Rob Lowe's 'Melt' Could Use a Dash of Diversity

Recently watched the movie “I Melt with You,” an ensemble drama starring Rob Lowe, Jeremy Piven, Thomas Jane and Christian McKay. The actors play college buddies who reunite 25 years after graduation for a weekend of trying to recapture their youth through wild partying at a beach house.

The story keeps you on the edge of your seat, wondering if and how the college buddies will carry out the suicide pact they made 25 years ago. If life wasn’t working out as planned when they were older, they had promised to do away with themselves.

Carla Gugino ("Spy Kids") has a cameo as a police officer who suspects something is awry at the cliff-side beach house where these rowdy men have encamped for the weekend. I won’t spoil the ending by revealing what happens.

I’m not sure if “I Melt with You” qualifies as an “indie movie,” since filmmaker Mark Pellington implies in his commentary that it was financed by a studio – or at least made through the Hollywood system. But the movie certainly qualifies as “low budget” since it was made on a relative shoestring of $1 million. (Of course, this would seem like a blockbuster budget to many indie filmmakers who struggle to make movies on micro-budgets of $50,000 or less.)

Pellington and his crew did a decent job of making “I Melt with You” look like it had a larger budget, even though much of it was shot with a barebones crew, natural light and existing locations. And the actors seemed passionate about the story and the characters, foregoing many of the perks they usually get, as they described in their commentary.

Overall, I enjoyed “I Melt with You” and would recommend it. However, I was disappointed by the lack of racial diversity in the cast. The actors who were cast are great, but I’m sure it would have been easy to find at least one performer who is African-American, Latino, Asian or another ethnicity to play one of the four lead roles.

I guess diversity has a long way to go, even in the anything-goes world of low-budget moviemaking.

True Art Lovers

Recently watched Herb & Dorothy, an interesting, quirky documentary. The movie is about New York art collectors Herb and Dorothy Vogel, who amassed one of the most extensive and amazing collections of modern, abstract art in the world over the course of a few decades.

What’s phenomenal about this endearing couple’s story is that they assembled this awesome art collection on the meager salaries of public servants. Herb was a sorting clerk for the post office and Dorothy was a librarian in the Brooklyn Public Library before they retired in 1979 and 1990, respectively.

Herb and Dorothy were both obsessed with art from the beginning and began making friends with up-and-coming artists. They collected works by bartering and making installment payments. Oftentimes, the starving artists were grateful just to have someone interested in supporting their work.

Among the artists whom Herb and Dorothy befriended in the early days were Christo and Jean-Claude, who later went on to international acclaim and designed the world-famous “Gates” installation that ran along 23 miles in Central Park in February 2005. One of the earliest pieces Herb and Dorothy collected was a collage by Christo, which the Vogels acquired in exchange for cat-sitting for the artist.

Herb and Dorothy crammed these brilliant works into every inch of their tiny apartment. Eventually, they began to feel that they should share these works with the world. But instead of accepting lucrative offers to sell the works, they donated them to several museums, including the National Gallery of Art in D.C. and the Akron Art Museum in Ohio.

It would be wonderful if, like Herb and Dorothy, we all had a special someone to not only share our lives with, but our passions as well.        

Black Family Drama 'Of Boys and Men'

Recently watched the movie Of Boys and Men, an independently-produced family drama with Robert Townsend, Angela Bassett and Victoria Rowell.

Townsend plays a working-class father who struggles to keep his family together after his loving wife (Bassett) is killed in a car accident. Bassett essentially has a cameo, appearing in a handful of flashbacks laughing and horsing around with her husband and children. There’s also a scene where she appears apparently as a ghost to reassure her husband that her spirit will always be with him.

Rowell plays the opposite of her scheming character Drucilla on The Young & the Restless. In Of Boys and Men, she plays Townsend’s understanding sister who becomes a surrogate mother and guidance counselor, of sorts, to her niece and nephews.

The story centers around Townsend’s 10-year-old son, who falls in with the wrong crowd and starts acting out and robbing neighbors after his mother dies. The little boy has to decide if he wants to go live with his more stable, financially secure aunt or stay with his harried, overwhelmed father. Young actor Dante Boens does an excellent job of portraying the boy’s emotional conflicts.

Of Boys and Men is a movie worth watching that presents a three-dimensional portrait of an African-American family.

 

 

 

My Favorite 'Bond' Theme Songs

Looking forward to the new James Bond movie "Skyfall." Just heard Adele's theme song, and it's definitely classic 007.

My favorite Bond themes of all time:

"For Your Eyes Only" - Sheena Easton

"Die Another Day" - Madonna

"Goldeneye" - Tina Turner

"A View to a Kill" - Duran Duran

"Nobody Does It Better" - Carly Simon

"Another Way to Die" - Alicia Keys and Jack White

I'd Rather Be 'Courteous' Than 'Polite'

I'd much rather be described as "courteous" than "polite."

"Courteous," to me, means considerate, conscientious of others' feelings, that you think before you speak and act.

"Polite" has a negative connotation - basically that you're considered "nice," i.e., a pushover!

Not Ready to 'Rumble'

I paid $4.95 to watch the so-called "Rumble 2012," a debate between Jon Stewart and Bill O'Reilly.

I'd read a review that said Stewart really laid the smackdown to O'Reilly, but I found the whole event underwhelming - rather than a "rumble," a big yawn.

Neither Stewart nor O'Reilly had a moment where they threw down a zinger that left the other speechless. Each was forceful in arguing their positions. And each got applause at various points from the audience at George Washington University, although the applause did seem to be louder for Stewart.

Rather than shedding light on the issues that divide the nation going into the final days of the presidential election, what the "Rumble" actually did was demonstrate why the nation is so divided. At one point, Stewart and O'Reilly engaged in a "Yes, he did!"/"No, he didn't!" back and forth about something that the president supposedly did or didn't do - very much like two kids squabbling on the playground.

I doubt if during the 90 minutes in which they shared a stage, Stewart or O'Reilly enlightened each other about any of their views.

'Beasts' Is a Quirky Little Movie

Recently saw engaging indie flick Beasts of the Southern Wild with my bud Ramin.

It was oddly coincidental that we happened to venture to the theater to check this flick out just a few days before Hurricane Isaac swept through on the seventh anniversary of Katrina.

Beasts is a quirky, interesting little movie about a young black girl who lives in an area of New Orleans known as "The Bathtub," presumably because of its tendency to flood when hurricanes hit. The movie begins just before Hurricane Katrina descends on the region.

The little girl's father is raising her as a single parent, since her mother ran off without explanation.

The story mainly centers on how the residents of the Bathtub band together after Katrina hits, sharing food and supplies and huddling together in one of the community's ramshackle structures that wasn't badly damaged by the storm. The multiracial group of residents resist the government's efforts to round them up and put them in a shelter.

Seeing that her father is gravely ill, the little girl goes on a quest to pinpoint the source of a blinking light on the horizon that she believes to be some kind of signal from her mother. As they doggypaddle across the Gulf with only a small life preserver to keep them afloat, the girl and some of the other little girls from the Bathtub are picked up by a kindly boat captain who helps them complete their journey.

At a floating bar in the middle of the Gulf, the girl meets a pretty woman who may or may not be her mother. The woman gives her advice about life - that it's rough and to let go of childlike impressions that everything will be fabulous when she grows up - and invites the girl to stay with her. I won't spoil the movie by revealing what the little girl ultimately decides.

Intensifying the plot is that the little girl has visions that enormous wild boars are coming to attack the close-knit community she lives in and destroy the world as she knows it. It's unclear whether these "beasts" that the title refers to are real are just figments of the little girls imagination.

Beasts of the Southern Wild doesn't exactly have a linear plot with a beginning, middle and end - at least not in the traditional Hollywood moviemaking sense. Although it's a small movie made outside the studio system with an independent spirit, it's not free of cliches and stereotypes. Life in New Orleans is depicted in Beasts just like it's been depicted in dozens of other stories - as a multicultural melting pot where people with funny accents drink and party a lot and gobble up loads of crayfish.

Overall, I'd recommend Beasts.  It's a heartfelt, character-driven movie that held my attention, wondering what was going to happen next.