In “Mondays at Racine,” Breast Cancer

Patients Bond at a Beauty Salon

By Beth Rubin

In “Mondays at Racine,” an award-winning short documentary by Cynthia Wade, sisters Rachel and Cynthia throw open the doors of their Long Island beauty salon one Monday a month to breast cancer patients in need of infusions of R and R. While coping with the disease’s devastating physical and emotional effects, the women handle the day-to-day life-altering challenges with intelligence, poise, and good humor. But chemo-related hair loss pushes them to the brink. 

In the welcoming arms of the empathetic salon owners, whose mother, we learn, became reclusive as her self-image as a woman diminished after her own breast cancer diagnosis and treatment, members of this tight sorority gather to shed their locks and inhibitions and to reclaim their femininity. Through spa treatments, makeup tips, abundant hugs, and quasi-group therapy, they regain their identities as   empowered women who just happen to have cancer. Unburdening themselves, they share the inevitable emotional  fallout from breast cancer—how it affects their self-image,  sexuality,  relationships with their spouses and children, and hopes for the future—and form an impervious bond.

The opening scene in the salon introduces us to a handful of women of different ages in various stages of treatment and hair loss. They try on hats, banter, and laugh unselfconsciously as if they’re meeting for tea or a girlfriends’ getaway. The mood changes when the women begin to tell their stories.  

Cambria is married with a loving husband and son, and is in the process of adopting a second child. Her diagnosis, Stage 3 metastatic breast cancer, may well prevent her from completing the adoption. We follow her into the shower and watch as her hair —“women’s crowning glory”— collects in the drain. 

In her late-fifties, Linda has outlived her original diagnosis by 17 years. She’s sick and she’s tired—of cancer, of multiple rounds of chemo, of feeling lousy, of her husband’s inability to give her the love and support she needs. “I have nothing left. I’ve lost my hair, I’ve lost my breasts.” She reclaims her power in a pair of scenes that rival much of what is hawked as drama and pathos in full-length, big-budget films. 

We accompany Cambria and Linda as they make difficult medical and personal decisions, anguish and pleasure intermittently writ large on their faces. We applaud their strengths, feel their pain, and cheer their victories. We know these women. They are us. If we have not yet walked in their shoes, they are our sisters, mothers, daughters, or best friends.

This is not a film to be avoided because it arouses uncomfortable feelings. It should be seen by all women—and by the men who love them.

A review of "The Great Beauty"

 "The Great Beauty, a shimmering coup de cinema to make your heart burst, has won the 2014 Golden Globe for best foreign film".  The Telegraph.

The Great Beauty

By Beth Rubin

Jep Gambardella (Toni Servillo), a cynical yet vulnerable  journalist-novelist and man about town,  celebrates his 65^th birthday with a menagerie of friends and hangers-on at his penthouse terrace overlooking the Colisseum. (Doesn’t everybody?)  Paying homage to Fellini ( “La Dolce Vita,” “Satyricon,” and ”8 ½”) , a conga line of inebriated, coke-snorting partygoers with outlandish body accoutrements and vacant stares, snakes around the terrace. Here, Grand Guignol meets the Theatre of the Absurd in blazing color. Debonair in his oiled hair, primary-color  blazers and tan slacks , pocket square just so, Jep hasn’t had a hit in 40 years since his novel, “The Human Apparatus,”  took  the literary scene by storm.  He’s “laughing on the outside, crying on the inside,” as the old song goes, hanging on in a netherworld which alternately excites, chafes, disappoints, and bores him.

Then he learns that the love of his life has died, and reality comes a knocking.

What follows in writer-director’s Paolo Sorrentino’s brilliant homage to Rome─its sights, citizenry, and tourists; classicism and debauchery; social, political and religious institutions─are a series of interwoven vignettes, all lushly filmed, that illuminate Jep’s coming to terms with his mortality. He examines assumptions old and new in a most poetic way, by strolling through Rome’s deserted pre-dawn streets, passing by former haunts and revisiting old friends; and replaying liaisons that no long satisfy.  What’s it all about, Jep? 

Owing to masterful  writing, directing, acting, and luscious photography, Jep’s  quest to make sense of, or, at least, find meaning in his life, must inevitably resonate with the voyeurs who’ve plunked down $10 or more to be a part of this phantasmagoria for  142 minutes.

“The Great Beauty” is a surreal, visually rich feast that should satiate most, if not all, discriminating filmgoers over the age of twelve.

Beth Rubin is a longtime Annapolis writer-author and film enthusiast who writes frequently about the arts.  www.bethrubinauthor.com

Interview with Sheila Dennin, Writer/Director of the Independent Short Film “Red Flags”

Annapolis-based freelancer Vicki Meade has 25 years’ experience in communications for health care, business, and technology. She has written for many magazines and websites and is an adjunct instructor of writing at the University of Maryland Baltimore County.

 

Who can’t relate to the discomfort of being stuck on a terrible blind date?  In her funny and poignant 12-minute short, “Red Flags,” filmmaker Sheila Dennin, a Crofton resident, shows us what it’s like to keep meeting Mr. Wrong—and to try to make the best of it.

Dennin, who has worked as a writer and director in film, video, and multimedia for more than 20 years, is president of Mary Margaret Productions, Inc., in Washington, D.C. She recently talked about the film, which was shown at the Annapolis Film Festival Shorts Crawl in September, with Annapolis freelance writer Vicki Meade. You can see the film here on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wd5uR-UsyYY

Where did you get the idea for this film? 

When I was single, I went on pretty much all those dates. I was in my thirties¾that period in life when all your friends are married and they want you to join them in their misery. So they start fixing you up with people. Anyway, I would go on these dates, and afterwards I would call my dear friend Maureen Ryan [producer of “Red Flags” and of the Academy Award winning documentary “Man on Wire”]. Often, I was in tears, and she’d say, “Sheila, you’re gonna use these horrible experiences someday.”

So, the characters are based on real people?

Well, I married the guy in the park. That character is based on my husband, who I met at an awards event in Boston. He’s in software sales now, and at the time he worked for a web hosting company. We just celebrated 12 years of marriage.

And the guy who wanted to trim Tracy’s nose hair¾I was dating someone who did that to me. We were sitting together, having a pizza, and he stopped and gazed at me. I thought, oh, he thinks I am fabulous! But no, that wasn’t it.

What about Tracy—the lead character?

She is all women. Think about it—we don’t know anything about Tracy. She actually has very little dialogue. We fill in the blanks about who she is, because she is us. She tries so hard to be the good person, she doesn’t judge these people or react to them inappropriately. And, frankly, Tracy is me.

What do men say about the film?

Men love this film, too. They relate to Tracy’s situation–– it’s about the universality. The best comment I ever heard after a screening was when a guy came up to me and said, “This is why I go to the movies.”

Tell me about writing the script.

 The idea gestated forever. Maureen and I were working together over several years doing public health films. She teaches short film, and she said, “Why don’t you make one?” She started reminding me of these horrible dates, and she said, “I always remember the toothpick guy.” I got in the shower, imagined a scene, and things started to click. I sat down and wrote the script in four hours. I had actually written the whole thing in my head already, so when I got to the page, it just came out.

What was the casting like?

The casting session was incredible. In one day, we saw 50 people. I was very nervous about who would play Tracy¾I wanted someone that people like instantly because of her energy. Not stellarly gorgeous, but attractive in a way that would have us believe she might still go on blind dates. We had this wonderful parade of talented actresses come in, and toward the end of the day I’m thinking, we’ll never find her. Then this woman, Nell Gwynn, walks in, kind of harried looking, with tattoos. She read with the nose-hair guy, and it was magic.

How did rehearsals and shooting go?

I didn’t do any rehearsing. I just wanted to roll—I didn’t want to lose the performance. For example, toothpick guy, the way he carried off the whole, “isn’t it awesome that you’re sitting here with me” ¾it felt very natural and real. And directing Nell was unbelievably easy, like turning dials. We shot the film in New York City with a 39-person crew, and everyone worked for free.

What was the hardest part of making the film?

 Two things. First, making sure the ending worked. No one has ever told me they saw the ending coming, and that is incredibly satisfying. In fact, some people get mad at me. Which is cool, because it means this character I created really got to us.

And the second?

Putting in the red flags. The idea was, you’re dating this guy and totally ignoring red flags¾these red flags hit you and you go, ”oh, stop it,” but the flags get bigger and bigger, and you push them aside and continue on with the date. So, how to convey that?  We decided to do animation, and I didn’t have the money for 3D animation. I found these guys in New York who said, “Set up the scene and we’ll take it from there.” In most of the scenes, we knew in advance what we’d do with the flags. The animators’ big surprise to me was when the flags come out of the mouth and ear of sob-story guy. People always laugh at that.

 I’ve sat in the audience and experienced the film with viewers, and at that point, everyone settles into their chairs and goes, “Oh, I understand the world we’re in.”

Did you have a key message you wanted to get across?

First and foremost, it’s entertainment. My intention was to have people laugh. But there’s also this idea: we never know what someone else thinks of us. How many times have you chosen to go out on a date, and it went unbelievably well, yet you never hear from the person again? Who knows why?  

 

Pat O’Connell currently works as an Analyst for the Department of Treasury. He is the author of a book called Knight Hawk, and several magazine articles. He has served as the president of the Maryland Writers Association from 2000 to 2003.

Progressive Snack Theater…and getting into someone’s shorts.  Who knew it could be so deliciously fun and entertaining?
Back on September 22, my wife and I joined dozens of dozens on West Street in Annapolis for a progressive snack theater event, the Annapolis Shorts Crawl 2013.
We all gathered at the Loews Hotel to get our tickets and to join our groups…and then we were off like mobs of Trick-or-Treaters to O’Callaghans, 49 West, El Toro Bravo, Stan & Joe’s, Metropolitan, and Crush…(FYI all of these places are on West Street in Annapolis.)
The venues for these short films made watching enjoyable.  It was so nice to check out new haunts that otherwise I wouldn’t know about.  Before we started watching we grabbed snacks to munch and drinks to sip.  (These were supplied by each venue as part of the registration fee.)
The films, OMG, were soooo good!  Some were informative. (Did you know that before becoming a great basketball star, Wilt Chamberlain was a Borscht Belt Bellhop at a resort in the Catskills?) 
Some were thought provoking.  One movie talked about a prosperous neurologist who found the meaning of life on rollerblades; another movie was of two young brothers who steal fireworks to impress girls.
Two humorous movies were on karma.  One illustrated the cycle of life on the food chain and ultimate karma from Mantis to Man, and back to Mantis. The other played with the karma of reincarnation.  (How would you like to come back as a rich mosquito?)
Two shorts were real-life funny…imagine bad blind dates and all the red flags that made you wish you were with someone else…or how about  being a young girl with an imaginary friend who’s a knight, and it’s time to shop for your first training bra?
For me the funniest of them all was of a kidnapping of a 10-year-old girl that goes terribly wrong for the inept kidnappers.  If you liked Home Alone, you’ll love Penny Dreadful.
All in all, the Crawl was a ball…and it was all for a good cause. The funds earned from this will go towards the Annapolis Film Festival, March 27 thru 30, 2014.  Save that weekend and don’t miss it.
For more information check out info@annapolisfilmfestival.net  Enjoy!

Soundtrack Reinforces the Comic Poignancy of Thanks for Sharing

Reviewed by Nadja Maril

“Thanks for Sharing” is the expression I tend to use when someone has given me way too much personal information and I’m trying to be polite. But when you are an addict attending a support group, part of the healing process is sharing.  Honestly verbalizing your feelings helps facilitate recovery.

The majority of characters in the movie  “Thanks for Sharing” directed by Stuart Blumberg, screenplay by Blumberg and Matt Winston, are doing just that—attempting to recover from addiction.  These addicts played by actors Mark Ruffalo, Tim Robbins,  Josh Gad, and  Alecia Moore are not your typical drug, gambling, or alcohol addicts. They are addicted to sex.  They are so addicted to sex that they are unable to successfully function in their daily lives. A ride on the subway brings the temptation of other people’s bodies to rub against, while a computer provides access to tempting pornography sites. Even a television is a forbidden item for a sex addict in recovery as it might provide entertainment, which could awake subdued desires. 

Tim Robbins plays Mike, group leader and mentor/sponsor of Adam played by Mark Ruffalo, who has been in recovery and has been celibate for five years. Adam is finally ready to attempt a committed relationship with a woman.  The object of his desire is Phoebe, played by Gwyneth Paltrow, who has her own challenging personal issues. Five years earlier she had breast cancer and has prosthetic breasts. Cancer free, she is fixated on healthy living, which includes strenuous exercise and a vegetarian diet. Her previous boyfriend was an alcoholic and on their first date she tells Adam she doesn’t want to date another addict and asks whether he ever had a drinking problem. While this logically would have been the perfect time to come clean with the story of his sex addiction, Adam is too infatuated with Phoebe to risk losing the opportunity for intimacy so early in their relationship.

The push and pull of the relationship between Adam and Phoebe and Mike’s relationship with his own family take center stage in this well constructed screenplay that is both humorous and sad, but it is the relationship between nymphomaniac Dede and food and sex obsessed ER doctor Neil which really tells the story.

The unlikely friendship between the tattooed punk style beautician played by Alecia Moore (also known as singer/song writer Pink) and the young overweight Mama’s boy physician played by Josh Gad includes the gift from Dede of a pink bicycle that enables Neil to travel around the city of New York without the need for expensive taxis or the off limits subway.  It’s while he’s on that bicycle, drenched in perspiration because he is way out of shape and you are routing for him to succeed in reaching his goals, that I first became consciously aware of the film’s soundtrack  and how much I liked the music.  Soundtrack music can create mood, suspense, and elation.  It can bridge the passage of time and convey the connections forming between the characters. But movie music is not necessarily music you want to listen to on its own.   The “Thanks For Sharing” soundtrack music is notably good.   So good that I made a mental note to purchase the soundtrack for future listening and I did. The lines in “This Year” as performed by the Mountain Goat,  This time I’m going to make it  through this year if it kills  me, reinforced the efforts of the characters seeking to control their addiction and improve their lives. At the movie’s end when I heard Billy Bragg sing Tender Comrade and the lines,  What will you say of the bond we had, tender comrade? Will you say that we were brave as the shells fell all around us?, the message of the bonding that developed between the characters was reinforced.

After purchasing the soundtrack online and starting to write this review I took a look at the soundtrack notes and learned just how important the soundtrack songs had been to writer/director  Stuart Blumberg. He writes, “this movie’s soundtrack is heavily indebted to songs that have meant a lot to me over my life…The ones I chose were united by a common element: the primacy of the voice. Literally, their human voice. I wanted those voices to stand as counterpoint to the voices of characters, who throughout the movie, bare their souls in the safety of the room of their 12 step programs.”  His song selection did not go unnoticed.

Thanks for Sharing premiered at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival and was released in the United States last month (Sept.20, 2013). I recommend seeing the film and I recommend buying the soundtrack.

Blue Jasmine

Charlie Greene

As a huge Woody Allen fan, I came to Blue Jasmine with a lot of excitement, and left feeling disappointed.  While he captured the incredibly beautiful scenery of San Francisco and New York, I didn’t care about any of the characters, especially the main one, Jasmine.  In fact, she may be the most unlikable character I’ve ever seen in a Woody Allen film.  Worse than her self-destructive behavior, her self-delusion and snobbery was intolerable to watch.  Feeling so smugly superior to everyone around her, she has no qualms about lying to her boyfriend about her past, expecting to regain her wealth and social standing.  Of course, Allen’s made other movies with morally ambiguous characters, even a few who get away with murder, and I’ve enjoyed watching those characters.  Deconstructing Harry springs to mind.  What’s the difference?

The title character in Harry was a wreck of a human being, making extremely poor choices and suffering the consequences.  But in the film, he was a talented writer who literally brought the characters in his stories to life.  He was also, to some extent, aware of his failings.  He was a loser, but there was an endearing quality to him that, if it didn’t make me entirely like him, I at least felt some sympathy towards him.  Plus, Woody Allen is a wonderfully gifted comic actor, and watching him go through these crises of his own making, with such wit, makes me laugh every time I watch it.

Jasmine had no such endearing qualities to her.  The only gift she possessed was for self-deception.  She had no insight into her problems, and never grew over the course of the story.  Her only change was to become worse off than when she started.  In some way, my passionate dislike of Jasmine is a testament to Cate Blanchett’s acting ability.  In fact, until I spoke with other friends who had seen the film, I had no idea Blanchett was in it.  Her ability to completely submerge herself into such an unlikable character is a true testament to her talents.

Still, Blue Jasmine let me down.  Woody Allen’s made many films over the course of his more than 50 year career.  Many of them, like Hannah and Her Sisters, Mighty Aphrodite, and Annie Hall, are wonderfully creative, funny, and touching.  In so many of his films, he tries out new approaches to telling stories, and many times, they work brilliantly.  Blue Jasmine, sadly, doesn’t.  It seemed to lack Allen’s usual spark or inventive qualities.  It felt like a tired film that any other director could have made.  Maybe it’s unfair to come to one of his films with such high expectations.  He’s certainly made other films that, for whatever reason, didn’t quite work.  So I have no doubt that his next film (or the one after that) will be the usual Woody Allen success.

Charles Green is a freelance writer and editor based in Annapolis.  His book reviews appear in several publications, including Publishers Weekly.

A review of THE BUTLER for Annapolis Film Festival Fans!

The opinions and views expressed here are those of our guest bloggers and are not necessarily those of the Annapolis Film Festival. The Butler By Beth Rubin Ken Burns meets Forrest Gump in the bio-pic, “The Butler,” written by Danny Strong (“Game Change”) and directed by Lee Daniels (“Precious”). The seed for the full-length drama germinated from a 2008 Washington Post article by Will Haygood, about White House butler Eugene Allen who served eight presidents, beginning with Ike in 1952. In this fictionalized, fast-paced film, we meet Cecil Gaines, a deus ex machina for presenting a compressed version of the civil rights movement. For that alone, the film (even when it deviates from the factual or plausible) should be required viewing— for anyone who wasn’t around in the ‘60s and ‘70s, and as a reminder for those of us who were.  Young Cecil winds up in the White House mess, with its all-black staff and plantation model, after enduring unspeakable trauma and humiliation living on a Georgia cotton farm and working in a southern hotel. But he keeps taking it—his face, a blank slate; his voice, steady. In fact, he enjoys his subservient role, to the consternation of his wife Gloria (Oprah Winfrey). One son, Louis (David Oyelowo), joins the civil rights movement, creating a widening schism between father and son while the other, “good” son, Charlie (Elijah Kelley) does all the right things and fades into the wallpaper of the Gaines home before meeting a tragic end. Like Forrest Gump, activist Louis is front and center for every major civil rights event, never missing a sit-in, Freedom Ride, or Black Panther rally. This guy gets around! Hell, he’s even with MLK at the Lorraine Motel when King is assassinated. The acting, top to bottom, is as good as it gets. Winfrey shines as the loving, steadfast, hard-drinking and chain-smoking wife who wishes her husband worked normal hours. Liev Schreiber as LBJ, John Cusack as Richard Nixon, and Alan Rickman as a somnolent Ronald Reagan shine. Jane Fonda’s cameo performance as Nancy Reagan is spot on. (One has to wonder what Nancy Reagan thinks of Hanoi Jane’s interpretation.) The Butler is very good entertainment. But leave your nitpickers at the popcorn stand.                                                 ### Beth Rubin is a longtime Annapolis writer-author and film enthusiast who writes frequently about the arts.  www.bethrubinauthor.com