Solo links

Bill Cosby's downfall is complete at last. I had talked to my mother about this; she's convinced the whole thing was a case of entrapment that he was dumb enough to fall for in his youth. Maybe. I'm not here to debate it one way or another, though; I want to hold a candle up for him one last time, for all the good he achieved as an entertainer and as a pioneer for black people in television. Like it or not, he's part of the official record and always will be; he was part of my childhood; and he helped bring positive change to the image of blacks on television, and the culture at large. Though we may condemn him for what he did when the cameras stopped rolling, we cannot and must not dismiss him.

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I finally decided, after almost four years within my writing group, to part company with them last month. I've found an online group months ago that I think can help me better, particularly now that I'm in the revision stage; plus, I was getting kinda tired of running things.

What I wasn't prepared for, though, was how hard it would be to say goodbye. The group roster had changed completely from when I had first joined, and many of the people in the group now signed on within the last year, but I still felt a connection with them — and they with me. I truly didn't realize how much of an impact I had made on them. They were disappointed to see me go. Some of them friended me on social media. They pretty much insisted I come back to visit, which I will.

They were a great bunch, both the current membership and the ones from the past, minus the occasional oddball or two. I've talked about Jen here before, who I still think was the best writer we had in my time in the group, and will get published for sure.

I'm glad to have been part of them. My Sundays won't be the same.

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I've been devoting more time to the novel revision, which is why I haven't been around much (that and I just needed a break), but I did see movies. I saw Isle of Dogs and liked it. I think it's Wes Anderson's most ambitious film, not just because of the stop-motion animation (which was smoother and slicker than in Fantastic Mr. Fox), but because of its political overtones. The film is set in Japan, and while most of the human characters spoke Japanese, there were no subtitles; either someone was on hand to translate or the meaning was clear through context. I thought that was quite clever on Anderson's part.

I also watched Black Panther again, this time with Sandi, and once again, she noticed something I didn't the first time around: apparently the deities invoked by characters in the film are not native to Central Africa, where Wakanda resides. She's an expert on mythology, so if she says it, I believe it, though I'm sure Ryan Coogler has some manner of justification.

The Ready Player One post is coming. Promise.

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I'll keep things up here, but it probably won't be as frequent as in the past. I saw Avengers: Infinity War and I'll write about that, of course; I've got one blogathon post coming this week and I may take part in another; not sure. Sorry for the light schedule, but the novel has to take priority.

Your links:

Raquel and Danny, among others, have coverage of this year's TCM Film Festival.

Jacqueline writes about an adaptation of a book that was never filmed — but totally should have been.

Le checks out a compilation of rare Chaplin flicks.

Ivan has the skinny on the first Shirley Temple film in which she gets kissed.

Flash Gordon himself, Sam Jones, came to Jennifer's hometown.

The long and convoluted tale of ailing comics legend Stan Lee and his battles with his daughter.

Is Quentin Tarantino writing a script for the next Star Trek movie?

Tommy Wiseau wants to be the Joker.

The radical, sci-fi-flavored philosophy of musician Sun Ra was once turned into a movie.

A bunch of Broadway stars held a secular Passover seder, performing non-traditional tunes.

What makes a movie bad?

MOMA has restored a Swedish short about life in Manhattan from over a century ago. Note how slowly the cars travel.

A Trip to the Moon

The Outer Space in Film Blogathon is an event about films set in space, hosted by Moon in Gemini. For a complete list of participating blogs, visit the link at the host site.

A Trip to the Moon

YouTube viewing

PARIS, 1969

Eugénie opened the door and saw six solemn men in grey overcoats and suits. The white-haired one closest to her spoke.

"Bonjour, Mademoiselle. May we come in?"

Mère sacrée. They came after all.

"Of course." She widened the door and they entered one by one, removing their caps. Once they were all in, she shut the door. The leader took off his monocle.

"How is he?"

"Struggling, but by the grace of God he lives still."

"Mademoiselle, I assure you if the doctor continues to cling to life, it is by the force of his stubborn nature, not any divine intervention." His scowl gave her a tremble. "May we see him?"

She felt her ears burn. You could at least say please.

"This way, messieurs."

The Death of Stalin

The Death of Stalin
seen @ IFC Center, New York NY

I'm gonna do a quick post about this one because I'm still a bit behind and I wanna catch up as soon as possible. This was Vija's suggestion, and if you've heard anything about it, you know it's gotten spectacular reviews.

Cold War-era Russia has been the subject of comedy before, but mining the demise of its most notorious ruler for laughs is a new one to me, and it's actually pretty good, no matter how little or how much you know about Stalin and his cabinet. You see the atrocities of the Stalin regime, but you also see the bumbling and the weirdness too — and one can't help but be reminded, to a certain degree, of the current administration here in America. 

Director and co-writer Armando Iannucci lets the international cast (including Steve Buscemi as Nikita Khrushchev!) keep their native accents; no one speaks with a Russian accent, which lends a somewhat surreal aspect to the story, but hey, if black people can portray the founding fathers of America, anything's possible, right?

Pacific Rim: Uprising

Pacific Rim: Uprising
seen @ Movieworld, Douglaston, Queens NY

You know how in those old Godzilla movies, he stomps all over Tokyo but it's never as serious as it looks because it's SO OBVIOUS the sets are just models? Ever wonder what that might look like if it were real? Well, watch Pacific Rim: Uprising then, preferably on the biggest screen you can afford.

At first, seeing the jaegers (the robots) and kaiju (the monsters) battling it out amidst a giant cityscape is breathtaking as well as terrifying, though they do make a point of saying the population was safe in underground shelters, so one can watch the fights guilt-free!

After awhile, though, even these scenes have an air of artificiality to them, and not just because jaegers and kaiju don't exist (as far as we know).

They're almost too real. Jaegers, when operated by their two pilots, run, throw punches, even get tossed around like humans, even though they're hundreds of feet tall. It's the old comics cliche: how can something so big move so fast? As for the kaiju, you can see every scale on its hide, every tooth in its wide, wide mouth, every drop of water as it rises out of the ocean.

There ought to be some sort of medium in which these kinds of movies can look better than dudes in rubber suits yet maintain a level of... I dunno, low-budget, B-grade cheapness, for lack of a better term? Then again, maybe I'm still wedded to the way SF movies looked like back in the 80s, when I grew up. I'm sure that puts me in the minority. Fine, I'm used to it.

Uprising, regrettably, is little different from the first PR film. It wasn't until the final twenty minutes or so that I started to get into it. Eh. I knew this wasn't Black Panther. I just wanted a mindless action movie and that's what I got.

How about that John Boyega, huh? His ascension from no-name to rising action hero has been pretty quick, but that's what two Star Wars movies will do to you. Even when he played an inner-city hoodlum in Attack the Block, he had a certain magnetism that has turned into a youthful exuberance and strength that's nice to see. I hope he expands into other work: maybe a Shane Black-style crime comedy, or a Kathryn Bigelow-type war movie. He has definite potential.

There's this young girl in my writers group named Anna who has been hyped for Uprising for weeks, talking about the actors, the director, the previous film, all sorts of details, etc. Last Sunday, we talked about the movie and wouldn't you know it, she was let down big time.

We both agreed that Boyega was great, but killing [SPOILER] was a tremendous mistake. Anna also hated [SPOILER]'s heel turn, though it didn't bother me as much because I barely remembered the character from the first film. She said she complained to director Steven DeKnight on Twitter, saying he should've gotten her to write the screenplay! I guess that's the risk that comes with high expectations.

Infinite links

Lynn discovered a website for something called New Plaza Cinema, and it looks like it's built from the ashes of what was the Lincoln Plaza Cinemas. A group is looking to start up a new indie theater on Manhattan's Upper West Side. So far, they're still in the embryonic stage, but the fact this is in the works is encouraging.

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So last month I met a multiple Emmy winner. Now I'm not sure if I should mention who it is, because of the circumstances: I met her at her home, where she and her husband host a soiree for musicians on a regular basis, but I think it's a private function. Nothing illicit went on; in fact, it was very sociable, a party, basically, but I don't know them, and I don't know how private their private lives are, so in this instance, I'm gonna play it safe. She won her Emmys for a TV show you all know and love.

Virginia invited me to this gathering. She plays an instrument called a viola da gamba (it's kinda like a cello) and she was part of a number of musicians and singers who put on a variety show, basically, playing classical music and modern compositions that sound like classical music. She also sang with a small group.

The Emmy-winning hostess has her awards on display on a shelf. I looked closely at the statuettes, but I was too afraid to touch them, since they belonged to a stranger and all. They're about a foot tall, maybe a bit more, and they're as elegant as they look. And they were the real thing.

I didn't get much of a chance to talk to the hostess about them because she was busy with other stuff, though I will say she was quite nice. Virginia has known her for awhile; they seemed really familiar with each other, as the hostess was with many of the people at the informal recital. So in my own personal Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon game, I can connect to some pretty famous people now...

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Big thanks once again to everybody who came out and/or spread the word about the Time Travel Blogathon, and to Ruth for co-hosting with me. I knew time travel films didn't begin with The Time Machine, but there were more of them from the distant past than I realized, done in a number of ways, so this was enlightening.

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A few more words about Cynthia Nixon: I think it's absolutely fair to question her qualifications for holding such a high position as governor, especially New York governor, but at the same time, she's a citizen too, and if she thinks she's got the goods, then she deserves to take a shot. I admit, I'm giving her more of the benefit of the doubt than the former TV star currently in the White House, but then she seems to actually have a brain in her head.

That said, between Nixon, the Rock, Oprah, the girl from Clueless, and who knows who else, America does seem more preoccupied than ever with celebrities either running for office or flirting with the idea at least (though we're nothing compared with countries like India). If there weren't so many precedents, I'd suspect the current president opened the floodgates somehow; I dunno.

I would feel more confident about Nixon if I knew she had experience, I admit, but I'm willing to give her a chance to prove herself worthy. She's aware of the transportation crisis in NYC (which is about more than the local subways and buses and impacts more than just the tri-state area) and says she'll make it a priority of her campaign, but it's still way too early to decide if she can win.

Links after the jump.

QWFF 2018 part 2

Part 1

MARCH 21

What would QWFF be without snow? There was a hint of the white stuff as I came home last night, but this morning it started in earnest, and it went on all damn day, to the point where tonight's screening of Vincent Gagliostro's After Louie was cancelled. I was interested in that one too...

Here's an interview with Gagliostro from last fall about After Louie.

QWFF 2018 part 1

The Queens World Film Festival is bigger and better than ever this year, and as someone who has been coming to it ever since 2012, it's breathtaking to see. Don & Katha Cato both go to extraordinary lengths to make the show as inclusive as possible without sacrificing quality, and little by little, the rest of New York City is noticing. I'm grateful to be back writing about the movies here. Expecting some good stuff, as always.

Once again, the Museum of the Moving Image and the Zukor Theater at the Kaufman Astoria Studios are the venues. This year's report will be split into two parts, one for today and the other for next week.