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abitterlifethroughcinema · 6 years ago

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#ABitterLifeThroughCinema’s WOKE! Film Reviews

The Top Ten (+1) Best Movies of 2018 and where to find them!

Lucas Avram Cavazos

+1…11. Overlord Having its premiere at this year’s Sitges Int’l Film Fest, Overlord not only happened to be one of the fave films screened there this past festival, but this cinematic fantasy is an all-too-real and stark portrayal of a horror that actually occurred, and it deserves a nod from the Barcelona film critic family, so here it goes. Duly noted, I’d say. It starts with an insane aerial combat mission on the night of D-Day, one which goes awry and sees only a handful of paratroopers surviving the drop when enemy fire rains hell. They land in provincial France and the plot sets out to detail some of the inner workings of the Third Reich in reference to the insane, gruesome experiments done on captured Europeans and Jews. Those stories you’ve heard about turning these poor people into guinea pigs for super soldier intent using potent, injected serums…yeah, those? They’re true, if you believe the words of JJ Abrams. Are they as utterly brutal and horror/zombie film-like as displayed here? I sure as hell hope not. (now available On Demand and DVD)

10. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs There once was a film called O Brother Where Art Thou? While this is not its sequel, there is a sharp-witted vein to this film that could only be crafted and gifted to us by the Coen Brothers. What a hoot it is, even if it is a rather darkly-tinted hue of that hoot and humour. It is also one of their finest in years. Revolving around the singing cowpoke Buster Scruggs (Tim Blake Nelson) and five other tales brought to us with the commonly-threaded theme of death in often brutally funny ways, this film is a fine return to oddball form from two of the finest sibling directors of all time. Starring Liam Neeson, James Franco, Zoe Kazan, even Tyne Daly and so many in its vignettes, and that acting star power fuses this Western comedy into new territory for the brothers. Their previous works set in the west always seemed to be re-hashing works of years gone by but here, with their usage of almost comic-book-like details and witty banter make this much more enjoyable than their other historical works like O Bother and their remake of True Grit. Best western in absolute years! (available on Netflix or VOD)

9. Eighth Grade This poignant little film, which should have been wide-released everywhere the world over, is given fierce and bittersweet star power by Elsie Fisher, protagonist and student at the heart of this film. Comedian Bo Turnham has brought us the quintessential coming-of-tweenage story and along with Fisher, everyone in this film is so perfectly placed in their roles, especially Josh Hamilton as her dad, who deserves some nominations for this film but is unlikely to get any. Telling the story of 13-year old Kayla, we the audience get a sneak-peek into the minds and lives of today’s young adults. From her simple YouTube videos made to encourage other young kids to her obvious desire to fit in with older kids to her insecurity with boys, this film paints a stark reality that too many have lived through and this little indie film deserves aplomb from anywhere it can get it! (now available On Demand and DVD)

8. A Star is Born I skipped the critics’ screening of this film for the mere fact that I couldn’t bear to see if the acting and plot lines were another torrid take on a much-redone film. Even into the holiday season, I had not yet seen it and then when I did, I certainly took back any reservations. Bradley Cooper’s update of the film starring himself and Lady Gaga is just about as good as everyone said it was, and that was beyond refreshing to note post-viewing. In many ways, I feel that Cooper is likely revealing a few things about himself with the guise of “it’s a movie” being a nice cover; in some ways, he gives us what I believe are hints of his covert life, and it’s with Gaga’s turn as Ally that we really see him shine beyond the shtick of his character, country-rocker Jackson Maine. In a tad corny-tad, gripping way that takes hold the moment you see Gaga, let’s be frank and real, this film goes on to detail a Diet Coke version of the grim realities that often detail too many a tale of celebrity in Hollywood. Without revealing too many details of the film’s plot and denouement, we are looking at a necessary conversation about alcoholism, drug addiction and fame (plus a lack of ’NO’ men/women in many relationships) that needs to addressed for all ages. Well done, Mr. Cooper Goes to the Oscars. (At select screens, On Demand & DVD)

7. El Angel Incidentally, this may be the first time in a rather long time that I say something good about Argentinian men, so do take note. Telling the true story of fresh-faced boy killer Carlos Robledo Puch, played to Oscar-worthy perfection by newcomer Lorenzo Ferro, the masterful detail to which director Luis Ortega has crafted this arthouse meets dramedy-thriller is astounding and easily touches heights set by dePalma and even, dare I say it, Scorcese. We follow young Carlitos Puch, who is just nearing the edge of seventeen, as takes up with a rough and tough family of his devilishly attractive school chum Ramon, played by the spirited Chino Darin, son of Ricardo Darin. But as Carlitos comes to find out, his street crimes can easily be paved to real ones and his sadistic tendencies suddenly yet gradually paint a picture of someone who is in part desperate for attention and tacceptance and in part a fairly smart, well-to-do young adult. He parlays his sociopathy at pubescence into psychopathy with time, and this film will likely be, but should definitely not be, forgotten come awards and Best Of lists time.(available On Demand and DVD)

6. Black Panther As Oscar season comes to a head, it is worth talking about one of the most striking films that you’ll see for a while. Black Panther is that good, not only because of its genre but also because of its message: that seeking freedom through recreating systems of oppression will only extend the ill-treatment and broken nature we find ourselves in nowadays. Set in the fictional African nation of Wakanda, protagonist King T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman) brings us the first real black superhero from the Marvel universe. With a cast including Lupita Nyong’o, Angela Bassett, Forest Whitaker and Michael B Jordan, the acting is beyond impressive. What is even more amazing, however, is how the plot power-plays many elements of our world’s current political climate. (now available On Demand and DVD)

5. Chappaquiddick Another film which is nothing short of striking in its relevance to the current political situation in the USA. Senator Ted Kennedy was the only remaining Kennedy that I was familiar with throughout my adolescence and early adulthood. Jason Clarke as the Massachusetts senator is astounding, as is the cut of his jib and chin, although the accent was a tad weak, to be ever sincere. This is a complete revelation on the many details that were only gingerly touched upon during the course of the week following the death which this movie is detailing . As the facts are laid out in the film, it astounds me that the American people continued to vote and elect Kennedy for decades after. This is a study on arrogance, class and governmental ambiguity. And if that was the case with liberals in the Sixties, how much more so with conservatives in this digital age? My favourite film of last year’s BCN Film Festival. (now available On Demand and DVD)

4. Private Life Good Lawd this is such a heartwarming/breaking story with the finest elements of believable comedy and situational realism that define the art of the classic Gen X film from the 90s to now. May we never forget that it was Gen, and even those a few years before them, who gave us the digiverse-Netflix-instant oatmeal www.orld in which we live today and when I see a very NYC film like this one, it makes it a true reality check. Being the age that one should be married with kids, I watched Kathryn Hahn as Rachel absolutely slay the silver screen and am eager to see if she picks up any more accolades throughout the current awards season. Simple plot…she’s in her early 40s and her hubby Rich (played by Paul Giamatti) is entering his late 40s and they are fully entrenched within the confines of every single way to conceive a baby. Following the couple through their trials and tribulations really get pushed up an ante when sort-of relative Sadie (the lovely Kayli Carter) decides she will be the surrogate mum for them as things get a tad pear-shaped. This could easily be dubbed a dreamed, for in effect, it is; what needs to be known is that this is also a morality tale for a new age. The old-fashioned ethics of yesteryear just do not apply anymore, at least not in big cities, and the less is more factor easily makes this one of the finest films released within the last year. (available on Netflix)

3. BlacKKKlansman Without a doubt, this is the finest work in all too many years by Spike Lee, and he takes no prisoners in letting you know that the spilled essence of blaxploitation all over this celluloid is to egg you into knowing that this story is 100% true…and crazy. The mere fact that David Duke is literally cheerleading for the current President of the United States should scare us all and wake those who are not. Watching actor John David Washington portray Ron Stallworth, the real-life cop who slyly infiltrated the inner workings of the Klu Klux Klan 40 years ago. After signing up for the Colorado Spring PD, he realises the lack of trust in the 98% Anglo-Saxon workforce, as he’s thrown into monitoring the goings-on of any Black Panther student situations. Eventually, he takes up with a guy on the force that he can dig called Flip and played to skilled excellence by the oddest of lookers Adam Driver. Basically, the plot follows the twosome, as they tag team the aforementioned white supremacist movement, Ron being the voice and Flip being the wingman as they start an investigation on grand wizard bastard himself David Duke, played to troubling perfection by Topher Grace, evoking all of the calmness and utter sociopathic tendencies of a man reviled by most yet revered by still too many. And watching this taut film and how it rolls through such a daunting story with comedic aplomb and vicious realness gives you goosebumps. That said, as the film gets toward its ending, is when Lee gives you the goods when he flashes to scenes from the crazy Charlottesville, Virginia, riots, AntiFa protesting and subsequent death of Heather Heyer, may she rest in peace. God Save the World…and Amerikkka.

2. Fahrenheit 11/9 Premiering a few weeks ago here in Spain at very select cinema screens across the country, this is the first documentary in some time by Michael Moore that could play across an international landscape and should be required viewing on any critic’s or person’s list. The titular oddity refers to the day after we all woke up across the world in shock and awe that Donald J Trump had won the Presidency of the USA. Even if this is not Morre’s best film to date, it is undoubtedly the one that holds the viewers’ feet to the fire and calls for them to fight the nasty funk of this administration. But, it’s when he takes it back to his roots, to Flint, Michigan, and ends up involving all local and state politics, that we start to see the more sinister undertakings happening amongst conservative parties, ideals and societies. When you add in the fact of the Parkland High School shooting and the way Moore later fuses footage of Hitler and his minions and followers with a rally speech made by the current occupant of the White House, it becomes all too obvious that things are exactly as we think they are (A HOT MESS!) and we have very little recourse rather than claiming truth. (now available On Demand and DVD)

1. ROMA There are tender moments of realism that are permitted to happen with the rise of instant cinema on VOD and direct-to-home films, and it has been a pleasure to see that sites like Netflix and Amazon and Canal+ have truly added to the foray in which great celluloid can be brought to the masses. Case in point comes the finest piece of dramatic celluloid that graced the silver screen in the last year. Being a Mexican whose father is a naturalised citizen of the US and a mother who is Chicana from the US, like myself and my siblings, the sentimentality ran deep with this film. One of the differences I experienced was the fact that we were the only Mexican-American family in a stately US country club…and we had an entire childhood spent with loving housekeepers, which is what this film inherently is honouring and depicting, using the backdrop of Alfonso Cuarón’s take on growing up in 70s-upper middle class Mexico City in the neighbourhood of Roma. Depicting the life of the house assistant Cleo (first-time performer Yalitza Aparicio in a J.Hud moment, frankly) and the family of Sr. Antonio (Fernando Grediaga), a doctor in the Mexican capital, what Cuarón has called his most personal film to date, is also a B&W modern tale in the vein of Gone with the Wind, and the fact that he centres around a privileged Mexican family is poignant for several reasons: it not only takes a focus away from how Donald bloody Trump has painted Mexicans, in general, to the world, but it also highlights a very human element to how many classes of society function and live there in the frontier regions of North America and, more importantly, EVERYWHERE…easily put, this is a sweet, oft-times simple, oft-times brutal story on humanity. What binds so many critics together on this film’s merits is that fact that Alfonso Cuarón has crafted the past year’s most enigmatic movie, leaving us to make our own answers to what happens to Lady Cleo, her best mate Teresa, and this beautiful family. Absolutely and quietly stunning! (available on Netflix and selects screens across the country)

#abitterlifethroughcinema #BCNinEnglish #englishradiobcn #overlord #theballadofbusterscruggs #eighth grade #elangel #a star is born #blackpanther #chappaquiddick #privatelife #Blackkklansman #fahrenheit119 #roma film #LucasAvramCavazos

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thefilmsnob · 4 years ago

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Glen Coco’s Top 10 Films of 2020

This has been the weirdest damn year for film--and basically everything else--we’ve ever witnessed. Theatres closed, re-opened, then closed again; dozens of films were postponed, and no one knew where to watch the ones that weren’t. I didn’t see nearly as many films as I usually do and, even so, the selection was relatively underwhelming. Nevertheless, there were still some good pictures released, so, as always, I’m sharing my top ten films of 2020 plus a bonus track...there’s always a bonus track.

#10b. (Bonus Track) Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make Benefit Once Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan

Director: Jason Woliner

Starring: Sacha Baron Cohen, Maria Bakalova

On the surface, Sacha Baron Cohen’s characters may seem utterly absurd and childish--and maybe they are--but, the genius behind them is their ability to reveal the ignorance of the people he encounters and make you question where the true absurdity lies. Cohen accomplishes this yet again, even if this sequel isn’t quite as fresh as its 2006 predecessor. Yet, in the United States of 2020, ravaged as much by asinine politicians, disgraceful racism and dangerous conspiracy theories as by the actual Covid pandemic, Borat is an entirely welcome presence. He makes all the right people look as wrong as they should, especially former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani who’s caught red-handed in a compromising position opposite a very young girl, thus exacerbating his epic fall from grace while reaffirming Cohen’s brilliance.

#10. Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

Director: George C. Wolfe

Starring: Viola Davis, Chadwick Boseman

Despite my initial ambivalence, this movie has lingered in my mind for months and that’s always a good sign. Set almost entirely in one location, a 1920s Chicago recording studio, and focusing heavily on a group of musicians shooting the breeze in its basement while their demanding singer talks business with the big wigs upstairs, seemingly nothing much happens and, yet, everything happens; dreams are envisioned, pain is recalled, ideas are shared and, of course, music is made. Those elements are enhanced by the film’s stellar technical features from the production design, to the costumes to the hair & makeup. Yet, it’s the performers who steal the show, which is expected from Viola Davis but a pleasant surprise from Chadwick Boseman who, sadly, gives his final performance. The late actor saved his best for last playing a young trumpeter whose ambitions are constantly hindered by his inability to let go of his tragic past.

#9. The Way Back

Director: Gavin O’Connor

Starring: Ben Affleck

For those of you with the misconception that Ben Affleck is a bad actor, you might want to watch The Way Back in which he plays a former high school basketball star and current alcoholic who’s dealing with the death of his child and separation from his wife when he’s asked to coach his former team. Sure, this covers familiar ground, but it does so better than similar films, finessing the more predictable aspects, adding some welcome touches and treating the subject matter with the respect and seriousness it deserves. The basketball takes a backseat to the character drama here, so the film’s quality relies heavily on the performance of Affleck which might be his best to date; he makes his character’s inebriation so convincing you can practically smell the beer on his breath. And you hope to God he gets the help he so desperately needs.

Full Review: https://thefilmsnob.tumblr.com/post/613090953214001152/the-way-back-12-out-of-5

#8. News of the World

Director: Paul Greengrass

Starring: Tom Hanks, Helena Zengel

This is a film we need right now for several reasons, not least of which being we get to spend two hours with ‘America’s Dad’ Tom Hanks, a decent, honourable man playing another decent, honourable man in 1870 who encounters a strange young girl on the road near an overturned wagon and promises to return her to her remaining family. With Hanks’s character Jefferson Kidd traveling from town to town reading the newspaper for its citizens, this is also a timely film, stressing the importance of a free and fair press as opposed to the propaganda that saturated the Trump administration and his favourite news outlet. An unusually--yet refreshingly--straightforward and old-fashioned Western for 2020, its highlights include a climactic exchange between adult and child, made so effectively tender with such minimal effort by Hanks, as well as a meticulously crafted chase and shootout sequence at the halfway point, directed with optimal tension and clarity by the great Paul Greengrass.

#7. Nomadland

Director: Chloe Zhao

Starring: Frances McDormand

It’s about time we start including Frances McDormand in lists of greatest actors. In Nomadland, in which she plays a wanderer of sorts who’s lost her husband to cancer and her company town to a poor economy, her performance transcends labels like ‘realistic’ or ‘natural’ and arrives at a place that doesn’t feel like performance at all. She blends in seamlessly with a cast of real nomads playing themselves, living out of vans in the western US, as unconstrained by societal norms as the film itself is by conventional story arcs. We want to see this minimalist lifestyle, which includes seasonal Amazon warehouse gigs and long nights in a freezing cold van, as depressing or unfulfilling, but writer/director/producer/editor (Jesus!) Chloe Zhao dares us to admire both the freedom and sense of community formed among this nomadic subculture. Cinematographer Joshua James Richards also plays with our expectations, bathing the screen in soothing blues and purples, transforming the unremarkable landscape into a thing of beauty.

#6. Da 5 Bloods

Director: Spike Lee

Starring: Delroy Lindo, Clarke Peters, Isiah Whitlock Jr., Norm Lewis

In Da 5 Bloods, writer/director Spike Lee deviates from his usual urban American setting to explore the tropical forests of Vietnam, but his focus remains fixed on the African American experience, their plight and search for justice. His subjects are a group of Vietnam War vets who reunite in present day Ho Chin Minh City to retrieve a cache of gold bars left behind some 50 years prior, originally part of a political transaction, as we see in appropriately grainy 4:3 full screen flashbacks. The reason for this mission is more righteous than a simple payday, but Lee refuses to paint these complex characters with the same brush--there’s even a MAGA in the bunch!--nor does he oversimplify the film’s profound issues. A genre-defying work, Da 5 Bloods is a character study, social commentary, war picture and action/adventure flick all rolled into one with some truly shocking developments and one of the finest casts of the year. How Delroy Lindo was denied an Oscar nomination for his volatile performance is beyond me.

#5. Promising Young Woman

Director: Emerald Fennell

Starring: Carey Mulligan, Bo Burnham, Alison Brie

In one of the most unique films of the year, Carey Mulligan delivers a brave, bold and beautiful performance as Cassie, a woman with a tragic past who spends her weekends at the club pretending to be blackout drunk, only to shame and humiliate the sleazy men who try to take advantage. Writer/director Emerald Fennell does a masterful job at peeling back the layers of this dark revenge tale ever so gradually to reveal Cassie’s true motives while rebuking, not just society’s abhorrent offenders, but those enablers and silent bystanders who try to hide behind a flimsy shroud of innocence. Benefiting from one of the sharpest screenplays of the year and a fitting score, Promising Young Woman never ceases to ramp up the tension, a strategy that culminates in a shocking final sequence which is at once disturbing and satisfying. It’ll all leave you guessing until the final, brilliant shot.

#4. The Invisible Man

Director: Leigh Whannell

Starring: Elisabeth Moss, Aldis Hodge, Storm Reid

Originally conceived as part of the ill-fated ‘Dark Universe’--Universal Pictures’ planned movie franchise featuring its classic monsters--and starring Johnny Depp, The Invisible Man was drastically retooled and produced as a stand-alone film with a modernized story. And like so many horror projects of the last decade, it’s refreshingly inspired and well-crafted with a deeper purpose than merely spooking its audience, though it succeeds at that as well. Writer/director Leigh Whannell uses this movie and the fearless performance of the great Elisabeth Moss to examine abusive partners and their persistent hold on their lovers-turned-victims long after the relationship has collapsed. Moss is stunning as usual, portraying an already traumatized woman trying desperately to convince everyone she’s not going crazy as well, even though that’s exactly how it looks. Equally impressive is the restraint by the filmmakers who use the ‘invisible’ effects sparingly yet strategically, creatively and, ultimately, very effectively, making every scare plausible and entirely earned.

#3. Sound of Metal

Director: Darius Marder

Starring: Riz Ahmed, Olivia Cooke, Paul Raci

In a world in which people are complaining about losing their freedom because they have to wear a simple mask to save lives, it’s good to see a film that shows what real loss looks like. If you can’t imagine being a heavy metal drummer who suddenly goes deaf, writer/director Darius Marder spells it out for you in big, bold, sorrow-inducing letters. He’s aided by Riz Ahmed giving possibly the best performance of the year as a man who, on the surface, tries desperately to hold on to his life and passion while, deep down, he knows that’s impossible. Sound of Metal is a tender and heartbreaking yet hopeful story, but what’s even more effective than the film’s dramatic presentation is its remarkable sound design. At times, characters sign to each other amidst ambient noise. Other times, the sound is muffled as if we’re putting our ears up to a wall and hearing a fraction of the dialogue from the other side. And, less frequently, when Ruben’s condition is at its worst, we hear nothing at all. Just complete and terrifying silence…which speaks volumes.

Full Review: https://thefilmsnob.tumblr.com/post/647329085467574272/sound-of-metal-out-of-5

#2. The Trial of the Chicago 7

Director: Aaron Sorkin

Starring: Mark Rylance, Eddie Redmayne, Sacha Baron Cohen, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Jeremy Strong, John Carroll Lynch, Frank Langella, Michael Keaton, etc, etc, etc...

Aaron Sorkin could write about two accountants conducting a routine audit and make it absolutely absorbing. So, imagine what he does with a courtroom drama about the volatile situation surrounding the 1968 Democratic National Convention and the group of anti-Vietnam War protestors accused of inciting riots at the event. Now an accomplished director too, Sorkin organizes all the moving pieces involved with style and grace while deploying his famously kinetic dialogue. With those lines coming from the mouths of his stellar cast, it’s hard not to hang on their every word and be invested completely in their struggle. I could listen to Mark Rylance’s showstopping line-reading of the simple phrase, “No, he doesn’t!”, all day and never get tired of it. Among its many achievements, The Trial of the Chicago 7 deftly navigates heavy topics like police brutality, unpopular wars and a corrupt justice system, showing just how little things have changed in the last 50 years.

#1. Palm Springs

Director: Max Barbakow

Starring: Cristin Milioti, Andy Samberg, J.K. Simmons

Anyone who knows me may be surprised by this pick, but here we are. Nothing makes sense these days. We’re all as confused and anxious about life as Sarah and Nyles are at a wedding in Palm Springs. Despite what the title suggests, the film doesn’t follow a group of horny teens getting up to shenanigans in the famous resort town, but if I describe the actual plot in depth, I may spoil the fun. I will say these characters seem to be reliving the same events over and over again. What’s so impressive about this film is that, although it repeats itself, it never feels repetitive. The twists and turns, the absurd hilarity blended with bracing poignancy, ensure our unwavering focus on this briskly paced little gem. Yet, it’s the irresistible chemistry between the two leads, played by the equally irresistible Cristin Milioti and Andy Samberg, that forms the glue that holds it all together, whether they’re pulling off childish pranks, discussing their unusual sex lives or debating the very meaning of life. I’m telling you, this movie has everything: comedy, drama, romance, science-fiction (?!), J.K. Simmons, several weddings, an inflatable pizza slice, dinosaurs, a crossbow and colourful beer cans and summer wear that seem destined to become iconic.

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secretradiobrooklyn · 4 years ago

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SECRET RADIO | 11.14.20

Secret Radio | 11.14.20 | Hear it here.

Artwork by Paige, liner notes by Evan except * for Paige

1. The Wizard of Oz - “Ding Dong” Suite

We were looking for a proper song to get this party started, and damned if it didn’t involve a bunch of delighted munchkins! As much as our hopes for the coming years are muted, the relief at not having to contend with a headlong dictator enjoying full-on democratic support just cannot be overstated. DING DONG Y’ALL!

2. David Bowie - “Look Back in Anger”

I’ve been practicing drums a ton during the pandemic, and I just realized that I’m going to have to spend some time trying to get at this pattern. It’s some of my favorite drumming ever, from one of my top 20 albums ever. In fact, this comes from a very special edition of Lodger, via Brian McClelland, wherein Tony Visconti took the original tapes and completely remixed the album as he always felt it should have been mixed if they weren’t be rushed. To someone who has listened to that record many many times, it sounds like I’ve been next door the album all this time, and I’m finally allowed into the room where it’s playing. So clear and focused and modern!

3. Frank Alamo - “Ma Biche”

A “biche” is a doe, we believe. “It’s something about ‘pretty eyes,’” Paige says, “which would make sense.” Further research, though, reveals that the song is about how much he likes her pretty dark eyeliner. I know the feeling!

4. (Not) Rom JongVak - “Monkey”

Well, this has been a learning process. There’s this great song that I thought was called “Twist (Dance Twist)” by Rom Jong Vak, that we played like a month ago — and then tonight I thought I was playing “Monkey,” by Rom JongVak. Buuut, as I look further, I’m learning that the first song was “Rom Jong Vak Twist,” by Pan Ron… And the song here is I guess called “Rom Jong Vak Monkey,” and I have no idea who it’s by! All of the text on the page is in just boxes where Cambodian text would go, so it’s bound to remain lost. Whoever it is, I sure do enjoy that first aggressive drum fill and the whole weird texture of this recording.

5. Luiz Visconde - “Chofer de Praça”

Paige: “The first times that I listened to this Angolan collection, I really just listened to Os Kiezos, because they did “Muxima.” But then I eventually spread out and found this song. It’s from Angola, between ’65 and ’75.”

6. The Velvet Underground - “European Son”

P: We would go to the Beechwood a little bar around the corner from us in Wicker Park, down the street off Milwaukee Avenue. They had a real jukebox, not a TuneBlast or whatever. It was just a great little dive. They had this record in the jukebox, and we would always put on this song. I suppose that could have been read as an aggressive thing to do, but we’d put on other songs too! It was a good way to stretch your quarters, and it loosens the bar up. And I figured, if they didn’t like this song they wouldn’t put it in the jukebox.

Once when we were there on a busy weekend night, something was wrong with the jukebox. It was broken. And the bartender opened it up and put like a hundred bucks on it and said, “Everybody play whatever you want, three songs each. It was awesome. Everybody did take turns too, three songs each, all around the bar. It was a really cool night.

7. Fred Astaire - “No Strings (I’m Fancy Free)”

What a lovely piano intro! This song is from the 1935 film “Top Hat.” It’s one of those movies where the clever protagonist pursues a girl he has a crush on — or terrorizes a stranger until she submits to his will, depending on whose perspective you take. There are a lot of those — “An American in Paris” is another — and they’re fascinating to watch just by flipping that switch back and forth in your own head. Meanwhile, both movies are chock full of beautiful shots, fabulous scenes, gorgeous songs, and glowing stars.

Something about the quality of this recording — a new master or something? — makes it sound like it was JUST recorded. It feels so alive and contemporary, with a lovely little vibrophone solo in the middle. I just

Martial Solal, “Breathless” soundtrack - “L’amour, la mort”

Note: I remember this story in the reverse, where the truckers announced this gleefully to each other as they marched merrily OUT the door and into the late afternoon, headed towards… what? Whatever it is, I hope they found it and everyone had a great time.

8. Johnny Hallyday - “Nous quand on s’embrasse”

Have you seen “The Wild One”? Can’t you see how much trouble could have been avoided if those leathered-up motorcycle dudes were able to rock out to songs like this one instead of trying to jazz their way forward? They should have been twisting the night away! Alas, instead they had to tear up bars and beat people up to get their kicks. Tough break, kid.

9. Lokassa Ya M’bongo - “Bonne année”

I found this while searching for something else, but it was labeled “l’Instant Vinyl” in the same format as our Assa-Cica record, so had to check it out. M’bongo is a Congolese guitarist — a rhythm guitarist specifically, which doesn’t normally get the love that lead guitar gets in this soukous form. Lokassa Ya M’bongo means “Lokassa the money man,” and he became a session man in demand. He was a big part of the “Congolo-Paris sound,” a phrase I just read that I’m going to have to look more into.

Bonne année indeed! Still feeling that relief about hopefully getting out from under the thumb of that giant dummy.

10. Velly Joonas - “Stopp, Seisku Aeg!”

The image of Velly Joonas is pretty heart-stopping: she’s absolutely beautiful, in giant glasses and a striped shirt. The song is so confident and strange in its instrumentation, with keys, organ, fiddle, and a super-tight bass/drum combo. I feel like this could have been a big US underground hit in the ‘90s.

11. Eko Roosevelt - “Kilimandjaro”

Such a sincere song! Eko Roosevelt is kind of hit and miss with me, but when they hit, they get completely stuck in my head! The horn parts on “Me To a De Try My Own” do that to me, and so does the eternal chorus of this song. I love the notes in the bridge as they drop further and further down the scale like they’re descending from the mountaintop. And when he gets to the declarations of love at the end — “I love you, my home! I really do, I really do!” — that’s it, that’s the best.

12. Tonetta - “Yummy Yummy Pizza”

I warn you: look up this video (after you listen to the “broadcast” of course) at your own peril. Not because it’s terrible, but because it is fascinating, and it is just one of SO many. They tease you with tiny shreds of information about this Tonetta person, but never enough that you can get a sense of what the hell is going on with… him? Them? Maybe ask Matt and Brian from Tok about it — they got obsessed enough to record an EP of Tonetta songs, which is how I heard about this all in the first place.

13. Prewar Yardsale - “AU Base”

Paige: I was loading a five-disc changer at Jeffrey’s and something about the cover, the name sounded interesting. I put it on and it’s pretty freakin rad. It stood up to my blind listen expectations. I think this is produced by our friend Matt Mason.

14. Eugenius - “Mary Queen of Scots”

Matt Mason and Jeffrey Lewis make me think of Schwervon!, which makes me think of the Vaselines who they toured with several times, and that brings me to Eugenius, headed by Eugene Kelly. This was a mainstay in Sean’s room when we all lived together, singing the harmonies and air-drumming along. It remains as satisfying as ever, I’m happy to say.

15. Wednesday Campanella - “Aladdin”

This song is sung in Japanese, not that you’d know from context clues. Tim Gebauer introduced us to this strange Japanese shapeshifter. It was hard to tell if I liked her music or was just amazed by her videos (which you should totally check out). Now I believe it’s safe to say we dig this song. I like how many elements of ‘70s international disco it has, while still sounding super modern. What is weirder to me is that I cannot tell if I would like this song if it was sung in English.

Breathless soundtrack

16. Letti Mbulu - “Mahlalela”

Originally South African, Mbulu managed to escape to the US in 1965 and had a hell of a career. She worked with Cannonball Adderley, Hugh Masakela, Harry Belafonte and Michael Jackson. Quincy Jones said this amazing thing about her: “Mbulu is the roots lady, projecting a sophistication and warmth which stirs hope for attaining pure love, beauty, and unity in the world.” Um, that’s really impressive.

17. Christophe - “Aline”

*Really dig this song, partially I think because it’s in a decent range for me to sing along. I love his desperate delivery and tone of voice. We just learned tonight that Christophe passed away this year at 74 after complications with COVID-19.

18. Zap Mama - “Brrlak!”

Credit to my dad, Larry Sult, for bringing Zap Mama to our attention. He’s been heavily into marimba music, and played in a marimba band in Bellingham for many years; in fact, he spent many years making the instruments for the band in his woodshop in the basement of their home. Zap Mama is adjacent to that music, though certainly very different. This band comes from all over the world. The main gal was born in &&&&& but found herself in a Pygmy society for awhile, which seems to be where she developed some of those low-high yodels. We saw some footage of her playing, and she did this awesome thing where she held empty airplane bottles just below her lips as she sang, creating a resonance that you can hear here. I love that this whole composition is a cappella.

19. The Buzzards - “High Society”

Years ago, I was whiling away my time in Seattle and stopped into Orpheum Records, right there at the corner where Broadway turns into 10th Ave E. After a half hour of flipping through records I had to know what all the killer albums were that had been playing overhead. Turns out they were all from “The Sympathetic Sounds of Detroit,” a collection of Detroit bands put out by Sympathy for the Record Industry. It was recorded by Jack White and Jim Diamond and it’s full of topshelf tracks, but after all the years, this is the one that we turn out to actually enjoy, and quote, the most.

As far as I could tell, there isn’t a version of this song anywhere online, which I personally find disGRACEful!

20. Sleepy Kitty - “Buzzards & Dreadful Crows”

My favorite part of this recording is that I got to sing a couple of guitar parts that I reflexively sing along to on the original.

*This was from a 20th anniversary of “Bee Thousand” tribute show, and we made this recording with Jason Hutto at this studio off Cherokee Street and we recorded a couple others that we did that night. A small run of screenprinted downloads were made.

Teddy Afro, “Mar Eske Tuwa” credit music

21. Ata Kak - “Moma Yendodo”

Some corrections to what I said in the broadcast: Ata Kak is indeed Ghanian, but I think he might have recorded this in Germany. His is a fascinating little story of determination. This recording comes from a tape that he made about 50 copies of total. It was found by Brian from Awesome Tapes From Africa at a roadside stand in Ghana. He loved it so much that he spent years trying to track Ata Kak down. When he finally did, they found that the original master tapes were all ruined, and Brian’s copy was the only one that they could make a new version from! So that’s what you’re hearing here.

22. Spoon - “30 Gallon Tank”

Early Spoon is some of my favorite music ever. This is from “A Series of Sneaks,” an album that changed my life pretty much as soon as I heard it. Harvey Danger stopped at a lot of record stores on tour, and at one of them I managed to stumble upon both “A Series of Sneaks” and (I think) Guv’ner’s “Spectral Worship” — what a day! I put this album on in headphones in the van and just listened over and over and over again. Eventually, when our manager announced that we should spend a few weeks between radio festivals headlining a tour with a couple of support acts and asked if we had any ideas, I had a list with Spoon on top and Creeper Lagoon right below that. The tour that resulted was rough for Spoon — they’d just been dropped by their label and were having an understandably rough time — but a fucking thrill for me, because I got to see one of my favorite bands each night. That still stands as one of the absolute highlights of my time in Harvey Danger. Jim Eno is one of the top drummers in my pantheon because he’s such a great composer for the song, and Britt Daniels plays guitar the way I truly wish I did — which he did at the time all on distorted acoustic guitar!

23. Patrick Coutin - “Fais-moi jouir”

*I meant to put on a different Patrick Coutin song but put this one on by accident and I was like, this is cool, and then I was like “I think he’s saying. . .I think this is pretty. . . explicit. Like Serge and Jane cranked.” As far as I can tell, it definitely is. They don’t teach you these words on Duolingo though. Ha!

24. Dur Dur Band - “Yabaal”

I mean no disrespect to Dur Dur Band when I say that we didn’t dig the first several songs we heard by them, but this song is undeniable. The groove just digs in and doesn’t stop for anything.

25. Mel Brooks - “High Anxiety”

We’re stepping out on a mixed emotional note, but: we’re not out of the woods yet. I hope we can get through the next couple of months as a nation peacefully and productively, but Paige and I are both in a state of high anxiety about what still seems to be happening daily. Stay safe!

*yet staying optimistic! ’Cause we gotta. À plus tard!

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booksbakingandblogging · 5 years ago

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It’s time to step up and do the work to eradicate racism. That’s an abrupt start to a blog post, but it’s also the truth and one that we shouldn’t ignore any longer. Over the past week, protests have erupted all over the world in response to the murder of George Floyd, and it doesn’t look like they’re stopping any time soon – and with good reason. Black people have been faced with racism every day for centuries and they are tired of it. Of course they are. It’s a gross injustice and it’s taking human lives. This isn’t a political issue – it’s a human rights issue, and we need to stop looking away and face it. We live in a world with systemic racism, where Black people (and people of colour in general) face microaggressions every single day. Racism is a system created by white people, so it will need to be dismantled by white people as well. Let’s stand up, and get to work (follow this link to find out how you can help).

That was my little speech. Now, let’s get down to specifics of this post: we need to educate ourselves. A lot of people (myself included) have been too ignorant about racism for a long time, and in order to be able to help, we need to learn. Part of that is reading books by Black authors, both fiction and non-fiction. Fiction can teach us empathy and it can create understanding, which is extremely important. On the other hand, non-fiction faces us with our history and everything that’s going on in the world in concrete terms. Let’s educate ourselves and read books by Black authors. Not just the ones that tell us about pain and trauma, but also the ones about joy and happiness. We need to learn, and this is a good way to do it. Plus, by reading more Black authors, we’re giving off a sign to the publishing industry that books by Black authors are wanted and cherished.

10 books by Black authors to read right now

While putting together this list, I realised that I can do much better myself as well: I need to read more books by Black authors too. Luckily, there are tons of other people out there making lists of books by Black authors, so I’ve found many books to add to my TBR already. I recommend checking out these two lists by Chapters of May and Electric Lit, too. If you’re looking for more non-fiction resources, including articles, films and podcasts, you can check out this list!

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1. The Hate U Give – Angie Thomas (2017)

Let’s start with the most obvious one first given the current situation. If you’re a fan of YA and haven’t read this yet: what are you doing? This novel tells the story of Starr, a Black girl who sees her best friend be murdered by the police right in front of her eyes. It deals with the aftermath of this traumatic and terrible event, as Starr struggles with what happened while having to see her friend be talked about all over the media. At the same time, it’s also a story about Starr as a teenage girl, and her loving family. This book was inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement and it’s extremely important. I’m happy to say that it’s a bestseller and has sold millions of copies.

2. Such a Fun Age – Kiley Reid (2019)

In Such a Fun Age, our 25-year-old Black protagonist Emira works as a babysitter for a white family, caring for three-year-old Briar. The story kicks off when Emira is apprehended by a security guard in a grocery store because he thinks she has kidnapped Briar. The book deals with racism and white privilege and it’s a very eye-opening read. I learned a lot from it in terms of unintentional racism (remember: impact is more important than intent). Plus, the writing is phenomenal. I can’t wait to read more by this debut author.

3. A Different Drummer – William Melvin Kelley (1962)

I read this book last month, and it’s the best book I’ve read in a long time (read my full review here). It is a literary masterpiece: stylistically brilliant and a story that takes on epic proportions. On a random day in 1957, in a fictional state in the deep south of the USA, the entire Black population decides to leave. They pack their things and leave the state, fed up with its racist history and the way they are being treated by the white population. The story is told through the perspective of this white population that is left behind and it is so incredibly powerful. William Melvin Kelley was described as ‘the lost giant of American literature’. Why was he forgotten? Let’s just say it: it was most likely because of racism. Go read this book!

4. Let’s Talk About Love – Claire Kann (2018)

June is also pride month, so I want to add at least one LGBTQIA+ book to this list. Alice is a Black, biromantic, asexual girl in college and she is done with dating after her girlfriend breaks up with her for being asexual. But then Takumi becomes her new co-worker at the library she works at, and she can’t stop thinking about him. This novel explores asexuality in such a wonderful way and I thoroughly enjoyed it and learned a lot from it. I’d highly recommend picking it up!

5. There Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyoncé – Morgan Parker (2017)

Let’s throw some poetry in the mix! In this collection, Morgan Parker explores what it’s like to be a Black American woman in the 21st century. She uses pop-culture and political references as her framework and doesn’t shy away from important and difficult topics such a depression, isolation, and exoticism. Thought-provoking and confronting, this is an essential collection for anyone who is into modern poetry.

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6. Dear Martin – Nic Stone (2017)

In Dear Martin, main character Justyce tries to do everything ‘right’: get good grades, dress appropriately, and be an all-around upstanding citizen. Nevertheless, when he tries to help out his drunk ex-girlfriend, he is arrested by a (racist) white cop, and he realises he cannot escape racial profiling from the institution that is meant to protect him. He feels a lot of frustration and anger at this realisation and decides to try and apply the teachings of Martin Luther King Jr. He begins to write letters to MLK as he tries to find his place in the world, dealing with white privileged, racist assholes (let’s just say it as it is) and police brutality. Another book that taught me so, so much.

7. Why I’m No Longer Talking To White People About Race – Reni Eddo-Lodge (2017)

This is the only book on this list that I haven’t read in its entirety – but I’m in the middle of it and I am learning an awful lot about racism and white privilege in Britain. For those of you who think that racism is only a big problem in the USA: think again, and read this. Reni Eddo-Lodge didn’t plan on writing this book; she wrote a blog post with the same title, explaining that whenever she talked to white people about racism, she encountered skeptical stares and people unwilling to learn. Wanting to protect herself from that in the future, she vowed to stop talking about racism to white people. The response to the blog post was so enormous, however, that she ended up writing this book. It’s been on my radar for a few years now, but I’m ashamed to admit that it apparently took an uprising for me to get up off my lazy ass and actually read this, and educate myself. I urge you to do the same!

8. Children of Blood and Bone – Tomi Adeyemi (2018)

More of a fantasy reader? No problem, I’ve got a recommendation for that as well, even though fantasy is a notoriously white genre. Children of Blood and Bone is a YA fantasy novel based on West African mythology. It tells the story of a land in which magic has disappeared. When that happened, the king ordered all maji to be murdered. The children of these maji remain alive, though, but they become outcasts. They have darker skin than the rest of the population and are judged and discriminated against because of it (sound familiar?). The novel tells the story of Zélie, who finds herself with a chance to bring magic back, but has to race against the clock to do so. This is a YA fantasy story that has an all-black cast of character and explores and condemns racism: such an important addition to the genre.

9. With the Fire on High – Elizabeth Acevedo (2019)

This book tells the story of Emoni, who lives with her grandmother and is still in high school – but also has a young daughter to take care of. Emoni loves to cook, and the novel is filled with delicious descriptions of food and some of the recipes Emoni creates from scratch, which I always love in a book. It also deals with all the prejudice Emoni encounters as a Black teenage mother, however, and how it differs from how her daughter’s white teenage father is treated. Sexism and racism are both explored, but this novel is also a wonderful coming of age story as Emoni tries to figure out what she wants to do with her life.

10. The Sun Is Also a Star – Nicola Yoon (2016)

Spanning one single day in New York, this YA novel deals with racism and immigration, but it’s also a story of two people falling in love. Natasha has one day before her family will be deported to Jamaica, and she is desperate to find a way to stay in the USA. In the meantime, Korean-American Daniel is on his way to his college admission interview. They meet by chance and they spend one day together, Daniel wanting to fall in love and Natasha feeling the absolute opposite. I learned a lot about both of these two characters’ cultures and about what it is like to be an immigrant in the USA. As far as learning about other perspectives goes, this is a very good book to pick up.

With everything that's going on in the world, I wanted to do my part to raise some awareness and hopefully help educate some people. Here are 10 great books by Black authors to pick up and read today! It's time to step up and do the work to eradicate racism. That's an abrupt start to a blog post, but it's also the truth and one that we shouldn't ignore any longer.

#Black Lives Matter #Books #List #Novels #Reading #Recommendations

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thepilgrimgeek · 5 years ago

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Imperialism and Exceptionalism in the MCU: Major Spoilers for Avengers Endgame

It’s Academy Award season! And once again, the Academy has limited blockbuster movie nominations to visual effects and similar production awards. Never mind the whole of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is an unprecedented feat of cinema. In honor of its nomination for visual effects, here is my deep dive into the climax of the third phase of the MCU, Avengers: Endgame. I had a blast watching Avengers: Endgame. Overall, I thought the film delivered, and served up everything that the best of comic book crossovers have to offer. I loved the Iconic stills and panels galore (such as that shot with all the female heroes. I do enjoy pandering in my comic book movies. Sue me). I cheered for the fun character moments (like Cap with Mjonir or Doc Green or anything with Scott Lang). And they went full sci-fi comic-booky goodness with continuity-choking, flimsily-orchestrated time travel. Furthermore, the the original team’s individual character arcs were tied up with varying degrees of tidiness. Not too shabby, Marvel. Not too shabby. However, Marvel Studios did solidify one thematic element that it never fully committed to, and it solidified in the direction I was hoping would not be the case. In Avengers: Endgame, Marvel Studios definitively illustrated that the ends justify the means, and exceptionalism belongs to the heroes. In Iron Man’s final moments, with an admittedly badass “I am Iron Man,” the hero who started the MCU snaps his Infinity Gauntlet clad fingers, and eradicates Thanos and his time-traveling space army (I warned you about spoilers). Iron Man uses the Infinity Gauntlet, essentially a weapon of mass destruction, to bring about victory. He uses the same weapon used by Thanos to bring unprecedented devastation at the finale of Infinity War. And with that endgame snap, Marvel Studios makes the statement that the problem isn’t the existence of WMDs, it is who uses them. And for that, I am disappointed. Marvel Studios has flirted with the ethics of exceptionalism, feigning to examine the military conduct of empires and the powers they employ. Ultimately, the MCU devolved in its exploration imperial ethics into a flashy violent victory that never calls into question a WMD’s very use. And it is a shame, because the first film had thoughts on that. Let’s journey through the MCU, shall we.

In 2008, Jon Favreau brought us Iron Man. It is the film that begins it all. Tony Stark, the callous billionaire playboy, is kidnapped by a terrorist cell following a demonstration of Stark Industries’ premier artillery, the Jericho. In captivity, Stark realizes that his company’s weapons are the very ones being sold to terrorist groups and used against the innocent. Following his escape, Stark works to move away from Stark Industries involvement in the US Military complex, and strive to focus more resources in the development of the clean energy. The MCU kicks off with a critical eye towards how the United States develops and trades weapons, making the third act’s villain a fitting climatic foe. Who pushes the hardest to build and sell weapons regardless of the outcome? Why Jeff Bridges’ Obadiah Stane, the Iron Monger. Phase 1 of the MCU sticks fairly close to this critical eye. The Incredible Hulk is hunted down by the US military so they can continue to use him for R&D as they develop their machine. Even Captain America is initially used as a propaganda star before being deployed in the fray of WWII. The question of how the US develops and employs its military resources is largely front and center. And then Phase 2 moves forward with hesitancy and reticence.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier was the Russo Brothers’ premier endeavor in the MCU, and it thrilled to no end. A phase and a half later, it still arguably remains the MCU film with the tightest plot and the best cinematography. However, the film sets itself up to be a critique of government surveillance in the name of security which, in 2014, was as timely as ever following the Snowden revelations of the previous year. Then the major plot twist of the film (albeit a fantastic one) shifts that critique on a dime. The reveal that HYDRA had been infiltrating SHEILD for decades and into its top tiers of administration comes the revelation that the expanded surveillance measures being pushed are part of a fanatical Nazi-remnant conspiracy. One could argue the ethical issue presented in Winter Soldier becomes moot because it was never truly a “US initiative” in the first place. Captain America’s suspicion and claims of what is “un-American” are shown to be just that: ploys from outside interests and foreign powers (sorta). Joss Whedon’s Avengers: Age of Ultron is blip on the radar. Stark wants to increase global security. Capt adamantly disagrees. There’s a virus that creates Ultron. Chaos ensues. Stark kind of looks like a failure. It seems in that moment that Stark’s desire for increased surveillance (oddly similar to the HYDRA conspiracy in Winter Soldier) is proven misplaced. The Russo Brothers continue to play with that thread in Captain America: Civil War. The Sokovia Accords place the Avengers under United Nations oversight and require the registration of individuals with enhanced abilities. Stark, who is continually trying to find effective ways to save the world (and protect it from… well… the Avengers) signs without hesitation. Steve Rogers has his ethical qualms, but the story soon forgets the Accords as it becomes far more focused on the capture of Bucky Barnes, as well as the assassination of Tony’s father Howard Stark. The tensions between Captain America and Iron Man coming to a head monopolize the run time. By the film’s final act, the Sokovia Accords are all but forgotten, and with it the ethical question of government control and oversight.

Phase 3 did bring some note worthy films that rub against this trend (a trend arguably strongest in the work of the Russos). Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 2 and Thor: Ragnarok wrestle with the legacy of colonialism. Starlord learns he is the son of Ego the living planet. Ego took a sexual partner on every world he visited in the interest of planting a literal seed to consume and transform that world. Thor is faced with the reality that Asgard, the kingdom to which he is heir, was built upon the violent conquest of other realms and the exploitation of his older, imprisoned sister Hera. Ragnarok’s final moments are poignant. The only way to save the people of Asgard and defeat Hera is to literally burn down the system and structures that were built by his father Odin. Taika Waititi has crafted a clear opinion on what it takes to remedy the legacy of empire. Destroy the structures and save the people who inhabit them. I think it is particularly brilliant and stands out as shining gem of a movie in the MCU. And, of course, there is Black Panther. While Guardians Vol. 2 and Thor: Ragnarok examine colonialism and empire, they do so in traditional fantasy/sci-fi fashion. With the distance of a world that is galaxies or realms away, the setting never so close to Earth as to make the analogue too obvious. Black Panther has no such distance. This is the film with what may be the most critical eye in the MCU. Woven throughout it are discussions of race and heritage, of violence and oppression, and of the shortcomings of isolationism. There are many far better equipped who have written about these themes in detail, and you should definitely track them down. For the purpose of this piece, it is important that Black Panther takes the questions of legacy, power, and resources, and plays them out on screen. It is fought out in the philosophical battle between Erik Stevens and T’Challa. It is a discussion that T’Challa takes directly to the land of his ancestors to insist “You were wrong!” The themes of resources and empire present in the first Iron Man and in Thor: Ragnarok are turned up to 11 in Black Panther. It is the only film in the MCU where the antagonist’s perspective and philosophy fundamentally shifts those of the protagonist. T’Challa will forever be different kind of king, a king unlike any previous king of Wakanda, solely because of Erik Stevens.

And yet, I can’t help but wonder. Why is the film with the most critical eye the one where the protagonist experiences the most concrete transformation of character, the one that is predominantly concerned with people of color? Why is it an African kingdom that experiences such a radical change in its philosophy of leadership? As previously noted, any conversation of the sort related to the US in the previous films is either made moot or overshadowed by the interpersonal conflict in the Avengers team. Following Black Panther was the much anticipated release of the Russo Brothers’ Avengers: Infinity War. I wrote about Infinity War on this blog before, and hoped for the Russos’ to set forth an answer to Thanos’ philosophy of resources and his theology of scarcity. The film ends with the infamous Snap. We watch as half of the life in the universe turns to ash before our eyes. It is tragic and the original Avengers team is left speechless.

It is tragic. And yet, the Russos found it fitting to have the Avengers employ the same tool in their defeat of Thanos. We see the same visual effect as the enemy is turned to ash. While one could argue for this moment of desperation, it is perhaps the one act that Tony Stark shows the most confidence in performing. And the rest of the world praises him for it. The ethics of the decision do not register on the Marvel radar. Once again, Avengers: Endgame was a wild ride I enjoyed watching, but its ethics of war and empire come up short. Apparently it is not the existence of a weapon that is problematic, just the one which uses it. And now the Universe once again faces Thanos’ scarcity question… At least the world is saved I guess. Read the full article

#AvengersEndgame #MCU #Marvel

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mystomachfeelsawful · 5 years ago

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1:49 AM

Here we go

1 - I got heat stroke at Fringe this year. Like really bad heat stroke. I overworked myself in building a set by myself in a humid garage, co-ran a theatre festival at the Assembly and also directed a show. I didn’t have any fun during Fringe. We reviewed pretty well, except for Now Magazine, which tainted our sales. And that got me thinking - why am I depending on the Fringe as a source of happiness? I put over 100 hours into News Play, was compensated poorly for it and had a lousy time. It wasn’t the money that was making me happy, it was desperately trying to find out if people liked the damn thing. That’s pretty fucked up. I’ve done 10 fringes in 8 years on profit share. It’s time to stop. I worry sometimes I’ll be like those old Fringe vets who do it every year. My career can’t be so dependent on the happiness of others and their knee jerk reactions toward my work. Either I have to be compensated fairly or I have to really love the project to direct a show again.

2 - I won an award this year. My first award since Sears. It’s funny, because this happened before Fringe, but it kind of lit a fire in me. I need to start seeking work outside of the festival circuit. I spent a good month whining to colleagues and peers about my lack of employment, but I soon realized that that wasn’t doing me any good. If I don’t start seeking out paid directing work, I’ll be doing the festival circuit forever. The award gave me the confidence to pursue open calls for directors. I feel I can use it as a bartering chip now. Let’s see how long that lasts.

3 - I repaired a relationship with an artistic leader that had been fried for years. After holding in a lot of animosity and paranoia, I finally met with them and talked and apologized. We’re on good terms now, but I think it was a kind of groundshaking moment for me. I think confronting my fears of inadequacy and rejection is something I have to deal with for the rest of my artistic life. I felt a little braver after this one.

4 - GA TING happened. It was a success. A ridiculous success. It kind of felt like a coming of age - going into a room where I knew NO ONE, using my process and coming out the other side. GA TING taught me that I don’t need to keep working with people I know, or have that safety net to make good work. Also, working with a finished script was such a blessing that I’d forgotten.

5 - I acted again. This story has a payoff that I can’t talk about, but getting paid a workshop rate to perform was one of the most liberating things I experienced this decade. It’s kind of linked back to the award. This time last year, I started this tumblr as an incredibly depressed Ryerson kick out. I didn’t know where I was going. I knew Id be trapped in Hamilton for the next few months. And I did it. I made the most of it. I’m not totally confident in the artist I am now, but to act again and to feel good about my work in front of a larger audience made me feel good. Like really good. I don’t have a desire to perform again, but if I was asked, I would do it.

6 - A chapter is closing in my life. One ten years in the making. I’m not scared of it. I’m kind of excited. I’m not who I was ten years ago. I think I’m better now.

7 - I taught a lot this fall. I re-opened Swan for humber. I taught high schoolers drafting. I taught UTM movement. I never really thought of myself as a teacher, but I kind of like it. A lot. I think i’ve always been opposed to hierarchies in education (having had a rough go of it in theatre school). So maybe that’s something that’s fuelling me.

8 - I buried my grandfather this winter. It was a long time coming. I think I suppressed most of the feelings I had, so little things trigger me back to that day. I think I said my goodbyes a long time ago though. I worry I’m not making time for my grandparents. I worry that even when they’re around, I’m not making time.

9 - I’m directing Spring Awakening at HTI next May. I know. Going from Soulpepper to community theatre’s been humbling, but kind of rewarding in it’s own way. Every day is filled with new challenges, but also new hopes for a more diverse Hamilton.

10 - I made the choice to start working on some projects in Hamilton. I don’t know if this is a good idea, but I wonder how helpful I am in Toronto. I’ll never move back here, but Nina said something that really stuck with me. I’m winning residencies and grants, but I have no direction. As an artist I stand for nothing. Well maybe Hamilton can be the start of that. Maybe I can funnel everything I’ve been learning from new play development into making this city better for people. Maybe I can win funding so people can make the place home that I ran away from.

Nine years ago, I was sitting in this kitchen. My Dad was locked in at work. My Mom was going to serve a Christmas dinner that would make her cry. My brother described me as selfish. I was lying to my family and sneaking off to Pittman Hall to hang out with my friends so I wouldn’t have to stay at home. My aunt would die in 2 months.

Eight years ago, I was in Florida desperately trying to stay in the Paprika Festival after being threatened that I was being removed from it for missing a training day.

Seven Years ago, I was desperately trying to write a Toronto Fringe Play that was doomed to fail.

Six Years ago, I was desperately trying to write a show for Theatre Aquarius that would make me believe in my work again. I was also writing a play about Rowers that would never be successful.

Five years ago, I was finishing that play about rowers and trying to organize a dance show that two actors would quit (and I would never get over)

Four years ago, I had gotten into the Toronto Fringe again with some weird Asian battle play that I thought would fail like all of my other fringe ventures. I was interviewing my grandmother about being Chinese with questions I could barely connect to.

Three Years ago, I was sick as a dog, sending that same Asian battle play to Next Stage. I was writing a show about a road trip to Seattle that will still haunt me. I got food poisoning and frostbite after seeing La La Land in Toronto.

Two years ago, I felt like I was on top of the world, like nothing could destroy me and I was going to be produced in my favourite theatre’s season immediately.

Last year, I had finished my first professional theatre gig, but somehow felt like I had missed something along the way.

I’ve stopped thinking about my career as a roller coaster, but more like a steady beat. Everything leads to something new.

Films

1 - Jojo Rabbit

2 - Booksmart

3 - Far From Home

4 - Parasite

5 - Knives out

Honourable Mentions: The Farewell, CATS, Crazy Rich Asians (I actually saw it this year), Endgame

Disappointments: Captain Marvel, Joker, The Rise of Skywalker, Marriage Story

Plays

1 - School Girls (Or the African Mean Girls Play)

2 - Boy Falls From the Sky

3 - The Jungle

4 - Pass Over

5 - Iphigenia and the Furies

Also: Dissidents is my favourite play of 2018. There I said it. Dance nation also made me so amped I couldn’t sleep

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mrmichaelchadler · 6 years ago

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My List of Movies to See Before the End of 2018

NOW THAT THANKSGIVING IS OVER and we have enjoyed gathering with family and friends to give thanks for the people and things that really matter in this life, it is time to seriously indulge in that age old trip to the movies to catch up on everything before the awards shows are presented. I have not seen all the movies yet, so I will not cull my list down to a Top Ten List until later in December. However, I have been keeping track of some of the movies that I think are worth seeing and I now share that list with you. Some movies on this list will undoubtedly be nominated for awards on Critics' Lists or at the Producers and Directors Guilds. Many have already been added to the Independent Spirit Awards nominations, and will most likely grace the lists for the Golden Globes and even the Oscars. I am dividing them into categories of Narrative Films (Parts I and II); Guilty Pleasures; Animation; and Documentaries (Parts I and II), but the films are being listed in a random order, not necessarily in order of preference. Hope to hear what's on your list. Enjoy!—Chaz Ebert

A: NARRATIVE FILMS: BEST OF THE BEST

1. "A Star is Born"

Bradley Cooper's successful reimagining of this Hollywood classic stars an engaging Lady Gaga as a singer whose rising career enters the stratosphere just as her lover, a music icon and struggling alcoholic played convincingly by Cooper, hits the skids. Surprisingly romantic and assured directorial debut, with great supporting characters played by Sam Elliott and Andrew Dice Clay.

2. "Roma"

Alfonso Cuarón's Oscar caliber film recreates from his imagination the Mexico City of the early 1970's, juxtaposing the intimate story inspired by his family's housekeeper (played by Yalitza Aparicio) and the political turmoil engulfing the nation. Beautifully shot in black and white.

3. "Cold War"

On the heels of his Oscar-winning masterwork, "Ida," Polish auteur Pawel Pawlikowski brings us another sumptuous black-and-white portrait of mismatched characters, though this time around, they are lovers (played by Joanna Kulig and Tomasz Kot), and based on some biographical details from the lives of his parents. This was one of my favorite films at Cannes. And true to his previous works, the music in each scene is supplied organically from what is going on during that time period.

4. "Capernaum"

Another favorite film at this year's Cannes Film Festival was Nadine Labaki's staggering Lebanese drama about a 12-year-old boy who sues his parents for "divorce" after their desperate actions of neglect result in unthinkable tragedy. The performances by young Zain Al Rafeea and toddler Boluwatife Treasure Bankole are among the greatest by children in cinema.

5. "Black Panther"

Marvel's latest box office phenomenon was also its most meaningful, with "Creed" director Ryan Coogler crafting another deeply moving blockbuster. His version of the fictional African nation of Wakanda broke new ground for representation in mainstream super-hero lore with Chadwick Boseman's Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.-like hero clashing with Michael B. Jordan's multi-dimensional adversary embodying the spirit of Malcolm X. This was one of the best movies of the year.

6. "The Hate You Give" and "BlacKkKlansman"

Amandla Stenberg gives an amazing performance as a high school student whose life has to be lived one way in her African-American neighborhood, and another at her white prep school. Those divisions come crashing down when she witnesses her best friend killed by a policeman. But what adds more depth to this film is the family life director George Tillman shows us starting with the strong loving father played by Russell Hornsby and Regina Hall as the mother. The decisions made in this film have an unexpected complexity.

I paired Spike Lee's "BlackKkKlansman" with "Hate" not because they are related, but simply because its protagonist is a policeman. This true tale of a black policeman in Colorado (John David Washington) who infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan with the help of a Jewish policeman (Adam Driver) and interacted with David Duke (Topher Grace), the Grand Wizard or Dragon or whatever he was, gives you a decidedly different take on things. Spike Lee brings the film full circle to Charlottesville.

7. "The Wife"

Glenn Close delivers one of the year's very best performances as a housewife living in the shadow of her husband, a Nobel prize winning writer (Jonathan Pryce).

8. "First Reformed"

One of Roger's most cherished writers, Paul Schrader, is receiving deserved critical acclaim for this haunting ode to the slow cinema of Robert Bresson, starring Ethan Hawke as a tormented priest descending into fanatacism.

9. "Ben is Back" and "Beautiful Boy"

Seeing Peter Hedges' film made me think "Julia is Back," as Julia Roberts gives such an intense and finely tuned performance as the mother of a son struggling with addiction, that I didn't realize how much I had missed her on the screen until I saw her here. Lucas Hedges, in another topnotch performance, leaves you emotionally spent following the antics of a recovering addict who signs himself out of treatment to spend one holiday with his family. The film hammers home that addiction is a family disease, and the addict's actions have consequences for the whole family.

Felix Van Gronengin's "Beautiful Boy," based on a book by David and Nic Sheff, follows Steve Carell and Timothée Chalamet's journey of a father's frustrations in dealing with his son's meth addiction over a longer period of time, but in an equally grueling manner. Both movies offer credible glimpses into the insanity of addiction and in the parent's helplessness but tenacious refusal to give up on his/her offspring.

10. "Never Look Away"

Twelve years after winning the Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award for his debut feature, "The Lives of Others," Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck returns with a captivating epic about a young artist wrestling with ghosts from Germany's Nazi-era past. The film is loosely based on the life of famous painter Gerhard Richter.

B. NARRATIVE FILMS: MORE MUST SEES

11. "The Front Runner"

Jason Reitman's fact-based drama about the 1988 presidential campaign of senator Gary Hart (played here by Hugh Jackman) and how it collapsed once the media reported on his alleged adultery is a timely meditation on the point in modern journalism when politics acquired its scandal-laden focus.

12. "First Man"

Damian Chazelle's under-appreciated film about Neil Armstrong (Ryan Gosling) provides viewers with a visceral account of what it must have felt like to travel to the moon in NASA technology circa 1969, and how the astronauts' and their families (Claire Foy in a role quite different from Lisbeth Salander) were in it as a unit.

13. "Boy Erased"

Lucas Hedges is superb in Joel Edgerton's deeply moving adaptation of Garrard Conley's bestselling novel of a gay boy whose parents force him to undergo gay conversion therapy. It portrays a tightrope balance of the dehumanizing nature of conversion therapy without demonizing the characters. Strong supporting roles by Nicole Kidman and Russell Crowe as his parents.

14. "If Beale Street Could Talk"

"Moonlight" director Barry Jenkins follows his Best Picture Oscar win with this stirring, quietly elegant adaptation of James Baldwin's novel about a pregnant woman (KiKi Layne) striving to prove the innocence of her husband (Stephan James).

15. "Green Book"

Mahershala Ali and Viggo Mortensen turn in endearing performances in Peter Farrelly's movie based on a true story about the friendship that develops between a talented African-American musician, Don Shirley, while he is being driven through the south by a white bouncer. It plays like a racially reversed "Driving Miss Daisy," with a dash of "Planes, Trains and Automobiles."

16. "Widows"

Chicago is the setting of Steve McQueen's fourth feature (his first written with Gillian Flynn), a no-holds-barred, but slow simmering crime heist that also touches upon political shenanigans, economic inequality and women reclaiming their power. Kudos to the ensemble of woman power represented by Viola Davis, Michele Rodriguez, Elizabeth Debicki, Jackie Weaver and Cynthia Erivo;

17. "Eighth Grade"

Bo Burnham captures the essence of our modern anxieties in his empathetic film about the challenges faced by a young girl in her final week of junior high school. Elsie Fisher gives a dead-on portrayal of the awkardness and uncertainty of adolescence.

18. "The Favourite"

The ever-surprising Greek filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos may have made his biggest crowd-pleaser to date with his latest audacious drama set in 18th Century England and populated by Rachel Weisz, Emma Stone and an Oscar-worthy Olivia Colman. The unexpected dance sequence in this film is not to be missed!

19. "A Quiet Place"

John Krasinski's knockout suspense picture is extra-special because of how it utilizes deaf actress Millicent Simmonds and sign language. Simmonds and Emily Blunt deliver nuanced performances as a family trying to outwit fearsome creatures occupying a post-apocalyptic landscape. This is the first time in a long time where the action on the screen was so fraught that it commanded absolute silence from the audience. Bravo to you, Krasinski.

20. "Juliet, Naked"

Nick Hornsby's books craft clueless guys and their dialogue like no one else, and Jesse Peretz's adaptation of his novel is a splendid romantic comedy, featuring a triangle of flawed yet relatable characters played by Rose Byrne, Ethan Hawke and in the trickiest role of them all, an engaging Chris O'Dowd.

C. GUILTY PLEASURES:

1. "The Girl in the Spider's Web"

My guilty pleasure of 2018 is Fede Alvarez's very entertaining adaptation of the fourth installment in Stieg Larsson's "Dragon Tattoo" series. "The Queen" star Claire Foy does a complete turnaround and offers her indelible take on the electrifying heroine Lisbeth Salander. It doesn't matter whether it all gels or not, the pseudo-psychological exploration of Salander's pathology that turns her into a robotic action figure who saves women and children from evil-doers is good enough for me.

2. "Creed II"

My second guilty pleasure on this list would be Steven Caple Jr.'s spirited follow-up to Ryan Coogler's rousing expansion of the "Rocky" franchise. Michael B. Jordan returns as the son of Rocky Balboa's rival-turned friend, Apollo Creed, but this time he is paired with the son of his father's boxing foe, Ivan Drago. Though it's not as great as "Creed," it still packs a solid punch. It's amazing that Sylvester Stallone's "Rocky" saga is still on the scene 40 years after its first premiere.

3. "Robin Hood"

Third on my list of guilty pleasures currently in theaters is Otto Bathurst's energetic and entertaining new version of the Robin Hood legend, with Taron Edgerton as the titular rebel. He launches a war against England's corrupt monarchy, including the ever dependable Ben Mendlesohn as the diabolical Sheriff of Nottingham. What makes this version fresh is that Robin Hood is under the tutelage of Jamie Foxx's scene-stealing mentor, John, in a role that supplies ethnic and religious complexity. I can promise you that you have never seen a Robin Hood like this before, and in this version he is wearing a cool hoodie, and no tights.

D. ANIMATION:

"Isle of Dogs"

I loved every meticulously crafted frame of Wes Anderson's latest stop-motion marvel, where a Japanese boy goes in search of his ostracized canine companion. Wildly creative.

E. DOCUMENTARIES: PART I

1. "Won't You Be My Neighbor?"

There's no question that Fred Rogers, the trailblazing television friend of countless children and the subject of Morgan Neville's wonderful film, embodies the empathetic philosophy our world needs more than ever. Watching this documentary brought me back in touch with just how much of a visionary Mr. Rogers was about the human condition, and the fact that in the end, there is only love. He was a compassionate subversive wrapped in the disarming cotton candy of a children's show.

2. "RBG"

Three cheers for Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the multitudes of movie-goers that flocked to Julie Cohen's and Betsy West's stirring tribute to her extraordinary legacy. All hail to the Notorious RBG. Also worth seeing is Mimi Leder's narrative film, "On The Basis of Sex," about a distinct period of Justice Ginsburg's life long before the Supreme Court. It stars Felicity Jones, Armie Hammer and Justin Theroux as lawyers trying to make case law outlawing discrimination based on gender.

3. "America to Me"

Steve James' sprawling exploration of the inequity plaguing one of Chicago's suburb's most progressive high schools schools, Oak Park -River Forest, aired in 10 parts on STARZ, and is as richly etched as any of his previous features.

4. "On Her Shoulders" "The Price of Free"

Alexandria Bombach tells the story of Nadia Murad, a 23-year-old courageous Yazidi woman who survives the physical, sexual and psychological assault of ISIS while fighting for the freedom of her people. She truly was carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders.

Another amazing documentary about one person's fight for the rights of others is Derek Doneen's "The Price of Free." It was formerly called "Kailash" after the Indian crusader, Kailash Satyarthi, who leads a global movement to rescue children from forced work-slavery. His mission is to ensure that children have the rights to food, shelter, education and play. This film builds like a mystery.

5. "American Chaos," "American Dharma," "Fahrenheit 11/9"

This trifecta of documentaries effectively charts how we arrived at a Donald Trump presidency. James D. Stern interviews supporters of the president on the eve of the election, and wisely lets us in on his personal feelings about what he is witnessing. From another perspective, Errol Morris focuses his formidable lens on the inflammatory words of Steve Bannon. As for Michael Moore, his latest scathing look at corruption serves as a devastating follow-up to his 1989 breakthrough "Roger & Me," as his hometown of Flint, Michigan once again proves to be a microcosm of middle class dissolution.

6. "Mr. SOUL!"

Melissa Haizlip's prize-winning documentary illuminates the astonishing achievements of her uncle, Ellis Haizlip, the "Black Johnnie Carson," and how his talk show "Soul!" brought newfound awareness to the Harlem Renaissance. Before Oprah, there was Mr. Soul. He hosted black intellectuals, dancers, poets, and activists on public television at a time during the 1960's and 70's when it wasn't fashionable, and gains the unwanted attention of President Richard Nixon, who considers the show a threat to the nation.

7. "Amazing Grace"

Praise for producer Alan Elliott for making the completion and release of Sydney Pollack's 1972 recording of Aretha Franklin's live gospel album in the New Missionary Baptist church in Los Angeles possible. It features the iconic Reverend James Cleveland, Aretha's father Rev C. L.Franklin, Gospel great Clara Ward, and glimpses in the audience of a baby-faced Mick Jagger. It is infused with the spirit of the choir led by Alexander Hamilton, and the church-goers sublime reactions.

8. "Minding the Gap"

"America to Me" segment director Bing Liu's achingly personal debut feature chronicles the lives of his skateboarding buddies in Rockford, as they come to terms with the pangs of growing up, domestic abuse and how to prepare for the future when the past has been rather aimless. Authentic and fresh.

9. "Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché"

Pamela B. Green's documentary is a must-see about the first-ever female director, who made her first movie at age 23 in 1896. She was a contemporary of Edison and the Lumiere Brothers, but Alice Guy-Blaché's role in filmmaking was written out of history. She was responsible for over 1,000 films, and started a studio in New Jersey. It is astonishing that her name is not known even at some film schools.

10. "Crime + Punishment"

The illegal quota practices in police departments are revealed by brave whistleblowers in the New York Police Department, courtesy of Stephen Maing's essential film which won a major award at the Sundance Film Festival.

DOCUMENTARIES: PART II

11. "Three Identical Strangers"

The less you know about Tim Wardle's art house smash following the lives of three tripletts who had no knowledge of each others' existence until later in life, the better. The back story of the experiment that separates them may infuriate you.

12. "Above and Beyond: NASA's Journey to Tomorrow"

Rory Kennedy's breathtaking IMAX film screened at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington DC sheds light not only on NASA's 60 year history and (her uncle) President Kennedy's vision of a moonshot, but also explores the importance of our oceans, the earth's ecological system and tells why Mars may be our next frontier.

13. "Dark Money"

To paraphrase the famous line from "Network," you will be mad as hell while watching Kimberly Reed's incendiary exposé on the role of untraceable corporate money in American politics.

14. "Whitney"

"Touching the Void" Kevin Macdonald recalls the void left by Whitney Houston. We get to revisit performances that show why she is called one of the greatest singers of all time in this biography approved by her surviving family members. There is a surprising look at the loving relationship shared by Whitney and Bobby Brown, and of course the tragedy of the drug use that took her away all too soon.

15. "Quincy"

Alan Hicks and Rashida Jones teamed up to direct the loving look at Jones' legendary father, the musical force whose career has been defined by the breaking of boundaries. Quincy Jones' demons were influenced by his early years in Chicago and his relationship with his mother, but his prodigious talent helped make the careers of so many famous singers and musicians. He is a true American talent.

16. "Maria by Callas"

I was enthralled by Tom Volf's film about the great Maria Callas, the Greek-American singer from New York, who recounts her life in her own words, thanks to brilliantly assembled writings and clips.

17. "Love, Gilda"

Gilda Radner's time on this earth may have been cut short by cancer, but the laughter she left us with on "Saturday Night Live" belongs to the ages, as evidenced in Lisa Dapolito's affectionate film.

18. "Kusama: Infinity"

Filmmaker Heather Lenz turns her camera on Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama and her involuntary journey toward becoming the most highly prized female artist in the twentieth century. What part does mental illness play in her obsession with dots and art. Also an eye-opening look at the art world and how a woman artist's creativity is sometimes bypassed until it is mis-appropriated by a male artist.

19. "The Price of Everything"

In a year chockfull of memorable films about the contemporary art world, Nathaniel Kahn's documentary is one of the best. How do you determine the value of art? Is the most expensive art the best? Who sets the value on what we value in the art world. Fascinating look at these questions, with surprise answers.

AND NOW, THE FULL LIST IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER...

NARRATIVE FILMS

"Black Panther"

Review by Odie Henderson

Interview with Ryan Coogler by Nell Minow

Interview with Ruth Carter by Nell Minow

"Boy Erased"

Review by Tomris Laffly

Interview with Joel Edgerton and Garrard Conley by Matt Fagerholm

"Capernaum"

Cannes review by Chaz Ebert

"Cold War"

Cannes review by Chaz Ebert

"Creed II"

Review by Odie Henderson

"Eighth Grade"

Review by Sheila O'Malley

Interview with Bo Burnham by Allison Shoemaker

"The Favourite"

Review by Tomris Laffly

"First Man"

Review by Matt Zoller Seitz

"First Reformed"

Review by Godfrey Cheshire

Interview with Paul Schrader by Peter Sobczynski

"The Front Runner"

Interview with Jason Reitman, Jay Carson and Matt Bai by Tomris Laffly

"The Girl in the Spider's Web"

"Green Book"

Review by Christy Lemire

"The Hate U Give"

Review by Monica Castillo

Interview with Amandla Stenberg and George Tillman Jr. by Nell Minow

"If Beale Street Could Talk"

TIFF Review by Brian Tallerico

"Isle of Dogs"

"Juliet, Naked"

"Never Look Away"

"A Quiet Place"

Review by Brian Tallerico

"Robin Hood"

"Roma"

Review by Brian Tallerico

"A Star is Born"

Review by Brian Tallerico

"Widows"

Review by Brian Tallerico

Interview with Gillian Flynn by Allison Shoemaker

"The Wife"

Review by Christy Lemire

Interview with Glenn Close, Christian Slater and Bjorn Runge by Nell Minow

DOCUMENTARIES

"Above and Beyond: NASA's Journey to Tomorrow"

"Amazing Grace"

Review by Odie Henderson

"American Chaos"

"American Dharma"

"America to Me"

Review by Brian Tallerico

Interview with Steve James by Allison Shoemaker

Interview with Leslie Simmer, David E. Simpson and Alanna Schmelter by Matt Fagerholm

"Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché"

"Crime + Punishment"

Review by Odie Henderson

"Dark Money"

"Fahrenheit 11/9"

Review by Brian Tallerico

"Kusama: Infinity"

Review by Allison Shoemaker

"Love, Gilda"

Review by Matt Zoller Seitz

"Maria by Callas"

"Minding the Gap"

Review by Matt Zoller Seitz

Interview with Bing Liu by Matt Fagerholm

"Mr. SOUL!"

"On Her Shoulders"

Review by Nell Minow

"The Price of Everything"

"The Price of Free"

Sundance juror diary by Chaz Ebert

"Quincy"

Interview with Quincy Jones and Alan Hicks by Vikram Murthi

"RBG"

Interview with Betsy West and Julie Cohen by Matt Fagerholm

"Three Identical Strangers"

Review by Glenn Kenny

"Whitney"

Review by Susan Wloszczyna

"Won't You Be My Neighbor?"

Review by Odie Henderson

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the-jaydog8-blog · 7 years ago

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E-Portfolio

Casting Jon Benet (2017) & Paris is Burning (1990)

1. Personal Impact-

Casting Jon Benet

This film resonated with me for two reasons. The first is that I feel this film acts as a sort of mirror for the viewer, forcing us to acknowledge a tendency we have as humans, where we are often consumed by curiosity to the point that we look at tragic events (i.e. the murder of Jon Benet Ramsey) as a means of our own entertainment, dehumanizing those involved and affected by the event (I’ll get into this more in the Social & Political Context section). The second reason this film affected me so deeply is too personal to share in detail, but essentially the montage scene at the end of the film really hits home, as it reminds me of a similar experience I’ve had with my own family.

Paris is Burning

I was raised Christian. The church I grew up in is a Baptist Church in Los Gatos. The congregation is primarily white, wealthy, and very conservative. My oldest friend from church was named Jason (he also went by “Jay,” like me). Besides our names, and the fact that we both came from wealthy, conservative, white families, we didn’t have much in common, but we remained good friends throughout the years. We attended church together from preschool, through the end high school. As we got older, we didn’t hangout much, but whenever shit-hit-the-fan, we were always there for each other. During our senior year, Jay came out as gay. I was surprised when he told me, but I didn’t think much of it. I just said, “Awesome!!” and gave him a hug. I was really happy for him. We then both went on to attend SCU. Over the next 4 years, I got to see Jay transform. Slowly but surely, Jay became comfortable being himself. I realized that for the first 18 years of our lives, I didn’t really know Jay. But here at SCU, I got to know him. It seemed like he had finally found a community where he felt accepted; a community where he felt no pressure to be anything other than himself, and where he felt no guilt or judgement about who he was. He graduated in Spring of 2017. He killed himself 4 months later.

When I watch Paris is Burning, I think of Jay. I think of him strutting across campus, radiating confidence, with a hot pink boa around his neck and rainbow flags attached to his backpack. I think of how he thrived in a community where he felt a sense of belonging. But then I think of the battle he fought every day. I think of the torment he felt. And then my heart breaks because I think about how he must have felt lost after leaving SCU, the safe, welcoming community he had once belonged to. I think of how he ultimately lost hope, how he saw no end to the suffering, and how he was forced to take what he saw as the only way out. So, why is Paris is Burning so important? The answer is simple: this film offers hope to the hopeless. It has been 28 years since this film was released, but it is no less valuable today than it was then. There are still so many people today struggling to find a sense of belonging, struggling to find any reason to live; this film is for them. Paris is Burning offers hope to those who desperately need it.

2. Social & Political Context

Casting Jon Benet

Ok I know literally everyone and their mom has used this video in their presentations but hear me out... I believe Childish Gambino’s “This is America” music video shares similarities with Casting Jon Benet in terms of their social/political commentary, as well as their method for delivering said commentary.

youtube

There’s this movement on social media that I’ve seen becoming more and more popular among my generation over the last couple years, which I’ve dubbed the “Good Vibes Only’ movement. Essentially, its a collective emphasis on positivity and self-care with a main guiding principle that says, “focus solely on what makes you happy, and cut out everything else.” While I’m a big believer in self-care and positivity, I feel like this practice of ignoring anything that makes you uncomfortable or upset is unrealistic and unhealthy, and has led to an increase in apathy and desensitization that is hurting our society. “This is America” and Casting Jon Benet both highlight the existence of this problem by acting as a sort of “mirror” for the viewer, where the intended audience sees their own tendencies reflected back to them by the people and events on-screen.

Childish Gambino’s video highlights the way the privileged white majority in America likes to focus on and get enjoyment from the "fun” aspects of African-American culture (rap, hip-hop, dance, etc.), but does not like to acknowledge the problems and struggles African-Americans face daily (police brutality, poverty, discrimination, etc.). #positivevibesonly...

Casting Jon Benet is an example of how easily we, in America, can get so caught up in our own curiosity that we lose track of what is really at the core of what has us intrigued. In this case, a 6 year-old girl was brutally assaulted and murdered, yet in this documentary we see how, since the murder, most of us have been so obsessed with the mystery of it all that we forget about the heartbreaking tragedy at the center of it. Again, an example of how we push away the things that make us feel sad or uncomfortable so we can focus solely on the “fun” part of it and feel good.

Paris is Burning

When this film was being made, it was an especially brutal time to be a homosexual man in New York City. The AIDS epidemic was in full-swing, and everyone was terrified of contracting the disease. On top of the fact that AIDS was claiming the lives of many gay men, it also served to completely alienate the gay community, causing them to become outcasts of society. Essentially, in the 80s, gay men in New York City were treated like lepers; they were the “untouchables” of society. Many were even cast out by their own families, leaving them to fend for themselves. While Livingston did not intend for this film to spark a social-movement - (“Paris is Burning is not a social-movement film, nor does it presume to represent the totality of queer-of-color existence. In fact, the film is quite explicit that it is specific to a time and a place,” (Hildebrand, 138)) - I do believe it serves a greater purpose.

At a time when gay men were facing relentless persecution and being pushed to the margins of society, Paris is Burning depicts how black/hispanic gay men in New York City were able to create their own community in which they found safety, solace and hope. By choosing to portray the “ball scene” in NYC, Jennie Livingston created a film which offered hope to the gay community, who, at the time, did not have many media representations that they could connect with. “The film matters to many...particularly those who have been starved for images of lives with which can they identify and that validate their right to exist and inspire alternative ways of being in the world. Thus, the film’s importance is not just historical but also affective. The cultural work this documentary has done in the world transcends the film and its filmmaker by offering models of queer world-making,” (Hildebrand, 146). Today, this film is still just as important, as it continues to serve as a message of hope to those struggling to validate their own existence, showing them that, while it feels like they have nowhere to turn, it is possible to create a new life that is worth living.

3. Director’s Voice

Casting Jon Benet

Although still very much in the early stages of her film career, Kitty Green has already begun to establish a unique voice. Green has a very unique style of reenactment that is on display in Casting Jon Benet, as well as her first film, The Face of Ukraine: Casting Oksana Baiul (2015); she holds “auditions” for the roles in her reenactments, and then uses the performances from those auditions as the actual reenactments in her film. By doing this, Green is able to show different interpretations of the same event. Green then intercuts these reenactments with interviews from the auditions, and uses that combination as the narrative structure for the film.

Paris is Burning

“...this film operates in a liberal cinéma vérité tradition that refused voice-of-God narration in order to allow the participants and the footage to speak for themselves,” (Hildebrand, 138). Much of the criticism surrounding Paris is Burning is in regards to Jennie Livingston’s “director’s voice” (or, lack-thereof). The unique thing about Livingston’s voice in this film is that she doesn’t really have one; she completely omits any sort of didactic voice from this documentary, which causes it to have a sort of open-ended narrative, with no clear resolution or call-to-action. Some criticize Livingston for this, saying that it allowed for the privileged white audience to purely get entertainment from this film, rather than being forced to think about the social issues being raised. “...the lack of the filmmaker’s own didactic voice may, in part, suggest a kind of ambiguity and account for the divided readings of the film,” (Hildebrand, 138).

4. Evolution of Global Documentary

Casting Jon Benet

Seeing as it was just released a year ago, its hard to tell the impact Kitty Green’s documentary has had/will have on the world of documentary-filmmaking. However, based on the reactions it has received, I think it is safe to say that this film is definitely making waves in the world of documentary. Even those who have criticized it, still admit that it is an important part of documentary history; “...Casting Jon Benet, is in many ways a deeply unsatisfying, even infuriating film, but I wouldn’t want not to have seen it,” (Brody). In fact, its controversy only serves to further solidify its place in the history of documentary film. Many point to Errol Morris as the main inspiration for Kitty Green’s films. However, while inspired by Morris, Green has begun to create an original style of her own. In the next few years we will be able to get a better idea of how Green’s film has impacted the world of documentary filmmaking.

Paris is Burning

At a time when gay men faced intense discrimination and lacked any sort of role-models on-screen that they could relate to, Jennie Livingston’s Paris is Burning joined films like Tongues Untied (1989) by Marlon Riggs in jump-starting a movement that provided those in the LGBTQ+ community with films they could look to for inspiration, and representation. Although Livingston claims her film is not a social-movement film, I believe it falls in the same category as films like Tongues Untied as helping drive the movement for equality in the United States.

I believe Paris is Burning has a place in film history (and apparently so does the Library of Congress, as they selected it for preservation in 2016). As I explained in my first section, this film matters for many people, for many reasons. As long as there are people in need of hope, in need of knowing there is a possibility of a better life and a better future, this film will matter.

Works Cited

“Casting JonBenet”: A Documentary That Unintentionally Exploits Its Participants" (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. by Richard Brody, The New Yorker, April 2017.

"Film Review: Casting Jon Benet (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site." written by Peter DeBruge, Variety, April 2017.

"Is Paris Burning?", by bell hooks in Black Looks: Race & Representation; 2014.

"Love Hangover: Debates", pp 119-146 in Paris is Burning: A Queer Film Classic, by Lucas Hildebrand, 2013

http://thesantaclara.org/remembering-the-life-of-jason-jay-bassett/#.Wxi8sNXwa8o

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encephalonfatigue · 7 years ago

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wrestling with eden

some first thoughts about trying to grow vegetables this summer. seedling photos taken from march 18th to 25th.

I have too often fantasized about withdrawing into some solitary rural utopia to live off vegetables planted with my own two hands — fingers cloaked with the damp scent of decay, gentle bird song, and the quiet promise of new life. I’ve probably had this fantasy at least as far back as when I first read “Jayber Crow”, a novel by Wendell Berry in which the protagonist abandons the path of a seminarian to return to a quiet rural town called Port William where he grew up as an orphan. He lives simply as a barber and plants his own vegetables in his backyard. For some reason, both back then and still now, something was really quite appealing about this. Granted Wendell Berry’s poetic prose is hardly what I would call resistible, more often, extremely gorgeous. He feels like one of the last great literary Romanticists, and so the idea of “returning” is thematic to his work, even if it is to a place characterized by painful imperfection and finitude. I suppose Berry’s insistence is that this proverbial ‘old home’ even with all its shortcomings has its own sort of abundance, and that modernity’s ideas of progress and abstract economic growth can so frequently fall very short, even precipitating a type of gratuitous scorn for ‘neo-Luddite’ simplicity, physical labour, or the soiling of one’s hands.

I: Returning to Where?

This theme of “returning” (e.g. to the labour of growing food) surfaces as a rather common literary theme, from Voltaire’s Candide to Huxley’s Brave New World. Yet I’m also aware of the great shortcomings of the Romanticist notion of “returning”. I think one of the best twists to this literary trope was in Margaret Atwood’s magnificent novel “Alias Grace” (one of my favourites) where Dr. Simon Jordan during his time in Kingston interviewing Grace Marks tries to start a vegetable garden of his own, very unsuccessfully. Admittedly, I will be attempting to undertake a similar quest this summer, and I (only half-jokingly) anticipate the same sort of fate for myself.

Atwood has a lot of fun with this image of a desperately failing gardening endeavour, poking fun at Dr. Jordan bringing vegetables bought from the market each day to his sessions with Grace (as Grace proverbially rolls her eyes each time) and also describing the dirt underneath Dr. Jordan’s fingernails, seemingly symbolic of the deprivation characteristic of his time in Kingston and how consumed and exhausted he becomes with his case. In my reading of it, Dr. Jordon’s lack of success with his garden seems emblematic of his own sexual frustration — the lack of the garden’s fertility paralleling his own sexual life under pressure from his mother. In other words, this Eden we yearn to return to does not exist in the way we imagine it does, or if it does, it’s often full of failure and disappointment. Like Marks it is something we feel obligated to nurture and protect (in our imagination), yet its jouissance remains unattainable. The image of a failing garden also seems emblematic of Dr. Jordan’s growing disillusionment with finding innocence where he once thought it could be. Atwood’s reminder is that the bucolic ‘paradise lost’ we want to reclaim is fictive construction all the way down. Caddy smelled like trees and it’s comforting, but in reality, we were always in the midst of the sound and the fury, and life is more complex and messy than we can often imagine.

In her Cyborg Manifesto, Donna Haraway wrote that “the cyborg would not recognize the Garden of Eden; it is not made of mud and cannot dream of returning to dust. They are wary of holism, but needy for connection…” As a first-year student reading Hemingway’s “The Sun Also Rises”, I became deeply absorbed with the book of Ecclesiastes, and it’s proposal that Haraway’s cyborg cannot quite recognize, an interesting exegetical elaboration on Genesis 3. The claim goes:

“for in respect of the fate of man and the fate of beast, they have one and the same fate: as the one dies so dies the other, and both have the same lifebreath; man has no superiority over beast, since both amount to nothing. Both go to the same place; both came from dust and both return to dust.” (Ecclesiastes 3:20, JPS)

And I admit I have often had this fantasy of returning to soil. Ecclesiastes like Genesis is surprisingly materialist in this respect. Mary Oliver elaborates quite beautifully on this Epicurean theme, saying:

“everything’s a little energy. You go back and you’re these little bits of energy and pretty soon you’re something else. Now that’s a continuance. It’s not the one we think of when we’re talking about the golden streets and the angels with how many wings and whatever, the hierarchy of angels… But it’s something quite wonderful. The world is pretty much — everything is mortal. It dies. But its parts don’t die. Its parts become something else. And we know that when we bury a dog in the garden. And with a rose bush on top of it. We know that there is replenishment. And that’s pretty amazing… And what more there might be, I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure pretty confident of that one.”

II: Speaking of Death

Wendell Berry so often talks about death like this; for example, in The Unsettling of America, he quotes Sir Albert Howard talking about “the Wheel of Life (as he called it, borrowing the term from religion), by which 'Death supersedes life and life rises again from what is dead and decayed.’” Part of the consequences of our alienation from directly nurturing our own food is that we have grown so distant from the cycles of death and growth that such practices necessarily entail and guide our attention towards. I suspect that is in part where the Freudian diagnosis for modernity’s denial or repression of death comes from. Terry Eagleton, in a talk at the London Review Bookshop, mentioned that:

“For most of history, societies – pre-modern, tribal societies – have always believed that somehow an acknowledgement of death in some ritual kind of way is the condition for living well. Modernity tends to repress death; it can’t do anything with it. If you are seized by the ideology of progress, then it’s hard to fit death in at all. It’s embarrassing and it’s certainly not definitive (as it is for some pre-modern thought) of what life is actually about.”

Eagleton as a Catholic Marxist recognizes resurrection's centrality to the Christian tradition, and as John Polkinghorne has astutely pointed out, a proper acknowledgement of death’s finality and gravity is prerequisite for resurrection to mean anything at all, hence the distinction between Christian resurrection and Plato’s ‘survival of the soul’ (which so commonly passes for Christian eschatology).

Our alienation from death’s ubiquity is something I also sense as related to our unconscious fear of death, exhibited by euphemisms like ‘passed away’, the countless commercial products offering us body parts that appear younger (and farther from death), and especially in the enormous amounts of expenditure poured into military and carceral institutions, which promise to keep death at bay, and give some illusion of control.

III: Self-Sufficiency and Control

Contemporary vegetable gardening can often be framed in terms of these illusions of control and radical self-sufficiency. I think Wendell Berry is someone who’s very attentive to the ‘giveness’ and grace that unfolds quietly around him as a farmer, and growing food for a living allows him to see that there’s nothing to congratulate himself over with respect to this earthy practice. Also, that he is in no position to treat plants and the soil in any manner he wishes, with chemical byproducts from militaristic research. In the beautiful film “Look and See” Berry says:

“The world is in fact full of free things that are delightful. Flowers. The world is also full of people who would rather pay for something to kill the dandelions than to appreciate the dandelions. Well, I’m a dandelion man myself.”

It’s alarming to see the ideology behind the preemptive strikes of American militarism filter their way down into how North Americans engage in gardening or the pervasive ubiquity of hand-sanitizer dispensers. And how laughable it is when we use the language of “invasive species”, when we are of course the most destructive “invasive species” we know of. Ironically, even the U.S. Army in its "The Complete Guide to Edible Wild Plants" recognizes that all parts of the dandelion plant are edible. Euell Gibbons' "Stalking the Wild Asparagus" gives some good tips for when best to pick them. The Berkeley Open Source Food project is also a great place to learn more about feral foraging.

Anyways, I think Donna Haraway’s elaborations on Eden in “Primate Visions: Gender, Race, and Nature in the World of Modern Science” help expose the extent to which self-sufficiency narratives are constructed and crafted, especially in her chapter on Jane Goodall in a National Geographic documentary being filmed by her husband:

“[The National Geographic film] Miss Goodall and the Wild Chimpanzees (1965)… is a first contact narrative, recognizable within science fiction conventions… it is a story of the self-sufficiency… of a young single white woman in nature… The narrative of first contacts proceeds in several stages… Goodall, constructed as rigorously alone and undergoing hardships and dangers, first is shown spotting the elusive chimpanzees only by signs of their passage—a tuft of hair on a bush. She descends toward where she spotted the animals, but “the wild chimpanzees flee the pale-skinned stranger invading their domain.” No cameras are visible; no clue has been given so far how Goodall herself has been made visible…

Day ends, with Goodall on the mountain top. “Here Jane will spend the night, high above the African forest.” Goodall’s voice confirms, “…[I] enjoyed those nights in the mountains with no human companionship. …There is only one jarring note in the scene of the female representative of man alone in the Garden—she eats a spare dinner of pork and beans from a tinned can. The odd sign evokes the history of the transformation of systems of production and of daily habits in the mid-nineteenth century, when large-scale canning in the U. S. got a huge boost from demand created during the Civil War (Boorstin 1974: 309–22). The tin can on Jane’s mountain top preserves pork, beans, and the social relations of industrial capitalism enabling the colonial “penetration” and division of Africa.”

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As I try growing vegetables in my backyard this summer I also recognize the risks of getting a little too carried away with the fictive mythos of self-sufficiency. At the same time I’m deeply shaped by the story of Exodus, with its story of manna in the desert serving as a counter narrative to self-sufficiency. Gardening can be both a reminder of how dependent we are on things beyond ourselves, or it can yield a false impression of self-sufficiency. One view accounts for the variety of species we have co-evolved alongside for millions of years and the planetary systems that make our lives possible, the other does not quite register this reality. In some sense growing food does feel like an exodus of sorts from the type of capitalist commodification of food. Like Kool AD once rapped: “Some don't eat enough, food should be free, what up? It used to be, when it was growing on the trees and stuff.”

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Yet that “used to be” is also in some sense a fictive construction, though one that serves a purpose I think to be somewhat worthwhile. It really doesn’t take long though to realize there is no adequately or satisfactorily untangling myself from the inevitable contradictions of capitalism. I’m firmly implicated in it. Beyond the plastic gardening pots I bought from Dollarama, there are many other contradictions lurking less obviously out of view, like Jane Goodall’s camera-wielding husband and the long commodity chains and imperialistic military history buttressing her can of beans.

IV: Sphagnum Peat Moss

Starting seedlings for this summer vegetable garden, I shelled out a couple dollars for some dehydrated sphagnum peat moss pellets. Needless to say, I had almost no idea what peat moss really was when I purchased it, and how it was ‘harvested’, or rather ‘mined’. Having read somewhere that normal soil from by backyard e.g. was not ideal for getting seeds started (as they often have pathogens and seeds of other plants mixed in) I set about trying to find some starter soil at the closest big box retailer near my home. Jiffy peat pellets were all I could find. Only in the process of writing this did I gain a better sense of what sphagnum peat moss really is.

Sphagnum moss is in fact a moss (a rootless plant) as the name suggests that grows in wetland bogs. When sphagnum moss dies it is honoured with a new name: “peat.” (As Jesus once said: “I tell you, you are Peat, and on this bog I will build my garden, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it!”) Yet ironically, it’s dead vegetation from the very realm of Hades we are talking about here. This peat accumulates in layers submerged in wetlands. Peat pellets then are basically dehydrated moss corpses that provide a good substrate to start seeds on. Maybe they are emblematic of capitalism’s capacity to commodify the cycles of death and life, alienate these cycles from their contexts, and then render their underlying ubiquity invisible to human attention that is so conditioned by modern processes of production and consumption. Or maybe just invisible to people as clueless as myself.

Peat harvesting if done irresponsibly can contribute to the disappearance of wetlands, which is also well underway by worldwide wetland draining for agricultural or urban development. Peatlands are important carbon sinks, but become large sources of carbon emissions once drained, as they release all that carbon back into the atmosphere. They are also important treasure troves for historians and scientists trying to learn more about our past. Because of their acidity and anaerobic conditions, peatlands are very good at preserving the remnants of organic life. “Koelbjerg Man” is the oldest human bog body (‘mummy’) that has been found, dating back to ~8000 BCE.

The peat pellets I’ve started some seedlings on were harvested in Canada, probably somewhere in Quebec or New Brunswick, where most of the country’s peat harvesting is concentrated. There is a report put out by the Government of Canada that claims peat accumulates in Canada 60 times faster than the rate at which it is being harvested. And peat harvesting in Canada is subject to regulatory oversight ensuring measures for peatland restoration after harvesting takes place. The report also claims peat harvesting accounts for only around 0.02% of wetland loss compared to agriculture’s 85%. However, it’s difficult to get a sense of how benign peat harvesting is from a government that has such a vested economic interest in ensuring as much of its land remains as productive as possible. What I do know is Tim Moore, a professor at McGill, did explicitly identify peat harvesting as one of the threats to wetlands. It’s proportional contribution was not mentioned. There’s also a 2009 paper by Winkler and DeWitt at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who identify US peat-mining impacts to include:

“1) toxic-metal release from peat,

2) eutrophication of surface waters,

3) increased runoff (including flooding and impacts on fisheries),

4) release of organic pollutants,

5) changes of salt and freshwater systems,

6) changes in ground-water supply, and

7) air pollution and fires.”

So however marginal the impacts of peat harvesting/mining are, I still find the little seedlings sprouting by my window implicated in this strange situation. It’s certainly not an innocent Eden I’m ‘returning’ to, yet I haven’t quite escaped Eden either. Unable to escape the gravitational pull of that primordial Garden, this story of summer vegetable gardening also begins with the theme of death.

V: In the Beginning / Death

In “Genesis and Apocalypse”, Altizer’s thermodynamically inflected theology speaks of:

“the beginning of a full and final actuality, an actuality which is perishing itself, and a perishing which we know as history. For the advent of history is the advent of death… Thus the beginning of history is the beginning of fall, a fall from a consciousness that is closed to the full actuality of perishing and death, and a fall from an original or primordial state or condition that is an undifferentiated condition and therefore an original state of serenity and silence. That fall is the inauguration of the revelation of I AM…

…with the closure of the cycle of eternal return, ending becomes manifest and real as an irrevocable perishing, a death… The advent of irrevocable death is… the advent of a final actuality, an actuality inseparable from unique and irreversible events, and an actuality bestowing upon life itself the finality of an inescapable and irrevocable death. Consequently, the finalities of life and death are now inseparable, as the advent of irrevocable death bestows upon life itself a new finality…

Only the final ending of eternal recurrence or eternal return makes possible a once and for all and irreversible beginning, an actual beginning which is absolutely new, and is absolutely new only by way of the absolute ending of an eternity which is eternally the same. Consequently, God is the self-emptying or the self-negation of that eternity, a self-negation which is a once and for all and irreversible event, and therefore is the actual event of death.”

Altizer suggests that if we imagine God within the domain of eternity, ‘outside time’, unchanging, then Creation for God is a type of death, or the beginning of a death. It is the death of primordial eternity that allows temporal history to burst forth. Soil and peat both allude to this untidy paradox intermingling death and new life together. Many modern peat bogs formed around 12000 years ago after the glacial retreat of the last ice age, around when agriculture was beginning to emerge. A tiny and silent eternity, broken, in the act of harvesting, all for some superfluous seedlings to begin the irreversible process of sprouting.

Sphagnum peat moss, apart from being biologically dead, also alludes to the threat of a much larger and menacing death. As peat becomes a quickly disappearing carbon sink across various global ecosystems, these little seedlings sitting by my window cannot help but allude to the menacing global warming apocalypse very vivid in 21st century imagination. The Edenic resonance is stark: “but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.” Jack Miles, in his book “God: A Biography”, suggests:

“When the serpent tells the woman that, contrary to what the Lord God said, she will not die if she eats of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the serpent is telling the truth. She and the man do not die when they break the Lord God’s command; certainly, they do not die, as the Lord God had warned, ‘as soon as you eat of it.’”

Yet it’s far less certain the prophetic warnings of climate change are full of empty threats. Death is impending. Peat is one of many carbon troves being mined and released into the atmosphere as greenhouse gases. Ta-Nehisi Coates yields a prophetic warning that connects the historical plunder of colonized peoples with the contemporary plunder of the earth:

“Once, the Dream’s parameters were caged by technology and by the limits of horsepower and wind. But the Dreamers have improved themselves, and the damming of seas for voltage, the extraction of coal, the transmuting of oil into food, have enabled an expansion in plunder with no known precedent. And this revolution has freed the Dreamers to plunder not just the bodies of humans but the body of the Earth itself. The Earth is not our creation. It has no respect for us. It has no use for us. And its vengeance is not the fire in the cities but the fire in the sky. Something more fierce than Marcus Garvey is riding on the whirlwind. Something more awful than all our African ancestors is rising with the seas. The two phenomena are known to each other. It was the cotton that passed through our chained hands that inaugurated this age. It is the flight from us that sent them sprawling into the subdivided woods. And the methods of transport through these new subdivisions, across the sprawl, is the automobile, the noose around the neck of the earth, and ultimately, the Dreamers themselves.”

VI: Vulnerability and Interdependence

What this looming threat of death instills if anything, is a particular realization of fragility and vulnerability, both in ourselves and those around us. If the crucifixion is to mean anything to the Christian imagination, it must recognize God in the middle of this fragility and vulnerability also. If loving God and loving others are one and the same great command, it must recognize this fragility as reality, and therefore also the urgent need to care and protect. And this fragility and vulnerability in both others and God, must also lend itself to a realization of a vulnerability in one’s own self, and an understanding that being ‘self-made’ is an implausible narrative that, like bad soil, holds no water.

This complex interdependency however implicates all of us, even in getting a vegetable garden started I now realize. Is self-sufficiency plausible, I ask myself, when I did not make the laptop I’m typing this on, or when I did nothing to pump the water for my plants all the way from Lake Ontario, to say nothing of cleaning this water or constructing the infrastructure to get it past my doorstep. Did I carefully tend and select cherry tomatoes year after year like Alan Chadwick, or start a corporation to commodify such a plant and sell it in a local hardware chain store? Before making a delicious salsa verde, did I gather seeds last season from beautiful little Tomatillo fruits to return to the Port Credit seed library?

What I think the Port Credit seed library is so beautiful at reminding me of is that planting and growing things is a community affair. Seeds imply people who came before me, and my dependence on them. A seed library suggests that this dependence does not require capitalist commodification. There is an alternative mode of being and relating in this world. Maybe someone will tell me the better alternative to sphagnum peat moss to get my seedlings started next year. But seriously though, if Dr. Simon Jordan’s gardening fate is my own, there will be a few less seed packs at the Port Credit seed library next year. For that I will be deeply sorry, but it will also be something to laugh about. After all, I’m a long ways away from untangling my own eating habits from capitalist commodification. There is maybe no innocent utopia to return to here. I don’t know what to do with myself most days. I suppose though that these seedlings have germinated some thoughts in my own head, thoughts that would not have otherwise made their way there. That’s an ancient and old miracle about plants. I like to think there’s something to having conversations with plants and there’s something to the Amazonian Cofan notion that plants can sing and speak to us. I will finish with this lovely excerpt from a Wade Davis talk:

“the thing about tryptamines is they cannot be taken orally because they're denatured by an enzyme found naturally in the human gut called monoamine oxidase. They can only be taken orally if taken in conjunction with some other chemical that denatures the MAO. Now, the fascinating things are that the beta-carbolines found within that liana are MAO inhibitors of the precise sort necessary to potentiate the tryptamine. So you ask yourself a question. How, in a flora of 80,000 species of vascular plants, do these people find these two morphologically unrelated plants that when combined in this way, created a kind of biochemical version of the whole being greater than the sum of the parts?

Well, we use that great euphemism, "trial and error," which is exposed to be meaningless. But you ask the Indians, and they say, "The plants talk to us."

Well, what does that mean? This tribe, the Cofan, has 17 varieties of ayahuasca, all of which they distinguish a great distance in the forest, all of which are referable to our eye as one species. And then you ask them how they establish their taxonomy and they say, "I thought you knew something about plants. I mean, don't you know anything?" And I said, "No." Well, it turns out you take each of the 17 varieties in the night of a full moon, and it sings to you in a different key. Now, that's not going to get you a Ph.D. at Harvard, but it's a lot more interesting than counting stamens.”

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kidsviral-blog · 7 years ago

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Two Years After KONY 2012, Has Invisible Children Grown Up?

New Post has been published on https://kidsviral.info/two-years-after-kony-2012-has-invisible-children-grown-up/

Two Years After KONY 2012, Has Invisible Children Grown Up?

In March 2012, a human rights organization’s documentary about a central African despot became the most viral video of all time, and the ensuing furor resulted in its leader’s bizarre public meltdown. On the second anniversary of the phenomenon, everyone involved is still figuring out what it all means.

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Jason Russell in his office in September. Photograph by Sam Hodgson for BuzzFeed

Jason Russell is tan. Genuinely and exotically tan, even for a lifelong Southern Californian. He almost immediately apologizes for it, explaining that he’s just come from a wedding in Turks and Caicos. Later that afternoon, he’ll walk through the Barrio Logan, San Diego, headquarters of his nonprofit Invisible Children, burnt and barefoot in a neon orange tank top and shorts, rain whipping the office’s industrial windows. The interns will giggle, fondly: “That’s a guy who takes his workout seriously.”

This is Jason Russell today — 35, training for an Ironman, home every night by 6 p.m., never away from his family for longer than five days a month. This is not the raving man of two years ago, stomping down a San Diego sidewalk, slapping the cement with his bare ass to the sky. But part of him is here too.

“Every day for two minutes, I will think, Oh my god, I had a naked meltdown,” Russell says, stretching and snapping a rubber band between his fingers on his glass desk. “I will think that and be like, how did that happen? How in the world is that a part of my story and history forever?”

Russell today is healthy, or says he is. He went to therapy. He was on Oprah’s Next Chapter. He’s still theatrical and jovial, still prone to hyperbole, still enthusiastically earnest in a way that’s completely inspiring to half the world and nails on a chalkboard to the other. But after Russell’s psychotic episode, he spent six months figuring out who he was going to be, how and when and whether he would return to the nonprofit he founded in 2004 and nearly brought down in 2012 with the release of “KONY 2012,” the most viral video of all time — an impassioned, idealistic call for American youth to make Joseph Kony, the leader of central Africa’s militant child-kidnapping group Lord’s Resistance Army, in Russell’s words, “famous.”

For a majority of the 100 million who viewed “KONY 2012,” it was the first time they’d heard of Invisible Children, then an eight-year-old organization with a website that couldn’t handle its new traffic. Information gathering was a free-for-all; here was Jason Russell, the video’s narrator, describing Invisible Children as “the Pixar of human rights stories” to the New York Times. There he was telling CNN, “We are not these other organizations that do amazing work on the ground. If you want to fund a cow or you want to help someone in a village in that component, you can do that. That’s a third of what we do.” Here was a fairly embarrassing musical promotional video for a 2006 event called the Global Night Commute. There was Russell describing his personality: “If Oprah, Steven Spielberg and Bono had a baby, I would be that baby.” Here was an appearance on The 700 Club, an interview at Liberty University, and an audio clip of Russell at a Christian conference describing Invisible Children as a “Trojan Horse in a sense, going into a secular realm.” And everywhere was the photo of Invisible Children’s founders posing with tough faces, guns, and members of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army.

The ammunition was boundless and critics ruthless. Counterprogramming was one thing, but character assassination was another, prompting Time magazine’s Alex Perry to describe much of the backlash as “malicious online ‘takedown,’ most of whose participants were utterly uninterested in truth but focused instead on a point-scoring, trashing and hurting, the digital pogrom of the unaccountable, anonymous Invisible Mob.”

“I think that’s what really made me lose it,” Russell says. “They were attacking me personally: my voice, my hair, my face, my family, my friends … I didn’t realize what 15 minutes of white-hot fame looks like. And I got to see it. And it is not pretty.

“It’s” — he knocks on his desk — “not” — knock — “good” — knock. “It’s so dark. I was obviously not sleeping and definitely kind of losing my mind, for sure, but I would seriously start crying when I thought about, like, Lindsay Lohan, or even Sarah Palin, or these people who’ve been in the spotlight and been ridiculed by everyone in the world. Most people will say out of their mouths, ‘Lindsay Lohan should die.’ And then I was reading that about myself.”

After 10 days, it was reportedly “extreme exhaustion, stress and dehydration” that drove Russell to that San Diego sidewalk, and later a hospital on a 5150 involuntary psychiatric hold order. A week later, his wife Danica announced the early diagnosis was “brief reactive psychosis.”

And then the conversation stopped — and with it, all the debate, conspiracy theories, and think pieces about Invisible Children’s methods and motivations. Some threads continued, of course, but it was as if the media saw Russell’s breakdown and slowly backed out of the room, switching off the lights before comically bolting away.

Russell was marked, even after his recovery tour. The organization was marked too. And yet they both have endured, largely off the millions KONY 2012 brought in, but also because of significant changes made in response to KONY 2012, and a desperately sustained belief that the LRA’s end is near — a belief motivated by the fear that if it’s not, theirs may come first.

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David Ocitti, a former child soldier from Uganda. Photograph by Sam Hodgson for BuzzFeed

Eight years before KONY 2012, there was Invisible Children: Rough Cut, the documentary Russell made after graduating from film school. Russell and his friends Laren Poole, then 19, and Bobby Bailey, then 20, spent months saving money and petitioning family and friends, and their floppy-haired origin story has been told and told again: “All we really wanted, more than anything, was a compelling story,” Russell says. They found one — plus a few bouts of malaria.

Rough Cut focuses on “night walkers,” or rural Northern Uganda children who used to walk into town each night to sleep in public and avoid capture by the LRA. It largely follows one former child soldier, Jacob Acaye, who watched his brother die after the boy tried to escape.

“We wanted to go to Sundance and be the documentary darlings. And Sundance shut us down,” Russell says. “In a way, we were like, ‘We don’t need no stinkin’ Sundance.’ I’ve been [there] enough times to know that even if there are great movies there, they often do not get seen by more than a couple thousand people. And we felt our story was powerful and important enough that we were going to, in a way, force people to watch it.”

And so they held screenings on the West Coast, forming a charity with a mission statement to “raise awareness and [educate] the U.S. about the atrocities, exploitation and abuse of invisible children throughout the world.” According to financial documents, Invisible Children brought in $331,783 in 2004, its first year. In 2005, as screenings ramped up, the organization made more than $3 million. The founders hired a CFO, Ben Keesey, a UCLA graduate who turned down a finance job at Deloitte & Touche after a post-finals trip to Africa. The money helped take Rough Cut on a national tour in 2006 and produce Global Night Commute, a concurrent rally in 130 cities, where an estimated 80,000 Americans walked to their city centers and slept outside.

As a newly IRS-certified nonprofit in 2006, Invisible Children continued to stage dramatic events, produce short films, and host thousands of screenings, raising money through donations and selling Ugandan-made goods. Celebrities began lending support; in 2007, Invisible Children had a storyline on The CW’s Veronica Mars, starring longtime supporter Kristen Bell (and Russell’s brother-in-law Ryan Hansen). In 2007, Fall Out Boy filmed a music video in Uganda, and Invisible Children joined Warped Tour.

On paper, business was good; revenue climbed from $7 million in mid-2007 to $8.25 million in mid-2010. Program expenses were divided into essentially two pots: one for U.S.-based events, film production, lobbying, and awareness tours, and another for programs in Uganda, including scholarships, teacher exchanges, and a seamstress program for former LRA abductees. (Generally, the U.S. pot was more full than the Uganda pot, by anywhere from $50,000 to $1.7 million.)

But internally, there were growing pains. “I remember going through a couple painful periods and having to let go of friends,” co-founder Bobby Bailey says. “During the summer months, we thought, There’s no way we were going to make payroll. We were never good at reaching out to high-level donors to pay for our overhead. Most of our money came from kids buying products.”

Bailey left Invisible Children in 2009 — an emotional, messy exit that began with The Rescue, a 100-city event during which participants “abducted themselves” in an attempt to get high-profile figures to voice public support for helping child soldiers. Bailey pushed for it and raised the money, and the event got Invisible Children on Oprah’s radar. But Bailey says he was overwhelmed by the planning and implementation of the event.

“These massive events that brought out 80,000 people almost crushed us and killed us, financially but also because we worked people so hard,” he says. “To be honest, I couldn’t do it. I was tired, I felt frustrated, I was just burnt, and I couldn’t figure out how to make the event happen. It was just a big blow to me and my ego.”

“It was difficult,” goes Russell’s version. “I mean, it was just a power struggle. That’s all. He’s an amazing filmmaker and so creative. But because we’re very entrepreneurial, a lot of his ideas wouldn’t get traction. And so he was super frustrated with feeling like people wouldn’t listen to him.”

The Rescue was a turning point for Invisible Children, not only because of Bailey’s exit. The organization received substantial media attention for the first time, but also attracted its first major wave of criticism.

“My initial reaction was that it was goofy and self-serving and a disturbing over-simplification of the issues,” says Kate Cronin-Furman of the international issues blog Wronging Rights. At the time of The Rescue, she wrote (with co-blogger Amanda Taub) that “choosing to simplistically define … Ugandan children as ‘The Abducted’ constrains our ability to think creatively about the problems they face, and work with them to combat these problems.”

“The cavalier first film did the trick,” wrote Chris Blattman, then an assistant professor in political science and economics at Yale. “Maybe now it’s time to start acting like grownups.”

To Blattman, the “idea of rescuing children or saving of Africa” was “inherently misleading, naive, maybe even dangerous … The savior attitude pervades too many aid failures, not to mention military interventions.”

Ben Keesey, who became Invisible Children’s CEO in 2007, calls this kind of criticism “low-hanging fruit.”

“Like, of course it’s detailed, nuanced, and complicated how you actually contribute responsibly to seeing an end to a conflict like the LRA,” he says. “But the statement that wherever you are in the world, however old you are, you have the ability to help end a war in Africa? I stand by that. And I think it’s the necessary statement to actually get a lot of people to do something.”

Invisible Children’s first legislative victory came in 2010, when President Obama signed the LRA Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act, leading to the deployment of 100 U.S. advisers in LRA-affected areas in 2011. That year, Laren Poole left Invisible Children to move to Uganda, fundraising and strategizing for the Bridgeway Foundation, which hires private military contractors to train Uganda’s army.

“We left the Oval Office after the bill was signed, and we stayed out much too late and were drinking dirty martinis and having the best time,” Russell says. “I brought up the question, ‘What’s the dream for your life?’ It’s something I always ask people, and Laren said, ‘I want to be a Navy SEAL.’ And then I started laughing, because we were like, ‘Dude, you’re always so sick. You’re already 29 years old. You’re not going to be a Navy SEAL.’ And Laren is the type of person that will say, ‘Watch me.’”

The move left Russell in full control of the organization’s creative direction, which he had always fought with Bailey and Poole over. And as 2011 ended, he was bringing together a campaign that would become bigger than he — a “lifelong dreamer,” disciple of Oprah, and permanent summer camp counselor — could have anticipated.

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Photograph by Sam Hodgson for BuzzFeed

“KONY 2012” went live on Monday, March 5, 2012. Noelle West, Invisible Children’s director of communications, switched the YouTube video from private to public — a fairly insignificant moment she may actually remember for the rest of her life.

“I don’t know if you’ve been in a media shitstorm, but I’ve never been, none of us had ever been, and it was the most traumatic and overwhelming crisis-bringing thing that ever happened to any of us,” says West, a fast-talking, sporty 31-year-old with long waves of brown hair.

The KONY 2012 campaign wanted a youth uprising — through tweets, rallies, and late-night poster blitzes — that would encourage the U.S. government to increase efforts to help Ugandan forces find and capture Kony. The video was told from Russell’s perspective, as he explained Kony and the LRA’s tens of thousands child abductions to his wide-eyed blond son, Gavin Danger, then 5.

Between the versions of “KONY 2012” on Vimeo and YouTube, the 30-minute film received 100 million views in six days — surpassing Susan Boyle’s Britain’s Got Talent performance (which took nine days to reach 100 million) and Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance video (18 days), according to audience data service Visible Measures.

And for a minute there, it seemed to be incredibly well received, particularly if you had any Facebook friends in the 16–24 demographic. Rihanna, Justin Bieber, Ryan Seacrest, Nicole Richie, Diddy, and the Kardashian sisters all tweeted their support. In San Diego, one intern in Invisible Children’s fulfillment department had 500,000 orders of $30 “action kits” to process. One intern in public relations had 4,000 emails and counting incoming from media outlets. Russell flew across the country for TV interviews twice in 48 hours.

But as millions clicked beyond the video, Invisible Children’s website crashed. And the lack of information left an incredibly open opportunity for critics to offer counter narratives.

The controversy wasn’t a surprise, West says. “But it got too big for us to talk to people who were upset. We’ve always simplified the issue down to a very understandable, non-academic, non-complex issue, which is offensive to some academics because they think you’re trivializing it. But for us, that is just the entry point. We’re trying to attract people into this issue but make it accessible for them. ‘KONY 2012’ was not trying to be a very P.C., well rounded, in-depth piece.”

To academics, this simplification was still deceiving, relying more on emotion than facts. Wronging Rights’ three-year-old criticism of Invisible Children received nearly 500,000 views in one day. By Friday, a Tumblr called Visible Children had nearly 2.2 million views. The blog’s creator, Grant Oyston, wasn’t a qualified expert on African issues; he was a 19-year-old Canadian political science student who offered some commentary, but mostly linked out to others’ criticism of “KONY 2012.” His influence, however, warranted comment from Invisible Children’s newly hired New York PR firm Sunshine, Sachs & Associates, who told The Canadian Press that the “things he’s written are important but are a little misinformed and naive.”

“I thought that was strange. It had this air of, ‘You young people don’t understand,’ but their whole target was young people,” says Oyston, who eventually got a call from an “emotional” Russell, offering to fly him to California or even Uganda to see Invisible Children’s programs in person. (He declined.) But Oyston still takes issue with being labeled anti-Invisible Children, admitting the charity has done some good work, and finds himself criticizing the entire cycle of KONY 2012 — praise, backlash, and all.

“I found it troubling how quickly people read my criticism and other more informed critiques and responded by giving up and not caring,” Oyston says. “This video made them excited about helping victims and then they read something on a blog and they said, ‘Never mind.’ I found that disheartening. “

No one denied that Kony was a criminal who should be brought to justice, but many were critical of the call — from young, white Americans — to help Uganda address a problem already generally thought to be resolved in that country. Uganda’s government spokesman even issued a statement: “Misinterpretations of media content may lead some people to believe that the LRA is currently active in Uganda. It must be clarified that at present the LRA is not active in any part of Uganda. Successfully expelled by the Ugandan Peoples Defence Forces in mid-2006, the LRA has retreated to dense terrain within bordering countries in the Central Africa area. They are a diminished and weakened group with numbers not exceeding 300.”

Michael Wilkerson, a freelance writer and one of KONY 2012’s earliest critics, encouraged KONY 2012 supporters to consider the “potential collateral damage.”

“In previous offensives by the Ugandan military that didn’t quite catch Kony, what [happened] was the LRA ransacked and massacred vengefully as it fled, killing hundreds of civilians in the Congo in the winter of 2009,” he told NPR.

Others were offended by the portrayal of Uganda, down to the word “invisible,” including writer Dinaw Mengestu: “To claim [the children] were invisible because a group of college students traveling through Uganda happened to stumble upon a war they were too ignorant to have known of before going to the region is, to put it mildly, patronizing. By the time the organizers arrived in Uganda and created Invisible Children, northern villages such as Gulu were crowded with NGOs and aid workers and the largest humanitarian concern, by far, was the housing conditions of the more than one million people living in camps for the internally displaced.”

“That’s a tough one to talk about,” Keesey says today. “Of all the critiques that we got, it was the one that I never saw coming. Is Joseph Kony, who’s the world’s most prolific child abductor, worthy of a campaign to stop him? Is that a worthy pursuit? To see the LRA disarmed and to see these communities free from fear? That one took me off guard.”

Two weeks after “KONY 2012”’s release, Teju Cole wrote in The Atlantic about the “white savior” who “supports brutal policies in the morning, founds charities in the afternoon, and receives awards in the evening,” and those who financially support him — without considering U.S. foreign policy’s role in the conflicts that yield large aid movements, or the wishes of those receiving the aid.

“I disagree with the approach taken by Invisible Children in particular, and by the White Savior Industrial Complex in general, because there is much more to doing good work than ‘making a difference,’” Cole wrote. “There is the principle of first do no harm. There is the idea that those who are being helped ought to be consulted over the matters that concern them.”

Cole’s analysis was smart and personal without overt hostility — something other critics couldn’t resist, particularly when it came to Russell’s role in the film. It resonated, and when talking about the backlash today, Invisible Children staff still cite the phrase “white savior industrial complex.”

“Our biggest mistake,” West says, “was we should have had supplementary materials that showed how much we really know. We should have had that secondary video that has all of our regional staff who are in fact from the regions in which we operate. It’s not a bunch of white California kids out in the region. These are professionals who have lived through this conflict their whole lives. We should have had that stuff in front when people came looking, but we were just too underwater to even figure that out.”

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Photograph by Sam Hodgson for BuzzFeed

Russell says he still hasn’t grasped how many people saw the clip of his naked rant. (Somewhere around 4.5 million, only counting the most popular versions on YouTube.) But he’s distinctly aware of the mark it left on Invisible Children’s internal culture. On his office bookshelf, next to thick, beat-up journals from his first Africa trip, Russell has a blue binder, where dozens of cards and press clippings and notes from friends and strangers and co-workers are collaged together. On the cover of the binder is a cut-out headline from Entertainment Weekly: “This was the year that… EVERYONE GOT NAKED.” The article didn’t include Russell, but he thought it was funny anyway.

“Coming back to work,” Russell says, “I think it was strange to hear a lot of people be like, ‘I was gonna move on, I was gonna get another job, I was gonna stop the internship, but I’m here for you to make sure you’re OK. I’ve stayed here for a year to make sure you’re OK.’”

On his first day back, one of Invisible Children’s writers wrote him a letter, which he picked out of all of the notes to show me:

“Welcome home. I’ve literally had dreams about this day when I would see you for the first time in Noelle and Heather’s office — slow motion hug and tears — and now my literal dreams are literally coming true. A couple things I didn’t realize about you ‘til you weren’t in the office anymore: Your ideas and designs push the envelope, yet you have the key skill of getting people on the same page in spite of your ideas’ extremity. You break convention but somehow make peace and bring everybody together over it. I miss that.”

“She’s saying, ‘I dreamt of you coming back,’ and I’m not even like that good friends with her!” Russell laughs. “I just … Yeah. I feel most at home here, so I always felt like I would come back if they would have me.”

Was that a question?

“Obviously if someone does what I did, they’re getting advice from a lot of people saying distance yourself as much as you can, ‘cause he’s really the thing that took the campaign off the rails. So I think they had to really think about what my position would be like, get a lot of advice, and figure out if it could work.”

Russell and I spoke for an hour before he made any reference to his faith, and only when I asked. In the past, he’s talked openly about his evangelical upbringing and its influence on his life and work — Russell’s parents are the founders of the national chain Christian Youth Theater; he and Poole and Bailey are definitive Christian bros. But after several critics accused Invisible Children of being a secretly religious and even anti-gay organization — including an Atlantic story accusing Russell of “secretly pulling our consciences towards Jesus” — he has notably scaled back the God talk. In October, when he was at Catalyst, the annual church leadership conference, Russell says he turned away questions from a Christian Science Monitor reporter who approached him.

“I feel so manipulated by people who think, I’m gonna get the scoop because I think he’s secretly trying to do this spiritual thing. Like if we really were the illuminati, how much more exciting would your article be? If we’re working with Jay Z? We’re in a homeless neighborhood — give me a break, we’re not illuminati.”

Russell says he watches service on TV and goes to church once in a while, but not on a consistent basis.

“Maybe this is a cop-out, but if you want to know about my spirituality, I’ll totally tell you. I can talk about my faith. I’m not afraid of it. But Invisible Children is not a faith-based religious organization at all. People forget that something like 80% of Americans call themselves a believer in God … So to have like 30% or even half of our staff have some kind of faith is just a demographic. No one’s trying to push an agenda.”

Russell believes — of course — that everything happens for a reason. On his bulletin board is a printed-out email from Oprah (her email address blacked out, much to certain visitors’ chagrin). Russell wrote her last year after reading that she recognized the symptoms of her own nervous breakdown after interviewing him.

“Hi Jason, I received your beautiful letter,” he says, more performing her email than reading it out loud. “Isn’t it beautiful how we’re all angels for each other and messages to heal come in all forms? Thank you for taking such fine care and reaching out to me. I hold you in the light — exclamation point!”

“So you saved Oprah?” I ask.

“For me, it’s like, OK, my breakdown was a shitshow. We all know that. But I can’t tell you how many people have come up to me and said, ‘I’ve had a breakdown. I’m on this medicine.’ It’s this dark secret that we’re all struggling with our mental health, and I think we should be vulnerable and honest and tell the truth. If my next 10 years ends with having to do with mental health or encouraging a generation to be real and honest — it’s the only way you’re gonna get free — then the breakdown was probably necessary for me to become something of an expert.”

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Russell speaks to roadies and staff, kicking off a tour at San Diego’s Mt. Soledad Veterans Memorial on Sept. 17, 2013. Photograph by Sam Hodgson for BuzzFeed

Ben Keesey, a towering 30-year-old with slicked-back hair, likes conversation; he wants to know about your day, where you grew up, and what your job is like. But he bounces, sometimes ungracefully, between youthful energy and political pragmatism, stuck between a world of San Diego interns who end every sentence with “awesome,” and D.C. lawmakers who don’t. He is relentlessly idealistic, a trait he embraces despite how often it’s been used against him and Invisible Children.

After KONY 2012, Keesey would say during interviews, “How do I show you my sincerity? How do I just show people my actual heart? Can they just tap into it for 10 minutes, so they can see we really do care about the people we work for?”

“There are times when I get sad,” Keesey says. “Because a lot of the concerns or skepticisms that we weren’t able to overcome put a lot of people on the sidelines that I believe want to be involved. At times, I actually personally process it as feeling very responsible and saying, ‘What more could I have done? Did I fail? Did I fail this organization and this cause by not being able to properly justify our actions or our integrity?’ It’s a very heavy burden on my heart.”

In the controversy’s aftermath, Invisible Children had difficulty booking school tours for the first time in years. The money wasn’t there like it used to be, with young fundraisers experiencing resistance — “from their families, their friends, people spitting on them, people calling them liars, people calling them stupid, they don’t know what they’re talking about,” Russell says. “Before KONY 2012, our organization was predominantly seen as, Good job! You guys are inspiring, keep going, we believe in you. And all the sudden it flipped on its head — You guys are liars, you’re a scam factory, you’re fake, you’re embezzling the money, or whatever.”

By mid-2012, Invisible Children had nearly $26.5 million in revenue and $17 million in net assets. By mid-2013, the organization had $4.9 million in revenue (their lowest since 2005) and less than $6.6 million in assets. Sixty-five employees in the San Diego office became 29. Two floors of a building became one. About 130 staffers in Africa — 95% of them from the region — became 108.

And yet, KONY 2012 was objectively the organization’s most successful campaign ever, both in its mission — making Kony famous, even if on the other end of punch lines — and in policy.

On April 20, 2012, when KONY 2012 supporters were supposed to “cover the night,” a directive from the film to blanket city centers in posters and other anti-Kony propaganda, turnout was abysmal. But that month, President Obama announced the extension of a military advise-and-assist mission to central Africa. The European Union, as part of a declaration of support, established a Joint Operations Centre to assist central Africa’s counter-LRA regional task force. On Capitol Hill, Invisible Children’s reputation went from “very young film students” to issue experts invited to White House roundtables, according to The Enough Project, a policy-focused group that says it helped Invisible Children overcome “stumbling blocks” in its early lack of expertise. In January 2013, Congress passed the Rewards for Justice Bill, authorizing $5 million for information leading to Kony’s capture. It was at the bill’s signing in the Oval Office that Keesey asked Samantha Power, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, to speak at the 2013 Fourth Estate Summit, Invisible Children’s second-ever conference of more than 1,000 supporters. She accepted, starting the speech — her first since being appointed ambassador — with “O.M.G.”

“KONY 2012 created the most opportunity and movement around this issue more than all the eight years before it combined,” says Noelle West, who spent a not insignificant amount of her time immediately after KONY 2012 responding to critical comments on charity database GuideStar, Reddit, and social media networks. “To know that’s what happened and still feel punished for it is strange.”

“It was game changer for the profile of the issue and for the movement at the international level,” Keesey says. “It’s absolutely caused us gigantic organizational challenges, personal challenges, ones that we’re still working through. But I think on balance, net net net to the mission, it was helpful. And from that standpoint, I would do it again.”

There are regrets, of course, in how the backlash was handled. From all vantage points, Invisible Children didn’t know how to talk about itself. The messages — and messengers — weren’t consistent.

Grant Oyston (and many others) cited his fundamental problem with Invisible Children as “their relentless focus on advocacy over action,” a criticism heightened by Invisible Children’s director of ideology Jedediah Jenkins’ post-KONY 2012 comment that “we are not an aid organization, and we don’t intend to be. I think people think we’re over there delivering shoes or food. But we are an advocacy and awareness organization.” (Later in March, a video of Jenkins joking around and drinking — or pretending to drink — while celebrating Invisible Children’s $1 million grant from Chase Community Giving made it to TMZ. Jenkins has since taken a break from the organization to go on a bike trip from Oregon to Patagonia.)

“That comment is a bit of a half-representation of even who we were in 2012,” Keesey says. “But at the same time, this conversation in itself illuminates the challenge that we have describing who we are, because who we are has changed, and changes and will change.”

Still, accusations surrounding the organization’s financial integrity remain the stickiest: that so much of its money is spent on travel and film production, that so little is spent on overseas programs, that it kept money from the KONY 2012 action kits.

“We were very much accused of financial impropriety,” Keesey says. “The feeling of potentially being scammed is one of the worst feelings in the world. And it’s not possible to reach back out to the amount of people that heard that message in the wake of KONY 2012 for them to feel rock-solid confident that we do get our finances audited every year, and 100% of our audits have come back with an unqualified opinion. We’ve had no legitimate cases or even accusations of actual fraud. That doesn’t exist.”

COO Chris Carver says when Invisible Children tried to explain its finances, he wishes he had “put out not just the literal components, but how much we felt this strategy was important, this allocation of funds to domestic education versus international operations — how much we believe in that.”

And yet Invisible Children substantially reallocated funds last year, spending about $4 million in the U.S. on media and mobilization efforts and nearly $7.8 million on Uganda recovery and protection programs, according to its annual IRS filings. The only other year Invisible Children gave more money to Uganda than the U.S. was in fiscal year 2009, but the difference was just under $750,000. This reversal was Keesey’s direction, made with consultation from the staff in Africa.

According to independent evaluator Charity Navigator, Invisible Children has spent at least 80% on programs since 2009, contradicting a widely circulated 32% figure that one interpretation of their finances (which discounted U.S. educational programs) yielded during KONY 2012. But Charity Navigator’s accountability rating of Invisible Children in 2011 — two of four stars — was another reason the organization’s finances were called into question, and largely a result of Invisible Children not having enough independent voting board members at the time. The rating was restored to four stars in 2012, after more members were added. (Invisible Children was also questioned for not filing with the Better Business Bureau, another voluntary measure of nonprofit transparency. Carver says the “Better Business Bureau stamp was just something that we haven’t gotten around to doing, because it takes a lot of time.”)

Carver estimates this year’s revenue will continue to be lower than Invisible Children’s past highs. There can never be another surprise Susan Boyle performance, and there can never be another KONY 2012, which cost in total $2.8 million. The organization very simply doesn’t have the resources, financially or emotionally: “To fool ourselves into thinking that we’re gonna convince the world that this is different is not the best use of our time,” Carver says.

Invisible Children’s only fundraising campaign in 2013 was ZeroLRA, which Russell calls “the least inspired I have been and everyone around here has been, even though we worked our butt off to make it happen and inspire our fundraisers and supporters.”

The problem comes down to originality, Russell says. Invisible Children has been telling stories about the LRA’s abductions for 10 years, over 12 documentaries. “How many different ways can you cut the cake? How many different ways can you actually approach the conflict and keep it fresh and exciting?”

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Photograph by Sam Hodgson for BuzzFeed

The most important question, two years on: How did Invisible Children spend its KONY 2012 millions?

The answer: mostly on what it considers attack-prevention programs in known LRA activity regions, including one that uses helicopters to drop defection fliers — “truth campaigns to psychologically woo them,” as Keesey says, out of the jungle and to safe-reporting sites. Of last year’s 83 known defectors, 79% referenced the fliers, Invisible Children says. (In December, 19 LRA members defected together, the largest mass defection since 2008.)

Invisible Children has also been investing in data-gathering since 2010, when it launched the LRA Crisis Tracker, broadcasting LRA movements and attacks based on information relayed via 71 high-frequency radios. The community reports are vetted through regional experts and updated to the tracker twice daily. The tracker provides an email subscription service, which Invisible Children says is used by state and military officials in the U.S. and central Africa, local communities, and other NGOs, including those providing health services to rural communities.

Invisible Children’s community-improvement programs in Uganda — the “recovery” piece of the organization’s four-part model — have expanded and matured, too; there are now 401 students enrolled in its legacy scholarship program, up from the 135 in its inaugural class, and 4,025 adults enrolled in the village loans and adult literacy programs, up from 400 in its inception. (When asked for their opinions on these recent developments, many critics of “KONY 2012” told BuzzFeed they haven’t kept up with Invisible Children since the controversy two years ago.)

This year, Invisible Children will go after grants from government and philanthropy groups, like the U.S. Agency for International Development and the LRA Fund, a small group of foundations supporting projects in LRA-affected communities. Keesey says the organization needs about $6.2 million this year to continue its programs and keep the lights on. Some of that will come from Invisible Children’s 10,230 monthly donors (with help from interns who make hundreds of calls a week) but not enough. The staff has come to accept that.

“We don’t need the masses, the gigantic grassroots movement, as much as we have in the past,” says West. That may change from time to time — Invisible Children is pushing an upcoming Senate resolution encouraging Obama to “finish the job and not reduce the amount of resources or commitment until we see a full dismantling of the LRA,” and will ask supporters in key districts to call or write to their senators.

But the reality is that Invisible Children can’t survive off the masses anymore. There will be no films or campaigns or tours this year — no 10-week trips led by interns (or “roadies”) screening films and spreading the word of Invisible Children around the U.S. There will be no large-scale Fourth Estate Summit, either — the conference Russell once described as “a TED talk, mixed with a music festival and a film festival, all mixed in a Justin Bieber concert,” with an average attendee age of 16. That means no 1,315 kids in T-shirts and bracelets spending $325–495 each, and no “spectacular wink and a nod to showmanship,” as Bobby Bailey, who attended the summits in 2011 and 2013, puts it. (There will be a smaller version of the event this year, an Invisible Children spokeswoman told BuzzFeed after this article’s publication.) Maybe Invisible Children will never return to that kind of showmanship; maybe it will never be able to afford to.

This scaling back has brought a certain restlessness to San Diego. Russell hasn’t been to Africa in two years; “There hasn’t been a real need for me to go out,” he says, with dozens of workers already on the ground. His next trip will likely be when Kony is caught or killed and the LRA is disbanded. Then, Invisible Children will either close its doors or change into something else entirely, with a different mission and different players.

“We all want to go do other amazing things at some point in our life, and we don’t want to hold ourselves back from that,” Carver says.

In “Move,” Invisible Children’s first film after “KONY 2012,” West says she was afraid that the backlash and Russell’s breakdown was the “beginning of the end … What if all this time we spent, all these things we built, are just, done?” It was certainly an option in 2012, but despite all its losses, Invisible Children wants to “work to put itself out of a job,” or so goes its spin line.

“I would love to shut the doors,” says West, who’s transitioning from communications director to an in-house consultant for companies seeking advice on viral campaigns. “I would love for there to be a big black screen when you come to IC.com after Kony is caught and there’s a process in place for rehabilitating the region so the LRA can’t come back. I would love for IC to be turned off. Why do you need us anymore? That’s just me, though.”

West wants to build furniture. Keesey is mulling over going back to school for sociology or psychology. Russell’s future may lie in some form of mental health advocacy — a field that may be a little more sympathetic to his intuition to put himself in his stories.

The 10 years they’ve spent on this single issue, maintaining all that swaggering idealism, has left the staff in a state of constant anticipation. They firmly believe the LRA’s demise is within sight and that they get closer every day to someone, somewhere, spotting Kony. And with that expectation comes an even stronger hope for vindication.

“It would be such a big deal. And people would come back to the cause and say, ‘Yeah I’ve been supporting you all along. I wanted Kony to be captured too,’” Russell says. “We definitely know that we need that win, and that the future of Invisible Children and the cause and the work that we do is completely reliant on believing that the win will happen soon. If he’s captured or killed in 2024, I would have a hard time believing we could sustain the narrative for much longer.”

Russell says there’s only one film he’s working on, currently plotted out on his big office whiteboard: the one he’ll release when Kony is gone. Whenever that is.

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Photograph by Sam Hodgson for BuzzFeed

Corrections: An earlier version of this article misrepresented Invisible Children’s office layout. The article has also been updated to clarify the LRA Crisis Tracker was launched in 2010, and that according to an Invisible Children spokeswoman, there will be a Fourth Estate Summit this year, contrary to earlier comments made by the staff. (3/10/14)

Update: On Dec. 15, Invisible Children announced it will put in place a strategy to close by the end of 2015.

Read more: http://www.buzzfeed.com/jtes/two-years-after-kony-2012-has-invisible-children-grown-up

#Jason Russell #kony 2012

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Envelopes 1-3

Standing in Heathrow Terminal 2 we found Andrew. We stopped to say hello and he asked us where we are going. We gave our standard reply to date. We don’t actually know. Then we explained the Blind Experience concept and asked Andrew if he’d be happy to film us whilst we opened our first envelope. He agreed. Full of unanticipated nerves we began to open the envelope and as I pulled the paper out I saw the image of Christ The Redeemer statue and started jumping around. Jules pulled the rest of the paper out and we saw a caption that read “Christmas in Rio”. I felt so happy and excited, as Rio has been my dream destination for a long time. Jules was thrilled too that we were going to such a fun-filled, hot, colourful place for Christmas, that neither of us had ever visited, that we could both explore together.

So, we set off on the first leg of our journey. First stop Lisbon. Where Jules thought he saw Mo Farah. He didn’t. Then a 10 hour overnight flight to Rio de Janeiro. Which literally translates as January River. I woke up as the plane was descending over the most beautiful hill tops covered in morning mist and little hats of white cloud. I had no idea the geography of the country was so undulating and mountainous. This birds eye view was truly breathtaking, exotic, but tranquil in the pink and golden sunrise. You could see settlements nestled between the valleys and orange dirt tracks snaking between them. This rural landscape then morphed into an urban one, as ramshackle flat-roofed, pastel coloured buildings and high rises, as well as dusty, soon-to-be traffic-laden roads, came into view. Even more impressive was the Atlantic Ocean and coastline that suddenly appeared. Broken up with jungle-covered headlands and bays, with sandy sweeps of beaches. A huge rocky peak of granite and quartz loomed out of the dark blue sea above the harbour, on a peninsula of Guanarabara Bay. It’s name is “Sugarloaf Mountain”, coined by the Portuguese in the 16th century, who named it so in reference to the important sugar cane trade of Brazil.

As we stepped off the plane I side-stepped a giant moth. Marco and us have a running joke about big moths, so that caused us much amusement. I wanted to move the moth to safety, but Jules said it would hurt her, so we left her sitting there. As we walked through the airport the first thing we noticed was the smell of humidity, wet and tropical, just like the Amazon rainforest we imagined. In our excitement to explore Brazil immediately, the long wait at customs was quite challenging, and I did lots of loud British sighing in my boredom. We entered the arrival terminal with our luggage, eyes peeled for a man with a sign.

The sign read “Julian Gallagher” so I jokingly waved goodbye to Jules and the man, and wished them a happy honeymoon whilst I looked for a sign with my own name on. But this didn’t exist. Jules therefore kindly let me come in his and Pedro’s taxi to the hotel. We drove past the oldest and most dangerous favella in Rio, and became immediately aware of the very real poverty that exists in Brazil today. No one from outside the more dangerous favelas are advised to enter or visit them. You may remember a recent news story of a tourist being shot in front of her family by members of a drug cartel whilst looking for water. I’m sure her lesson has been firmly learnt. There are tours of favelas operating, but these come with the obvious ethical dilemmas inherent in “poverty tourism”.

It was an exciting ride through the streets of Rio, and our knuckles turned white in moments as the taxi joined the highway crossing all four lanes following a casual, solo glance in the wing mirror. We began to climb through the beautiful cobbled streets towards Saint Therese, thankful for their speed-reducing function. Many of the taxi drivers won’t actually take people to this area due to the damage done to their tyres and suspension we learned in due course. We admired the graffiti and street art adorning so many of the city’s walls as we entered this affluent area of the city, sitting above Rio laid out below. Our hotel was a stunning oasis of calm in this crazy place. Palm and mango trees, vibrant flower beds, and a beautiful fountain with carp surrounded the old colonial style ex coffee plantation buildings, now converted into a hotel. The place smelled amazing as you walked in, and immediately we were reminded of Anran where we got married, due to the wooden, sculptural decor and white-washed walls. We were given a tour of the hotel which sits over several levels and had a lovely restaurant and bar on a terrace. Jules was particularly pleased with the timing of our arrival, as we arrived in the middle of a professional photo shoot by the pool involving lots of young Brazilian models in swimsuits and bikinis posing for the camera.

We were shown to our room which was very spacious with the biggest four poster bed we’ve ever seen, and a beautifully converted dark grey slate bathroom. The view over the hills from our white-shuttered bedroom windows and bathroom was gorgeous too, and the colonial Portuguese influence was clear to see in the other buildings around. We got the giggles soon after entering our bedroom when it became clear the couple in the room next to us may well be on their honeymoon too. We’ll let you guess as to why we thought this!

Soon after arriving and showering we decided to get out and see Rio. We therefore headed down to Copacabana Beach to see its famous sands. It was extremely hot and we soon stopped for a drink on the beach, only after seeing a man dressed as Santa with a full white beard cycling past on a bike. It was pretty touristy, so after more Santa spotting, which seemed very funny in 30 degree heat amongst tanned Brazilians playing volleyball and running along the promenade, we searched for a lunch spot. We used Trip Advisor to find a more traditional place selling seafood, and found a lovely place a 10 minute walk from the beach. It was small and cool with fans going full blast. The whole menu was in Portuguese so we used trusty Google translate to work out what we wanted to order. An old couple on the table next to us offered their assistance in helping us to order. The man spoke really good English and had lived in London in the 1960s. They had been married for over 50 years and stole a few cheeky kisses over the table. We explained we haven’t yet made a whole year of marriage, but are hoping for 49 more like them. We cheersed our cold beers, which are always served in ice buckets in Brazil…perfect. We chose a couple of delicious piles of fried fish on platters garnished with lime and red onion, and covered in hot sauce. Yum. And by the time we left the bar, we were hugging and kissing each other goodbye like old friends. The Brazilians we met were all so warm and friendly, with a chilled vibe, and fun sense of humour. They make you feel so welcome wherever you go.

Feeling refreshed from sitting in the cool, and energetic after our delicious meal, we ventured to “Sugar Loaf” mountain and went up by cable car. At the top there are the most stunning views of Rio and its beautiful bays. It was a real tourist trap, but was listed as the number one thing to do in Rio, so we couldn’t miss it. As the heat only seemed to increase, soaking the back of her clothes whenever we sat down, we decided the pool was beckoning. So back to the hotel we went, and dived, quite literally, into the pool. After a refreshing dip we lounged on the sun beds, me in the shade as usual, Jules in the sun, as always, and enjoyed some ice cold coconut water straight from a real coconut. After some sun, reading, and snoozing, we headed out for our evening meal in a treetop restaurant, where we opened our second envelope! We learned we would be going on a walking tour of Rio’s street art. This was right up Julio’s street, and he was really looking forward to it, as was I! Jules had done a similar activity in Buenos Aires and loved it.

So we were up early the next day for an amazing brekky at the hotel. Its contemporary dining room had stunning smooth concrete floors, and single-paned industrial steel windows over-looking the local area and its European style buildings. All of the food, including some very exotic fruits, was beautifully displayed, and coffee and tea was served from elegant silver pots and trays. I noticed that bowls and cups were particularly tiny, not sure why. I think we ate the world’s tiniest pancake there!

After our breakfast we set off on our 4 hour walking tour of Rio’s graffiti scene. We met Edmundo our guide for the day at a hotel by Copacabana Beach. He is from Rio and was very knowledgeable about all aspects of life from the favelas, where he runs tours, to politics. We saw a huge array of street art during our time with Edmundo. It was really encouraging to see that there are a significant number of female street artists creating work all over Rio. Graffiti and street art does not have the reputation it has in the UK, and is respected by people and commissioned by organisations and the government. A particularly incredible piece we saw in Downtown Rio was commissioned by the Olympic Committee of 2016, when Rio hosted the Olympics. It consists of faces of people from the five continents, but on a huge scale, in the most vibrant colours (see our Instagram). The talent of these artists is completely mind-blowing and it would be a challenge for anyone not to find beauty in it, and to be impressed by it. There were lots of political messages of peace and equality symbolised in the art, and told within their stories, such as empowerment of Black Africans, revealing these young Brazilian creatives’ social conscience and fight for justice.

Despite Edmundo’s best attempts to preserve our health by standing in the shade as much as possible whilst showing us the art, by the end of the 4 hour tour in the scorching heat, we were gasping for water and desperate for a cold shower, and I had a banging headache. We took a taxi and found refuge in a small restaurant in Saint Therese near our hotel run by a lovely couple. We ate the Brazilian version of fried chicken and salt cod fritter, both delicious, and walked back to the hotel. Jules opened a little extra Christmas envelope from me after we had cooled down with a shower, and learned he would be paragliding on Christmas morning! That evening we went for a delicious cocktail in the bar and then over to the restaurant for our Christmas meal, which Brazilians have on Christmas Eve, not Christmas Day. We agreed have never felt less Christmassy, but were so happy to already have had such an amazing 2 days.

We arrived at Pepino Beach the next morning after a mini Christmas present opening session and a particularly terrifying taxi journey. Whilst waiting for Flávio to take us to the take off point we received the most wonderful news. My friend Georgie’s daughter Tansy had arrived safely on Christmas morning weighing 7.5lb after a long slog. What Happy Christmas news indeed, welcome to the world little Tansy, I can’t wait to meet you!

We were driven up Pedra Bonita mountain at breakneck speed, and were strapped into our paragliding harnesses. We watched several paragliders and hang gliders launch themselves off the take off pad, one not very successfully, which was rather terrifying, and then it was Jules’s turn. I filmed his launch which was pretty smooth and watched as the winds pushed him and his pilot up and away into the skies. Then it was my turn. Me and my pilot were strapped together, and I was told just to keep walking, and to keep my ankles crossed in flight, and legs relaxed. I wasn’t quite prepared for the strong force that lifted us quicker than expected into the air, and the pilot later explained back on the ground, that he hadn’t been either. I’m glad I didn know that at the time. It all felt pretty safe though, and it was amazing looking down over the mountains and buildings below, and seeing the sparkling ocean in all its glory from above. It was still and quiet up there, and as close to flying like a bird as either of us have ever been. It was quite challenging to let go of the Go Pro and open my arms “like a bird” as instructed, and I quickly grabbed back onto the harness. I also experienced a nausea akin to the feeling of seasickness, as did Jules, and was very grateful to land smoothly on the beach after a series of vomit-inducing circles as we came down from the sky, but what an experience for Christmas Day 2017, and we were both very pleased to have done it. Our pilots kindly uploaded all the Go Pro videos and pictures onto Jules’s phone for us to remember our flights for years to come. Lunchtime, and off for some food and a Coca Cola to soothe our dizzy tummies, as well as some delicious ice cream. Then we went back to the hotel to lie on loungers in the shade drinking ice cold coconut water. What a perfect Christmas!

In the evening we cracked open a bottle of bubbly and spokes to our families who were very much missed. It was wonderful to see their smiling faces round the Christmas dinner table, and we decided to open our third envelope whilst on FaceTime speaking to my family. And it revealed that we would be off to Lima, Peru, in the wee hours of the next morning! We were totally thrilled, and I immediately thought of how much our friend Poppy would enjoy that we were going to Paddington Bear’s birthplace! Stay tuned for our next update from country number 2!!!…….

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