I’ve Got Nothing to Wear (2007)

So, I just caught the first two episodes of “I’ve Got Nothing to Wear,” a perfectly awful reality TV show that debuted tonight on TLC.

The concept for the show is great. Three fashion students take a few less than attractive items from a woman’s wardrobe and each make two brand new outfits for her. A fashion professor from the Fashion Institute of Technology mentors the students. And in the meanwhile, a fashion stylist helps the woman shop for a few basic wardrobe pieces, and creates a handbook showing her how to mix and match specific pieces in her wardrobe to form a plethora of different outfits.

Sounds great right? Maybe theoretically, but as any high school student can tell you, communism sounds good theoretically.

The production value on the show was so low, I felt like I was watching something made in the AV studio of a high school, or for a public access cable station. The show is riding on the popularity of other fashion and makeover shows, like Bravo’s “Project Runway” and TLC’s “What Not to Wear.” I love Project Runway and What Not to Wear. I did not love “I’ve Got Nothing to Wear.” And yet I watched it, mostly to delight in how perfectly terrible it was, and because it inspired me to write this ranting review.

The show is a half-hour long, and a lot of things happen in that half-hour. We see a lot of the fashion stylist, Jorge Ramon, sorting through the woman’s closet and taking her shopping. We see a lot of the woman inspecting her new creations. What is missing is really the process of how the three student designers take the old pieces and create new outfits. Maybe I’ve been spoiled by Project Runway, where we see the designer’s process of creating an outfit, from sketching to draping material on a dress form, to sewing it, to making last-minute alterations on the model.

The three student designers were different in each episode. They were all 20-something fashion students who mostly were attending the Fashion Institute of Technology, where I believe the show is filmed in a room the size of a large bathroom. All three designers are working in one very small room together, and I literally felt claustrophobic while watching it. For the most part, all the designers and the woman whose wardrobe they are recreating had pretty decent screen presences. And Jorge Ramon, the stylist, was nothing if not enthusiastic.

The guy who seemed so indescribably painfully awkward on camera was the design mentor, George Simonton. Imagine your high school math teacher, the one who wore the big glasses and had the pocket protector and sounded a whole lot like Ben Stein’s character from “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.” Now combine that image with the one of a dorky uncle of yours, one who tries to make jokes but nobody laughs. That’s who is hosting the show. Except instead of wearing a pocket protector, he wears a lot of bracelets, and throws around the word “fabulous” like it’s going out of style. Needless to say, he’s no Tim Gunn, or Stacy London and Clinton Kelly.

Sadly enough, if the show doesn’t get cancelled, I will probably keep watching it. It’s kind of like rubbernecking at the scene of a car crash. You know you shouldn’t look, but it’s so hard not to.

Paris, Je T’aime (2006)

Seeing this movie was an exercise in mental and emotional stamina and ultimately ended in exhaustion of both.

Paris, Je T’aime is a film about love in Paris, to put it as simply as possible. The movie is broken down into 18 short films, each about 10 minutes long, each about different people and events, and none seemingly having any connection to the other. So there really is no plot. And I found that I had to work too hard while watching the movie to process what I had just seen and start fresh with a new set of characters and circumstances every few minutes.

It wasn’t that the movie was confusing. Each section of the movie takes place in a different area, or arrondissement, of Paris. Each section has a title shot with the name of the director before it begins. So it’s very clear that it’s a new story each time.

But it’s like reading a book of short stories. Things happen so quickly in the story, that by the time you think you understand what is going on, who the characters are and what motivates them or they trying to accomplish, the story is over, and a new story begins. You don’t really get a chance to get attached to the characters, to relate to them, to empathize with them, or to really understand all the subtleties of the story or figure out the symbolism.

And it was very emotionally exhausting, because each story is about love (a couple of them didn’t make any sense to me and I don’t see how they were about love at all, but anyway), so the characters are going through many different feelings. And because the segments are so short, you don’t have time to really process and recover from the first set of feelings, before moving onto the next, and the next, and the next.

Some of the themes on love were the death of a spouse, the death of a child, strangers connecting, divorce, putting work before family, satisfying your partner, young love, etc.

There was a huge cast, because each of the 18 arrondissements had a different set of actors. Some notables were Elijah Wood, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Nick Nolte, Bob Hoskins, Natalie Portman, Steve Buscemi and Juliette Binoche, and notable directors Alfonso Cuaron, Gus Van Sant, Joel and Ethan Coen, Wes Craven and Gerard Depardieu.

What was consistent throughout was the look of the film. The colors of the film were the same, and many of the camera angles were similar. It really did feel like you were watching one movie.

My favorite section was directed by Alfonso Cuaron (of Harry Potter fame) and starred Nick Nolte. It had a twist ending that was quite unexpected and delightful.

Once (2006)

I loved, loved, loved this movie. The story was totally unrealistic and yet somehow completely realistic at the same time. Once, which won the World Cinema Audience Award for a dramatic film at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival, is sort of a musical. It chronicles the lives of two poor musicians, who within the course of a week meet, collaborate on an album together and fall in love.

Once stars The Frames’ Glen Hansard and Czech musician Marketa Irglova. I am a huge fan of Lay Me Down, a single by The Frames. All the music from the movie was composed and performed by Hansard and Irglova, and it’s beautiful modern rock music. It’s the kind of music that you feel like you could fall into and swim around in. There are pretty acoustic guitars and lovely piano melodies. The lyrics are honest and chronicle the pain of unhealthy relationships, being hurt, losing love and wanting love. Some of the songs do sound a bit like the Coldplay style of ballad, but it’s so much more passionate and evocative. (You can listen to the whole soundtrack free at www.foxsearchlight.com/once/) And Hansard performs some amazing vocal feats of octave jumps that sound almost operatic. The songs are brimming with emotions. I just can’t say enough good things about the music.

It was really interesting to see a movie where the main actors are not really actors at all, but musicians. The film was made on a teensy, tiny budget of $150,000, and the street scenes in Dublin were shot without permits and with a long camera lens. The film wasn’t overacted, and certainly not over-produced. At times it felt like you were watching someone’s home movies, and it was very refreshing compared to the summer blockbusters. I felt like I was watching something that was really happening; a real week in real people’s lives.

So what I found unrealistic about the film is mostly the way the characters meet. Hansard’s character works for his father fixing vacuum cleaners, and also plays his guitar on the street at a busy Dublin shopping area. Irglova’s character, who is a cleaning lady who also sells flowers on the street to support her young daugher, just approaches him one evening while he is playing and she starts asking him questions about his music and himself. This seems very dangerous to me as a girl who grew up in New York city. You don’t walk up to the street musicians, you don’t make eye contact with them, and you certainly don’t start talking to them. But maybe that’s why I don’t have a cute Irish boyfriend. Maybe not.

What I found very realistic about the movie is that the characters do not get together in a romantic way. They don’t even kiss. They both have just come out of painful relationships, and in the end, even though the characters really and truly connect and obviously love each other, they each go back to their past relationships. Hansard’s character goes to London to get back together with his ex-girlfriend who cheated on him. And Irglova’s character moves back in with her estranged husband. To me, this is reality. There are no fairy tales. People stay in unhealthy relationships, and for so many reasons. They think they can’t do any better, or they stay together for “the sake of the children,” or because it’s familiar, or because they simply don’t want to be alone.

The Yiddish Policemen’s Union (2007) by Michael Chabon

I love to read, but I am not big on detective stories or mysteries. I scare way too easily. But when I heard that Michael Chabon was going to release a new novel, I knew I had to read it. I loved “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay,” and was thrilled that his new novel would also be about Judaism, because I felt like I learned a lot about Judaism from Kavalier and Clay.

“The Yiddish Policemen’s Union” is a typical detective story, and while I was reading it, I felt like The Maltese Falcon music should have been playing in the background. And I am happy to report that it wasn’t scary at all. There were no surprise twists and turns, and I didn’t have nightmares from it. But it was still a very interesting read, and had great meter and pacing.

The story takes place in the real town of Sitka, Alaska, but it is the fictionalized location of the Jewish quasi-state after World War II. In the book, the Jewish homeland of Israel never got off the ground, and instead Jews were allowed to move to this particular region of Alaska, where they would be allowed to live for 60 years and then send back into the diaspora. We come into the story just weeks before this deadline, and as many characters say in the book, and as it has always been in the world, “It’s a strange time to be a Jew.” Our main character, a secular, Yiddish-speaking Jewish detective is investigating a murder, and in the course of the novel, learns more about his community, his family, and himself. There isn’t a happy ending here, as there never has been for the Jewish people.

I did learn a bit more about Judaism from the novel. The book is peppered with Yiddish words and phrases, some of which were familiar, though the majority of which weren’t. Any reader, Jewish or not, will be able to figure out the usage of the words though from their context. It’s funny the way that the Yiddish words are used in detective speak, such as the cops calling a gun a “sholem,” the way cops in Americans would call it a “piece,” and a phone is a “shoyfer,” the way Americans would call it a “horn.”

The story also deals with a concept in Judaism that was unfamiliar to me, that of a “messiah of the day,” that in each generation, a possible messiah is born. It was really neat to learn more about that, just as I learned about the Golem in Kavalier and Clay.

Dreamgirls (2006)

Based loosely on the careers of 1960s and 70s Motown divas Diana Ross and the Supremes, Dreamgirls was entertaining at best, though mostly just long and predictable.

It’s a big-budget musical, so the costumes are really neat, as is the lighting. The movie is more than two hours long, with the first half chronicling the Dreamette’s rise to stardom, and the very, very long second half of the film showing the emotional breakdown of the characters and their lives. It’s a quintessential musical, and while I love musicals, if they’re not done right they can all seem the same. In the first half of the film, the singing is only done while the performers are actually performing to an audience on a stage, or if they’re in a recording studio. I loved that; it seemed organic, even though the songs themselves sounded nothing like what Motown really sounds like. The second half of the movie is when the singing as dialogue begins, and it was unoriginal.

The film had been in the works for more than 20 years, ever since the Broadway musical debuted in 1981. After the success of the movie Chicago, Dreamgirls was finally made, and with an all-star cast of Eddie Murphy, Beyonce Knowles, Jamie Foxx and Danny Glover. Jaleel White, better known as Steve Urkel from the TV show Family Matters, even had a small role in the film.

The one part of the movie that I loved was Jennifer Hudson’s portrayal of Effie White, the overweight girl with the big personality and amazing, soulful voice who is ultimately cut from the group because she doesn’t fit the right image (light-skinned, thin girls with pop-star voices to attract white audiences). Her rendition of “And I’m Telling You I’m Not Going” was heart wrenching and quite frankly, the only thing that made this film worth watching. I wish I could sing with that much passion and soul. I am very glad she won the Oscar for her performance.

The Italian (2005)

Though the title might suggest otherwise, The Italian is a Russian film, and is filled with all of the characteristic bleakness of Mother Russia. I was enthusiastic about seeing this film after reading a synopsis of it, but was disappointed.

The Italian is set in an orphanage in Russia, where the children are packed in like sardines and bullies rule. We meet 6-year-old Vanya, who is about to be adopted by a couple from Italy. During the two-month waiting period until Vanya is legally adopted, he becomes obsessed with finding his birth mother. Vanya is compelled to do this by the fact that a birth mother arrived at the orphanage to take the son she abandoned several years ago home. She is cruelly turned away after learning that her son was adopted by another couple, and she then commits suicide. Vanya cannot bear the thought of his own birth mother facing the same fate, and decides to find her at any cost.

Though the movie was only 90 minutes long, it felt much, much longer. I attribute this to the horribly depressing state of things at the orphanage, and in Russia in general. I have only seen one other Russian film, “The Irony of Fate, or Enjoy Your Bath,” which is Russia’s “It’s a Wonderful Life,” and even that movie, which was about the holiday season, was exhaustingly depressing. I am so glad that my ancestors left Russia, and I didn’t have to grow up there. It seems like a miserable place where there is no point of living.

But, I digress. What was remarkable and thought provoking about the film was that even in this bleak world, even though Vanya was abandoned as a baby and has suffered abuse at the orphanage, he has an amazing capacity for love. He so desperately loves the mother who abandoned him, who he never even met, that he must find her at all costs.

There are many characters that all seem like they could be real people, motivated by greed or lust or power, or who are just beyond hope.

Though I usually don’t have any trouble with subtitles, I did find these intrusive and at times difficult to follow. There are sometimes several different conversations going on at the same time, some that are just in the background, and they are all subtitled in together, which made it confusing.

I also really disliked the way the resolution of the film was presented. It happened in the last 10 seconds of the movie, and was only described in a voiceover with subtitles. Had the two loud, annoying ladies in my theater not figured it out loudly during the ending credits, I don’t think I would have caught what happened.

Shrek the Third (2007)

I saw this movie to relax my mind at the end of a hard, long day. And it did just the trick. It was nice to see a movie with a familiar feel, setting and characters, that didn’t require any real thought on the part of the audience. It was pure mind-numbingness.

Shrek the Third (or Donkey’s Revenge, as I like to think of it) followed the usual Shrek plot outline. As always, Shrek has to overcome his problems relating to people in order for everyone to have a happy, fairy tale ending. And everyone does! In this installation, Shrek and Fiona are filling in as king and queen of Far, Far Away. Shrek journeys with Donkey and Puss in Boots to find Arthur, a teenager who, except for Shrek and Fiona, is the only rightful heir of the kingdom. Shrek has already decided that he doesn’t want to be king, and just wants to go back to his swamp, so he goes on this quest to find Arthur. Meanwhile, Fiona finds out that she is pregnant, and Prince Charming gathers all the villains from a myriad of fairy tales to attack the kingdom, so that he can become king of Far, Far Away. Fiona gathers the usually dainty fairy tale damsels in distress (Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White) to defend the kingdom in that crazy, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon style of hers. Needless to say, everything works out in the end.

It’s always delightful to me when I watch a cartoon, be it a pen and paper cartoon, or a computer animated film, and I forget that it’s a cartoon. Shrek 3 definitely accomplished this. There was a fantastic and really impressive bit of CGI when Prince Charming tosses his hair, and you can see all the little hairs blowing in the wind. It was neat.

The Year of the Dog (2007)

Starring former Saturday Night Live cast member Molly Shannon, The Year of the Dog was a sad and poignant movie. Shannon plays an old maid, a 40-something woman who has given up on dating and getting married. She is a seemingly independent woman; she owns a home and a car, and works as a secretary at a company near her home in California. And when she’s not at work, Shannon’s character, Peggy, spends all of her time with her totally adorable Beagle, Pencil. We barely have time to get attached to Pencil, as he dies about five minutes into the movie.

The rest of the film is about how she copes with her loss, and it is a major downward spiral into emotional instability. Firstly, most of the people in Peggy’s life seem to have toxic personalities and are very unsupportive. She has friends at work, and a relationship with her brother and his wife and children. Her “friends” at work seem self-centered, and instead of relating to Peggy about her loss, or at least giving her time to grieve, they try to distract her by encouraging her to go out and find a man, go see a funny movie, and basically forget all about her poor little dog who died only that morning.

Trying to move on, Peggy goes on a horrific date with her neighbor, played superbly by John C. Reilly. The man’s house is decorated with deer and moose heads mounted on the wall, and as a child he even shot his own dog accidentally during a hunting trip. Peggy then adopts a new dog, a huge German Shepard who was abused and has behavioral problems. She starts falling in love and becoming heavily influenced by the dog’s trainer, who is vegan, and gay (though she heartbreakingly doesn’t find out about the latter until later in the film). Peggy decides to become a vegan, starts volunteering for the ASPCA and learning about non-profit organizations that rescue farm animals from being slaughtered. This is where Peggy starts going crazy. After being romantically rejected by her dog trainer, she realizes that she has always been disappointed by people, and relates to animals much better than people. And it’s sad. Don’t get me wrong; I love animals, especially dogs. I have never had a dog, but I love it when you pass them on the street, and they smile at you, or you can tell that they’re feeling sad. They have feelings just like people, and give so much love.

So Peggy starts stealing money from the company she works for to donate to organizations like PETA. She has a harder and harder time relating to people, her new dog mauls another dog and is euthanized, she is fired from her job for stealing, and she adopts 15 dogs from the pound to rescue them from being killed. Her house becomes a disaster area, and there is Peggy, lost in the chaos, but loving the company and love her house full of rambunctious dogs gives her.

In the end, after attempting to murder her neighbor, who she believes killed Pencil by leaving slug poisoning out, Peggy joins a group that protests animal cruelty, and we see her on a bus, headed towards her future.

Though her character was an extreme example, I think many of us fear becoming “the crazy cat lady,” or being old and alone, and not being able to relate to people.

There was a lovely overdubbed monologue at the end of the film, where Peggy talks about love. How some people love other people, some people love power, or money, or material things. But how she loves animals, and knows it’s her calling to save as many as she can. I didn’t cry at the end of the movie. But I did cry in the car on the way home, thinking about love, and wondering, at the end of a relationship, or when someone you love dies, where does the love go? It’s still inside of you, aching to come out, to be expressed, even if the person, or dog you love is gone. So maybe all of us become a little bit like Peggy. We try to find some other way to express that love, to put it back into the world, where it can do some good.

Springtime for Spitzer, or Thunderballs 2007: The 107th New York Legislative Correspondents Association show

It was so much fun to see the Legislative Correspondents Association show this weekend in Albany, which was a James Bond-themed satire of state politics and national events. It is amazing to me all the work the performers put into the show. They’re not being paid. They’re just doing it for fun. And the good time they’re having really comes across to the audience.

The show centered around the premise of New York Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver plotting to laser remove what’s left of Governor Eliot Spitzer’s hair, in hopes that it will force Spitzer to do their bidding.

The show was performed twice. The Friday night performance was a lot of fun. There were many young people in the audience. I believe many of them were legislative aides, or friends and family members of the performers. People felt free to laugh at jokes about the governor and the myriad of political figures who were mocked.

Saturday night was a black-tie dinner event. Spitzer and Bruno were in attendance, along with several state senators and assembly members. And frankly, it was a lot harder to laugh about Spitzer’s know-it-all attitude when he was sitting, literally, two feet behind me. I kept turning around to take sneak peeks at him, and he seemed to be laughing and taking it all in stride. And after Phil Bayly’s impressive performance of “Thunderballs,” a song about Spitzer’s, well, you can figure it out, I heard the governor comment that at least the song was complimentary.

There were three rebuttals after the Saturday night performance, all delightful in their own way. Sen. Malcolm Smith and several other politicos performed “ZOPA Cabana.” From the best I can gather, ZOPA stands for zone of potential agreement. It’s a political term describing when legislators step over party lines in order to get funding for a particular issue. And Spitzer showed a very charming little film, which can be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJ8W19E4O54. But the guy who really brought down the house was Chris Callaghan, who performed a medley of satirical songs about him losing the comptroller election, a portion of which can be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ry0NuyoFl2c.

The show could not have come together without all the hard work of the members and alumni of the LCA, especially show chair Melissa Mansfield, who made a great Paula Abdul and dairy princess Kirsten Gillibrand.

I wanted to share the lyrics with you for one of my favorite songs in the show, “Kiss Eliot’s Behind,” which is sung to the tune of “This Little Light of Mine.”

"Come on folks it time, to kiss Eliot’s behind. You may think he’s slime, but kiss Eliot’s behind. Let’s all get in line, and kiss Eliot’s behind. Get behind, get behind, Spitzer’s behind. You can vote for Bush, but kiss Eliot’s fat tush. Your bills may need a push, so kiss Eliot’s fat tush. Don’t forget to gush, then kiss Eliot’s fat tush. Get behind, get behind, Spitzer’s behind. Come on folks it’s time, to kiss Eliot’s behind. You may think he’s slime, but kiss Eliot’s behind. Let’s all get in line, and kiss Eliot’s behind. Get behind, get behind, Spitzer’s behind.”

Spiderman 3 (2007)

Well, it’s Spiderman! It has to be exciting!

The third installment of the Spiderman series opened in theaters today. I woke up this morning and said to myself, “I’m going to see Spiderman!” And I did. The movie was showing at least every half an hour starting at 3 a.m. at the theater near me (in addition to the midnight showing last night). The theater was pretty empty when I saw the movie. After all, it was 10:45 a.m. on a Friday, and most people are at work or at school. So I saw the movie with a bunch of unemployed people (myself included in that group), toddlers, and a baby who screamed through most of the movie. It was quite an experience.

I thought the way the director, Sam Raimi, opened the film was great. As the opening credits ran, we saw scenes from Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2. It was a great way to remind the audience of the plots of the previous films.

Geeky Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) gets a bit of a big head in this film. New Yorkers love Spider-Man, and Peter is enjoying all the glory. Unfortunately, it gets in the way of him connecting emotionally and relating to his girlfriend, MJ (Kirsten Dunst). And we’ve all been there. Well, we haven’t all been Spider-Man. But at some point or another, we’ve all been a little too absorbed in our own lives, and wound up hurting the people we love because of it.

And there are three bad guys in the movie! Venom, played by That 70’s Show’s Eric Forman (also known at Topher Grace) was very cool and scary. The Sand Man was played by Thomas Haden Church, who I remember as the dopey custodian on Wings. Plus Peter’s friend Harry Osborn becomes the New Goblin, played by James Franco.

Frankly, the plot is not that interesting. There are a lot of bad guys. They die; they come back, they die again, they come back again. The middle of the movie was even a little dull. And Peter Parker’s physical changes when the black suit symbiotic alien thing takes him over really amount to him having black hair and wearing black eyeliner.

What is really interesting is that despite the fact that it’s a movie based on a comic book, most of the emotions people go through in the film are very easy to relate to: Love, jealousy, anger, grief, competitiveness, vengefulness, loss, pride and shame. The characters deal with real psychological issues.

One scene reminded me of a friend’s description of the book “What is the What: The Autobiography of Valentine Achak Deng” by Dave Eggers. The Sand Man explains himself to Spider-Man. He explains why he needed to steal money. He explains how he accidentally shot Peter’s uncle. And Spider-Man is able to forgive him. “What is the What” discusses the idea that if we were all able to explain ourselves to each other, our personal histories, where we come from, what we have suffered through and what we have overcome, then we as a society would be able to relate to each other in much healthier ways. That we would be able to understand and relate to each other, instead of making assumptions and snap judgments about each other.

And in the end, Spider-Man talks about how we all have a choice. In the comic book world of Spider-Man, it’s all very black and white. There is good, and there is evil. In reality, there are many, many shades of gray. But that choice is still there. We have to make decisions that uphold our personal morals. We have to choose to be better people. Sometimes the need to make a decision is thrust upon us, but we are the ones who must choose which path to follow.

*******
As an added bonus, the new trailer for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was shown. It looks so good! I can’t wait for July 13!

Avenue Montaigne (2006)

A surprisingly delightful movie, Avenue Montaigne, also known as Fauteuils d'orchestre, is a character-driven study of aging, love, pain, loss, and life changes.

Set in Paris, the film follows the lives of a waitress, an art collector and his son, a concert pianist and his wife, and an actress for three days. And they are a very busy three days.

Our main character, if you can call her that, is Jessica, a 20-something girl from the suburbs who comes to Paris to find a job. She arrives in Paris without a place to live or knowing if she’ll find work at all. She winds up getting a job as a waitress and gets to start working the day of her interview. This was the only part of the film that I found totally unrealistic. Who moves to a strange city without knowing where they will live or how they will support themselves? Anyway, I digress. Always in the right place at the right time, Jessica quickly meets the neighborhood celebrities: An elderly art collector who is auctioning off his collection, and his son, who is still grieving the loss of his mother and upset with his father for selling the art the couple collected together over a lifetime; a 40-something concert pianist who loves to play the piano, but wants to give up playing professionally because he’s tired of wearing tuxedos and traveling from city to city and concert hall to concert hall to play for people who know too much about music, and his wife, who made her life out of scheduling his concerts and being by his side at every glamorous event; and a 40-something soap opera actress, who, though she is well paid for her television work, longs to perform more serious and creative roles. The climax of the film is the night of the art collector’s auction, pianist’s final performance, and actress’s opening night.

But the plot isn’t what is special about this film. What’s special is the amazing range of feelings the characters go through along the way. And they’re honest feelings. In one scene we see Jessica sitting on the roof of the concert hall in the rain, alone in a strange city, with no friends and no where to go, and you can feel her loneliness, her fear, and most importantly, her courage to face this incredibly frightening situation head-on. Many of the characters faced issues of growing older, and having their wants and needs and place in life changing. The art collector misses his wife, but refuses to stop living even though his wife has died. And we see crisises in relationships. Can the pianist’s wife be happy by her husband’s side in a house by a lake? Is love enough? The issues and feelings raised in the film are ones we have all felt and have dealt with or will deal with in our lives.

And I loved how for the most part, the characters, even the totally crazy actress, were very self-aware. No holding in feelings, no pretending to be someone that they’re not, but real, flawed people who were growing and learning and trying to be better people.

Something that I thought was really interesting was that all the music in the film is music that is being heard by the people in the movie. It’s the music the pianist is playing, or the pop music the retiring theater superintendant is listening to on her headphones. The soundtrack isn’t artificial, it’s part of the scene, part of the characters’ lives.

It was so nice to see beautiful, breathtaking long shots of Paris. The Eiffel Tower is nearly always in view, and the city lit-up at night is lovely.

I know many people don’t like to see movies with subtitles, but I found that they were not distracting at all. The dialogue is very comfortably paced, and I didn’t find that I missed any of the facial expressions or gorgeous scenery by reading the subtitles.

The Queen (2006)

I finally caught this film on DVD after trying unsuccessfully to see it in the movie theater. And frankly, I wish I had seen it in the theater. What I was really taken away by in this movie wasn't Helen Mirren's Academy Award-winning performance, but by the beautiful cinematography and grand scenic shots of Scotland. It took my breath away to see the rolling green hills and wide skies.

The film is mostly about the way the royal family publicly handled the death of Princess Diana. I had just turned 16 when Diana died, and don't remember most of the media hullabaloo. However, as a former journalist, I now understand how handling a crisis publicly can make or break you. Making the right speeches and sending out the right public relations statements at the right times and in the right places can cast a public official in a very nice light. And as this film delves into, while newly elected Prime Minister Tony Blair was very forthcoming with his grief for the death of the “People's Princess,” the royal family was very far away physically and emotionally from the center of where the public came to mourn: Buckingham Palace in London.

I had trouble relating to the emotions displayed in the film. Mirren portrayed Queen Elizabeth as having a uniquely British emotional disposition. She kept her feelings to herself and held everything inside. She does her duty as Queen and she is strict about following the rules of the monarchy. The only time the Queen cries in the film is when she is alone, stranded in the middle of the hillside when her car breaks down.

Watching the movie was like watching a caricaturization of the real public people involved in the tragedy. Tony Blair as the hero, coming to bring the Queen into the modern ages of public relations. His wife as the wicked and mean anti-monarchist. The Queen's husband and the Queen's mother staunchly asserting the need to follow the rules of the monarchy. Prince Charles as a wimp, trying to buddy up to Tony Blair, so that he won't come off in a bad light. And the Queen, trying to maintain her dignity, yet unable to meet the changing desires of her subjects.

As historical fiction, the film did a good job of setting the scene and showing what these characters might have gone through at the time. It was an interesting way to revisit a historical event nearly a decade later.

The Everybody Fields and The Kamikaze Hearts at the Parting Glass, April 27, 2007

A great show. I had never heard either of these bands before attending their performance at the Parting Glass last Friday night in Saratoga Springs, NY.

The Everybody Fields are a trio from Johnson City, Tennessee. They are an alternative country, bluegrassy, rootsy folk band driven by harmonizing instrumentals and two strong, soulful vocalists. Their sound reminds me of Neko Case’s solo album “Fox Confessor Brings the Flood.” Imagine sitting on your couch on a rainy Saturday afternoon, looking outside your window, and feeling a little bit melancholy, and a little bit hopeful. Those are the feelings The Everybody Fields’ music evokes. The band is made up of Jill Andrews and Sam Quinn on vocals, guitar and bass, and Josh Oliver on keyboards and guitar. Andrews and Quinn’s vocals were both full of emotion and passion, and while their voices are very different technically, (Andrews voice is strong and clear, and you just know she can really belt out a song, while Quinn’s voice is more classically country sounding) they harmonized really well and in interesting ways.

Their nine-song set took the audience on a great emotional journey, starting out with a very upbeat song, then into sadder territory, and lightening up again at the end. The lyrics were poetic and honest. And while Andrews and Quinn were dressed in a very hipster fashion, I was initially a bit thrown off by Oliver, who looked like he could have rolled out of bed right before the show, and didn’t seem to mesh with the group’s image. But I was incredibly impressed by his performance. If I were a song, I would want to sound like his electric guitar solos. They were evocative, seemed technically challenging, and sounded just like my heart felt. And what more can you ask from music but than to help you understand and express your own feelings? I haven’t heard either of their albums, “halfway there: electricity and the South” (2004) or “plague of dreams,” (2005) but I’m looking forward to listening to them, as well as to “nothing is okay,” which is due out on Aug. 21.

The Kamikaze Hearts were the main act for the evening. Based out of Albany, NY, this group of five guys mostly all sported the typical dirty hippie look of long hair and full beards. A combination of an Indie rock and folk sound, the Hearts are driven by a strong drum and bass section, which is complemented well by a couple of acoustic guitars, keyboards, a lap steel guitar, a mandolin and a banjo. The music was really high energy and some of it was very radio-friendly sounding. The band, made up of Bob Buckley, Nate Giordano, Matthew Loiacono, Troy Pohl and Gaven Richard, were joined last Friday by Frank Moscowitz on the keyboards. The band sounded good together vocally and had a very strong sound. And after eight years of playing together, you could tell they were very comfortable with each other. It was like we were watching them practice in their garage. They had great banter between each other and the audience, and even started songs over a couple of times, to the amusement of the audience.

What I found very interesting musically was hearing a rocking solo played on a mandolin, which looks like a teeny, tiny guitar and is about the size of a yukelale. I was also impressed by the drummer’s ability to sing lead vocals for several of the songs while keeping a really strong and solid rhythm. And the lead guitarist’s voice sounded very familiar to me, though I couldn’t place from where. The banjo added a lovely dimension to the music. The only problem I had was that by 11:30 p.m. I was getting sleepy and the band was less than an hour into their set. They played for more than an hour after that, and I found that I couldn’t keep up with the high energy level of the music.

My group ate dinner at the Parting Glass before the show started. It was cafeteria-style seating in the room with the stage, and we were able to keep our table for the whole show. For $9 I had a big cheeseburger with Swiss cheese, mushrooms and a side of steak fries. Served on a poppy seed Kaiser roll, it was cooked well and had just the right amount of greasiness. Many people ordered the fish and chips, ($8.50) which looked delicious. It was a large piece of white fish, breaded and baked, and served in a basket on top of a large serving of steak fries. It looked healthier and tastier than the greasy fish and chips I remember eating in London. The Parting Glass is an Irish pub, is decorated with old Guiness posters, and has a very good, comfortable feeling. Our waiter was friendly and attentive.

Welcome to my blog

Hello World! Welcome to my blog. I have never had a blog before, and I'm very excited about it. I will be reviewing music, movies, books, restaurants, and anything else I find interesting. I hope you enjoy!