What Wednesday #37
Today I go Ga Ga for La La Land…sorry. I should know better.
What Wednesday is where I talk about what I’m watching, reading, playing, etc, because for some reason I think you’ll find that interesting. If you have recommendations, I’d love to hear them :)
What I’m Watching: Moonlight…no, wait, I mean La La Land (RT 93%)
Hahaha. Hilarious joke I made there for the title, right?! I’m a total original, I know. Anyways, we did actually go see La La Land (in an actual theater!) and I quite liked it! Normally, singing and dancing movies aren’t at the top of my list (unless it’s a Disney cartoon), but for Ryan Gosling, I’ll make an exception, if only because he’s responsible for the greatest meme of all time. And man is he awesomely talented in this. He learned to play jazz piano in three months for goodness sakes!
It was a bright, fun, and perfectly enjoyable musical. The singing and dancing were great, and Emma Stone and Gosling absolutely crushed it. Stone for sure earned her Oscar, though Amy Adams was totally robbed by not being nominated for the best movie of last year, Arrival. All around, pretty good movie. It deserves a lot of the hype and attention it received.
(Though I didn’t love the actual songs. I’m just not a big fan of musical…umm, music? Musical music? That can’t be right.)
The problem I had with it was that it all felt a little too safe. Outside one trippy sequence near the end, there was nothing that stood out as truly thrilling or fresh. There’s something to be said for just nailing a classic style, but after the director’s last film — the brilliant and far superior Whiplash, which he totally should have won Best Director for, instead of this one — I felt it was all a little too boringly competent. While I haven’t seen Moonlight yet, I’m reasonably confident it deserved to win Best Picture over La La Land. It’s a fun flick, but not one that I’ll remember vividly years from now. It also continues the grand tradition of Hollywood loving movies about itself, which gets pretty annoying. But for what it is, it’s pretty solid. Check it out when it lands on HBO eventually. If only for Ryan Gosling…more like Ryan Gorgeous, amirite ladies?
What I’m Reading: March: Book Three, by John Lewis & Andrew Aydin, Illustrated by Nate Powell (Amazon)
I’m out of my depth here commenting on such a powerful work about a critical and shameful time in American history. This is the final book in the graphic novel trilogy, and it climaxes at the march on Selma. Told from congressman John Lewis’ first hand experience as one of the leaders of the civil rights movement, it’s hard to describe the shock and shame reading about the racist past of where I grew up. I’ve talked about it before, but it is really disorienting to acknowledge what happened there and in other southern states just a short time before I was born. I mean, three kids were killed just trying to help African Americans to register to vote. With the assistance of police officers. Who were all then let off the next day by a racist judge…
The third book has been the most powerful, and it’s made my breath catch in my throat numerous times with the monstrosity on display. But it’s important to note that it’s ordinary monstrosity, as in, these are normal people doing terrible things. Not evil mustache twirling villains, but sweet old ladies down the road that bring always bring a peach cobbler to the church pot luck. We should always be congnizent of those ordinary monstrosities, because they’ll always be with us, no matter how much we try to isolate them in the past. The encouraging part is that it can be defeatred by ordinary heroism.
Anyways, you just should read it. I can’t do it justice. But be warned, it’s not easy reading.
What I’m Reading: Before the Fall, by Noah Hawley (Amazon)
I love the TV show Fargo and I’m quite enjoying Legion, so when I found out the creator of both those shows, Noah Hawley, has a book out, I naturally wanted to read it. I’m about a fourth of the way through, and I’m enjoying it. It’s written in a quick, breezy manner, with just enough detail and flowery language to keep it above dime store thriller level. The basics are a private plane crashes off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard, and one of the survivors is left to piece together what happened. Grounded firmly in reality, but with a healthy dose of mystery to propel it along, it’s been a page turner so far. I’d say it’s worth a library rental at least. Don’t be surprised if it gets turned into a mini-series on FX.
