SPIKE LEE'S BROOKLYN OPERA: THE GRAND RE-INVENTION OF "SHE'S GOTTA HAVE IT"

"SHE'S GOTTA HAVE IT"
Television series Created by Spike Lee based upon his 1986 film
Season 1 10 episodes released November 23, 2017 
Season 2  9 episodes released  May 24, 2019
Executive Producers Tonya Jackson Lee & Spike Lee
Directed by Spike Lee

"Now, women forget all those things they don't want to remember and remember everything they don't want to forget  The dream is the truth. Then they act and do things accordingly."
-Zora Neale Hurston
Their Eyes Were Watching God

That specific passage emerged as the opening image in Writer/Producer/Director Spike Lee's landmark debut feature film "She's Gotta Have It," an epigraph which fully served to inform and therefore introduce us to that film's starring protagonist, the formidable Nola Darling.

As portrayed by Tracy Camilla Johns, Nola was an embodiment of a revolution. Conceptually, she represented a sexually liberated woman who refused to adhere to anyone else's expectation other than her own, especially any of the men who wished to formulate relationships with her. Beyond the narrative, Nola Darling and the film itself represented a new wave in independent movie making, for Black filmmakers unquestionably and for the medium of cinema itself undeniably.

Returning to the epigraph by Zora Neale Hurston, as I look back to the film, in 1986, I think we could just take the quotation at face value and solely apply it to the film in which it is forever attached. Now, nearly 35 years after its release, we can now witness that the quotation was a most audacious opening shot in a most audacious film that represented the arrival of a most audacious filmmaker who has delivered a filmmaking career and legacy that has existed as nothing less than most audacious.

With a filmography that contains nothing less than the likes of "Do The Right Thing" (1989), "Jungle Fever" (1991),"Malcolm X" (1992), "Clockers" (1995), "Get On The Bus" (1996), "He Got Game" (1998), "Bamboozled" (2000), "25th Hour" (2002), "Inside Man" (2006), "BlacKKKlansman" (2018) and even more (phew...and dat's da truth Ruth!!) Lee turned his cinematic storytelling eye to television with a move that artistically brought him full circle, resulting in an experience that is purely, unapologetically, unrepentantly, and so beautifully SPIKE!!!

"She's Gotta Have It," the film and story that began it all for Spike Lee, has now been resurrected and transformed into a television series for Netflix. Running two full seasons with 19 episodes, Lee has far expanded the canvas of his 86 minute debut feature into a luxurious mosaic that unfolds over 10 hours.

The re-invention of "She's Gotta Have It" from film to television series is a wonderment to everything that has ever existed within Spike Lee's self-described "Joints." In fact, and even as its re-conceives the film's core characters and key events, the series crucially returns to everything that essentially built his filmography--from his singular characters, fair minded point of view and presentation, his delivery of a social/political Black activism while simultaneously displaying the breadth of the Black community and the Back experience overall, and of course, a lusciously artful love letter to Fort Greene, Brooklyn and an encapsulation of the filmography the city has thus inspired.

As with the film, "She's Gotta Have It" chronicles the life and times of Nola Darling (now played by a sensational DeWanda Wise), a young aspiring artist, self-professed cinephile and resident of Brooklyn, who is exploring not only her own sense of sexual freedom as she juggles three relationships--with wealthy and married businessman Jamie Overstreet (Lyriq Bent), vain model and photographer Greer Childs (Cleo Anthony) and over-the-top, streetwise, Air Jordan devotee Mars Blackmon (Anthony Ramos in the role iconically originated by Lee himself)--but her own sense of artistic purpose and self discovery.

Spike Lee's "She's Gotta Have It" series is a ravishing production overflowing with vitality and vibrancy to the point where it practically leaps from the screen. Gorgeously filmed and edited, beautifully accented with still photos and album covers, and adorned with glorious costume design and a brilliantly eclectic soundtrack which features both Composer Bruce Hornsby's sweeping expansion of Composer Bill Lee's original film score and a wall-to-wall song score curated by Spike Lee himself, it is a series that is wholly idiosyncratic to the vision Lee has cultivated from his debut as it looks and sounds like nothing else other than himself.

Now that Lee has an exceedingly larger palate to paint upon, this new version allows him to alter and expand considerably upon characters and themes familiar to the original film plus increase his vision even further to make considerable inclusions.

All three of Nola's suitors have been given expansive backstories and additions. This time, we meet Jaime Overstreet's wife Cheryl (Sydney Morton) and son Virgil (young electric guitarist phenom Brandon Neiderauer), learn of Greer's biracial heritage and of his European upbringing and we also have the major alteration of the Mars Blackmon character to also now being biracial (African-American and Puerto Rican), a touch plays heavily into the character, as he lives with his sister Lulu (Santana Caress Benitez) as well as the entire series as it grows and deepens over its 19 episodes.

Also returning with expanded characterizations are Nora's former roommate and now art dealer, the brittle, pragmatic Clorinda Bradford (Margot Bingham), former lover Opal Gilstrap (an excellent Ilfenesh Hadera), who herself is now a single Mother to daughter Skylar (Indigo Hubbard-Salk) as well as Nora's therapist Dr. Jamison (Heather Hedley).

All of these characters are now joined by more family, friends and citizens of Fort Greene including Nola's Mother, Septima (Joie Lee) and her musician Father, Stokley (Thomas Jefferson Byrd). We also meet Nola's maternal yet frustrated landlady Miss Ella Chisholm (Pauletta Washington), Nola's friend Shemmeka Epps (Chyna Layne), a dancer who works at the local burlesque club owned and  operated by Winny Win Winford (Fat Joe) and who struggles with body image issues, Papo (Elvis Nolasco), Fort Greene native, an artist and now homeless war veteran who often clashes with new brownstone owner Bianca Tate (Kim Doctor), and also the formidable Raqueletta Moss (De'Adre Aziza), who nearly always addresses herself in the third person...and don't even think of questioning her about that!

As for Nola Darling herself, she remains the captivating front and center of this new series and with all due respect to the character's originator in Tracy Camilla Johns, DeWanda Wise is spectacular as she has re-created the role with a fearlessness and unstoppable passion and depth to the degree that actress and character become inseparable. She is game for anything and is equal to every solitary curve ball Spike Lee throws at her, making this character exist as possibly Lee's greatest, most singular creation as she firmly represents the filmmaker at his best and purest--when he is at his most artistically fearless and uncompromising.

Yes indeed, Nola Darling makes some tremendous errors in judgement, is often financially irresponsible and often falls into a level of self-absorption that can alienate those closest to her.  That being said, "She's Gotta Have It" deeply asks of her and for us in the audience to question what is the "It" that Nola just has to have as the series chronicles her inner journey towards a sexual freedom then an artistic freedom which even then, leads to a potentially professional, personal and existential freedom. Nola Darling is committed to following her life path whatever it may be and wherever it may take her and her utmost refusal to compromise, to appease the herd or follow the norm is inspiring to the point of existing as nothing less than uplifting. Her level of integrity is unshakable and observing her spiritual ascension throughout the series is resplendent.

There has always existed a certain through line within Spike Lee's filmography of females who call back to Nola Darling as they exist somewhere in between being free spirits and social/political feminists (although Nola herself would vehemently reject any sense of labels outright). We see pieces of Nola in the nameless titular would-be actress turned phone sex operator played by Theresa Randle in "Girl 6" (1996) as well as the conspiratorial, conniving Fatima (Kerry Washington) in "She Hate Me" (2004), for instance.

Yet, over the years, Spike Lee has indeed taken some criticism for the conception and presentation of his female characters so to assist with Nola Darling's resurrection, Lee has wisely invited a team of women writers to script and therefore, shape the bulk of the series ensuring that the imperative female perspective, energy and soul is as inherent to the narrative as possible. While Lee has directed every episode himself, we more than gather a greater honesty and validity to the character than we would have if Lee had written the series solo, which also gives the series a deeper gravity and stronger sense of uplift.

One criticism of the original film, and even long noted as a source of regret to the point he now feels it to have been an outright mistake on his part as a writer and storyteller was to have Nola Darling raped by Jaime Overstreet in the final third of the film. For the series, the ways in which women exist in an unsafe world is firmly weaved into the narrative as a whole, for both satirical and dramatic effect and always honestly presented.

For Nola specifically, that very source of violation returns but within a completely different framework and set of circumstances presented in the series' debut episode, which does set up the course for Nola's evolution for the remainder of both seasons. Again, this was a crucial touch that elevated the purpose, dimension and cumulative effect when regarding the odyssey upon which Nola Darling embarks. And to that end, as the series progresses, we also witness how her odyssey inspires and mirrors deep transformations for several of the characters as well, projecting them far from where they began.

Often, Spike Lee has also been criticized for creating films that are conceptually over-stuffed,a criticism that I have always eschewed because I feel his films to be distinctively layered. With "She's Gotta Have It," there truly is a tremendous amount of material and themes to unpack, so much so, that it is a series that demands to be explored more than once.

Love and sexuality, female friendships, family histories, art vs. commerce, and issues of race and class are all surrounded by the re-gentrification of Brooklyn. And even then, we are also presented with Black history and how it affects the Black present. For me, this is not over-stuffed and frankly, even describing it as multi-layered doesn't seem fitting enough. Spike Lee's "She's Gotta Have It" series is a sprawling mosaic, making the experience function as an opera that works as connective tissue to and through much of Lee's filmography, simultaneously wrapping everything together while still charting forwards paths.

The themes of Black self-degradation as presented in "Bamboozled" make a disturbing, satirical return with the existence of a horrific show within the show called "She ASSED For That?!," a program devoted to the exhibition and exploitation of the stereotypical Black female figure, a feature that takes Shemekka down a dark, surreal tunnel. The majesty of the Aaron Copeland Americana from "He Got Game" resurfaces as Nola enjoys a day at her "happy place" in Coney Island.

Speaking of Americana, the series continues what has been oneof Spike Lee's greatest arguments: Black history IS American history, and so, the Black experience is indeed the story of America itself. Just being in the Brooklyn neighborhoods and seeing various sights and landmarks over and again firmly link the characters and the series to "Do The Right Thing," "Mo' Better Blues" (1990), "Jungle Fever," "Crooklyn" (1994), "Clockers," "Girl 6," "He Got Game," "25th Hour," "She Hate Me" and "Red Hook Summer" (2012). And in doing so, we can see how Lee has been crafting an on-going cinematic representation of the history of Brooklyn all along as his filmography has charted this location the 1970's to present day.

Black history and Black excellence is paramount to the series and the characters that populate it. Again, Lee's uncanny skill with delivering a cinematic world that does not acknowledge the imaginary White audience yet speaks directly to the Black community remains as audacious in the 21st century as it was in 1986.

Lee proudly presents cameo appearances and works from Black artists throughout, most notably during one episode where Nola travels to an artist retreat in Martha's Vineyard. One episode is devoted to a block party celebrating the life and artistry of Prince (whose intro to his own "Raspberry Beret" opens every episode). And within the series' own dialogue, the characters often engage in all manner of social/political digressions, asides, soliloquies, monologues, diatribes (Mars' evisceration of Christopher Columbus made me jump out of my seat) and feverish debates (including an extremely intense discussion between Nola and Shemekka during the series climax, regarding a controversial painting Nola has created).

All of this makes for a series that is as superbly thoughtful as it is enormously entertaining. Now, of course, not every single moment works. Some musical sequences go on perhaps a tad too long. Maybe some dialogue is a tad too didactic. Maybe the series has a few too many characters to juggle around at times. But even so, everything is purposeful and essential to the show's operatic nature and breadth. And I am telling you, there are so many instances when Lee diverges from the narrative entirely just to execute some visual poetry and the effect is often soul stirring, as evidenced by the downright astounding episode during which Nola, Mars, Shemekka, Winny Win visit to Puerto Rico to offer some aid after Hurricane Maria.

What I loved the most about the series is essentially what Spike Lee has accomplished for the entirety of his career, and it is the sheer joy I feel of just being able to regard Black people in the act of living life!!! Just the sight of contemporary, everyday Black people experiencing this thing called LIFE is a representative act and image whose continuing rarity in film and television makes what Spike Lee has created so monumental for me as a viewer.

Even now, when so many films feel to wish to present Black people either within a slave narrative or in situations where we are victims to be slaughtered (and even when the work is good to great), Lee has never really been interested in being one more filmmaker who wishes to present Black people suffering and dying. Even so, he has never been tentative about the harsh realities of  being Black in America either. Lee, in his dynamic aesthetic, gives us Black people rising every day to face a world that still happens to view us as less than human. And yet, we thrive, we survive, we build and cultivate friendships, relationships and communities while we all figure out our individualizes spaces and places with each other as well as within the world.

This is the greatness of Spike Lee's re-invention of "She's Gotta Have It." Nola Darling strives for independence, elevation, artistic fulfillment and spiritual deliverance in a cold, harsh world that would truly love for someone like her to just fall in line and silently play the part to which she has been assigned. Her refusal to dance to anyone else's tune is inspiring, making for a series that is unforgettable.

Very much like Spike Lee himself.

FAMILY PORTRAIT: a review of "Marriage Story"

"MARRIAGE STORY"
Written and Directed by Noah Baumbach
*** 1/2 (three and a half stars)
RATED R

I had all but given up on Noah Baumbach.

Over the past 25 years, the films of Noah Baumbach have alternately attracted me as well as kept me a bit at arms length. From his debut feature "Kicking And Screaming" (1995), a tale of post-collegiate ennui, I knew that what I was seeing was indeed idiosyncratic from its own artistic point of view and dealt with subject matter that held immediate interest (especially with that film, the characters were around the same age and experiencing some of the same issues as myself). However, there was something rather self-congratulatory about the execution. That somehow Baumbach was operating a tad above the material rather than operating from deeply within it. It almost contained an air of superiority and as much as I liked the film, it was also off-putting.

And so it has been between myself and Baumbach's films. Some of which reveled within their own honesty and wit, including the lovely romantic comedy "Mr. Jealousy" (1997) and the excellent, blisteringly perceptive "While We're Young" (2014). But quite a number of his films really rubbed me the wrong way, including the well meaning but over-rated "Greenberg" (2010) and especially, the odious, downright terribly self-congratulatory "Frances Ha" (2013) and "Mistress America" (2015), each of which foisted Greta Gerwig upon me in ways that have only made me reject her as I am absolutely confounded by whatever appeal she holds.

My problem with those films just stemmed from this nagging feeling that Noah Baumbach, while undeniably talented and skilled as a writer and filmmaker, knows how talented and skilled he is, therefore inserting that certain smug superiority that, for me, interferes with the honestly of the stories he is trying to tell. If he only allowed himself to let his guard down, to get messy, to deeply feel the heart and soul of his stories, then we'd really have something. With "Marriage Story," the film that I have been long waiting for from Baumbach has finally arrived.

Noah Baumbach's "Marriage Story" is his finest film in years and easily his best since his masterpiece, the divorce drama "The Squid And The Whale" (2005). Like that film, he returns to the world of divorce as this film was inspired by his own marital disillusion from actress Jennifer Jason Leigh as "The Squid And The Whale" was inspired by hi sown parents' divorce.  In returning to the benchmark events of his own life, Baumbach has more than allowed himself to perform some serious soul searching, which in this case, has made his art and fimmaking more bracing, urgent and heartbreaking than he typically allows himself. And for us, it is bracing, often aching cinema.

"Marriage Story" stars Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson as New York based married couple Charlie and Nicole Barber, where he is a prominent theater director and she is a former teen film actress who stars in his productions.

Having marital troubles and after attempting a stab at counseling, Nicole, who is offered a starring role in a new television pilot, decides to return to live with her Mother (Julie Hagerty) in West Hollywood...and takes their young son Henry (Azhy Robertson) with her while Charlie remains in New York to mount his next Broadway bound play. Despite agreeing to have an amicable split and resist lawyers, Nicole does meet, and eventually hires, family lawyer Nora Fanshaw (Laura Dern) and soon files divorce papers to a bewildered Charlie.

The remainder of the film chronicles, in a series of vignettes, the divorce of Charlie and Nicole as he is served papers at his Mother-In Law's home, obtains a small LA apartment, spends considerable time and money flying back and forth between New York and California, hiring one lawyer (Alan Alda) and then another (Ray Liotta) all the while trying to direct his Broadway play, be a nurturing Father to Henry and gain a greater understanding as to how his family came to fall apart and how Nicole fell out of love with him.

As a companion film to "The Squid And The Whale," Noah Baumbach's "Marriage Story" finds the filmmaker operating in an atmosphere where self-serving irony is not allowed and nerve endings are bravely exposed. It is an appropriately and emotionally messy film, one where abrupt tonal shifts from stark drama to near slapstick feel as risky and as real as life itself, as evidenced in a sequence where Charlie is given the divorce papers at his Mother-In-Law's home and another during which he and Henry endure an excruciating day and evening visit from an appointed family evaluator.

While "Marriage Story" does not equal the painful, intensely felt depths of the classic divorce drama in Writer/Director Robert Benton's "Kramer Vs. Kramer" (1979), what Baumbach does achieve akin to that film was to place the emphasis upon Charlie, as the artistically self-absorbed husband and Father forced to become entangled in a world he never imagined for himself and his family.

As Charlie, Adam Driver again proves himself to being a compulsively watchable and magnetically compelling actor, as he creates a character who profoundly earns our sympathy even when we wish to just shake him into reality. And that indeed is the engine to this character as Charlie feels to be a man who wishes his life could exist just as the plays he directs--where he is the ultimate world builder and overseer who can controls every solitary moment to his liking and perfection, which gives him emotional and psychological stability.

Yet, once Nicole leaves him and the divorce proceedings begin forcing him to navigate a cauldron of a legal system where every decision feels to fly out of his hands, Charlie is increasingly undone and therefore, forced to adapt to being out of control and powerless. All the while, he repeatedly announces, "But, were a New York family," as if saying the words over and again will force the world inside of his head to become reality, if only it were that easy. The theater director who has earned a MacArthur Fellowship grant and the brass ring to direct a full fledged Broadway play is now thrust into the unforgiving, unpredictable world where reality cannot be scripted and life itself cannot be directed. 

As Nicole, Scarlett Johansson is marvelous, and just as with her sparkling performance in Taika Waititi's "Jojo Rabbit" (2019), she appears joyously liberated from the Marvel Cinematic Universe as she is now allowed to have the freedom hit performance notes that are typically stifled.

It is indeed a prickly performance, one loaded with righteous (and even self-righteous) resentment and anger but again, it is a seriously liberated one. In an early scene with her lawyer, Nicole launches into an extended monologue during which she voices and charts the evolution of her life with Charlie. It is as if we are witnessing her self-revelations in real time as Nicole remembrances ignite a newfound sense of wanting to, at long last, reclaim the life she now feels she abandoned at the expense of building Charlie's life.

Leaving New York for California was the line in the sand and every decision thereafter is clearly Nicole growing sense of empowerment, self-reliance and self-confidence and now that she has begun to find herself, her uncompromising nature in returning to a past that she had no role in creating in now unthinkable. Johansson is equal to every moment, every shift, every growth spurt that Nicole experiences, as we see a character who is now unrepentantly ready to finally direct her own life. 

As Nicole rises, Charlie flounders but "Marriage Story" allows him to finally see outside of himself for once and for the betterment of whatever relationship he hopes to continue with his son. In a way, it is humorous to witness both characters operate and behave with each other as if within a play that Charlie may have originally written but was re-written by Nicole unbeknownst to him. Their language and body language is theatrical, all utilized as shields to protect themselves emotionally...that is until they are wholly unable and then, they explode as in a brilliant, blistering extended sequence late in the film where an amicable discussion turns to fury in whiplash rawness.

While I would never wish misery upon anyone within their lives and I certainly do not believe that one needs to be miserable to create great art, in the case of "Marriage Story," I think that his real life pain truly invigorated the emotional reality of his cinematic storytelling, even possibly allowing us a window into his life and personality, making for a film that feels to be self-critical, apologetic and even hopeful.

Noah Baumbach's "Marriage Story" is strong, seriously presented slice-of-life, yet this time, there are no invisible quotation marks around the proceedings, no self-conscious irony or distance. Just a rightful sense of heart, soul and humanity.

SAVAGE CINEMA DEBUTS: "MONKEYBONE" (2001)

"MONKEYBONE"
Based upon the graphic novel Dark Town Kaja Blackley
Screenplay Written by Sam Hamm
Directed by Henry Selick
** (two stars)
RATED PG 13

What social distancing and a state mandated "Safer-At-Home" policy has wrought...

Dear readers, if you happen to be ensconced in your own homes due to a global health crisis as I am, I am undoubtedly certain in between moments of calm and panic, you are finding ample time to watch television shows and movies you otherwise may not have had time to view before. And to that end, you may even find yourselves watching material you never had any intention of seeing. In my case, over the last 24 hours or so, I watched a movie that I had never had any intention of watching...and I mean never. And for the love of Pete, I watched the thing twice!

The movie in question is the live action/animation hybrid known as "Monkeybone," starring Brendan Fraser and directed by Henry Selick, best known and regarded for the stop-motion animated features "Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas" (1993) and "Coraline" (2009). 

For some background, I do vividly remember seeing the trailers for the film in theaters and immediately knowing that even the possibility of seeing it at all was less than zero. I mean--everything about it looked to be negligible at best! Juvenile toilet humor, puerile jokes designed for Middle Schoolers that actual Middle Schoolers could outdo creatively. And...well...Brendan Fraser. Nothing against him personally for I have never met the man but considering the bulk of his output during that period in time, an oeuvre that included "Encino Man" (1992), "George Of The Jungle" (1997) and "Bedazzled" (2000), there was truly nothing to convince me that I should give anything in which he starred half a chance whatsoever.

I remember the film being a box office bomb that faded from view rather quickly and I hadn't given it even one thought until just yesterday, when I was drowsy and flipping through channels and I spotted the movie on cable. In a fashion that was nothing more than "what-the-hell," I turned to the film, watched it all the way through and then, proceeded to find it within my On Demand feature and I watched it again!

Now...watching "Monkeybone" twice in a little over 24 hours is not meant for you to take it that I was just blown away by what I saw. Truthfully, there was much more to actually admire about the movie than I would have ever thought possible. But that being said, it is also a chaotic, tonal mess of a movie that I am still wondering precisely who was this experience designed for.

Too smutty for family audiences. Too surreal and grotesque for smaller children by a wide mile. Too infantile for adults. In its entirety, Henry Selick's "Monkeybone" is something that did spin my head around as it did feel to exist within its own broken kaleidoscope universe where Kafka-esque demons and Freud-ian themes fueled by rampant bodily function jokes and a level of special effects that have not aged well, making for a film that looks almost 10 years older than it is, all crash together in a blink-or-miss it, hellzapoppin', cartoonish head trip. For better or for worse, I haven't quite seen anything like it. 

"Monkeybone" stars the aforementioned Brendan Fraser as Stu Miley, an artist now cartoonist whose vulgar comic strip character Monkeybone, a more than randy and raunchy little monkey, has become widely popular and is now getting ready to star in his own animated series...much to Stu's reluctance and skepticism. Shying away from the spotlight, Stu exits a bash in honor of the upcoming series and potentially lucrative merchandising with his girlfriend, Dr. Julie McElroy (Bridget Fonda), a sleep institute researcher who cured Stu of his chronic nightmares by having him change his drawing hand from right to left, a move which changed his macabre artwork into the Monkeybone comic strip.

On the night Stu plans to propose to Julie, a car accident leaves Stu in a coma. While his body is connected to life support, and his heartless sister Kimmy (Megan Mullaly) is itching to pull the plug, Stu's soul descends to Down Town, a carnival-esque landscape populated by all manner of monsters who are entertained by watching people's nightmares in the Morpheum movie theater. While he is befriended by the kindly, cleavage baring waitress Miss Kitty (Rose McGowan), all Stu wishes for is to escape and wake up to his true love Julie, but he is forced to schlep around his Psychological Baggage in actual luggage, await life or death judgement by the Reapers and is constantly tormented by Monkeybone himself (voiced by John Turturro), obnoxiously, tastelessly sprung to life from his imagination.

Upon meeting the malicious Hypnos the God of Sleep (Giancarlo Esposito) and his laconic sister Death (Whoopi Goldberg), Stu plots to steal an Exit Pass to return to his body but is foiled by both Hypnos and Monkeybone, for Hypnos wishes for Monkeybone to steal Julie's chemical substance of "nightmare juice," which will give him increased power and Monkeybone...well, all he wants is to have Julie all to himself.

As you can witness from the plot description, there is actually a real story being told within "Monkeybone," a story more complicated than those aforementioned trailers ever suggested. Henry Selick does indeed carve out an evocative dark fable aesthetic with the stop-motion animation, costumes, set design and puppet effects, giving Down Town a real sense of creepy gravity as it is all so firmly connected to Stu's own subconsciousness.

The dream sequences, all black and white, shadowy and filled with one disturbing image after another, are especially effective as they feel like they could live in the neighborhood next to either Terry Gilliam psychological torments or David Lynch's body horror. And as the diminutive demon Hypnos, Giancarlo Esposito again proves that he is incapable of delivering a less than committed performance, even in a film this ridiculous, for when he informs Stu, whom he has trapped in a golf course made of quicksand, "When you dream, your monkey ass is MINE!"

Markedly less successful is the titular character himself, who, as it is so painfully obvious, is essentially named after an erection, making this film an endless stream of unimaginative double entendres ("I'm going to have to CHOKE MY MONKEY!!" yowls Stu as he chases after Monkeybone who has himself just taken a swan dive into Miss Kitty's cleavage and darted away) and scatological humor (watching a more than game Brendan Fraser, as the possessed Stu, gyrating his pajama clad nether regions directly into the camera in anticipation of finally bedding Julie is something I now cannot un-see).

Yes, this is all so Freud-ian as "Monkeybone" is indeed a movie about sexual repression and the fear of it being unleashed and therefore, uncontrollable as Stu's morally conscious Superego is at war with his own primal id, which is Monkeybone. And yet, somehow it is all mashed together with a corporate satire, some very nasty humor subversively placed underneath all of the relentless loudness (I really do think I heard a rape joke--not a good look), imaginative slapstick courtesy of Chris Kattan who plays a deceased gymnast possessed by Stu's soul (don't ask) who is chased by a team of surgeons as his vital organs fly out of his body without any sense of rhythm other than "FASTER!!! FASTER!!!!"

Composer Anne Dudley's rampant circus fairground film score barrels along as Bridget Fonda looks pretty and worried, Whoopi Goldberg's head explodes only to replaced by an identical one and the threat of nightmares being unleashed all over the world onto its victims from the flatulent anus of a Monkeybone plush toy gives you an idea of what sitting through this thing was like and why I just could not truly believe what I was seeing..and therefore, made me wonder just how in the hell did it even get made in the first place.

Clearly Tim Burton's "Beeltejuice" (1988) was the blueprint and certainly Robert Zemeckis' "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" (1988) and perhaps, Charles Russell's "The Mask" (1994) were thrown in for good measure as well. And yet, Henry Selick did not have as strong and as assured of a creative hand as those films whatsoever.  Truth be told, for a film that was released in 2001, it has not aged well at all--as it actually looks as if it was made the same year as "The Mask." Furthermore, it felt as if Selick possessed an ocean's worth of ideas, filmed every single one of them and never really thought about how they would eventually congeal together, which (again) made me question just who is this movie for.

Now, in fairness to Selick, I did indeed just discover as I was poking around the internet after watching this movie (again...I watched it twice!), that Rose McGowan revealed in recent years that Selick was fired from the film by the studio midway through the production, which makes me wonder if the clash between an honest, artistic expression and cold, commercially driven prospects was the cause for this calamity.

Even so, I watched and kept watching and kept watching, unable to really turn myself away as I knew that so much of what I was seeing was kind of regrettable. It is really quite the movie to be able to achieve a certain one-of-a-kind quality and yes, Henry Selick's "Monkeybone" is indeed quite the movie.

It is as if Henry Selick drank a vat of nightmare juice when he made it.

I'M NOT A FEMINIST, BUT...: a review of "Bombshell"

"BOMBSHELL"
Screenplay Written by Charles Randolph
Directed by Jay Roach
***1/2 (three and a half stars)
RATED R 

Full disclosure: I hate FOX News.

Of course, I am astute enough to be cognizant of the reality that is corporate media and how the networks in question are all beholden to the wishes of those who control the money, and therefore, the messaging, for each network in particular.  That being said, I am not expressing this viewpoint for any means of false equivalency because FOX News is indeed its own monolithic beast unlike any other in terms of scale and messaging, which is designed to reach a specific audience through means of relentless lies and fear mongering. I am not expressing these views to invoke any arguments. I am expressing these views to you at this time just to get it out into the open.

Now, as much as I hate FOX News, there does exist some incredulous and perhaps prurient curiosity on my part that wonders what it is like to work for such an organization and for those that have, and for those that still do so, not only what is this experience like but how does it feel? What does it mean to one's spirit, if there is some one who is employed by an institution that is delivering a product said individual does not trust or believe in themselves? What if the environment is a toxic one? How does one survive? How does one justify, rationalize and even live with oneself?

Those questions can easily be asked of any of us, regardless of where we are or were employed, and I do not think that it would even be remotely of a stretch to believe that so many of us have been under the thumbs of an ineffective to abusive superior or worked within a toxic environment, feeling powerless constantly.

With regards to observing FOX News from my vantage point and seeing the widely public stories of sexual harassment surrounding the network, plus the publicized acts of harassment performed by the late Roger Ailes towards high profile female anchors like Megyn Kelly and Gretchen Carlson, I have indeed found myself of existing within the quandary of feeling empathy towards those anchors and simultaneously, a sense of unrepentant indifference because these figures are ones who have openly made millions contributing to a corporate system designed to harm through divisive information rather than inform with the truth.

These very feelings formulate the dark heart of Jay Roach's "Bombshell." his searing, multi-layered  drama of sexual harassment in the workplace when that workplace happens to be FOX News. Roach has deftly delivered an instantly captivating, magnetically entertaining film of moral outrage and complexity, during which I often found myself fluctuating between solidarity, sympathy and incredulity. For a culture that continuously progresses towards a world without nuance, Jay Roach's "Bombshell" smartly provides crystal clear issues and conflict but defiantly offers no easy answers.

Based upon the accounts of women from FOX News, "Bombshell" charts the personal and professional trajectories of three central figures, FOX star anchor Megyn Kelly (an excellent Charlize Theron), fading FOX anchor Gretchen Carlson (Nicole Kidman) and hopeful upstart FOX true believer Kayla Pospisil (a composite character played by Margot Robbie) and their respective relationships with FOX News CEO Roger Ailes (a rightfully repellent John Lithgow) during the 2016 election cycle and the then seemingly impossible rise of Donald Trump as a realistic Presidential contender.

Throughout the course of the film, we are presented with how all three relationships with Ailes are confronted and assuaged, while each of them are also forced to face their roles as women within an male owned and operated environment that is toxic to them in addition to the roles they have indeed played into the creation of this environment, which has then enabled their own subjugation.  Over and again in the film, we hear variation from Kelly, Carlson and definitely Pospisill about how they are not "feminists," and yet, we witness the situations into which they become engulfed that forces them to seriously question their roles and lives and women within an institution that is unsympathetic at best to all women.

As I regard his past filmography, which consisted of broad comedies including Mike Myers' "Austin Powers" series (1997/1999/2002) and two movies in the "Meet The Parents" series (2000/2004), I am still amazed with how shrewd and sharply perceptive Jay Roach is when crafting his political docudramas for HBO including "Recount" (2008), about the Bush Vs. Gore election in 2000 and "Game Change" (2012), itself about the late John McCain's Presidential campaign and the rise of Sarah Palin.

With "Bombshell," Roach's film is more than effectively armed with a strong, clean screenplay and a collective of pitch perfect performances, especially from Charlize Theron, who once again makes herself unrecognizable--and not just solely due to dropping the register of her voice and the excellent prosthetic makeup applications.

As Megyn Kelly, Theron has worked from the inside out, allowing us to garner a picture of a woman who seems to truly believe in her sense of journalistic integrity and is honestly stunned when she not only becomes the focus of the story, but a target from the greater, and decidedly wealthy, White male, power dynamics that be. Theron, plus Nicole Kidman and Margot Robbie are all conduits for far right wing conservative women who discover that even they are not immune to discrimination even when they exist within a belief system that constantly gaslights them.

In essence, we are able to gather their own cognition of their respective predicaments in a short yet striking (and if memory serves, wordless) sequence in which all three women are sharing an elevator ride, the elevator being the perfect metaphor, as one career is going up, while another is going down and a third exists somewhere in between floors, so to speak. Megyn Kelly, Grethen Carlson and Kaya Pospisil are all victimized within a system in which they are all complicit in creating, promoting and ensuring remains a cable news juggernaut propaganda machine.

Jay Roach's acutely penetrating cinematic gaze is quietly powerful as he never oversells a moment, or falls into hyperbole within a story and environment that possesses more than its share of inherent drama, pain and a healthy sense of nuance. Without any cinematic neon signs, so to speak, he just allows everything to unfold within a matter-of-fact sense of reality where the sights and words speak for themselves.

Just regard how Roach presents the sexual, racial and generational makeup of the FOX News environment from staff to owners, and no other commentaries truly need to be made. From implicitly dictated wardrobe requirements, a morass of insensitive to offensive comments and "jokes" from male colleagues, and disturbing closed door meeting with the lascivious, paranoid Ailes, every moment within the  confines of the FOX News network, from behind-the-scenes to on-air content, is loaded through the unforgiving lens of a male power structure that can spin upon a dime if Ailes' sense of loyalty feels questioned or if employees are not towing the company line, regardless of whether one believes in it or not...and if you do not believe in it, then keep it locked down tightly for fear of retribution.

To that end, we are able to view "Bombshell" and apply the presence of FOX News as an allegory for what it means to be a woman in America in the 21st century, which would be a powerful enough exercise. Yet, what Jay Roach accomplishes further is to allow us to make up our own minds as to how we should or should not feel towards the principals involved. It is obvious enough that Roger Ailes was a monster and the cruel mistreatment of all of the women is abhorrent.

But even still, when I regarded Megyn Kelly's situation, for instance, I found myself wavering--just as I did in real life and her story was unfolding in the media. Megyn Kelly is by no means a martyr due to her complicity and willingness to further extend the reach of FOX News for the time that she did but yes, she was undeserving of a treatment that was, by its nature, completely inhumane.  Both aspects can be true. he is no hero for extolling racist propaganda upon FOX News but should there have been retribution towards her for simply bringing out real world facts against Donald Trump during an election cycle, a cycle during which those very same questions directed towards any other candidate (especially if it happened to have been a Democrat) would have been fair game? With Roach's "Bombshell," we are then given a larger picture into how rampant sexism turns into games of professional survival.

This aspect becomes even more evident with a supporting character very well played by Saturday Night Live's Kate McKinnon, who plays Jess Carr, a FOX news staffer who is fully aware of the toxic culture of the network and is also a closeted lesbian and liberal with a Hilary Clinton poster in her apartment.

As Jess describes to Kayla Pospisil, she works at FOX because it was the first place to hire her and she is now unable to find another job at any other network solely because she is employed by FOX. In many ways, she is the conduit for which the film is able to extend its reach beyond the primary subject matter as it delves into the wider arena and questions of what happens when any of us find ourselves therefore trapped in a toxic work environment with no sense of any way out. 

Jay Roach's "Bombshell" is smart, savvy, scathing cinema that not only invites us to explore patriarchal power structures and toxic masculinity but to even ask us to ask ourselves precisely what is feminism, what does it mean to be a feminist. and therefore, what is equality and solidarity in a world designed to create barriers against it...

...and possesses a 24/7 broadcast cycle upon our nation's airwaves.       

SPIN THE BLACK CIRCLE: THE CONTINUING REVOLUTION OF "HIGH FIDELITY"

"HIGH FIDELITY"
Based upon the novel by Nick Hornby
10 episode television series Developed by Veronica West & Sarah Kucserka
Released February 14, 2020

What goes around comes around...again...

When I first heard the news some time in the past that Nick Hornby's seminal, brilliant novel High Fidelity, which had already been adapted 20 years ago into an equally seminal, brilliant feature film by Director Stephen Frears and Co-Writer/Executive Producer and actor John Cusack (starring in one of the finest performances of his entire career, in my opinion), was being adapted again and this time into a gender swapping television series overseen by Disney, I truly hit the roof!

Now before any one you begin to question if some element of toxic masculinity was the forceful base of my reactions, let me squash those thoughts immediately. My feelings stemmed purely and vehemently from my on-going distaste with Hollywood's prevalence for returning to the well with its continuous stream of re-makes, reboots, re-imaginings, sequels, prequels and so on and so forth and so on at the complete expense of creating something we haven't seen yet before.

For me, flipping genders from originals to re-makes is yet another version of a crassly conceived and therefore filmed Hollywood boardroom deal. I was displeasured by the idea of the women led remakes of Ivan Reitman's "Ghostbusters" (1984) and Steven Soderbergh's "Ocean's Eleven" (2001) not because these films were led by women. I would love to see those actresses in almost anything together!! I just felt saddened and disturbed that Hollywood wouldn't even try to execute any creative wherewithal to invent something new for these actresses to take and make as their collective own.

With regards to High Fidelity, the idea of a remake cut too close to the bone.  Even when the announcement was made that Zoe Kravitz would be starring in the series, I still balked due to the nature of the the project being a remake. I would love to see Kravitz as a 21st century record store owner but why...WHY does it have to be "High Fidelity" other than it being a property that itself possesses a pre-made audience with pre-conceived notions rather than something entirely unfamiliar?

And beyond even that, for me, Hornby's original novel and Frears' film are, and only continue to be, personal to the point of being primal, beautifully articulating my own feelings and fears about music, melancholia, maturation and mixtapes, directly back to myself, easily as much as anything I ever connected with from both the late John Hughes and Cameron Crowe. The previous versions are wonderful just as they are, and therefore, they do not need to be remade in any way, for risk of tainting something that contains such importance to me.

So, now, here we are in 2020 and on Valentine's Day, the Hulu streaming service premiered all 10 episodes to strong reviews...which did intrigue me...admittedly. Kravitz's role as one of the series' hands on Executive Producers, alongside Nick Hornby himself, plus even the presence of The Roots' Questlove as the curator of the series' musical patchwork gave me some extremely confident pushes to giving it a try. Finally, I was convinced via the words of trusted friends who watched and enjoyed.

And now, I write to you from my home base, off work, practicing social distancing and having more than enough time upon my hands, to inform you that over the past two and a half days, I have watched the entire series and have been so superbly surprised and this new adaptation of "High  Fidelity," as overseen by Writer/Producers Veronica West and Sarah Kucserka, is as fine and pure of a remake as I could have hoped for as it is fully reverential to all that has arrived before while smartly and  richly carving out an original path of its own.

Transplanting the action once again from Nick Hornby's London set novel and Stephen Frears's Chicago based film version, the New York City based "High Fidelity" chronicles the life and times of  Robyn "Rob" Brooks (Zoe Kravitz), a late 20's record store owner and music obsessive enduring the pain of a breakup with Russell "Mac" McCormack (Kingsley Ben-Adir) by travelling through her romantic past via her "Top 5 Heartbreaks," as a means to try and understand where she has gone wrong in her life.

In addition to owning and operating her establishment Championship Vinyl, Rob's days consist of vigorously bantering over arcane musical trivia and Top 5 lists with her two friends and employees, ex-boyfriend/now homosexual Simon Miller (an excellent David H. Holmes) and the boisterous, belligerent, bombastic Cherise (a dynamic Da'Vine Joy Randolph), while her nights are often spent wallowing in her heartache, smoking and drinking, and charting her romantic loss through the music that has surrounded her life.

Now, one year after her breakup with Mac, and the tentative beginnings with a potential new interest in Clyde (Jake Lacy), Rob's word is further upended by Mac's return to the city...this time, with a fiance.

In the 25 years since the book's original publication and now reborn with this new adaptation, it really amazes me with how malleable Nick Hornby's story actually is, especially as the book still feels to be so quintessentially British. But this story is not about location, although it serves as a crucial character. Stephen Frears and John Cusack expertly brought the story to America fully intact and also made it a Chicago story and now, Veronica West and Sarah Kucserka have not only brought the stor to New York, they have performed what felt to be kind of unspeakable.

In a book and film that is designed to be an exploration of the decidedly male mindset in regards to relationships and music, keeping the heart and soul of the story untouched while changing the gender of the leading character felt to be unfathomable and yet, in actuality, this time, the gender flip is perfection, thus giving "High Fidelity" an extremely vibrant new life--one that honors its origins but one that is decidedly feminist while simultaneously showcasing how when it comes to relationships and music, the actions and emotions of men and women nursing romantic wounds and staring down hard self-questionings about their specific existential spaces in life itself are not diametrically opposed whatsoever.

In fact, West and Kucserka's "High Fidelity" illustrates the overall humanity of Hornby's story beautifully with intelligence, copious humor,  honest sexuality, meticulously observed odes to how people truly behave and feel and all completely set to an exquisitely curated soundtrack.

Arriving 20 years after the film version, it is also interesting to witness how the world of music itself and our relationship with it has altered and remained the same. In the film, vinyl was dying, yet now, Rob's record store is doing well enough due to the resurgence of vinyl. The mixtapes of the novel and film have been replaced by Spotify playlists yet the intensely heartfelt creation of that perfect curation remains wholly intact. And in all three versions, music is utilized as an identifier, a shield, an outlet of personal expression when one's own words and deeds completely fail, and always, crucially, music is the source of creating connections, with others as well as with oneself, whether in London, Chicago or re-gentrified New York City.

As Rob, Zoe Kravitz owns the role, nearly as equally as John Cusack. Admittedly, it took a little bit to warm to her as she was clearly mimicking some of Cusack's rhythms and mannerisms here and there in early episodes, just as Da'Vine Joy Randolph tries to initially channel Jack Black's ferocious energy from the film version.

But after a stretch, everyone settles comfortably and richly into their respective roles and all of the nods to the film--from dialogue, wardrobe choices to music cues on the soundtrack (The Beta Band, Stevie Wonder)-- I could then witness that West and Kucserka were creating echoes to the film (even Kravitz's entire look appears to have been designed to echo the appearance of her own Mother, Lisa Bonet in the film version, which is, at times, a little eerie), moments designed to be played off of each other, signifying the overall universality of Hornby's story, regardless of time, place and gender....and even race.

As I have previously stated, my connection to Nick Hornby's novel and Stephen Frears' film is downright primal, despite the fact that the character of Rob in both versions is a White male. By now making Rob a bi-racial/bi-sexual female, the representation feels honest and not shoe-horned and it is that very inclusivity that allows ALL music obsessives to recognize themselves...for better or for worse.

That being said, the feminine energy and viewpoint in West and Kucserka's "High Fidelity" is paramount to its overall success and relevance. Just the sight of Zoe Kravitz as Rob as a young, Black, female business owner is powerful enough (as are the series' matter-of-fact depictions of inter-racial relationships and the image of Black people working and simply living life).

But scenes and episodes where her womanhood is the subtle engine--most notably, episode #5 during which she and Clyde visit a woman (an excellent Parker Posey) attempting to sell her husband's prized record collection (itself a scene from the novel and a deleted scene from the film version) and a sequence where she eviscerates a male blowhard over the vitality of Paul McCartney and Wings' triple live album "Wings Over America" (released December 10, 1976)--are outstanding and therefore cements this version within its own universe.

The "High Fidelity" series works at its finest when it uses the novel and film as inspiration and spirals into uncharted territories. An episode that shifts the focus entirely from Rob to Simon is a heartbreaking knockout and Cherise, fueled by her ambition to make her own musical statement--much to the chagrin of her friends--is broadened greatly thus giving the character a poignant depth that was not witnessed with the previous incarnations. And the central romance of Rob and Mac also now carries a greater weight and pain, allowing Kravitz to deliver the goods as Rob truly becomes multi-layered, and three dimensional in ways that are different from the novel and film.

Kravitz's Rob is equally cantankerous and obsessive for certain, this time, this Rob is also more openly selfish, self-absorbed and at times, even cruel with her callousness, all of which is fueled by her sense of romantic loss and existential angst. It woud also not be unfair to question if she is also nursing some serious addiction issues as she chain-smokes, is perpetually stoned and drinks excessively (even her brother Cameron--played by Rainbow Sun Francks--indulges in cocaine to cope with his own stresses as an impending parent). These specific qualities allow all three versions of Rob to face the same internal and developmental trajectory while also being completely individualistic.

...and isn't that very internal and developmental trajectory precisely what has made Nick Hornby's story endure for over two decades and generations anyway?

We have all been here before and we will all be here again in one way or another and like a cherished album, Veronica West and Sarah Kucserka's "High Fidelity" explodes from being a mere set of songs into being its own artistic statement inits own right. Exceedingly well written, directed and acted it is so very well done, it just may even spark new life into the genre of remakes.

Perhaps I am getting ahead of myself but this new version deftly demonstrates that "High Fidelity" was a song worth singing all over again.

SAVAGE CINEMA DEBUTS: "ROGER WATERS THE WALL" (2014)

"ROGER WATERS THE WALL" (2014)
Screenplay Written by Roger Waters & Sean Hayes
Directed by Sean Hayes & Roger Waters
**** (four stars)
RATED R

"The flames are all long gone but pain lingers on..."
"Goodbye Blue Sky"
performed by Pink Floyd
music and lyrics by Roger Waters

It felt fitting to experience this film as I sat at home, thinking about and remembering my Dad on the one year anniversary of his passing this past December 9, 2019.

Additionally, I was also marveling at the 40th anniversary of Pink Floyd's "The Wall," released November 30, 1979. Listening and experiencing the lion's roar of a rock opera all over again, reminiscing about my very first listen at the age of 11 when it absolutely terrified me and soon became one of my favorite albums of all time, I remain astonished at the awesome, monolithic power of the work from its songwriting, musicianship, production, artistry, and most of all, the storytelling and lyricism of former Pink Floyd bassist/vocalist/songwriter Roger Waters.

Within his tenure in the band and since his acrimonious departure from Pink Floyd, Roger Waters has repeatedly taken it upon himself to re-stage "The Wall" over the years, including Director Alan Parker's artfully nightmarish film adaptation "Pink Floyd The Wall" (1982), truly re-defining it as the signature work of his 50 year plus career, one which includes several conceptual masterpieces with Pink Floyd and unparalleled lyricism overall. Yet, there is something extra and undeniable about the power and longevity of "The Wall," a work of such intense personal anguish, self-laceration, remorse, forgiveness and empathy that I have often wondered just what the consistent re-staging of the work holds for Roger Waters himself as the experience of the work feels just this short of a personal exorcism.

And perhaps it is...

Weaved into the story of "The Wall" is the character of Pink and his endless grief and mourning over the Father he never knew, who was killed in World War II. As Pink serves as a stand in for Roger Waters himself, we received a window into his bottomless sense of loss as his own Father, whom he never knew, was killed in World War II and to that end, Waters' own Grandfather, whom he also never knew, was killed in World War I.

With the documentary "Roger Waters The Wall," Waters, who co-directs with Sean Hayes, extends what we already know of the seminal album into an even more wide-sweeping political statement stretching far beyond the personal and becoming more universal and miraculously, all without altering the story and songs of the album one bit.

It is a film that is part rock concert, personal pilgrimage and socio-political document admonishing the nature of war and those who create it as well as honoring the dead and the living who will forever mourn. For a work that I know inside and out and revere profoundly, Waters and Sean Hayes' "Roger Waters The Wall" fully honored and revitalized the work as a timeless anti-war statement, an impassioned howl against the injustices of the world and a searing, sorrowful lament for all of the pain and loss left in its wake.

Essentially structured precisely as the Pink Floyd album, complete with the words "...we came in?" beginning the film and "Isn't this where..." concluding it, "Roger Waters The Wall" opens with Waters exiting the stage from a performance, returning to his English home and packing for a trip the next morning. Driving along seemingly endless roadways, he arrives at a military cemetery, upon which he regards the names of the fallen soldiers upon the walls before turning to face the rows upon rows of headstones.

With grave solemnity, Waters then pulls out a trumpet and begins to play, in honor of the dead, his composition "Outside The Wall," before being voluminously interrupted (just like as on the original album) with a full orgiastic concert performance of "In The Flesh?" during which Waters, in a crisp black t-shirt jeans and sneakers, jaunts onto the stage in a youthful abandon that fully belied his then 70 years, and then, dresses in the costume of the fascistic leader that Pink imagines himself, completely augmented by armed guards and a mammoth banner adorned with the now iconic and swastika inspired crossed hammers insignia. Placing dark glasses over his eyes, Waters, now in character and with a voice unaltered by age, begins with the now familiar lyrics,

"So ya, thought ya might like to go to the show
To feel the warm thrill of confusion, that space cadet glow
Tell me, is something eluding you sunshine?
Is this not what you expected to see?
If you wanna find out what's behind these cold eyes
You just have to claw your way through this disguise" 

And then, with an overwhelming, bombastic sound and visual fury, the band rises to its fullest crescendo as fireworks blaze the sky and finally, an airplane sails over the audience, crashing into the stage unleashing an explosion that feels as if it was straight out of Francis Ford Coppola's "Apocalypse Now" (1979). Awesome, horrifying and magnetically captivating, the show and now, the film are underway.

The story of "The Wall" then unfolds just as on the original album and film. Pink, an alienated rock star, numbed by fame, drugs and an endless grief over never knowing his own Father who was killed in World War II, has holed himself up inside of an American hotel room while on tour tormented by  his own memories, fears and nightmares and befriended only by the visuals and sounds emanating from the television.

He ruminates over his post WWII childhood, smothered by his well-meaning bus suffocating Mother, wounded with the pains delivered by authoritative teachers during his school years and then growing up and finding  himself inside of a failed marriage, every disappointment contributes to the building of his psychological wall, which he soon finds himself trapped behind and unable to release himself from.

After re-imagining himself as a fascistic leader with his neo-Nazi themed group The Hammers wreaking havoc, Pink subjects himself to a psychological trial in which he ultimately releases himself from his self-made prison to find himself a sensitive, empathetic human being in need of love just as the rest of us.

The performance aspect of the show is nothing less than superlative and it is richly documented by Hayes and Waters who co-directed the film. In many ways, the visual scope and presentation made me feel that this was exactly what Roger Waters had envisioned back in 1979 but it took all of these years to allow the technological advances to catch up...and believe me, it was more than worth the wait.

Just as with the original handful of shows Pink Floyd performed back in 1980, a physical wall is indeed constructed throughout the first half of the show ultimately obscuring the entire band by the mid point and falling to its ultimate destruction by the conclusion. Yes, we see a band of children invited upon stage to sing, dance, chant and stand down a monstrous puppet version of visual artist Gerald Scarfe's "Teacher" character during "Another Brick In The Wall Part 2."

Scarfe's classic designs all feature heavily in animated sequences originally presented during the 1982 film version during "Empty Spaces," as well as for more grotesque characters like Pink's Wife and definitely Pink's Mother, who looms menacingly in the background during "Mother," a sequence where Waters also duets with a 1980 film version of himself and the wall itself becomes a projection screen for Orwellian statements like "Big Mother Is Watching You," as well as words of resistance, as when Waters sings, "Mother, should I trust the government?" the wall says, "No Fucking Way."

The surveillance theme is continued with the giant eyes staring into the audience during "Is There Anybody Out There?," we gather Waters as Pink sitting alone in an on-stage hotel room during "Nobody Home," we are shocked by the giant sized visual of the self-imprisoned Pink futilely racing towards the audience and crashing into the wall, which has now completely hidden the band during "Hey You," and one of my favorite sequences occurred during "Don't Leave Me Now," as the wall is covered with a rainbow of falling tears which could be also seen as prison bars.

It is indeed a staggering presentation of rock theater and if this were all we received from Roger Waters' latest interpretation, it would have been more than satisfactory, to say the least. Waters remains in strikingly powerful voice and even greater stamina as this show must be wrenching to perform night after night. And to that end, his complete band has achieved a tremendous success with bringing the original contributions of Waters' former Pink Floyd bandmates David Gilmour, Nick Mason and the late Richard Wright to vibrant life and with complete reverence.

Yet what makes "Roger Waters The Wall" strikingly different from the original album is how Waters has taken his 1979 narrative and made it even more urgent, relevant and essential for right now in the 21st century by making the experience even ore personal and exceedingly more universal.

As previously stated, "Roger Waters The Wall," is the complete concert performance bu tit is indeed interspersed with Roger Waters personal pilgrimage to visit the graves sites of both his Grandfather and Father, whom he never knew due to their deaths in World War I and World War II, respectively. We see Waters on his long, meditative drives, sometimes alone and at other times, inexplicably accompanied by an old friend, inserted and excised from the film without any sense of introduction. It is as if these people are ghosts or figments of past conversations playing inside of Waters' head.

Yet, probing deeper, we witness a tearful Waters reading the very letter sent to his Mother informing her of his Father's death in battle and we also regard Waters with his own children at the site of his Grandfather's grave, a poetic and deeply poignant visual of how the consequences of war travel through time and the impact never truly ceases when it comes to the families of the fallen.

This material more than humanizes Roger Waters, who is indeed a larger than life, legendary rock star, deftly presenting him as just one person representing the human cost of all wars, a sentiment that carries through the entire theatrical performance. For instead of focusing solely through the lens of the psychologically isolated rock star, Roger Waters extends "The Wall" almost immediately into a broader, wider ranging political statement.

In the show's second song of "The Thin Ice," the wall on stage becomes a backdrop for the faces of those killed in wars, regardless of era and/or region, whether soldier, civilian or even a child. "Vera" displays images of war time reunions while "Bring The Boys Back Home" showcases the following anti-war quotation from President Dwight D. Eisenhower:

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed." 

By the time Waters as Pink has transformed into his Hammer dictator persona (and firing rounds of his machine gun) and we are given the terrifying sequence of songs from "In The Flesh," "Run Like Hell" and "Waiting For The Worms," what was once presented as horrific inner turmoil is now an even more horrific presentation of every despot that has inflicted mass cruelties in the world. In fact, when I hear the lyrics to "In The Flesh" today, I am chilled to the bone as how closely the words mirror what has been happening in America during the Trump era, from spoken sentiments to the rise in White supremacy.

"Are there any queers in the theater tonight?
Get 'em up against the wall
There's one in the spotlight
He don't look right to me
Get him up against the wall
That one looks Jewish
And that one's a coon
Who let all this riff-raff into the room?
There's one smoking a joint
And another with spots
If I had my way
I'd have all of you shot"

Does that sound like anything you have heard in the last three years?

And so, with "Roger Waters The Wall," we now have a familiar experience firmly re-contextualized as a blistering lament for a world that always exists within or is marching towards or recovering from war and the reverberations are endlessly palpable. Which, of course, leads us to the nature of all of the walls that exist to divide us--whether it is just ourselves from ourselves, like the character of Pink, to what Waters has now grandly extended his narrative to include, which are all of the walls between individuals and cultures and based upon not much more than our own fears.

And in the end, what do we also have from "Roger Waters The Wall" but a narrative about a man missing and mourning his Father and how that specific grief remains so ever present and unending.

Which made this film perfect viewing on the first anniversary of my Dad's passing.

SAVAGE CINEMA'S COMING ATTRACTIONS FOR MARCH 2020

Just taking a peek at the potential new movie releases for the month of March, the pickings seem to be a bit slim...but that does not necessarily mean that is a bad thing. And frankly, I do think I am in need of a bit of a re-charge.

Yes, after the final months of 2019, the year end Savage Scorecard compilations and the Oscars (which I didn't even write about this year due to time constraints), it is feeling good to have a bit of a breather. This time will allow me to finally finish a review I had begun months ago as well as begin to compile for you my Time Capsule series, commemorating my favorite films of the decade between 2010-2019.

With that, the only film that I have been somewhat intrigued to see is this one...

Now, truthfully, everything about this movie screams "cliche." And to that end, I would not be surprised if many of you out there are wondering why I would even spend my time even considering going to see this movie. Well...it is indeed due to Ben Affleck, whom I have always enjoyed and therefore rooted for, even when his career choices felt to me to be unwise. That said, knowing a bit about his personal struggles have made me curious about this new film, cliched or otherwise, so maybe...

Beyond this, I will just allow the month to surprise me and as always, please do wish me good health and I'll see you when the house lights go down!!!!!!!