Month: February 2019

My Oscar picks don’t include Roma

In the Best Documentary Feature category, I expectedwanted Won’t You Be My Neighbor? (re: Fred Rogers) and Three Identical Strangers

Roma_theatrical_posterWhen Roma came to the Spectrum Theatre, I said to my wife, “We need to see that film.” The weekend we were finally available, it had just left.

Yes, I suppose I could see it online, but I know I won’t. Currently, I have movies I’ve recorded weeks ago. I can’t find the block of time to watch them as they were meant to be viewed, i.e., in one sitting, without interruptions.

Roma was actually the second film in that category this year. In the summer, we both wanted to see First Reformed; alas, it didn’t happen. Links to my reviews, but only the first appearance on the list.

I saw it – *.

Best Picture

*Black Panther – my second pick
*BlacKkKlansman – my first pick, my wife’s second pick
*#Bohemian Rhapsody – at this moment, still playing here – finally saw
*The Favourite – NOT my favorite
*Green Book – my wife’s first pick; some critics want to make the contest a redo of When the Oscars Chose Driving Miss Daisy Over Do the Right Thing; meh
Roma
*A Star Is Born – the problem with this movie is that it was done thrice before
*Vice – a very divisive film

Best Actress

Yalitza Aparicio, Roma
Glenn Close, The Wife
*Olivia Colman, The Favourite
*Lady Gaga, A Star Is Born
*Melissa McCarthy, Can You Ever Forgive Me? – my pick

Best Actor – I would have bet money on Ethan Hawke in First Reformed getting nominated

*Christian Bale, Vice – he was REALLY good Dick Cheney
*Bradley Cooper, A Star Is Born
Willem Dafoe, At Eternity’s Gate
*#Rami Malek, Bohemian Rhapsody – I suspect if I see this, this will win out
*Viggo Mortensen, Green Book – never felt like a starring role

Best Director

Alfonso Cuarón, Roma – will win
*Yorgos Lanthimos, The Favourite
*Spike Lee, BlacKkKlansman – my clear favorite
*Adam McKay, Vice
*#Pawl Pawlikowski, Cold War – hasn’t played yet in Albany

Best Supporting Actress

*Amy Adams, Vice – she was very good
Marina de Tavira, Roma
*Regina King, If Beale Street Could Talk – a tossup between her and Adams
*Emma Stone, The Favourite
*Rachel Weisz, The Favourite

Best Supporting Actor

*Mahershala Ali, Green Book – practically a leading role
*Adam Driver, BlacKkKlansman
*Sam Elliott, A Star Is Born – too small a part
*Richard E. Grant, Can You Ever Forgive Me? – my favorite role
*Sam Rockwell, Vice

Best Original Screenplay – I was hoping for a nod for Bo Burnham’s Eighth Grade or Boots Riley’s Sorry to Bother You

*The Favourite
First Reformed
*Green Book – my choice
Roma
*Vice

Best Adapted Screenplay

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs – a Netflix film that I’ve never seen advertised in a theater around here
*BlacKkKlansman – since it won’t win Best Picture, this would be a nice consolation prize
*Can You Ever Forgive Me?
*If Beale Street Could Talk
*A Star Is Born

Best Original Song

*“All the Stars,” Black Panther
*“I’ll Fight,” RBG
*“The Place Where Lost Things Go,” Mary Poppins Returns – this DID make me a tad weepy, maybe perhaps
*“Shallow,” A Star Is Born – give Gaga SOMETHING
“When a Cowboy Trades His Spurs for Wings,” The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

ballad of buster scruggs
A Netflix film that never played theatrically in Albany, NY

Best Original Score

*Black Panther – Ludwig Göransson evokes Africa, my #1 pick
*BlacKkKlansman – Terence Blanchard’s eclectic-sounds, my #1A pick
*If Beale Street Could Talk
*Isle of Dogs
*Mary Poppins Returns

Best Film Editing

*BlacKkKlansman -yes
*#Bohemian Rhapsody
*The Favourite
*Green Book
*Vice

Best Foreign Language Film

Capernaum (Lebanon)
*#Cold War (Poland) – opened this weekend in Albany
Never Look Away (Germany)
Roma (Mexico)
*#Shoplifters (Japan) – saw it this past weekend; worthwhile

Best Animated Feature

Incredibles 2
*Isle of Dogs – very quirky; liked it a lot, and it’s not a sequel
Mirai
*Ralph Breaks the Internet
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse – at this writing, still playing

Best Documentary Feature – I wanted Won’t You Be My Neighbor? re: Fred Rogers and Three Identical Strangers

Free Solo
Hale County This Morning, This Evening
Minding the Gap
Of Fathers and Sons
*RBG – this was VERY good

Best Cinematography

*#Cold War
*The Favourite – actually, the movie was technically good
Never Look Away
Roma
*A Star Is Born

Best Production Design

*Black Panther – this WOWED me
*The Favourite
First Man
*Mary Poppins Returns
Roma

Best Visual Effects – saw none

Avengers: Infinity War/Christopher Robin/First Man/Ready Player One/Solo: A Star Wars Story

Best Costume Design

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
*Black Panther -yes
*The Favourite – would be worthy
*Mary Poppins Returns
Mary Queen of Scots

Best Makeup and Hair Styling

Border
Mary Queen of Scots
*Vice – this was very good makeup

Best Sound Mixing

*Black Panther – I never get the sound categories straight
*#Bohemian Rhapsody
First Man
Roma
*A Star Is Born

Best Sound Editing

*Black Panther
*#Bohemian Rhapsody
First Man
A Quiet Place
Roma

Backup singer Clydie King (8/21/1943 – 1/7/2019)

Clydie King recorded with Phil Spector, B.B. King, Steely Dan, Barbra Streisand, Linda Ronstadt, Joe Cocker, Dickey Betts, Joe Walsh, Arlo Guthrie,  Graham Nash, Elton John, Phil Ochs, Carly Simon, Neil Diamond, and Ringo Starr, among others.

Clydie KingI’m writing about the late Clydie King by request. Someone I know IRL saw and liked the piece I had done about composer Norman Gimbel, another obscure but important musical force who had also recently passed.

Again, you may not know her, but the backup singer warranted an extensive obituary in the New York Times. As is true of many black singers of that era, she grew up in the church. “After her mother’s death was raised by her older sister.” She toured with artists such as Ray Charles, Joe Cocker, and Bob Dylan.

Clydie recorded with Phil Spector, B.B. King, Steely Dan, Barbra Streisand, Linda Ronstadt, Joe Cocker, Dickey Betts, Joe Walsh, Arlo Guthrie,  Graham Nash, Elton John, Phil Ochs, Carly Simon, Neil Diamond, and Ringo Starr, among others. She was one of The Blackberries, a trio which backed Humble Pie. In a 1971 interview, she estimated that she had sung on 300 records by then.

She is so noteworthy that she could/should have been in 20 Feet from Stardom, a great documentary about the supporting singers. I don’t believe she was in it, but her friend Merry Clayton was represented. They both sang on Rolling Stones albums. It was King who cajoled Clayton to sing with her on the Lynyrd Skynyrd anthem Sweet Home Alabama.

“Like other backup singers, King’s attempt to carve out her own career resulted in several solid, but commercially unsuccessful, albums.” You can find her discography here and on her Wikipedia page.

The Rolling Stone piece has links of Dylan and King singing together, mostly in his born-again period. .”She was my ultimate singing partner,” says Dylan. “No one ever came close. We were two soulmates”

The Definitely Dylan radio show connects to several tracks, not all related to Bob. In several articles, there are references to a romantic relationship between Dylan and King.

Listen to:

About Love – #45 on the soul charts in 1971
Loneliness (Will Bring Us Together Again) – Brown Sugar (Clydie King), #44 on the soul charts in 1973

For mom: Alzheimer’s Prevention Registry

Losing a parent is hell

Oh, yay, it’s that time again. The anniversary of my mom’s death in 2011, the only person I actually saw die. Losing a parent is hell. I mean, it happens all the time to other people. It is the “natural order of things” but it still sucks.

I like this: The Mistake I Made With My Grieving Friend, “The author of We Need to Talk reveals how she learned to help — and not help — a friend with loss.” It’s tricky stuff.

As I’ve noted, my mother was not her SELF in the last months of her life. My sisters and I don’t know what degenerative ailment she was seized by. BTW, a study suggests memories of music cannot be lost to Alzheimer’s and dementia. Mom needed more of the music she loved, maybe.

Perhaps I should come up with a playlist of my own, just in case, but it’d be pretty eclectic, NOT just Beatles and Motown. Note to self: work on that.

Anyway, I signed up for this Alzheimer’s Prevention Registry. I logged in months ago and got a packet in the mail shortly thereafter. But it was only the beginning of this year that I swabbed the inside of my cheek and mailed it, and only so I could actually SAY I did so without lying.

I’m hoping that whatever they’re doing will lead the Way toward Alzheimer’s early detection, prevention and treatment. “For Alzheimer’s disease there are two important biomarkers – amyloid and tau – toxic proteins that clump and tangle in the brain.”

Scientists say a breakthrough vaccine works by targeting those two proteins. Of course, at best, the vaccine wouldn’t be sold on the market for at least 10 years. If the Alzheimer’s Prevention Registry shortens that time, that’d be great.

Oh, yeah, the picture. It was taken on my 52nd birthday, which she remembered. But of course she would. The provenance of the photo? Ah, you’ll have to wait until March 7. BTW, I wrote THAT post before this one because that’s what I do sometimes.

Living while black, doing everyday things

Some Americans are afraid to explore their own country.

while blackIt is absurd in its awfulness. Someone who is black, let’s say a Smith College student, is quietly eating her lunch in a campus common room. A white person, an employee, calls the police to report someone who “seemed out of place.” When campus police arrived, they found the Smith student, taking a break from her campus job.

It is yet another example of police being called to investigate black people in everyday situations, the criminalization of blackness. There have been calls for laws to punish people who call police on black people for no reason. But I was curious as to the WHY.

“Because they’re racist!” Well, perhaps. Vox looks at the sociology of the living-while-black incidents.

“Many white people have not adjusted to the idea that black people now appear more often in places of privilege, power, and prestige — or just places where they were historically unwelcome. When black people do appear in such places, white people subconsciously or explicitly want to banish them to a place I have called the ‘iconic ghetto’ — to the stereotypical space in which they think all black people belong, a segregated space for second-class citizens.”

The ACLU has developed LIVING WHILE BLACK ON CAMPUS – A Roadmap for Student Activism.

Meanwhile, folks deal with selling real estate, babysitting, eating, grocery shopping, swimming, helping a homeless man, or cashing a check, all while black.

One reads White lady in golf cart calls cops on black father watching his son play soccer. “Gas Station Brenda” Calls Police on People Shopping In Her Convenience Store. North Carolina Woman Tells Black Sisters Waiting For AAA, “You Don’t Belong.” And there’s the language variation: Dunkin’ employee calls police on student speaking Somali with her family.

Some folks have looked at the phenomenon in a more comprehensive way. Dating While Black: What I learned about racism from my online quest for love. TRAVELING WHILE BLACK: Some Americans are afraid to explore their own country, concerns that evoke the Jim Crow-era Green Book. And it’s not limited to the USA: Morgan Jerkins: Three writers share powerful stories on what it’s like to seek escape in a world that surveils black bodies.

There are what I guess are “good” outcomes in these instances. White woman fired after blocking a black man from entering his home. And this scary tale: Michigan Man Who Shot at Black Teen Asking for Directions Found Guilty of Assault, as well he should have been.

On the other hand, being a “good guy with a gun” doesn’t necessarily apply while black.

This hardly-exhaustive list, mostly from 2018, is exhausting to write about. And scary. Having the cops arrive unnecessarily is not only nerve-wracking, but it’s also a waste of the police’s time and resources.

As Renée Graham in (Boston) Globe Opinion wrote back in April 2018, “To be black is to always be in the wrong place at the wrong time because, in America, there is never a right place for black people.”

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