebird" among them. You don't have to love ballet to enjoy and appreciate this extraordinary exhibition. It just opened and runs through September.

5) Pigalle. I dined at this gem of a French bistro on 8th and 48th in New York for the second time last weekend before seeing "Pippin". My steak au poivre was everything a steak au poivre should be and the profiteroles transported me back to Paris where I'd just been a few weeks before. The atmosphere is buzzy but not overly loud. The service is prompt, polite, and unassuming. The dining room itself is bright and convincingly Gallic. All of this added up to a perfectly enjoyable pre-theatre meal without the pretension that I feel accompanies all too many of the so-called "great" restaurants today. I look forward to my next visit.

Ciao!

Video Review: "Barfi!"

Hi everyone!

I haven't compiled the list of my top ten films of 2012 yet--it's coming soon--but when I do, I can almost guarantee that Anurag Basu's film "Barfi" will be somewhere on the list.

"Barfi" was one of the highest grossing and most critically praised Hindi language films of 2012. Anchored by a star-powered cast led by Ranbir Kapoor (as Barfi) and Priyanka Chopra (as Jhilmil), "Barfi" tells the story of Barfi, a deaf-mute young man from a small village in Darjeeling who falls in love with a beautiful able-bodied woman, Shruti, nicely played by newcomer Ileana D'Cruz, who is--inevitably--engaged to another man. Although Shruti falls in love with Barfi, she knows that a relationship between them will never work. After she returns to Calcutta for her wedding, Barfi reunites with Jhilmil, a young woman with severe autism whom he had known in childhood. And while he still pines for Shruti, Barfi finds himself falling for Jhilmil almost against his will, and thus begins a wholly unconventional love story the likes of which I can't remember ever having seen before.

The strength of this film lies in in the performances of its three lead actors. I've been a fan of Mr. Kapoor's since "Wake Up Sid!" and his portrayal of the deaf-mute Barfi is a wonderful cross of Chaplin-esque physical dexterity and understated emotional sensitivity. Everything Mr. Kapoor conveys about his character is done through facial expression and body language (he has no dialogue) and the result is extraordinary. Equally impressive--in perhaps a showier role--is Ms. Chopra's Jhilmil. Playing a young woman with a particularly debilitating form of autism, Ms. Chopra eschews the glamour she is known for and throws herself into this heartbreaking role. She is almost unrecognizable. Hers is a brave performance (the kind that wins awards--as she has) that occasionally flirts with being perhaps a little too mannered, but I commend her for the audacity of her choices and the depth she brings to the role. If Hollywood took Bollywood more seriously, Ms. Chopra would be one of the 5 best actress nominees at this year's Academy Awards.  Finally, Ms Cruz is appropriately charming as Shruti, a pivotal role in the story, but a less flashy character.

The film is not, however, without its faults. The story itself is muddled. I don't know if this has to do with occasionally poor writing or just poor editing, but the decision not to tell the story in linear fashion is a mistake. Barfi and Jhilmil's "road trip" that comprises the lengthy middle section of the film is gorgeous to look at and wonderfully acted, but I was confused by why it was happening in the first place. Early in the film, Barfi's father suffers kidney failure and is hospitalized. Barfi needs to come up with 7,000 rupees to pay for life-saving surgery, money that he does not have. A kidnapping of sorts ensues, the aforementioned road trip, the police get involved, and Shruti reappears in the third act to rekindle the film's central love triangle...but we never learn what happens to Barfi's father. It is as though the filmmakers weren't sure which story they wanted to tell--or what kind of movie they wanted to make--and opted (wisely) to go with the love story.

Having said that, I still highly recommend the film. It takes a while to get going--the opening chase sequence that first introduces Barfi is a bit too slapstick for my tastes, though the homage to Chaplin is nicely apparent--but once the Barfi/Jhilmil/Shruti triangle is established, the 2-1/2 hours flies by to an ending that is wholly satisfying if not perhaps a slight bit predictable.

As an introduction to Hindi cinema, though, "Barfi" succeeds on all levels. Unlike most, while there is music, there isn't a single song-and-dance number which might make this more appealing to more traditional Western cinematic tastes.

"Barfi" is available for streaming on Netflix.

Ciao.

Children of Privilege

Hi everyone!

I want to take a few minutes this morning to alert all of you to a new campaign I've launched. Some of you may know that I'm in the process of raising funds to mount a production of my new play "Children of Privilege" here in Chicago this summer. This project is a labor of love for me and I can't thank my terrific cast enough for their continued support and enthusiasm as they go on this journey with me to achieve one of my lifelong dreams.

"Children of Privilege" is a two-act drama that tells the story of the wealthy Tolliver family. After a five year estrangement, the two surviving adult children of Constance and Henry Tolliver return with their respective significant others to the family home in the Hamptons to pose for a family photograph that will be featured alongside an article about the family in the local society rag. The children, Max and Jennifer, are both in their early-to-mid-thirties and are haunted by a tragedy that killed their other sibling, Declan--Max's identical twin--and Phoebe, Declan's pregnant fiancee, five years' previous. Max is a struggling writer with anger management issues and Jennifer is a self-proclaimed "Life-Caster" who uses social media to give herself a sense of personal validation. Both are desperate to cling onto something that gives them relevance in a world that is rapidly crumbling around them.

Their parents, Constance and Henry, have problems of their own. Constance is haunted by the notion that the illegitimate son of her husband--born from an affair--will one day invade the family compound and lay claim to the family's considerable fortune. She is desperate to preserve the family's public image and will do just about anything to ensure her family's continued social prominence, at the expense of her children (and what little remains of her marriage) if need be.

The creative process has truly been organic. My cast originally came together last August and through a series of private readings and at least three revisions, we are now in a position to take the next step: hiring a director to stage a workshop of the play for an audience this spring. This is Phase One of a two phase initiative. Phase Two will hopefully result in a full production at a small theatre here in Chicago this summer.

To learn more about this project and to donate if you so desire, please check out its page on Pub Slush, the popular crowd-sourcing site for writers and other creative types. I've pasted the link below. The campaign launched yesterday and will run for the next 30 days. On the page, you will also find an excerpt from the play as well as an introductory video message from me and additional information about the play itself, my artistic influences, and my overall goal.

I appreciate your support and I'll keep you all updated as things progress.

http://pubslush.com/books/id/163

Ciao.

TV Review: My "Spiral" Addiction

Hi everyone!

I must confess to a new addiction. If you haven't heard of or checked out the French police procedural drama series "Spiral" on Netflix streaming, you're missing out on something quite wonderful. As so much European television does these days, "Spiral" (or "Engrenages" as its called in France) provides yet another reason to bemoan the state of most American television.

I just finished Season One. Seasons Two and Three are currently available on Netflix and the most recent Season Four is set to debut in the next few months. When it debuted in France in 2004, it was hailed as a milestone in French television and is the country's most successful television show, having been exported to 70 countries. I read online recently that a U.S. version is in the works. Unless it is being planned for HBO, FX, or Showtime, I don't imagine it'll have the same grit or bite of the original. Remember the U.S. remake of "Prime Suspect" from a season or two back?

What makes "Spiral" so addictive are the various interconnecting plots and characters that weave and spiral and spin at a measured yet at the same time breathless pace. The main story deals with the disappearance and deaths of two young Romanian women who become entangled in an international sex crime syndicate that reaches the top of the French government. Pierre Clement (effortlessly played by the impossibly good-looking Gregory Fitoussi) is the prosecuting attorney investigating the case. He is assisted by police chief Laure Berthaud (an appealing Caroline Proust) and her not incorruptible police squad, one of whom, Fitou (an amazing Thierry Godard), has a severe cocaine addiction that more than interferes with the investigation. A separate but still connected plot focuses on a driven young attorney (Audrey Fleurot) with questionable ethics who works with a disbarred lawyer who was formerly imprisoned on rape charges. Added to this already earthy mix is the investigation of a nanny who brutally murders the infant in her charge, a case surrounding the torture and penile dismemberment of a young man involved in a North African gang in Paris's infamous banlieues, and a particularly surprising twist involving drug trafficking. Somehow, over the course of Season One's eight episodes, it all comes together but not before you find yourself gasping in shock--and often horror--and screaming at your TV from the twisted audacity of it all. Once Season One ends, I guarantee, you'll be ready to immediately launch into Season Two.

Word of warning, however: "Spiral" is not for the faint of heart. There are autopsies and gore galore, the depiction (and occasionally the mere suggestion) of the crimes is visceral, and it does paint a very bleak portrait of contemporary society. This is definitely not the Paris of honeymoons and romance. Also, because France's legal system is based on the Napoleonic Code, it differs from what those of us in the U.S. and Britain are used to. I'm still not entirely sure what Pierre's U.S. equivalent would be. He seems to be both investigator and judge, but this doesn't at all detract from one's enjoyment of the show.

In my opinion, "Spiral" is one of the best crime procedural dramas ever written for television. If you're a fan of "The Wire," "Prime Suspect," "MI-5", or even "Law & Order," you'll be hooked.

Now on to Season Two...

Ciao.