Director's Progress Report: UPDATED

18 Alfred Hitchcock-Family Plot, Torn Curtain, Rebecca, 39 Steps, North by Northwest, Saboteur, The Wrong Man, Strangers on a Train, Shadow of a Doubt, Topaz, The Birds, Psycho, Lifeboat, Spellbound, Vertigo, The Man Who Knew Too Much (both versions), Rear Window


15 Stephen Spielberg-Jaws, Raiders of the Lost Ark, ET, Temple of Doom, Color Purple, Last Crusade, Schindler's List, Jurassic Park, Bridge of Spies, Saving Private Ryan, Catch Me If You Can, Terminal, War of the Worlds, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Ready Player One
15 Woody Allen-Hollywood Ending, Curse of the Jaded Scorpion, Manhattan, Annie Hall, Small Time Crooks, Sweet and Lowdown, Mighty Aphrodite, Manhattan Murder Mystery, Melinda and Melinda, Midnight in Paris, Sleeper, Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex, Bullets Over Broadway, Wonder Wheel


10 Billy Wilder-Spirit of St. Louis, Some Like it Hot, The Apartment, Irma la Douce, Double Indemnity, Sabrina, Ace in the Hole, Major and the Minor, 1,2,3, The Front Page
10 Clint Eastwood-Mystic River, Unforgiven, Bronco Billy, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, Invictus, Gran Torino, White Heart Lonely Hunter, Play Misty for Me, J. Edgar, Bridges of Madison County
10 Rob Zemeckis-Forrest Gump, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Back to the Future I-III, Contact, Romancing the Stone, Flight, The Walk, Welcome to Marwen


9 Joel and Ethan Coen-Oh Brother Where Art Thou, Ladykillers, Man Who Knew Too Much, Intolerable Cruelty, Big Lebowski, Fargo, No Country for Old Men, Burn After Reading, True Grit
9 Mike Nicholls-Primary Colors, The Birdcage, The Graduate, Working Girl, Charlie Wilson’s War, What Planet Are You From?, Postcards from the Edge, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolff, Regarding Henry
9 Jay Roach-Austin Powers I-III, Meet the Parents, Mystery Alaska, Dinner for Schmucks, The Campaign, Game Change, Trumbo
9 Martin Scorsese-Color of Money, Age of Innocence, Goodfellas, Aviator, The Departed, Gangs of New York, Shutter Island, Hugo, Wolf of Wall Street

6 Christopher Nolan-Batman Begins, Dark Knight, Dark Knight Rises, Inception, Interstellar, Dunkirk


8 Howard Hawks-Sgt. York, Bringing Up Baby, Big Sleep, Ball of Fire, Rio Bravo, His Girl Friday, Gentlemen Perfer Blondes, Monkey Business

8 Steve Soderbergh-Erin Brockovitch, Ocean’s 11, Ocean’s 12, Full Frontal, Good German, Ocean’s 13, Informant, Logan Lucky
8 Bryan Singer-Usual Suspects, Apt Pupil, X-Men, X2, Superman Returns, Valkyrie, X-Men Days of Future Past, X-Men Apocalypse
8 Tim Burton-Batman, Edward Scissorhands, Batman Returns, Ed Wood, Charlie and the Chocolate Factor, Alice in Wonderland, Corpse Bride, Big Eyes
8 Ron Howard-Apollo 13, Beautiful Mind, Da Vinci Code, Frost/Nixon, Angels and Demons, The Paper, Cocoon, Solo
7 Sidney Lumet- 12 Angry Men, Murder on the Orient Express, Network, Prince of the City, Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, Dog Day Afternoon, The Verdict, Pawnbroker

7 Vincente Minelli-Meet me in St Louis, American in Paris, The Pirate, Brigadoon, The Band Wagon, Kismet, The Sandpiper  
7 Rob Altman-Mash, McCabe and Mrs Miller, California Split, Buffalo Bill and the Indian, The Player, Dr. T and the Women, Prairie Home Companion
7 Ivan Reitman- Ghostbusters, 6 Days 7 Days, Old School, Space Jam, Fathers Day, Beethoven, Beethoven’s 2nd, Ghostbusters II
7 Chris Columbus-Mrs. Doubtfire, Home Alone, Home Alone 2, Stepmom, I Love You Beth Cooper, Rent, Pixels
7 Terry Gilliam-Time Bandits, Brazil, Fisher King, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Brothers Grimm, Baron Munchhausen, 12 Monkeys
7 Johnothan Demme-Silence of the Lambs, Melvin and Howard, Manchurian Candidate, Married to the Mob, Rachel Getting Married, Rikki and the Flash, Justin Timberlake and the Tennessee Kids



6 Frank Capra-It Happened One Night, Arsenic and Old Lace, Mr Smith Goes to Washington, Mr Deeds Goes to Town, Meet John Doe, It's a Wonderful Life
6 Stanley Donen-Take Me Out to the Ballgame (most sources insist that he really was the director, not Bugsy Berkley), On the Town, Singing in the Rain, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Charade, Bedazzled
6 Stanley Kramer-Defiant Ones, Inherit the Wind, Judgment at Nuremberg, It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad Wold, Ship of Fools,  Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
6 Barry Levinson-Tin Men, Rain Man, Sleepers, Good Morning Vietnam, Man of the Year, Wag the Dog
6 Mel Brooks-Spaceballs, High Anxiety, Young Frankenstein, The Producers, Blazing Saddles, History of the World Part I
6 Roland Emmerich-ID4, Stargate, The Patriot, Day After Tomorrow, 2012, White House Down 
6 Rob Reiner-Stand and Deliver, Princess Bride, Rumor Has It, American President, Ghosts of Mississippi, Misery
6 Gore Verbinski-Pirates of the Caribbean 1-3, Weatherman, The Mexican, Rango
6 Brett Ratner-After the Sunset, Rush Hour 2, Family Man, X-Men 3, Red Dragon, Tower Heist
6 Frank Oz-Bowfinger, In and Out, Stepford Wives, The Score, What About Bob, Housesitter
6 Peter Segal-Naked Gun 33 1/3, Tommy Boy, My Fellow Americans, Anger Management, 50 First Dates, Get Smart
6 Wes Anderson-Rushmore, Royal Tannenbaums, The Life Aquatic, Darjeerling Limited, Grand Budapest Hotel, Moonrise Kingdom
6 Adam McKay: Anchorman, Talladega Nights, Step Brothers, The Other Guys, Anchorman 2, The Big Short 



5 Ridley Scott-Blade Runner, Gladiator, Kingdom of Heaven, Prometheus, Martian, All the Money in the World

5 Orson Welles-Citizen Kane, Lady of Shanghai, Othello, Magnificent Ambersons, Touch of Evil
5 John Ford-Stagecoach, The Searchers, The Hurricane, How Green was my Valley, The Whole Town's Talking 
5 Tony Scott- Enemy of the State, Déjà Vu, Crimson Tide, Top Gun, Taking of Pelham 1,2,3
5 George Lucas-Star Wars I-IV, American Graffiti
5 Peter Weir-Witness, Dead Poet’s Society, The Truman Show, Master and Commander,Year of Living Dangerously
5 Blake Edwards-A Shot in the Dark, Pink Panther, Return of the Pink Panther, Great Race, What Did You Do in the War Daddy
5 Sydney Pollack-Sabrina, Out of Africa, Tootsie, The Interpreter, Slender Thread
5 Robert Rodriguez-El Mariachi Trilogy, Spy Kids and Lava Girl, Sin City 
5 Curtis Hanson- LA Confidential, Wonderboys, In Her Shoes, Lucky You, 8 Mile
5 Barry Sonnenfeld-Men in Black I, II, Wild Wild West, Big Trouble, MiB III
5 Cameron Crowe-Almost Famous, Jerry MaGuire, Vanilla Sky, Elizabethtown, We Bought a Zoo
5 Joel Schumacher-Time to Kill, 8 MM, Batman and Robin, Batman Forever, The Client
5 John Glenn-5 Bond films
5 Tom Shadyac-Liar Liar, Bruce Almighty, Patch Adams, Evan Almighty, Ace Ventura
5 John Lynn-Whole Nine Yards, Trial and Error, Sgt Bilko, Whole Ten Yards, My Cousin Vinny
5 Peter and Bobby Farrelly-Kingpin, Dumb and Dumber, Fever Pitch, Shallow Hal, Osmosis Jones
5 Jon Favreau-Elf, Iron Man, Iron Man 2, Cowboys and Aliens, Chef
5 Christopher Guest-For Your Consideration, Mighty Wind, Best in Show, Waiting for Guffman, Mascots
5 Ernst Lubitsch-Shop Around the Corner, Ninotchka, Merry Widow, Trouble in Paradise, To Be or Not to Be
5 David O Russell-Three Kings, I Heart Huckabees, Silver Linings Playbook, American Hustle, Joy
5 James Cameron-Terminator, Aliens, Terminator 2, Titanic, Avatar
5 Elia Kazan-A Face in the Crowd, Gentleman's Agreement, Pinky, Viva Zapata, East of Eden


4 John Lassetter-Toy Story 1, Cars, Toy Story 2, Cars 2
4 David Lean-Lawrence of Arabia, Bridge on the River Kwai, Passage to India, Summertime
4 John Huston-Beat the Devil, Key Largo, African Queen, Man Who Would be King
4 Alexander Payne-Election, Sideways, Descendants, Nebraska 
4 Terrence Young-Wait Until Dark, 3 Bond films
4 Harold Lloyd-Safety Last, Feet First, The Freshman, Kid Brother
4 Guy Hamilton-4 Bond movies
4 Kevin Smith-Chasing Amy, Mallrats, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, Dogma
4 Penny Marshall-Awakenings, Rennisance Man, Big, League of their Own
4 Sam Raimi-Spiderman 1-3, Oz: The Great and Powerful  
4 Lasse Holstrom-What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, The Hoax, Cider House Rules, Shipping News
4 Michael Moore-Roger and Me, F 411, Sicko, Capitalism: A Love Story 
4 James Mangold-3:10 to Yuma, Walk the Line, Kate and Leopold, Knight and Day
4 D. Herek-Mr. Holland’s Opus, Three Musketeers, Mighty Ducks, Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventures
4 John Turtletaub-Cool Runnings, National Treasure, National Treasure 2, Last Vegas
4 JJ Abrams-Super 8, Star Trek, Star Trek into Darkness, Star Wars VII
4 Sam Weisman-George of the Jungle, Dickie Roberts Former Child Star, Out-of Towners, Mighty Ducks 2
4 Dennis Dungan-Happy Gilmore, Beverly Hills Ninja, Big Daddy, I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry
4 Spike Lee-Do the Right Thing, Bamboozled, 25th Hour, School Daze
4 Shaun Levy-Cheaper by the Dozen, Big Fat Liar, Night at the Museum 2, The Internship  
4 Richard Linklater-School of Rock, Bernie, Fast Food Nation, Me and Orson Welles
4 Larry Charles-Borat, Religious, Bruno, The Dictator
4 Stanley Kubrick-The Shining, Eyes Wide Shut, Paths to Glory, Dr. Strangelove
4 Eric Darnell-Antz!, Madagascar, Madagascar 2, Madagascar 3
4 Roman Polanski-Rosemary's Baby, Chinatown, Ghost Writer, Carnage
4 Gary Ross-Pleasantville, Seabiscuit, Hunger Games, Ocean's 12
4 David Cronenberg-Videodrome, Eastern Promises, Dangerous Method, Maps to the Stars 
4 Edgar Wright-Hot Fuzz, Scott Pilgrim vs the World, This is the End,Baby Driver

Seven Classics I've Recently Watched For the First Time

Credit: Blu-Ray.com

The Verdict (1982):
Overview: The Verdict is one of the most praised courtroom dramas of all time. It sits at #4 on AFI's list of courtroom dramas and was nominated for best picture. Before I watched it, a friend also told me that this was a comeback of sorts for Paul Newman.
Did it Live up to the Hype? Yes. It transcends the typical courtroom drama because it's a very good character piece. Its also an epic showdown of good verse evil or, more specifically, the corporate industrial complex. It is also hard to argue that Paul Newman isn't the bomb here though it's a bit odd that he's cast opposite a much younger woman (Charlotte Rampling). I know Newman was a sex symbol but was septugernarian Newman a sex symbol? It's also worth noting that there's not as many court scenes here as your average film of this genre. There are only three court sessions and much of the action is Paul Newman and associate Mickey (Jack Warden) dealing with the aftermath of an impulsive bad decision, along with parallel scenes showing James Mason working his skeevey tactics

The Magnificent Seven (1960)
Overview: John Sturges' second greatest film next to "The Great Escape" and the film that introduced him to Steve McQueen. Its one of the great professional Westerns with a star-studded cast and one of the best instrumental theme songs ever written.
Is it worth the hype? Yes. The cast might seem bloated but there's enough space to develop all their stories. The Mexican town feels as boxed in and fake as one of the alien planet sets on Star Trek but its a film rich in color and it feels in place for its time period. Its also a film with action scenes that are of higher caliber than many Westerns that came before it (though its not as impressive as Sergio Leone or Sam Peckinpagh would later take the genre)

Being John Malkovich (1999)
Overview: The film was a bizarre mobius strip of a premise that somehow was woven together into an entertaining comedy but it also hit people by surprise since writer Charlie Kaufman and director Spike Jonze were such unknowns (though Jonze had made a name for himself in commercials). It was as extraordinary debut for both talents.
Did it love up to the hype? Yeah, yeah and ye, which is to say I watched it two and a half times. The three central characters are wonderfully formed comic creations (Cameron Diaz has never been less sexy and Catherine Keener has never been more sexy, which is to say quite a bit of character work), the film's world building is so strong that its mythology (I.e. how did Merkin guide Malkovich's parents? what happens to the kid? etc) can be debated for pages and pages, and it packs a lot of humor and sentiment into one of the most avant-garde comedy premises ever seen in a mainstream ilm.

Credit: UWMBored.com

The Princess Bride (1987)
(Note: I did see when I was 11, still a very very long time ago)
Overview: The film is a classic because it is an archetypical fairy tale that was likely THE fairy tale for an entire generation of kids who grew up in the '80s. It likely wasn't just the kids who grew up remembering the film but the parents too as it is layered with an air of wit and irony that many people of all ages can appreciate. On top of that, many of its lines and scenes are iconic parts of movie history at this point.
Did it live up to the hype? I was quite pleased. Because I wasn't dying to check out 1984-1985 when SNL came out on Netflix (only to be later pulled) and I have never seen Soap, this is the only time I ever found Billy Crystal funny in an original way (most of his stuff seems to repeat the same shtick), but the cast is well-placed with every role. The mix of dry irony and humor became much more apparent. Westley wasn't so much a star-struck lover or a passionate warrior as he was a pragmatic and logical guy who seemed genuinely surprised by his fate (becoming the deadliest pirate on the high seas) which made him pretty amusing with a role that's hard to do much with. The swashbuckling scene, which the actors apparently rehearsed for several months--and used a fencing instructor who personally worked with Errol Flynn-- is pretty disappointing when you know all that.

Dog Day Afternoon (1975)
Overview: One of the best-made films of the 1970s and one that best encapsulated the counter-culture spirit retold the tale of a headline-generating bank robbery with the robbers as the most sympathetic parts of the stories, it's a high-water mark of Al Pacino and Sidney Lumet's careers.
Did it live up to the hype: Definitely a good movie but the level of hype for this one is pretty high. For me, it felt like it was trying too hard to Citizen Kane the character by peeling back layers of his past (first the female wife, then the male spouse, then the mother) through various encounters but didn't give them enough time, and like Prince in the City, too many cops and FBI men were cast on the outside. It was a sensational acting performance, however, and there was a very strong sense of tension. It also was an interesting inverse in terms of audience loyalties (although I do believe more bank heist movies lead us to empahize with the robbers over the cops)

East of Eden (1955)
Overview: Elia Kazan's epic film attempts a biblical allegory with depression-era California. How much more ambitious can you get than that? It was made a year after Kazan's landmark film "On the Waterfront" and is possibly the best film of the year it was released (1955 was a somewhat weak year) so it represents quite a hot streak. It was also one of only three films James Dean made before dying at the age of 24 causing him to be a legend since all three films have survived the test of time (all three made AFI's top 100 movies list in 1997).
Did it live up to the hype? It was a little different than I expected but it also lives up to the hype. The film is rich with the kind of symbolism that English lit student can revel in and debate. It also has a wonderful sense of towns and the dichotomy between blue collar agricultural work and urban vice is not only thematically interesting but historically accurate of the settlement of American West where many a state line has been drawn to warden off more salt-of-the-earth laborers from the mining communities and bordellos). The characters lean towards archetypical/allegorical over realism but I'd be hard-pressed to dismiss anything here as melodramatic,


The Shining (1980)
Overview: Stanley Kubrick has had a cult loving every one of his films since I first started logging into the internet in the late 90s and all of his films were on the top 250 on IMDB. The Shining is a landmark horror film and the first use of steadycam work. It's also considered one of the most famous adaptations of legendary author Steven King.
Did it live up to the hype? I saw Ready Player One earlier this year so i saw some scenes of it, and there are all sorts of references to it everywhere (like this mock video of Lorde's Royals)
so I had a lot to work with.

I thought the idea of setting a horror film in a hotel was a great idea because hotels are such creepy places are already and the film plays off that idea pretty well. The film overdoes the musical score to the point of distraction. If you're not hooked, the film's slow moments can pile on as well. For me, it wasn't until second viewing that I really felt entranced enough by the deep well of symbolism. And who isn't a sucker for highly ambiguous endings? 

8 More of my Favorite Journalism Stories

Pedestrian Bridge Anniversary-Falls Church News Press

Over the years, editors have sent my stories that I’ve found superfluous but a job’s a job. If anything, I like churning out stories I personally am not invested in, because it allows me to make the case that I’m not an avant-garde Bohemian just following my own personal whims. It’s also worth taking stories you aren’t interested because you often can be surprised by how interesting a story can be when you dig into it.

In this case, the story was about a pedestrian bridge that was completed 25 years ago. The story was submitted to the editor by one of the people instrumental in creating the bridge (which reeks of self-promotion) and didn’t even bother to peg it to a current angle. I met the guy and was impressed that he, like so many people in Falls Church, was passionate about civic participation. He made the process of getting the rights-of-way and coordinating with different agencies about the bridge sound interesting. In terms of the news peg, he told me that he was going to put up a balloon to commemorate the 25^th anniversary which didn’t seem like an actual thing as far as news is concerned: A person can’t just say I’m throwing a party for the express purpose of having the newspaper capture it. We at least want to believe it’s an actual party that has a reason for existence other than press coverage. But I did believe that this person did genuinely think that putting up the balloon was an act in its own right.

In fact, I decided, even after I turned in this story, to go to the bridge for the celebration and see if more people would show up and about three of the other people instrumental  to the original project were there too. I was flabbergasted. I did not actually think that there would be one person who was passionate about this bridge when, in fact, there were four people!

https://fcnp.com/2017/10/06/58412/

Possible Termination of DACA Amnesty Program Causes Community to Rally-Falls Church News Press

This is one of the most comprehensive and most significant social-impact stories I’ve done and it definitely involved interviewing a lot of people. I was most proud of weaving together a number of elements to present a localized tapestry of this important issue. My story also was helped by having a guy feed me great quotes: Lawyer Simon Sandoval-Mosheberg who was passionate, forceful and articulate. Sometimes good articles get great assists.

https://fcnp.com/2017/09/15/possible-termination-daca-amnesty-program-causes-community-rally-reorganize-rights-dreamers/

CITI Open-Current Newspapers

A friend of mine from a course I took at GMU got appointed to be the editor of Current Newspapers and he was looking for articles (Lesson: Keep in touch with your fellow journalism students).

I had been a spectator at the CITI open for years. Not a humongous tennis aficionado but it’s fun to watch live tennis and it’s a good event. This past year, I was there on the first day of the main draw when there was a torrential downpour that delayed festivities for six hours. People were forced to wait around because refunds couldn’t be issued until the game was officially declared. Seeing the people around me in various states of frustration and knowing that the weather forecast was rain, rain, rain and more rain, I decided to pitch it.

The very next day, I was fortunate to get media credentials. As someone who had been a spectator for years, I felt like I was getting a VIP treatment. In addition to being able to sit wherever I wanted (within reason), having extra printouts and access to the press rooms, I could also see the athletes lounges, attend press conferences with athletes (press conferences are where the most newspaper-y stuff goes down in a juicy way), and was treated to free meals while I was on the site. Considering the pay we get in journalism is rarely a living wage, I personally think these perks are not just something we can accept free of guilt but something that’s somewhat necessary to make the wage sustainable. It enables a newspaper to attract a better quality of freelance reporter if they knew they’re going to get on-site catering and free tickets to the events. And we earn our pay through the articles we write and strict vetting procedures.

In any case, my story was nearly pulled at the end of the event due to feelings by people on site that I was writing too negative of a story and my editor almost pulled the article. However, I immediately dropped what I was doing when I heard the news and went on site to assuage all parties on site over whatever concerns they had and smoothed things out but it was scary in the middle. A lesson here is it’s always possible to smooth things over though you cannot allow access to your story. It also helps if an editor backs you. What I loved most about the final copy of this story (although the editing still needs touching up) is that it captures such a wide tapestry and paints a scene of this sense of frustration at something that’s not easily fixable. Tournaments generally can’t change course that quickly and their directors only have so many resources to fix things on the fly.  But more importantly, rain just happens.

https://currentnewspapers.com/spectators-citi-open-volunteers-have-mixed-reactions-about-rain-delays/ (this article wasn't edited the way I suggested it should be written and hopefully it will be fixed at some point)

Is Being in a Symphony Orchestra Anything Like Mozart in the Jungle-DCist/Gothamist

One of those experiences where you start to get butterflies (from excitement) in your stomach for weeks before the interview. I've long had a distant fascination with what it must be like to be a classical musician, working tirelessly to improve your musicality by 0.002% to be able to edge out another similar sounding oboist in an audition to get that job security. The extremely exciting TV show "Mozart in the Jungle" and subsequent book awakened that interest and gave me an immediate idea. Fortunately, the editor was also a fan of the show which helped get it greenlit immediately.

Unlike a couple of other interviews of high-profile people that were administered directly by PR people with time constraints, the natural rapport between me and the two NSO musicians became so well-established that any sense of constraint quickly evaporated. We soon became three people engaged in a casual but deeply informative conversation and when the time limit was up, no one really minded continuing.


This would have all been a great experience EXCEPT for one awful stroke of luck. My new recorder did not work. I generally take notes and record but I don't always have the capacity to write word-for-word when the recorder is on to preserve the flow of the conversation. I ended up having a couple back and forths with the PR officer of the NSO and some of the lines got cut. On the bright side, I got positive comments and actually gained a fan in Blair Tindall herself who wrote the freaking book that "Mozart in the Jungle" is based on, as well as the Pensacola Symphony Orchestra (a line in my interview references whether I would tell the difference between the NSO and Pensacola).

http://dcist.com/2016/03/so_is_mozart_in_the_jungle_anything.php

Arlington’s Other Cemetery-Northern Virginia Magazine

Some articles take a long time to materialize and you put them on your back burner. This is one example. I originally got the idea for the article from a guidance counselor who had a strong interest in local affairs. He thought I should write a story about a guy named Ned Thomas who runs a local cemetery. He didn’t know it but Ned was my next-door neighbor. The Thomas family moved in towards the end of my college education and I never got to know them too well, but I stopped by the cemetery and found some fascinating facts. Columbia Gardens Cemetery was initially founded in 1917 to receive the overfill of Arlington Cemetery, but that plan never came to fruition. Instead, the cemetery remained in private hands with one family continuously serving as the caretaker for four generations. This particularly family goes back nine generations in Arlington County and has a history that is even intertwined with Robert E Lee.

The article was originally researched in 2013 and pulled because the original subject of the article was nearing retirement and didn't want the status of the cemetery publicized. When I called a couple years later, the new cemetery caretaker (Ned’s sister) was actually welcoming of publicity as she was planning for the 100 year anniversary. I also got an assist from a local cemetery historian who gave me a tour.

https://www.northernvirginiamag.com/culture/culture-features/2017/01/24/arlingtons-other-cemetery-celebrates-centennial/

Blind Hockey Team-Falls Church News Press
Underwater Hockey Team-Northern Virginia Magazine

Another article that took a couple years to materialize was the GMU underwater hockey team and their sister club that comprises of adult players. Rather than explain this awesome and rare sport, why not show you a picture?

I read an article about how this obscure sport was being played at George Mason several years ago. When I took a journalism course in the Fall Semester of 2016 at GMU, I thought I'd check it out. The people offered me a lesson and the closest I got was watching the sport through a snorkel while people played in the next lane. But then tragedy struck! When I had most of my article complete, the members of the GMU team seemed to flake on me. I was thinking of making the 16-mile trip over to the campus to personally try to talk them back into cooperating for the finish of the article but let it go after a while. In a later stretch when I really needed an article and remembered how nice the offering pay was on this particular piece, I inquired again with the activities office and found out they had been suspended and wouldn't even be at the pool if I showed up there. Additionally, neither the sister club or GMU team had any web presence to speak of.

A couple months after that a lightbulb went off in my head. The Georgia Tech team was referenced in my article so why not contact Georgia Tech and find out what happened to GMU's team. I ended up on some national umbrella page with a link to a club that sounded similar to the old one. I ended up finding out that the old team (Beltway Bottom Feeders) rebranded as Capital Region Underwater Hockey and contacted them. The new president of the group was very amenable to continuing my story. I just turned it in three hours ago. 

In an unusual turn of events, this was my second story this year that focused on an unusual variation of hockey. I experienced something equally incredible in the wide world of sports this past Spring when I saw a group of blind people playing hockey. This particular story was assigned to me by the trusty FCNP.

https://fcnp.com/2018/05/04/blind-hockey-team-doesnt-let-lack-vision-impair-game/

Capsule Reviews of first 15 Films I saw in 2018

1. The Death of Stalin-This comic retelling of the aftermath of Stalin's death is at least five times better than anything else Armando Iannucci has ever done. To do crack-pace dialogue with Julia Louis Dreyfus in the present day sort of writes itself: Just take two parts Aaron Sorkin and add one part dysfunctional workplace comedy. To take your style of screenwriting and work it into one of the most historically villainous regimes in history while staying true to the real-life tics of historic characters and maintaining overall lightness required for a comedy is downright operatic.

2. Disobedience-Rachel Weisz stars as a Rabbi’s daughter returning to an Orthodox Jewish community that has shunned her because she has chosen not to adopt their austere lifestyle. The film has a brilliant pseudo-horror vibe with the voyeuristic looks that others gaze upon her with, as she sits with them at dinner or walks through the streets alongside them. The film is advertised as a film about a lesbian relationship, but it's really a film about free will because being in a pre-marital sexual relationship, dating a secular jew, even having secular Jews in your friend circle or getting an education all lead to the same end result of shunning anyways. Perhaps it’s my experience in this type of community, but the film is beautiful, spot-on, tense, sexy (spoiler: the two Rachels get it on) , and treats each of the three leads (Rachel McAdams and Allesandro Nivola) with the respect to round out their character arcs..

3. Tag-Nope, it’s not a drama on any level, but it’s ok to have popcorn comedies high on your lists. This is funny on every level. The timing of the jokes, the rounding out of character tics, the multiple layers of the jokes and the call backs all work. Like “It’s Always Sunny”, there’s a lot of humor where we get joy in watching adults act childish in front of baffled adults who just don’t know how to react to what they’re seeing. Only complaint in the humor department: The attempt to Sherlockize Jeremy Renner’s character wore out its welcome as a repeating joke. The film is also sentimental at just the right level and speaks to how growing old doesn’t mean you need to stop having fun. A good lesson to any critics who didn’t appreciate this film. 

4. Ocean’s 8-To the people who think it’s too much of a feminist statement or not enough of a feminist statement: Shut up, both of you! It’s just a good movie with a legitimate sense of tension and flow, and a good cast that it utilizes well (also, there isn’t really a wrong way to utilize Rihanna or Helena Bohnam Carter for that matter). Sandra Bullock isn’t someone I would think of as a self-assured cat burglar type but I liked the sentimentality she bought to the role. When she toasted to her brother’s grave, it was a more meaningful moment than anything in the original Ocean’s series which was really just an overt self-congratulations of smug rich actors and Soderbergh’s “look at how good of a director I am” flashy stuff. James Corden is perfect as a bumbling foil. I had a couple minor problems with how things unraveled, even after suspending my disbelief and going with the absurdity of it all.

5. Leave No Trace-Best described as a less pretentious “Captain Fantastic”. Ben Foster, an underrated actor, plays a guy ill-at-ease with mainstream life so he lives off the grid with his daughter. The movie twists and turns in a few unexpected places and each of those defines the enigmatic protagonist better without revealing too much about him.

6. Ant Man and the Wasp-For someone who never cared about "The Avengers" or "Captain America", there was a distasteful amount of catch-up involved but nothing detrimental for me enjoying this film that largely knows it's about summer fun and not extended mythology. Paul Rudd is so solid at playing a "cool dad" type that I wouldn't be surprised if a whole generation of young viewers view him as the new archetype. The film works in humor at an extremely organic level and for that alone, I'd be extremely comfortable recommending this film to anyone who has been searching in vain for that comic action film that captures the feeling of the original "Indiana Jones" or "Star Wars" franchise. This is especially true for the micro-microscopic universe which had the feeling of a 1950's B-movie. Credit has to also go for TI, David Dastmalchian (ironically, TI is named David while Dastmalchian is named Kurt, how confusing), and Michael Pena which have graduated from background noise in this movie to a genuinely entertaining band of side kicks. 

7. Tomb Raider-Alicia Vikander and Anjelina Jolie both have the same number of Oscars, but as far as I can tell, Anjelina Jolie was mostly sold to audiences in the 2000s like waitresses at Hooters are sold to potential diners. I’m a sucker for archeological jungle adventures and while the McGuffin was ridiculously weak, the Alicia Vikander character was progressive without being obnoxious, compelling, and was a unique style of action star (mainly crashing into objects with minimal impact). The races and set pieces were pretty solid.

8. Black Panther-The hype and much of the cheering from the left was pretty annoying considering it was a pretty nuanced film about the dangers of not being militaristic in your civil rights movement. In other words, the film was more nuanced than what people were taking from the films. There were good and bad white and black guys, after all. I thought the plot stretched a bit thin, but the narrative flowed smoothly from point to point so not a lot of wasted space while still doing a lot of world-building. The Afro-futurism angle is just a cool hook simply from the perspective of reimagining a world that’s so different but kind of plausible. Congo, for example, has natural resources found nowhere else in the world; the natural healing powers of African shaman medicine has been better than Western medicine in some points in history.

9. Set It Up-Up until the last 20 minutes, this much-praised romantic comedy is formulaic but watchable. In the last 20 minutes it finds a way to upend itself without being cheap or forced and that’s when it sticks with you much longer. Zooey Deutsch is a bit cutesy but she checks the boxes of a progressive feminist cheerleader so the critics are on board. Lucy Liu and Taye Diggs play strong villains and Pete Davidson (currently getting a lot of attention for being in the most high-profile relationship in SNL history) is surprisingly decent.

10. Ibiza-Every plot point here abides by the formula of “group of guys/women go wild and lose themselves for a night” and it’s getting slightly old. Despite a complete lack of anything original, it’s a good showcase for the three actresses.

11. Ready Player One-Like the “Transformers” franchise, it’s about shiny manly toys for the most part and doesn’t really sketch out this vision of the future as much as I would have liked but it’s a fairly compelling story. It’s definitely of a go-big-or-go-home style of Spielbergian artistry without being awful. I have a feeling I’ll look back on this a while and find it even less memorable.


12. Red Sparrow-A bit gruesome and repetitive but a largely coherent plot and less nihilistic than the female spy thriller I saw last year “Atomic Blonde.” Spy thrillers like these often have too many twists and turns and that can lose viewers at light speed, so that this is a coherent story is a major accomplishment. I also imagine a master’s level sociology thesis can be written about everything this movie has to say about sexuality and society. 


13. Racer and the Jailbird-I thought this was a sexy action film. Instead it’s a dark film about a couple who both go through extended periods of chronic illness and incarceration. Just a sad, sad story. This might be unfair to judge the film based on the package of information available to the me before the film, but if I was prepared for a sad story, my assessment might be different. At the same time, I do believe the film was legitimately depressing without having more of profound approach.


14. Game Night-I hardly see a reason to justify this film’s existence. A couple (Rachel McAdams and Jason Bateman) like playing games? That’s the hook? The violent take on comedy has been done a million times and it just feels tacked on here. The “when is this real, when isn’t this real” tension is stripped of its meeting when we know the plot is “thing that they think isn’t real becomes real.”


15. A Whisper in Time-This children’s film doesn’t treat its mythology as something worth caring about yet asks us to endure excruciatingly boring technobabble about said non-interesting mythology. The film is too tonally bizarre and its character dynamics too uninteresting to care about anything at all that’s happening on screen. Maybe we should just admit that Ava DuVerney (despite being a woman of color, yay!) is just not that good of a film maker. Selma" was "important" but not particularly captivating.

Non-current Films I've Seen: Flash Reviews of Maps to the Stars, Gifted, Perks of Being a Wall Flower

Maps to the Stars (2014)-I watched this because I remember it coming out the year that Julianne Moore won her Oscar for the other film she was in (Still Alice). I also distinctly remember this being in the comedy/musical category of the Golden Globes, but wait, this film is directed by David Cronenberg?! Did he decide to mix things up and direct a light-hearted comedy? Nope, this is a macabre, twisted story and the Hollywood Foreign Press got it wrong as usual.

This film is extremely similar tonally to both Robert Altman's The Player and David Lynch's Mullholland Drive in deriving not just satire but genuine horror at the shallowness that pervades Hollywood life. Julianne Moore plays a has-been actress who isn't necessarily malicious but she's pretty soulless in her desperate quest for relevance. She's paralleled by a self-help guru, played by John Cusack, who's son (Evan Bird) is an extremely bratty child actor. There's also an opportunistic burn victim who represents the ingeneue looking to make her mark on Hollywood (think Ruby Keeler in 42nd Street if she chanted Wiccan prayers whenever she passed along the Hollywood Walk of Fame). The only halfway decent character might be the limo driver played by Robert Pattinson although he comes off as a little devoid. There's also a Hollywood director who will trade parts for sex, an entire clique of vapid child stars who enable Evan Bird's character, and a rival for a part that displays the kind of shallow flattery that lets us know in an instant just how fake this town is.

Like "The Player" which shifts gears midway from its broad ensemble satire to the perfect crime; or "Mullholland Drive" which segues to a Lesbian love story than a mobius strip; this film's satirical elements get overwhelmed midway for a more gruesome tragedy which makes the ending feel like something that's been tacked on to cover a superfluous detour from what was originally a better film.

Gifted (2017)-What a wonderful gem of a film. McKenna Grace (who was also in I Tonya AND How to be a Latin Lover in the same year, what a busybody of an 11 year old) plays a math prodigy who's mother committed suicide due to trying too hard to being a math genius. Her grandmother (Lindsay Duncan, the nasty critic in Birdman) was also a math genius and tries to get her granddaughter's custody so she can put her in "service to humanity" solving big math problems. On the other side of this custody hearing is McKenna's uncle who is an incredibly handsome and free-spirited Chris Evans. When he talks about how he went to go get laid the night that his sister committed suicide, it comes off as an odd humble brag.

No worries, Chris Evans isn't just a piece of meat. He's very solid here and his relationship to his niece carries a whollop of sentiment. This is also the first time I've really liked Jenny Slate, and the two are so cute together. I couldn't imagine Jenny Slate being a teacher somewhere and not having half the dads on parent-teacher night not massively crushing on her.

This is a film that is about the kinds of issues with genius, parenting, and growing up in an untraditional environment that you don't see often enough and the film has done its homework on these issues. It's also rare to see a film portrayed so richly from a child's point of view.

Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012)-If your favorite off-the-grid indie rock band that you like to gloat about at parties because only you know about them were anthropomorphized into a film about the teenage experience, you'd get this film about a teenage outcast who's magically rescued from having to sit alone in lunch (the horror!) by a manic pixie dream set of siblings (MPDG played by Emma Watson and MPD Gay Best Friend played by Ezra Miller) who don't seem to have any basis in reality. That they would bond with him so instantaneously and unconditionally is a bit off as is the fact that they are step-siblings who voluntarily spend that much time with each other. Were they best friends first who parent-trapped their respective mom and dad?

Logan Lerman, who one year prior played Renaissance France's greatest heartthrob, D'artagnan in the Three Musketeers remake, plays the ugly duckling but he's not particularly convincing. He's obviously good looking so he comes off as a broody James Dean type instead. Perhaps if his part were switched with Ezra Miller, then we'd be getting somewhere.

Lerman's character, Charlie, plays into every stereotype for an indie hero: Wanna be writer, self-realization through indie music, crushing hard on an unattainable girl, etc. While the film has enough verisimilitude to the teenage experience to make it engaging, that doesn't mean that Charlie is by any means original.

Attempting to parse out a dense novel into a two-hour film shouldn't be this hard considering the writer of the novel is the screenwriter and director, but there seem to be a lot of threads that are massively under-resolved. Charlie deals with schizophrenia and black-outs and a molestation story line that all gets so little screen time that since it comes off as an afterthought that was thrown into the script, it takes away from the gravity of any of these serious issues the film is trying to pull us through.

He also has a sister (Vampire Diaries' Nina Dobrev) who's interesting but she has so little screentime, she might as well have been cut to tighten the narrative, and there's a brother too but uh,, what? I don't even remember that character anymore.

In terms of tangent, the film is best served by realizing that Charlie isn't the most interesting character in the story. Patrick's (the manic pixie gay best friend) love affair with a closeted jock or the reveal that Emma Watson's character, Sam, is trying to overcome a past of sexual abuse and promiscuity, are both lines that do get a mention here or there.

My World Cup History, a quiz, and two articles of mine

The World Cup is here! I am not a year-round soccer watcher (sidenote: Does the AP style guide have any advice on soccer vs football if writing for an audience that is predominantly American?) but I have such a humongous history with this sporting event.

When I was in elementary school in 1994, my Nicaraguan housekeeper (a mother figure that I still keep in touch with to this day) first lived in our house when she came over because we sponsored her Visa. I used to go to her room to use her TV because I never had one and we would watch the World Cup on her bed. One of the first things I learned in Spanish was the names of the 24 countries that were playing that year as well as terms like "tierra de esquina" (corner kick). And of course, Andreas Cantor's famous "Gooooooooolll!."

In 1998, as I was approaching high school, my parents sent me down to live with my grandparents for the summer in the Florida Keys and we would watch the World Cup every day. There was a language barrier between us because my grandparents were born in Iran which was ironic because the US and Iran played that year. My grandparents also lived in Germany for several years and Germany was in the US-Iran group. I still remember nearly every score and group drawing of that year twenty years later.

In 2002 when the World Cup was in South Korea and Japan, I studied abroad in Mexico which took sports spectatorship to a new level. I would be awakened on days that Mexico played at either 2 or 5 AM with pots and pans clanking and bells ringing as well as people running down the street. The results of every game from the second round on went the exact opposite of the way I wanted them to go. When US upset Mexico to make the quarterfinals, what might have been nice if I was in the US at the time suddenly became tragic. I also hated South Korea, Turkey, England and Brazil and those were the teams that won everything.
In 2010, I was inspired by the World Cup to start playing pickup soccer which became a hobby of sorts for at least a couple years.

I recently wrote two articles previewing the World Cup for the Weekly Standard and have been invited to pitch at Slate and probably can pitch again for the Weekly Standard so let's see if I can write some more.

In the interim, enjoy this quiz I made of players who have scored four or more goals since 1998. It's a good way to catch up on recent World Cup history

Crashing Seaon Finale Review: Roast Battle

Oh, my arodably naïve Pete Holmes. You thought that stand-up comedy was all hearts and bunnies and you’d never face the fact that your potential success would often equate to someone else’s failure, didn’t you? And even worse, you were gullible enough to believe you’d never have to face those consequences with your girlfriend in the same field?

If Crashing is a late-in-life coming-of-age story, this week’s lesson is that for all its wonderful camaraderie, there’s an inescapable dog-eat-dog element of comedy. All of capitalism for that matter. And hey, if you want to minimize that kind of stuff, sure, but don’t go into a roast battle expecting to keep that blissful ignorance intact.

But while it’s bad for Pete’s romantic life and moral compass, it plays to one of the show’s main strengths which is give us a rose-tinted inside look into the world of comedy. The roast battle (where people insult one another for comic points) can seems like a mean-spirited exercise to outsiders, and it can seem like lazy comedy (if you see the same jokes being used regardless of the opponent). There is a faction, mostly led by Jeff Ross (who cameos in this episode as one of the judges), who sees it as a unique art and niche format within stand-up that’s worthy of expansion.

To give us the full roast experience, the show features snippets of people we don't know (I'm suspecting d-list friends of Holmes who enjoyed the free exposure here) doing their thing alongside Pete and Ally. Pete's first match first comes off as a pleasant-looking man who we soon learn is playing for blood. As soon as Leif and Jess show up, he barges into their conversation in an effort to get ammuunition to use against Pete. It's a funny moment that provides a world-building detail in a flash.

One can understand the roast’s appeal for an episode of this show. The nastiness of the process contrasts so well to Pete’s self-image as a nice guy with a firm set of principles. Or at least that’s the Pete we used to know. His willingness to sell out in the last episode and the increasing proliferation  of cursing in his language have suggested a slight erosion.

 

One of the weaknesses of this episode is that we desperately needed to see the aftermath of Pete selling out. Is he now starting all his routines with “Gas it Up”? Granted, those leftover plot threads didn’t fit in the framework of a “rap battle” but this is the second show this Spring season (the other being Silicon Valley) that made the mistake of placing its most pivotal development marker in the season’s penultimate episode.

Instead, the season finale offers another major plot development, because, well, that's the law governing season finales. In this case, we have the break-up of Pete and Ally which, while sufficiently big news, is entirely unfulfilling. For one, what's not to like about Ally (both in terms of being a great character and what her relationship does to Pete)? For another, it seems inorganic and shoehorned in to give the finale oomph. More importantly, it's thematically muddled. If Pete's evolution is toward becoming less of a goody two-shoes, how is dumping Ally because she was a meany head in an entirely appropriate setting consistent with that? If Pete's attempting to take control of his life and independence had to do with being on his own, why not state that rather than dump someone for reasons that made no sense?

I can understand Pete being wrong and the show acknowleding that, but season finales in which the character makes a crucial decision in the closing minutes have a way of portraying a character avoiding reflection for the foolishness of their decision. The end result is making him more dislikeable. Sure, maybe he'll redeem himself months from now when this show returns but it's a sour note to go out on.

In the face of such a wonderful season, one sour note is a minor quibble, because Pete is one of the sweetest characters on TV. Here's hoping there's more of him