Day Two Hundred and Forty-four - Beauty Is Embarrassing: The Wayne White Story, "Welp, if ever I was going to get a kick in the creative pants, this is it."

I've had this particular documentary sitting in my Instant Queue for a while. A friend of mine, who also just happened to be a co-host of our movie podcast The Void Zone (until he packed up and moved to the Big City), was so gaga over the piece that I had to add it.

Funny thing was... I never wanted to actually watch it.

It's not that I didn't trust my friend Gomez's recommendation, it just... well... it didn't feel right watching it without him. I wanted to save it so we could review it together for the show. It's an odd feeling when your watching habits become influenced by the absence of others.

Anyways, I finally decided to get over my weird mental hangup about NOT watching Beauty Is Embarrassing and, at one in the morning today, wide wake and buzzed on too much caffeine, I hovered my cursor over the doc in my Queue and put it on.

Best decision of the weekend.

True, in comparison, it isn't really a grand thing when I think about it, as most of my decisions over the three day holiday have been dubious, including: loading cardboard boxes into an open bed truck just before a monsoon hits, failing to find my install discs for Wings of Liberty and being forced to download all 14 gigabytes of data over DSL (it's still going two days later), and continually putting off doing laundry (currently on my last pair of clean shorts).

In that contrast, it's easy to see why Beauty Is Embarrassing is the highlight of my weekend... but, in light of the dull mediocrity of my weekend, it's difficult to express just how much of a highlight it is. Because, really, this is one of the best documentaries I've seen all year... and is right up there with Jiro Dreams of Sushi in my opinion.

Wow, I've rambled on quite a bit, haven't I?

Beauty Is Embarrassing tells the story of pop artist and puppeteer Wayne White, who is probably one of the greatest influences on modern geek art that comes to mind... and I didn't even know his name or who he was before watching the doc.... a fact which I find personally embarrassing (just not in the "Beauty" way).

The doc introduces you to Wayne through the lens of his current zeitgeist, being a touring artist who has become famous for his eccentric mash-ups of thrift store landscapes and vulgar, often comedic catchphrases. We see a bit of his process, hear his foul mouth, and listen to critics who are no small measure concerned with the possibility that his work is just a fad.

From there, we're treated to the long view of his life, which I do like... but, as cute and nostalgic as Super-8 reels of a young artist can be, what sticks out the most to me is when he hits New York and life begins to pick up. He meets his wife, whom we've already been introduced to in the modern era (but it's still a sweet story) and joins the production team for Pee-Wee's Playhouse.

Seriously... Pee Wee's Playhouse... the 80's avaunt garde acid trip for kids.

AMAZING!

Then there's the move to California... and the tremendously famous and award-winning work he did for Smashing Pumpkin's "Tonight, Tonight"... then Liquid Television, Beakman's World and so on.

Now, it's not as if he doesn't have setbacks before, during, and after these really rather astounding professional accomplishments. He suffers from the same critical self-loathing that so many creatives (including myself and my friends) do, but the man has achieved so much over such a wide variety of genres that it's hard not to be flabbergasted.

Eventually, the doc comes full circle and we're once again back in the modern era with Wayne, his family, friends, and colleagues, and looking at his current medium of art, the thrift store mash-ups. All I can think of is that I wish I had his life... and I need to make a similar one for my own. The only key difference that I can see is that he's always pushing, whereas I have mostly been a coward in my own life and with my own work.

Beauty Is Embarrassing is grand, insightful, and inspiring. Watching this documentary makes me want to push back again and try to make something of my creative impulses. The only question is, how long can I sustain that urge.

I hope it's forever.

Until tomorrow, Potatoes~

Day One Hundred and Eighty-seven - Mona Lisa Smile, "What is it with me and inspirational coming-of-age stories lately?"

I mean, honestly, you'd think I was depressed.

...

Wait, maybe that's it.

I'm down... so I've started picking feel good, rite of passage movies to assuage the guilt I have for spinning my wheels the last decade or so. I've soured my promise enough such that I feel the need to vicariously steal from the Gyllenhaal family... Jake, yesterday, and Maggie, today.

Mona Lisa Smile stars Julia Roberts as the main lead, but I feel the film is more about Maggie, Julia (Stiles) , Kirsten, and Ginnifer (who play Giselle, Joan, Betty, and Connie, respectively) than their mentor. All prime examples of the WASPy elite of Wellesly College, their prime concern at the start and for the majority of the movie is to land the right husband. Enter Julia (Roberts) as Katherine Ann Watson... a west coast liberal who wants to impart a little art appreciation and a fair amount of feminism.

The film definitely leads you by the nose when it comes to its politics and message. Be it the lesbian nurse who is dismissed for providing Giselle contraception or the snooty alumni board and their opinions on Picasso and Jackson Pollack, there are very clear lines between the "us" and "them" in this film.

I do like that, while many of the hypocrisies and prejudices of pretty much everyone are laid bare, for the most part there are no villains. Sure, Wellesley's president takes a hard line at the direction of the alumni board and Betty's mother is a relic of regressive matrimony, most folks in Mona Lisa Smile are examples of both flaws and facets.

I particularly was fond of Marcia Gay Harden's sedate charm instructor, even if her choices and preferences would make me want to harm myself were they mine... and the same goes for Betty.

Playing a spiteful, elitist... well, bitch, for lack of a better term, for the majority of the film, you cannot help but feel for her as she suffers her own trials and tribulations living out a loveless marriage.

Much props to both Kirsten Dunst for being the on-again/off-again foil for the film and Maggie Gyllenhaal for playing the supportive friend to the very end. That third act blowup between the two was a simple, yet profound, display of pent up rage on both their parts... so much so that I was expecting Giselle to throw everything in Betty's face. When that didn't happen, I wanted to cry in frustration. When I saw what did, I needed to sob all the same.

Yes, the film is heavy-handed with its message and, yes, it's a bit too on the nose all throughout, but it's still pretty decent.

It just lacks the emotional oomph, in much a similar fashion as yesterday's October Sky, that would've made it great. Especially in that last scene where the girls chase after their mentor's departing cab on bicycles, in tears that their favorite teacher is leaving them.

Neither of these films were anywhere close to Dead Poets Society (at least, as I recall, as it's been probably twenty years since I saw that one)... but they give it the old college try. A for effort, C for execution.

Until tomorrow, Potatoes~

Day One Hundred and Eighty-six - October Sky, "I'm just shocked that it was Jake instead of Tobey."

Alright, let's make an "Inspirational Coming of Age Movie" checklist for October Sky:

• Misfit Blue Collar Teen? Check.
• Stern and Stoic Father Figure? Check.
• Supportive Female Mentor? Check.
• Superfluous Love Interest Who is Totally Wrong For Male Lead? Check.
• Superfluous Love Interest Who is Totally Right, But Not His First Choice? Check.
• Climax Father/Son Bonding Gestures? Double Check.

Seems like everything is in order here... carry on, movie.

Set during the Space Race with Russia in the middle of the Cold War, October Sky follows Jake Gyllenhaal as young Homer Hickam who is the son of the local coal mine foreman and dreams of something better than a life underground. To that end, and inspired by Sputnik high overhead, he and his friends elect to start building rockets.

At first just a fun hobby, their teacher Ms. Riley (Laura Dern) encourages them to enter their rockets in the state science fair with the aim of going to nationals and perhaps getting scholarships so they can leave their tiny coal town behind them.

This whole process doesn't sit well with Homer's father, who is played by gruff character actor Chris Cooper. He discourages and forbids Homer's lofty dreams often and only rarely helps out through discarded materials and the like. Of course this leads to a third act olive branch where the two bond over Union appeasement and de Laval nozzles, but hey... that's Hollywood for you.

Based on a true story, October Sky is your typical Coming of Age schmaltz... but it's still somewhat decent. While it stumbles horribly with it's weak subplots, like Homer's fruitless crush and Ms. Riley's cancer (which comes out of nowhere), the core of the story plays out pretty decently. Sure, it's full of your basic amounts of "Aw shucks" cheese and plucky sticktoitiveness, but they're at acceptably muted levels.

I would say that October Sky is a decent enough movie to show to kids on substitute days in Science Class, much like Clueless or 10 Things I Hate About You could be a good way to get English Class kids into Jane Austen or Shakespeare, but it doesn't cut the mustard when it comes to great cinema. It's good, but not superb in any way.

Until tomorrow, Potatoes~

Day One Hundred and Seventy-nine - One Week, "Part-Ode to Canada, Part-Inspirational Road Movie"

Before 50/50 threw up-and-comer Joseph Gordon-Levitt into the pains of spinal cancer, back in 2008 Joshua Jackson (Dawson's Creek, Fringe) had his own brush with the Big C... the metastatic, all-but-uncurable kind.

Playing Ben Tyler, a burnt out literature teacher in Toronto, Jackson's character confronts his mortality by not even trying... instead electing to buy a motorcycle on the spur of the moment and follow the sage advice from the side of a coffee cup to "Go West."

And "Go West" he does.

Leaving his fiance (Liane Balaban) angry and confused that he doesn't immediately go into treatment and his parents clueless, Ben starts a road trip that traverses the length of Canada, taking in the majesty and the kitsch tourist traps along the way.

While not quite "On the Road" and not quite "Stranger than Fiction," the film follows quite a few road trip movie tropes to their inevitable conclusions. Ben meets medicine men/women of varying modes and persuasions, from druggies to farmers to busker-mountain-women, and each one helps him on his quest for personal enlightenment and how to not be just a "patient."

I like Joshua Jackson here. He's got that quiet intensity that serves him well both in One Week and in Fringe (where I love him most). Sure, there isn't much to the film besides introspective moments and montages of Canadian scenery, but it's still a pretty darn good movie about finding one's self.

There are a few weak bits here and there... the endings for one. The film definitely suffers from the same malaise that the LotR trilogy did in that you think you're to a good spot to finish and there's a fade out, but instead of credits you get another scene... and another... and another, but it still manages to strive on.

I also wasn't a fan of the occasional stock footage that snuck in because they didn't have the budget to CGI-up some wildlife. The video quality shifts jarringly at those moments and it instantly pulled me out.

For the most part, though, I like the hell out of it... it just feels a bit too much like a love song to Canada. It's not quite the American chest-thumping you get in Über-patriotic military films on our side of the border, but you still feel the schmaltz when a German couple compliments Ben for living in the beautiful landscapes of Canada and he sardonically replies, "I know."

Still, worth the watch... I just don't know if I'll ever need to RE-watch it.

Until tomorrow, Potatoes~

Day One Hundred and Forty-two - TEDTalks: Sex, Secrets, and Love: Episode 5, Brené Brown, "Deep Vulnerability? Have you met me, woman?"

Busy day, today, so I only had time to cruise a TEDTalk on my lunch break. Kinda feels like cheating, but not as much as, say, watching Pucca or anything.

Sometimes TEDTalks have such deep insight into one's soul through calm and concentrated logic that it can be baffling, figuratively mind-blowing (see, nerds? I didn't say "literally") enough to warrant huge emotional swings and an almost drunken euphoria.

Then, sometimes, all you want to do after (and during) some Talks is to cry.

I think that I was definitely in the latter category listening to Brené Brown talk about some striking similarities that she has found in her research into shame and overall happiness.

It's not a long talk... but, then again, most aren't... and she manages to paint her thesis in very broad strokes, not bogging us down in actual data points or sets, almost to the detriment of her presentation's hypothesis, but I still found myself with tears in my eyes throughout her storytelling.

That's one of her ice-breaking moments, by the way, her freaking out over a booker wanting to describe her purely as a "storyteller" as opposed to her lofty title of "researcher."

Anywho....

For such a short talk that really was light in the bytes, it was pretty amazing just how quickly she could latch onto my vulnerabilities (which is ironic... you'll just have to watch and see why) and force me to think about why my life is currently the way it is, and may continue to be.

While it wasn't really groundbreaking or awe-inspiring, Brené did manage to tap a line on some insecurities that both gave me worry and hope for the future... and I both love and hate when that happens.

Until tomorrow, Potatoes~