Akeelah and the Bee (2006, PG)

This is just a delightful film.  It’s definitely pitched toward the “family” demographic, and there are places where it gets a bit cheesy, but it’s also a terrific underdog story with an engaging heroine and some great themes.

11-year-old Akeelah is taken aback when her English teacher encourages her to join her school spelling bee.  She’s remarkably bright for her age and an excellent speller, but rather than living up to her potential, she’s been living down to expectations, not wanting to be singled out as a “freak” for enjoying learning.  Before she knows it, though, Akeelah is headed to the district bee and her principal is setting his sights on the national competition in Washington, D.C., facing off against kids from suburban schools with far more money, resources, and experience.  She begins a tentative mentor-mentee relationship with the erudite but reserved Dr. Larabee, who coaches her on how to attack unfamiliar words and, more importantly, how to recognize the parts of her that threaten to hold her back.

There’s a lot going on here that’s pretty neat.  It’s clear that Akeelah doesn’t have access to the same privilege that many of her competitors do – to attend the study club at another speller’s school, she has to take the city bus from South LA, and her family can’t afford new clothes for her to wear at the bee – but by the same token, when she starts to excel, she becomes the hope of her whole neighborhood.  There’s a great thread of community running through the film that belies stereotypes about “rough” neighborhoods and inner-city schools.  I really like that.  Any place, any community, has both positive and negative points, and the movie explores both sides, as well as the pros and cons of the more affluent backdrops of the other spellers, in fine detail.

The relationship between Akeelah and Dr. Larabee is terrific.  She can be a smart mouth, “insolent” in his words, and her first instinct is usually to push back against his strictness, but she surprises him, too.  She’s not afraid of hard work, she can give as good as she gets, and she’s remarkably perceptive.  I like the ongoing theme of his insistence that she speak “properly” while he’s coaching her (ie, not use African-American vernacular.)  He argues that she only speaks that way with her classmates because she wants to fit in, but that she’s better than that.  And while Akeelah proves that she cancode-switch pretty successfully, she also challenges the idea of prescriptive grammar, pointing out that language is fluid and that “diss” is just as valid a word as “disrespect.”

I’m not familiar with Keke Palmer, who plays Akeelah, but she’s really wonderful in the role:  smart, tough, vulnerable, determined, and curious.  What a fine young heroine.  Laurence Fishburne is really great as Dr. Larabee, and Angela Bassett does a nice job in the role of Akeelah’s mother.  I also recognize both of Akeelah’s brothers, played by Lee Thompson Young (who was on season 8 of Scrubs) and Julito McCullum (featured on season 4 of The Wire.)

Warnings

A little swearing and thematic elements.

A Few Notes on Thomas (Downton Abbey)

Thomas Barrow has always been a frustrating but compelling Downton character for me.  As despicable as he can be, he still pulls me in.  Now, that’s partly due to Rob James-Collier’s rich performance, which I love.  It’s also partly due to how strongly I identify with him as a queer character – that’s not an automatic “in” for me, but his situation in series 3 aired as I was preparing to come out to my family, and I think it kind of made me imprint on him.  This post tries to sort out this often-contradictory character (Thomas-related spoilers through the series.)

In series 1 and much of series 2, James-Collier’s acting is pretty much the only thing that keeps me from hating Thomas (now that the series is over, it’d be interesting to see how I react to him going back to those early episodes.)  By and large, he’s written as a broad villain, a haughty malcontent who’s constantly scheming to gain the upper hand over other downstairs folk, especially Bates.  I remember it annoyed me to see the one LGBTQ character written so “evilly.”  Under further consideration, though, there’s more going on here than it seems at first glance. 

Being gay in 1912-1925 doesn’t excuse Thomas’s conniving, but I think it helps explain it to an extent.  We see in the pilot how guarded he is.  Even though he seems to genuinely care for the Duke (more, it appears, than the Duke cares for him,) that doesn’t stop his plans of blackmailing the Duke if he needs to.  We quickly see that this is a pretty defining trait for Thomas.  He constantly tries to get one over on someone else before they can do the same to him.  In early episodes, he frequently suspects Bates of talking about/plotting against him, and he’s always on the offensive.  Living in a society where his orientation could get him fired, or even arrested, he’s cultivated a dog-eat-dog existence where he endeavors to always be the one to strike first.

As time goes by, we see more of Thomas’s vulnerabilities.  He makes brief, tenuous connections, like with the blind soldier he helps care for during the war, and he lets his defenses down just long enough to show he’s not as ambivalent as he pretends to be.  He (very occasionally) uses his scheming powers for good, whether intentionally (helping Andy out of a jam) or as a happy accident (playing a big role in ousting the officious nanny who, it turns out, was mistreating Sybbie.)  The Jimmy situation in series 3 is kind of incredible for him.  Thomas, the man whose self-preservation and self-promotion is always at the fore of his mind, takes an enormous risk with huge possible fallout.  He believes O’Brien’s lie that Jimmy is interested in him even though the evidence before his eyes tells him that can’t be true, just because he wants it so badly.  That’s a major shift in Thomas’s standard MO, and it tells a lot about him.

In light of these more sympathetic moments, though, it’s frustrating to see him continually returning to his old ways, putting his back up and plotting against those around him.  On several levels, I can understand why he does it.  After all, old habits are hard to break, even when he’s taking tentative steps toward trying to be better.  Showing any kind of vulnerability is fairly antithetical to his character, so when his kinder efforts don’t bear immediate fruit, he tends to dismiss them as hopeless and retreat into his isolation.  He’s also quite the self-saboteur.  As he observes in series 6, he disappoints himself when he keeps burning bridges even though he knows he shouldn’t and it won’t get him anywhere.  But while I get all that, I still hate to see him falling back on villainy.  I’m not even sure why, since his more admirable scenes are pretty rare, but I just root so hard for him to turn it around and it kills me to watch him blowing his chances.

Daydreams (1922)

In a way, this is sort of the Three Ages of Buster’s independent shorts.  By that, I mean it’s less of a story and more of a conceit that allows for a series of gag-filled vignettes that are only loosely connected to one another.  As a result, it’s big on laughs but short on story (admittedly, this is much easier to get away with in a short.)

When his girlfriend’s dad doubts Buster’s prospects, Buster vows to go to the city and make his fortune, promising to shoot himself if he fails.  (Wait, what?!  No, seriously, that’s the agreement – that makes this another Buster short with some pretty dark humor for the ‘20s.)  He sends back glowing, carefully-worded letters to his girl about his progress, leading her to imagine his careers as being far more glamorous than they really are.  For instance, when he tells her about “cleaning up on Wall Street,” she pictures him as a stockbroker, when in fact, he’s naturally working as a street sweeper.  The short offers several sequences of Buster’s various misadventures, interposed with these daydreams of what he’s led his girl to believe he’s actually doing.

Even for a short, it’s a pretty thin story, and as the ludicriously-high stakes show, the details aren’t hammered out all that well.  The central hook is amusing, and the glimpses of Buster in these over-the-top success-story fantasies are fun (unfortunately, though, Daydreams only exists in fragmentary condition, and most of the daydream scenes themselves are lost – still shots of Buster in his dream scenarios stand in for the missing scenes.)

However, Buster’s assorted work scenes are really funny.  While the structural narrative of the short displays a little of Buster’s fatigue with the two-reel format, the gags are as shiny as ever.There are great flourishes throughout; some of my favorites include the poor dog in the vet sequence trotting behind Buster to bury his collar after they’ve been sprayed by a skunk (yet another good animal screen partner for Buster,) as well as the absurdity of Buster trying to clean up a ticker-tape parade in a wind storm.  Also, we’re once again treated to an excellent chase scene with some splendid cop gags.  I love Buster’s trick with the fire escape – so clever! – and the famous water wheel scene is fantastic.

Renee Adoree plays the girl here.  She’s not one of Buster’s regulars, so I’m not familiar with her, and she doesn’t get much to do – even though the short’s framework hinges on her daydreams, all that really requires her to do is stare thoughtfully into space for a second or two.  More familiar faces appear in similarly small roles.  Big Joe Roberts makes a brief appearance as the mayor, and Buster’s dad Joe plays the girl’s father.  As per usual when working with his son, Joe Keaton takes the opportunity to show off his talents for giving Buster a swift kick in the rear.

Warnings

Slapstick violence and a little gunplay.

Character Highlight: Gwen Cooper (Torchwood)

Gwen is a tricky character.  She’s probably one of the characters in the Whoniverse most ill-served by the writing (not far afterClara,) which makes it harder to connect with her and the often-contradictory things she does.  And generally, while she doesn’t quite pop the way the rest of the team does, she’s frequently at the forefront of the narrative, which leads to griping about her taking screentime away from characters we want more of.  All in all, a bit of a mess.

Gwen is framed as both the Everywoman and the Exceptional Woman.  The main show often does this with its companions – ordinary people discovering the extraordinary in themselves – but it’s kind of bungled with Gwen.  She’s our eyes into Torchwood, the lowly beat cop who stumbles upon the organization and its alien wonders.  She tenaciously follows her curiosity and pushes past attempts to throw her off the scent, and in the end, Jack is so intrigued by her and her “heart” that he brings her aboard.  It’s through her that we see the freaky alien goings-on and get to know the other team members.

For me, the biggest part of the problem is that Gwen is very much the newcomer who doesn’t know what she’s doing (in and of itself, that’s fine – to be expected, honestly,) but she tends to act like that isn’t true.  When her clumsy mistakes on her first day lead to major trouble, she insists that Owen should’ve been more careful.  When she thinks the team is acting too callously toward a civilian who’s gotten caught up in a sci-fi mess, she lectures them without knowing what’s really going on.  She charges in headfirst, she defies Jack when she doesn’t have all the facts, and she argues for a better way without having tangible ideas to offer.  Now, there’s nothing wrong with being confident and strong-willed, but when you don’t yet have the skills or knowledge needed to back that up, it’s important to play to your strengths, minimize your missteps, and acknowledge that you have more to learn.  With Gwen, I just don’t see that.

The show also doesn’t do her any favors by describing her, again, as the “heart” of the team as though it’s her actual job description.  It’s a vague term that doesn’t really speak to what her presence actually brings to Torchwood, and it can annoy fans because it seems to suggest that Gwen is the only one who cares while the others (Jack included) are just jaded bastards.  To be sure, Gwen is a caring person, sometimes to a fault.  She’s a very “heart in the right place” sort, someone who is desperate to help but doesn’t necessarily know how.  This makes it tough for her to operate in Torchwood, where tough decisions with no obviously “right” answer rule the day.  At times, it feels like the show is designed to beat this quality out of her, when really, it needs to be about recognizing that compassion and pragmatism have to go hand in hand, knowing that not everyone can be saved but that everyone is worth trying to save.  When things go badly, one has to mourn, but one also has to move on so they’re ready to try and save the next one.

That said, Gwen is concerned about the human cost of their work.  She’s often the one who thinks of the innocent bystanders, the one who reaches out to families of the victims or tries to reassure frightened people in the midst of the action.  She tends to be selflessly brave, frequently to her own detriment, in order to keep other people safe.  And while she can get caught up in the moment, skipping “practical solutions” and going straight to “noble self-sacrifice” (leaving the others scrambling to find those solutions,) she’d always rather take the risk on herself than let someone else get hurt.

Allegiant (2016, PG-13)

Okay – so, as someone who read the books, I feel like I knew where this movie was going even less than someone watching it cold would.  Allegiant, adapted from the first half (three quarters?  kind of?) of the final Divergentbook, goes decidedly further afield than either of its predecessors in terms of book faithfulness.  Given the original novel’s unevenness, this isn’t always a bad thing, but it means I have almost no idea what next year’s final installment will involve (premise spoilers, and spoilers for the previous books, especially Insurgent.)

Quick plot stuff:  Tris, her friends, and her entire society have been rocked by the revelation that their City is part of an elaborate experiment conducted by scientists who live in the still-extant world outside the wall.  Our heroine leads a small group into this outside world, where they find a new society divided into the genetically pure and the genetically damaged.  David, head of the experiment, courts Tris with the promise of all the healing her Divergence can bring to the world, but their new surroundings aren’t all they appear to be.

In terms of the adaptation, the movie hits a handful of highlights/important plot points from the book, though even the stuff that gets included is mostly included differently.  But as I said, some of the changes work well for me.  In particular, I think Four comes across much better:  smarter, more proactive, and while the revelations he learns in this film still mess him up, he deals with them more constructively.  I also feel Evelyn is slightly less unsympathetic, and I’m not entirely sure where they’re going with Peter, but Miles Teller gives such good Entertaining Douchebag.  Additionally, I like the increased focus on the relationship between the Bureau and the Fringe.

Unfortunately, many of the changes that don’t work for me concern Tris.  First of all, I didn’t how like the “100% Divergent” thing added to the second film made Tris much more of a Special Snowflake than she was in the books, and that trend continues here.  Also, with the Bureau being more obviously-uncool from the jump, her easy acceptance of what David tells her makes her look way more naïve than she ought to be.  My main issues after that are less with what’s changed than with what’s taken out.  As per usual, the supporting characters have little to do.  Christina is little more than a footnote, Uriah is blink-and-you’ll-miss-him, and neither Amar or George are there at all (if I recall correctly, that means that, in addition to changing Evelyn (PoC – probably Latina) and Four (biracial) to white, the films have removed all mentions of LGBTQ sexuality – Lynn was a minor character in Insurgent, but I believe they took out any references to her feelings for Marlene.  Boo!)  The adults fair a bit better; at least Maggie Q, Octavia Spencer, and Daniel Dae Kim make the most of their incredibly-limited screentime.

As for new cast members, the only character we meet with much focus is David, well played by Jeff Daniels.  However, there is a very brief appearance by Xander Berkeley, Percy from Nikita.  (First all the Nikita alumni on 12 Monkeys, and now this.  I love Nikita reunions, even when the actors in question don’t have any scenes together.  Wonder if Maggie Q helped him get the gig?)

Warnings

Violence, language, sensuality (including sexy decontamination showers – yeah, that happened,) and thematic elements.

News Satire Roundup: March 13th-March 17th

Sunday, March 13 – Some election missteps to start the week:  Clinton mistakenly crediting the Reagans with starting a “national conversation” on HIV and Trump falsely claiming he’s never advocated violence after his supporters fought with protesters at a Trump rally.  We got a happy International Women’s Day from Fox News, congratulating American men on being better than the Taliban.  Fun little piece on Switzerland’s Day of the Sick and their ultra-dour president giving a speech on laughter as the best medicine.  I thought the main story on encryption was very well done.  The major focus was of course on Apple and FBI, and John covered the issue’s complexities while simultaneously showing its severe fallout potential.  I’m also glad he touched on the notion of the hypothetical “master key” then being demanded by countries like China or Russia, also Apple-customer governments, to monitor their citizens through their phones.

Monday, March 14 – I loved the piece on the recent violence at Trump rallies.  The show has done a nice job lately in pulling off the balancing act of covering Trump, finding the humor and insanity while also acknowledging how far this has gone and how serious it is.  Trevor covered numerous aspects of the issue thoughtfully and brought Trump’s hypocrisy into sharp focus.  The piece with Neal Brennan, on Kanye West and Kim Kardashian’s antics, felt comparably lacking.  Some of the Kanye stuff was funny (especially wondering why he’s not the Republican frontrunner by now,) but even if Kim’s naked selfies are a dubious reason to discuss female nudity, I’m not sure it was a conversation that should have been happening without a female voice present.  Didn’t quite work for me.  The guest was CNN’s Van Jones, who had a lot to say about the danger Trump presents to the U.S., as well as the media’s part in how it all came about.

Tuesday, March 15 – I got a kick out of “This Should Be Easy,” the show's new game show for Clinton.  I think the Reagans/HIV gaffe is still the worst, but asking where Sanders was with health care in 1993 (working alongside her) and telling coal-mining swing voters about how her clean-energy initiatives will get rid of their jobs were pretty bad, too.  The follow-up story on clashes between protesters and Trump supporters was great – it was really chilling to see how deep the anger and resentment runs for some people, and I liked Trevor’s remark about Trump offering to pay the legal fees of anyone who attacked a protester, expressing surprise that he wouldn’t make Mexico pay for it.  I enjoyed guest Joe Nocera, talking about the virtual indentured servitude of NCAA athletes.  It’s a subject I didn’t know much about until John Oliver covered it on his show a while back, and now I’m definitely on the athletes’ side.

Wednesday, March 16 – Plenty on Super Tuesday 2 – no love for Sanders’s concession speech, so long to Rubio, Kasich’s win in Ohio, and Trump’s continued wins signaling the end of days (666 delegates, really?)  I liked that Trevor talked more about a contested Republican convention in the event that Trump doesn’t get the required number of delegates.  He’s right; even though party officials rightly don’t want Trump as the nominee, it won’t be as simple as just picking someone else.  With the support behind him, things could get ugly.  More on Trump rallies, this time a story from Adam on anti-Semitism from Trump supporters.  A bit of a so-so piece for me (I haven’t quite connected with Adam yet,) but I was really shocked to learn the Jewish people by far the most likely targets of religiously-motivated hate crimes reported to the FBI.  Brian Fallonwas the musical guest – meh.  I tuned out a little after the first minute or so.

Thursday, March 17 – Amusing little blurb about St. Patrick's Day; I liked the joke that it’s a white person’s holiday, because it’d get shut down as a riot if a single Black man was found drinking and shouting in the streets.  Excellent story on Merrick Garland and the Senate obstructively blocking his Supreme Court nomination “just cuz Obama.”  The bald-faced refusal to even make a pretense of doing their jobs is staggering.  I was less interested in the segment on “Third Month Mania,” the show’s all-purpose version of March Madness.  While Roy and Hasan’s banter was funny, it felt like a wasted segment that would’ve been better spent on news.  Theo James(promoting Allegiant) was a lot of fun.  I enjoyed him and Trevor comparing notes on practicing American accents, especially Trevor’s story about playing “cowboys” as a child with non-English-speaking friends.

Favorite Characters: Yitzhak (Hedwig and the Angry Inch)

Yitzhak is maybe an odd character to feature.  If Tommy Gnosis stands between Hedwig and the fame she wants, then Hedwig stands between Yitzhak and his.  Even with Hedwig’s admittedly piddly spotlight, Yitzhak is always in the shadow.  He’s the eternal backup vocalist, given no opportunities to show off and no outlet to be the beauty he longs to become.  In movie, he probably has less than a dozen lines.  And yet, I kind of love him.  (Note – I’m pulling in both the stage show and the film for today’s post.  Yitzhak-related spoilers.)

At first glance, Yitzhak looks out of place in the Angry Inch.  Hedwig – the high diva in command – is naturally at the center of everything, with audaciously tacky outfits, loud makeup, and wigs that deserve their own stage credit, and the rest of the band is styled in varying shades of punk/glam pastiche.  Next to all that color, glitter, and androgyny, Yitzhak doesn’t seem to fit.  Nothing form-fitting, nothing flamboyant.  Loose T-shirts and baggy jeans, bandanas and leather jackets.  Long, limp rocker hair and a goatee.  One of these things is not like the others.

And yet, right away, there’s more to be seen here.  Yitzhak is a male character, by all accounts a cisgender one, but he’s pretty much always played by a woman.  Miriam Shor, pictured above, originated the role of Yitzhak Off-Broadway and reprised it in the movie.  So we have this very traditionally-masculine-looking guy with kind of sullen impressions, but there’s something soft and feminine in his face.  His singing voice tends to be the same way, surprising the listener with sudden threads of femininity that seem to emerge from nowhere.

The movie keeps Yitzhak’s woes while skipping his backstory, so elements can feel a bit out-of-the-blue, but the stage show reveals that Yitzhak was once one of Croatia’s finest drag queens.  The Jewish Yitzhak needed to get out of the country, and when he met Hedwig, he was willing to do anything to leave with her.  She agreed to take him along, but at a cost.  Hedwig always needs to be the most beautiful person on stage, and if Yitzhak was going to join her, he could never dress in drag again.  “To be free, one must give up a little part of oneself,” she told him, echoing the words that led to her ticket out of Communist East Berlin:  her botched transition surgery.

That’s where Yitzhak’s head is when we meet him.  His own spark is dulled to make another’s brighter by comparison, and it’s not just with the heels or the wigs.  Hedwig is an incurable spotlight hog who feels threatened by Yitzhak’s talent; in the movie, the last moments of “Tear Me Down” tell you everything you need to know about their relationship.  As Hedwig gears up for her big finish, she’s resentful of Yitzhak’s riffing and coolly walks over to yank the cord out of his microphone.  As a sort-of couple (they’re married – might have been a green card thing for Yitzhak?), they’re hugely dysfunctional.  Hedwig constantly belittles and undermines Yitzhak, she takes him utterly for granted, and she’s hidden his passport.  Yitzhak wants to get out from under her thumb but doesn’t know how, and despite everything, he still can’t quite help loving her.  But for Yitzhak, the chief grievances are the first two – that Hedwig denies him his beauty and pushes his talent to the side.  He’s a natural star who can’t let loose, a gorgeous queen who can’t strut.  Shor does such a terrific job in the film bringing these injustices to the fore, packing a lot of emotion into wordless scenes and making you feel how incredibly important both issues are to him.  In a story where the protagonist has such a tangled, colorful history, it’s cool to discover that the taciturn backup singer has hidden dreams and inner turmoil as well.