Author: Roger

I'm a librarian. I hear music, even when it's not being played. I used to work at a comic book store, and it still informs my life. I won once on JEOPARDY! - ditto.

Movie review: ROMA (2018, Cuaron)

ROMA: “An incidental thread that serves as an excuse for the director to capture on screen an amalgam of memories and a veritable whirlwind of sensations on the surface.”

romaFor my birthday, I got to watch ROMA, the final Best Picture nominee for the Academy Awards, and the winner in the Best Foreign Language category.

I saw it at Proctors in Schenectady. To my surprise, there is an 80-seat cinema on the third floor. Since it was a weekday, there were only about a dozen other folks present.

By the end of the film, I better understood some of the choices that took place earlier, such as the lengthy floor washing that opened the film. But not all of it.

Clearly it was autobiographical, set in 1970/1971 Mexico City. Alfonso Cuarón talks about this in the brief the Meaning of Memory, which explains that ROMA is “organic” and flows with a rhythm of its own.

You know how it is when you first watch a film and it takes a few minutes to acclimate yourself to the characters and story? For me, this movie took about 50 minutes of the 135-minute running time to get there. Payoff, yes, but not quite enough.

I found snippets of three reviewers, who gave ROMA positive reviews that speaks to my dissatisfaction.

“An incidental thread that serves as an excuse for the director to capture on screen an amalgam of memories and a veritable whirlwind of sensations on the surface.”

These things apparently happened the director, but it isn’t always clear why WE should care.

“ROMA is in a league of its own in terms of sheer cinematic ambition and prowess, but as a drama it’s not as deeply moving as some of this year’s very best.”

“Cuaron is a bit too close to the material, and most moviegoers will have to do a lot of research to truly get and appreciate the movie.” (Grace Randolph, Beyond the Trailer)

See, I don’t WANT to do research to GET the movie. I shouldn’t need to understand the context of the domestic troubles in Mexico to understand the significance of a fire or of shooting off guns. I want the movie to explain it.

I must say that I very much loved the youngest boy and his preternatural view of the world, and did care about the core family by the end. But it wasn’t my favorite of the films, and it wouldn’t have even been my foreign film pick, as I preferred Cold War.

Makes me want to dance

In my brief disco-attending era, in the late 1970s, I had the leisure suits to prove it.

disco danceOnce more from the 30-day music meme: A song that makes you want to dance.

Lots of music makes me want to make me dance. I am, no doubt, one of the finest chair dancers around. Ask any of my office mates.

Lilies of the Valley – David Byrne. In fact, I was chair-dancing to this just yesterday.

Fantasy- Earth, Wind and Fire. In 1978, I was working at the Schenectady Arts Council as the bookkeeper. A variety of artists went into the community, creating.

The choreographer, Darlene, taught school children dance. But she needed a partner, and I was suckered into that task. This EWF song was one of the pieces to which she arranged motion.

Celebration – Kool and the Gang. EVERY time this woman Cathy and I went to the disco, this played, usually more than once a night.

What’s That You’re Doin’- Paul McCartney with Stevie Wonder. A song I preferred to Ebony and Ivory, from the same Macca album

Rock Lobster – the B-52’s. It wasn’t a rock…

Let’s Go Crazy – Prince. Last time I tried to link to this song, the video was blocked. (Sigh) He was still alive then. One of my favorite guitar solos ever near the end.

Face the Face – Pete Townsend. And 90 seconds in, would also qualify in the LOUD category.

Fashion – David Bowie. Among several Bowie choices, my favorite in the category. In my brief disco-attending era, in the late 1970s, I had the leisure suits to prove it. One was a sad brown, but the other was this hideous lime green. Proof positive that I have no sense of fashion.

There’s Love In Them There Hills – Pointer Sisters. As often as not, though, I would lie on my living room floor and listen to this on headphones and become hypnotized.

Funkytown- Lipps Inc
Good Times – Chic
Jungle Boogie – Kool And The Gang
These are self-evident to my ear.

Sisters are doin’ it for themselves?

This policy consists of three laudable R’s: rights, meaning the promotion of women’s issues, including by countering gender-based violence and discrimination; representation, including support for women’s participation at all levels of decision-making, from parliament to private sector boards to the legal system; and resources, to ensure equitable allocation among people of all genders, whether in government budgets or development projects.

Sisters are Doin It for Themselves*One of the first songs I thought about after QoS died last year was Sisters are doin’ it for themselves by Eurhythmics and Aretha Franklin. It only went to #18 in 1985, but I thought it was anthemic, with Annie Lennox and Aretha trading vocal licks.

*I watched by this January 29, 2019 interview of Ellevest CEO Sallie Krawcheck on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah. She “noted that the lack of diversity in top management positions runs counter to research showing that diverse companies perform better.”

What was most striking, though, is this exchange:

TN: There’s also a fascinating trend I’ve read about where sometimes women who are in positions of power seem to be the ones who block other women from progressing.

SK: … Absolutely. She’s got a name. She’s a queen bee. And I’ll tell you exactly why she does it. Because the business world she’s grown up in, she looks up and she says, “Oh, I see the leadership table. And there’s one woman there. Or there are two women there. There’s one person of color there. I got it. So in order to get to that seat, I’m not competing with all of you guys. I’m competing with her.”

*From the hardly liberal Foreign Policy: Sweden’s Feminist Foreign Policy, Long May It Reign. Stockholm should continue actively pursuing a foreign-policy agenda focused on gender equality. And the world should follow. BY RACHEL VOGELSTEIN, ALEXANDRA BRO

“In 2014, Sweden became the first country in the world to publicly adopt what it explicitly called ‘a feminist foreign policy,’ putting the promotion of gender equality and women’s rights at the center of its diplomatic agenda. This policy consists of three laudable R’s: rights, meaning the promotion of women’s issues, including by countering gender-based violence and discrimination; representation, including support for women’s participation at all levels of decision-making, from parliament to private sector boards to the legal system; and resources, to ensure equitable allocation among people of all genders, whether in government budgets or development projects…

“[Foreign Minister Margot] Wallstrom’s announcement of a feminist foreign policy was not simply rhetorical — it was also strategic. The government recognized that gender equality is critical to Sweden’s broader foreign-policy objectives, including economic development, prosperity, and security. There is a growing body of research at the Council on Foreign Relations, the United Nations, academic journals, and military publications demonstrating a relationship between women’s inclusion and stability. A 2015 study by the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies found when women participate in peace processes, agreements are more likely to last — and to be forged in the first place.

Improving women’s status is also imperative to economic growth. In a separate 2015 study, the McKinsey Global Institute… calculated the potential benefit of closing gender gaps in the workforce at a staggering $28 trillion to global GDP by 2025 — as well as an estimated 19 percent growth rate in Sweden alone — if women simply participated at the same rate as men.”

*Josephine Cochrane

I get my kicks on Route 66

Annually on this date, I muse about how I will remember how old I am. It’s not a number that’s divisible by ten or even five.

Roger and Trudy

Here I am with my mother, Trudy Green on my birthday in 2005. To be clear, I wasn’t dressed up for my natal day.

Actually, it was also the wedding day of my first niece, Rebecca Jade, to Rico Curtis, which I wrote about here. I noted that my mom wished me a happy birthday, first thing in the morning. What I didn’t mention was that no one else did that day, even my sister.

I didn’t mind (much) because their subsequent mortification was somewhat worth it. And, of course, mom remembering the birth date of her first born was golden.

Annually on this date, I muse about how I will remember how old I am. It’s not a number that’s divisible by ten or even five.

But it does have two things going for it. Well, four:
1) a repeating digit
2) a famous U.S. highway which runs from Chicago to Los Angeles, though black Americans were not nearly as nostalgic about it
3) a TV show (1960-1964) about traveling said highway with Martin Milner, and George Maharis or Glenn Corbett, which I used to watch
4) a famous song about said highway, written by Bobby Troup in 1946

Since I don’t blog on my birthday, I’ll leave you with versions of a certain song
Nat King Cole, mom’s favorite artist
 Bing Crosby and The Andrews Sisters
 Chuck Berry
 The Rolling Stones
 Them
 Dr. Feelgood
 Asleep at the Wheel
Glenn Frey

There are plenty more versions. Happy birthday to me. I’m how old again? And happy 14th anniversary to Rebecca and Rico!

Ash Wednesday: What is hell to you?

I opined that the old guy was in his own hell, and Catbird agreed.

I don’t think a whole lot about hell. Well, not since I was growing up with the concept constantly slipped into every third sermon I heard.

One of the things that started my long withdrawal from church in my twenties had a hell of a lot to do with what some said happened after death.

Specifically, it was the notion that everyone who didn’t accept Jesus as their savior was going to some fiery pit in the next life. That would include someone in a remote village in Nepal or person on a tiny island in the Pacific. (This is why we “needed” so many missionaries.)

Still, I think there is a “hell.” My good friend Catbird is reading “The Da Vinci Code,” which I’ve never even started. The motivation was partly because the book is on the PBS “Great American Read” list.

But it was also because some old acquaintance of Catbird’s said it was the work of the devil, which made it more enticing. My friend emailed the acquaintance to ask what event or character had informed his opinion, figuring he had never actually read the story. He replied that Catbird was going to hell and that his words were a warning.

Catbird shared the opinion that both heaven and hell are what one chooses to make of one’s circumstances. A life-altering experience has deeply informed my friend that death is nothing to fear.

I opined that the old guy was in his own hell, and Catbird agreed. And from appearances, it seems “entirely self-inflicted… and possibly addictive.” Catbird heard on the radio about the door to hell being locked from the inside and thought that it applied especially well to him.

So what is hell to you? Is it a physical place after we leave this mortal coil? Is it something else? Does it not exist at all? Maybe you’re hedging your bet.

This Lenten discussion immediately brought to mind a song written by Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong: You Make Your Own Heaven And Hell Right Here On Earth, recorded by The Temptations and Undisputed Truth.

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