FAKE IT UNTIL YOU MAKE IT-It's a Half Baked Idiotic Play STAY AWAY

The world premiere of  FAKE IT UNTIL YOU MAKE IT at the Mark Taper in LA has a long way to go before it's ready for discerning theater goers. Written as a farce, it had a kernel of a premise; Native American cultural appropriation and indigenous race discrimination. Set in Arizona inside a suite of offices for non-profit org. providing grants and services serving local Native Americans. The incomprehensible, impossible plot is the nefarious plotting of Wynona (Tonantzin Carmelo) to bring down her nemesis, River (Julie Bowen, "Modern Family) a white woman who is the Director of the organization. Wynona rightly resents River for being in charge as she's posing as a fraudulent Native tribe woman. Theo (Noah Bean "Damages") soon returns from months away working to save the indigenous environment from invasive plants to the warm welcome of his lover, Wynona. However, nonsense soon runs rampant starting with the running gag of River's cat under attack by Wynona to spite River or the cat attacking the actors. The stuffed cat was tossed around in a myriad of absurd, painfully droll scenarios. The other continually confusing conceit is a misconstrued identity charade that misfires repeatedly. At the beginning of the 90 minute, one act play, Theo and Wynona are happily reunited following his environmental work removing non-indigenous shrubs that threaten local vegetation. Wynona remains steadfast against marrying Theo because he's white. She tells him she owes it to her tribe to proliferate only with "her people." Wynona wields her womanly wiles to entice Theo into applying for a job working for River in order to sabotage River's employment. Tossed into this confusing mess is a gratuitous, gay love affair and an advocate who defends "race-shifters".  River is easily convinced by Theo a.k.a. Mark, to perform a ribald, ritual water dance that is offensive and threatens her job. Playwright Larissa FastHorse missed out on writing a provocative parody with a prevailing message. Furthermore, the production is a poor imitation of the slapstick comedy "Noises Off". "FAKE IT" is a cacophonous catastrophe and a crying shame because cultural appropriation is a pressing issue which bears being called out. This new production needs reductions and a rewrite to become a farcical comedy to convey the travesty of the treatment of Indigenous People in history and today.  A comedic satire is warranted but there's nothing to recommend in FAKE IT UNTIL YOU MAKE IT. 

The Plays the Thing-A Local Play Reading that Is

In a local art gallery, in the presently overrun tourist town of Healdsburg, a small group of locals ventured out to hear a play reading of Healdsburg's own playwright, Ron Nash entitled "A Good Deal." "A Good Deal" is an apropos title because it was free and the artistic director of our local Raven Performing Arts Theater, Steven Martin, invited the attendees and cast to join him at the Raven following the reading for a talkback with complimentary wine and beer. What a deal! But, here's the real deal. Come and support our local talent and socialize with your neighbors. Original works are not only special, they're "the lifeblood of live theater". (S Martin) The Raven Theater's mission includes the performance of an original play annually in a fully staged production. In addition, several one act plays are also selected and then produced, cast and performed for audiences every year. The reading step is crucial to the process of  writing and reworking a play. Feedback from an audience is vital in bringing a new play to fruition. Monday night was the reading of "A Good Deal", a two act, three character play set in the present day Dec. 23rd -mid Jan. inside a rustic home in the Catskill Mountains. Dir. Martin set the scene in a work room with tools, wood, shavings and carved birds in various stages of completion. Martin also read all stage directions. The three actors were Lee, a psychologist from Santa Fe (Mary DeLorenzo), Bo, Lee's love interest (Craig Peoples) and Leaf,  Lee's estranged adult daughter (Skylar Saltz). The play is a tragic, romance/family drama. All three actors fully inhabited their characters. Perhaps, more than necessary as in  most play readings actors don't move on stage and are not required to make contact with each other. However, the actor playing Lee and Bo didn't miss an opportunity to kiss during the run through. A line used in the play, "taking one for the team" may have been literally taken to heart here. Saltz as Leaf was exceptional in her role which was underwritten and given too swift an arch regarding her embitterment towards her mom. Overall it was too mawkish a love story with a posthumous recording. The allegorical flying birds were too heavy handed. However, Ron Nash wrote some deft dialogue between Bo and Lee. Lee's one-sided telephone conversations were also credible. Not believable was the burning down of Lee's home for her advocating for minorities. Lee arrives at Bo's home, now homeless which makes her motive for moving back disingenuous and was unwarranted. An easy edit from the audience was to change Leaf's name as it is too similar to Lee.  I think the metaphors used of leaves falling outside was a tad too much, too. But, do make a point of participating in making live theater thrive while being out and about with your local community thespians and members. 

Japanese Film LOVE LIFE-Life in Japan is Compact and Complex

The Japanese film LOVE LIFE is a contemporary drama that follows a young married woman, Taeko (Fumino Kimura) and her young son, Keita living in an urban setting. Taeko and her husband, Jiro, appear as a happily married couple. We meet them celebrating Keita's eight birthday along with Taeko's father-in-law's 65th. The celebration is marred by Taeko's hostile father-in-law who is rude to Taeko. The father-in-law is resentful of Taeko for marrying his son because she brought her son from her previous marriage. Taeko remains dignified and extracts a submissive apology from him with the aid of her mother-in-law. The party resumes happily until a terrible tragedy occurs. While playing with his new toy airplane in the bathroom, Keito strikes his head and drowns in the tub which was filled with water. This haunting film explores how Taeko and Jiro cope with their grief individually and its harrowing impact on their relationship. Taeko blames herself for forgetting to drain the tub. Taeko's in-laws' response to the child's death is also examined. The mother-in-law, the family peace maker, questions her need for religious convictions or spirituality. The father-in-law becomes remorseful and convinces his wife to move out of the city, distancing them from Jiro and Taeko, This suppressed film is intermittently jolted with major life-upsetting events along with earthquakes. The eerie earthquake warnings arrive over cell phones moments before they strike. Much of the movie is filmed within the tight confines of the minuscule space inside the couples apartment which contributes to a realistic fly-on-a-wall lens.  LOVE LIFE is a quietly churning film that is ruptured from the son's death. I was drawn into this congested drama viewed behind the decorum of polite, restrained Japanese society. The movie may prove slow and turgid for fans of fast paced predictable love stories which get neatly resolved. I recommend LOVE LIFE for the more discerning audience as a film which resonates with anguish, life's loneliness, and unrequited love, and ripples throughout with pensive moments of dignity and beauty.    

SEPTEMBER 5-Lives Lost are Lost in this Homage to ABC Lost Me

During the 1972 Olympics in Munich the Israeli Wrestling were held hostage by the PLO and then all killed in a failed rescue attempt. The newly released SEPTEMBER 5 which received an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay and critical acclaim defames the Israelis who died by taking their tragic story and honoring the crew in the newsroom as heroes.  The cast which portrays ABC's news staff include the talents of Peter Sarsgaard as Roone Arledge, John Magaro as Geoffrey Mason and Ben Chaplin as Marvin Bader are commendable in their roles. However, I condemn the perspective of this film which focuses on the pressures and cunning of covering the situation whose significance is contemptible compared to the fatal events that never should've happened. Was it fascinating to see behind the scenes of how resourceful, manipulative and under pressure the staff were in bringing the tragic events into our homes on live TV? Perhaps. Were the actors compelling? Perhaps. Used in the filmmaking to portray actual events was archival footage of this historic flashpoint. The Olympics held in Munich were the first time the Olympics were broadcast live and the first time since the 1936 Games in Berlin held under the hateful eyes of Hitler. A militant group of the PLO broke into the Olympic Village where there were no armed police and killed two Israeli team members and took the other nine members hostage demanding the release of PLO prisoners held in Israel. Massacre of the remaining Israelis resulted in the debacle rescue attempt under the authority of the German police at an airbase 15 miles outside the Olympic Village. Altogether, this well-acted and craftily made film takes horrific events that happened 50 years ago which bear reminding, into a commercial thriller that aims recognition towards people who were behind the cameras at the time. In my mind, the film sullies the memories of those lives killed by making their stories subliminal to the confines of broadcast studio executives. Perhaps the film passes as an entertaining, taut drama about how the media covered a historic event under extreme circumstances. I maintain this movie skews the perspective away from calamitous life and death situations. The most I attribute to this historic, drama, newsroom story that happened half-a-century ago, is maybe this will inform those who may have no knowledge or recollection of the 1972 Summer Olympics, other than perhaps the American, Jewish Athlete Mark Spitz who brought home seven gold medals for swimming. SEPTEMBER 5 is based on a tarnished script that doesn't deserve Oscar gold.  

Doc. WITHOUT ARROWS-Life on Reservation after Years Is Long and without a Point

The well intentioned and oftentimes beautifully filmed doc. made for PBS "Independent Lens" focuses  Derwin Fiddler, Jr. and his family on the Sioux Reservation in South Dakota. Derwin was a champion grass dancer living in Philadelphia before returning to his family's home after being away for more than a decade. Now  The thoughtful filmmaking feels unobtrusive initially. Without any narration or direct interviewing, the camera captures Derwin and his parents, brothers, nephews, nieces in their natural, uninhibited daily routines. We see them lounging in their untidy, overcrowded small home or outside working on the property, playing with each other, riding horses or sitting around a crackling fire. The doc. stays with the family for nearly 13 years. In this time, there are a few plaintive dialogues. Derwin's mother imparts to him his responsibilities to mentor the young on the reservation; many who are suicidal and implores him to impart the legacies of his tribe. Derwin's younger brother talks about their younger, troubled brother who killed himself at age 14 and the impact that made on the family. However, the duration of filming and complete absence of narration leads the documentary down a long, lonely road without a focal point. Derwin falls from the center leaving a gaping hole that is mostly filled by his mother, Shirley. Shirley shares old photos, ancient tribal relics and their family's history. Eventually, Derwin finds work as an exterminator to earn money. We watch him in his hazmat suit and spray can working which is dreary. The film has no urgency, overriding drama or conflict to impart. After a while, the artistic cinematography of horses, tempests stirring or smiling faces becomes banal. The invisible camera morphs into an intrusive voyeuristic lens that you want turned off. Perhaps, the shapeless documentary is meant to just meander but in so doing, it lacks emotion or purpose rendering itself dull.

THE ORDER-Makes Chaos of.True White Supremacist Terror Group Despite Jude Law as FBI Agent

Just released for screening on Fandango, THE ORDER takes on the true events of in the early 1980s of a fledgling group that branched off from a white supremacist order in order to speed up their deranged  mission to "restore the country to its rightful inheritors" white people like themselves. Especially onerous to them are blacks, Jews, Mexicans and anyone who stands in their way. Headed by the charismatic Bob Matthews (Nicholas Hoult) the figure most standing in his way is FBI agent the ruggedly handsome Terry Husk (Jude Law).  Both Law and Hoult are guilty of brandishing their cobalt blue eyes so often as to appear starry eyed and distant from the business at hand. Under Matthews' Svengali orders the business is robbing banks, blowing up synagogues and porn theaters and getting drunk. Namby-pamby stuff until Matthews orders a hit on one of his own foot-soldiers for being sloppy and the Jewish, CO radio host, Alan Berg (an incredible Marc Baron) for calling out the cowardice of white nationalistic groups. The movie gets off to a bloody start with the murder of Matthews' henchmen which brings agent Husk riding into town. Quick as a gunshot, Husk locates the body in a shallow grave and things continue to stay murky, making mulch out of material that may have grown into a tantalizing true detective story. The story is choppy and disjointed. Solving for the mayhem of Matthews' lackeys lacks suspense. Also missing is any meaningful backstory as to Matthews misaligned mania. Husks' team consists of local, young officer Jamie Bowen (Tye Sheridan) and FBI agent Joanne Carney (Jurnee Smollett). Both officers were compelling until Bowen got killed in a shootout that played out like an old western. Carney lost her credibility when she shed crocodile tears reading the Aryan racist plans and propaganda. Worst offense is the mirrored storytelling which parallels both Matthews and Husk modi operandi so as to make them seem co-conspirators or allied zealots rather than as adversaries. The final, fatal flaw is when Husks runs inside the burning house to bring Matthews out alive. Both navigate the hell fires without a singe or hair out of place. The two stare at each other doe eyed, looking like members of a mutual admiration society. THE ORDER was a tall order to screw-up. But, any glimmer of intrigue as a true crime, psychological thriller or sociological/political picture was decimated with a script full of holes and those unabashed ole blue eyes.    

SING SING-Colman Domingo Stars as an Inmate in a Theater Program

Colman Domingo stars as John Whitfield who served a 25 year sentence on a wrongly convicted murder sentence. While incarcerated, Whitfield immersed himself in a theater program known as "Rehabilitation Through the Arts" (RTA). SING SING is the maximum security prison located just outside NYC along the scenic shores of the Hudson River in which Whitfield and his fellow inmates served their sentences and spent time devoted to putting on plays for the prison population. What makes this film sing so to speak, is that the healing process of working in the theater group proved therapeutic. The most heartfelt message comes from one of the inmates who explains their motivation, "We do this so we can feel human again for a while." Incarceration without rehabilitation is dehumanizing and feeds the cycle of recidivism. The astonishing ensemble of actors in SING SING are mostly former inmates portraying themselves as former members of this theatre program. Domingo's acting talents soar in his Oscar nominated portrayal along with the other two professional actors, Sean Jose as inmate Mike Mike and Paul Raci as the group's director. But the real stars are the former inmates. Though based on real people, it's not made as a documentary. It doesn't look as harsh or violent as expected within the prison. Rather, it's filmed with artistic shots that re-enforces the inmates 'isolation from the outside world. The lighting used in the scenes between Whitfield and Mike Mike across their prison cells on a hot summer night casts a golden hue that softens the feelings of solitude or desolation. Furthermore, the emotional impact of Whitfield's release from prison or his parole denial fall short. And the arch of inmate Clarence's redemption through his relationship with Whitfield and RTA is too swift and complete to be convincing. However, when the actors are playing themselves auditioning or rehearsing, their vulnerabilities and enthusiasm make this a film well worth watching. The most heart rendering scene is when the actual John Whitfield visits his former cast mates at the prison as an ex-con. He describes his life on the outside which is both liberating and lonely. SING SING cleverly mocks itself when a stoic panel of philanthropists watch the inmates perform prior to deciding whether to fund their program. SING SING is astounding in many ways and wins big imploring for funding towards redemptive programs such as RTA. The finale offers actual footage taken of actual performances which gives further credence to RTA and Reasons to Admire the power of the arts to inspire. 

A REAL PAIN-Makes a Meaningful Holocaust Movie that Resonates in the Present

A REAL PAIN ("ARP") is a contemporary film that centers around two first cousins who join a tour group in Poland culminating in a tour of a concentration camp. The film was written and directed by Jesse Eisenberg who also stars in the film as Benji Kaplan, one of cousins. Eisenberg received an Oscar nomination for his thoughtful and unsettling screenplay. David Kaplan is the other cousin and is played by Kieran Culkin who rightly received a Best Supporting Oscar nod for his ingratiating and infuriating portrayal of a deranged narcissist. It could be argued Culkin should've received his nomination for lead actor rather than supporting. There's no argument from me that Eisenberg was robbed of an acting nomination. Eisenberg has perfected the whinny, incessant mumbler who always plays second fiddle. However, in ARP he reprises this trope to an advantage by under-scoring the horrific tragedies of the Holocaust by keeping them at arm's length while questioning their imprint on the second or third generation of survivors. Secondly, Culkin's is entertaining as a self-absorbed, attention hound; both incredibly charismatic and intensely off-putting. Furthermore, this remarkable film is honest, humbling and honors the Holocaust. David and Benji are fortunate to be alive today. As Benji says repeatedly, "Thanks to 101 miracles that allowed Grandma to survive." In an amusing and sombre scene, people in the tour group state their reasons for participating. One gentleman spoke of having survived the genocide in Rwanda and  identifies with the Jewish people. One man shares how his grandfather connived his way to survive and struggled to make a living in America which grew into his family business. David stole the limelight from Benji and regaled the group with his tale although Benji was the one who orchestrated the trip. The American expression, "shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations" resonates in the context WWII descendants having the luxuries and leisure to enjoy life but nonetheless, still battle with woes seemingly insignificant in comparison to the victims of nazi persecution. David raised the disturbing irony of making the trip to the camps on a train only this time with meals in first class. Eisenberg is the only one who has ever been granted permission to film inside Poland's concentration camps after convincing its directors of his intent to preserve its memory with respect. Observing the group walk silently into the gas chambers, the barracks and past the ovens is a harrowing and poignant tribute to those who perished. ARP is a really powerful film that marks its place in history. It's also amusing in a self-deprecating manner that makes it palatable and relevant in the present. I recommend renting A REAL PAIN and I contend both Eisenberg and Culkin deserve Oscars.