Crazytown

AND THE AWARD GOES TO

...Baby iguanas. Seriously though, read on.
By Alisha Giampola (writer/performer)

This week, we learned that we might be living in The Matrix. After a totally crazy last minute envelope mixup at the Oscars, America went from thinking the highest film award honor of Best Picture had gone to preposterously over-hyped and under-whelming La La Land to realizing that it had actually gone to the deeply moving, amazingly written, and incredibly beautiful Moonlight (strong opinions mine). This alternate reality scenario in which the best possible outcome happened to be actually true, got most of us wondering "can we go back and maybe check that presidential-election-envelope again?" 

But no, you-know-who is still currently the 45th person to hold the highest office in our land, and daily proves himself to be just a genuinely revolting human. On Monday, he realized that healthcare (as an entire concept) was much more complicated than anyone could possibly have ever anticipated. No really. Then he had a joint session of congress and basically said things like how he will "promote clean air and clean water" while literally earlier today he issued an executive order to withdraw the Clean Water Rule. No really. 

I will say that his complete lack of knowledge of the American system of government has encouraged myself and a whole lot of other people to get significantly more knowledgable ourselves in order to appropriately arm ourselves to intellectually fight back. If you haven't already availed yourself of the amazing Indivisible Guide which has been breaking the internet recently, may I recommend that you find a local group and get active? My husband, Daniel, whose preferred coping method is something I like to call Extreme Organizing, formed a local Indivisible chapter in our neighborhood. You can check ours out at our website here, and come join us for a meeting if you're interested! Our group is called the New York Indivisible Action Council, or the NYCIA Council. Haha. (Say "NYCIA Council" out loud and feel free to enjoy the little ecumenical-historical joke I made purely for my own entertainment.) 

There were a lot of amazing moments a the Oscars this year besides Moonlight's big win. Viola Davis made history as the first black woman to have earned an Oscar, Emmy, and Tony in Acting categories. Asghar Farhadi, from Iran, won for his Best Foreign Language film, and had a powerful statement against the recent unconstitutional travel ban read on his behalf by Anousheh Ansari, the first Iranian/Muslim woman in space. Not to mention that Janelle Monáe wore my new favorite outfit of all time:

I MEAN.

With the awards season wrapping up and the resistance honestly just getting started, it's been a pretty busy time. If you've also been busy, and a little overwhelmed with the state of the world, may I recommend checking out the new season of Planet Earth?! Like you need to do this immediately. We watched the first two episodes (Islands and Mountains, respectively) last night and we literally shrieked like children seventeen times. I swear at one point Daniel and I were both yelling "FASTER FASTER FASTER!" at baby iguanas on the screen. 

OMG OMG OMG OMG.
(Watch the full trailer for Planet Earth II here.)

Have a great week, Crazytown. And remember: even a baby iguana can outrun a pack of snakes. (Is it a "pack" of snakes? No. According to this, it is several possible things, all of them creepy. But a group of rattlesnakes is called a "rhumba", which is absolutely fantastic news.) 

ALISHA GIAMPOLA is an NYC based actor/teacher/writer who, just like you, had to Google whether or not that was Mel Gibson's girlfriend or daughter and, just like you, was deeply mortified to find out that she was his WIFE.
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THE NARRATIVE WE TELL ABOUT MOONLIGHT AND THE OSCARS IS IMPORTANT

In an unfortunate turn of events on Sunday evening, one group of filmmakers found themselves to be the victims of the worst kind of live award show snafu - a winner announcement mishap. And when I say victims, I am not referring to the cast and crew of La La Land.
By Annissa Omran (Writer/College Student)

It's reasonable to assume that most of those who make up the loyal Crazytown readership watched the 89th Academy Awards this past Sunday. According to The Hollywood Reporter, 32.9 million viewers tuned in to the big event. Those of us who watched to the very end, throwing caution to the wind and blatantly ignoring the fact that we'd end up getting a shockingly short amount of sleep, lived through the historic moment that will forever overshadow Bonnie and Clyde as the most iconic pairing of Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway. 

La La Land was announced as the winner of the prestigious Best Picture category. But this was not the case. It was in fact Moonlight, the little engine that spectacularly could, chugging on up from low budget obscurity and the unlikely setting of urban Miami.

A lot of people focused on how courageous it was of the La La Land crew to graciously turn over their awards after the mistake was announced. Many spent time discussing how it must have felt for them to taste success and then have it taken from them in a flash.

I, however, don't see it that way.

Of course that must have been uncomfortable for them. It was a very awkward and disappointing moment that nobody would ever want to experience. However, this is a group of people who worked on a film with FOURTEEN Oscar noms. They had a 30 million dollar budget. 

Moonlight had eight nominations and a budget of 5 million dollars. That is 1/6 the budget of La La Land, the supposed loser in this situation.

But that's not even really my point I want to make. The point I want to make is that a film about the coming of age of a homosexual black boy in a low income neighborhood in Miami rightfully beat out a medium budget, splashy Hollywood film about two White People trying to Make it in the Biz^TM. And yet all we are talking about is faux pas. The blunder. The mix up. 

Moonlight deserved its shining moment of individual glory. Instead it was relegated to being lumped with another film in the headline of a next-day news story. How many years have minorities had to wait for a triumph like this - and they don't even get a full, comfortable speech. 

I personally was so disappointed by the announcement of La La Land as Best Picture that I turned off the tv and left the room. If it hadn't been for the fact that I happened to then walk into another room where the Oscars were still playing, I might have missed that fateful moment where the mood shifted and ecstatic faces turned to a sea of confusion.

I was happy, but I was saddened.

So, if I can offer up any advice at all - perhaps in your next water cooler discussion, when someone brings up "that thing that happened at the Oscars," make and effort to bring up the content of the actual winning film. Many people haven't seen Moonlight to begin with. And many people, like me, tuned out the minute Best Picture was announced, whether it be out of disgust, disinterest, or just the fact that they had an early meeting the next morning. So we don't really know how many people actually saw the rightful winners take the stage and say their piece.

Let's take back their moment for them. 

(source)

~

Happy Tuesday, Everyone

ANNISSA OMRAN is currently a college student and eternally a writer. An old movie aficionado, her interests include show tunes, singing loudly, and singing show tunes loudly. She also provides a (dramatic) running commentary on the life of a young writer.
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LA LA BASURA?

When a theatre filled with movie stars turns to television to honor cinema sometimes crazy things happen.
By Owen Panettieri (playwright, lyricist)

Oh the 89th Academy Awards. You would not be denied your place in Oscar History. Sure, maybe some folks at the Academy of Motion Pictures and Sciences were thinking, let's just put up a pleasant endless evening of televised awards with not too many theatrics and bells and whistles and save the big fireworks for when we hit the big 9-0 next year. But, oh no. You would not be denied. Instead, you gave us some true triumphs and a shocking reversal of fortune at the finish line that left jaws dropped. Love it or loathe it, the 89th Oscars will be remembered. Good luck topping this insanity, #90.

On my way to watch the Oscars, I passed this Anti-Ll La Land sign outside a bar. I really enjoyed La La Land. I thought it was good. I didn't really think it was the best film I ever saw, or the best film I saw all year, but there was a lot to recommend about it. Definitely a lot I truly enjoyed about it. But as it won more and more awards throughout the season, the hype around it made it harder for me to just enjoy it and instead I started focusing on its faults. Was it really a better than Hidden Figures or Moonlight just to name two other high quality films released this year? Was it worthy of a record-tying 14 Oscar nominations. I became more and more skeptical. I don't think it's basura, or that LA is basura, but I went in to the Oscar telecast rooting for the underdogs in every category and certainly didn't want to see a sweep. Outside of that I wasn't sure what the telecast itself would bring. 

At the end of it all, I liked the Oscars this year. If the 2009 (Kanye-v-Taylor Swift) VMA's had a love child with 2015 Miss Universe Pageant (Steve Harvey Announces the wrong winner, it would grow up to be the 2017 Academy Awards. Wrong winner announced? Check! Awards speech interrupted? Check! Living people included in the In Memoriam? New! And also: check! Plus Junior Mints, Cookies and Donuts were parachuted into the auditorium Hunger Games-style. If this had all happened in 30 minutes instead on over 3.5 hours, it would have been the most excited show of the year. As it was, there was a lot stuff to sit through, but let's focus on the positive!

TOP TEN FILMS OF 2016: DAVILA'S LIST

I cried during at least seven movies in 2016...

by David Davila (some dude that loves movies)

There were seven different times when I saw a movie in 2016 and thought "Damn that's gonna win best picture!" Seven different times! There were also seven different times that I cried in the movie theatre like a little baby. Those two sets of seven have some overlap, and with that in mind it was pretty hard for me to put these wonderful movies in any kind of "best of" order this year. Sooooo for the first time EVER... I'm not putting them in order... 

WATCH THESE MOVIES... CAUSE THEY'RE THE BEST OF 2016:

La La Land: Here's to the dreamers who dream. The story of "the one that got away" is one that hits very close to home to me, as does the inevitable question of "when is it time to give up on your dreams?" Those themes are strong in La La Land, as is the set design, cinematography, story-telling, and marvelous performances. In the final scene when fantasy and reality finally come face to face... I sobbed uncontrollably. I cried even more the second time. Bravo! La La Land is a masterpiece that will be celebrated for the next hundred years. 

Moonlight: I've never seen a movie like Moonlight in my life. Something so specific, yet so true to real life that everyone can identify with it. A three part story that examines a man in three very pivotal moments that changed the course of his life, Moonlight succeeds where many stories fail, in the honesty of life's unexpected moments.

20th Century Women: A fifty-five year old woman must contemplate what it means to be a man in order to save her son from himself. The take away being that there are a lot of feeling that a man will feel during this life, and strength is what it takes to endure those feelings. I was bawling as the credits rolled. This is the only movie I was rooting for for Best Picture that did not get a nomination unfortunately. It deserved one, and both Annette Bening and Greta Gerwig were snubbed as well! 

Manchester by the Sea: A reclusive, and easily agitated man must return to his hometown to take care of his nephew when his brother dies. It's terribly sad... and that's just the first ten minutes. Would you believe me if I said that it gets worse and worse and worse from there? This is the saddest movie I've seen in probably twenty years and I cried for a good third of the movie and spent a week in a deep depression afterwards. The celebrated playwright, Kenneth Lonergan uses film to go to places that the theatre does not allow him to go. It's astonishing, breath-taking, and tragic.

Arrival: If you knew how your life would end would you live it anyway? The "If/Then" question at the center of this sci-fi art-house hybrid is one that we all ponder in our lives. Amy Adams is remarkable, as is everything about this film, from beginning to end and back again. Yes... I cried like a baby... again.

Hell or High Water: Two brothers decide to rob some small town banks in the ultimate act of revenge imaginable. This is as much a movie about West Texas small town life after big corporations sucked the money out of main street, as it is about what it takes to join the predator class and get rich in America. 

Hidden Figures: A wonderful, feel-good, female-empowering true story about the women who helped get a man into outer space. I laughed, I cried, and I cheered! This is a movie we'll be watching over and over every time it plays on cable for the rest of our lives.

Sing Street: If you wanna do something in life just do it. That's the idea behind this Irish film in the great tradition of Once and The Commitments, this movie takes a bunch of low-down underdogs and turns them into rock gods! 

Birth of a Nation: A retelling of the historic slave uprising of Nate Turner and company. The movie succeeds at drawing direct comparisons to current trends in police brutality that make one realize that the time of slavery is not as far away as one would like to imagine. Of course I cried in this one too. 

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them: The only blockbuster on my list, Fantastic Beasts took me on a journey that I did not expect. What a wonderful movie about saving the planet and stopping hatred. This is the type of movie we all need in our lives right now. Furthermore, this screenplay was written by J.K. Rowling herself, which makes me wish the studios had let her write all of the previous films. 

AND NOW, A REGULARLY SCHEDULED BREAK FROM THE REVOLUTION.

By Alisha Giampola (writer/performer) 

Three recommendations for some short film watching this Oscar season that are all better than La La Land:

This year, my favorite Oscar-nominated live-action short film was a gut-wrenching, timely French piece that evoked the current refugee crisis and general political climate...Enemies Within. 

My favorite Oscar-nominated animated short film was a SANDPIPER film about a BABY SANDPIPER and featuring OTHER SANDPIPERS including an adorable MAMA SANDPIPER. Watch the whole film here and die of adorableness:

Devastating, yet deeply vital to see, is my favorite Oscar-nominated documentary short: the Netflix film about the heroic efforts of the rescue team currently working to save innocent lives in Syria, White Helmets.

OSCAR MUSINGS

By Annissa Omran (Writer/College Student)

In the fall of 2015, a friend of mine got an internship to work on a local film that was being produced on a relatively low budget. They needed people to work on securing locations, and to this end they secured a small, grimy office in Midtown, Miami. On the first day of pre-production, I drove my friend to the office. It had a very mom-drops-kid-off-at-the-first-day-of-school kind of vibe to it.

As I drove away, I wondered to myself what would become of this tiny film project nobody had ever heard of.

Over the course of the next few months, my friend regaled us with stories from the location office and later - on a rare occasion - stories from set. The locations coordinator seemed moody and the production was fraught with everything from hung-over PAs to angry homeowners hell-bent on derailing filming.

When the time came for the wrap party, my friend invited me as her plus-one. I went, feeling as though I had been a part of the film due to all the hours spent listening to stories and occasionally acting as intern chauffeur. The party was held at Miami's historic Vagabond Hotel. The crew in attendance was small but full of cheer and they crowded the small space between the bar and the pool. The bartenders were friendly and the drinks were free and it seemed as though everyone around us was letting out a collective sigh of relief after a long haul.

My friend and I strayed from the pack to join two little boys - the only children present at the very adult celebration. I was told they were two of the child actors from the film. I forgot their names quickly, just as they forgot mine, but the four of us played tag around the shallow end of the pool. We had water fights with the colorful fountains that shot into the air. 

When the boy's parents decided it was finally past their bedtimes, my friend and I rejoined the party. It soon moved locations and en route to a downtown dive bar I was notified that we were going to celebrate the director's birthday.

In a dimly lit bar, surrounded by relative strangers but recognizable camaraderie, I raised a glass of beer along with the rest of the crew and toasted the director I had never met from a film I had not worked on. When I finally made my exit half an hour later (I had an exam the next morning) I went up to the bar and tapped the director on the shoulder and wished him one last "Happy Birthday." He turned back to me and flashed a big white smile along with a cheery "Thanks for celebrating with us!"

On the way home I wondered again what would become of this tiny film project nobody had ever heard of.

THE OSCARS - PRINTABLE NOMINEE BALLOT

The 89th Academy Awards printable ballot. What will your predictions be?
By Kat Flynn (Actress)

It's that time of year again! This year the Academy's website offered a printable ballot! Get to it, you guys! John & I always compete with each other. Last year I won. Haha! But he usually does better than I do. So gather some friends 'round and see how y'all do against each other! It's in 2 weeks! 

PRINTABLE OSCAR NOMINEE LIST

LIVE OSCAR SUNDAY
FEBRUARY 26, 2017
 4PM PACIFIC | 7PM EASTERN | 12AM GMT

xoxo

Image source: oscars.org

KAT FLYNN is an American Expat living & working in Great Britain. www.katflynn.com
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PROTEST IS THE NEW BRUNCH

It's only February.
By Alisha Giampola (writer/performer)

When satire has become reality, when those leading our government are making Orwellian propaganda seem tame by comparison, when the creators of South Park don't even know how to make fun of the current administration, because truth has become too much stranger than even the fictions of their twisted minds... what is the right approach? What tone do artists take during times like this to resist fascism and authoritarian moves like literally attempting to destroy the amendment that maintains our government's fine line of separation between church and state? It isn't funny anymore, and making fun of it feels daunting. Why bother satirizing a man who can tweet stuff like this with a dead-straight face: "I don't know Putin, have no deals in Russia, and the haters are going crazy..." I mean.... okayyyyy, dude. I literally don't know what to say about that. When you spend your entire Black History Month speech talking about how everyone likes you and you got more votes than anyone in the whole world ever and everyone else is losers, and then say things like: "Frederick Douglass is an example of somebody who's done an amazing job and is being recognized more and more, I notice," as if Frederick Douglass is a real up-and-comer in middle management of a small but promising office supplies company... I just literally don't know what to say. 

Which is why I'm realizing more and more that the only way to respond to this preposterousness is with total and complete sincerity. (Although, there is absolutely a time and place for wit, and this is making me laugh today in the face of the utterly ridiculous confirmation of Betsey DeVos as Secretary of Education.) So. What do I mean by sincerity? I don't mean a total lack of irony. I don't mean "eschewing the lifesaving gift of comedy altogether". I just mean like, show up. I, a total and utterly insincere jerk, have been going to protests. Singing "This Land Is Our Land" alongside people holding homemade signs. Writing postcards to my congresspeople. Calling my senators and representatives EVERY SINGLE DAY (and also calling the ones in Florida, where I grew up, because I still have a Florida area code, and enjoy calling Marco Rubio and reminding him that he got bought by Betsy DeVos). 

Some people have gotten really fired up about caring about the future of our democracy. A lot of awesome people I know have always cared about the political climate of our country, and are not foul-weather activists like myself, who suddenly realized a few months ago that being mildly displeased about things but only actually bothering about them when they affect you is a really shitty way to be a human. But some of us needed things to become really horrible to become involved. As a kid I remember reading about Anne Frank and Sojourner Truth and the French Revolution and thinking: "Oh, so like if I ever saw things get bad politically, it would be pretty clear who the good guys and bad guys are. Everyone I know and care about would also be like 'Yeah, clearly those are the bad guys and here's our secret hiding place and here's our box of stolen ration cards.'" But that's not how things are. Yeah, it's pretty easy to see who the bad guys are, but it's really unclear how to deal with them and how bad they actually have to let things get before it's justified to begin calling them bad guys. And it is certainly surprising how many people don't clearly see the same distinctions between good guys and bad guys. 

I guess what I'm saying is, life is way more complicated than I expected when I was eleven, but is also surprisingly way more simple. I'm mortified that our country isn't accepting refugees from the country my own family escaped from during the last century, and I'm even more mortified that I feel so utterly helpless about how little I can ultimately do. Some of my friends are deciding to refocus their careers and run for office and help become one of the good guys in our government. Others are leading the resistance and gently pushing back on every human rights-compromising decision coming out of the White House today. Educators like myself have their work cut out for them for these next few years. Raising more tolerant, kind, inquisitive, questioning, inclusive humans is clearly in order. Humans who don't bully, who understand that the success of a group can be really good for the success of each individual in the group. Humans who are confident enough to accept that not everyone has to think exactly the same way, but we do all have to find a way to work together or our planet is doomed. Humans who recognize that just because someone believes in a different religion than you, that doesn't mean they're dangerous. Humans who are students of history and encourage others to be lifelong students as well. 

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair… we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way…”
- Charles Dickens "A Tale of Two Cities" (how did he KNOW, AMIRITE?!) -

If you live in (or are planning a visit to) NYC, and you'd like to partake in some art that embodies the sentiment of "resist, with sincerity", may I recommend a few things that I'm currently interested in?

-The Museum of Modern Art's curated displays of art from the countries affected by the administrations' unconstitutional travel ban.
- An upcoming production (starring a former director of mine, Kevin Del Aguila! Yay, Kevin!) of Brecht's The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, a parable play about a dictator to be performed on February 20th, with ticket sales benefiting the Southern Poverty Law Center. 
- Sweat, a widely acclaimed Public Theatre drama about the struggle of the working class transfers to Broadway in March.

A couple other things I'd love to recommend this week are an Oscar-nominated documentary that I loved (and at our house where Daniel tries and frequently succeeds at seeing every nominated film every awards season, I can tell you that I see a lot of Oscar-nominated documentaries): Life, Animated- a beautiful story about a young man with autism who communicates through the films he loves. Also, this week's This American Life was heartbreaking and timely.

A picture I took during this week's protest in Washington Square Park. #thisiswhatdemocracysoundslike
I am proud to live in a city that stands strong with refugees from the devastation in Syria (and every other place in need of hope and freedom). 

ALISHA GIAMPOLA is an NYC based actor/teacher/writer who has no idea why La La Land has been nominated for so many Oscars.
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MOVIE MADNESS (PART I)

There's no such thing as too many movies.
By Annissa Omran (Writer/College Student)

In the past ten days I have seen a total of eight movies in theaters. I’ll let that settle for a moment. Eight movies. That’s something along the lines of SIXTEEN hours spent in a movie theater staring at a screen. And I enjoyed every single one of those hours.

Alright, that’s an exaggeration. Some of the movies were definitively better than others. But as any good film student knows, you have to go through some duds to get to the gold. And boy did the gold shine.

One of the films I watched was the 1997 satirical military sci-fi film Starship Troopers. Three of the films were Advanced Screenings. One of the films was a Korean romance. Two of the films were even nominees for Best Picture of this year’s Academy Awards.

Spoiler’s will be avoided to protect the innocent.

(The only Doctor Who quote that doesn't give away the fact that you're a nerd who quotes Doctor Who)

 

#OSCARPREDICTIONSSOWHITE

I've seen all the movies, I've read all the chatter, and I've spoken to a Curandera... and now... my Oscar predictions.

by David Davila (playwright / songwriter)

I should start by saying that actually I haven't seen ALL of the movies... never got around to watching BRIDGE OF SPIES but like... that's not gonna win anything is it? I dunno, I might be proven wrong on Sunday. Either way one thing is for sure... a lot of white people will win Oscars this year... but that's nothing new:

 

What is new is that many have called for a boycott... so we'll have to see how that effects the ratings. A lot of the big nominees are really popular but people are so mad about systemic racism in Hollywood that there is a huge white shadow looming over this year's ceremony. I'm not sure if the Academy can recover from this actually. If the awards lose their merit then the movies that win them lose the money involved with winning one. This is big business and Hollywood needs to step up and pay attention quickly. The problem is not actually the Academy's soley. The problem is that Hollywood insists on producing, selling, green-lighting movies with white casts that tell white stories. They even go as far as to cast white people in roles of color. It's a big problem that people in power need to put an end to. 

Either way... here are my predictions:

BEST ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE:

Bryan Cranston, Trumbo, Matt Damon, The Martian, Leonardo DiCaprio, The Revenant, Michael Fassbender, Steve Jobs, Eddie Redmayne, The Danish Girl

This is Leonardo's year man! There is literally nothing than can stop this gravy train! NOTHING! Sorry y'all but no one else stands a chance. This is one of the only sure things in the entire race. Leo will finally win! Rather than try to explain why... let me offer you up these memes: