movies – Page 9 – The Arts Are Life

Movie Review: Uncut Gems

I had been meaning to see this film for a while. It’s an A24 film, and I am a huge fan of A24 movies, so I was definitely glad to see this one. I watched it a week ago with subtitles, and while at first I was able to keep up with the dialogue, I decided to watch it a second time without the subtitles. There is a lot of dialogue in the film, and pretty fast moving dialogue, and while normally I watch movies and TV shows with subtitles so I can hear the characters better and not have to turn up the volume, I missed out on a lot of key elements in the film because I was trying to keep up with every word the characters were saying. When I watched it without subtitles, I was able to fully take in the characters’ expressions and the dialogue flowed smoothly. The first time I watched it, I didn’t fully get into the film until toward the end when I turned the subtitles off. I’ll probably keep watching movies with subtitles, but this time I decided to keep them off the second time I watched the movie.

I also watched it a second time because in college I had to watch a lot of movies, and I found that movies are like literary texts. I would study literary texts over and over and would find something new each time, and would also be able to make connections between different things I read and saw and listened to. And after getting more into studying the Buddhist philosophy I practice, I found a lot of concepts in Buddhism that could be applied to Uncut Gems.

But just to give a brief plot summary: The movie opens in the Welo Mine in Ethiopia in 2010, and a group of Ethiopian Jewish miners are trying to help one of the miners whose leg is badly damaged, to no avail as their supervisors just stand by while the man is dying. A couple of miners go underground and find this rare black opal that is scintillating and is full of all these iridescent colors. Then the film fasts forward to New York City, where Howard Ratner, a Jewish American jeweler, is getting a colonoscopy (for those squeamish about medical procedures, maybe close your eyes around where the title of the film comes on because that’s where the movie leads into the scene with the colonoscopy.) Most of the movies I see, the suspense doesn’t happen until later in the film, and gradually builds up to it, but for this film, the intensity is evident the minute Howard leaves that office after his colonoscopy and heads out into the streets of NYC. Why is it so intense? Because Howard owes so many people money. He is in a lot of debt and is figuring out how to pay everyone back. On top of that, he has to figure out his crumbling marriage with his soon to be ex wife, Dinah (played by the lovely Idina Menzel. I first saw her as Maureen Johnson in Rent and have loved her ever since.) and his relationship with Julia, his girlfriend who works with him at KMH, Howard’s jewelry store. The guy who brings him clients to his store, Damany (played by LaKeith Stanfield, whose acting I also really love in Sorry to Bother You and Get Out) brings in Kevin Garnett. Howard shows Kevin the black opal and tells him about how he saw on the History Channel a documentary about Ethiopian Jewish miners mining the black opal, and so he bought it for a bonkers amount of money. Kevin’s eyes immediately flash and he becomes so engrossed with the opal that he ends up smashing the jewelry display case he is leaning on in order to look at the opal. He wants it, but Howard tells him it’s not for sale, and to come to an auction later on to bid on it. His deal with Kevin about the black opal gets him into even further trouble, though, because Howard is addicted to gambling, and so he stakes basically his whole life and his money on Kevin winning so that he can pay back the debts he owes everyone.

Honestly, I’m glad I watched this a second time, because when I watched it the first time I didn’t really understand why Howard acted the way he did towards everyone he met, but after watching it a second time, it made more sense from a Buddhist perspective. In The Lotus Sutra and its Opening and Closing Sutras, there’s a chapter called “Five Hundred Disciples,” and in this chapter there’s this beautiful parable. In this parable a man goes to his friend’s house and gets drunk and falls asleep, and while he’s asleep his friend sews a priceless jewel into the lining of the man’s robe, and leaves it with him when he goes out. The man travels to other countries the next day, searching for food and clothing and struggling to get by on what little he has, and because he was asleep he didn’t see his friend sewed the robe in the lining of his robe. When he meets up with his friend, his friend finally tells him that he sewed a jewel into his robe so he could live in ease. (LSOC, 190) This parable symbolizes the jewel of the Buddha nature within each of us, and this Buddha nature–our wisdom, courage, compassion and life force–already exists within our lives. While it’s of course ok to want nice things, I’ve found when I make external validation the center of my life, when I make external validation define my identity for me, I’m going to crave that validation, and in the long run that has made me suffer. When I chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo though, I’m able to remind myself of the jewel that is within my life: my innate Buddhahood, which has existed in me and in the universe from what we call in Buddhism “time without beginning.”

While watching Uncut Gems, I almost wished that Howard was real so that I could share Buddhism with him. Howard already had the jewel of Buddhahood in his life, but his fundamental darkness made it hard for him to see that Buddhahood. Him and Kevin both placed prime importance on the jewel as the key to their success; for Howard, the jewel was his ticket to paying off his debts, and for Kevin, it was the key to winning his basketball games and winning him recognition and success. However, as I watched this movie, I thought about a quote by Daisaku Ikeda, a Buddhist philosopher and educator, about what true winning is:

“Any goal is fine. The important thing is to strive toward it, triumphing in each challenge along the way. Winning doesn’t mean getting rich or becoming important. There are many rich and important people who succumb to negative influences and grow corrupt. Such people cannot be said to have won in life. True victory is winning over your own mind. Others’ opinions don’t matter. Nor is there any need for you to compare yourself with others. A genuine victor in life is one who can declare: “I lived true to myself, and I have won! I am a spiritual victor! Please remember that.” (Discussions on Youth, p. 422-423)

The film’s ending is actually sad because Howard won the bet, but it’s like he never got a chance to win over himself or change his karma with money in the end. Also, I kept thinking long after the movie was over: how is Howard’s death going to affect his family? Did Howard have a will? Julia is seen getting in the car so she can give the bags of $1 million in cash to Howard, but when she finds he is dying in the jewelry store, she is obviously going to be distraught and also how is she going to settle the money with Dinah, who was Howard’s wife?

I also thought about the concept of the Ten Worlds in Buddhism, particularly the worlds of hell, hunger, animality and anger. Howard goes through these four worlds throughout the film, and the other characters reflect his negative life states (a concept called esho funi, or oneness of life and its environment.) In one particular scene I felt for Howard even though he hadn’t paid off all these debts to the people in his life, because he was in a state of suffering even though he tried to put everything on the backburner. He has so many people who remind him of the debts he owes to them, and finally, after Phil, one of Arno’s henchmen, punches Howard in the nose and throws him in the fountain, Howard goes back to his office and tells Julia to send everyone working at the store home. When she comes up, he lets himself break down and cry, telling her through his tears that he doesn’t know how to handle all the debt he owes people and that he screws up every time he tries to do something. He is deeply hard on himself, and doesn’t feel like there is any way out. Even when Julia shows the tattoo of his name she got on her butt, he cries even harder and tells her he doesn’t deserve even that. The first time I watched it I didn’t have much sympathy for Howard, but the second time, after thinking about the Buddhist concept of the Ten Worlds, I actually realized that he’s not just this arrogant guy who only thinks about himself and his own problems, but someone who is deeply suffering. Howard suffers because he can’t see the potential he has to pay off the debt he owes to people and he also can’t see the jewel of his Buddhahood within his own life.

The fundamental darkness in his life makes it also hard for him to see the interconnectedness of himself with everyone else and other events. The movie reminded me of the music video for “Diamonds from Sierra Leone” by Kanye West because you see these young kids working in these mines and in one scene one of the kids holds up the diamond he mined and then we see above him a white jeweler taking the diamond from the kid and showing clients the diamond. Howard was so enthralled with this black opal that he couldn’t recognize that the opal not just had years of history, as he says, because it was mined by Black Ethiopian Jewish people, but also because of the dark history of European imperialism that can’t be separated from the sale of these jewels, no matter how much Howard doesn’t want to think about that.

Here is an interview where Josh and Benny Safdie talk more about the film. Honestly reading it helped because both of them are Jewish, and Jewish identity and culture is a central theme throughout the film, and I don’t have much knowledge about Judaism other than what I have read in some books and watched on TV shows, so reading this interview gave me more context when thinking about the movie.

https://slate.com/culture/2019/12/uncut-gems-director-interview-jewish-stereotypes-adam-sandler.html

Uncut Gems. 2019. 2 hr 15 min. Rated R for pervasive strong language, violence, some sexual content and brief drug use.

Movie Review: Zola (CW: brief description of nudity)

August 1, 2021

Omg I have been dying to see this movie since the trailer came out! So I finally saw it. At first I didn’t want to see it because they said there was full-frontal male nudity and I was kind of squeamish about viewing it. So the first time I watched it, to be honest, I missed a lot of important scenes throughout the film because I couldn’t find any parent previews for it (which I usually read before watching PG-13 or R-rated features because I’m not into bloody stuff or jump scenes.) But also I didn’t get super surprised during the film because I had read up a lot about the film before seeing it, and watched a couple of interviews with the actors in Zola who talked about their characters, so I knew what was going to happen. And I read the Wikipedia page on it. So I finally watched it a second time without closing my eyes (except during the penis montage, although A24 does have an interesting article on their blog about how they chose the penises for that montage.)

So basically Zola is about this young Black woman named A’ziah “Zola” King, who works as an exotic dancer at night and has a waitressing job during the day. Janizca Bravo directed the film and wrote the screenplay, and the real life A’ziah “Zola” King produced the film. The film is based off of a real-life Twitter story that King told on October 27, 2015 in 148 tweets about how she met a young white woman at the diner she worked at, and how this young white woman, whose real name is Jessica but whose name in the film is Stefani, finds common ground with King because they work as exotic dancers. After they hit it off the first night (they follow each other on social media) Stefani texts her and tells her about this cute spot in Florida where they can make good money dancing. When Zola asks for more information, Stefani refuses to tell her any more details other than her boyfriend and a friend are coming along, too. We see how Stefani’s friendship is already taking up a huge chunk of Zola’s time because Zola’s fiancé, Sean, constantly has to deal with Zola texting Stefani all the time instead of spending time in the present moment with him. When Zola meets up with Stefani, she already has a sense that something is off, and the minute they hit the road it slowly becomes clear that Zola does not want to be there. I think one scene in particular shows this very clearly. Even after X, Derrek (Stefani’s boyfriend), Stefani and Zola have a good time singing “Hannah Montana” by Migos, soon after the scene cuts to Stefani loudly talking about this Black woman she met in a derogatory way, and Derrek, not knowing what to do, chimes in, while Zola looks uncomfortable and silently stares out the window.

In a couple of interviews I watched, Riley Keough, the actress who plays Stefani, was aware of Stefani’s racism and cultural appropriation and how her exploitation of Black culture, namely through her “blaccent,” was offensive. But Bravo encouraged her to go full out for Stefani in order to tell the story like it is. A character like Stefani honestly wasn’t new to me; I knew many white people who spoke in AAVE whenever I was around, and even one time I was in the car with some folks who weren’t Black and “Holy Grail” came on, and a couple of the folks decided to repeat the N word that comes up every time Jay-Z raps his verse in the song. And like Zola, all I could do was just turn away and look out the window. Even when the folks asked if I was doing okay, I couldn’t tell them because I didn’t want to seem like I was coming off as an angry, oversensitive person. The main theme I kept thinking about as I watched Zola was boundaries, because the issue of boundaries is prevalent throughout the film. Zola tells X she came with a specific purpose: to dance, but he tells her she is not there for that. Stefani keeps telling her male clients that she doesn’t set the price for her services, but this does her a disservice, mainly because she and Zola get in trouble when Zola sets her up a new page and has Stefani negotiate her pay. X accuses Zola of trying to outdo him, to do his job better than him, and persuades Stefani that she doesn’t deserve any of the $8,000 she made from her clients, and somehow makes it seem that her body is just a tool for men and that she shouldn’t get paid for the services she provides.

But if Zola taught me anything, it’s this: know your worth. It’s easier said than done, but Zola knows who she is and is a really good bullshit detector. She knows that Stefani, Derrek and X don’t have her best interest at heart, and that they are out to exploit her. Which is why Stefani’s side of the story had me busting up in laughter, because we know that Zola’s story is the only true point of view we should be trusting. In the @Stefani portion of the film, where Stefani recounts everything that went down on reddit, she portrays herself as this upright Christian woman who was just randomly approached by this Black woman who coerced Stefani into going to Florida. While she explains the story wearing a white suit, she shows Zola with twigs in her hair while waitressing and wearing black trash bags when going into the car to head to Florida. I just guffawed because Stefani’s side of the story is clearly problematic. I read on the Wikipedia page of this film that the movie is listed as a black comedy. For those who don’t know, black comedy is a genre which pokes fun at subjects that are hard to talk about, such as death, crime, suicide, discrimination and other serious topics. Even though Zola went through severe trauma on the trip to Florida, the way Stefani spins it is so ridiculous that it’s hard not to laugh at her side of the story because all she tries to do is portray Zola as this obnoxious Black woman, when Zola is the only level-headed one on the trip.

Because she is level-headed, X (Stefani’s pimp, played by Colman Domingo. Honestly, I love Coleman Domingo’s acting. He played Tish’s dad in If Beale Street Could Talk, the complete opposite of his evil character X in Zola.) often makes Zola the mom, the one to babysit Stefani and Derrek. It’s interesting that X, like Zola, is Black because it makes me think of the term misogynoir, which is misogyny against Black women. Even when Zola is trying to help Stefani by helping to negotiate her worth, X doesn’t want to give Zola credit, and even when he gives Zola some of the money, he doesn’t let her go home and instead orders her to make Stefani do what she did the previous night and exhaust herself by having sex with various clients. He refuses to let her take a much-needed break relaxing in the sun. Whenever she questions his authority and makes it clear that she’s not going to stoop to his level, he threatens her with physical violence and that Nigerian accent he pulls off when he’s really pissed off.

Derrek was also an interesting character. He ends up telling about the group’s whereabouts to someone who doesn’t have his best interests at heart. He also keeps trying to make Zola laugh by showing her funny videos, but she doesn’t fall for any of it. He is fed up with his girlfriend Stefani partaking in prostitution, and is sick of her manipulating other young women into what is essentially human trafficking. Whenever he brings this up, she goes to him and points to his chest, and asks “Whose is this?” and he tells her “yours.” and when she points to her heart and asks “Whose is this?” and he tells her “mine.” Even though he is scared he still goes along with whatever Stefani does because he feels he has no other choice because he really does love her and just wants to go back home with her.

Honestly, I’m glad I watched it twice because I missed a lot of key details of the film by closing my eyes throughout it. Like, Mica Levi’s score lines up with each scene in a different way, so it was hard to see how the score had a different meaning for each scene just because I was scared of some random scene with a lot of dicks in it. Also, Zola doesn’t say much, but she communicates a lot without having to say much during the film. Her eyes, her facial expressions, show how she is observant, how she is processing her trauma minute by minute because she doesn’t have time to rest and recuperate and heal. She is constantly babysitting Stefani and Derrek when they get in shenanigans, and it is emotionally exhausting work. By the time she gets in the car with Derrek she is emotionally tried in her patience and Derrek tries to get her mind off of it, but as a young Black woman dealing with a young white woman who has little to no respect for her, she is clearly fed up having to put up with shenanigans.

I honestly wouldn’t mind watching this again. There’s just something so attractive to me about A24 films. When I was watching Zola, it reminded me of when I watched The Florida Project. The actors in both of these films portray real life situations and bring so much magic to the everyday realities of life. I wish I had a more comprehensive review of the film, but I guess I’m still processing it.

Zola. 2021. Rated R for strong sexual content and language throughout, graphic nudity and violence including a sexual assault.

Movie Review: Begin Again

April 25, 2019

Categories: movies, music

After watching A Star is Born, I felt quite depressed and hopeless. What was the point of being a musician if it meant letting fame and fortune get to one’s head, causing the artist to lose touch with themselves in the process? I’m not saying the music industry is in any way to blame for substance abuse, but the stress of touring and parties can really stress some musicians out, especially if they are already dealing with substance abuse. I cried, thinking that was all the music industry had in store for me (even though a lot of classical musicians don’t get famous enough to lead those kinds of fame-filled lives.)

With Pop Star: Never Stop Never Stopping, it made fun of the fame associated with being a pop musician, and believe me, I laughed (but of course, anything with Andy Samberg is going to tickle my funny bone.) But then I asked myself, Is being a musician really just one big joke? I know not everyone ends up like that, but it got me thinking, once again: is there a way to be a successful musician if no one has discovered your musical talent until much later in life? Conner4Real (Andy Samberg’s character) has had people telling him he would be a star since he was very young, and so he grew up thinking he would just be successful for the rest of his life, even if his songs got terrible reviews and he struggled with his ego.

But with Begin Again, I can honestly say that I feel refreshed. When it first came out in 2013, I thought about seeing it because it looked interesting, but never got around to seeing it. But then I finally decided I wanted to give it a shot, and I’m glad I waited to see it because had I seen it earlier, it probably wouldn’t have resonated with me as much. But now that I have been out of the league of constant performances and auditions for orchestras and have been deciding from scratch whether to go to music school, to teach music lessons, to move to a big city and find my dreams there, or whatever else I was dreaming about with regards to music, watching Begin Again gave me a new perspective on what it means to be a musician and still lead a happy fulfilling life.

Gretta is an introverted young woman who is also a gifted singer and songwriter, and she moves to New York City with her boyfriend and fellow musician, Dave. Dave gets signed to a major record label and leads her into this totally different life, one that she is not interested in. They move from their tiny apartment in the city to a fancy studio where Dave produces all his hits. Shortly after they move into the studio, Dave tries to convince Gretta to go on tour and produce the songs with him for their album, but she is more interested in just making music and not so much the glamour that comes with all of that. Dave heads to Los Angeles to work with some producers for his album, leaving Gretta to hang out with her friend, Steve, who also happens to be a struggling musician like Gretta. Dave comes back from Los Angeles and has Gretta listen to one of his tracks, but Gretta intuitively finds out Dave cheated on her for a girl on the record producing team in L.A. and leaves him. One night Steve, Gretta’s friend, encourages her to perform at a bar, and so Gretta reluctantly sings what turns out to be a beautiful song.

Dan, a record label executive with drinking problems, a bad relationship with his wife and daughter and a reluctance to change, can’t understand why the indie record label he manages with his college buddy, Saul, is allowing too many pop-sounding musicians to record for them. When Saul tells him he needs to just go with the changes in people’s tastes instead of close himself off from them, Dan gets upset and Saul fires him. With no money and no job, Dan goes to a bar, drunk and contemplating suicide. Then he hears Gretta perform and he suddenly envisions her performance as if she was in a real recording studio, with strings, keyboard, drums and a guitar to back her up. He offers her a record deal, but she refuses. She tells him that she makes music for herself, not to get famous, and he tries to convince her that the point of music is to share with other people, not just to play it for oneself. Dan gets an epiphany and realizes that unlike Dave, who is living the high-life and going on tour but not really feeling fulfilled in his music career, Gretta doesn’t have to live that life and can make wonderful music even before she gets signed to Dan’s record label. So he gathers a bunch of musicians who are willing to play music without pay and has them, him, Steve and Gretta perform for the NYC public in parks, subways, in alleys, and on rooftops. When Dave asks Gretta to meet up with him, he realizes that she has moved on with her life and is no longer lonely without him, even when he tries to beg her to come back to him. She thankfully realizes that he’s not worth returning to not just because he cheated with another girl behind her back (and also panders to a crowd of other girls who swoon when they see him), but because she has charted her own music path with Dan and many other musicians who haven’t lived through the fame and getting signed to a label.

One interesting conversation happens toward the end of the film, and that is about how record sales work. At a meeting in the record label conference room, Saul listens to Gretta’s album and says he will hook up some producers in Los Angeles to listen to it so they can put it in some TV shows and films. Dan says he’s not interested and that he wants to get Gretta signed onto the label. Gretta then asks how distribution of music works, and one of the folks at the meeting tells her that if a CD sells for 10 units, then the musician gets a dollar (“like selling a book for a buck.”) Gretta rightfully asks why the musician gets only a dollar while the record label gets the other nine dollars. Saul chuckles and tells her that if she were to sign onto the label, the label would hire a producer to remix a couple of her tracks, then she would sell a hit record and then she would live the long and fulfilling music career of her dreams, but that because it was her album, it was her choice in the end whether or not she wanted to sign with the label. I was literally watching this interview that Rob Markman did for digital media company Genius on a study that showed musicians only make 12% of revenue from the music industry, and how musicians have tried to navigate this, and where all the other money went to if not to the artist (the full interview is below:)

This interview forced me to wake up to the reality that there is much more involved than just playing music when an artist is signed onto a record label, and it made me think of how in Begin Again, Dave’s number one dream was to record with a major record label. However, after he got his dream, he came back to Gretta and, when she asked him how his tour was, said it was incredibly grueling because he had to travel so much by himself. In the past he and Gretta just made music in their apartment, and they had that intimate space to just make beautiful songs, but when Dave got signed to the label, it totally changed him and Gretta’s relationship because he wasn’t around to be with her, and it especially changes the relationship they have with music. For Gretta, music is about honesty, but for Dave, music is a way to get famous. When they meet up in the park, he plays a recording he did in the studio of “Lost Stars,” which Gretta wrote for him when they were together. Gretta tells him that the song has lost its authenticity ever since he became famous and cheated on her with another woman. This reminds me of A Star is Born, when Ally doesn’t want to lose her identity when she becomes famous, and Jackson accuses her of becoming someone she’s not when Interscope Records signs her. It also reminds me of Big Eyes because Margaret Keane was this woman who just wanted to paint as a means of catharsis, but her husband, Walter, wanted to sell out. Margaret tells him that she wants to be honest instead of focused on fame when she paints, but Walter tells her that no one really cares about honesty.

Begin Again helped me better understand that musicians don’t have to sign to a major record deal to be successful, and that musicians can find their own path even when they aren’t famous. Dan had a long successful music career, helping sign several artists and winning Grammy Awards left and right, but in the end, he was human and had his own battles to deal with. Dave got famous, and yet he was incredibly lonely on tour and got sad when he listened to Gretta’s voicemail. Gretta, although not well-known, found her own happiness and Dan also came to understand himself that what’s really important are the friendships you make along the way, not so much the money or the status. And this movie also taught me to be open to change; I had these wild dreams at one point that I was going to either get signed on to work for a major record label in LA or NYC. But then I did some more self-reflection and after watching movies like A Star is Born, Popstar and Begin Again, I think I can figure out an alternative career path for my music, one that doesn’t necessarily fit the stereotype of how musicians should be. I would of course love to do a lot more with my music, but I also don’t want to lose my love for it, and I sometimes worry that having a career in music would make me stop loving it. I know this is silly thinking, but after seeing Begin Again, I feel a lot better about where my love of music is going to take me. Seeing Gretta and Dan bounce back from their struggles and chart their own music path has inspired me to keep an open mind about my music career, instead of doing what I have done for the past two years and keeping a one-track-mindset of “I need to be this kind of musician by blah-blah-date.” Of course, having a plan for your career helps, but Gretta and Dan inspired me to think outside the box and experiment with other styles of music.

I honestly wouldn’t mind seeing this film again so I can remind myself to be patient and not feel any less of a musician just because I haven’t yet signed onto a major record label (or any record label.) Really excellent and inspiring film. Also, seeing the violinist and cellist in Gretta’s band made my day! 🙂 I am definitely open to playing more than just classical, so maybe playing in a band of some sorts while holding down a day job would be an option. Also I just really enjoyed the cast; I love all the actors and musicians who starred in this film, especially Keira Knightley and Mark Ruffalo! 🙂

Here’s the trailer for Begin Again:

Begin Again. 2013. Rated R for language.

Movie Review: Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping

April 8, 2019

Categories: movies

I just finished watching the film Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, a mockumentary from the mind of Judd Apatow, Andy Samberg, Jorma Taccone and Akiva Schaffer of the music group The Lonely Island. I have seen many of The Lonely Island’s music videos before (“Lazy Sunday”, “Threw it On the Ground”, “I’m on a Boat”), so I was really excited to watch this film when it came out. But I of course at the time didn’t think I was emotionally ready to see it, and sure enough, I read on the advisory content review and there is some graphic nudity in it. But then I just decided, if I want to watch this film, I can just close my eyes when they feature the nudity scenes. So I closed my eyes for the first half of the movie because I didn’t know when it was going to happen, but then I knew where the scene was thanks to the movie reviews of the advisory content, so I didn’t have to watch it with any surprise.

The film is basically making fun of the phenomenon of celebrity and how it impacts us when we are young. While it doesn’t specifically mention it’s making fun of Justin Bieber, the title of the film suggests that it is a parody of Justin Bieber’s Never Say Never and based on the way Conner abuses his fame, it definitely looked like it was a parody of Justin Bieber’s rise to fame. In the film, Conner chronicles his life growing up as a drum prodigy and making music with his friends as part of a group called The Style Boyz (a cheesy play on stereotypical male pop groups such as The Backstreet Boys.) The Style Boyz produce all of these very silly-sounding albums and make it big, but then, in stereotypical boy pop group fashion, they break up. Owen, the DJ, does his own thing, and Lawrence moves to a farm in Colorado where he does woodcarving for a living because he was done with the pressures of fame. One of the funniest scenes was when Conner is singing a song in concert called “I’m So Humble,” where he talks about how little he shows off his ostentatious lifestyle even as he is performing on a large stage with all these showy expensive props (including a pricey Adam Levine hologram who sings the chorus.) Conner’s performance is a dig at celebrities who do something called “humblebragging,” which is where successful people try to act as if their success is nothing while, in reality, they are trying to make themselves feel good about themselves by showing off their success. Basically, when someone humble-brags, they act modest when they are actually bragging. Conner tries to seem modest but he actually has an extremely inflated sense of self.

I also liked the film featured interviews by several real musicians and actors, such as DJ Khaled, A$AP Rocky, Carrie Underwood, Nas, Ringo Starr, and Simon Cowell. Sarah Silverman also plays Conner’s publicity agent. I cannot even begin to imagine how hard it was for the people in this film to not keep a straight face because The Lonely Island is hilarious, and during these interviews the artists seemed so earnest about their love of Conner (which the film is supposed to make fun of.) In another scene, Deborah (played by Maya Rudolph) releases a series of home appliances that play Conner’s songs when in use. The refrigerators and dishwashers play “I’m So Humble” and his other hits when you open them, and this whole scene just adds to the overall goofy nature of the mockumentary. To add insult to injury, this brand of Conner-brand appliances causes immediate power outages around the world and CMZ (a parody of the entertainment channel TMZ) roasts Conner (Chelsea Peretti, who plays Gina alongside Andy Samberg’s Jake Peralta in Brooklyn 99, makes an appearance as one of the CMZ staff.)

Honestly, I am really glad I saw this film. After seeing A Star is Born and crying my eyes out later, I needed to watch a movie about the music industry that would make me go to sleep laughing instead of crying.

Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping. 1 hr 27 min. Rated R for some graphic nudity, language throughout, sexual content and drug use.

Movie Review: In A Star is Born, the Music Industry Culture of Fame Takes a Dark Toll on Its Artists’ Mental Health (CW: substance abuse, mental illness, suicide and spoilers)

April 4, 2019

Categories: movies

8/5/21: as I rewrote this review, I realized how many generalizations I may have made at the expense of a lot of musicians who actually work in the recording industry. A movie cannot speak for the entire industry, and as someone who has not worked in the pop music industry I can’t speak from personal experience, so a lot of what you read here take with a grain of salt.

At first I didn’t think I could watch A Star is Born in the evening, because for me, watching gut-wrenching drama films at night before I go to bed is like having me watch Paranormal Activity at two o’clock in the morning (not that I would have the confidence to go see something that scary, let alone that late at night, or let alone at all. I am squeamish to a T.) But alas, here I am writing this review, and no tear duct has been shed from my orbs.

I wanted to cry. I really did. However, I was so busy digesting all the tough-love lessons of the film that I really couldn’t elicit any emotion other than a sense of unfairness that I feel about how the music industry treats women and especially people with mental health issues. I could no longer just sit and cry because I knew my tears would do nothing to address the real issue that the film portrays: mental illness and the stigma associated with getting help. So I took to writing this review to raise awareness of the issue, to do my part for the community. Like I mentioned earlier, I was deeply curious about how the music community was addressing mental health issues, and especially in the classical music community because the business of being an orchestra musician can feel like a total nightmare when you struggle with any kind of mental health issue. When you prepare for an audition, you are literally shaking in your boots, but it’s more than just mere nervousness. It feels like that dark cloud over your mind is going to swallow you up and prevent you from performing your best, let alone living your life. So after taking a hiatus from any heavy performing or auditioning, I decided to take matters into my own hands and do my own research on the topic of mental health and musicians, because Lady Gaga, at the Grammys this year when she won for her song “Shallow” from the movie, told it like it was: a lot of artists deal with mental health issues and we need to not only support each other through our mental health issues, but also seek out help for our mental health issues as well.

I completely agree, so it’s no wonder that, when I Googled “mental health and musicians” today I came across so many stories about how singer Justin Bieber had to take a break from touring so he could spend more time with his wife Hailey Baldwin and also take care of himself, or that rapper Big Sean had to cancel touring last year to get help for his anxiety and depression. Honestly, it’s weird as a fellow musician who also struggled with mental health issues to say this, but it goes to show how the entertainment industry still has a ways to go in how it churns out musicians and then spits them out to struggle through their issues alone. Somehow this seems dangerously toxic to me, and it’s why I am glad I am not yet a professional musician. I spent the longest time trying to figure out what my mission as a musician was, and I think, more than ever, I need to use my music to address the problem of mental health stigma. Yes, more people are becoming aware of the psychological toll of fame and celebrity, but still, films such as A Star is Born clearly show that there is a long, long way to go.

The film opens with a performance by Jackson Maine, a country rock singer who has had a long career on the road. We see him pop some pills before he gets onstage, and while he gives an electrifying performance, seeing those pills presents just the beginning of a very disturbing, grim and realistic portrait of the life of an artist struggling with depression and addiction. Jackson, throughout the film, is constantly drinking, smoking and, later on, snorting cocaine. Ally, on the other hand, is a struggling singer who works as a server at a high-maintenance restaurant. When I first saw this scene, I immediately thought about the film La La Land, where we see Mia working as a barista and dealing with a boss who could care less about her dreams of becoming an actress. When her boss schedules her on a day she has an audition, Mia tries to tell her she has an audition and can’t work, but her boss tells her she doesn’t care and to skip the audition so she can cover her shifts. Jackson goes into a drag bar and watches Ally perform “La Vie En Rose.” He is so moved by the performance that he goes to her dressing room to meet her and they immediately hit it off. When they go to a bar afterwards to hang out, he shares a very important message about what it takes to be a true artist. Ally tells him she doesn’t think she will make it because everyone keeps telling her she isn’t pretty enough to be famous, and that men constantly tell her she is a good singer but that she doesn’t have the looks of a singer. This shows how women in the music industry are pressured to look a certain way and further suggests why it’s so important for young women to embrace their beauty as it is so that other people don’t try and tell them differently. But Jack tells her that she looks beautiful and even says that he struggles with tinnitus but still made it as a musician. He says a quote that really stuck with me throughout the film, and that is that “talent comes everywhere. Everybody’s talented…but having something to say, and the way to say it so that people listen to it, that’s a whole other bag. Unless you try and go out there and do it, you’ll never know.” (A Star is Born) It made me think about how, in any career, women typically wait until they have all of the qualifications before applying for a job (I’m one of those ladies) and suffer from imposter syndrome. Ally thinks she cannot be successful, but Jack thinks she can.

Update from the next day…(aka I have had more time to digest this film after pondering it day and night. It literally kept me up.)

The movie also raised some very important thoughts for me, and I’m going to just list them in bullet points because frankly, I am choking up now thinking of the film even though I wasn’t before, and I need to get these out here before I get stressed. After researching mental health and musicians more today, I decided to just take a break from research and just write my thoughts. It has been cathartic to do so, and it’s really going to keep me from thinking about how good but also how stressful this movie was:

What is the meaning of pop music? In the film a famous recording producer, Rez Gavron, who offers Ally several opportunities after seeing her perform. But then he has her go from doing country rock music to dancing hip-hop. While I can see why Ally would keep an open mind and go for these opportunities, it feels as if she lost a huge part of herself being on such a big label such as Interscope Records. And this is a problem, because she used to know herself pretty well enough to keep her day job while she did music, but when she went big she tried to tell Rez to not mess up her sense of self and make her something she isn’t, but Rez wants her to stick with his vision and not her own, so he tells her to dye her hair and has her live in this super extravagant living space. Which is nice at the beginning, but then Jackson loses faith in Ally and goes further into himself, telling her that all this pop fame isn’t her. Then again, the orange hair and hip-hop electronic dance moves are classic Lady Gaga.
Can two artists coexist? In the film La La Land, Mia is an actress and Sebastian is a jazz musician. They try to make it work, and Mia quits her job at the coffee shop to write her own plays (which is a risky move, as the film shows, because no one comes to the play she directed and she gives up.) But then Sebastian gets an opportunity to play with his friend, who tells him he needs to play other genres besides jazz because he can barely afford to pay his rent by playing jazz gigs alone. Sebastian tells Mia he’s going on tour, but then Mia tells him she wants to stay and pursue her acting career. The movie shows that if Mia and Sebastian got married, it would be really hard. And in A Star is Born, this idea is taken a step further because Jack and Ally do get married, but then as Ally becomes more famous and mainstream, Jack loses popularity and Bobby even replaces him with a younger musician at his performance. Jack soon loses faith in himself and becomes more involved with substances. When Ally wins a Grammy for Best New Artist, Jack drunkenly comes on stage and accidentally urinates on himself while she’s giving her speech. It is then that he is sent to treatment and Rez tells him to stay away from Ally because his marriage to her nearly ruined her career.
Women are held at very stressful standards in the pop music industry. Ariana Grande said that sporadically releasing music has proven to be more helpful for her mental health than following the incredibly structured high pressure plan that record labels expect female pop artists to adhere to. Ally, in the film, gets all these opportunities to be a star, but she never really gets to express herself anymore. At first she was very down-to-earth, but all it took was some egotistical micromanagey guy (aka Rez) to control her image for her. In one scene, Ally is recording a demo and the producers behind the screen keep telling her to start over because she is nervous, but then Jack has them bring out a piano and she just naturally becomes comfortable playing it with him. I still think it is interesting that Ally needs a man to boost her self-worth though; what if Ally had a female mentor? Would it have been a different relationship or the same? I’m not saying I hated the dynamic between Jack and Ally at all; I thought it was sweet. Also, Bradley Cooper directed this film and him and Lady Gaga wrote the songs, so I ain’t mad. 🙂 I am just thinking of other theoretical possibilities for the story line. I thought about the film Cadillac Records, and how in the film Leonard Chess controlled much of Etta James’s career, when in reality Etta James held her own in an industry that was macho. Leonard treats Etta as if she was irrational and angry all the time, and she tries to push back against all the pressure that the industry puts on her. So did she really need Leonard to make her feel accomplished? This is just a parallel I made watching A Star is Born.
Is suicide really the fault of musicians? Or does the overall industry play a part in it, too? At the end Jack commits suicide after breaking his sobriety and finding his old bottle of pills (this was the part that was extremely difficult to watch), and Ally is crying and Bobby tells her that it was Jack’s fault, not her or Bobby’s fault, that he committed suicide. Was it solely his fault, though? Sometimes I think people who have never gone through mental health issues assume that it’s the musician’s fault when they hurt themselves, but a huge part of me told me that the culture of the music industry, not merely Jack’s personal history with drug abuse and depression, played a more-than-significant role in his suicide. We need to stop perpetuating this idea that “oh we couldn’t control it, it just happened.” The music industry is incredibly competitive and even encourages people to party hard, do drugs and drink when they are stressed. The constant pressure of celebrity is what drove Avicii, Mac Miller, Amy Winehouse to their deaths. I’m not saying a glass of wine or two is bad. However, substance abuse is a whole nother animal, and throughout the film I couldn’t help but be pissed when Ally, Bobby, Rez and everyone else told Jack he needed to “clean up his act.” I know it’s hard to support folks when they struggle with something so subjective and deeply rooted in their personal life, but there needs to be better measures for how to address mental health issues in the music community. I just found this part incredibly frustrating as a musician who struggled with mental health issues before.
Hearing loss is huge in the music industry. Bobby has Jack put on a pair of earphones for this tinnitus, and Jack, under the influence of hard drugs, tells him he can go stick them somewhere else. I idealized the idea of playing at loud concerts, but because I have sensitive ears, I think I will pass on not wearing some kind of protection for my ears.
Being a tortured artist isn’t cute or funny. Nico Muhly talks about this in an interview he did about classical musicians and mental health, and how we need to stop perpetuating this romanticized idea of the tortured composer or musician or artist in general. While a lot of artists suffer from mental health issues, we cannot let our mental health issues try to define who we are as artists because it can lead to our self-destruction and potentially deaths. A Star is Born clearly shows how destructive it is to perpetuate the tortured artist myth.
Is fame worth it? I know in real life, Lady Gaga has achieved so many things, but she still gets idolized. I used to idolize all these famous people, but I realize that they are human, and this film shows how dangerous it is to deify regular human beings who just happened to pursue their passion for years and earned money from it. In one poignant scene, a heckler interrupts Ally and Jack’s conversation to tell him how he thinks Jack looks like someone he really hates, and pressures Jack to take a photo with him so he can show his ex-wife. Ally then beats the heckler up, and they escape to a grocery store so Jack can get some peas for Ally’s smashed hand. The store clerk, while checking out the peas, stealthily takes a photo of Jack and Ally while they are talking, but the lady’s not quick enough and they catch her in the act. While Jack treats it as if it was just a part of being famous for so long, Ally is, rightfully, not okay with it. This really taught me that if I meet anyone famous, such as Bradley Cooper or Lady Gaga, in any common public place, it would be more than stupid to chase them down for an autograph or take a photo of them without their consent. It would be just a straight-up invasion of privacy. Most, if not all, celebs aren’t thinking, ” Well if more people took my photo while I was out with my kids, I would feel better than I already feel.” Most, if not all, “celebs” are just human beings who love what they do and treat their music-making and film-making as a job like any other, and it is a job because it’s their profession that takes up most of their time. So it’s a waste of their creative space to ask them for autographs–they just want to live their lives. So again, I will try and be mindful of this now that I have seen this film.

As I am now emotionally exhausted from writing this review, I leave you with two clips, one of Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper playing “Shallow” and another of her performing it at the Grammys. Both are performances which I will have to take a hiatus from listening to because even just thinking about them is making me quite tearful now that I have seen this incredibly tearful movie. I cried watching both of these performances when they came out and haven’t stopped crying. They put so much soul into it that it’s hard to not appreciate their hard work.

Overall, excellent film and one that will stick with me for a very, very long time. Gosh, I’m already tearing up just thinking about it. It seriously deserved all the awards that it received this year. This review, no matter how long, can never convey how amazing and heartfelt and deep this film was for me. Thank you Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga. I know I should see the original versions, I was just too impatient to see this film.

A Star is Born. 2 hr 14 min. Rated R for language throughout, some sexuality/ nudity and substance abuse.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. Oh. My. Gosh

April 23, 2020

Categories: Uncategorized

Cheesy blog post title, but it’s a legitimate reaction! It was THAT. GOOD. I promised one of my friends I would watch it so we could have a philosophical discussion about it (Star Wars has a lot of philosophical themes in it.) But I put it off, watching other movies and doing other things. So I finally took the time to rent it online, and I was in for a surprise. Is it just me or did my heart keep pounding every time Adam Driver (Ben Solo/ Kylo Ren) or Oscar Isaac (Poe) showed up on screen? I swear, I literally could not stop looking, they are both HEARTTHROBS. Of course, Adam Driver plays an evil person, but I have seen him in other movies (funny enough, Adam Driver and Oscar Isaac were both in Inside Llewyn Davis, one of my favorite films) and seriously, my romantic feelings for him has never died. Also, John Boyega is everything in this movie. 🙂

Of course, I would be remiss if I were to spend the entire blog post gushing over these heartthrobs. Because let’s face it, these men would not be anywhere without K.A.W. (Kick Ass Women) like Princess Leia and Rey to save their skins when they got in trouble. Honestly, I didn’t care much about Star Wars a few years ago, but after I started watching them, I have a deeper appreciation for Carrie Fisher and the powerful legacy she left as Leia. The film is also very much in line with my Buddhist beliefs, because Rey and Leia have this mentor-disciple relationship, which in Buddhism means that the mentor trains the disciple to carry on the legacy of kosen-rufu, or world peace, and even surpass the mentor in their efforts. President Ikeda (this is a brief bio of him and his life) was a disciple of Josei Toda in the early days of the Soka Gakkai, and Mr. Toda wanted Mr. Ikeda to continue his mission to foster a better world through peace, culture and dialogue. Even though Mr. Ikeda doubted his capabilities along the way, Mr. Toda encouraged him to not give up and trained him along the way. Mr. Toda saw Mr. Ikeda’s sincere and tireless efforts to propagate Nichiren Buddhism and help Mr. Toda with his failing business even when his other colleagues lost faith in Mr. Toda.

Similarly, even know Leia knew Rey was the granddaughter of the evil Emperor Palpatine (Darth Sidious) she trained Rey because she saw her heart and spirit, the character of a true Jedi. When Rey is frustrated and tries to discard her lightsaber, Luke Skywalker appears as a memory and tells her she is better than that, telling her that she needs to confront her fear of herself and her heritage because the destiny of a Jedi is to confront fear. This ties in well to the concepts of “changing karma into mission” and overcoming “fundamental darkness.” Karma, from a Nichiren Buddhist perspective, is the accumulation of causes we have made in past lifetimes and in this present lifetime (through thoughts, words and deeds) that manifest themselves as effects in certain times and in certain conditions. We cannot fathom our karma from past lifetimes because it’s deep and hard to reverse what we did in the past. We may not know why we have a certain personality trait or why we work with certain people at our jobs or why we are born in the families we are born in. This karma continues on to our next lifetimes. It may seem like fate, that we are doomed to our karma and must suffer through it. But when we change karma into mission (in the Lotus Sutra teaching on which Nichiren Buddhism is founded, this is called “voluntarily assuming the appropriate karma”) we come to understand that certain events in our lives happen for a reason, namely so we can encourage people who are suffering. President Ikeda says, in an Introduction to Buddhism, that bodhisattvas (a Sanskrit word for beings who strive to attain Buddhahood, or enlightenment, by helping others achieve this enlightenment as well) gained rewards for their next lifetimes because of the good causes they made in the past, but these bodhisattvas chose instead to give up these rewards and be born in an age in which human beings suffer so that they can teach people about the Lotus Sutra and help them overcome the suffering they endure due to negative causes they might have made in their past lives. When we chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo and help others do the same, we come to realize that we go through hardships so that we can experience personal growth and lead richer and more profound lives, and moreover show our friends, family, coworkers and others that if we can overcome our suffering, then they can, too. We can experience joy even when we are suffering the worst karma, and this can give other people who are going through problems hope that they can also become happy even when in painful circumstances.

We don’t know what causes Rey made in her past lifetime for Emperor Palpatine to have been her grandfather, or why her parents got killed, or why her life is the way it is. But even though she has this karma to grapple with, Luke reminds her that she has this mission as a Jedi so she can not only save the world, but also so she can help inspire other people. In a way Luke helps Rey awaken to her Buddhahood to win against Palpatine, because he himself had to awaken to his own Buddhahood in the fight against evil (Buddhahood is the innate compassion, wisdom and courage that is innate within each individual. Everyone is a Buddha and reveals this Buddhahood through their actions in daily life.) She awakens to her mission to save the world from suffering at the crucial moment when Emperor Palpatine forces her to kill him so that she can take the throne, his disciples cheering her on to do it. But because Kylo Ren (who by this point has awakened to his identity as Ben Solo, Han Solo’s son) can read her mind, she sees him in his mind and his expression tells her, without him saying anything, that they can both overcome this evil, so instead of using her lightsaber to kill Palpatine, she passes it on to Ben so he can fight the bad guys, and she pulls out a lightsaber to fight Palpatine. When the Emperor knocks her and Ben down, Rey hears the voices of all the past leaders of the Jedi (Yoda, Qui-Gon Jinn, Leia, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Luke Skywalker, among many others) telling her to not fear Palpatine because the Force of all the Jedi leaders lies within her and all of the causes that these Jedi leaders made in the past to fight constant evil has led to this one battle, this one chance for Rey to prove to herself and others that she is a true Jedi. To me, the Force is a symbol for Buddhahood because like Buddhahood, the Force lies within each individual and it has tremendous potential. According to George Lucas

the act of living generates a force field, an energy. That energy surrounds us; when we die, that energy joins with all the other energy. There is a giant mass of energy in the universe that has a good side and a bad side. We are part of the Force because we generate the power that makes the Force live. When we die, we become part of that Force, so we never really die; we continue as part of the Force.
George Lucas during a production meeting for The Empire Strikes Back. Quoted on “The Force” article in Wikipedia.

When people pass away, death does not take away their Buddhahood; instead, their Buddhahood transmigrates to their next lifetime. Buddhahood isn’t a realm separate from that of society, even though many Buddhist sutras before the Lotus Sutra was taught believe this; it is one of the ten states of life we can experience at any given moment. Just as Rey was in both a hellish environment and in a life state of Hell when fighting against Palpatine, she was in the world, or life state, of Buddhahood when she hears the voices of the Jedi leaders and won the fight against Palpatine, because she realized her potential to overcome her inner battle with herself. Fundamental darkness means that we cannot see our own Buddhahood, or our own life’s potential to overcome our problems and become happy, and so when the ignorance of our life’s worth clouds our perception of our environment, it’s hard to see the Buddhahood in other people and that their lives have worth, too. The devil king of the sixth heaven causes this fundamental darkness to make it hard to see our inner potential and functions to obstruct our Buddhist practice and sap the wisdom, life force, courage and compassion we need to truly become happy in life. Emperor Palpatine is a manifestation of the devil king of the sixth heaven because he does everything in his power to sap Rey of her life force and prevent her from beating him and the other evil people in his empire. He tells her she is worthless and that she has no potential to beat him. The devil king does not lie outside of us, but is a manifestation of the fundamental darkness in all of us. In a similar scene, we see Kylo Ren overcome his fundamental darkness and regain his identity as Ben Solo, when a memory of his father Han approaches him during his battle with Rey, and he tells Kylo that his identity as Kylo Ren is dead to him and that he will always see him as his son, Ben Solo, who has the potential to fight his inner evil rather than succumb to it. This scene shows how evil people like Kylo Ren have the state of Buddhahood within them, and can awaken to this Buddhahood within their lives with the help of people who tell them they have potential to awaken to the courage, wisdom and compassion within them. Only when Ben awakens to his Buddhahood is he able to see Rey’s Buddhahood, too, and help her fight against the evil forces that want to destroy society.

This scene is also a metaphor for the concept of “casting off the transient and revealing the true,” which happens when we chant Nam-myoho-renge kyo. Nichiren Daishonin, the founder of our Buddhist practice, lived at a time in Japan when people believed various Buddhist teachings and the problem with these teachings were that they didn’t teach the number one truth expounded in the Buddhist teaching of the Lotus Sutra: that everyone can attain enlightenment just as they are, and that Shakyamuni Buddha attained enlightenment in his past lifetimes rather than just in his present life in India. When he spoke out against these teachings and propagated the Lotus Sutra, the authorities persecuted him, even attempting to execute him on a beach in Tatsunokuchi (on the outskirts of Kamakura in Japan.) Just as the executioner was about to behead him, a comet flashed through the sky, and the soldiers, frightened by the light, abandoned Nichiren and failed to go through with his beheading. At that moment, Nichiren saw that, in triumphing over what is called the Tatsunokuchi Persecution, he was more than just an ordinary unenlightened person with all this karma he had to deal with from past lifetimes. While keeping his form as an ordinary human being, he awakened to his original true identity as a Buddha with unlimited wisdom and courage. This revelation manifested itself in his daily behavior toward others and so he inscribed the mandala that we chant to, called the Gohonzon, so that everyone could awaken to the power of Nam-myoho-renge-kyo in their own lives just as he did. Ren casts off his transient status as an evil Supreme Leader and awakens to his identity as Ben Solo, a Buddha that, without changing his form as an ordinary human being, can triumph over both the darkness in his mind and the darkness in society.

The movie also is a metaphor for the concept of unity in Nichiren Buddhism and in the Soka Gakkai International. Members of the Soka Gakkai International work together through chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, studying Buddhism together, sharing Buddhism with their friends and family, and making efforts at their workplaces, schools and homes, and each of these actions work in harmony with one another to foster a more just and peaceful society because through these actions, each member in the SGI can become happy and help others achieve that happiness. If there is any discord within the organization, it disrupts the unity of the SGI. It is hard to continue practicing this Buddhism without the encouragement of others, let alone the encouragement of Daisaku Ikeda and Nichiren Daishonin, so that is why we have an organization, so that each person has that network of support they need to continue in their practice. Likewise, one of the movie’s key themes is the importance of unity in the face of evil. When Poe and the rest of the Resistance are in the air fighting the Final Order fleet, Poe doubts the team’s capability to win, but Lando brings reinforcements to help combat the First Order. Earlier Poe told the Resistance that good people will fight if they lead them, and indeed they did. This scene shows that sticking together is important when fighting against evil forces. The scene also illustrated the concept of “many in body, one in mind” in Nichiren Buddhism; “many in body, one in mind” means that individuals have different personality traits, different physical characteristics and different social identities, but when they come together to spread the teachings of Nichiren Buddhism through dialogue, education and culture in their communities, they can achieve a more peaceful society. In The Rise of Skywalker, individuals in the Resistance come in many shapes, sizes and genders, and also speak various languages, but they work as a team to fulfill their desire to bring justice and peace to the galaxy. Had Rey, Poe or Finn tried to do everything by themselves, they would not have worked out their disagreements or even reached the goal of galaxy peace because their egos would have gotten in the way. When the Resistance sticks together they achieve so much, and when Rey’s heart is united with her mentors and her teammates in the Resistance, she defeats Palpatine. Rey lost her parents when she was young, so she feels like there is no one she can turn to, but she can always count on her friends to support her in tough times. Likewise, she has their back when times are hard, especially during the final fight scene.

Throughout the movie I kept thinking about Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and the similarities between them. Lord Voldemort and Emperor Palpatine both look creepy, and the scene where Rey’s lightsaber is pushing back against Emperor Palpatine’s lightning reminded me of the scene in Deathly Hallows when the power from Harry’s wand is pushing back against the power from Lord Voldemort’s wand. Harry and Rey also have similar stories; both their parents got killed by bad guys (Voldemort and Palpatine respectively), but they have a great group of friends to lean on. Also, when the army of wizards gather on the Hogwarts ground to point their wands to the sky and vanquish the sign of Lord Voldemort in the sky reminded me of all the backup Lando summoned to help Poe and the Resistance fight the First Order.

I know this review was SUPER long, but I was so enthralled by the film and its connections to my religious philosophy. Star Wars is very much connected to religion in its themes, so this was a chance for me to bring my faith perspective to it. Also, kudos to John Williams for all the profound and beautiful scores he brought to Star Wars for so many years. The score was brilliant, as always, and I wish I was one of those orchestra musicians who was playing on the score for this movie because it was TIGHT! 🙂

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. 2019. 2 hr 22 min. Rated PG-13 for sci-fi violence and action.

Paterson.

April 27, 2020

Categories: movies, poetry

Honestly, I tried to take notes during this film, but this film reminds me of A Ghost Story in the sense that you miss a lot of important details if you take notes during the film. When I just put my pencil down and quit taking notes on every detail like I do for a lot of movies, I was able to appreciate the silences and the dialogues so much more, and just as I did at the end of A Ghost Story I found myself in a river of tears, wiping away snot from my face and sniffling these melodramatic sobs. If you haven’t seen A Ghost Story, it’s a film about how a young woman (Rooney Mara) must grapple with the death of her husband (Casey Affleck) after he passes away in a car accident, and how her husband, as a ghost, grapples with how his death has impacted his wife. The film doesn’t have a ton of actiony stimuli so for me I really liked this film since I don’t like films with tons of blood or frenetic action (unless it’s a chosen few Marvel and DC films. Or Get Out.) It did require me to sit and reflect rather than write too much during the film about the plot because the film’s power relies on its silences and these silences force us to grapple with our own memories of loved ones we might have lost.

To be honest, I’ve been wanting to see Paterson for a really long time, ever since it came out. But I didn’t know if I’d like it. Then I saw Rotten Tomatoes gave it a 96 percent rating, and then I knew I’d be missing out if I hadn’t seen it. Although if you’ve seen Adam Driver’s other films (The Rise of Skywalker, While We’re Young, Frances Ha, What If, BlacKkKlansman, The Last Jedi) this is a very different role than I was used to seeing him in. His roles usually involve a lot of dialogue; this role he didn’t say much, and spoke mostly through facial expressions and eyes.

Although there is not a ton of dialogue in Paterson, that’s what makes it so powerful. Paterson, the main character (also the name of city where he resides) is an introspective quiet person, and listens in on the conversations that people have on the bus he drives every day. He is also a good listener when other people are talking to him; his coworker, Donny, who always makes sure he is ready to get the bus going, opens up to him about his problems at home and Paterson, without making any kind of judgment beforehand, listens with the utmost attention to Donny. He also listens when his wife talks to him. He reminded me a lot of Richard Loving in the film Loving. Of course, the storyline for that film is different and took place during a different time, but Paterson and Richard are both introverted men who, even though they do kind things for people, wish to not be in the spotlight. Honestly, I found myself relating to Paterson in that sense; I’m an introvert and tend to like listening and writing rather than talking a lot. Paterson is also polite; he always thanks his wife for dinner and for treating him to the movies. People have told me I say “thank you” a lot (I even got pulled into a counselor’s office for being too polite to other people. I guess she thought I would become a pushover or something, which I did become, but have since learned to balance with assertiveness), so when Paterson thanked his wife for dinner in one scene and treated her to the movies to celebrate her making money from her bake sale, I couldn’t help but feel like I found a kindred soul in Paterson.

I also found myself relating to Paterson because he loves writing. Although I do not write poetry as frequently as he does, I love writing in general and also have finished some poems for a poem I book I plan to publish at some point. In the film Laura, Paterson’s wife, reminds him that he needs to make copies of his poems and publish them someday, but he never gets around to it. When his dog rips up his notebook when they are out and about, Paterson dismisses it, saying that they were just a bunch of words that didn’t mean much. However, his wife, disagrees, and tells him she wishes he kept some of the poems. I’m the same way. After I read my poems for my poetry book I couldn’t help but cringe because I’m a tough critic on myself, and I even felt I couldn’t write poetry. But I don’t think many poets or writers or really any artist in general have ever felt that their work is the best from the get-go. In real life, Adam Driver has said that he is uncomfortable watching himself onscreen and walked out of an NPR interview with Terry Gross because they played a clip of him singing in his recent film Marriage Story. Maybe I would have walked out on an interview if people played a clip of me performing my music, maybe I wouldn’t have, but at any rate I could kind of relate to Adam and Paterson’s feelings towards their own work. People say it’s helpful as a musician to go back and listen to yourself play, and sometimes I have done that, but when I hear myself play I always sound either really out of tune or choppy or look bored, angry, constipated, or a mixture of all three when I play, even though I’m trying to show my passion for the music. Maybe if I stop listening to my insecure ego so much I can listen to recordings of myself with less judgment, but then again even the most successful people who are awesome at what they do don’t enjoy looking at their work when they are finished, mostly because the process of making the finished product is draining and when you’re finished with the product you don’t even want to deal with it anymore. Some actors have said on the contrary, they enjoy the process of making the product; they just don’t watch it when finished. Maybe it’s just part of being an artist; few if any artists are totally satisfied with what they do. Then again, you don’t see me going back and reading these blog posts because frankly, they are long and boring to read, even to myself who wrote the darn pieces. Same with my music; I rarely go back and listen to recordings of myself because I know I can always be improving on my performance, and it just doesn’t sound like me when I go back and listen to it, more like my doppelganger or an impersonator of me. It probably comes from years of having cello instructors and orchestra teachers who pushed me to never settle and to always be improving; that in and of itself is a huge ego-buster, and I’m pretty grateful for that.

Also, I love the movie because it reminded me of a book I read called Peace, Justice, and the Poetic Mind: Conversations on the Path of Nonviolence by Stuart Rees, professor emeritus at the University of Sydney and former director of the Sydney Peace Foundation, and Daisaku Ikeda, president of the Soka Gakkai International (SGI) and humanist philosopher. In their dialogue, Mr. Ikeda and Dr. Rees discuss the importance of culture and education in creating a more peaceful society, and in particular, the power of poetry as a means to do so. Dr. Rees says to Mr. Ikeda that he constantly uses poetry in his lectures and talks about social justice issues because poetry isn’t just for students taking Western literature classes. Whether you’re a biochemistry major, a religious studies major, or undecided about your major, all students should be given exposure to poetry. Dr. Rees also uses poetry in his lectures because in many parts of the world, poets write about conflicts and use their work to spark a dialogue about how to resolve those conflicts and foster peaceful communities. According to author and Civil Rights activist Vincent Harding, with whom Mr. Ikeda has spoken in a book called America Will Be!, “the arts should be at the heart of an education that helps us to become more human. Poetry, especially, gives us some creative ways to think about the story of our lives. This is because poets are constantly trying to reach into the depths of our reality… Poetry can remind us that we have the capacity to create–the capacity of telling and understanding our stories.” (Quoted from page 125 of Peace, Justice and the Poetic Mind. Original source: Harding and Ikeda, America Will Be! p 209)

In the film, Paterson’s poems seem simple and unremarkable, but looking at it from a Buddhist perspective, his poetry served as a way to communicate his life story, his lived experience. Even if the sights he observed and the people he listened to seemed like everyday things, there is this precious beauty in the way that Paterson takes the ordinary and finds some way to create value from these everyday things. He also makes it a habit of writing every day, and that reminds me of President Ikeda, who wrote his serialized novel The New Human Revolution every day even if he was tired, so that he could leave a record of his travels around the world and his dialogues with world leaders and his mentor, Josei Toda. He has also published The Sun of Youth, a series of poems he wrote calling for young people to stand up against injustice and awaken to their inherent potential, or Buddhahood, in their own lives as well as help others to awaken to their inner Buddhahood, too. The poems are all incredibly beautiful, and they all champion everyday people like you and me. And people like Paterson who live ordinary lives as human beings. There is one poignant scene toward the end when Paterson is sitting on the bench with a man he just met who traveled to Paterson and is flying back to Japan the next day. They have a short but deep dialogue about their shared love for William Carlos Williams and Frank O’Hara, both American poets. Even though Paterson tells the man he is not a poet, the man gives him a blank poetry notebook, implying that because of their shared connection through poetry that Paterson has another chance to write poetry after his dog ripped up his old poetry notebook. It was this dialogue where Paterson and the gentleman saw each others’ Buddha nature, or humanity, and this interaction was a sign from the universe that Paterson needs to, hopefully, listen to his wife, write those poems and then publish them so that people can be moved by his poetry.

I remember studying poetry in high school and college English classes (and a course in Afro-American Studies) but there was a lot of analysis and dissection of the poems required for classwork and homework that I lost my love of poetry for a while. This movie reminded me that one can appreciate poetry even in a non-classroom setting. Paterson works a full-time job, but he still makes time to write. I think the key to his creating this habit is that he lives in the moment when he writes and isn’t so caught up in the perfection of the poem or how it might sound to other people. There’s this idea that one has to quit their day job in order to follow their passion so they can make the “best art,” but this film served as a beautiful, down-to-earth reminder that you don’t have to, and really shouldn’t, quit your day job in order to make art. I think a lot of films and media tend to perpetuate this idea, like the film La La Land. Mia thinks she needs to quit her day job in order to make more time for her acting career, but in reality she works hard at staging a play and no one attends it, so she has to move back home because she’s broke and cannot pay her bills without a job. I, too, once thought I needed to quit my various day jobs in order to be a full-time musician, but turns out a lot of artists, such as Paterson, have some sort of day job because, like, #people out here gotta pay bills and eat (7/28/21: and as time goes on, I also realize that it’s not just about paying bills. Day jobs give you new sets of useful skills that can be used in any creative field you pursue.) Paterson’s poems are actually quite beautiful because they are inspired by his everyday experiences: him waking up next to his wife, him riding through the city every day, him sitting outside in nature. He just takes this everyday and runs with it in his writing. Also, he reads other writers, so that helps with his creative process.

I think because he has this appreciation for the everyday and the written word he was able to appreciate the small moments, such as when he encounters a man rapping a spoken word while waiting for his clothes to finish washing and drying at the laundromat. When Paterson asks him if the laundromat is his laboratory for his poetry creation, the man tells him wherever inspiration strikes is where he is going to create the lyrics. This spoke to me because as I said earlier, the only time I was really encouraged to study poetry was in the classroom, but too often we don’t think of song lyrics as constituting poetry, but after watching this movie, I appreciate rap as a form of poetry now. In an old article I read about the evolution of rap (I think it was National Geographic’s 2005 issue on Africa) and it has its roots in West African traditions. Griots in West African traditions play a variety of roles: storyteller, poet, historian, musician, and they communicate narratives through their voices, and so this tradition has continued today in rap music.

Before watching the film I barely knew anything about Paterson, New Jersey, other than when I read a Wikipedia article on it that was linked to the Wikipedia page on the film Paterson. The film helped me appreciate the city more, and while of course it wasn’t overtly a documentary about the city, Paterson drives past and discusses many sites with the people he encounters. He and Doc, the owner of the bar Paterson frequents, talk about famous people who lived in Paterson, such as the comedy duo Bud Abbott and Lou Costello, and the rapper Fetty Wap. It says a lot that Paterson is able to take in his surroundings, and part of the reason I think he is able to do this is because he doesn’t have a phone in which he can bury his eyes and not make eye contact with anyone or anything. After Doc’s wife comes into the bar and yells at Doc for using the money she needed to get her hair done for his niece’s wedding, Doc pulls out his smartphone and starts looking at it. When Paterson asks Doc if he is okay, Doc asks him point-blank why he still doesn’t have a cell phone. Paterson tells him he lives just fine without one, and when Doc asks if his wife also doesn’t have a cell phone, Paterson says that on the contrary, she has a phone, a tablet and other gadgets but she’s fine with him not using a cell phone. What I like about this film is that it weighs the pros and cons of Paterson choosing to not have a cell phone. The con is that when his bus breaks down toward the middle of the film, he doesn’t have a cell phone to call the transit authorities right away to get a new bus (but one of the passengers, a young girl, lets him use her cell phone to call the transit authorities after he says he doesn’t have a phone.) Doc and Laura (Paterson’s wife) tell him that the bus could have exploded and why he should have gotten a cell phone so he could communicate that the bus broke down without making anyone wait on him. Also, if he had his own cell phone he could have called or texted Laura to tell her about the bus breaking down and that he would probably be coming home late.

However, the pro is that Paterson is one of the few people who doesn’t sit and look down at his phone during a conversation, which many people do nowadays because the people who designed our phones meant for them to be a distraction in our daily lives. Like Paterson, I didn’t have a cell phone for a long time, and by the time I got my flip phone everyone else was using smartphones. In middle school I didn’t have a cell phone so I always called using the landline school phone that sat on my English teacher’s desk. Even when I used my flip phone it didn’t have the tools or apps that my smartphone has: now I can sit for hours on that thing and not look up at anyone or anything, which I why I try not to look at it all the time even during this time when we can’t go outside and technology is the only thing we can use to stay connected with one another. It’s why I got a little sappy and teary-eyed during the film because while I appreciate the use of technology during this time, I miss being able to have physical face-to-face conversations with others just as Paterson did in the movie. I did notice one moment where Paterson gave the guy at the laundromat an elbow bump to say his farewells; this is telling because the CDC encouraged us to give each other elbow bumps instead of hugging or shaking hands with people.

But bottom line is, it might be hard for Paterson to live without a cell phone nowadays because technology is the only way we can communicate to our friends without going outside, or even if we are going outside, it’s hard to communicate nowadays without a smartphone because there’s so much rapid information and it’s hard to keep up with it if one doesn’t have a phone, especially since now tech companies are doing coronavirus tracing through cell phones to track the virus. But even that has its downsides, namely because these companies are collecting all your information even though it may help slow the spread of coronavirus, and if you don’t want your personal info collected, then you’re toast. Also, there are still places in the U.S. with limited access to Internet and I don’t want to assume that everyone has a texting plan or even has a smartphone. Yes, most people do, but I am sure out of all the people on the planet, there are still folks without a cell phone or internet. Then again, the little girl wouldn’t have been able to give Paterson her cell phone to use because if she did, they wouldn’t be observing social distancing rules. In that case, he’d probably be in trouble and the new bus wouldn’t have come in time.

This film also really made me think about why it’s so important to express appreciation for bus drivers, delivery staff, hotel staff and other people who work in blue-collar jobs. There are still a lot of people who cannot afford to work from home because their jobs do not allow them to do that, and for those of us who get to stay at home, knowing this is all the more important. Recently, Jason Hargrove, a bus driver in Detroit, died from complications of Covid-19, but before his death he released a video on Facebook talking about how dangerous it is for transit employees like him to be driving people during this time because people on the buses cough and sneeze without covering their mouths and thus expose the drivers to coronavirus. He’s not alone: many bus drivers have contracted Covid-19, and the numbers only keep growing as people on buses and other modes of transportation refuse to take social distancing rules seriously and assume their cough or sneeze won’t get drivers sick. I know Paterson probably didn’t want thanks for what he did because he seemed to like his job, but I’m sure a lot of folks today would express appreciation for transit employees like him because their job is so risky now with the spread of COVID-19.

Overall, I really loved this film. Like I said, it brought tears to my eyes by the end (also because the music was incredibly sweet) and still has me thinking about the importance of poetry and appreciation of the everyday.

Paterson. 2016. Rated R for some language.

Movie Review: Bridge of Spies

January 13, 2020

Categories: movies

This was a really good movie. A friend recommended it to me, and I thought Ok, sure, but when I actually saw it I just remember thinking afterwards, Wow, this is a movie that makes you think! In fact, I’ll need to watch it again because there were some key points in the film that went over my head.

While I won’t go into great plot detail I will just say that this movie is still relevant today not just because we studied the Cold War in world history/ geography class, but because of the current political climate. Now, normally on this blog, I try to stay away from discussing anything related to political parties, but with the current political climate and the Russia-U.S. issue regarding elections, it just made sense to watch this movie. The film Bridge of Spies takes place during the Cold War, and is about a lawyer who represents Rudolf, a Russian spy being held captive in the U.S. Tom Hanks’s character, James, decides to help him through the trial so that he can become free again, and also so that the U.S. pilot being held captive in the Soviet Union, Francis Gary Powers, can gain his freedom again. Even though James wants to have dialogue with Rudolf, everyone thinks he is supporting “the enemy,” but James insists on a mutual relationship between the U.S. and Russia. Meanwhile, the Berlin Wall is dividing East and West Berlin, separating families and loved ones from one another and forcing people to flee their homes. Even with all this going on, James insists on having dialogue with the German and Russian leaders so that the American and Russian prisoners can return to their respective countries.

While I personally don’t have extensive experience or research on the Cold War, I remember reading a volume of The New Human Revolution, by educator and humanist philosopher Daisaku Ikeda. He met with the Soviet Premier Aleksey Kosygin, and even with leaders in the Soviet Union who didn’t agree with everything Mr. Ikeda said. Mr. Ikeda, like James, came to the Soviet Union as a way for the countries to facilitate dialogue with one another rather than always using armed force as the answer to every diplomatic problem. He asked the leaders of the Soviet Union and China if they were planning on going to war with one another, and each leader told him to communicate to the other side that they did not have plans to go to war with one another.

Communication is a powerful tool in our society, and it always has been. When leaders do not communicate with one another because they are worried that the other is going to blow the other leader’s country up, people make assumptions and shut off future ties or diplomacy. It can also have an impact on children: in one powerful scene of Bridge of Spies, James’s son is sitting in class and the teacher shows them one of the ads during the time that encouraged kids to “duck and cover” so that they wouldn’t get radiation poisoning from any bomb that the Soviet army could potentially throw at the U.S. Then James finds his son sitting on the bathroom floor and reading a book about bomb shelter preparedness because he thinks the Russians are going to bomb the Americans any minute. This is why communication is important because without face to face dialogue about what needs to be said, propaganda can continue to propagate and brainwash people, and moreover cause people to have this irrational fear about other people in other countries. I think in terms of politics and international diplomacy today, talking to one another face to face is needed more than ever if we want to bring about world peace.

Bridge of Spies. 2015. 2 hr 22 min. Rated PG-13 for some violence and brief strong language.

Movie Review: The Farewell

August 4, 2019

Categories: movies

Today I went and saw The Farewell, a beautiful film from the film company A24, and I must say, my eyes are still worn from all the crying I did during this movie. It truly is a tearjerker, and for a good reason. The film, which is the work of director Lulu Wang, is based on a true story in which Lulu’s grandmother died without knowing she had late-stage cancer because her family kept it a secret from her. Billi, played by rapper and actress Awkwafina, is living in New York City and struggling with her career and paying her rent, so she visits her parents, who know she doesn’t have her life together. One night she notices something is going on and her parents are stressed out, and when she asks what is wrong, they tell her that her grandmother is dying of cancer. The film opens with Billi calling her grandmother and asking how she is doing. Even though her grandmother, Nai-Nai, says she is doing well, we see Nai-Nai going through an ultrasound machine to see if she has cancer, and her friend telling her in the waiting room that the cancer isn’t harmful, when in reality the doctors said the cancer is harmful and she won’t have long to live. When Billi’s parents tell her they are going to China for her cousin’s wedding, she finds out that while the wedding is still going to happen, it is also an occasion for the family to spend time with Nai-Nai before she passes away. When Billi tells her parents that they need to tell Nai-Nai about her cancer diagnosis, they say no because it is customary in Chinese culture to not tell a loved one they are dying of cancer. Billi tells her parents she wants to go to China with them not just to see her cousin get married but also spend time with Nai-Nai since she doesn’t have long to live. Her parents tell her to stay since they do not think she would be of much use going back to China with them.

But Billi doesn’t give up. She goes to China to see Nai-Nai and runs into her parents at the house. They are disappointed in her throughout their stay, but they let her stay at Nai-Nai’s with them anyway since she insists on staying. During this time, Billie and Nai-Nai develop an incredibly beautiful bond that stands the test of time even when, in reality, Nai-Nai doesn’t have much time to live (one of the best scenes is when Nai-Nai teaches Billi tai-chi.) The film deals a lot with the issue of communication and how a lack of communication and honesty impacts not just the individual but everyone around them. Everyone is impacted by the decision to not tell Nai-Nai that she is dying of cancer, and at Billi’s cousin’s wedding, after a joyous game of drinking, he breaks down because he knows that he’s not just at the wedding to celebrate getting married but also there to celebrate the short time that he has with Nai-Nai. Not being allowed to tell Nai-Nai she has cancer also negatively impacts Billi, because she wants to have an open honest relationship with her grandmother but cannot because her parents and their parents frown on getting emotional or expressing grief. One of the most powerful scenes is the dialogue between Billi and her mother in the hotel room. Billi’s mother criticizes her for being too emotional and thinks that she shouldn’t be in China with them because she would get too emotional over Nai-Nai’s deteriorating health, and reveals that her own parents frowned on her for being emotional so she doesn’t want her daughter to face the same kind of criticism. She even says that there are professional cryers at the memorial service so that people don’t have to cry when their loved ones pass, and at the graveyard where Billi’s grandfather is buried, there is a woman who cries for everyone so that they do not have to express grief themselves. This made me reflect on how different cultures face death and handle grief. Some communities treat death by celebrating the person’s life with song and dance and merry-making, while other communities commemorate the person’s life with a serious ceremony. And other cultures encourage people to express their grief through physical gut-wrenching means. My ethnic culture encourages people to grieve, but my spiritual culture encourages people to celebrate the person’s life. My spiritual culture encourages people to shed tears but to also not let grief prevent them from living their lives and celebrating the memories of the deceased person.

But the question I was left with was this: is it bad that the family didn’t tell Nai-Nai about her cancer diagnosis since it was a cultural tradition to not talk about illness and death? How would Nai-Nai have reacted if she knew earlier that she had a cancer diagnosis? Sometimes when people learn early on that they have an illness, they do what they can to make the most of life, while other people suffer in grief and sometimes even end their lives before their illness can end life for them. In the film Billi’s mother says that in Chinese culture, people die not from the cancer itself, but from the fear that comes when they find out they have cancer. These are all important questions that we must deal with at every stage of life. I am rather young, but this film taught me to love the ones closest to me. When I read Nick Hornby’s novel How to Be Good, the main character, Katie, talked about how her husband and his spiritual doctor tried to do good things for humanity, and yet couldn’t treasure the people closest to them, and Katie mentions that it is easier to be kind to people that we are less familiar with than people than it is for people in our immediate environment. But The Farewell showed me, through Billi’s relationship with her grandma, that we cannot take people’s time for granted and that we must treasure people while they are still alive. Billi found out a lot about her grandmother, such as her time in the military. At first she encourages Billi to get married, but then later understands that Billi wants to focus on her career. When Billi tells her she didn’t get the fellowship at the Guggenheim she applied for, she confesses that she was worried about telling her grandmother because she didn’t want her to worry about Billi, but Nai-Nai says that it is not necessarily what you do in life that matters, but how you live your life that is important. Nai-Nai wants Billi to embrace her independence because she understands that is what makes Billi happy.

I was searching for articles about the film to better understand for myself the cultural significance of illness in Chinese culture since I personally cannot relate to what Lulu Wang and her family went through, and I found this touching thoughtful piece in The Washington Post by Marian Liu about how The Farewell touched her own life. Liu says that just like Billi’s parents, her dad didn’t let Liu know her grandmother was dying of cancer. This of course impacted Liu tremendously because she never got to have a deeper relationship with her grandmother, and she never got to say goodbye because her family didn’t tell her about her grandmother’s cancer diagnosis until it was too late. Liu later had an honest conversation about this matter with her father, and he tearfully revealed that if he was dying of illness he would want her to let him know of his diagnosis instead of keeping it concealed from him for the sake of preserving family peace. Her father also told Liu that when he found out she had pancreatic cancer and only had six months to live, he told his mother that she had a sickness rather than saying she had a terminal illness, and went to great lengths to get the doctors to give her traditional medicine and other treatments. According to Liu’s article, much of Eastern culture has a holistic approach to illness, one that considers not just physical health, but also one’s emotional and mental state, and is also rooted in community, so one’s diagnosis doesn’t just affect the person with the illness, it affects everyone in the family as well. When someone feels stressed or sad after finding out they have cancer, this emotional response affects everyone in the family, and so a lot of Asian students, according to Asian American Psychological Association president Helen Hsu, do not learn about their relatives’ deaths because their parents want them to focus on their studies and not get caught up in the complex emotions surrounding the relative’s death. However, not knowing about her grandmother’s diagnosis hurt Liu and her family down the road even though it was tradition to not tell her grandmother, and Liu, in the piece, reflects on the fact that she never got to ask her grandmother for advice on marriage and having children, or even taste her recipes, or even talk about her journey as an immigrant to the U.S. When Liu saw The Farewell, she saw her life onscreen, and says in the piece that while she normally doesn’t cry during movies, she cried during this one because it is something that she and many other Asian American youths have had to struggle with in their families.

Even though I do not come from the same ethnic culture as Liu, or Lulu Wang or Billi, I could not stop crying during the film. This is why I love A24’s drama films so stinking much. Moonlight made me cry. A Ghost Story made me cry. Lady Bird definitely made me cry, bringing back memories of my teenage self even though I didn’t have all of the same experiences as the lead protagonist. And even though The Spectacular Now and The Lobster didn’t make me cry, they made me think long after the movie was over. A24 is good at making films that make you think and reflect on what it means to live as a human being, and illustrates how, even during the toughest struggles, individuals can find this indescribable beauty in life whatever age they are at. Combined with the incredibly beautiful combination of string quartet and voice for the score, and the deeply contemplative subject matter, as well as the trademark silences of A24 films (those moments where the characters don’t have to say anything and are free to express their pain, happiness, mixed feelings solely through their body language), I had used up my entire wad of tissues and my eyes were puffy and red, so much I think I got an eyelash in them from crying so much. I convulsed with so many tears throughout the film because I knew the grandmother was dying, and even though I understand it was cultural tradition to not have open discussions about illness and death in front of dying relatives, it was still sad to know that this young woman’s grandmother, who helped her understand her roots and her place in the world, is dying and this young woman cannot tell her because no one wants her to. Even though some reviewers dismissed it as ridiculous that the family didn’t tell the grandmother about her diagnosis (instead of opening with the cliché “based on a true story,” the film caption is “based on an actual lie), it’s not ridiculous, and as Marian Liu illustrated in her piece, is quite common in real life. Speaking from my own life, even though I am not from the same ethnic background as Lulu or Marian, I have noticed that when people find out they have illness they get depressed, and people spend money trying to cure them of their illness through all kinds of pills and treatments. Some people, famous or not, have killed themselves when they find out they have a physical illness; their depression from having the illness, not just their cancer or Parkinson’s, killed them (a lot of people say that Robin Williams’s diagnosis of Lewy body disease played a significant role in his depression and his subsequent suicide.) While I am not saying these treatments are bad, death is going to come whether we want it to or not, and while it is a hard truth to confront, it is inevitable and we need to feel okay talking about illness and death with each other so that people with the illness don’t have to wonder why everyone around them is so tense and won’t tell them what is really wrong. I used to get very stressed out when it came to illness and death with my loved ones (7/20: to be honest I still get stressed when it comes to illness and death), but as I have gotten older, I have come to understand that the only constant in life is change. We cannot bring out physical accomplishments with us when we die; even Aretha, the Queen of Soul, is buried under a heap in the ground even with her super successful career. We are all going to die at some point, so it’s not enough to say you are going to live life to the fullest, but how you and your family are going to confront the inevitability of illness. In Buddhism, we believe that there are four stages of human life: birth, aging, sickness and death, and no one, not even the most successful, most youthful looking people, can escape death. The only thing we can do is change our attitude towards illness and death and how we cope with them.

I admit I was rather apathetic at first about seeing The Farewell. I love Awkwafina in her roles in Ocean’s 8 and Crazy Rich Asians, as well as her music videos, including her video for “Green Tea” where she is rapping with comedian Margaret Cho. But this is the first film I have seen where Awkwafina acts in a lead role, let alone a powerful drama. In one interview, Lulu Wang said she was at first hesitant about casting Awkwafina in The Farewell because even though she loved her rap videos (this was before Awkwafina starred in Crazy Rich Asians, another excellent film) she didn’t think Awkwafina could play a serious role, but then Awkwafina sent in her audition tape with a couple of scenes from the script and Wang immediately then knew she would be the fit for the part of Billi. It kind of reminds me of Melissa McCarthy because many people didn’t think she could act in dramas because she has usually starred in films where she plays goofy characters who fall on stairs, curse and hit people in the groin. But after seeing her in Can You Forgive Me? She nailed that role so hard, and even now I wouldn’t mind seeing it a second time because her acting is out-of-this-world amazing and she played the writer Lee Israel so well it made me want to see more dramas with her in them (she’s going to be in a new film called The Kitchen, although I probably won’t have the stomach to see it since it is supposed to be a violent film about crime during the 1970s.) Likewise, I would love to see Awkwafina in more drama films. I love her in comedies, but in this film her acting is so powerful and moved me to tears. In short, girlfriend can act.

The Farewell. 2019. 1 hr 38 min. Rated PG for thematic material, brief language and some smoking.

Movie Review: Uncle Drew

February 22, 2020

Categories: Uncategorized

After watching the emotionally heavy film Jackie, I had to watch something funny, and the only funny movie I had checked out from the library was Uncle Drew. I saw the trailer for it a long time ago, but didn’t know if it would interest me. But after watching it, I was sorely mistaken: it was so funny and also had a beautiful message.

It’s about this basketball coach named Dax Winslow who is struggling with encouraging his team, as well as trying to please his girlfriend, Jess, by buying nice things for her. He also has a rival named Mookie Bass who puts Dax down and even gets Dax’s team to turn on him when Dax buys them all the latest shoes when working his shift at Foot Locker. Dax loses all hope in coaching the team, until he finds a retired basketball player named Uncle Drew who proves a group of young basketball players wrong when he beats them at their game (they think that just because he walks slower than they do and has grey hair that he is a grandpa and thus cannot play basketball.) Dax catches up with Uncle Drew after the game and asks if Uncle Drew can join his team since Dax is short on players (Mookie Bass stole his teammates from him.) At first Uncle Drew is reluctant but agrees to join if Dax lets him also recruit Drew’s old teammates.

Everyone else on the team is a retired basketball player, and at first Dax is having a hard time convincing them to come back to playing, but in encouraging them to get back in the game, Dax also comes to terms with his own past struggles. He stopped playing basketball after he missed a shot during a game and his teammates felt he let them down, but after seeing Uncle Drew and his teammates show their stuff during games, Dax realizes he must overcome his fear of getting back on the court.

It was also a really cool movie because toward the middle of the film, Shaquille O’Neal’s character, Big Fella, has his headphones in, and when he takes them off, we hear the words “Nam myoho renge kyo.” As a Nichiren Buddhist, this was such a cool scene because the only other times I’ve heard Nam myoho renge kyo used in films and movies is What’s Love Got to Do With It? (I still have yet to see it, but that’s how most people I encounter have heard of NMRK) and one episode of The Simpsons (the clip is below, it happens around 0:33.)

The movie also has a message that very much resonates with Nichiren Buddhism. There’s a concept in Nichiren Buddhism called fundamental darkness, which means that we cannot see the potential inside of us. When we do what is called our human revolution, or self transformation, we awaken to the reality that we each have innate courage, wisdom and compassion and this gives us the strength to face our problems head on and overcome them. Dax’s fundamental darkness in this context is that he can’t see his potential to win at basketball and encourage his team, but when he overcomes his fear, he awakens to his potential and even his girlfriend is impressed (it’s also his chance to prove Mookie Bass wrong since Mookie thought Dax never had a chance.)

Even though I don’t know much about basketball and have only played a few times (although more often than not just shooting hoops by myself at the gym), I really loved this film and thought it was cool to see these influential people like Lisa Leslie and Kyrie Irving in this heartwarming fun film. The only people in basketball I knew before seeing this film were Shaquille O’Neal and Lisa Leslie (sad but true.)

Even though Nick Kroll plays a jerk in this film, I still love him in The Kroll Show. Also, he has a nice smile. And I also love seeing Lil Rel Howery (who plays Dax) because he was in Get Out and I love that movie. His role in that film made watching the film less stressful because he was the voice of reason to Daniel Kaluuya’s character, Chris. Chris was convinced his girlfriend’s parents were okay even though there was something fishy about the town they were in, and it took Lil Rel Howery, who plays Chris’s friend Rod, to tell him to get the hell out of that town and leave the girlfriend and her family since they were planning to kill him.

Uncle Drew. 2018. Rated PG-13 for suggestive material, language and brief nudity.

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