Monday, November 29, 2010

I'm Not Wild About Harry (Ostensibly about Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part I)



There, I've said it. I recently viewed the new Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows movie, and though it might put me in a class reserved for George Bush "evil doers" and supporters of Obama's health care reform, for lack of a jazzier way of saying it, the film is simply not my cup of tea. (I wish more film critics would excuse themselves from harsh judgement of films that simply do not appeal to them because of theme, content or genre). I have an uneasy fear that the wrong person will catch wind of this heresy and I'll somehow end up on some sort of Megan's Law inspired Potter offender list. My address will show up in the registry and a little smudge darker than the villainous Voldemort's black heart will mark the spot on a Google street map where "the one who should remain voiceless" is located. I have no fear of death eaters, it's the fanatical Potterphiles lurking in every nook and cranny I'm concerned with. When it comes to my general disinterest in all things Potter a DADT policy has served me well.  

Incidentally, I'm completely unqualified to give a critical opinion of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" or any of the previous films in the series. I've not seen them all (I have seen parts I, III, VI and now VII) and while I've found some of the films more entertaining than others, the overriding reaction is  "that's it?"  There is nothing wrong with the Potter films. They are visually spectacular and for the most part well acted (Rickman, Smith and Fiennes oh my). The underlying themes of prejudice, inclusion and otherness resonate,  but the Potter films  require an investment of time and a foundation in the mythology and universe of the characters that I've not made.  I've not read the books and won't be reading them any time soon. It's not snobbery, in fact it might be simple laziness.

I have somehow fallen away from these fantasy worlds that used to fuel my childhood. When I was 7 years old my favorite film was "Jack The Giant Killer" and I imagined myself as heroic and brave as Jack or as towering and fearful as the giant. At twelve "Close Encounters of The Third Kind" blew my mind and became number one in my heart and imagination.  In my dreams I scaled Devils Tower countless times and spent other nights sleeplessly anticipating my alien abduction.   But by the time I was fifteen, my favorite film was "Ordinary People".  Somewhere a shift had occurred;  The realization of a world that included joy and tragedy - sometimes in unequal doses - had at some point tipped, and the harsher facts of life were now reflected in the films I was drawn to. The earlier fantastical films transported me. My new affinity with films  grounded in grim authenticity reflected a sense of shared perception.
The "We are not alone" tagline of Close Encounters had become "I am not alone". And there was a comfort and power knowing that others were feeling what I was feeling, perceiving in a way that I understood and related to. My film tastes became less about escape and more about escape route. These more realistically rooted films conveyed a way to navigate the world without space ships, spells and monsters. 


 

I sometimes wonder if I've lost a sense of wonder and replaced it with adult cynicism.

I see HP&TDH with a friend who is wanting to cheer me up and who is also very excited to see the latest installment. Cheering me up, because my Special Olympics pug/sidekick Finney has passed away and I am ruminating reliving... too much coulda shoulda woulda.  Other than the first Potter film which I saw of my own volition,  parts III, VI and now VII have been at the bequest of others. But, it's a good opportunity to spend time with a friend or loved one, and there's a faint lingering hope that this time I'll get it, this time it'll click.  I'll finally get it and be transported. Ah, well.

Sometimes  films are more than the films themselves, they are the people you see them with, they are the conversations you have afterward, and they are the subsequent late night supper that washes away the bad taste of a film that disappoints by failing to meet or even approach an expectation.  And that is what HP&TDH is for me. It's a friend who wants to cheer me up as I mourn my dog's death.  We talk about our affection for animals, the ones we have loved and lost over a great meal at Lowry's (they have a fast food place in the Century City mall and my 8 ounce end cut was surprisingly tasty. In fact Lowry's seems more suited to a mall, without the kitch of the Beverly Hills locale). This is followed by the real main course: The movie.

What I can say is this: The film looks great in Imax. The sound is terrific. You get extra free parking with a movie validation. Harry Potter takes his clothes off a lot in this film. I guess he's just at that age. A certain character dies and his big soulful eyes remind me of my departed Finney. This makes me a bit weepy. 
My movie amigo is a doctor. Oftentimes he has to leave before the end of a film due to some medical emergency or another. His pager goes off twice tonight. He moves to an empty aisle seat so he can easily get up without disrupting others. This evening he gets to see Potter through to the end credits.

We meet up in the lobby afterward. The satisfied grin on his face tells the story. He rubs his hands together with a maniacal Potterphile delight.  He loved it. His favorite character is Beatrix Lestrange, he identifies with her ways.  I spit out that Lestrange is an evil bitch and hope she dies in the last film. We say our goodbyes and part ways.  I drive home feeling a bit better. I have been cheered a bit. The magic of movies is sometimes not the movies themselves, sometimes they are merely a catalyst.
I haven't given up entirely on films of the Potter ilk. I recently read that Bryan Singer is remaking "Jack The Giant Killer". The original film is not as I remember from childhood. It is in fact terribly acted and the filmmaking is barely a tier above an Ed Wood production. But I have a seed of anticipation in regards to the new adaptation. Maybe I'll feel with this one what I felt as a kid. I could be heroic. I could be a giant.

When I get home I am keenly aware of Finney's absence. There is a divot in the quilt where he had been sleeping.  A Deathly Hollow.  I am missing his coughing spells and sneezes that had only last week been an irritant .  I am missing his stinky breath and the tap tap tap of his toe toe toenails on the hardwood floors. I miss the way he would sit in front of the fridge with blind (both literal and figurative) expectation that food would magically drop from the sky whether I opened the door or not. I would ask him if he was expecting pennies from heaven. Pennies no. Morsels yes. His last meal was leftover turkey from Thanksgiving. And despite everything else, he wolfed it down with childlike exuberance. Finney never lost his youthful enthusiasm for food. Finney believed in the magic of morsels. He was transported by them.  And I am painfully aware that frequently reality is simply crushing.


Monday, November 15, 2010

A Hole In The Ace or What An Acehole

By count there are twelve employees huddled en masse behind the stretching counter at The Ace Hotel’s King's Highway Restaurant in Palm Springs. And to apply an overused but appropriate simile, they are the flailing body parts of a chicken run amok with its head cut off.  There’s a flap afoot that I’m not privy to. Instead, I wait at the entrance for what seems like an eternity (3-4 minutes in real time, but we’re dealing with that empty pit in my stomach), and am thoroughly ignored by the retirement-age hostess in her Florida Red State rust red dye job and over-sized Boca Raton glasses that harmonize nicely with the hairdo and lip liner. She too is distracted by this counter cluster fuck. She meanders over to add her unsolicited opinion, while I stew in my own juices. By the way, I’m hard to miss;  I might even be obstructing the flow of sunlight into the restaurant.

A minor Celebrity Rehab non-celebrity whisks by me in a pork pie hat, schlepping his equally with-it  doppelganger baby. Maybe Dad's taking a break from a symposium at the Betty Ford Center. He greets an awaiting table and slides in.  When did the great unwashed take over the world?  I haven’t bathed in two days, does that count for nothing? I notice that celeb rehab guy is placing his order anon and the server is fawning over his swaddled spawn.
I wait for some sort of fauxhemian acknowledgement or even a “ ’sup man “ from the hipster staff. Come on now. This place used to be a Dennys. I am transported back to my tender youth and that horrible high school pecking order. The waiters here are at the top. There’s an evolutionary relatedness, but that 1% DNA differential  makes all the difference. I am a chimp. Or at least, I feel like one. 
I seem to recall in restaurant etiquette there’s no need to be escorted to a counter seat, so I help myself to an end spot and eavesdrop. What were once twelve has diminished to 8. There’s a growing concern about a large party in the center of the room that also continues to grow with new arrivals. Apparently this quandary is of such monumental importance, it takes the entire staff to navigate a plan of attack. Time stops and I have gained the unwanted super power of invisibility. Servers stream past in low-slung hip huggers and tight plaid shirts, oblivious to my presence.  Their angsty put upon grimaces draw my attention, but I can’t seem to attract theirs at all, or a menu for that matter.  Like I said before, I’m hard to miss.

I grab a to-go menu from under the nose of Florida Red, and return to my seat with a heavy sigh and unrecognized superiority. I’m not going to ask for help. I’m going to endure and wait in suffering silence. Or I’m going to splatter myself in kitchen grease and self-immolate in protest. I choose the former. Passive aggressive till the very end.
The counter bunch has increased again. Ten. The restaurant manager expedites orders and calls out tickets like the line in a Michelin rated restaurant, but the holey-jeaned greasy haired staffers transmit a cool, disinterested interest.

There’s one other customer at the counter and he’s finishing up. I look to the table behind me. The “Trouble Table”. The one creating a stir. Congregated there I discover more trendy non-conformist conformists. Silverlake has spread to the desert and it’s not pretty. The patrons look like the wait staff. There’s more rear cleavage, beards and tattoos than a Roto-Rooter reunion.  It’s a modern version of The Last Supper: A long table where all the diner’s attentions are focused on the guy with the raddest facial hair.  In this adaptation, Thomas is doubting his lox are truly cured in tequila and JC feels more betrayed by his luke warm cheddar poblano grits than by any of his trendier-than-thou disciples.  I’m overdoing it. But damn it, I’m hungry.
And then “ What can I get you hon?” She wears a tired smile and sunglasses. At long last.

The wait is short. The food comes in less than ten minutes. Poached eggs, sour dough toast, Yukon gold hash browns, and a side of those grits. Maybe JC’s a bit of a nit picker. The poached eggs are overdone. I want those perfectly poached eggs that spill yolk like yellow motor oil. The ones Gordon Ramsey wets himself over, not these half hard ova. The sour dough toast is delicious. Texas style: Thick and a bit chewy. There’s a nice surprise with a roasted tomato, but the Yukon hash browns are a mushy off-white lump with no flavor. I save the grits for last as they hold the most promise. JC was right. Luke warm. There’s some flavor and a bit of heat provided by the chilies, but ultimately blandness wins out.
I whip out a legal pad and start jotting down some notes. Today is the day I shall start my blog. I’ll write about this disappointing encounter. The indignities I’ve endured. Without warning, I seem to have become the center of attention. At least 3 servers ask about my dining experience. “More water?”. “How is everything?” “Can I get you anything else?” What's with this latent loquaciousness? Suddenly I’m persona grata. Where was all this 30 minutes ago when I really could have used it? It’s like the wife beater that gives his wife flowers. Nice afterthought but what about the black eye? Is it the legal pad drawing them in? And a new thought enters my mind : Shit, I should have had the chiliquilles.
I thought I was going to write about food, but instead I am writing about the people who deliver it. What ever happened to a friendly greeting and a genuine smile? It’s been replaced with an aloofness and pretense that instantly puts you “in your place”. When did hip become rude and over it? Or has it always been that way?

I’m reminded of the video store movement in Los Angeles in the 90s after Quentin Tarrintino’s star rose with Reservoir Dogs and ascended with Pulp Fiction. Suddenly the lowly video store clerk had ascended as well. With an encyclopedic knowledge of cinema and an MFA in film studies, many video store employees emitted a palpable contempt and superiority to the inferior consumer. Tarantino had sharpened his skills with a stint at Video Archives in Manhattan Beach. This oft reported fact seemed to lift the lowly video clerk to a revered status, and there was an assumption that within every video store clerk was an undiscovered film auteur.( I served my time behind the VHS curtain when I was nineteen, and at the time it seemed like a dream come true: To be surrounded by the thing I love the most. But this was Redwood Valley, a small suburb of a less small town. Folks were more interested in Ghostbusters II than my burgeoning interest in non-mainstream movies.) Does anyone recall trying to get the attention of an employee at Cinephile, Vidiots, Rocket Video or Videoactive? Don’t interrupt that intense conversation behind the counter dissecting the highs and lows of Joseph Losey’s career, your membership might be revoked.

I thought I was writing about food. Then I thought I was writing about the folk that bring it tableside.
But once again I wind up here. It comes down to film. Writing it, watching it, being moved or changed by it. I guess this blog really is about movies, cinema, film… whatever you call it.

My dad used to say if I knew my homework as well as I knew the contents of TV Guide, I’d be a straight A student. I’ve been following the box office report since the age of twelve. I’ve been obsessed since I can remember. Continue to be. Opinionated. Over critical. Hypercritical. Hypocritical.

I get up to leave. (We’re back at the restaurant now. Think of the dream within a dream within a dream of Inception) Florida Red is distracted once more, doesn’t see my hulking form. Someone finally comes up, takes my credit card. Not the hostess. A waiter. Smiling friendly for a moment then indifferent as he drops my card and rushes back to the pick-up window. I turn to leave, and good ‘ol Red calls after         “ Come back Again!” I’d like to imagine that she’s only biding her time here, waiting for her ship to come in. Like many of us… Like those waiters… Wordlessly shouting, “This isn’t really me. This isn’t what I do.”

In the nineties, when I was a waiter (Yeah, I did that too. Not very well, but I tried.) there was a woman I worked with that had earned the nickname frowny (she in turn had a stalking customer she referred to as Mr. Salty because of his resemblance to Mr. Salty of pretzel box fame. But that’s another story). She had a fixed glower on her face that she reserved exclusively for customers. She pulsated with resentment. She was also one of the funniest people I had ever met. She preformed with a local improve group. Her characters were memorable and her sketch writing skills were concise and hilarious. Many of her colleagues went on to fame and popularity on Saturday Night Live. She went on to teach at the acclaimed school. I looked her up on IMDB recently, and it seems she has had a successful career parlaying her writing artistry. Many people I have met over the years have gone on as well, some to great artistic acclaim.

I’m still waiting for my ship to come in. Still waiting for that series to be picked up, that play to go off-Broadway, that spec script to draw a seven-figure payday. After all these years I refuse to give up.
I head next door to Koffi for a drink and to write something down. ( Koffi recommended, King’s Highway, not so much).  Fourteen-year-old Tony De Franco croons “Heartbeat, It's A Lovebeat” over the sound system. I sang that song in the sixth grade talent show and came in second place.  Haven’t heard much from Tony De Franco lately. Maybe he hit his stride too early. Maybe I haven’t hit mine yet. I suppose that's what I was trying to get to in a round about way.