Moms Mabley — A New Documentary on HBO

Posted on November 18, 2013 at 12:00 pm

Whoopi Goldberg pays long overdue tribute to a pioneering figure in the history of comedy, Moms Mabley in a new documentary premiering on HBO tonight. In an era where stand-up comedy was almost entirely white and male and — as far as anyone knew — straight, she was a very successful gay black woman, first on “the chitlin’ circuit” of black theaters and clubs and then in more mainstream venues. But Mabley was anything but mainstream. She played Carnegie Hall and appeared on the Smothers Brothers and other television shows. She appeared on stage as a bedraggled, toothless, soul, which helped disguise the sly sharpness of her comedy. I hope Goldberg’s documentary will bring her the recognition she deserves and create a new generation of fans.

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Toast

Posted on October 6, 2011 at 5:59 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating:	Not rated
Profanity:	Some strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking, smoking
Violence/ Scariness:	Sad death of parent
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters,
Date Released to Theaters:	October 7, 2011
Amazon.com ASIN:	B004UFA0RE

“Being normal is overrated,” a young boy’s friend assures him. “You’ll probably turn out to be very interesting.”

He was right. British chef and food writer Nigel Slater tells his own story in “Toast”. His mother was a terrible cook. When he suggested they try fresh produce, she explained that they were better off with canned food because you don’t know where the fresh vegetables had been. She would boil the food in the can and if it came out especially badly they would have toast for dinner. She loved Nigel with all her heart and he adored her. But he never felt close to his gruff father (Ken Stott). And then his mother died. Nigel correctly discerned that the cleaning woman his father hired (Helena Bonham Carter) was determined to be promoted to lady of the house. She and Nigel were engaged in an all-out war that was tragic but darkly comic because the battlefield was the kitchen.

This film was produced for BBC television and it assumes a familiarity with British dialect and culture that may be confusing for American audiences, even the Masterpiece Theatre-loving Anglophiles. And some family members have disputed the accuracy of Slater’s portrayal. It spends too much time on the early part of Slater’s life (played as a child by Oscar Kennedy) and not enough on his teen years (played by Freddie Highmore). The tone keeps it engaging, though, because Slater’s point of view does not get maudlin. When his stepmother is portrayed as a grasping shrew we understand that it is through his eyes as an unforgiving teenager and, as the last scene makes clear, that he recognizes that living well is the best revenge. Except for maybe being the one to tell the story.

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Comic-Con: Big News from Riverdale and Archie Comics

Posted on July 24, 2011 at 3:39 pm

I had a blast at the Archie Comic panel. Everyone there was a nice and friendly and enthusiastic as you would hope to find in the idyllic environs of Riverdale. But there is very big news. In its own nice and friendly and enthusiastic way, Archie Comics is one of the most innovative companies at Comic-Con or anywhere else, on every level from distribution to story.

I was delighted to hear that Kevin, Archie’s first gay character, is so successful he will have his own comic. I love the way that in the first issue, they show that Kevin was not always the handsome, confident kid who becomes class president at Riverdale High. We get to meet some of his close friends from middle school and see that he had his awkward stage, too. Even more amazingly, Archie’s future stories will include visits from Sarah Palin and Barack Obama — who will share a soda at the malt shop — and NY Giant Michael Strahan and even KISS in a four-part miniseries! With separate series for Archie as a tot, a child, a teen, and a married man, they say they have “a metaverse as rich and plentiful as anything at Marvel and DC,” with “a flowchart from that wall to that wall.”

The Archie folks are very proud that they were the first to have “day and date” availability of their comics online and they are dedicated to making them accessible on every platform from iPhone app to Android and Windows 7 to Nook and Kindle, with 3 million downloads of their app so far. Their long-time partnership with Ronald MacDonald House will be supported with the 75th anniversary issue, with all proceeds going to help sick kids and their families.

Beginners

Posted on June 9, 2011 at 5:55 pm

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for language and some sexual content
Profanity:	Very strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking, characters get tipsy
Violence/ Scariness:	Very sad death from cancer, loss of parents, grief
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	June 10, 2011

Oliver (Ewan McGregor) is engaged in the saddest of tasks, clearing out his late father’s home, choosing what to take, what to give away, what no one will want. He brings his father’s dog home with him, giving him a tour. “This is the bathroom,” he says. “This is the dining room, where people come and eat sometimes.” But it is clear that no one comes to eat there. Oliver, a graphic designer, is a loner and in his grief he is even more isolated from the rest of the world.

Writer-director Mike Mills (“Thumbsucker”), a graphic designer himself, based this film on his own experience. His father came out at age 74 for the first time and lived an enthusiastic and joyous life as a gay man until he died. He tells the story impressionistically, going back and forth between Oliver’s quiet, if sometimes conflicted, support of his father’s new experiences and relationships and then his illness and months after his father’s death, when he meets an actress (Melanie Laurant of “Inglourious Basterds” and “The Concert”), falls for her, and struggles to overcome his sense of loss and learn from his father’s ability to give himself wholeheartedly to a relationship. There are flashbacks, too, showing us Oliver’s spirited if complicated mother (the superb Mary Page Keller), who was married to his father for 44 years. And Oliver mingles in details of history and even cosmology as he tells us what happened. It works beautifully. Mills tells the story with delicacy and tenderness — and with humor. The best lines are given to the dog.

Christopher Plummer is outstanding as Oliver’s father Hal, who has no regrets about his marriage but is determined to make up for the time he could not be fully himself. He calls Oliver in the middle of the night to ask what kind of music he heard in a club. “House music,” he repeats, writing it down, to make sure he knows how to ask for it the next time. He has gay pride meetings in his home. He falls in love with a man and invites him to move in, understanding that his new lover will not be monogamous. Oliver’s reaction is mixed admiration, envy, and a kind of sibling rivalry, and McGregor is an understated marvel in showing us all of that and more, without a word.

After Hal’s death, Oliver goes to a costume party, dressed as Freud. He meets Anna, who has laryngitis, and communicates only through writing. A romance begins, but Oliver will have to allow himself to take the risk of loving her, and sharing himself. At work, even though he knows the client who just wants an album cover will hate it, he has insisted on submitting a series of drawings about the history of sadness. Can he make sense of his own history of sadness?

Tenderly told and exquisitely performed, this is a gentle wonder, with characters we root for and emotions we believe in.

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Howl

Posted on October 14, 2010 at 6:00 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	NR
Profanity:	Very strong and explicit language with sexual references, some crude
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking, smoking
Violence/ Scariness:	None
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	October 15, 2010

In the post-WWII era of peace and prosperity — and the Cold War and the blacklist and conformity — a small group of writers found much to terrify and infuriate them. “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,” one of them wrote, the beginning of a barbaric yawp of a poem of fury and protest called “Howl.” His name was Allen Ginsberg.
This movie is not the story of Ginsberg (smoothly played by James Franco), who would go on to become one of the 20th century’s most acclaimed and influential poets, though he is affecting, even at times electric. It is the story of the poem itself, taking us back and forth between three key moments. First is Ginsberg’s own performance, reading the poem aloud in a small, smoky club. Second is an interview two years later with a now-bearded Ginsberg in his apartment. And third is a courtroom, where the obscenity charges brought not against Ginsberg but against his publisher, fellow poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti, were being argued.
“Experts” (Mary-Louise Parker, Alessandro Nivola, Jeff Daniels) debate the literary merit and destructively prurient content of Ginsberg’s work on the witness stand. The prosecution (David Straithairn) argues that the poem is so detrimental to the minds of Americans that it should not even be seen. For the defense, Jake Ehrlich (“Man Men’s” Jon Hamm), with a natty four-cornered pocket square handkerchief, who shows the court that far more important than any expert’s opinion on the value of Howl as a work of art is the freedom for Americans to decide that issue for themselves.
And for me at least, that is where the real poetry is.

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