Cast Out

 

That folks continue to give Christianists the time of day is beyond me. Rolling Stone is reporting ...

A JACKSONVILLE MEGACHURCH is requiring members to sign a new, anti-LGBTQ pledge committing to adhere to “biblical sexuality” — or leave the church. Describing the oath as “an exercise in clarity… in a sexually confused world,” First Baptist Church has given members and their families until March to comply. 

The pledge compels members to renounce LGBTQ sexual- and gender- expression in favor or “God’s standard for human sexuality,” which the Florida church insists means there are only two genders, as well as that the only morally acceptable sexual “desire and expression” occurs within a marriage between one man and one woman. Unveiled last week, the mandatory pledge reads:

As a member of First Baptist Church, I believe that God creates people in his image as either male or female, and that this creation is a fixed matter of human biology, not individual choice. I believe marriage is instituted by God, not government, is between one man and one woman, and is the only context for sexual desire and expression.

At the 'Bucks

 

He appeared to be not quite 20, 

sitting in one of the padded chairs

at the 'Bucks, 

java and bagged sandwich 

on the table

at his knees. 

He held a yellowed paperback

butterfly-wise with both hands, 

his lips moved. 

He paused every now and then 

to check his phone.

The book was about NFL football;

the wallpaper on the phone was about the same.  

Young Men / Old Men

 

Young men sit at mirrors

to see what

they are projecting

to the world.

Old men sit at windows

to see what

the world is projecting

to them.

Infinity Pool

 

Brandon Cronenberg's study in human debasement, Infinity Pool, is not nearly as debasing itself as critics say, nor as interesting as fans of the work of his father, David Cronenberg, would like.

Cronenberg pere may be known best for Scanners (1981), The Fly (1986), Crash (1996), which all pushed the envelope for the amount of bilious excretion, entrails and human bodily wreckage could be crammed into 100 minutes of film. Many of his most famous movies tested the audience's tolerance in the name of cinema.

Cronenberg fils has directed one other feature -- 2020's Possessor (which I have not seen).  Based on Infinity Pool, he seems to share his father's fascination for the distasteful and love of excess for its own sake.

The story is set on a remote island inhabited by vaguely Mediterranean townspeople who speak with vaguely Germanic accents and travel in vehicles with faintly Arabic but nonsensical signage. Wealthy people gather here just before the rainy season to misbehave in murderous ways. 

The ordinarily unflappable Alexander Skarsgård plays struggling writer James, who is vacationing with his wife, Em (the winsome Australian actress Cleopatra Coleman). They meet, seemingly by accident, Gabi (British starlet Mia Goth, who has turned menancing seductress into an artform) and her husband, Alban (French actor Jalil Lespert). It quickly becomes clear James and Em were marks for the cagey couple.

Soon they're introduced into a club of island regulars who all had been convicted of one of the country's arcane laws but escaped capital penalty through a unique -- and expensive -- scapegoating system, where living proxies are manufactured and punished for the crime and the real perp is freed. It all becomes intoxicating cocktail for unrepressed lawlessness and tribal hedonism. 

This might be Brandon Cronenberg's statement of the logical outcome when checks on entitlement don't exist. Once that point has been made, the tension in the film begins to unwind, and it becomes a waiting game until the wind shifts, the rains come in and all of the loathsome degradation goes swirling down the drain -- a rather "on the nose" metaphor for the expiation of the morning after.

All Quiet on the Western Front (2022)

 

German director Edward Berger's All Quiet on the Western Front (2022) does tread along familiar ground, especially since Sam Mendes exceptional 1917 was released only three years before, but it handles the material of the Great War with new and terrible insights. 

Yes, the lost lives and physical devastation are in nearly every frame, in the bloody, muddy trenches and beyond, but Berger invests much of his story in the limpid eyes of Paul Bäumer (Felix Kammerer in his film debut), the young man who with two friends volunteers to fight for the fatherland, prodded by the speechifying of schoolmasters.

Paul's loss of innocence is immediate, but his connection to his friends (played by Aaron Hilmer and Moritz Klaus) sustains him. Berger takes what may have become a war film cliche -- the band of brothers -- and gives it new life, and a new level of anguish when the band is torn apart.

The harrowing battle at Latierre, the major set piece midway through the film, is the turning point, not for the war, but for Paul's descent into the horrors of the inevitable. As the French move forward against the German trenches with superior weapons, Paul, dizzied by the bombardment, gunfire and explosions yells, nearly weeping, "I've lost my comrades!"  To this point, the gore has torn at us viscerally. To hear Paul's plaintive wail tears at the heart. 

Paul is able to reunite with an older friend, Kat, (Albrecht Schuch) and they do what they must, not to win -- that's the business of the officers ordering young men to their deaths -- but simply to survive until the ceasefire is called.

Berger's powerful and uncompromising interpretation of the Remarque novel is exhausting and not hopeful, at least to my mind. Those who don't know or care how dreadful wars are will not be reached by the film's unmistakable message. 

But those who can still be touched will quite likely find in this grim story something affirming in a young man learning the truth about loyalty and devotion, not from propagandists but around a campfire, peeling potatoes with his comrades.

Underground Classifeds

 

Underground classified's were where people were their most real. These are from the Ann Arbor Argus., ca. 1970.

"Kathy Lankton please call home. You are loved."

"Bill Rowe please contact the Argus so that we can straighten out our occasional financial situation."

"Poor student in Ed. School needs warm floor (in basement or elsewhere) to crash on until spring. Could pay small rent. Call 764-6351."

"White Panthers need corvair ignition system. 2 or more tires. Battery. May pay money. 708 Arch."

"The Argus has an IBM composer typewriter available for the community's use. Bring your own ribbons. DO NOT COME ON LAYOUT DAYS -- TUESDAYS AND WEDNESDAYS.

Bruce needs a pair of pants. Size 28-32. Bring much needed donation to 708 Arch."

Aftersun

 

In Charlotte Wells' beautifully evocative and poignant film Aftersun, Paul Mescal and Frankie Corio star as a Scottish father and his 11-year-old daughter, respectively, vacationing on a Turkish island where they will celebrate Dad Calum's 31st birthday.

The story is actually an extended piece of adult Sophie's memory, accented by some camcorder video moments from the trip. The ease of the exchanges between the parent and the child, the warmth that passes between endears Calum and Sophie to us. We care deeply about them. But it is also this chemistry that makes Calum's distractedness so unsettling.

Wells' pacing is wonderfully deliberate; she slowly reveals the ragged edges of Calum's psyche that Sophie only in reflection can see clearly. As a child, though precocious and observant, Sophie did not fully understand her father's behavior or what it would signal for their relationship.

Mescal, who has been nominated for an Academy Award, gives a remarkably understated performance. This is not a part for histrionics but quiet expression, smiles that reveal and conceal, eyes that read both loving and withholding.

Mescal has a more-than-able co-star in young Frankie Corio, who meets the huge demands of the role of Sophie with focus and discipline. Her Sophie represents every woman who wishes she'd chucked the embarrassment and danced with her father just once more.

Danielle Deadwyler

 

Of the two, Danielle Deadwyler's absence from the list of best actress nominees is worth reflecting on more than Viola Davis's supposed "snub" by the Academy.

Davis did receive a nod from the Hollywood Foreign Press for her leading role in The Woman King, a good though not outstanding picture, IMO. Woman King shared some of the same aesthetics, narrative elements and vibe as Wakanda Forever, the other Black female warrior picture from last year.

To my eye and ear, Deadwyler's performance as Emmett Till's mother, Mamie Bradley, was pitched perfectly and fit the tone and temperament of the film, which was roundly praised by critics.

It was (is) an earnest and important picture, I think. Was it the best released last year? No. But it's a film of high-quality, in the tradition of Hollywood pictures from the Golden Age, immaculately constructed and by the numbers. Scrupulously composed.

Even so, people didn't go to see it. Till lost money, and a lot of it. One of my friends said he wouldn't go because he remembered seeing Emmett Till's body in the Black press back in the day. The film would be too disturbing, he said.

That was disappointing to hear because I'm convinced he would have thought Deadwyler was the true embodiment not just of Mrs. Bradley's grief but that of countless Black women who have lost sons to racial hatred.

Yes, Deadwyler's Mamie Bradley was restricted for most of the film to the space of grief and devastation, but that doesn't mean her performance did not have range and nuance.

Why it failed to resonate is truly curious to me. Maybe in some way folks thought giving Deadwyler an award would cheapen the story of the boy from Chicago who went south and was kidnapped and killed by white men and his mother's crusade to make America face the hate. Maybe they thought it would somehow diminish the meaning the picture should have for the country.

I don't know. It's a mystery.

The Whale

 

Director Darren Aronofsky's best work could easily be written off as brainy and bleak, films about people doing badly, who often deteriorate further over the course of the film. Movies that are experienced more than savored.

Requiem for a Dream, The Wrestler, Black Swan, Mother! are all pictures about sadness and suffering, spiritual disconnection and emotional deterioration, defeat. They are heavy works.

Some stories Aronofsky writes himself; others he options from previously published works. His latest celebrated movie, The Whale, is a barely adapted film version of a stage play by prize-winning playwright Samuel D. Hunter.

It is the contained, nearly claustrophobic, story of a morbidly obese and ailing college English instructor named Charlie (an amazing Brendan Fraser) living in near-seclusion in Idaho, his only constant contact being his nurse, Liz, (an equally amazing Hong Chau). Charlie also interacts with the students he teaches remotely, but he refuses to turn on his laptop's camera. That's been the extent of his world since the death of his lover some years before.

Soon after we meet Charlie, he has a heart attack in front of a young canvassing evangelist named Tom (Ty Simpkins), whose story over the course of the play intertwines with Charlie's own.

Liz delivers news that Charlie is dying, only days to live if he refuses treatment. He refuses to go to the hospital, preferring to stay in his dingy, cluttered apartment and gorge himself on pizza, delivered night, meatball subs, chocolate bars and pop. It's apparent he wants to kill himself.

Charlie gets the notion to reconnect with his teen-aged daughter, Ellie (Sadie Sink), whom he's not seen or spoken with in years. Not since he left her and her mother for his male lover. Ellie comes over to Charlie's and is neither thrilled nor sympathetic. She lashes out, rejects Charlie outright, at first, but finally agrees to continue visiting as long as he does her schoolwork and pays her. It's the intersection of all of these damaged lives that is the film's concern.

True to Aronofsky's form, The Whale immerses viewers into a world of gloom, unhappiness and regret and not just a little fist-waving at the heavens.

Good and bad intentions, good and bad acts, are equally as devastating. It's a painful story and was an endurance test for me.

Charlie's resignation, Liz's enabling, Ellie's resentment and Tom's obliviousness will no doubt be hard for many to take, but Aronofsky's unique vision is always worth a screening, if only for the once.

Guns and God

 

It seems to me that Guns and God go so well together because they're ultimately about exacting judgment on people.

To my mind, this is supported by the human figures on practice targets and by Bible passages about darkness and damnation preached in Last Judgment churches.

John 16:8 -- "And He, when He comes, will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment."

I believe many of those who wrap the flag around pistols and prayers are not doing so to protect high-minded Lockean notions about individual rights.

I think for them it's more about freedom to end someone who steps out of line, conflating the divine's judgment and humans' rights to execute the same when / if crossed.

We will not end gun violence, I don't think, until we dismantle the scaffolding that props up gun ownership as God-given.

That is to say, as long as folks believe God sanctions what the Constitution guarantees.

Coffee Talk at 'Bucks

 

Coffee talk at 'Bucks ~

A hyper-verbal and hyper-vigilant woman in what appear to be a nightgown and slippers is interrogating her beleaguered friend in jeans and knee-high boots about why the friend didn't call her on Sunday like she usually does.

"What's going on? What's changed?" She asks in about 20 different ways and is unsatisfied with every response.

The exchange, which I can hear clearly from 10 feet away, is maddeningly circular and the interrogator is tireless. It's not clear what their relationship is based on -- maybe they're related -- it doesn't appear to be trust.

"If you had lied to me we would have been done," the interrogator says.

The more this scene wears on the more obvious it becomes why the Sunday call wasn't made. *Sigh*

Oscars 2023

 

I've seen seven of the 10 Oscar-nominated pictures so far:

Avatar: The Way of Water -- Spectacular technical achievement and labor of love.

The Banshees of Inisherin -- That place at the intersection of isolation, reflection and madness.

Elvis -- Whirligig of a picture with a career-making performance, great music and a jowly Tom Hanks.

Everything Everywhere All at Once -- Mind-bending experiment in storytelling that's brainier than its insanity might suggest.

Tár -- Riveting story of a monster conductor with a baton, slashing and gutting all around her with Mahler as the score.

Top Gun: Maverick -- A mix of explosive aerial dynamics and plucked heartstrings.

Triangle of Sadness -- Class warfare at an inspirationally brilliant and gut-wrenching level.

I hope to see Fabelmans, Western Front and Women Talking soon.

Methuselah

 

All anyone can really say about Methuselah is he was Noah's grandfather and was really, REALLY old when he died.

According to the Book of Genesis, Methuselah lived 969 years, assuming folks before the flood counted them like we do.

Beyond his age, we don't know much about the old guy. (Despite Anthony Hopkins' portrayal of the patriarch in Darren Aronofsky's Noah [2014]). We know he did what biblical patriarchs did -- had sons and daughters. Probably many of them in addition to Noah's father over all of those years.

We don't know if Methuselah was a herdsman or a farmer, or if he was a good companion and parent, whether he was a loyal friend, gave honest counsel, was a joy to be around.

Folks assume Methuselah was a good person because he was granted so many years, but I don't think that's a safe assumption. Old people can be pretty ornery, but let's be charitable and say Methuselah was a decent fellow.

I can imagine Methuselah figuring out a thing or two about life over his 9 1/ 2 centuries. Stuff like ...

Chew your food well.

Walk slower.

Choose your words with care.

Spend your time wisely.

Give away what you can't use or don't need.

Leave before you're asked to.

Give no one reason to regret knowing you.

I've been granted 60-plus years so far and have finally gathered how important these very things are. An aging body has a way of getting the message across.

Missing

 

Directors Nicholas D. Johnson and Will Merrick take many of the elements from their 2018 feature Searching and reshape them for Missing's story about a teen-age daughter (Storm Reid) who uses internet tools to find her mother (Nia Long), who has disappeared while on a vacation.

In the earlier film, an anxious father (John Cho) searches his daughter's online network for clues to her whereabouts. This leads to a myriad of dead ends, mis-directions, false identities and a big concluding reveal. Missing is structured similarly and delivers a satisfying number of "a-ha" moments for audience members engaged enough to stick with it.

Young and surly June (Reid) is left in her Van Nuys home when her mom (Long) takes off for a weekend in Colombia with her new beau Kevin (Ken Leung). June, who continues to miss her absent father (Tim Griffin) after more than a dozen years gone, is not amused and throws a blow-out party with her besties.

When her mother fails to return home, June uses her laptop to conduct her own investigation. All is not as it seems, by any stretch, and the film will reward viewers who suspend disbelief and allow the implausible to move the narrative along.

Both Missing and the earlie Searching appear to be making statements about the pervasiveness of mediated relationship, familial detachment and distrust while also offering an argument that these conditions, oddly enough, can be healed by the very technologies that appear to be threatening them -- and it doesn't require powering down your laptop or putting your phone on "silence."

Hmmm. That's a "bold" message from one of the world's leading tech companies -- Sony.

The Pale Blue Eye

 

Christian Bale's name might top the call sheet for Scott Cooper's absorbing The Pale Blue Eye (Netflix) but Harry Melling (best known for the Harry Potter series) is the true star.

Bale plays a gristly retired detective in the 1830s, living near the West Point Military Academy, who is contracted by the school's superintendent to investigate the death of a cadet.

Reluctantly, Bale's Augustus Landor agrees, and quickly discovers the man was murdered and his corpse mutilated. Finding his investigation impeded by the cadets themselves, Landor employs a talkative and eccentric senior cadet to be his eyes and ears behind the walls. The cadet's name is Edgar A. Poe (Melling). Yes, that Poe.

Cooper has a wonderful eye for period detail and he gives Bale and Melling plenty of room to flesh out the taciturn and tormented Landor and the creepily angular and morbid Poe as they combine their individual miseries into a single driving force to uncover the truth.

Also in the cast are Timothy Spall as the superintendent, Toby Jones as the academy's doctor and Gillian Anderson as the physician's wife, who seems to be guarding her own secrets.

The first two acts are slow and methodical, the landscape barren and dreary, but the story is rich and Melling's Poe histrionic and fascinating. Those elements make up for the film's ending, which, truth be told, is both outrageous and grandly poetic, like the great writer himself.

Roses

 

I sometimes go to stores in areas of the city where folks are struggling with the day-to-day.

I stopped in the Roses discount store in the shopping center along that stretch of West Beltline between Two Notch and Farrow roads to get some eye drops.

(Roses was founded in Henderson, North Carolina, more than 100 years ago, and has been in various stages of decline and revitalization for the past 40 years. Since the dawn of the Walmart age.)

The Beltline store, the only one in Columbia, appeared to be fairly well-stocked and selling the usual mix of housewares and furniture components, bedding, over-the-counter pharmaceuticals, pantry staples, "pimp art," ethnic fashions with African prints, lots of clothes for babies and children.

The store was busy around 2. I saw only one white customer while I was there. About half of the patrons were masked; none of the store workers were.

Not all of the items on the shelves were priced. Many products were heavily discounted, some sold for one dollar. One lady discovered that the price of Tide laundry detergent had gone up about a buck and half since she was in last. She sighed.

Most of the shelves bore stickers indicating an inventory count was underway. That would account for the large number of workers in the store, nearly as many as the shoppers.

Although some customers strolled with rolling carts, most patrons did as I did and toted items in their arms. This added to the irritation for some folks as check-out lines began closing down.

The lady in front of me with the intricate braids and tassel knee-high boots asked every blue-shirted worker she saw if they were about to open another register.

"No, I'm going home," they said, one after another.

The young woman behind me, masked and carrying two pairs of slacks on hangers, complained that a half-dozen workers were milling about outside the store manager's door. They didn't seem to care the lines were long.

"I heard they think somebody's trying to steal," she added.

"They won't catch them standing together over there," I offered, with a chuckle.

Finally at the register, I greeted the clerk cheerfully, trying not to add to his burden. I lined up my scouring powder, multi-purpose spray cleanser and Jesus and Mary votive candles; they didn't carry the brand of eye drops I needed.

He double-bagged my items, which I took as a token of appreciation -- although it may have spoken more to the quality of the bags -- and wished me a good rest of my day.

The Bear

 

I'm late coming to The Bear.

Last year, I told a friend who was highly recommending the show that I wasn't ready for the series' storied closeness and intensity.

Actual worldly stresses were making series that involved characters mired in mental and emotional turmoil rather redundant. So, I back-burnered The Bear and a half-dozen other programs.

Jeremy Allen White's Golden Globe win as the show's lead, Chicago chef Carmy Berzatto, piqued my interest and led me to fire it up. It is indeed as remarkably well-crafted as folks say and much more varied in tone and pacing than I expected.

Though I'm only half-way through the season, I'm finding wonderfully compelling its story of a tortured and disaffected young man trying to save a Windy City diner his brother nearly ran into the ground before he killed himself.

White, whom I first saw on the long-running Shameless, is a blur of obsession and regret. He finds a soul mate in a young Black woman named Sydney (Ayo Edebiri), also Culinary Institute-trained, who comes to his kitchen as sous chef, believing the restaurant, much loved by her father, can be something great.

Their relationship is richly textured, their characters infused with both boldness and earthiness, like the delectable food served by The Original Beef of Chicagoland.

*****

I found so much to savor about The Bear in addition to all the wonderful food and the healing emotional and psychological scrubbing by Carmy, Richie and their high-strung crew.

Though I was late to the party, as usual, I really loved the respect the series' creators showed in the collegial relationship between The Beef's gutsy sous chef Sydney (Ayo Edebiri) and Marcus, the restaurant's cuddly and idealistic baker (Lionel Boyce). Their conversation in her apartment in the final episode -- after quitting The Bear because of Carmy's meltdown (a performance that no doubt sealed the Golden Globe for Jeremy Allen White) -- was as enchanting and delectable as the sea bass and tomato confit she prepared for them.

Frankly, I'm somewhat ambivalent about whether the two of them become a couple as long as they keep talking with the same warm candor they did during that exchange.

It's refreshing to see a young Black woman and Black man deal with one another without the swagger, swivel and games-playing.

More please.

My Name is Mr. Lee

 

Being a fundamentally honest (read, "guilt-ridden") person, my decision to offer "Lee" to waitstaff and counterworkers as my preferred name of commercial exchange took a bit of doing.

Once I got into the groove, though, my subterfuge came easier, breezy even. I felt like a Trump.

I'd grown weary of being misheard and having to answer to names I'd not been given -- "Ruben for Bernie!" "Mocha for Edgar!"

I figured something with fewer syllables than any of my four names (given-, middle-, Confirmation- or sur-) would reduce the chances of miscommunication.

For four or five years now, I've gone with "Lee" -- the modified first part of my middle name -- when asked by Kerri with a "K" and an "i" or D'netri'a of the Abundant Apostrophes "What name should I put on the order?" "Yes, Lee," and being a former editor and fastidious chalkboard teacher, I always spell "L-e-e."

"How else would you spell it," one chirpy coffee-cafe moppet quipped.

"Well, let's see. There's L-i and L-e-i-g-h and L-e-a to start," I offered.

Moppet "tee-heed" and rolled her eyes -- like they do. I moved on.

Most male counterworkers when announcing my order is ready leave it at "Lee," as in Majors, Van Cleef and Daniels. Female counterworkers often add "Mister," perhaps to avoid the appearance of presumptuousness or to discourage any potential stalking behavior from the old guy in the hoodie.

I appreciate the consideration, I suppose. But I wonder if it's intended, as a lot of folks in the South do with older people -- tack a "Mister" or "Miss" in front of the Christian name -- "Mister Bill," "Miss Lucy" -- as part of this region's ritualized courtesy. Reflexive politeness. Faux friendliness?

No matter. It's been a grand, successful experiment so far and I've only had one instance of someone writing "Le" on my ticket. Probably "Cydnee" or "Jazzmyn."