Tag: review

Review: David Byrne’s American Utopia

Directed by Spike Lee

American Utopia

Flicking through the channels in late December, which I seldom do, I came across something amazing. It was David Byrne and a troupe of like-dressed men and women. This must be the film of his American Utopia show on Broadway. They are performing Janelle Monae’s astonishing “Hell You Talmbout”, complete with images of murdered Black men and women.

Then some other songs, including Road to Nowhere, the Talking Heads tune. This involved the cast literally marching around the theater. My, I need to see this in its entirety, which I did on HBO about a week later.

Like the Stop Making Sense tour, where I saw Talking Heads at SPAC in the early 1980s, this show adds layers. First Byrne, then the two folks, a black woman and a white man, I describe as “interpreters.” They sing, but they also enact choreographed movements. The ensemble builds with keyboards, guitar, and percussion – a lot of percussion.

Peppered between the 20 Talking Heads and solo songs are Byrne’s musings, about the nature of things – how the brain develops. The show is political. Not capital P political, except for the Monae song. But he notes that most of the cast are immigrants, including himself, born in Scotland. He asks people to vote, though he does not say for whom.

One of the facets that made this show work so well is the technology. Everyone moves around the stage, in different arrangements. The instruments are all hand-held and wireless. It is a very freeing experience.

The right thing

The movie’s director is Spike Lee. Per NPR, he “works right alongside Byrne, bringing viewers into the show…, putting us right on stage with these talented artists, and transcending a mere recording of a live event.” He must have placed cameras all over. My favorite shot might be from above the stage, the musicians in the configuration of a pinwheel marching band.

I LOVED this movie. As RogerEbert.com  notes, “David Byrne’s American Utopia is a joyous expression of art, empathy, and compassion.” The end credits feature Everybody’s Coming To My House by the Detroit School of Arts. It’s a better version than his version, Byrne opines.

Movie documentary: Boys State

youth politics

Boys StateOK, I’ve decided that I need to try to systematically see more movies. Recent movies. Normally, I would be at the cinema a lot this month, but I’m not. Luckily, I saw this list  of Ty Burr’s “Watch these 10 recent movies.”

Currently, I don’t have Netflix or Disney+ or Hulu, or HBO Max. But only since the end of December, I do have Apple TV+. I bought a new phone, which I haven’t figured out how to operate yet. But it came with a free year of the streaming service. And Boys State is available presently on that platform.

It is a “documentary about the Texas version of the one-week civics program where high school kids divide into parties and run for office.” As a political science junkie, this could be heaven or horrific. I found it closer to the former. “It had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on January 24, 2020, where the film won the U.S. Documentary Competition Grand Jury Prize.” Then it was released in August.

One may be potentially seeing “the next generation of politicians.” The program is sponsored by the American Legion across the country, with separate tracks for boys and girls. Alumni include political figures as diverse as Bill Clinton, Samuel Alito, Dick Cheney, Cory Booker, and Rush Limbaugh.

Politics, and tricks

Are the young men better than what we have now, or are they just emulating the mistakes of the adults they admire? “They are fascinatingly complex.” For certain. “Boys State shows that those [noble] aims can only do so much to keep the uglier side of that process at bay,” Erik Adams of AV Club noted.

One candidate for governor took a position diametrically opposed to what he believed because thought it would be more palatable to the constituents. Steven, on the other hand, was “a young man whose political skills are second to his open-mindedness and decency. In short, there’s hope.”

I highly recommend Boys State.

Movie review: The Antidote (be kind)

Tikkun Olam

The AntidoteThe year 2021 has been designated as Be Kind year. Designated by me, because 2020 was so damn difficult.

I was motivated specifically by two things, one positive and one not. On the upside is this article about Promoting the power of kindness. There is “a new documentary, ‘The Antidote,’ on Amazon Prime. Directed by Kahane Cooperman and John Hoffman, the film was inspired by what Hoffman sees as an increasingly dangerous cultural and political climate.

“‘There has been such division and such rancor that if that division starts eating away at these common decencies that we exhibit towards one another, then our democracy might truly be in danger,’ Hoffman said.” The “film highlights people for whom kindness isn’t a random act, but a full-time commitment. Cooperman said, “Kindness is a fierce tool and a weapon for change.”

Movie on computer

So I watched The Antidote (2020). The theme seemed to based less on kindness and more on actions of fairness and justice. The CBS piece highlights Dr. Jim O’Connell. Thirty-six years ago, “his mentor suggested he work for a year at a shelter. The shelter’s chief nurse told Dr. O’Connell to set aside the stethoscope and the medical bag. ‘And she put them aside, and I had to soak feet,” he recalled. Yes, soak the feet of the homeless.”

Reporter Mo Rocca asked, “When we pass a homeless person on the street, what should we do?” Dr. O’Connell replied, “The most important thing you can do is to look the person in the eye and just acknowledge them. Really, what they’re looking for is not to be ignored. Just saying hello to somebody, rather than ignoring them, is really, really powerful.”

Interlocking the movie segments is a classroom in Modesto, CA that requires a comparative religions class. You may not be surprised by the takeaway that most major religions have a similar creed, basically the Golden Rule. But what matters is that the eyes of the kids in the classroom were opened.

Other reviews

I found only a couple of reviews. One was a brief but scathing one-star user screed on IMDB calling the film “delusional.” The other was from the Austin Chronicle by Richard Whitaker, which I’m going to quote at length.

“It’s told exactly how you think it would be told. Lots of pretty shots of different locations, with stirring strings and maudlin arpeggio piano… It’s undoubtedly a Kumbaya chorus but is that a bad thing?… [Its] Panglossian philosophy often made the show seem a little glib.

“But maybe we do need to be beaten over the head with the idea that being considerate should not be regarded as a political act. ‘We need more of that,’ says one amiable gentleman who performs his one selfless act in his own moment of paying everything forward. When kindness seems in such short supply, [we require] a little reminder that it’s easy and takes so little effort.”

Invisible

I said there were two things that inspired my 2021 Be Kind campaign. The other was a post by fillyjonk. It really irritated me. She was waiting in a store for a package of meat. “When the man finally came out, ANOTHER MAN stepped up from the side of the case and said, before I could even open my mouth, ‘I need a pork shoulder’ even though I WAS STANDING RIGHT THERE.” The title of the piece, “Again, I’m invisible.”

I surely recognized that feeling. It is awful and infuriating and demoralizing. We can do better. We MUST do better. Rev. Jennifer Butler from Faith in Public Life noted this recently. “In Jewish tradition, we are called to the work of ‘Tikkun Olam,’ repairing the world. All our faith traditions echo this charge by requiring us to move beyond proclaiming our faith with our words to living out our faith in our deeds.”

Movie on ZOOM review: Radium Girls

poisoning from painting watch dials

Radium GirlsIn early December, I got to see the 2018 movie  Radium Girls. It had screened at the Tribeca Film Festival back when it was first made. An April 2020 cinema release date had been scheduled, then postponed because of COVID.

In the fall of 2020, the movie was offered in a few theaters. I managed to see it in a showing co-sponsored by the Coalition of Labor Union Women. And following the film was a question and answers with directors Lydia Dean Pilcher and Ginny Mohler.

Watching a movie on Zoom has its problems. Among other things, this one began with the sound that was off for several minutes before the film was restarted.

It is an intriguing storyline. “In the 1920s, a group of female factory workers advocates for safer work conditions after some of their colleagues become ill from radium exposure.”

From Wikipedia: They contracted “radiation poisoning from painting watch dials with self-luminous paint. The painting was done by women at three different United States Radium factories.” The one in Orange, New Jersey was highlighted in the film.

“The women in each facility had been told the paint was harmless.” They “subsequently ingested deadly amounts of radium after being instructed to ‘point’ their brushes on their lips in order to give them a fine tip.” Given the lengthy number of reports about the case, I was surprised that I had never heard about this story until the film.

The verdict

As for the film: it was…pretty good. I wanted to love it, I suppose. I must agree with much of the criticism that was leveled at the small-budget project. “The anger inspired by what happened to these women is invigorating, but that fury is rarely felt from what Radium Girls offers as a cinematic experience.” That’s what Roxana Hadadi from RogerEbert.com wrote.

And yet, I will still recommend it. The actors, and especially Joey King, are quite good. Frank Scheck, Hollywood Reporter writes: “The film fulfills a vital function with its dramatization of an important chapter in America’s history of labor reform.”

So if the plot leading to the trial is a bit threadbare and contrived, I’m still glad I watched Radium Girls. The narrative is, unfortunately, still relevant when some industries are “rolling back protections for workers” a century after the events portrayed in the movie.

People in the Capital District will recognize recently-retired news anchor Jim Kambrich in the small but pivotal role of a judge.

You can watch Radium Girls for $12 here.

Book: So you want to talk about race

We have to talk about it because we’ve harmed people

so you want to talk about raceA friend of mine asked if I had read So you want to talk about race, the 2018 book by Ijeoma Oluo. I said it was on my list. The truth is that it was in the house, but in a flurry of tidying up, it got misplaced.

Now it’s found. And I read the 240-page paperback in three or four hours over two days. The story was compelling because she put a lot of herself, a “black, queer woman” with a white single mom, on the pages.

“It’s about race if a person of color thinks about race.” I related to that. At the same time, she notes that “almost nothing is completely about race.” And that explaining systemic racism is not always easy.

In the chapter about talking about race incorrectly, the primary subject was her own mom. “Why can’t I be talking about… anything but this.” Conversely, Ms. Oluo tells about her OWN failure to check her privilege. She explains intersectionality better than most people I’ve read.

Her chapter on affirmative action was not academic but personal, with her family finding the need to sneak into a vacant apartment in order to take showers. A school game tagged her brother as “homeless,” when in fact the family had literally experienced this.

Lock ’em up

The school-to-prison pipeline the author talked about is quite insidious. I recently saw a story on the news about an eight-year-old mixed-race kid with special needs. He was arrested for felony assault for hitting his teacher in December 2018. He couldn’t be handcuffed because the boy’s wrists were too skinny. The child is STILL traumatized by this experience.

The particular pain of the author, at age 11, and her brother being subjected to the N-word in what they perceived to a safe setting was particularly awful. She explains an almost comical example of cultural appropriation at a dining establishment. I’ve never understood why any white person would ask a black person if they could touch their hair. Yet it’s a common phenomenon.

I’ve never liked the word “microaggression.” It seems to trivialize the pain of being, for instance, the fat black kid afraid of eating pizza, even though she hadn’t eaten all day. I myself hear the one about my proper use of English. Also, generally, “you aren’t like other black people,” as though that was supposed to be a compliment; n.b., it is not.

Ijeoma Oluo’s then eight-year-old son didn’t want to sing the national anthem or say the pledge of allegiance at school. He wanted to duck a school assembly to avoid it; it did get worked out. I’ve had my own issues with those symbols, albeit slightly later in life. He also realized he ought not to play with toy guns like his white friends did because he didn’t want to end up dead like the 12-year-old Tamir Rice in Cleveland.

Importantly, in “But what if I hate Al Sharpton,” he addressed a lot of myths. About Martin Luther King and what he really stood for. About Malcolm X. (The late folk singer Phil Ochs also addressed this in Love Me, I’m a Liberal.)

The book ends with a call for action, including Vote local, Bear witness to bigotry, Boycott bigoted businesses, and Supporting businesses owned by people of color.

Yes, Ijeoma Oluo may tell you a few things you already knew if you’ve read other books on racism. But because she puts herself in the story, So you want to talk about race got me to turn the pages. And watch this video. Listening to her speak explains why people who listen to her audiobook enjoy it so much.

Ramblin' with Roger
Social media & sharing icons powered by UltimatelySocial