On Queers, Harps, and Hanging On

Dances with Harps, featuring Ellen Barnaby (background), Johnni Durango, and composer/harpist Zeena Parkins (in profile). Photo by Frank Mullaney.

By Victoria Looseleaf

For those of you following me on Facebook and Twitter, you know that I’ve had blood clots in my left ear since flying to Florida with a cold using those ghastly things called “Ear Planes.” (And to think it was my fault for screwing them in too tightly–there should be a damn warning, really.) I’ve been to two otolaryngologists, was grounded in Florida for an extra week and my hearing has been akin to Beethoven’s as he was writing his 9th Symphony (not only was he going totally deaf, but he was having to deal with constant hissing sounds in his ear). Hooray for steroids (and anti-b’s), as I can now see the light at the end of the ear canal.

Too bad, though, that while I was away, my editor was laid off from the Los Angeles Times (what’s left of it), leaving my continuing presence at the paper (this is my 14th year), in question. Happily, I’m hanging on by my erstwhile harp fingernails (we can’t have nails, actually, except for the pinkies), so it was only fitting then, that I, the go-to gal for all things harp–and dance–cover Dance by Neil Greenberg. Please check out my review in the Los Angeles Times, which went in the paper nearly verbatim (there was some discourse over the use of the words “politically correct,” which were dropped, but I’m cool with that). And so, I understand, was Mr. Greenberg: REDCAT sold out!

Bittersweet

Sugar (Algenis Perez Soto) and his Dominican teammates at a baseball academy in San Pedro de Macorís.

Sugar
Written and Directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck
Starring Algenis Perez Soto, Ann Whitney, Richard Bull, Ellary Porterfield, Rayniel Rufino, Andre Holland, and Jose Luis Romero
114 Minutes

By Robert Rosen

Sugar is more than a poignant, compelling film with an appealing cast of virtual unknowns and an interesting soundtrack featuring Chilean singer Gepe’s very cool Spanish version of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.” Arguably, it’s also an important movie—about language, the immigrant experience, and baseball.

But I’ll leave that argument to other, more knowledgeable writers, like my TLR colleague J.C. Malone, who was born in San Pedro de Macorís, in the Dominican Republic, and has written, in both English and Spanish, a biography of that modest-size city’s best-known native son, Sammy Sosa.

For those who don’t follow the game, it should be said that San Pedro is to baseball what Liverpool once was to rock ’n’ roll: a breeding ground and launching pad for raw talent. At least 30 big-league ballplayers were born there. And they all got their start in one of San Pedro’s baseball academies, where coaches and scouts molded them into potential professionals, creating for these local athletes an opportunity to be plucked from poverty and obscurity, deposited in a major-league spring-training camp, and given the chance to conquer America.

But as every aspiring professional ballplayer knows, the odds of making it to the big leagues are slim, because pure athletic ability is only one factor in a wide array of physical, social, emotional, and intellectual skills that an athlete must master if he’s to have a real shot at success.

Sugar makes this clear in the opening scene, which takes place in an academy classroom, where a group of Dominican ballplayers are learning to speak baseball English—“pop fly … ground ball … home run.” Later, in the locker room, they practice their English singing “Take Me out to the Ball Game.” Though they know almost all the words, they don’t seem to understand what a lot of them mean, and it’s touching to watch them struggle through the most difficult phrases, singing the song with feeling, as if it were a hymn.

It’s this struggle to communicate in a foreign language that provides the film with some of its most entertaining moments. Most of them come courtesy of Miguel “Sugar” Santos (Algenis Perez Soto), a determined and intelligent, though immature, 19-year-old pitcher whose family is depending on his rubber arm and explosive curveball to lift them out of the slums of San Pedro—depicted here with unsentimental realism—with a big-league contract.

When Sugar—so called because he likes desserts and has a “sweet” pitching motion—finds himself playing for the Swing, a class-A team in the Iowa hinterlands, he quickly learns enough English to order three different kinds of eggs for breakfast and to call an opposing player a “cocksucker,” a term he picks up from Brad (Andre Holland), a Berkeley-educated African-American shortstop with laid-back California charm, a firm grip on reality, and enough Spanish to exchange pleasantries with Sugar, calling him his hermano.

Brad’s rudimentary Spanish is far more advanced than that of the Higginses, a family of devout Christian baseball fans who provide Sugar with room and board while he’s in Iowa. The mother, Helen (Ann Whitney), befuddles Sugar when she points to her washing machine and says, “You put the sopa in here.” She thinks she’s saying soap, though she’s actually saying soup. And her teenage daughter, Anne (Ellary Porterfield), confuses Sugar even more, taking him to a Christian youth meeting and later flirting with him, allowing him one innocent kiss, and then running away.

Yet it’s the contrast between Brad and Sugar that brings into focus the dilemma at the heart of this film: What do you do if you don’t beat the overwhelming odds and make it to the big leagues? Brad plans to teach history. But Sugar, like the other Dominican players, has no real fallback plan and no education—he doesn’t even know who Roberto Clemente is. If he doesn’t make it to the big leagues, his choices are limited. He can either return to his disappointed family and the poverty of the D.R. or go to the Bronx and live in one of the largest Dominican communities in America, working at a survival job in the taunting shadow of Yankee Stadium.

Communicating a visceral sense of what it’s like when your future dangles on the most delicate thread, the filmmakers do an excellent job of showing how Sugar and his Dominican teammates walk, with no net underneath, a physical and psychological tightrope between the D.R. and the American Dream. They show how easy it is to lose your stuff and let momentary failure shatter your confidence; how difficult it is to break out of a slump; and how painful it is when your life and your family’s well-being hinge on a dream that can vanish in the time it takes to drive a hanging curve over the left-field wall.

Good Things in a Gigantic Package

New lovers Brian Weathersby (Paul Dano) and Harriet Lolly (Zooey Deschanel) enjoy a little lab refreshment.

Gigantic
Directed by Matt Aselton
Screenplay by Adam Nagata and Matt Aselton
Starring Paul Dano, Zooey Deschanel, Ed Asner, Jane Alexander, and John Goodman
98 minutes

By Mary Lyn Maiscott

There is a big mystery at the heart of Gigantic. (A smaller mystery is what the title means.) I’m going to skirt around it because to truly get into it would be quite the spoiler. (I still haven’t totally forgiven my husband for inadvertently giving away the secret of The Crying Game minutes before it started.) Suffice it to say that this facet of the film, which involves a homicidal homeless man, throws one’s perceptions into tumult: Specifically, is Brian Weathersby (Paul Dano), the young protagonist, really the calm, centered eye in the storm of surrounding über-eccentrics—mainly his research-scientist friend, who swills vodka from beakers; his family, including Ed Asner as his ebullient, mushroom-ingesting dad; and his new girlfriend’s family, including John Goodman as her overbearing, tumor-expelling dad?

Not to mention the new girlfriend herself, Harriet Lolly, who appears in Brian’s Brooklyn mattress salesroom in the beguiling form of Zooey Deschanel, who, with her big—or should I say gigantic?—blue eyes, comic timing, and heartstring-tugging abilities, is our new Goldie Hawn (sorry, Kate). Despite Harriet’s sometimes hurtful flakiness, we cannot resist her and neither can Brian. When she falls asleep on a $14,000 Swedish mattress soon after they meet, he not only doesn’t wake her but gently places a blanket over her. Harriet, we soon discover, could use this kind of care, giving the lie to her nickname of “Happy.” Indeed, Brian is so nurturing that he is in the process of adopting a baby from China. Which will place two abandoned females—in Harriet’s case, by her mother—in good hands. (Won’t it?)

To my mind, first-time feature filmmaker Matt Aselton leaves too much unexplained—and lets the hilarious Goodman leave the movie a bit too soon—but this is still a delicate, intelligent, funny romance, and when you really think about it, like a single 20-something New York guy who wants above all to adopt a baby, there aren’t too many of those around.

Homage to a Genre

Tammy (Jenni Baird), an artistically inclined local waitress, helps space alien Urp (Eric McCormack) track a bloodthirsty monster.

Alien Trespass
Directed by R.W. Godwin
Screenplay by Steven Fisher
Starring Eric McCormack, Jenni Baird, Dan Lauria, Robert Patrick, Jody Thompson, Aaron Brooks, Sarah Smyth, and Andrew Dunbar
88 minutes

By Robert Rosen

How much did I love 1950s sci-fi movies? I won’t count the ways. But I will say that I loved them enough to race home from school every afternoon that The Thing was on Million Dollar Movie, watch it five days in a row, and still get a thrill every time the hulking monster, played by James Arness, emerged from the alien spacecraft and threatened to wreak havoc in the Arctic. That experience alone, I think, provides me with the minimal qualifications necessary to review Alien Trespass.

I’ll begin by saying what Alien Trespass is not: A parody of 1950s sci-fi movies. It is, rather, a loving homage to the entire genre, a 21st century film made to look, feel, and sound as much as possible like a genuinely stupid, cheesy, 1957 monster-from-outer-space flick, like The Blob.

In short, producer-director R.W. Godwin, known for his work with The X-Files TV show, seems to have accomplished exactly what he set out to do. And though at times Alien Trespass is intentionally funny—how could it not be with Will and Grace’s Eric McCormack playing Ted Lewis, a scientist whose body is taken over by Urp, an alien lawman crash-landed on earth?—it also manages to be genuinely scary; the silly-looking one-eyed monster must be praised for sending chills up and down my spine more than once.

The filmmakers must also be given credit for indeed making me care about their ridiculously stereotypical array of characters, from Tammy (Jenni Baird), the courageous local waitress who saves the world, to put-upon Police Chief Dawson (Dan Lauria), to Ted’s sexpot wife, Lana (Jody Thompson), to the hep-talking teens, Cody, Penny, and Dick (Aaron Brooks, Sarah Smyth, and Andrew Dunbar). And though Alien Trespass did not exactly make me long for the good old days when such entertainment was routinely available for fifty cents at my neighborhood movie palace, it did make me want to run out and order a burger and fries at the local coffee shop, cholesterol be damned.

Most Morbid Myth, Maybe

A sample of the artwork from The 27s. Rolling Stone Keith Richards is not a member of “the 27 Club,” but his former bandmate Brian Jones is a charter member.

By Robert Rosen

The 27s: The Greatest Myth of Rock & Roll is an ambitious book with an identity crisis.

What manner of tome is this? That’s the question.

Could it be a coffee-table book? The slick artwork, glossy paper, and quality printing all indicate that this might have been the intention of its “creators,” Eric Segalstad and John Hunter. But it’s really a trade paperback that lacks the size and heft of a genuine coffee-table book. And though Segalstad and Hunter discuss in detail the numerous musicians—like Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain, Brian Jones—who died at age 27, it’s not exactly about them, either. The book is filled with so much general rock history that “the 27 Club,” as it’s known, often gets lost in the background.

More important, to call this 27 Club “the greatest myth” of rock ’n’ roll is simply not true. It may be the most morbid myth, but it’s barely in the same arena as the holy trinity of Elvis/Beatles/Dylan, none of whom died at 27.

The 27s is a well-researched rock ’n’ roll overview that would work best as a reference book if it only had a table of contents and an index, and was divided into chapters. But with these essential elements missing, it can’t be called a reference book. It’s just a book that goes on for 310 pages. You can’t find anything in it. And even if you happen to stumble upon what you’re looking for, key bits of information may be missing. Take my John Lennon bio, Nowhere Man, for example. I heard it was mentioned in The 27s. And it’s true, in a way; there’s a reference on page 283: “Author Robert Rosen writes that after Lennon discovered Cheiro’s Book of Numbers…” But it doesn’t say where I wrote it. It doesn’t give the title of my book. Nor does the title appear in the bibliography, and that sort of thing is as unprofessional as the numerous proofreading mistakes throughout—the kind of mistakes a good copy editor/proofreader (one is credited) should have pointed out.

I think that writers and artists who have the wherewithal and courage to form a company to publish, distribute, and promote their own book, as Segalstad and Hunter have done, are to be commended. But The 27s serves as a good example of the many things that can go wrong with such a venture. It is, ultimately, a book that cries out for the guidance of a professional editor who could have helped shape and focus their very intriguing concept.

The Way They Are

Palmer Van Dyke (James LeGros, at right) takes Sherman Black (Michael Shulman) for a wild ride.

Sherman’s Way
Directed by Craig Saavedra
Screenplay by Tom Nance
Starring James LeGros, Michael Shulman, Enrico Colantoni, Brooke Nevin, and Donna Murphy
97 minutes

By Mary Lyn Maiscott

Within the first 20 minutes or so of Sherman’s Way, I got tired of counting the stock characters: primarily, a young, uptight aspiring lawyer, named Sherman (who you instantly know will become downloose by the closing credits); his controlling, successful parent (in this case the mother, played icily by theater stalwart Donna Murphy); and the wacky catalyst for his undoing, a hirsute 40ish guy named Palmer (who may or may not be a former Olympian skier who lost the gold for the USA). As the film was also turning into a rather silly road-trip-cum-buddy movie—cool red roadster notwithstanding—I was almost outta there, but my fellow blogger Bob Rosen suggested we stay with it, apparently intuiting a gleam ahead. And he was right. The gleam came into view around the time that Sherman, having impulsively run off to sunny California (from grey New York, indicating New York is staid like Sherman?) to surprise his disenchanted girlfriend with his new impulsiveness, lands in the eccentric yet idyllic—in that movie way—indoor-outdoor lakeside pad, somewhere near Napa Valley, of Palmer’s friend D.J. (“I want to live there!” I said to Bob, who replied, “It’s a trailer!”)

Though falling into many clichés, this movie has enough quirks and surprises (particularly when it comes to the inevitable reunion of Palmer and his estranged son) to make it an enjoyable light, and occasionally touching, comedy. Sherman, played by the boyish Michael Shulman, learns a few practical and emotional truths from crazy Palmer (James LeGros, of Ally McBeal, nearly unrecognizable under all that hair) and resourceful D.J. (Enrico Colantoni, of Just Shoot Me [something tells me these sitcom backgrounds came in handy]), though their arrogant, placid knowingness when dealing with the rich, inept—but sweet—Sherman is at times infuriating. And of course by the end of the film Sherman has helped the self-destructive Palmer inch toward maturity.

He has also, as if one odd couple were not enough, hooked up with yet another flaky partner, the babelicious, skinny-dipping Addy (Brooke Nevin). Apparently, that is Sherman’s way.

John Updike’s Version

By Mary Lyn Maiscott

It’s been more than a week since John Updike died, and in this crazily blogging world that might as well be a year. However, I don’t think Updike would mind my dwelling on him and his unique oeuvre, since dwelling on things was what he did best (he would have made a great copy editor, as he was apparently afflicted, as I am, with ASD, attention surplus disorder). Updike would describe something you had seen countless times in such a way that you felt you’d never really looked at it—or that someone had finally fully caught what you did see. At its best, his pulling away of the tiniest layers could be mind-blowing, like a drug (UDD—the Updike Drug?); at its worst it could be tedious (probably only a golf aficionado or computer nerd wants to read pages upon pages of the details of a game or program). But readers must have had more “Yes! That’s it!” moments with Updike than with any other writer.

My own favorite such moment came from a simple depiction: his fictional couple the Maples’ running to their Greenwich Village window when they hear the “clatter” of horses’ hooves, knowing mounted policemen are coming down their cobbled street—because that’s what I’ve always done in the same situation. I also have an enduring image in my mind of “Rabbit” Angstrom in a field, looking toward the house of his possible daughter, the field conjured up in all its ugly/beautiful naturalness but also evoking the wistful state of mind of Updike’s most famous character.

The other day, looking for a light—I mean physically light—book to take on vacation, I discovered I had an unread Updike on my shelf, Roger’s Version. The copyright is 1986 but I don’t know when or where I bought it; I like to think it was on Cape Cod, since Massachusetts was Updike’s adopted home state. The book was a used paperback; on the fly sheet is a faint, penciled “50¢.” If Updike were writing this, he would now describe in painstaking detail the shiny hot-pink cover and what that might signify, as well as the little illustration of Adam’s and God’s fingers nearly touching, à la Michelangelo, on a computer screen. (He might also speculate as to the paperback’s previous owner—what that person’s face looked like, what his house looked like, how he came upon the book, why he sold it—not to mention the bookseller…)

Though my vacation didn’t pan out, I nonetheless—a sore throat as my excuse—spent most of the next two days reading Roger’s Version. And here, for me, was the fresh afterlife of Updike: his thoughts, his visions, doubtless his memories and fears and appetites, his imagination, coming at me full-strength through these yellowed pieces of paper. Roger is a theologian, quite a flawed one, grappling with middle age (I calculated that Updike, who shared the fluffy grey hair and eyebrows of his protagonist, must have also been about his age when he created him, 52), a straying wife, and a fear of death.

I could certainly relate to the last. I’d spent the midnight hour of my recent birthday looking for poems to lift me away from a looming depression, but everything I picked up seemed to be about mortality—and almost hard-heartedly so (I decided that poets as a group are hardly the namby-pambies of some hoary stereotypes). In teaching his niece about a William Cullen Bryant poem on the subject, Roger begins to rail against it: “‘Breathless darkness, and the narrow house.’ Bryant was so young, you see, he could say it; an older poet’s hand would have frozen with terror trying to write those lines.”

But his own hand seemed never to freeze. He took on not only death but also such “sins” as adultery and incest, in such a human way that you had to, like the author, go deeper—and therefore get more confused, seeing all the greys, all the layers—than you normally would. In another part of the book, Roger contemplates both a pencil and his own future death, calling the latter “the impossibly fine point to which my life will have been sharpened.”

John Updike, in some mysterious way, made millions of fine points possible.