Author: Amuseofire

I am a writer, actor, director, tour guide, and educator with various interests in the arts, politics, and popular culture. I am particularly interested in film and theatre criticism, social satire and activism, and persuasive essays on a range of topics. I am also a proud geek, whose interests and obsessions include Star Trek, Shakespeare, Sci-Fi, Classic & Contemporary Cinema, Sherlock Holmes, Art, Architecture, Victorian/ Edwardian England, Unsolved Crimes, Fin de siècle Paris, Classic Movie Actors, Team Trivia, Classic & Contemporary Plays, Vocabulary, Cultural Criticism, Chess, Non-RPG Board Games, Vaudeville & Yiddish Theatre, and Antiques & Collectibles. Despite my many geek interests, I also enjoy watching and playing some sports, including football, basketball, bocce, pool, swimming, and skiing. Finally, I am an artist who's just as devoted a critic. That seemingly antagonistic relationship between creator and disassembler is precisely its strength. I am forced to be thorough and rigorous with myself and my art, and hold my work to the same high standards that I demand in others.

Best Picture Film ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’ Kicks Open the Door for Other Genre Films with Strong Social Messages

I hope everyone realizes the profound impact of the film ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once.’ And I’m not just talking about Michelle Yeoh’s historic win as an Asian woman or Ke Huy Quan’s unlikely comeback as an actor after being a popular child actor and then not getting work for over 20 years.

What I’m actually talking about has more to do with Jamie Lee Curtis’s win, and more specifically, one thing she said during her acceptance speech. If you remember, she said, “I have been doing genre films my entire life, and now I have an Oscar for it.”

THAT is the point I am making.

Picture most past Best Picture films, and what kind of films they were. “CODA, Nomadland, The Green Book, Moonlight, Spotlight, 12 Years a Slave, The King’s Speech, Schindler’s List, Forest Gump, Rocky, The Godfather, Gone with the Wind, Gandhi, Crash, etc. What is the common thread between all these films?

They are all DRAMA films with a topical social message (Schindler’s List, Spotlight, Forest Gump, etc.), or an underdog story of a person overcoming obstacles to succeed in their life / jobs (12 Years a Slave, Rocky, Green Book, CODA, Godfather, etc.) The closest thing to a comedy might be Forest Gump. But that’s about it.

However, in 2019, we had a small ripple in the Force. The film ‘Parasite’ won, and that was historic, because it was 1) a foreign film AND 2) a psychological thriller with a social message. Two years earlier, ‘Get Out’ was nominated for Best Picture, and that was a HORROR movie.

But last night, a SCI-FI movie won Best Picture, and that is groundbreaking for those of us that love shows and films like Star Trek and Star Wars.

Star Trek especially relates, as it is a space opera set in an egalitarian universe where exploration and friendship trump currency, power, and violence. Creator Gene Roddenberry envisioned a future in which skin color, religious differences, gender, etc. did NOT matter, and where empathy and camaraderie prevail. That’s not to say there aren’t “bad guys” or “evil” in the universe, but only that humankind has overcome such petty and skin-deep differences to embrace each other and even all the alien species of the universe.

Whether you liked or hated ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once,’ you have to at least respect it for being an absolute game changer.

(SPOILERS AHEAD)

The story is about an unsatisfied Chinese woman who runs a laundromat with her optimistic, weak, and ineffectual husband. She also has a lesbian daughter who she rejects and who craves her affection. It is a mundane life she leads, and she is unhappy, and that comes out in waves against friends, family, and strangers alike. She is stuck. And bitter.

Interestingly, through a rip in the time-space continuum, she is projected into a multiverse, where EVERY possible version of herself exists, and she is forced to cycle through them. It’s just like Star Trek’s ‘Mirror Universe’ episodes, which are in nearly every one of the series. What would another version of ourselves look like? Would we be meaner? Nicer? More beautiful? More attentive? Etc, etc.

Not only is this an interesting premise, but it contemplates what each of our lives would be like if we made changes and had made different decisions. We each lead lives like a ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ book, and as Robert Frost wrote:

‘Two roads diverged in a wood, and I
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.’

What monumental decision did you make that change the trajectory of your entire life?

What if we looked at the world as a place of infinite possibilities, where we were not the slaves of our own circumstances, upbringing, skin color, weight, etc? And what if our natural default were optimism and the ability to see silver linings where there might not obviously be one? What if we chose love? And empathy? And understanding? And tolerance?

THIS is ostensibly what this movie is about.

‘Friday Night Lights’ is not a movie/ tv show about football, it’s about relationships. ‘The Last of Us’ is not a video game/ show about zombies, it is about how we will act towards one another when everything is taken away from us and we are forced to coexist in unbearably brutal conditions.

And ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’ is not a weird and quirky Science Fiction film about multiverse time travel. That is simply the vessel to tell a much larger story. It is a human story about what it means to forgive, see the best in others, and choose your own happiness and destiny. THAT is what that film was about.

The Daniels brothers just kicked open the door, and what will follow? More science fiction Oscar winners? How about comedies, horror films, action films, superhero movies, romantic comedies, and other genre films?

Jamie Lee Curtis was right. She’s made a career in genre films, and FINALLY one of them actually won the top prize.

The historic snobbery around eligibility is transparently prejudicial, and often racist, sexist, and out-of-reach for most directors and producers. When money corrupts, it corrupts absolutely, and true art suffers.

But as we grow into a more educated and refined people, the naysayers will ultimately die off through attrition, and you will look like a visionary. Because, like any great idea, there are bumps in the road, and people who are inclined to hate something they don’t understand. All I ask is that you keep an open mind.

I have a good feeling about this film, and the future of cinema. We may not be packing the theaters anymore, but we ARE still reaching people where they’re at, everywhere, and all at once. I’m convinced that the future looks bright, my friends, and you should definitely be apart of it.

What side of history will you be on?

Seen

For Mary Magdalyn Donnelly

That night I fell into your eyes

Like pools of water I would never have to leave.

You bathe me, and I bathe you, as I am being bathed in the moonlight here in Levant.

As I look up at the moon she loves me, and I only HOPE it were returned.

They say the fault is not in our stars, but in ourselves. If I am broken, she will mend me.

As I wish upon a star, our celestial orb, our canopy, I ask are we looking at the same heaven? Is it here on earth?

If we ARE star-crossed lovers, I will tempt the wheel of time, and strap it to my back and carry that load as Sisyphus or Atlas.

Because in those eyes, I see the eternal. That undiscovered country…explored as one.

For she bathed me in those eyes, as I bathe her. I see her and she sees me. As I’ve never seen before. Naked and cast from heaven.

If she offers me that apple, I’ll take it. For in the knowledge of our love, we are bathed eternal.

Trapped in resin this mosquito contains the blood of Eden, and I am no longer ashamed. If I am fallen, please have mercy and lift me up. For “the quality of mercy is not strained. It droppeth as the gentle rain from Heaven.” For “all that glistens is not gold.” I choose YOU.

Ghost Light

For me, the smell of a theatre still intoxicates me.

There is nothing more sublime than being the last one out at the end of the night, and catching that furtive glimpse of the lone ghost light—bravely peering his way into the darkness and keeping vigil over our stage as if it were the very ramparts of Elsinore.

And indeed, sometimes it is…

The Outgoing Tide

As surely as the tide will come

We know it cannot stay

Steadfast faith the sun will rise

We know it’s just the day.

The willow cannot help but weep

When winter drives with scorn

But even willow takes a pause

When spring again is born.

So when the tide had come and gone

The sun arose and fell

The willow tree had lost its buds

Were we to do as well?

But with the morning comes the tide

To wash away our tears.

The sun will rise to dry our cheeks

And take away our fears.

A Pox on Both Our Houses

Rome fell for falling

A victim of conceit

If we won’t rise to mend our ways

At last our ends will meet.

The fall of Rome passed us by

Although we share its fruit

We take no heed in what was lost

Or what we gained in loot.

For now, the Empire’s come and gone

The ruins left to roam

Descend upon this tourist spot

And then return back home.

Are we to see ourselves in them?

A culture far from us

They lived – they breathed – they die no more

Returned back to the dust.

If there’s a lesson in Rome’s fall

America’s Exception –

Is liberty and freedom

And have been from inception.

Those we brought from far away

Wear masks that grin and lie

They have to keep their faces hid

Or happy pain belies.

Meanwhile those that die by day

Weren’t killed by masked assailants

They died from fighting selfish neighbors

Who boasted breath free from ailments.

Rome fell for failing to stand

Just as we will fall ourselves

If we can’t come together now

They’ll read our demise from shelves.

A house divided cannot stand

A nation is no stronger

If we don’t rise to mend our ways

We won’t be here much longer.

“Fake News (2020)”

If oceans were puddles and puddles were men

We’d live to be twenty, but wish to be ten.

Our questions would end before they began

Like ships to a shore that hadn’t left land.


Splendid sun cannot well show

Before the moon is down

If son is born before dad’s voice 

Then mothers have no sound.


Silly mind, you use yourself

To nudge a slumb’ring snail

It’s wrapped itself a riddle

Your ship has long set sail.


What’s to stop a probing mind?

Curses of poor breeding?

If you can’t stand for truth and facts,

You’ll fall for anything.

Cold in Texas and Warm Hearts Elsewhere


I saw on the news the other night that northeasterners and upper midwesterners were reaching out to Texans and giving them advice on how to deal with extreme cold and giving them hacks on how to survive power outages in the winter. This was really heartwarming.

My parents live in rural Maine, where each winter, they get over 6-12 feet of snow. Their tiny town is always the first to lose power, and the last to get it back on. When I lived with them, sometimes, we’d lose power for 3-4 days. And this would happen a couple times EVERY winter. Once, we lost it for a week. During the Ice Storm of ’97, they actually had to take an axe and chop their friend and her elderly mother out of their trailer because they were frozen inside – like an ice box.

If you’ve ever been to Maine, you know that Mainers are hardy, resourceful, and resilient folk. They know that when you lose power, you transfer all your food in the refrigerator to the snowbanks. They know how to melt ice for water to flush the toilets. They know how to melt snow for drinking water. And dozens of other lifesaving hacks.

I hated growing up in the deep woods of landlocked central Maine. When I turned 18, the first thing I did was get the hell out of that damn place. But now, I think of it differently. Bangor was a great place to grow up. And later, after we moved to the country, it was lovely too. Sure, we were surrounded by Trumpers, but the people always treated me kindly and they were God-fearing lovely people to get to know personally. And they taught me a lot. Like how to survive a brutal Maine winter. That’s something they could teach the good people of Texas right about now.

As much as I hate America sometimes, I also love it dearly. In times of crisis, Americans come together and look out for one another. Remember the good will that W squandered after 9/11? Those months after that national tragedy, Americans were grieving together and tighter than ever. And Giuliani was the most popular politician in America. “America’s Mayor.”

What happened the last four years? Giuliani became a carnival barker for a narcissistic sideshow snake oil salesman, and the country became fractured, even more divisive, and American racism reared its ugly head again.

Of course, Black Lives Matter would remind us that Racism never went away, and that Black folx have been experiencing it continuously for over 400 years. Police Brutality is not a new phenomenon. It’s the natural successor to lynching, and its been around for over a century. It’s just now, we have these handy-dandy video cameras in our phones, and suddenly White America is finally seeing horrific videos of brutality as if waking up from a pleasant dream, but that’s been an ongoing nightmare for Black folx since they came over in chains.

On the day before he was assassinated, Martin Luther King said these words: “I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. And I’m happy, tonight. I’m not worried about anything.” One of my best friends and I often talk about this speech, and that we both think that sometimes people KNOW when they are about to die. MLK was not long for this world, but he knew that he had made an imprint on it. We are still continuing his work. But oh my friends, we still have a long way to go to reach that “mountaintop.”

I Have #nofilter

I have a friend who writes the hashtag, #nofilter on EVERY single picture she posts on Facebook. I don’t quite get it. For one thing, this person probably doesn’t need to write it anymore. We’ve got it. You don’t use filters. Brava!

You see, I don’t quite understand the hashtag, #nofilter. Professional photographers and filmmakers have been using filters since film was invented. And now digital. There’s absolutely NOTHING wrong with using filters. That is actually the test of a true and professional photog. The ability to choose filters is art itself. It is a creative process, like editing a film. I think that those people think we’ll all be more impressed that they took a picture that turned out so amazing without digitally manipulating it at all. And I understand that. Occasionally. There was a stunning sunrise in Boston last week. I saw a LOT of my friends post it, and they all used the #nofilter hashtag. And that’s understandable. The colors of the sunrise were so stunning, it honestly did not need a filter. But every picture? That’s excessive.

Conversely, I have another friend who CLEARLY uses extensive filters for every shot. This person de-ages themselves, making herself look significantly thinner and about 15 years younger, and it is SOOOO obviously filtered. I mean, she’s my age, but in all her photos, she looks about 22. Kind of. In reality, it takes away so many wrinkles, it actually makes her look like some Japanese anime character. Very unnatural looking.

Facebook and social media are so funny. We all meticulously curate our pages, and only show all the best parts of our lives. And we all do it, so don’t lie and tell yourself that you don’t. Bullshit. None of us have the courage to truly live out loud. Warts and all. I sure have tried though. I’ve talked VERY openly about my mental health struggles. But even I am a victim of vanity. Notice that I haven’t posted many pictures of myself in the last six months. After losing 85 pounds, I put back on about 40. But that doesn’t fit my narrative. So I just post lots of landscape shots. Haha. Honestly, though, I’m nearly 45-years-old and I just don’t care anymore. When I was younger, I was quite good looking and never had a problem getting women or charming guests at a party. I usually WAS the party. I stayed up all night, and always closed down the bar. It was fun. But these days, I’d rather read a book. Listen to a podcast. Or watch TV. I never was a tall man, but as I get older, I find myself shrinking. Ahh! No! I can’t afford to get any shorter! Of course, I’m growing wider in the other direction. Haha. And losing my hair. And growing hair where it doesn’t belong. And on and on and on. But fuck, I’m almost half a century years old. People age. Not even the most beautiful model in the world will likely still turn heads at 60…80…

People age.

So if you wanna use a filter and fool us all, so be it. You do you. Or if you don’t want to use a filter, and tell us all that you are emphatically NOT using a filter, that’s cool too. Me, I’ll just be over here aging with grace…

Yeah right! 😛

What the World Needs Now is Love Sweet Love

I watch a LOT of news on television, and read the New York Times and The Atlantic every day. You could say that I’m pretty well informed.

But I can understand the impulse to withdraw from the world and avoid news altogether. I have a friend who I just learned has never heard of the musical ‘Hamilton.’ I could not believe it. She was also unaware Trump was being impeached or that he had ever been impeached a first time. Honestly, I’m surprised she even knew that Donald Trump was ever our President. She doesn’t vote.

“What have you been living under a rock?” is an expression perfectly suited to this woman.

She’s a friend, and we actually do have a lot of other things in common. I genuinely enjoy spending time with her. So yeah, I like her a lot.

Having said that, her lack of engagement with the world and a society she inhabits actually exasperates me. She has severe ADD and an anxiety disorder. I understand her not wanting to let the troubling news of the world make her overly anxious and depressed. That’s just good self-care and a fragile person protecting themselves. I get it.

But at some point, people like her are actually just as dangerous as these QAnon nuts. An uninformed, apathetic, and disengaged citizen is almost as bad for our democracy and country as a Confederate Flag-waving white supremacist. Both can do great harm to our nation.

My friend is a sensitive and compassionate lefty artist who teaches young children art every day. Which is awesome. She is a passionate dreamer and innovative and creative thinker. We need more people like her in the world. But at some point, that child she’s teaching may make some racist remark or say some sexist thing, because they heard their last President say it, and this young woman might not even know what that kid is talking about. Of course, she would redirect the child and turn it into a teachable moment because that’s what all good teachers do. And she is a good teacher.

Personally, I strongly believe that we also have to engage with the world around us. We must be in the world, not just of it. The only way racism is going to be solved is by entering into dialogue with others – those who share our opinions, and yes, even those who don’t. How will they ever learn?

Several of my radical leftist friends refuse to ever talk to a Trump supporter again and are now saying “FUCK them! They can all die.” I’m sorry, but that’s not helpful. Are they suggesting 74 million Americans die? Because that’s nearly a third of our country and the last time I checked, they were still our neighbors, teachers, acquaintances, coworkers, family, and friends, to name a few. Good for you. You’ll never speak to another person who voted for Donald Trump. Haha. Don’t make me laugh. As if you ever did before. These people live in a liberal echo chamber on Facebook where all their progressive liberal friends “like” all of their thoughtfully indignant posts about keeping immigrant children in cages and separating families at the border.

Great. I think that’s bad too.

I’m a liberal too. Or at least, I used to think I was. These days, I get in more fights with my radical liberal friends than my Republican friends who voted for Trump. I guess I’m more of a center Democrat, because some of these radicals come off as Maoists to me. I thought I was liberal, but I’m getting “OK, Boomer” vibes from half the people I know under 35. I want all the same things that AOC, Bernie, and Warren want, but I guess I’m not angry enough about it. Or I don’t talk about identity politics like I should. It’s not enough to support gay marriage these days. Now, I have to marry a man in order to be an ally.

Kidding.

Bur seriously, I hate the hypocrisy on BOTH SIDES. Our country is so divided, and both camps are so entrenched in their own ideologies that NO ONE is talking anymore. There’s no middle left in this country. And if there’s no middle, where the hell are we all supposed to meet?

The point is, I feel like the only way we’re ever gonna make this a “more perfect Union” is for all of us to actually talk to one another. And above all, to LISTEN. There is no greater gift you can give another person than your undivided attention. To actually listen to what they have to say. That is truly what it means to LOVE.

I have friends who I love who would vote for AOC or Warren for President in a heartbeat. I also have friends who would change the Constitution so that we could elect Donald Trump President for life. Seriously. No exaggeration.
And people of all stripes and everything in between.

Because I LOVE people. Not political parties. People.

I wish my friend would engage with the world more, and maybe talk to a Trump supporter sometime. But she clearly suffers from mental illness, and needs to protect herself. As she should.

So what’s your excuse..?

Color Blind: The Virtues and Pitfalls of Cross-Racial Casting, Part I

Last night, I decided to finally succumb to the buzz, and watched the new Netflix show, Bridgerton. All that I knew about the show was that it is set during the Regency period and that it was quite steamy…i.e. lots of nudity and sex scenes. I have always somewhat reluctantly enjoyed Jane Austen, and the novels she set during that era, so I figured I might enjoy this new show as well. And it is well-crafted. And easily addictive. I found it begrudgingly satisfying in the way all guilty pleasures are. To some, that’s watching trashy reality television. For me, it’s apparently binging on Regency soft-core porn. 😉

Like Austen, writer Julia Quinn invents a protagonist who is a headstrong and stifled young woman whose sense of fierce self-determination is seemingly at odds with her predestined station in life and the established mores of the age. As you might expect, she wants to find love and true companionship, but being a young landed woman of a certain age, must also find a husband as soon as possible. In Bridgerton, the young protagonist’s name is Daphne, and her older brother (Anthony), is bound and determined to find her a suitable match. In this case, the eldest brother is overly picky and cannot bring himself to approve of any of her would-be suitors.

Enter the newly-minted Duke of Hastings. He is an old college friend of Anthony’s and dutifully mannered, classically handsome, exquisitely dressed, and obviously, London’s most eligible bachelor.

And Black.

Wait. What?

If this film were being made in the late ’60s, it would be called Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? That classic movie stars Sydney Poitier as Dr. John Prentice, the Black fiancé to a young (headstrong and free-thinking) white woman named Joanna, who brings him home to progressive San Francisco to meet her otherwise liberal parents – played by Spencer Tracey and Katherine Hepburn. In that film, the lefty white couple’s attitudes are challenged when their daughter introduces them to her African-American fiancé – a doctor, no less – and their true veneer and liberal hypocrisy and is exposed for all that it is. The movie was of its age, and at the same time, also timeless and far-sighted. You might even say, ahead of its time. How are we still having these conversations nearly 55 years later?

In 2017, visionary actor, writer, director, and producer Jordan Peele completely turned Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? on its head, and injected horror and menace into the premise, mixed genres and allusions in a lovely postmodern pastiche, and produced Get Out. In doing so, he effectively created his own genre of film – social justice horror. Or Racial Thriller. Or whatever film historians will ultimately call it. Essentially, it is a movie about relationships between white America and Black America, and the horror that can arise out of the collision of those two forces…particularly to African Americans, who have been historically abused, maligned, oppressed, and traumatized by systemic racism in this country for over 400 years. This racism is systemic because it underlies EVERY institution in America, from our criminal justice system to housing market to education system to…well…EVERYTHING. But in these films, that racism translates to real people, whose relationships are not merely transactional, but rooted in a deep-seated racism that permeates our very words, thoughts, and actions. The true horror is that we (WHITE AMERICA) are finally seeing what Black Americans have lived in this country since they were first brought over in chains. Peele’s film arrived just three years before the George Floyd murder and subsequent Black Lives Matter summer of protests, but it wasn’t necessarily prescient. Because as a Black man, Peele had already lived this reality his entire life, as every African American has for centuries. It was merely that white America was finally seeing the cell phone videos for the first time. Those images have undoubtedly been imprinted on Black peoples’ minds for generations. OUR eyes have opened, not THEIRS. And yet, if you look at the number of people who reject BLM or deny the existence of racially-motivated police brutality, it seems that only a half of white America have opened their eyes. There is still a LOT of work to do. And that is why there is nothing more urgent or timely than the work Jordan Peele is producing right now.

But what does any of this have to do with Bridgerton and my enjoyment of this light-hearted romp through Regency England?

TO BE CONTINUED…