Killer whales, killer times: San Diego part II

July 19, 2019July 21, 2019 ~ Chris ~ Leave a comment

It’s astonishing how pleasant and doable the weather was yesterday in Coronado, San Diego, what with hair-flustering breezes and temps hardly nicking 70. It’s nuts. I mad-love it, especially considering the 100-ish hell-wave I’ll be facing back on the East Coast. That’s nuts, too, but in a whole other way, the kind that makes you cussy and crazed.

Weather’s the worst. It’s almost never perfect. Climatic sweet spots are as slippery as quicksilver. But these days are pretty swell. I can wear pants. I can wear shorts. I can slip on a light jacket. Or not. Actually, it could be a dash cooler — mid-to-low-60s would be Edenic — but I’m being positive. Sunshiny, if you will.

So. San Diego. I haven’t been here since a wild weekend at my brother’s dorm at San Diego State University, where he went for one semester before beating it the hell to Cal Berkeley. Yes, of course he took the 17-year-old me to Tijuana, and, natch, what happens in Tijuana stays in Tijuana. So quit asking. (Frankly, I don’t remember a thing.)

Now, with six other family members, I’m on vacation at a place I would never choose on my own. But majority rules. We did the vaunted San Diego Zoo, a lush green compound where the exhibited animals play a mean game of hide and seek with gullible human visitors craving a glimpse of (and desperate selfies with) those cuddly koalas. Peek-a-boo at the zoo. No one wins.

The other major attraction here is, of course, splashy, clamorous SeaWorld, where yowling seal barks and the wet slap of bellyflops by multi-ton orcas fill the salty air.

Along with human screams.

That’s because the ocean park has perforce reduced its vulgar killer whale and dolphin shows after cries of demonstrable animal cruelty and have filled the entertainment void with, what else, rollercoasters and marine-themed thrill rides.

Like the Tentacle Twirl, Tidal Twister, and the fearsome Electric Eel, the “tallest, fastest” rollercoaster in all of — hang on — greater San Diego. It’s a bit like saying a place has the best, zestiest tacos in Des Moines, Iowa. It’s all comically relative.

**The Electric Eel rollercoaster — a shocking surprise.**

But my sarcasm falls flat because the Electric Eel is a stellar coaster. We rode it today, and each herk, jerk, corkscrew, twist, twirl, drop and fling came out of nowhere. Usually you sort of know the layout of a rollercoaster, how many loops it has and such. The Eel was sheer breathtaking surprise, fast, furious fun.

Waddling, nose-diving penguin colonies; bulbous ivory beluga whales; tubby, slothish walruses; greedy, hand-fed manta rays; bullet-like harbor seals; the inevitable killer whale show, which is now solely an educational experience without dopey trainers standing on the animals’ backs like they’re water skiing. Thanks to foot fatigue, missing on our expedition were dolphins, otters, polar bears, sharks and the almost mythical narwhal, the so-called unicorn of the sea that I would like to ride around the Arctic.

Like yesterday, the weather held today at a tolerable 72 degrees, which still staggers. (And still left me sunburned.) This SoCal trip winds down tonight with tacos and tequila at the poolside cantina, called fittingly enough The Cantina.

This was an accomplishment. I survived all the trappings of a semi-swanky beach resort, swaying palm trees, children splashing (and shrieking) in swimming pools, grown men in flip-flops and tank tops, quaint downtowns, extravagantly famous theme parks filled with captive creatures and $10 beers. I spent time with family and realized its uncanny resemblance to the macaque. I pet a dog at a restaurant that growled at me fiercely. I splurged on too many beverages. I didn’t go to the beach. I didn’t fish. I ate scallops. I didn’t eat ice cream. I had a blast.

**Nephew Nick, pondering the rays and fishies at SeaWorld.**

Sun, sand and a menagerie of bashful animals

July 17, 2019July 21, 2019 ~ Chris ~ 2 Comments

I don’t do sun and fun. Yet here I am in breezy, easy San Diego, Calif., for a shortish vacation with the extended family — mother, brother, nephew, et al. Seven of us total.

Why do I shun the pool and the Pacific? I sure didn’t used to, particularly growing up in oceanside Santa Barbara, Calif. There I was like any splash-happy, wave-plunging kid, giddiest reverting to a primal state of fluidity, getting soaked, sandy and sun-baked.

I think I just grew out of it. By my teens, living in the temperate San Francisco Bay Area, I loathed the heat, anything over 75 degrees was excruciating. And it still is. I’m a 40s and 50s kind of guy. Fall and winter are my homies. Jeans, jacket, scarf — the ideal uniform. Shivering is my version of sweating. (Sweat is my kryptonite.) I aspire to be an Inuit.

Against my nature, but not my will, I’ve been cajoled to one of the beachiest places on the planet. Briny water everywhere. The profusion of palm trees — Christ. Boats and bikinis, flip-flops and fish, pink flesh and pervasive pastels. It’s Coronado Bay, San Diego.

I actually sat poolside — in the shade, with shirt and sneakers firmly affixed — this afternoon and survived. I had a book (Peter Orner’s new, remarkable short stories “Maggie Brown & Others”) and the laptop (the resort, yes, resort, has spiffy wifi) and a beer and an al pastor taco, so it worked swimmingly, if you will. Then I repaired to my room for some AC time, even though the temps all week are in the mercifully mid-to-low 70s.

I begged off the beach. The six of them headed out to sit on sand beneath yawning umbrellas and presumably tiptoe into the chilly sea. I had no business there, as much as I love sharks. But the chances of a shark sighting were as good as those of me not being bored out of my skull plopped on mushy sand under a giant parasol. (Instead, I’m writing this. I bet you wish I went to the beach.)

When many of us think of San Diego, the mega-famous zoo (known as the world’s best) and SeaWorld spring to mind. In other words: creatures, critters, cetaceans, crustaceans. Now, those I can do. Captive animals crack my heart, but at least the respected zoo sustains “natural” habitats and breeds endangered species. And even the ethically iffy SeaWorld has banished its dubious in-park breeding and tawdry theatrical whale shows. (Shamu — rhymes with boo.)

Today was San Diego Zoo day, and it was about as thrilling as watching a flock of pink, and a few juvenile gray, flamingos stand on one preternaturally long and spindly leg and snooze, or projectile poop, or, in the case of the gray downy youngsters, stumble and wash and act as adorable as can be. When flamingos are a highlight, well …

Besides being reminded on a double-decker bus tour around the park that hippos are “the most dangerous animals in the world” (for some reason, I find that exhilarating) and that some wolves smell like seething skunk bud, mostly the day consisted of trying to locate animals in their enclosures. Craned necks and dashed hopes were major exertions. It was the land of the empty habitat.

There’s one alpha gorilla sitting tall and proud, and there he goes, vanishing behind a rock. There’s a sole polar bear sleeping up on a hill, partially obscured. Ah, I spy a pygmy hippo — 90-percent submerged in a pond. And so on. Zoos might be the most exasperating animal experience available. Go to a mall pet shop to see more furry mammalian action.

But the weather remained agreeable — low-70s — so things meteorologically were dreamy. And they sell beer all over the place. (Wait, $9 for a can of Corona — where are the hippos when I need them?)

I don’t want to complain. I saw frolicsome monkeys and fat pythons and some Chaplinesque penguins, not to mention a guy dressed in a ragtag rhinoceros costume posing for pictures who made legions of unsuspecting visitors uneasy.

But where, I direly wondered, were the real rhinos? And giraffes? And hyenas. And, come on, the platypuses? We spotted, nestled in thick foliage, a koala. It was like seeing a child’s stuffed animal stuck in a way-up tree. It wanted nothing to do with us, the cranky marsupial. That’s what happens when you sleep 22 hours a day.

A leopard showed its spots — for about 34 seconds. Then there was the funky smelling wolf — a total no-show, just a nose show. The macaques — same. Empty habitats are like unfulfilled dreams, dollar bills set on fire. Enter the gift shop and suddenly the animals are fluffy, smiling, en masse, thriving. A simple magnet of a magnificent mountain lion or a whimsical t-shirt of a rhinoceros (“Save the Chubby Unicorns”) about makes it all OK.

Seeing SeaWorld with moral clarity

July 5, 2019July 5, 2019 ~ Chris ~ 2 Comments

The last time I was at SeaWorld in San Diego, epochs ago, an elephantine walrus sprayed a vast and violent spume of water at my mom, soaking her in spit and salt water and leaving me half aghast, half in giggles. It was a splashy public display — a decent crowd circled the creature’s enclosure — and mom was not overjoyed. Harpoons danced in her head.

This was the revenge of the pinniped, a blubbery brown Jabba the Hutt that seemed to be broadcasting to us all, “Stop taunting, gawking and pointing at me and my helplessly oppressed prison mates. Enough! Sploosh.”

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If only all the park’s captive marine animals — penguins, dolphins, seals, sea otters, orcas, sharks, florescent fishies — could speak so eloquently, so mean and to the point. Because these swimming, jumping, barking, glowing creatures are not happy campers. They are abductees, held against their natures, highly evolved wildlife reduced to playthings, ogled objects, effectively slaves. They should hold a hunger strike, or incite a riot, or at least sign petitions.

I’m returning to SeaWorld this month with a hard gulp of guilt. First, there’s the raping of my wallet: the standard entry fee is a leap-off-a-bridge $92. Surely at that price I can ride a killer whale and feed a Great White and take home a baby otter. (But, uh-uh, I can’t.)

But more importantly I am guilty about all those animals, many of which have heartrending backstories. It mostly plays like this: The animals are snatched from their mothers on the open sea and dropped into a tiny, concrete, chemical-laden pool for a torturous eternity of crowd-pleasing antics, frozen fish food, disease and premature death. Did I note that the mothers from which they are snatched are often slaughtered? There’s that.

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Despite meager improvements — SeaWorld, under tremendous public pressure, ceased its orca shows in 2017 — the new documentary “Long Gone Wild” reveals a “wildlife trade that includes capturing orcas from the wild and selling them to the exploding marine theme park industry in China, and points to the hardships orcas experience in captivity, such as collapsed fins, broken teeth, and severe boredom and depression.”

I have little doubt the remaining killer whales at SeaWorld are borderline suicidal.

And why did SeaWorld San Diego halt its theatrical killer whale shows? It’s thanks in large part to powerful agitprop, particularly the 2013 documentary “Blackfish,” which follows a performing killer whale’s cruel treatment in captivity and its resulting swath of destruction, killing several people while in captivity.

(As for swimming with dolphins, that exotic brand of blissful exploitation: also reprehensible. See HERE and HERE.)

So off to SeaWorld I go (it’s a family thing). I can bring money, I can bring empathy and sympathy and an overall spirit of goodwill. I can look a dolphin in the eye and whisper, “Dude, hang in there. You can do this.” I can tell a walrus to chill and enjoy his prison comrades, before he loogies in my face and tells me to go to hell.

I can’t free Willy, but I can instill in him and his sea-park pals dignity and self-worth. It won’t be easy — those flapping, clapping sea lions look thrilled to be there, despite yelping like they’re being run over by a Range Rover. Yet with rectitude, altruism and a soupçon of soul, the animals might know we’re out there, and that we give a damn.

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For more on the ethical iffiness and ickiness of SeaWorld, go HERE and HERE.

9 best films of 2019 (so far)

June 30, 2019July 1, 2019 ~ Chris ~ 5 Comments

In no particular order, the movies I’m excited about at the year’s half-way point …

“Climax”

Puckishly sadistic, Gaspar Noé and Lars von Trier remain cinema’s great pessimists, glib nihilists and gleeful provocateurs. Look, without flinching, at Noé’s masterwork “Irréversible” or von Trier’s “Antichrist” and you’ll see my point. With the head-spinning, hallucinogenic swirl of body (and camera) movement that is “Climax,” Noé takes his visual and thematic tics past the edge of woozy chaos. When an extraordinarily talented dance troupe’s party is ruined by a bowl of LSD-spiked punch, hell uncorks with fury. What was a glorious pageant of writhing bodies becomes a descent into a violent nightmare of screeching, thrashing individuals trying to relocate reality. The camera rides a liquid wave of neon hues, racing and corkscrewing down halls and weaving through rooms. Frequently indulgent and meandering, with no real characters or story, just sensation and electro-shock, the film is pure immersion, a sustained climax. I didn’t say it was pleasant. But it is novel, and queerly riveting. And purely Noé. Watch the trailer HERE.

“The Last Black Man in San Francisco”

At once arty, elegiac, poetic and tough-minded, this is a tale, a beautiful reverie, that strikes on topics of race and class and gentrification with sparks and lyricism and primary-color Spike Lee sizzle. It’s something singular, and it slowly intoxicates with its emotional and sociological depths. Following Jimmie Fails (played by the actor of the same name — he’s as charismatic as a young Don Cheadle) as he presses to reclaim the giant Victorian home of his grandfather, the film is both a call to honoring blood bonds and a plaintive hymn to a troubled city. Joe Talbot directs (and co-writes) with soaring vision and intense feeling. The result is dire, daring, dreamy. Trailer HERE.

“Honeyland”

In this gorgeously observational documentary, weathered, middle-aged Hatidze lives in the rocky Macedonian mountains, where she cares for her ailing mother and tends to several beehives that produce honey for a tenuous livelihood. A large, rowdy family moves next door and decides to try beekeeping, but without expertise, they flail and almost comically get stung more than they harvest the sweet goo. Tensions arise between the neighbors, but this achingly humanistic look at an exotic if seriously impoverished way of life is mostly a portrait of Hatidze, a steely, lonely woman who has as much soul as those mountains can contain. The doc won a record three awards at Sundance 2019, including for its ravishing cinematography. Trailer HERE.

“The Mustang”

Breaking a horse is a bitch. Triple the challenge if it’s a rearing, snorting wild desert mustang. That’s what Roman (Matthias Schoenaerts) is tasked with as a violent criminal in a Nevada prison program in which convicts break mustangs for auction, preparing them for work in law enforcement. “We’re not training these horses for little kids’ birthdays and pony rides,” growls Bruce Dern’s crusty bossman, who knows both man and horse require an especially prickly strain of tough-love. If Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre’s feature debut falls into a formulaic groove — the apex of the depiction of trust-building between human and wild horse remains Carroll Ballard’s 1979 “The Black Stallion” — the film doesn’t flinch from gritty, violent twists. The dangerous dance between Roman and his horse Marcus retains tension, as the two captives, both scrappy and obstinate, circle each other in a face-off that could end in injury and defeat, or mutual respect and friendship. Roman’s frustration boils — “Just fucking listen to me!” he snaps. “I’m not going to hurt you! You hear me, you stupid animal!” — and it’s no surprise the horse is listening. Trailer HERE.

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“Her Smell”

Elisabeth Moss’ performance in this shambolic punk-rock portrait is as athletically interior as it is exterior, spiked with physical fits and spasms like a lunatic child in a druggy tantrum. In my favorite performance of the year, Moss plays Becky, volatile front-woman of a female punk band she’s struggling to keep together between coke binges and flame-throwing hissy fits. The actress stirs up a cackling, hand-flinging cauldron of Courtney Love, Blanche DuBois, Charles Manson and Gena Rowlands in “A Woman Under the Influence.” It’s all raw-nerve, and Moss commits to her anti-heroine in a self-immolating blaze. She’s as shattering as this ballsy, surprisingly sensitive film by writer-director Alex Ross Perry. Trailer HERE.

“Booksmart”

Barreling forth with raunchy vigor and unbridled zest, this breakneck coming-of-age comedy, actress Olivia Wilde’s impressive directorial debut, screams fun. Almost literally: There’s a lot of screaming — in surprise, horror and explosive joy. An amplified spin on school-days greats — “Dazed and Confused,” John Hughes’ oeuvre and last year’s “Lady Bird” and “Eighth Grade” — “Booksmart” piles on twists with a sharp, knowing eye that zooms in on the timely and topical, from female power and LGBTQs, to bullying and the corrosive effects of cliques, and, duh, the liberating if daunting pull of sexual exploration. Starring a terrific Beanie Feldstein and Kaitlyn Dever as boundary-pushing besties, who learn, in a fleeting haze, that maybe bongs are as fun as books. Trailer HERE.

“Gloria Bell”

A glowing Julianne Moore — is there a more radiant actress? — assumes the title role in this sweet, ebullient, slightly melancholic snapshot of a middle-aged divorced woman seeking love and connection in modern Los Angeles. A touching remake of the 2013 Chilean film “Gloria,” by the writer-director of that movie, Sebastián Lelio, the movie follows its wise, free-spirited character onto her favorite place, the dance floor, where she finds romance with a nice guy (a fine, empathetic John Turturro) and all the attendant delights, complications and disappointments of love. No matter how sore things get, Gloria’s joie de vivre stays infectious. Trailer HERE.

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“Non-Fiction”

French writer-director Olivier Assayas‘ dramedy is a tireless, tonic gabfest that had me speed-reading the flurry of subtitles more than drinking in the warm faces and colors of the bustling scenes. That’s no complaint. The profusion of words — intelligent, eloquent, biting — brim with ideas, humor, pain and pathos, for an enveloping artful experience. You want to know the fork-tongued characters, led by an enchanting Juliette Binoche, because of the literary, arty cosmos in which these writers, editors and actors orbit. It’s heady and human: They’re just people, with all of our people-ly problems, and it’s more exciting than you think. Part tart publishing-world satire, part feast of infidelity, part anatomy of midlife crises, “Non-Fiction” is light on plot, more enmeshed in ideas about love and life, loyalty between friends and lovers, and, in a topical concession, a pointed conversation about new media vs. the printed word. It’s like a Gallic Woody Allen comedy, without the tootling clarinet and stammering, gesticulating neuroses. Trailer HERE.

“The Souvenir”

Not an easy film, Joanna Hogg‘s elusive, divisive relationship drama is boobytrapped with qualities that repel people from the arthouse. It’s glacial, elliptical, remote. It makes you work with loosely hanging scenes, a jagged structure and oblique characterizations. I broke a small sweat trying to solder the plot together, identify with the actors and figure out where Hogg was taking me. The entry point is young film student Julie, played with winsome diffidence by Honor Swinton Byrne. Julie’s lover Anthony (Tom Burke) is a heroin addict, a secret until it’s not, which inevitably snarls their relationship. The story is mostly scenes of the couple muddling through their unconventional, occasionally off-putting upper-middle-class affair. With drugs. And spats. And sex. And dinner parties. And the making of a student film. And an IRA bombing. Somehow, Hogg’s disparate elements crazily fall together. Trailer HERE.

Random reflections, wryly

June 12, 2019June 15, 2019 ~ Chris ~ 4 Comments

I have never done karaoke, and I never will.

I don’t understand runners. I don’t know what in the world they are doing.

Dancing — a faint memory from my roaring twenties that I hope goes away.

Reggae is the devil’s flatulence.

A good, mean rollercoaster mainlines an unparalleled high.

There is nothing sexier than a comely woman reading a book.

Cars. I will never get them. They are like refrigerators — necessary appliances.

‘Good dog’ is redundant.

People who purposely don’t travel are unevolved and sad. (And people who say Munich is better than Paris are the most unevolved and most sad.)

Going to the movies alone is the best.

Religion is so radically misunderstood, so repulsively knotted up, we should hit delete and start all over again.

I am constitutionally incapable of playing charades.

Giving money to your alma mater is strictly for suckers.

Unless you’re doing it to a tiny child, the high-five is socially questionable. Fist-bumps — criminal.

There are worse things than tongue piercings. Though I can’t think of anything.

When an adult says they’re “reading” Harry Potter, they’re not really reading at all.

Sushi is sublime. I’ll even eat the grocery store crap.

I‘m thinking of going back to Japan. The more I think about it, the crazier I get.

I have this thing that if someone tells me they don’t read, I want to go back in time to the moment where I hadn’t met them.

Carnivals are disgusting and revolting. I adore everything about them. Even those poor goldfish.

I can’t do the Great Outdoors. It’s the outdoors part that gets me.

I like sharks a lot. If one bit me, it would probably like me too.

Pet rats are like itty-bitty dogs — highly intelligent, funny, trainable, social, responsive. They drink beer and eat anything and, well, everything. Then at about 2-years-old they die and shatter your heart into 10,000 pieces. They’re the best.

If, in a post-apocalyptic world, all sports were wiped out, I wouldn’t care a whit. Take the fans first.

I was thinking of going to a local food festival and parade. Temporary insanity just creeps up on you.

Want to know if the dog dies? Go here first

June 4, 2019June 4, 2019 ~ Chris ~ 2 Comments

In the bullet-peppered, body-slamming thriller “John Wick,” innumerable bad guys die stylishly gruesome deaths.

So, alas, does the dog.

The blameless Beagle puppy named Daisy is mercilessly killed before our hero’s eyes, which squint with vengeance instead of squinch with tears. John Wick (Keanu Reeves) isn’t taking this outrage sitting down — he’s not letting dead dogs lie — in the 2014 cult classic. He’s about to unleash a two-hour massacre.

Spoiler? You bet. That’s exactly what the fine, sometimes funny and oddly practical movie- and animal-lover site Does the Dog Die? is here for — to tell you ahead of time if the damn dog dies. You want to know. I definitely want to know.

Anytime a dog, or any animal for that matter, appears on screen I tense up and just hope the creature doesn’t get shot, run over by an SUV or mauled by a demon (or, if you’re the rabbit in “Fatal Attraction,” boiled alive). Animals in movies are too often sacrificial lambs, beelines to our heartstrings or, as in Wick’s case, catalysts for revenge. (Or just workaday roadkill. Shrug.)

The website covers all manner of movie, TV and book animal deaths. Fed by visitor input, it’s a spoiler sanctuary revealing what animals perish or get injured and how, in often graphic terms. (Sample: “A cat accidentally gets smashed by a book. A half-human, half-dog gets his arm chopped off and punched into the ground.”) Ha, ha.

It’s humorous. It’s helpful. It’s horrific. Here’s a short screen grab to show you what entries looks like (note, it’s not the prettiest web design):

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Some more reader reports about dogs dying onscreen at Does the Dog Die:

“The Babadook” — “For anyone who DOESN’T WANT TO WATCH THE DEATH OF THE DOG, don’t watch from 1:09:20 to 1:11:20.”
“I Am Legend” — “Dog is infected by a zombie-esque virus and is killed by her owner.”
“The Witch” — “Dog disemboweled in the woods.”
“The Good Place” (TV) — “A dog is kicked into the sun.”
“The Thing” — “Many dogs die on and off camera. One looks like it got doused in acid and is still moving around.”
“John Wick” — “Yes, and it’s terrible, BUT John Wick spends the rest of the movie deliberately, gloriously, and violently avenging the dog, so it feels really pro-dog overall.”
“Old Yeller” — “Yes the dog dies. He’s shot by his owner after contracting rabies.”

Old Yeller. You bet your life the dog dies..jpg — **“Old Yeller” — he’s either shaving or he has rabies. Yep: He dies.**

Does the Dog Die goes well beyond dog deaths, featuring 50 queasy-making topics, things you might want to know before flipping on the TV or entering the multiplex. Some topics and contributor comments:

Does a kid die?

“Game of Thrones” (TV) — “Season 2, Episode 1: For goodness’ sake, don’t watch this episode if you can’t stand a child being hurt. A baby is murdered.”

Is someone burned alive?

“Thor Ragnarok” — “Someone is literally melted.”

Are there clowns?

“It” — “Shockingly, there are clowns.”

Does a head get squashed?

“Venom” — “Does a head getting eaten count as squashed? I’d say yeah, but some may disagree.”

Is Santa spoiled?

“Bojack Horseman” (TV) — “In the Christmas special, Bojack’s character admits that Santa is a lie in a way that is phrased to deny the existence of God.”

Are any teeth damaged?

“Room” — “Ma has a ‘bad tooth’ which hurts her when she eats. It eventually falls out and she gives it to her son.”

I can handle clowns, squashed heads and rotten teeth, but I hate it when the dog dies. Hate it. It’s one reason I call canine-killing movies like “Where the Red Fern Grows” and “Marley & Me” doggie-death porn. They all but fetishize the dog’s demise, milking the moment as they twist a knife in your heart, probably snickering as they do it. Sadists.

And so we have this neat site to tell us when to cover our eyes, leave the room, or skip a movie, show or book altogether. It’s not just a clever concept, it’s a public service.

Good movies right now

May 25, 2019June 6, 2019 ~ Chris ~ Leave a comment

Before summer’s prequels, sequels and tweak-quels bombard us, I offer this eclectic spread of late-spring cinema surprises, all worth a look:

“Booksmart”

An amplified spin on school-days greats — “Dazed and Confused,” John Hughes’ oeuvre and last year’s “Lady Bird” and “Eighth Grade” — “Booksmart” piles on twists and layers with a sharp, knowing eye that zooms in on the timely and topical, from female power and LGBTs, to bullying and the corrosive effects of cliques — and of course the liberating if daunting pull of sexual exploration.

Beanie Feldstein and Kaitlyn Dever play best friends Molly and Amy, super-nerds at their high school who are maligned for their almost pathological goodie-goodie-ism. They’re all books and no bacchanal and are certain that’s the only way to make it through college and life.

Molly, who has a crush on an unattainable pretty boy, and Amy, who has a crush on a scrappy skate-girl — sort of the story’s dual heroes’ journey — recklessly decide to shed their image and go all out on the night before graduation. The upshot is an epic party-hopping misadventure festooned with the silly, surreal and psychedelic, aided by riotously inspired side players who should get their own movies (including Carrie Fisher’s daughter, the scene-stealing Billie Lourd).

“Booksmart” radiates the crazy anarchic spirit of party-hearty teen classics like “Superbad,” and indeed “crazy” might be the movie’s one-word elevator pitch. Hang on for the insta-classic “doll scene.” It’s a little bit Barbie, a little bit “Team America,” and all warped genius.

In theaters. Watch the trailer HERE.

*“Non-Fiction”

French writer-director Olivier Assayas‘ new dramedy is a tireless, tonic gabfest that had me speed-reading the flurry of subtitles more than drinking in the warm faces and colors of the bustling scenes.

That’s no complaint. The profusion of words — intelligent, eloquent, biting — brim with ideas, humor, pain and pathos, for an enveloping artful experience. You want to know the fork-tongued characters, led by a ravishing Juliette Binoche, because of the literary, arty cosmos in which these writers, editors and actors orbit. It’s intoxicating and deeply human: They’re just people, with all of our people-ly problems, and it’s more exciting than you think.

Part tart publishing-world satire, part feast of infidelity, part anatomy of midlife crises, “Non-Fiction” is light on plot, more enmeshed in ideas about love and life, loyalty between friends and lovers, and, in a topical concession, a pointed conversation about new media vs. the printed word. It’s like a Gallic Woody Allen comedy, without the tootling clarinet and stammering, gesticulating neuroses (though there’s plenty of neuroses to go around).

Assayas, one of our most talented and inventive living filmmakers — like Michael Winterbottom and the late Kubrick, he’s a virtuoso of versatility — has made a comedy of manners that has more in common with his wonderful, verbose family drama “Summer Hours” than his masterly supernatural genre-buster “Personal Shopper.” Like the best of his movies, it’s brightly observant and conspicuously literate — as rich as a great novel, kind of ironic for a picture titled “Non-Fiction.”

In theaters. Watch the trailer HERE.

“The Souvenir”

Not an easy film, Joanna Hogg‘s elusive, divisive relationship drama is boobytrapped with qualities that repel people away from the arthouse. It’s glacial, elliptical, remote, woolly. It makes you work with loosely hanging scenes, a jagged structure and oblique characterizations. I broke a small sweat trying to solder the plot together, identify with the actors and figure out where Hogg was taking me. (“Hogg,” writes one critic, “has the courage of her incoherence.”) Mostly I succeeded, finally granting this vaguely experimental flick a shaky B+.

The main entry point is young film student Julie, played with winsome diffidence by Honor Swinton Byrne, daughter of indie eminence Tilda Swinton, who has a small role as, who else, Julie’s flittering mother, her face a pinched mask of imperious disquiet.

Julie’s lover Anthony (Tom Burke) is a heroin addict, a secret until it’s not, which inevitably tangles their relationship. The story is mostly scenes of the couple muddling through their unconventional, occasionally off-putting upper-middle-class affair. With drugs. And spats. And sex. And dinner parties. And the making of a student film. And an IRA bombing. Hogg’s disparate elements somehow fall together.

There were two huffy walkouts at my recent screening, and online reviews are tetchy. “I found this film to be tedious and unrewarding,” one gripes. “I want my money back,” harrumphs another. And this: “The only movie I’ve ever walked out of in my life. I’m amazed I stayed awake and endured it for over an hour.”

With a giggle, I take those as good signs — chance-taking auteurism is always encouraging — more reasons to stick with this exacting film and reap its chilly virtues.

In theaters. Watch the trailer HERE.

“What’s My Name: Muhammad Ali”

Eyes wide, mouth agape, a fist pounding the table, Muhammad Ali is unleashed, free-associative verse tumbling from his unstoppable maw. Harnessing vainglory and the gift of gab, Ali is showboating, again, his audience of press and promoters rapt and laughing. And then he winds down, admitting exhaustion, the pugilist at rest.

The sudden calm is a rare state for the heavyweight champ, self-anointed The Greatest, whose taunting poetic prattle — “I’m so bad, I make medicine sick!” — earned him both infamy and adulation. “He talks too damn much! Put your fist in his mouth!” Ali recalls a ringside heckler shouting in this HBO documentary, a transfixing, rap-rattling trip through the fighter’s professional life told almost exclusively in his own words. It’s a beautifully edited stream of vintage press conferences, TV and radio interviews, with ribbons of color from managers and trainers, magazine covers and newspaper headlines. (“He could never keep his big mouth shut,” reads one.)

The two-part, near-three-hour film, directed by Antoine Fuqua (“Training Day,” “Southpaw”) and co-produced by LeBron James, whomps with exhilarating fight footage, and so much more. If Ali was a raving icon in the ring, he was perhaps more of one outside it. He used his supersize personality and cascading eloquence to speak out for civil rights and Islam and against segregation and the Vietnam War. This keen portrait of social decency and athletic supremacy is also a voyage through late 20th-century history and culture, in which an African-American became an international hero.

On HBO and HBO GO. Watch the trailer: HERE.

“The Biggest Little Farm”

If John and Molly Chester learn a few things while building their farm from the sun-baked dirt up, it’s that birds decimate crops, pigs get sick, coyotes feast on chickens, organic eggs sell crazy-fast and manure is magic.

Stars of this inspiring, sometimes harrowing auto-doc, thirty-something couple John and Molly chronicle what happens over seven years when they ditch their tiny Santa Monica apartment for 200 neglected acres an hour outside L.A. to miraculously conjure a working, biodiverse farm. It’s a quixotic, back-to-the-land quest made of heedless ambition and fashionable enlightenment.

“Everyone told us that attempting to farm in harmony with nature would be reckless if not impossible,” says John, this enchanting film’s director and narrator.

Well, almost impossible. John, a wildlife cinematographer — blame him for the movie’s plush nature imagery — and Molly, a chef and food blogger, seek purpose via this sustainable farm. Molly yearns to grow everything she cooks in conservational fashion, as if from a “traditional farm from the past,” dutifully echoing the Earth-friendly ethos of the likes of chef Alice Waters and responsible-foodie manifesto-writer Michael Pollan.

Over years battling pests, drought and the elements, the Chesters’ apparent folly assumes the mantle of glorious accomplishment. (How they pay for it is another question entirely.) Through toil and struggle, heartache and heartbreak, they cultivate a luminous idyll, a practically paradisiacal spread bounding with life, joy and abundance. You almost can’t believe your eyes.

In theaters. Watch the trailer HERE.

Bonus pre-summer movie: I haven’t seen it yet, but I know a masterpiece when it has a barrel pressed against my head: “John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum.“ Taciturn and hitman-cool, the Keanu Reeves vehicle has been called bloody, balletic, exhilarating and “a refresher course, and a liberating one, in the nature of escapist entertainment.” If you haven’t caught the first two John Wick flicks, you have my sympathy. The trailer’s HERE.

The last Sea-Monkey post, I promise

May 10, 2019May 10, 2019 ~ Chris ~ Leave a comment

The Sea-Monkeys are doing swimmingly, thank you, flapping and flying through speckled salt water, pumping fleshy wings and wagging long pink tails like bitty aquatic dragons. Dozens of them flit and twirl about in a plastic tank that’s at best seven inches tall. (See some in action here. It’s totally worth it.)

The last time I reported on Sea-Monkeys — here — I had just watched a memory-rattling short film about the fanciful water simians, which are actually simple but neato-to-watch brine shrimp. (But let’s pretend they’re actually otherworldly, kinda creepy alien demon creatures, the love-children of Poseidon and a mermaid — or of Aquaman and a king prawn. You pick.)

Watching the film, I was prepared to order the small Sea-Monkey tank that comes with Water Purifier, Instant-Life Crystals (eggs) and Growth Food packets lickety-split, I was so excited seeing again the novelty pets I had owned so many times over the decades. (I’m apeshit for these monkeys, you might say.)

So I did. For $12.98 at Amazon, I got The Amazing Live Sea-Monkeys Ocean-Zoo, which the package promises “The World’s Only Instant Pets!”®. I filled the tank with tepid tap water, churned in the Water Purifier and waited the prescribed 24 hours before dumping in the Monkey eggs. I stirred them good and waited.

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Within minutes pencil-dash creatures were zigzagging the water, itsy, white, herky-jerky things you might see under a microscope — autonomous amoebas swimming on their own and doing gleeful backflips. A month later, they are happy, confident, independent and plump — about the size of fingernail clippings — everything you want in healthy offspring. I asked my niece to name the critters. She named them all Charlie.

The Sea-Monkey world is like an undersea ant farm, without the dirt and without, in my case when I tried to cultivate an ant farm, mass annihilation. Not that Sea-Monkeys don’t die. They do. But they also reproduce and replenish their populations in sly ways, such as lacing the Growth Food with fresh eggs that hatch instantly when I feed the creatures every five days or so. Smelly green powder goes in, and babies, mere monkey specks, promptly appear.

It’s that kind of thing that keeps me in the strange thrall of Sea-Monkeys. They really are pets, even if they don’t bark at the mailman, play fetch or, like a certain cat, curl up on your face while you sleep. They don’t stain the carpet, rack up vet bills or, really, do much of anything.

They’re like fish — pretty, transfixing, calming things to look at — but you don’t have to clean the tank. Self-sufficient, save for periodic feedings by their benevolent master (me), Sea-Monkeys just do their thing, flip about, swim around, dance and jig with an alacrity we can only envy.

Monkeys Sea, monkeys do

April 4, 2019April 4, 2019 ~ Chris ~ 7 Comments

Why is everyone so down on Sea-Monkeys? People scoff when I bring them up, which is pretty much never, and the novelty item’s star ratings are piddling to pathetic at Amazon. (2.7 stars? Wha?)

Sea-Monkeys rule. If you’re 7. But really, I’ve owned them at least 10 times as a kid (and, all right, as an adult), those trippy, creepy, itsy-bitsy, dimly disappointing crustaceans that swirl around a small plastic tank on your nightstand before dying off, one by one, until all that’s left is greenish, brackish water that smells like the devil’s bing-hole. My freakish, fun-loving, easily-fooled brain adores them.

Instant Life

They come up because I recently watched Penny Lane’s 2016 short film “Just Add Water: The Story of the Amazing Live Sea-Monkeys.” (See all 16 mind-tweaking minutes of it here.)

It jogged a zillion memories of my 9-year-old self hatching what are actually microscopic brine shrimp (which are used primarily as fish food), hoping, always hoping, for the anthropomorphic little families of so-called Sea-Monkeys to appear when I followed the directions to concoct a peculiar potion.

The famous advertisements in comic books of the 1960s-‘70s depicted happy, three-pronged-crowned sea creatures, naked part-fish/part-people, hanging out, smiling, doing their whateva Sea-Monkey thang. And it showed human purchasers gazing at a bowl of them, grinning like fools. It was wonderful. And for a kid who thought Bigfoot and the Elephant Man were the dope, implacably seductive.

So you order the Sea-Monkeys. Miniature plastic tank that you fill with tap water — check. Then add Packet #1, the water purifier, which, according to the short film, actually contains the Monkey eggs, “giving the Sea-Monkeys time to get big enough for you to see them” in a 24-hour period. Packet #2 is really blue dye that makes the day-old Monkeys even easier to observe. (There’s a small racket going on here.) The other packet, #3, is Growth Food. It smells like algae and fish guts.

No matter, what is happening is science. Namely, “cryptobiosis,” or instant life, meaning the Sea-Monkey eggs are dehydrated like NASA space food and pop to life with the addition of water. Think Cup O’Noodles or Taster’s Choice instant coffee, but with tiny monkeys. That aren’t actually monkeys.

Brine shrimp are what they are. At best, they grow about a half-inch long. They have spindly, monkey-like tails as adults and they swim with fluttering angel’s wings, flapping in circles around the tank, nose-diving, eating food at the bottom and, most curiously, latching onto one another in possible monkey coitus. Baby Sea-Monkeys do happen.

I’ve had a Sea-Monkey live about a year or more — a personal record. It was massive. When it died, my college dorm-mate and I burned it in a funeral pyre. I wish I was joking.

Sea-Monkeys are a conflation of toy and pet, two of children’s favorite things. They are the brainchild of late eccentric inventor Harold von Braunhut, who created a “stage show, the illusion of instant life,” says the film.

But the movie also reveals pure evil: Von Braunhut was an active and outspoken member of a major pro-Hitler white supremacist league. How to reconcile these two sides, the whimsical and the wicked?

“It’s the great mystery lurking behind the Sea-Monkey castle,” says Richard Pell of The Center for PostNatural History in the film. “How does the guy who invents all of these wonderful, playful fun things also promote such horrible ideas?”

I shake my head vigorously. I can’t answer this question. Some might even think Sea-Monkeys, those mutant, sci-fi creatures, are horrible ideas. Spawns of satan.

I then recall my own evil, sheer monkeyshines. As a kid, when I got bored with my tank-circling Sea-Monkeys, I once fed them to a trio of mail-order sea horses (who themselves croaked after about three days). Another time, I poured them into one of those hand-held water games of hoops or tic-tac-toe and swished them around like debris in a storm. Sea-Monkey sadist.

And yet here I am, decades onward, seriously considering buying for my birthday a Sea-Monkeys Ocean-Zoo for $12.98 from Amazon. I am so tempted I can hardly stand it.

(For the Sea-Monkey completist — who isn’t? — visit the official Sea-Monkey site here.)

LM-SEAMONK_2__37889.1503517902.jpg — **Actual Sea-Monkeys, aka brine shrimp, in captivity**

View of the day, wistfully

March 1, 2019 ~ Chris ~ 1 Comment

My laptop, a tall drink and a fairy tale vista — about all I need in my travels.

This was the perch on the rooftop terrace of my Istanbul hotel in November. I went up there a lot for the trusty Wi-Fi; cool fall breezes; Efes Pilsener, the cheap local brew that hits the spot despite its unflagging mediocrity; and, of course, the pristine views of the fabled Blue Mosque and yawning Bosphorus strait.

At night the mosque lights up like a jeweled crown. The water shimmers. I sip my drink and tip-tap on the keyboard, writing nothing of consequence, most of it rot. Istanbul is paradisiacal, keenly removed from normal life, so transporting you sigh with an operatic flutter. It’s Paris of the East, a storybook nirvana.

I miss the mosques, the street food (döner kebabs, simits, etc.), unduly charming people, sweet stray dogs and cats, and ancient rococo scenery. It is where I want to be, right now.

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