Storm Before the Calm

I believe you can always peel away a layer of a cliche and find another truth lumbering beneath it.  Right now it’s a quiet chaos before seeing clearly which I need very very soon.  As I’ve mentioned before I’ve been in this challenging cycle over the last few years, with the weird tragic center-peice of my birth father and his wife/partner.  Other smaller little little asteroids made of barstool gum loaded with morning coffee and other undesirable types of breath have revolved around this one issue and now for the first time in a long time I feel a sense of final emergence, killing a cycle of familiar habits and old hurts that are too much to bear on a budget at times.  It’s articulating all of this as it’s happening that’s my task in life, and a foot’s been taken off one of my creative veins while tussling with whether to move to LA or stay here and fight the fight.  I’m tired of fighting though.  Healing winds of West seem to call and then disappear.  Swirl around the signal is getting stronger but I’m getting closer to the signal when the winds are strongest.   What’s best for the old rustic soul and what serves the world are where I should live next.  One thing for sure, no Friday night bullets.  No garbage swirling on the streets.  I’ve been closed for renovations but grand reopening is coming soon.  New menu and no more pictures of the food,my soul is going upscale.

I watched Behind the Candelabra, the biopic of Liberace starring Michael Douglas and Matt Damon as his young (20 something???) lover.  It got raves at Cannes and made me wonder if the French have started to eat too many Freedom Fries or  Triple Bypass burgers dipped in Honey BooBoo sauce. The film I saw was disappointing. Michael Douglas did an admirable job as Liberace and kudos to him for coming back from throat cancer.  What was disappointing was casting of Matt Damon, a 42 year old muscle laden kind of macho man type as what was supposed to be a 20 something gay man with what I imagine as a great capacity for softness and deep intimacy with Liberace.  I did not see that. It’s no knock on Matt Damon; he’s not the type. It’s like casting me as Vin Diesel’s muscly nemesis in one of those Vin Diesel type films. I’m totally wrong.  There were lines in the film where Matt Damon’s character said something like ‘Oh, you’re not after that queen (implying another gay man)’ and maybe it’s me but it sure came across as awkward. He didn’t look totally comfortable saying some of the lines. I could feel it. It was a weird vibe overall and to me, what could have been a deeply intimate complex portrayal between two people trying to love each other instead was something of a made for TV movie.  Compare it with Brokeback Mountain, which is a poignant and beautiful film in my opinion.

And one reviewer stated how bold and daring it was to show them having sex, meaning Matt Damon pounding on top of Michael Douglas. I disagree. I think if the emotional connection between the two were more dynamic, you wouldn’t need to show it. It’s a compensation instead of enhancement.

The whole point to me is how important casting becomes. This was an OK film to me but could have been something more. And also how some films seem to generate raves when they’re not much more than the top of the bell curve.  Maybe our standards are dipping.  We’re too ‘bot’, something. The state of American cinema is….loud. Very loud.

The other trend I notice is watching Star Trek: The Dark Night Rises which I enjoyed.  In the film, four characters: Spock, Kirk, Khan and Admiral Pike, all cried one single tear in various touching scenes. It’s on the rise in film. One tear only with no change in facial expression that glides down the cheek. I don;t know how they do it.  When I cry, my face is twisted and ugly and tears come out of all sorts of orifii and in bunches. I wonder if the actors really have mastered muscle control or Visine is making a million dollars off Star Trek.  If it’s the former, my acting career has hit a snag .

Good night and “bullocks to Don Revie!”