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Book Review: PURGATORY CHASM by Steve Ulfelder

First of all, how good is that title? Now check out this opening:

There are drunken assholes, and there are assholes who are drunks. Take a drunken asshole and stick him in AA five or ten years, maybe you come out with a decent guy.

Now take an asshole who’s a drunk. Put him in AA as long as you like. Send him to a thousand meetings a year, have him join the Peace Corps for good measure. What you come out with is a sober asshole.

Tander Phigg is a sober asshole.

Phigg asks Conway Sax, a mechanic and former NASCAR driver, to retrieve his Mercedes from a garage where it’s been held hostage for eighteen months, with the owner giving Phigg one reason or another for why he won’t release it. Sax only helps Phigg because he’s a fellow member of the Barnburners, an AA group that got Sax sober. The task should be relatively simple except it isn’t. Sax finds a dead body and himself in the thick of some nasty business. If that weren’t enough, his alcoholic father and Phigg’s son show up with his wife and kid, all needing a place to stay. Several people’s lives, including his own, depend on Sax getting to the bottom of the mystery, all the while trying to learn how to stop being, as his girlfriend says, “a clenched fist all the time.”

Sax is a very likable character, even if he feels obligated to sometimes do questionable things for the Barnburners to repay them for saving his life. The way he sees it:

They need to be rescued from the jackpots they get into, but they don’t appreciate it the way you might think. Everybody knows that without spiders, the world would be overrun by insects. But that doesn’t make people love spiders.

He’s righteous in his own way, like how thieves can be honorable. My problem is with his father, who is definitely an asshole who’s a drunk. From the flashbacks of Sax’s boyhood to the present day, the elder Sax proves himself an irredeemable character, which caused me to disconnect from the scenes between father and son. I just couldn’t root for Sax to somehow resolve that relationship. It’s like listening to a friend who’s married to a cruel man discuss her marital troubles. You have a hard time sympathizing when all you want to do is scream, “Leave him!”

That’s not to say I couldn’t feel Conway Sax’s pain. Ulfelder writes some devastating scenes, made more so because of things that aren’t said. We hurt more for Sax because he’s not openly sentimental; we fill in the blanks when he doesn’t show us his feelings. But show Ulfelder does, instead of telling, and for that I’m glad I came along for the ride.

Nerd verdict: Complex journey through Purgatory

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Book Review: THE INFORMATIONIST by Taylor Stevens

One of the reasons I love to read is to educate myself. There are books that entertain and examine the human condition and tell great stories but sometimes I’m attracted to something simply because it sounds foreign to me.

That’s partly why I wanted to read Taylor Stevens‘s debut novel, The Informationist. It takes place in African regions I don’t often hear about and has characters talking in a language I’d never heard of (Fang, anyone?). It also has an interesting lead character in Vanessa Michael Munroe, someone who’s expert at extracting information from anywhere anytime. She sometimes disguises herself as a man—hence the middle name.

She’s hired by Texas billionaire Richard Burbank to locate his daughter, Emily, who went missing four years ago while traveling in Africa, where Munroe grew up. She returns there with Miles Bradford, both a bodyguard and babysitter assigned by Burbank, to find answers but also to confront certain ghosts from her wild, violent past.

Munroe has been compared to Stieg Larsson’s Lisbeth Salander in blurbs and I can see why: she’s good with computers, rides a motorcycle, is antisocial, formidable in a fight, etc. But that’s just PR shorthand because Munroe is her own person and I never felt that Stevens was aping Larsson. If the author was borrowing from anywhere, it seems to be from her own life. As I mentioned in this earlier post about authors’ bios, Stevens had a peripatetic childhood during which she lived with a cult in two dozen countries (including Equatorial Guinea, where much of the novel’s action takes place) and was denied education after the age of twelve. Munroe is resourceful and resilient in a way that I imagine Stevens had to be when she escaped from the cult. I’m probably projecting but when the novel comes with that kind of backstory, it’s hard not to.

The prose can be a little melodramatic at times but the plot is smart, the action brutal, and the heroine as unconventional as the setting. You’ll gain knowledge about a foreign world and in the end become a bit of an informationist yourself.

Nerd verdict: Savvy Informationist

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Book Review: Manuel Muñoz’s WHAT YOU SEE IN THE DARK

You know this book is unusual when it begins by drawing you in with a second person narrative. Right away, you’re in Bakersfield, CA in 1959 as the tragic love affair between locals Teresa and Dan unfolds, intertwined with a fictional account of Janet Leigh (called only the Actress) and Alfred Hitchcock (the Director) coming to town to scout locations, including the perfect Bates motel, for Psycho. Through these and other characters, you explore what it was like to have dreams in a small town, to have them turn out differently than planned, or to know you’ve missed your chance at fulfilling your dreams altogether.

Debut novelist Manuel Muñoz’s voice, which switches to third person for most of the book, is an atmospheric, nostalgic one. I normally don’t care for a lot of descriptive prose but his evocations of another time are so hypnotic that I didn’t mind. Witness the way he sets up the following scene so you can watch Teresa, a Mexican girl abandoned by her mother, and Dan, the most coveted boy in town, as they have lunch:

They were eating in the café located on one of the choice corners on a better stretch of Union Avenue, the café that still had the plate-glass windows all the way down to the sidewalk…You could see the entire booth through those windows: the table, the red vinyl, their dishes, the waitress’s white shoes when she came by to check on them, how the girl crossed her feet and rocked them nervously. She was not dressed as crisply as he was. Even if her clothes looked clean and pressed, you could tell right off that the day she began wearing nice things around town was the day the two of them had done more than talk and have lunch.

And with that, the author has turned you into a voyeur and town gossip.

Teresa and Dan’s story—and that of his mother, Arlene—is rife with loneliness and hope, with observations both subtle and heartbreaking. Muñoz also pulls off getting inside Janet Leigh’s head as she struggles with self-doubt while preparing for what would turn out to be her iconic role. The author writes in meticulous detail about how the famous shower scene was shot, how exacting Hitchcock was, and how Leigh tried to bring sympathetic dimensions to a character who was a thief and adulterer. The result is a mesmerizing combination of behind-the-scenes movie lore and noirish mystery.

But while the Actress only has to deal with fake blood, Teresa and Dan’s relationship erupts in real violence. Muñoz provides some details of the crime but doesn’t give a definitive account of what goes down, asking you to speculate on events as the locals do. It’s different from mystery novels that end with a “here’s what happened” scene but is effective nonetheless, because Muñoz wants you to use your imagination to fill in what you think you saw in the dark.

Nerd verdict: Hypnotic, noirish Dark

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Book Review: Harlan Coben’s LIVE WIRE

It has never taken me more than two days to finish a Harlan Coben book and it was no different with his latest, Live Wire (Dutton, March 22). Myron and Win are back in another fast-paced tale that starts with a pregnant client of Myron’s, former tennis ace Suzze T, receiving an anonymous Facebook comment claiming that her husband, Lex, isn’t her baby’s father. Lex, the less famous half of a rock duo, has disappeared and Suzze wants Myron to find him and the person who posted the comment. In doing so, Myron runs into his sister-in-law Kitty, whom he hasn’t seen for fifteen years, since she and Myron’s brother Brad cut off contact with the Bolitar family after a nasty altercation. Kitty turns out to be a key figure in a complicated case that ends up with several people dead and Myron’s world turned upside down.

One of the things I like about the Bolitar series is that the characters evolve. Over the last few books, Myron has been dealing with his parents getting older and in this book the issue comes to the forefront. It’s a realistic and heartfelt exploration of what it means to face the inevitable, to have what you thought was far off arrive on your doorstep and ring the bell. Myron and Win are aging, too, with Win wearing reading glasses now, though he’s still deadly enough—if not more than ever—to bail Myron out of tough spots.

Live Wire reveals a Bolitar family history that readers had never known, introducing family members we—and even Myron, in one instance—had never met. We learn that Myron contributed to the estrangement of his brother and his sister-in-law Kitty wasn’t always the despicable person she’s become. Coben makes a bold move by drastically altering Myron’s (and Win’s and Esperanza’s) life by the end of the book, leaving our hero headed in a new direction. This change is welcome because as engrossing as Coben’s novels are, there’s a pattern developing (in his standalones, too): The protagonist receives a video/call/e-mail and now Facebook comment from someone who hasn’t been seen/heard from in years/long thought dead, which sends Myron/protagonist on a dangerous mission. Hopefully, as Myron and his friends tackle new personal challenges, they and the series will continue to age gracefully.

Nerd verdict: Strong Live

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Book Review: Téa Obreht’s THE TIGER’S WIFE

Though this is Téa Obreht’s debut novel, it arrives with loud fanfare after the author landed on The New Yorker‘s “Best 20 Under 40” list—she’s the youngest at 25—and the National Book Foundation named her one of the “Best 5 Under 35.” In addition, The Tiger’s Wife has received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, Booklist and the Library Journal. Does the book live up to the hype? Yes and no, depending on how much you like narration vs. dialogue.

The narrator is a young doctor named Natalia who’s traveling in an unnamed Balkan country with her friend Zóra to deliver medical aid to an orphanage. On the way, Natalia receives news that her beloved grandfather has died under mysterious circumstances away from home. She sets out to bring back his belongings and in the process recalls the stories he had told her since childhood. These include tales of “the deathless man” her grandfather met as a young man, a tiger who came to live (and be feared as the devil) in her grandfather’s village when he was a boy, and the deaf-mute girl who became known as the tiger’s wife.

Obreht is undeniably a gifted writer, able to conjure vivid imagery in her descriptions of a country ravaged by war. Her understanding of history lends depth and maturity to her storytelling. The problem is there’s too much of a good thing. The author’s omniscient voice is everywhere so she tends to describe everything, even getting inside a tiger’s head to describe his feelings. She often writes up to a dozen pages of narrative without any dialogue. This style left me feeling a little removed from the proceedings. Dialogue draws me into scenes in an immediate way, making me feel like someone eavesdropping on conversations. Too much narration renders me passive as a reader, as if I’m only getting a summary of characters’ actions after the fact. I often missed the insight that can be gleaned from what people say to each other, whether or not they’re telling the truth. Some readers may have no problem sitting back and being told a good story; I like to feel as if I’m inside it.

Obreht’s cast of characters is uneven, with some much more interesting than others. The grandfather is the strongest link; every scene he’s in is riveting. The deathless man with his mysterious coffee cup is also quite a creation; someone who possibly works for Death should be creepy but is instead charming and well-mannered. The deaf-mute girl is a heart-rending figure elevated to mystical status and the tiger at times seems more human than the men who engage in animalistic violence.

Because these stories are captivating, I got impatient with the chapters about the less intriguing characters, including Natalia. She’s chasing the truth about her grandfather while remaining somewhat of a blank slate. Obreht also digresses into the histories of the butcher and the apothecary from the grandfather’s village. The backstories do have emotional resonance but are disproportionately long for such tangential characters, pulling focus away from the central ones. Ultimately, Tiger’s Wife has much to be admired even if it’s not quite as magical as some of the legends it tells.

Nerd verdict: A tame Tiger’s

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Book Review: Michael Robertson’s THE BROTHERS OF BAKER STREET

Wow. It feels like I haven’t written a post in a month but it’s only been six days. I’m doing a play which opened last Thursday (if you’re in L.A. and like theater, come on down!) and the days leading up to opening night were busy with tech and dress rehearsals. During downtime backstage, I did manage to read a few books and here’s a review of one, with more to follow this week.

The Brothers of Baker Street by Michael Robertson

Reggie Heath is back in London after traveling to Los Angeles in the charming The Baker Street Letters (first in this series). The previous adventure has left him broke and no longer in a relationship with actress Laura Rankin. But he still has his law office at 221B Baker Street—Sherlock Holmes’s address—as long as he maintains his agreement with management that he answers letters that arrive on a regular basis addressed to the famous detective.

But Reggie doesn’t have time for the letters. In a bid to rebuild his career, he takes on the case of a Black Cab driver accused of murdering two American tourists. Then an important clue turns up in a letter from someone claiming to be a descendant of Professor Moriarty. The letter writer also believes Reggie is Sherlock Holmes brought back to life through cryogenics and promises to avenge the professor’s death.

Though Brothers has its moments, it’s not as enjoyable as Letters partly because Reggie’s lawyer brother, Nigel, is missing for nearly half the book (he’s in L.A. with his lady friend until he’s called home to help Reggie). The dynamic between the two is part of the draw for me. Responsible Reggie is not as much fun without his eccentric brother around to frustrate him.

Laura’s relationship with the boorish Lord Buxton is also problematic. He publishes trashy tabloids, the two have zero chemistry, and she seems to prefer Reggie’s company over Buxton’s. I don’t need to see her back with Reggie—they had some problems in the last book—but if she’s only with Buxton because he has money and Reggie doesn’t, then she has become a shallow character undeserving of Reggie’s devotion.

Another issue is the lack of mystery surrounding the letter writer claiming to be Moriarty’s descendant. The identity of this person becomes quite obvious about halfway through the book, with giant clues pointing to the culprit like neon signs flashing “Villain alert!” The denouement, however, is a fitting homage to the Holmes-and-Moriarty legend. This book may be underwhelming but the brothers remain engaging characters and their connection to Holmes will have me on board when their next game is afoot.

Nerd verdict: Brothers has issues

What have you been reading?

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Book Review: Sophie Littlefield’s AFTERTIME

Before I get to the review, I want to mention I don’t normally read dystopian fiction, horror, or romance novels and I definitely don’t do zombies. I can handle aliens and Godzilla but zombies give me the creeps.

So what possessed me to read Aftertime (Luna, Feb. 22), which takes place in a post-apocalyptic world, is overrun with flesh-eating zombies, and contains, ah, really steamy scenes? The fact it was written by Sophie Littlefield, who can get me to read anything.

The story (first of a trilogy) begins with Cass waking up in a field with no memories of the past two months. Last she remembers, she was seized by zombies—called Beaters—while she was picking dandelions in a field with her three-year-old daughter, Ruthie. Missing strips of flesh on her body indicate she’d been attacked and zombiefied but for unknown reasons, her body healed itself and she became human again. Now, nothing will stop her as she travels through Beaters-infested terrain to reclaim her daughter, meeting a man named Smoke along the way who turns out to be as seductive and dangerous as his name.

Littlefield excels at keeping the momentum going and she knows how to inject a huge beating heart into any story, even one in which humanity is barely alive. Yes, the zombies are revolting. When they’re feasting on flesh, I almost vomited like a character does in the book. Violent, disturbing things happen but at the center of it all is a woman trying to redeem herself for past mistakes, to finally do the right thing for the right reason: her love for her child. She’s not superhuman; her arduous quest is fueled by maternal instinct but sometimes that’s the most powerful thing of all.

Smoke is more elusive as a character. He’s a little too perfect for me—studly, aces on a motorcycle, trusts Cass instantly though there’s reason to think she might be carrying zombie cooties, he’s strong but tender, etc. Then again, I’m glad Cass has such a man accompanying her. An out-of-shape sissy who hurts himself riding a motorbike and cries for mama when he sees zombies would have been no good. And Smoke doesn’t get to rescue Cass in the end. She leaves him behind on her final task and saves her own damn self.

Littlefield has a way of turning mundane things from Before into wistful memories in Aftertime, making me appreciate what I have here and now. In one scene, Cass closes her eyes and daydreams about vacuuming, moving her arms in the motion of a chore that no longer exists in a world where everyone and everything is dirty. She imagines turning on the faucet at a sink and feeling cold water rush over her arms. All of a sudden I wanted to wash my hands and do some vacuuming—a task I have no love for—just because I can. By the time Cass spots defiant dandelions that refuse to die among the ruins, I was convinced they’re the most beautiful flowers on earth.

Nerd verdict: Engrossing Aftertime

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Book Review: Brad Parks’s EYES OF THE INNOCENT

Though Brad Parks had Shamus and Nero awards thrown at his Faces—his debut novel, Faces of the Gone, that is— there’s no sign of the sophomore slump in his follow-up, Eyes of the Innocent, which is even better than its predecessor.

Newark Eagle-Examiner investigative reporter Carter Ross is back, assigned to write a routine piece about the dangers of space heaters. He soon discovers the story behind a recent house fire that killed two children had nothing to do with heaters, but something much more destructive and prevalent. His investigation turns deadly when he and his interns uncover corruption that leads to City Hall.

The topic at the center of Eyes—the subprime mortgage crisis—is a resonant, timely one. In the last few years, I’ve watched hardworking friends lose their homes after being encouraged by lenders to buy more than their budgets allowed. Seeing their homeowners’ pride turn into panic is heart-rending and Parks captured that sense of despair. Sometimes the villain doesn’t carry a gun or have tattoos. He/she could be the person in the suit who preys on your dreams.

The novel isn’t all bleak. Parks inserts notes of levity into the proceedings, sometimes with just a line: “She’s so tough she can slam a revolving door.” His characters are colorful and never lacking for quips. Ross’s editor Tina still wants him to be her sperm donor/baby daddy and his intern Tommy still disparages Ross’s WASP-y fashion sense. And don’t underestimate new intern Sweet Thang aka Lauren, whose hot body Ross tries hard not to ogle. She may seem too fluffy for the newsroom at first but later proves she’s made of sterner stuff.

Nerd verdict: Sharp, witty Eyes

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Thursday Night TV: AMERICAN IDOL S10 in New Orleans & PERFECT COUPLES

American Idol Season 10 New Orleans Auditions

New Orleans is a vibrant city with a big personality but the auditions there yielded a pretty standard batch of hopefuls, a mix of talented singers, delusional ones and crazies in outrageous outfits thinking that would actually help their chances.

Standouts for me:

Jacee Badeaux—Jennifer Lopez said she got goosebumps from the 15-year-old’s singing but my reaction went deeper. Something shifted inside my chest when I heard him sing “ (Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay”; it’s what happens when I encounter something unexpectedly beautiful. Can’t wait to see what else he can do in Hollywood.
Jacquelyn Dupree—she brought in her uncle Jerry, who was Randy’s high school football coach and they had a little reunion. I was skeptical, thinking she was currying favor with Randy, but she didn’t need any gimmicks. She had amazing control in her rendition of “I’ll Stand by You,” switching from big powerful notes to whispered ones on a dime.
Paris Tassin—the single mom of a special needs child brought tears to Lopez’s eyes with Carrie Underwood’s “Temporary Home.” Tassin seemed to really connect to the lyrics, her voice infused with a desperate ache. It didn’t hurt that she’s also gorgeous.
Jovany Barreto—he did a nice job with Luis Miguel’s “Contigo en la Distancia” and got three yeses. But then he took off his shirt to show off his abs, which was tacky and absolutely unnecessary.
Brett Loewenstern—this red-haired boy moved me. He said kids at school call him dork and geek but he finally figured out that as long as you like yourself, it doesn’t matter what others say. I had sudden flashbacks to my school days because I knew exactly what he was talking about. He said he wanted to spread his message to other kids who are bullied so I crossed my fingers hard, hoping he would do well in the room. And he did! By singing “Bohemian Rhapsody,” no less. Have you ever tried singing that song in karaoke? It’s hard! With crazy-ass notes all up and down the scale! So I’m rooting for this kid because I want him to keep doing his thing.

Perfect Couples

After AI was over, I watched the Perfect Couples pilot, a new addition to NBC’s Comedy Night Done Right on Thursdays. The sitcom revolves around three different types of couples: perfect Dave (Kyle Bornheimer) and Julia (Christine Woods), tempestuous Vance (David Walton) and Amy (Mary Elizabeth Ellis), and self-help psycho-babbling Rex (Hayes MacArthur) and Leigh (Olivia Munn).

Bornheimer & Woods, with Walton & Ellis

This show is awful in so many ways but let’s start with the central problem: no one behaves in ways that are recognizable in real humans. Vance and Amy start making out like mad, attacking each other on Dave and Julia’s couch in the middle of game night. With Dave and Amy sitting right next to them! In case you’re not laughing yet, Rex and Leigh don’t want to be one-upped so they start making out, too! Who does this? How do these boorish people have any friends at all?

MacArthur & Munn

Vance and Amy are the most obnoxious, with no discernible redeeming qualities. Rex and Leigh are simply not funny. I was surprised to find out Leigh is supposed to be Vietnamese since Munn doesn’t even look Asian to me, much less Vietnamese (she’s half Chinese). And Rex, in pronouncing the names of several Vietnamese dishes, was so far off, it was the equivalent of someone pronouncing “bread” as “monkey.” Or if I saw “casa” and said “pollo.” This annoyed me because if MacArthur didn’t know how to pronounce those words, he should’ve asked the script supervisor on set, who could have Googled from her smart phone and found the answers for him. So much for self-help. Nerd verdict: Far from Perfect.

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AMERICAN IDOL SEASON 10 Premiere Review: New Jersey Auditions

Season 10 of American Idol started off on a kinder note but I’m not sure if it’s better. Steven Tyler, Jennifer Lopez and Randy Jackson seem to have a more cohesive energy than last year’s panel of judges but I definitely missed Simon Cowell’s presence and biting remarks. Every time he opened his mouth, it was a delicious soundbite waiting to happen. Tyler and Lopez didn’t necessarily give poor feedback, but I can’t remember anything specific they said.

Quick impressions of the new judges: Tyler got the hang of judging and letting people down gently faster than Lopez but was borderline inappropriate in ogling the pretty girls. It’s okay when they’re of age but at one point, he was admiring the skirt on 16-year-old Victoria Huggins and said, “You have just the right amount [of legs] showing.” Um, wrongness much? He has a thousand years on her!

Lopez seemed sweet but after a while, I got annoyed at her inability to say no to bad “singers.” I know it’s hard to crush someone’s dreams but she’s getting paid a busload of money so she should just do her job. All the “Oh, I’m so uncomfortable with this” protestations got a little old and I wondered if she wasn’t putting it on thick to let us know what a nice person she really is.

I was most irritated when she put through Ashley Sullivan, who sang “Gimme Gimme” from Thoroughly Modern Millie only moderately well and then declared, “I want to be the first show-tune pop star!” (Oh, dear, no—that’s a hybrid I never want to see). Lopez didn’t seem impressed but Sullivan sobbed hard and begged even harder. Lopez finally threw her hands in the air, said yes and added, “I don’t care!” Really? If you don’t, why should we? I tune in to see the amazing talent you’re supposed to help discover, not put up with mediocre wannabes you foist on us to avoid feeling guilty.

OK, on to the singers. Some memorable ones from the New Jersey auditions:

Caleb Hawley—his voice came out much higher than I expected it to be but he was passionate about what he was singing and got into a nice groove with Tyler singing along (aren’t judges only supposed to listen?). He was a little scruffy but I could see a cute guy under there so if he gets cleaned up for Hollywood, tweens will eat him up.
Kenzie Palmer—the first 15-year-old to try out (the show lowered its minimum age requirement this season) is cute as a button with a voice much more sophisticated than her age.
Robbie Rosen—the kid with the wide smile and beautiful vocals who wowed with “Yesterday.” His voice was sweet and longing when it went soft, and powerful when he needed to hit certain high notes. I liked him even more for not using the story about his overcoming paralyzing synovitis at age 5 to make the judges feel sorry for him. When you’ve got the goods, you don’t need any tricks.
Tiffany Rios—her first strike for me was giving tutorials on how to tease your hair for that Jersey ‘do. (Funny, her hair didn’t look any better afterward.) Second strike was wearing big silver stars on her boobs, which were encased in a bikini top. Third? Announcing she’d sing an original song she made up for the show. Does that ever go well? Surprise! She has a decent voice! Color me shocked! I still thought she was doomed because the song was awful and cheesy but the judges let her sing another tune and she confirmed her skills with “I’m Your Lady.” She has got to leave the tackiness at home, though, if she wants to be taken seriously in Hollywood.
Michael Perotto—the dude who belches whenever he gets nervous. At first I thought, “Oh man, I wouldn’t want to be sitting next to him in the waiting area.” And then I thought, “Well, at least the nervous gas isn’t coming out his other end.” He was terrible and yes, gave us one final belch before leaving.
Yoji “Pop” Asana—all this guy did was confuse me. He said he’d been imitating Michael Jackson from before he was born (??) but didn’t want to do that. Then he said he didn’t like Miley Cyrus’s song “Party in the USA” but he would do that. And then he busted out MJ’s moves, including the moonwalk, while singing Cyrus’s song and looked angry the whole time!
Melinda Ademi—she and her parents are refugees from Kosovo, looking for a better life here. Melinda’s golden ticket to Hollywood might help. She’s beautiful and sang “If I Ain’t Got You” in a big if not-yet-memorable voice.
Brielle Von Hugel—everything about the girl with a flower in her hair and a father who overcame throat cancer is sweet, including her voice. But at 16, I don’t know how much she knows about “Endless Love.”
Travis Orlando—the last kid seen in NJ who lived in a shelter with his family but refused to let go of his dream of singing. The long extended video about the family’s struggles after his father got sick was so depressing, I kept saying, “Oh, please be good, please be good” as he walked into the audition room. His “Eleanor Rigby” was a little wonky but then he sang “I’m Yours” and was much better. His voice was a little constricted as if his throat was tight due to nerves but he had a unique tone. I exhaled when the judges put him through and his family cried.

Did you watch? What did you think of the new judges? Which singers stood out for you?

Photo: FOX

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Movie Review: BIUTIFUL & Notes from Q&A with Javier Bardem

If you’re familiar with Alejandro González Iñárritu’s past work—Babel, 21 Grams, Amores Perros, etc.—you probably suspect that the title is ironic because there’s very little about Biutiful that’s beautiful. It’s a relentlessly bleak film about a grifter dying from cancer who’s trying to ensure his two young children will be taken care of after he goes. Uxbal’s shady dealings involve Chinese sweatshop workers making knockoff bags and Senegalese dealers who sell them. He also has a gift for seeing the dead and charges people a fee for communicating with their departed loved ones. Through it all, Uxbal is searching for some kind of redemption and I won’t spill whether or not he finds it but will say that the movie is redeemed by Javier Bardem’s so-deep-inside-the-character-he-disappears portrayal of Uxbal.

Bardem says in the post-screening Q&A (more details below) that when Iñárritu asked him to do the movie, he didn’t just ask him if he wanted to play Uxbal, he asked if Bardem would like to go on a life journey and that’s a more accurate description of what the actor put on screen. We can almost see Uxbal dying from frame to frame, his body deteriorating as his desperate need to protect his children grows more intense. Bardem’s amazing work ranks among the best of 2010, right up there with Colin Firth’s in The King’s Speech and James Franco’s in 127 Hours, but I don’t know if he’ll get as much as love from Oscar voters who might hesitate to sit through two and a half hours of such depressing stuff. With subtitles.

Set in a much uglier part of Barcelona than the Woody Allen movie about Vickie and Christina, Biutiful covers weighty themes such as spirituality, a father’s love, mortality, bipolarity, and the immigrant experience. Any of these topics could fill a whole movie but Iñárritu wanted to put them all in this one. I respect his ambition but the film ends up being rambling, with too much happening to too many characters, all of whom we’d care about more if only we get to spend more time with each. I often wanted to stay with Uxbal’s two children, heartbreakingly played by Hanaa Bouchaib and Guillermo Estrella (above), but instead got wrenched away to unnecessary scenes like Uxbal getting wasted in a nightclub or a clandestine gay love affair between two minor characters. Bardem does heavy lifting as the anchor and narrative throughline but he can only do so much.

After the screening I attended, Bardem came out to do Q&A and was a stark and welcome contrast to his character. The actor, looking healthy, handsome, and 10 years younger than Uxbal, bounced out onto the stage, full of energy and good humor. When the audience gave him a standing ovation for his performance, he said, “I’m not that old!” After confirming it was a SAG screening and he was in a room full of actors, his reaction was, “I’m in deep shit! I can’t pretend with you guys!”

Bardem spoke at length about his intense process for Biutiful, alternating between jokes and a serious sense of devotion to his craft. Some highlights:

The shoot was 5 months, 6 days a week, 14 hours a day with 3 months of prep before production started. Day 2 of shooting was the scene in which Uxbal received the bad news about his cancer and Iñárritu did many takes. “I died 100 times!” Maintaining that emotional state for so long made Bardem feel lost. It took him about 6 or 7 months after production wrapped to completely leave Uxbal behind. Reactions in his life were not his, they were Uxbal’s. He started feeling a little anxious, like his life was going too fast. “But it’s worth it,” said Bardem. “We don’t choose what we do; we need to.”
He was very concerned for the child actors who played his kids since they had to perform such sad scenes. He was often torn between staying in character and clowning around with them between scenes to lighten things up. But he eventually found the kids were okay “jumping in and out of the fiction.” It reminded him of playing during recess at school when he was 5. When the teacher said he had to go back to class, “I didn’t say, ‘Wait, I [need a moment] to leave my character behind.'”
In contrast, “On No Country for Old Men, I felt nothing and they gave me an Oscar! I was speaking English!”
He told a funny story about working “for six hours” with Michael Mann on Collateral, his first movie in English. Mann spoke in such a low voice, Bardem, already struggling with the language, had no idea what the director wanted. Too intimidated to ask Mann to repeat himself, Bardem would nod and do the scene. Mann would come over and say something else, again unintelligible to the actor. This went on for 30 takes before Mann finally said, “THAT’s what I wanted!”
In discussing Uxbal’s gift for communicating with spirits in the movie and whether he believed in such things, Bardem said his father died when the actor was 26. Bardem refused to believe he’ll never see his dad again but doesn’t believe in institutions that have created whole worlds after death. In his research, he spoke with three women who told him his father was present. They told him things his father would know, in ways his father would say them. But he didn’t want to give in “to give it too much power. We have to live life; everything is not written.”
He also talked to immigrants for research. They opened their homes to him and he stayed with them. It became an emotional experience for him, “not just an intellectual idea.”
When a woman from the audience asked him a question in Spanish, he jokingly translated by saying, “When am I going to do porno? They fired me!”
He enjoys watching his movies. “I like to watch my stupid big face on screen!”
Bardem’s mother is 71 and has been working as an actress since she was 15. His grandparents were actors during a time when they couldn’t be buried on sacred ground. “We are excellent prostitutes!” Bardem joked. His mother didn’t want him to be an actor “but at the end of the day, the only thing important is the work. Don’t buy anything when people tell you you’re great or you suck.”

Nerd verdict: Movie not so Biutiful but Bardem’s work is magnificent

Photos: Jose Haro

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Movie Review: HOW DO YOU KNOW

The title of James L. Brooks’s latest movie, How Do You Know (opening Dec. 17), refers to when you realize you’ve fallen in love with someone. But the question I asked myself while watching was: How do you know a movie is in trouble? When even charismatic stars like Paul Rudd and Reese Witherspoon can’t save it.

Witherspoon is Lisa, a professional softball player who’s considered over the hill at thirty-one and forced to transition to another career. Rudd plays George, a man who learns he’s under federal investigation for stock fraud but doesn’t know why. The two are set up by a mutual friend and have an awkward dinner, during which both are trying to figure out their next moves and neither is in a friendly mood.

That should’ve been the end of that, especially since Lisa is casually dating a baseball player, Matty (Owen Wilson). But Lisa and George keep running into each other—his father (Jack Nicholson) lives in Matty’s swanky apartment building—and a friendship develops, despite Lisa moving in with Matty and the possibility that George might go to prison. As they try to sort out their lives, they also have to figure out how they truly feel about each other before one of them does something which would destroy their chances of being together.

Witherspoon has said in several interviews Brooks wrote the part for her so it’s odd what a bad fit it is. She makes a lot of exaggerated facial expressions to indicate her emotions without convincing me she was actually feeling them. This is unusual because she’s normally such a natural actress. I never quite bought her as a professional athlete or someone suffering from a lack of direction. There’s something about Witherspoon’s headstrong, go-getter persona (her production company is called Type A Prods.) that doesn’t lend itself well to a character who doesn’t know what to do with her life and sits around drinking and talking about her ennui. The actress looks as disengaged from the role as Lisa is disconnected from her true feelings.

Rudd is charming as usual, even when George is supposed to be a sad sack, the complete opposite of a chick magnet. He has such clear, expressive eyes that you can almost identify the exact moment George realizes he’s in love with Lisa. While she stays cool towards him for most of the movie (granted, she’s with someone), Rudd is the one who sells the growing attraction. Meanwhile, Wilson does his playboy-afflicted-with-stunted-maturity act and Nicholson is Nicholson, doing what you’d expect of him.

Brooks wrote and directed two of my favorite films of all time, Terms of Endearment and Broadcast News, but his more recent work has been so frustratingly uneven. The pacing is off here, with some scenes cutting away too soon and many going on for way too long. Other scenes seem superfluous and should have been deleted and saved for the DVD’s extras. The tone is also uncertain; the movie is billed as a romantic comedy but is more dramatic than funny. Brooks has insightful things to say about relationships but sometimes loses focus, leaving us with scattered thoughts that don’t add up to much.

Nerd verdict: Wish I liked You more

Photos: David James/Columbia Pictures

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