No One Knows About Persian Cats

I saw a great film this week, No One Knows About Persian Cats. It's available on Netflix streaming. This will sound incredibly corny, but it made me feel grateful for America and was very thought-provoking.

So, Negar and Askhan are indie rock musicians living in Tehran, where being a musician means dodging the neighbors who will report you to the police and soundproofing every bit of your performance space to avoid detection. Askhan has just been released from jail for playing music. They dream about leaving Tehran for a tour of Europe and emigrating, and are referred by a producer friend to Nader, a movie and music bootlegger who has underground connections for getting them fake papers to leave Iran. Nader wants them to play a concert to play one last show before they leave Tehran, and takes them to all his other musician friends to line up bands and audition others for leaving for the European tour. So cut into lots of different music video type montages is their story about the struggle of making music illicitly and anxiety about getting out of Iran.

It's just incredible to think about living in a place where women aren't allowed to sing in public, where the police will come and arrest you for being at a party where music is playing, where there's no freedom of expression and media is censored.

Here's a NPR story on the film with more details about the filmmakers. If you have Netflix, go watch it.

FilmBar Presents...

We have this new place downtown called FilmBar and they are having a showing of this documentary tomorrow. I am so tempted to go, but it ends a little late for me.

What I'm Watching

This is a cool little documentary about the rise of craft beer and the challenges it faces in a marketplace controlled by the three largest national brewers and hindered by an antiquated distribution system. If you support the local food movement, watch this film as it's an interesting look at a related issue. I just started drinking beer recently, and the craft beers are just more interesting --local/regional styles and specialties aside, it's just got a dorky charm. Witness the Dogfish Head Brewery crew as they go about their business and the head's enthusiasm for the art of brewing. It's infectious.

I now feel like running out to the Roosevelt or Whole Foods or BevMo! and stocking up on beers to try. And I don't know who I love more, Rhonda Kellman or Anat Baron.

And the Yuengling brewery! How beautiful!

I'm watching it on Netflix, but it's available on iTunes and DVD.

Fun Things In Phoenix

A couple of things I've run across lately that I'd like to recommend on general coolness, not my personal enjoyment.

Friday night movies at the Biltmore. They are free, outdoors on the lawn and they've got a great lineup picked.

Monday night Scrabble at Urban Beans.

Poisoned Pen Bookstore in Scottsdale sponsors tons of author appearances. My mom went to see Linda Fairstein this week, and was pleased to see C.J.Box is also coming to town. So is humorous fantasy author Christopher Moore, and April brings both Martha Grimes and my favorite, Lisa Lutz.

Derby Girl--Shauna Cross

Intrigued by the trailer for the film Whip It!, I went to the YA book it is based on. This is a case of hopefully a 2nd draft of a story (Cross wrote the screenplay too) turning into a better product, as the book was really annoying.

Bliss Cavendar lives the life of a "rebel" in Bodeen, TX with a snarky attitude, blue hair, and an Emily the Strange backpack. No one understands her deep hatred of the town, her mother's hopes and expectations that Bliss will follow in her footsteps to become the Blue Bell Queen, and terrible boredom. Bliss herself is actually quite boring as her rebellion is completely manufactured and not really thought out--through the book it is revealed that the the shallowness and hypocrisy that she accuses the town of, she's guilty of herself, but as a teen she doesn't even have the maturity the prides herself in thinking she has to be able to realize it. Bliss is an extremely unlikeable and a frustrating narrator. But anyway, LIFE CHANGES when she finds out there is such a thing as roller derby, where women skate around tracks beating the shit out of each other in short skirts. AWESOME! GIRL POWER, WHOA!

The main problem I had with this book is the lack of dramatic tension and annoying ease by which Bliss conquers all obstacles in her path. Haven't skated in years? Bliss turns out to be a natural on the track. Lack a ride to Austin to practice? No worries, the senior citizen bus will take you! Act like an entitled bitch and let your friend down? All is forgiven! Caught lying about your age, sneaking out and being a snot to your parents? They will turn out to respect and understand you and let you go follow your dream, baby! Your dream of black eyes and broken collarbones!

Hell, even the hottie musician likes her. This book is the most annoying fantasy ever.

But anyway, check out the trailer below. It makes it look like the film is an improvement on the book. It opens Friday.

Julie & Julia

Wende and I went off to see Julie & Julia today. I'll spare you the details of how I managed to be late and found her in a darkened theater only when I said to myself "That is a familiar silhouette of creamy skin fading into blackness---and is it waving an arm at me? Oh yes, it is!"

We agreed with the reviews; the parts about the Childs in Paris are wonderful and the parts about Julie Powell are extremely bland. My irritation is that the script completely defanged her. There was just no tension at all, which if you read the book and the blog you will recall Powell's life at the time was all about tension. She was miserable. And the project just made her more miserable and unhinged the farther she got into it, but in the end gave her confidence in herself that she was lacking. It was her personal stint in the army--you know, the experience you go through that teaches you you have deep inner reserves of strength. Or confirms you are completely a loser, at which point you join a cult or shoot yourself in the head. I realized that having a main character whose favorite words are variations on the word "fuck" will never get you a PG-13 rating, but there were aspects of her story that Nora Ephron could have incorporated to give her some interest and texture.

• Powell was 30 years old, and when her parents came up from Texas to help her move and her husband move, she was deeply ashamed and uncomfortable about the fact that they were not anywhere near as settled or successful as her parents had been at the same age. They moved to Queens because it was cheap and they had no money. One of their cats lived in the ceiling, which was good because the PYTHON took up a lot of the living room.


• Julie Powell was also so broke that she sold her eggs, a decision I personally abhor, but hey--that's color for you.


• She had a lot of trouble adjusting to the whole working world/real life thing after being great at school and finding her way, which they lightly touch on but never fully explore.


• This project was extremely expensive, took a helluva lot of time and energy just shopping for (and even just finding) the ingredients and was a real hardship in terms of the family budget.


• She was a picky eater. This project made her eat eggs. And BRAINS. And all sorts of organ meats. At least they could have explored the grossness of some of the project.


• She loved her husband and they were/are well suited, but they were high school sweethearts and stable marrieds in a city filled with single people in search of hot sexy times.

Instead of exploring any of that, even briefly, the movie has a lot of Amy Adams looking cute as she stares at a computer. Waste of talent, as she is an excellent actor who conveys subtle charm in some otherwise annoying characters.

So in short, worth catching on DVD or at the $5 morning movie.

Sometimes It Pays To Procrastinate

August 29th, sing-a-long "Mamma Mia!" launches. Please, the only reason to see the movie was the infectious singing of ABBA songs. This will just make it better. At the Marlboro Mesa, we have a lot of problems getting out of the house to see movies. Don't ask about the whole Pineapple Express near debacle. Aces and I have been thinking about going to see Mamma Mia! since it came out, but were at the point where she decided she might wait for video. And unfortunately Dusie hates musicals but loves Christine Baranski, so she was on board with that.

Now I'll have to go alone. I love to sing.

Waitress

Am I the only person to watch the movie Waitress and think that Jenna was quite the manipulative monster herself? I found her unlikable and not very sympathetic. She lies to herself, her husband and her lover. She's clearly smarter than Earl, but can't figure out either how to play him to get what she wants or get out of the marriage. And why could she not give her friends her stash to keep it away from him?

And she basically got saved by her fairy godfather. WTF? Where's the feminist message? The message I got was that it's okay not to take any action to get yourself out of a mess. Oh, and a baby will finally spur you to save yourself. Helluva burden for a kid.

Some of this might be because there's 2 kinds of people: cake people and pie people. I am a cake person. Cake people are persnickety constructionists who like everything to hang together. Think of it--cake is a melding of solid structure laced with fluff. In sublime cake, it's all different textures and tastes that have to play well together and balance themselves. Pie people are all random crap inside a crust and making it look nice when it can be terrible taste inside. "But it's a beautiful pie!" Screw that.

Movie Review: The Big Easy

Aftereffects of Valentine's Day: I put The Big Easy(1987) on hold at the library. I saw it for the first time on cable maybe a year or so after it came out, so I would have been about 12 or 13. It is the first movie I think I ever watched and though, "huh, this is sexy." It may have cemented my love of Southern music and skinny men with wolfish grins.

If you've never seen it, it's a pretty good noir thriller set down in New Orleans. Well, New Orleans--the movie just breaks your heart right there. It's got a great cast--Dennis Quaid, Ellen Barkin, Ned Beatty, John Goodman, Grace Zabriskie. It's an odd movie in that there's actually conversations amongst the characters. Am I the only one who watches movies these days and and wishes for more dialogue? It seems like scenes in which characters converse have been replaced by music videos and there's an over reliance on music to convey emotion and manipulate the viewer. (Case in point: Juno.)

So the plot is this: there's corruption in the New Orleans Police Department. There's also some activity amongst the organized crime in the area, the usual drug smuggling and murdering. Oh yeah, it's connected. DA Anne Osbourne is investigating the cops which puts her in the path of Lt. Remy McSwain and his sliding scale of personal morality. He seduces her and then she prosecutes him on corruption charges, then they fight a bit and investigate together and the cold hard slap of truth wakes McSwain up to the evils of the petty corruption and how it slides into your soul and grows when you are not watching. That and true love, cherie.

Here's the rub--you think from the description above that it's a big ol' boy film and the girl's just along as eye candy, right? Oh no. The film doesn't work without the strong characterization of Anne. She's definitely flustered by McSwain (hello, wolfish grin, six pack abs and amazing hands!) but she stands up to him on how he uses his position as a cop to score favors and accept bribes. She prosecutes him without hesitation after she sees him taking a bribe, although not without regret. The girl's tough even when she trembles, foiling a mugging, smashing a car window and in the end being a full participant in saving herself. Throughout the movie you believe that Anne's smart, she's good at her job and generally got it together--mostly a good role model. The best bit is when she lays into McSwain with the words "Don't you dare be amused by me." And after a point, even though it's layered over with his desire to bed her, as a viewer you realize that, yes, he does respect her. Huh. And that's just one of the sexy bits.

There's a couple of things in the film you just do not see anymore. The clothes are spectacularly bad, especially for the women. The mid 80's were a time of shoulder pads and baggy skirts. The one female homicide cop wears primary colored men's clothing, including a tie. And that's just in the first scene. Anne's business suits look to be 2 sizes too big, which is in tune with her reserved, business-like character. The other thing is that she looks like a working adult--when's the last time on tv or in a film you saw a female attorney in conservative dress that didn't show off her figure? You have to remember that this movie came 20 years ago and that yes, the clothes reflect the time but also the position of women. A woman in power in the DA's office didn't get there in a lowcut blouse. I did however have shuddering flashbacks at the size of her reading glasses--every picture of me as a kid has me in similar owl glasses that overpowered my face. There's also a scene when Remy is discussing his arrest and suspension with his younger brother, who then pulls out a joint--holy casual drug use without censor, man!

It's a fun movie with great storytelling that just flows along. If you haven't seen it, check it out. If you have seen it recently, what did you think?