Friday, January 31, 2014

material grill

i originally thought i would title this, "now is the winter of our discontent"...a rant about the obvious...the winter that won't die...blah, blah, blah...and then there were the Grammys...and Madonna...the hat, the suit, the cane...the grill...a too-touched up face leaving her looking a little too-Faye Dunaway...oy...but later on that night i got to thinking...what does a woman do when she reaches that certain age?...should she shop at "frumps are us" or raid her daughter's closet?...if she works hard at keeping fit, then what's acceptable to wear to flaunt it....and i thought more...if on the inside we are all still so young and evolving...then how do we translate that to the outside?...and i found myself feeling sorry for Madonna...always a pop cultural icon...yet for me more the queen of reinvention...i always thought of that song from "Gypsy" when she would take on a new persona..."you gotta have a gimmick"...and now the "gimmick" becomes a joke...so maybe Madonna should let go...and just sing...well...better yet...produce...get behind some new talent...show them the ropes and how not to get strangled by them...throw out the grill...and smile...let a few wrinkles and laugh lines show...be less the material girl...and, you know, how that real 80's goddess, Cyndi Lauper sang...show her true colors...at this certain age, she owes nothing less to herself, and to us...

Sunday, January 12, 2014

his, and her(s)...

a sunday in january...the golden globes...the official start of awards madness...so i think of the films i saw this year...those i missed...those i hope to see before they disappear to the small screen...what we like or hate about movies is a subject as wide as the grand canyon...and how does a couple choose what to see when their tastes are often...different...sometimes, it seems the choice is mutual...often, we joke, this one's yours...next one's mine...and so it would seem that it was my choice last week with spike jonze's latest, "her"...i will preface this by saying that i do really like spike's movies...many do not...and i was more than curious by reviews and trailers...i really liked it...the premise...the acting...the direction...you get it...i glanced at mike about twenty minutes into the film...oh, no...there was that look...it was kind of the same look he gave me during "pulp fiction" a million years ago...a movie, which i should tell you, he now watches anytime it pops up...i wondered how many movies of his choice i would have to sit through in exchange...i cringed...and found myself back at the multiplex last night..."the wolf of wall street"...let me give you a brief background on this one...i am a graduate of nyu's tisch school of the arts...before it was even tisch...although i was a television major, it was still in evidence through those old halls (again before the beautiful new digs on broadway were built) that we all were to worship at the shrine of "marty"...martin scorsese...nyu's esteemed graduate...and so i always find myself approaching his films with some indoctrinated adoration...mostly deserving...although not all the time..."wolf"...three hours later i cannot tell if i really liked it...it was certainly not like most scorcese films...or was it?...i did feel a bit nauseated when i, too, laughed with the audience...and this a long island audience...the home of stratton oakmont...would they laugh as loud if the subject was madoff?...then there was all the excess...profanity, drugs, nudity...footage...all understandable given the subject matter...but the movie was too long...and the portrayal of women...ah, there it is...as much as i have admired, and loved, some of "marty's" films...he most definitely has always had difficulty with his female characters...in this one alone why does the audience feel almost more sympathy for jordan belfort than his second wife, naomi?...i thought back to vera fermiga's character in "the departed"...lorraine bracco in "good fellas"...blah, blah...and so, as i wonder about all of this...and ready for the globes tonight...which is the greatest joke in hollywood...how does the foreign press explain "her" in the comedy category...anyway, when i watch, and ponder "wolf" i will need to really wonder...if i sort of liked it...who chooses the next flick???...such the dilemma as we dive deep into january...keep warm... 

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

old lang's sign...

and so it is a cold, sunny New Year's morning...the quiet before a snowstorm...or not...depends on whether your weatherperson sees forecasts as "half empty" or "half full"...but anyway... it is always a time of year of some sort of reflection...and I got to thinking about that old New Year's tune, auld lang syne...for those of my generation, this song was always the background when the big ball dropped in Times Square and Dick Clark told us it was a New Year...or for others, it was those last few minutes in "The Poseidon Adventure" when Ernest Borgnine, Shelly Winters and Gene Hackman clasped hands smiling before the boat flipped and they climbed and yelled for two hours...this year I decided to research the lyrics...the words that no one knows and everyone mumbles through the alcohol haze at midnight...and I smiled...so simple, so beautiful...and it became clear...the texts, emails, phone calls, holiday cards...reaching out to old friends, and new ones...family near and far...hoping to close the distance, literal and figurative, in the New Year...hopeful before the reality of life swallows us whole again...like that tidal wave in "Poseidon"...and so I leave you some of the lovely words of Robert Burns...as I reach out to wish you all the best in 2014..."And there’s a hand my trusty friend ! And give me a hand o’ thine !
And we’ll take a right good-will draught, for auld lang syne."