Which Actor Has the Best Resume?

Quick, name the actor who had the best resume in Hollywood. Here's a hint: Just five movies, and all earned Oscar nods for Best Picture.

Many film fanatics remember John Cazale as Fredo Corleone in The Godfather and its sequel, and for his relationship with Meryl Streep. Sadly, he died at 42 of terminal bone cancer, just after wrapping his scenes for The Deer Hunter. Before that, he also portrayed Gene Hackman's right-hand man in The Conversation; starring in three of Francis Ford Coppola's greatest four ain't bad. An agitated, destructive web of paranoia, The Conversation fit Cazale's on-screen persona well: the doltish sidekick, the anxious kid caught in matters beyond his control. Sad that the rest of his career was so suddenly wrenched from his hands--but what great support he gave to five classics of the seventies (IMDB scale: from 8.1 to 9.2).

Perhaps his strongest, most poignant performance comes in Sal from Dog Day Afternoon, the Little John to Al Pacino's bank-heist Robin Hood. Cazale never appears to be acting; there's no conscious shift between humor and moroseness. His sad-sack robber is asked "Is there any country you want to go to?" and responds, "Wyoming."

No other actor can topple that consistency. A heap of first-timers won Oscars for their first performances, sure, but for every Mary Poppins, there's a Tooth Fairy on its way. But a few others come close.

Male Studies: The Course Catalog

Here's something American higher education needs. The Washington Post reports that Wagner College will be hosting seminars on "the declining state of the male, stemming from cataclysmic changes in today's culture, environment and global economy." Could this be the start of a Men's Studies department? they wonder.

I can just imagine the course offerings in ten years:

MALE/HIST 369: Free Love in the Oval Office
We will explore the declining state of the American president. Following the '60s era of "Happy Birthday, Mr. President" through the '90s "blue dress" media frenzy, we will analyze the president's reversion to the monogamous family-man.

MALE/LIT 301: You Will Read Bret Easton Ellis, and You Will Like It

Midterm includes stabbing random homeless man in the eye.

MALE/KIN 352: Advanced Golf Technique

Prerequisite: BUS 302 Become Famous Enough to Make Millions and Date Millions.


MALE/MUS 312: Male Studies in Music
Note: This course will recycle the same syllabus from MUS 311: History of Western Music.

MALE/SOC 407: Men-imism
This advanced theoretical seminar deconstructs women's rights movements in America, as well as the "masculine mystique," the "gays," and the perpetuation of the "glass floor." Be sure to bring necessary materials to the first class for Men's Libation and jockstrap-burning.

Oh, it's real!

Sweet Smell of Shostakovich

Review: The Nose

The Metropolitan Opera, New York

March 11, 2010

I. The Music

Dmitri Shostakovich composed his first opera, The Nose, which made its Met debut this season, when he was 22. Way to overachieve. Based on a short story by Nicolai Gogol, the opera matches its supreme absurdity with savage instrumentation and leaps into atonality. Satirical and unromantic, the scenario follows Major Kovalyov, whose nose becomes detached in a barbershop. He runs to the cathedral the next morning only to behold his own nose, parading about town in the garb of a higher-ranked civil servant. After sinking into despair--and atoning for his lascivious, arrogant ways--he awakes again to find his nose reattached, and bounds back to the streets.

To counter Kovalyov, scored as a baritone, the nose sings (in his few brief solos) punishingly high tenor lines: flares of high Cs. Cashing in on the absurdity, Shostakovich writes the police inspector who seeks out Kovalyov and his nose up to a tenor E-flat. It's a frantic, devious score: bit chorus parts weave in and out, broken by percussion shatters and piercing woodwind pecks and flourishes.

In the midst of the maniacal, overpopulated surge of music, a few semi-Romantic moments emerge. Act II closes with Kovalyov's bedside lament, a lyrical pleading to return to full nasality. In Act III, Kovalyov writes to a woman who may have enchanted him to marry her daughter, against his wishes; after the shouts of men, this impassioned soprano line sounds lush by Shostakovich's standards.

Invitation to a Behanding

Review: A Behanding in Spokane
Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre, New York
March 10, 2010

Martin McDonagh has given us quite a roster of Irish plays, from the risible The Beauty Queen of Leenane to last year's revival of the intimate The Cripple of Inishmaan. His first American play, premiering in New York with four American actors, is the first time he's broken from the plonkers of rural Irish towns--and alas, the first time his writing is half-handed.

He crafts a vengeful Mephistopheles in the character of Carmichael (Christopher Walken), on the hunt for a hand severed off in his youth. On the train tracks, he recalls. We're never sure of the veracity of that tall tale, nor how off-kilter Walken's next line reading will sound. Walken's performance is a cauldron of mischief, malice, and pathos swirling together. Fascinating at every moment with him, the show suffers whenever he's off-stage.

Carmichael traps two bumbling crooks, who sought to con him with an aborigine hand, inside his decaying hotel room with a gas can soon to ignite. Alas, McDonagh's usual duplicity doesn't spring forth here: the prisoners tossing shoes (and extraneous hands) at the gas can sacrifices tension for slapstick. Anthony Mackie, as the crook digging himself further into lies, scores many laughs but through over-exertion; Zoe Kazan is miscast as his shrill sidekick. Sam Rockwell at least cloaks his dim-witted but slyly suspicious hotel manager some of the ambiguous bizarreness that perfumes Walken.

McDonagh has proven a master of manipulation in the past. By only crafting one (and a half) compelling parts out of four, the play tilts entirely toward Walken. His mother registers more as the unheard half of a telephone conversation, bringing out all Carmichael's savagery, than do the thieves. The playwright's best work feeds off power struggles--little guy overtaking big fish--but Carmichael never risks losing his patriarchal command.

Jipped, too, are we of a bloody explosive showdown, like in The Lieutenant of Inishmore, or gruesome revelation a la The Pillowman. His bent for profanity and racial epiphets runs stouter than Guinness, and is one of the few tricks that really riles us. Right now the ovations belong to Walken, but I hope that in his future American efforts, we'll have cause to give McDonagh a hand.

Bridges and Bullock at the Bat

Review: The Blind Side + Crazy Heart

It's their turn, common wisdom says. Jeff Bridges has attended the Oscars four times before. Sandra Bullock's running on the Whaddaya-Know card. Tonight, they will likely take home statuettes for their 2009 work. At least for part of it; Bullock just picked up a Razzie for her other film last year, All About Steve.

Sandra Bullock hocks DVDs of All About Steve in person at the 2010 Razzies.

Be reassured: both are fine in their nominated performances. If commerce and marketing had less pull over the Oscars, Michael Stuhlbarg or Jeremy Renner would take Best Actor, and Meryl Streep or Carey Mulligan Best Actress. But I won't denigrate the gravy train they're riding. Bullock, in particular, is the saving grace of her film: an inspirational but inert "true story."

The Blind Side sticks closely to the journey of rags-to-Ravens football star Michael Oher; sometimes life works better as life than art. Actual reported dialogue, as seen in this excerpt from Michael Lewis's book, makes it onto the screen, but every line, lifted or invented, comes across with the manufactured sugar of a Fruit Roll-Up. "You're changing that boy's life," says a sweet, suspicious Memphis wife. "No," Bullock responds. "He's changing mine."

Country singer Tim McGraw has screen presence to spare, and Bullock musters up enough spit-and-vinegar to ride through the saccharine. Taking in over $200 million at the box office, The Blind Side has become the highest-ranking sports movie yet. So why doesn't a compelling life story translate better to film? We never see Michael as a character, for starters. The great biopics manipulate true-life events in search of subtext, of a person's inner workings. Michael has all his decisions made for him by rich white restaurant-chain owners: the suburban Christian elite. His path seems entirely based on the kindness of strangers, not any passions or emotions of his own.

In Crazy Heart, Bad Blake's passions are more immediate: booze, broads, and ballads. Cue every down-and-out wunderkind film of the last twenty years. The Wrestler comes to mind; with all due respect to Mickey Rourke, we expect great work from Jeff Bridges. Crazy Heart, which fought for a distributor, has gained everything from awards season; and good for it. Best of all is T-Bone Burnett's surefire score, and the actors corralled into singing (Bridges, Colin Farrell, Robert Duvall).

Crazy Heart feels more indie, less Hallmark, than The Blind Side, though both were made on tight budgets. But you can check off the familiar landmarks the film drives by: Washed-up musician. Scruffy motel room. Music journalist in lust. That one song that paves the way to recovery. Sunrise, sunset. The women in these male comeback sagas never get much to work with (Walk the Line being one recent exception), but Maggie Gyllenhaal does her darnedest. Bridges and company find a gentle rhythm and don't tug too hard on the heartstrings. It's a movie we've all seen before, but hey, it's Jeff Bridges's turn. Unlike Bad Blake, he's still in his prime.

Now Available on Amazon

As seen in the picture, Deluxe Jesus (clearly better than run-of-the-mill Jesus) performs two miracles: 1) Turns water into wine. 2) Feeds the thousands with two fish and five loaves.

The key section of the product description: "this wonderful Jesus character stands 5 1/4-inches tall and features glow-in-the-dark hands!" Ah, yes. Luke 23:46. "Father, into your glow-in-the-dark hands, I commend my spirit."

Billy Boy McRobert "Billy Boy," reviewing this action figure on Amazon, writes how Deluxe Jesus turned his son's G.I. Joe toys into pacifists. Mojo points out that Deluxe Jesus is waterproof. Fleaman "Welcome to your doom!" is, as his avatar implies, not a fan of action-figure Jesus. And J.H. Barnard suggests Deluxe Jesus is unsafe for pets and small children.

Deluxe Jesus sells at the retail price of $16.64.

Happy National Grammar Day!

I'd like to propose a toast to National Grammar Day. One day a year when it's acceptable, even encouraged, for me to correct others' poor usage and mechanics. (We'll celebrate spelling on September 30.)

As you can see, I use fragments and parentheticals at whim. Splitting your infinitives or ending with prepositions are kosher, too: sometimes necessary tricks to simply* get your point across.

Oh, and yes, I care a lot about the Oxford comma. The serial, series, or Harvard comma; call it what you will. The Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition, strongly recommends it in published books. Have a merry time with your AP-style newspapers; trade books don't lie and die by word (and character) count. It always helps clarity, never hurts, and usually looks better.

She went to lunch with her parents, the president and the vice-president.

Not so clear, is it? An Oxford comma would negate the chance Barack Obama and Joe Biden are her fathers. (Which is best; they'd have some explaining to do.)

Other commas I'd like to stand up for: the two surrounding an appositive. If I tell you that my first memoir, The Life and Times of America's Next Superhero, hits stores the first day of summer, which comes in June, there better be commas everywhere. So many people forget to close the appositive off; the technical term for this practice is apathy. You can't argue appositives.**

May I say a few more words?

• Therefore and thus are not conjunctions. Semicolons before, commas after, please.
• Sorry, Strunk and White, but hopefully can mean I hope. Hopefully you can live with that.
• "It's I." Technically, yes. But when you're not lighting gas lamps in Victorian England, go ahead; say "it's me" with confidence.
• If I were a Spanish teacher, I wouldn't tell my students there's no subjunctive in English. If that were true, it would require that this sentence vanish before your eyes.
  

*If we moved simply to the end of the sentence, it would mean with ease rather than merely, as I intended. Placing it before to get gives it unnecessary emphasis, I feel.
**Though I will concede it seems silly to set off The Life and Times... above. If I took out the word first, there would be no commas, hence no appositive. The phrase memoir would be nonrestrictive, and the title a clarification that identifies rather than just additional information.