CAN YOU NAME THE LAST FILM ABOUT OR STARRING WOMEN THAT WON BEST PICTURE?

Unless you're a movie buff, I'd bet you can't. If you count musicals, CHICAGO (2002), if not, SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE (1998).

That's right: 1998 or eighteen years ago. Yes, movies starring people of color have often been ignored, too. The Academy of Motion Pictures, as most know by now, comprises 90+ percent white males. When will this change? The Academy's president, Cheryl Boone Isaacs, has pledged more diversity among members and voting. As an African-American, she has a case. As a woman, she also has a right to speak about inclusion.

Lupita Nyong'o
(CGI for Star Wars: The Force Awakens)

Daisy Ridley
(Star Wars: The Force Awakens)

So, how did the Academy's voters become predominantly white male? An easy answer would be studios have produced movies which cater to that demographic and executives have little backbone to risk hiring women or other minorities. The "big boys" also cater to their own tastes, with an emphasis on teenagers. Studio reps often argue: "We give the public what they want." Anything considered to be a "woman's movie," or in derogatory terms, a "chic flick" rarely does well at the box office thus doesn't get the backing from producers and the recognition.

Well, we've seen many independent and smaller films garner box-office gold via smaller budgets and larger profits, though few have received glowing reviews e.g. BRIDESMAIDS or SPY. Those that critics consider to be award-worthy, for example, this year's BROOKLYN or ROOM, may have gotten a Golden Globe or two, and/or may receive Oscars for acting (ROOM being a safe bet), but rarely will these films win Best Picture (HURT LOCKER doesn't count, guys).

Encouraging or pressing the Academy to change its voting procedures is a beginning. However, like today's politics, the system has to evolve from the ground up: movie-goers must push studios for films for all ages, genders, ethnicities and even tastes. It's time the boys became men and include our real world.

Personal grudge: STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS and STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON, which garnered high box office receipts and strong critical acclaim, got shafted by Academy voters.

Want quality suspense and mesmerizing magic in your stories? Read the first two books in my SHADOWWATER series. Third book's launch tentatively scheduled for June 2016. www.shadowwater.net

FILM REVIEW - THE REVENANT: REVENGE IS SOUR (Spoilers Alert)

"You should be a film critic!" That's what friends have implored for years. I'm happy to announce to them, my readers and followers, I've decided to include movie reviews on a regular basis in this blog. Will cover the gamut. 

Urged by my man to attend a movie I'd normally avoid, I saw The Revenant. First reaction, too violent and filled with holes. Confession time: I had a sinus attack which hampered my objectivity and went to the movie ready to dislike it. I also abhor the reverence for violence many film critics and Academy voters often accept, as in The Departed or No Country for Old Men. In contrast, I admire directors who can realistically portray violence without resorting to blood baths and glorification. A good night's sleep produced a rested mind: yes, the film should be seen.

After a successful hunt, The Revenant opens with hunters preparing their pelts for transport. Various stages from skinning to folding the furs in canvas and binding the prized bounty are depicted. Modern viewers, like me, may be repulsed by the process. Director, Alejandro González Iñárritu chooses, however, to allow the hunters momentary revelry before the predators become the prey. The ragged group are attacked by the Arikara Indians and experience heavy losses and injuries. Hugh Glass (DiCaprio) the hunter and scout for the group knows the territory and is the group's only reliable compass to finding their way back to camp. Glass's mixed-race son, Hawk (Forrest Goodluck), accompanies his father yet remains silent per his father's orders as not to incense the volatile hunter's irrational fears of the "Indian," particularly "half-breeds," Only the Captain truly understands Glass's value.The director introduces his viewers to an initial form of revenge: killing the white men who have taken the Native American's means of survival to sell for profit.

Iñárritu, helmed last year's Oscar winner for Best Picture: Birdman, another movie where I respected his choices more than the story. As a one-time theater goer and behind-the-scenes gopher, I'd have to favor Birdman, wondrous though the shots in The Revenant may be. As an ensemble film Birdman carries us away yet keeps the audience grounded, whereas Iñárritu's follow-up, The Revenant, has fantastic elements sprinkled amidst realistic drudgery.

This lone-wolf story is an intelligent examination of the old West and the killed-or-be-killed mentality to ensure survival. (In my mind, the foundation for our current American obsession with gun-violence.) No, I can't use the verb "loved" to describe my reaction to this film, better to write I respected most of the process, the production: acting, cinematography, directing (as described above) and screenwriting. I had problems with the editing. The movie, as is the norm these days, is too long. And scenes, particularly one involving a conifer left this benefit-of-the-doubt movie fan rolling her eyes and screaming in her head, "Cut!" 

Okay, Leonardo, I'd endorse your getting an Oscar at last. I have watched for growth in this actor since his days in Titanic, and have finally accepted he has the chops. Another performer, Domnhall Gleeson plays the cavalry Captain who has a pivotal role in the movie. Cinephiles will recognize Gleeson from the brilliant film, Ex Machina, and the equally terrific, Star Wars: The Force Awakens. If any performer should be nominated for Best Supporting Actor, it's Domnhall Gleeson. 

In The Revenant. cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki captures not only the breathtaking vistas of Alberta, Canada  (where much of the movie was filmed) but the smallest creatures as well like carpenter ants climbing over one another to reach the summit. In a blink this scene ends yet serves as a perfect metaphor for the teamwork expected by the Captain of his remaining men to undertake their arduous journey to reach the fort. 

Story-wise, historical accuracy comes and goes. In truth Glass didn't have a son, which leads to a peevish injection: why do movie marketers/producers insist on posting the words, e.g. "based on true events," on their posters? In the case of The Revenant the contradictions are staggering (for a well-researched history of Hugh Glass, read Rebecca Onion's excellent article on the Glass myth in Slate Magazine: Who was Hugh Glass? ). The screenwriters do provide ethical lessons for audiences to ponder, and work hard to show a balanced perspective, from the in-fighting among various tribes to the cavalry captain and the complex "villain", Fitzgerald. I also admired the main theme, reinforced throughout the movie, of revenge and its consequences (Gladiator references abound, intentional or not, I don't know.).

Moreover, the Native American women may be victims or need rescuing in this story, but their pride and self-empowerment, especially in one brutal scene, rise to the surface in unexpected places.

In the future, I hope to interview some Native Americans who have seen this movie to get their opinions. I know my boyfriend, part Blackfoot, felt emboldened by the screenwriter and director's choices. In my opinion, The Revenant boldly and reverently depicts the tribes as they try to maintain their culture and protect their lands. Forced to take sides, French vs. British/Colonials, these indigenous people have fateful choices. 

Making decisions is the fundamental basis of a director. Iñárritu, and his cinematographer Lubezki, illuminate all that is beautiful and ugly in our natural landscape. Choosing to film in natural light, from a myriad of vantage points, these men show the land, nature as gifts to be savored not squandered. 

In the end, the quest for vengeance left this audience member shaken, unsatisfied, a reaction I'd bet Iñárritu wanted. So, see a master craftsman and his artists at work. You will be affected. In its message, The Revenant shines a new light on the early days when men raped the land and left little except for the very few. An old lesson yet to be learned by mankind.

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GREED: CAN WE PREVENT ANOTHER GREAT RECESSION? (Spoilers Alert)

Movies such as THE BIG SHORT show us greed at the macro level--collusion of big banks, brokerage firms and mortgage companies to artificially inflate subprime mortgage lending rates, or, why the housing market tanked and the "Great Recession" occurred--from the inside.

Yes,  Mark Baum (as portrayed by Steve Carell) embodies the vocal "moral" conscience in the movie who decries the inevitable: small-scale investors, consumers, the under-privileged getting the shaft. However, Baum and his colleagues (SPOILER ALERT) make, in sum, a billion dollars from anticipating/betting on the devaluation of subprime bonds. Other savvy foretellers also rationalize their profits or learn the price many Americans will pay for banks' corrupt lending practices. These men, however, will become very rich.*

And that's the rub. (SPOILER ALERT) Two inexperienced men, the "little" guys in the film, bet their life savings that the market will crash. They win, but do they? [Will they learn from being lectured by Ben Rickert (Brad Pitt)?] If wrong, the amateurs would have been forced to sell their few remaining assets and potentially be impoverished or underemployed for years to come, all of which would cost the average taxpayer (by taking away economic stimulus and increasing the price of debt).

I confess, these issues were a bone of contention for my boyfriend and me after we saw the movie. I surprise myself by writing that I took the more cynical position. For I believe once a person earns or receives large amounts of money, they often change. Investing is gambling. And investors allow financial institutions to use their money to garner profits. Of course, many investors didn't count on their bankers and brokers to make millions of dollars for personal profit via unethical practices and thereby sacrifice their customers' assets in the process.

Yes, the institutions, e.g. big banks, created an artificial culture encouraging, enticing people to buy homes with little or no credit, no down payments knowing that in time, with the adjustable interest rates, these consumers would never be able to pay their mortgages. Worse, brokers knowingly sold "synthetic" bonds that had no real value.

Revenge wields its ugly head in fair-minded people who want justice for the Great Recession. Bailing out banks, in particular, has inflamed the anger of even passive observers who wanted the government to let commercial banks falter. And yet, we're told to learn from history. In the 1929 market crash, banks did go bust and the Depression dragged on for almost a decade. Many who lost everything had their savings tied up in these banks and/or in the stock market. The already poor got poorer. The middle class disappeared. Sound familiar?

(SPOILER ALERT) The end of THE BIG SHORT alludes to a probable return to the very practices which brought down our economy and other economies around the world. Moreover, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and others have warned if banks, brokerages, mortgage lenders aren't closely regulated average Americans will pay the price, again. The struggling middle-class and working poor have little leverage to change the system and self-regulation only benefits the top one percent.

How can a citizen stop the impending catastrophe? VOTE for candidates, from the local level to the federal government, who support economic reform. Although it may take five minutes from your day, go on-line and use social media to express your opinions or better, become an activist to help create change.

If people can't or won't follow through with the above recommendations to act, if they continue to invest in real estate, the stock market and subprime bonds without understanding the consequences, and/or, if they walk around enraged at corrupt institutions and the government but live a life where they spend, spend, spend and don't teach their children--the future of our planet--the value of restraint, then they encourage greed.

For in the end, it's the desire to make more and more disposable income that has fueled our corrupt culture, the underpinnings of the very system many wish to change: capitalism.

*Women in THE BIG SHORT are portrayed as either being blind to or part of the corrupt institutions. However, at least one woman did see what was coming, Meredith Whitney.

Bending vs. breaking the rules is a theme in my first book: Shadowwater. For more info, go to: www.shadowwater.net

GREEN RIBBONS FOR CHILDREN'S FUTURE

 Yesterday, I mustered my energy and participated in Provincetown's March for Climate Change and recognition of the current CO2 summit in Paris.

We arrived early at the UU church on Commercial Street. I worried that the turnout would be small and ineffectual, unusual for me as I carry hope in my heart despite the dire predictions. Like children peeking in a store window, some people began to tentatively approach the meeting place. Whereas others didn't hesitate to walk toward us, boundless energy bursting--all ages; a human menagerie. Some participants carried signs, others wore hats or garlands of green leaves.

The cold temperature, around 37 degrees--not counting the blustery wind skirting across the flat, hooked appendage and the northernmost-point of Cape Cod--forced marchers to bundle up against the chill. But we carried our banners, posters and green ribbons to show our solidarity.

Among the diverse collection of marchers, were teenagers; young adults who waved their banners and cheered on the procession, giving me hope that the Cape's youth will continue the cause.

What were they/we fighting for? Within one generation, Nauset Beach--as scientists have predicted--will have eroded to the point of no return. Liams, an Orleans seafood shack on the border between the parking lot and the beach, will have disappeared. My childhood oasis and others' will become "dust in the wind." Scattered fresh-water ponds will change to saltwater via the encroaching sea; health concerns will rise significantly as pollutants from Boston, surrounding states increase. (For specs, please refer to The Cape Cod Times' special section  Cape Cod Times on Climate Change )

And if a motley band of politicians, entertainers, writers, small business people and environmental activists can remind those who have no regard for our cause why stemming climate change is imperative, then I foresee a small victory for our beloved Cape Cod and a better future for residents, young and old.

Below are more pics from our march, Sunday afternoon:

Our fearless leader!

State Representative Sarah Peake and I.

Musicians led the way.

Two spirited activists.

The end of the March but not our deep passion for the cause.

PARIS: JE T'ADORE

Dedicated to the people of France:

The first time I went to Europe, age 15, I'd saved money which my parents matched to take a whirlwind student tour. I have two unfortunate memories during our visit to Paris. My fellow travelers' first priority centered on visiting McDonald's, as other countries we'd been to didn't offer the fast food whereas I chose not to go, for which I received my peers' censure. Secondly, I ruined a roll of film by opening my Pentax 35mm camera to change rolls in what I'd hoped would be a darkened space, the cupboard--large enough for me to enter and close as there were no closets--in our hotel room. Needless to say I ruined the film that contained pics of France. A happy jaunt to L'Tour Eifel and Museé de Louvre, sans I.M. Pei's pyramid, helped ease the disappointment.

Years later, after college graduation, my friend, Sarah, and I traveled to four countries, in three of which we had hosts. We stayed with family friends in St. Cloud, in the Hauts-de-Seine, a suburban region six miles (9.6 km) from Paris. When not babysitting the couple's young children, we appreciated the charm of the village within walking distance where we'd buy fresh baguettes. But like anxious sprinters, we couldn't wait to get to the city.

We navigated the Paris Metro map and went to many sites and arrondissements (or districts), the most memorable provided delectable places to eat. One restaurant had been recommended to us by our hosts: La Gallant Vert, a Michelin-rated restaurant with excellent service, except for the sommelier. He could see by my rudimentary French (Sarah, a first generation Dutch-American spoke fluent French; she had an ear for Russian and Chinese, too) that I was a young American woman whom he assumed had little experience with ordering wine, unaware that my French-speaking friend knew only the basics. I asserted my knowledge of vin to Sarah and told her what I'd pick if given the opportunity. We decided to see what the expert had to say. The sommelier returned, Sarah asked for his suggestion and voila! He recommended the same wine I had a 1978 white Bordeaux. Sarah couldn't stop laughing until she had to explain to the stoic gentleman my original choice. He left unamused.

By this point, I'd fallen in love with Paris yet I couldn't bring myself to pick up my bags and move there, too embarrassed to go without speaking commanding French. I did take several classes. Nevertheless, I didn't return again to Paris until seven years later, in route to a destination in Germany where I planned to teach English. In la belle cité I stayed at the same hotel my parents had discovered: L'Hotel Regina, a boutique hotel renowned for its locale across from the Tuileries Gardens and being home to the statue, Jean D'Arc. I loved the hotel with its warm staff. Later, I enjoyed a lovely home-style meal with a banker, whom I taught when in England, and his family. Since his wife didn't speak English, I mustered the courage to utter phrases which finally brought a smile to the woman's skeptical face.

With luck, I returned one more time, a decade later. As a teacher I had long vacations, which gave me breathing room to savor my travels. I flew into Paris, had a delightful cab ride with a driver who patiently bore my still unpolished French and returned to L'Hotel Regina (No longer an undiscovered and reasonably-priced accommodation. And, since this last trip it has been rated with five stars--too bad). After being promised a room with a view--yes, just like the movie I politely but firmly reminded the manager about my request--I received a new space where I opened my shutters to a diagonal view of the nighttime sky lit by the synchronized lights on la tour Eiffel. Straight across from my window the Grand Roue or Ferris Wheel, a relatively new attraction added to the Jardin des Tuileries, tapped my child-like glee.

Traveling (see my video on YouTube: Around the World in 15 Years ) challenged me only on occasion when I felt isolated. Still, I rarely experienced loneliness in Paris or France for that matter. For my openness to French culture, its art, cuisine, books, music, and most importantly its mercurial people emanated from inside. The French in turn accepted me: my elementary language skills (at least I tried, I'm sure they reasoned), flair for simple and elegant fashion, love of their food, charming shops and the beaming smile I gave them whether they wanted it or not.

No need for me to explain this week why I have shared these stories or my passion for France. I will only end with this French expression, my mantra: Joie de vivre!

###

You'll find brief fictional references to the French and France in my books Shadowwater and Dark Sea www.shadowwater.net

WICKED

Photo by Martin Kahn

(In honor of All Hallows’ Eve and those spirits who are still with us)

WICKED

A wicked gale, 1841,

Took all souls, both old and young.

Among the shipwrecks off the Cape,

No sadder story leaves mouths agape.

Seven ships were swept like splintered trees as

Sailors fought the rising seas.

Fifty-seven lads left that cursed day,

From Truro Harbor through Cape Cod Bay.

With farewells to families and prayers of thanks,

To fish for cod along George’s Banks.

Headed nor ‘east at full sail,

The hopefuls met that dreaded gale.

Soundings dropped as winds blew wild,

And fear spread from man to child.

For closer their vessels approached the shoals,

Which cut their hulls with ripping rolls,

Nature took victims without remorse,

And most were lost who’d set the course.

Legend has it that on autumn nights,

Amidst Truro’s moors, below the heights,

Ghosts of sailors mourn their ghastly plight,

With frightful wails across the night.

So if you dare to brace that wicked wind,

You may hear cries of those doomed kin,

Brothers of the sea who dared to go,

Where others still venture and fight the foe.

NOTE: This poem is based in part on real events off Truro, MA in 1841 (Source: Provincetown Banner, June 28, 2009). The legend is fiction. Originally posted 10/15/13 Poetree Creations.

LIKE THE ABOVE? GO TO: www.shadowwater.net and discover original adventures,  Shadowwater & Dark Sea (Shadowwater II).

NO ONE IS IMMUNE: THE ART OF IMAGERY

As a child, reading challenged me. Few stories captured my heart and my mind as James Fenimore Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans. I know now that the visual interpretations crafted by N.C. Wyeth for the hardcover book  brought me into the epic (Alas, my copy disappeared). Debate continues as to whether Wyeth's work, and others such as Norman Rockwell's, is considered "art."

Being an active Tweeter, in a circuitous way another Tweeter asked me to compare Andy Warhol to John Singer Sargent (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, has a large collection of Sargent's paintings). The conversation led to a consensual conclusion that Andy Warhol changed the boundaries of "What is art?" in the sixties and seventies. Not to disparage Warhol's contributions, if his silk screens are now accepted as modern art, why do current art historians question N.C. Wyeth's distinctive, classic illustrations?

When the satirical magazine Charles Hebdo hit the news, I remembered my brother's copies of MAD Magazine and how much the visual artistry of the cartoonists stayed with me far beyond the captions. Maybe as a visual learner, pictures impressed me more than words. The humorous and sardonic imagery made an impact.

N.C. Wyeth's illustrations had the same effect. Look at the cover he did for The Last of the Mohicans: Chingachgook, father of Uncas, is featured.  Heartbreaking as I remember (SPOILER ALERT) Uncas’ death, as the fictional death of  a bloodline, a tribe, and the eventual demise of a people.

When illustrators’ work reaches into the soul of many, I argue we must put subjective tastes aside. Many will agree that art IS subjective but the cover above reaches beyond the individual. And if a drawing, painting, photograph; an illustration or even street art awakens our numbed senses, deadened by over-stimulation via technology, then the work should be elevated to the status of art. Any hand-made, hand-captured image which makes a community stop and think has more value than any masterpiece hanging in a museum. Awakening the sleeping public is priceless.

It’s been often said that great writers paint pictures with their words. Powerful speakers do the same. For in the end, visual imagery which underscores historical, contemporary and personal events lingers in our consciousness.