Taking Stock: 2009

Last year was a better year for movies and movie-watching for me. I managed to see 49films in the theaters in 2009, almost double the number I saw in 2008. I caught another dozen movies on DVD, but most of them were older films, not new releases. I read fewer books this past year, just 38, compared to the 43 I read in 2008, but to be honest, a lot of the books for 2009 were longer and took a far greater amount of time to read. One doesn't just skim through Arthur Laurents' Original Story by in a hurry. I even got out of the house to see fifteen plays or musicals this past year, and I was lucky enough to perform in a play as well. Here's hoping that 2010 brings even more opportunities to read and watch and enjoy.

Favorite Movie: Inglourious Basterds. Does anyone have more fun thinking up ideas for movies and then executing them than Quentin Tarentino? A wildly imaginative piece of speculative fiction, Inglourious Basterds leads us to wonder what would have happened had a band of Jewish-American soldiers (under the leadership of Brad Pitt in a hilarious, loopy performance) decided to take revenge for the Nazi atrocities during World War II and killed Hitler at a screening of a terrible propaganda film. Anchored by the astonishing performance of Christoph Waltz as Col. Hans Landa, and for whom there has been universal praise, this film managed to divide audiences, but I still don't think there's anyone as talented and audacious as Tarentino working in movies today. I just wish he worked more often so we could get more movies like this.

Runner-Up: Adventureland. This is a small movie about a young man who spends his summer working at a local amusement park, falling in love and having a lot of those "first time" experiences. The trailer for the film made it seem like it was some sort of fraternity-boy comedy, but in truth, Adventureland is sweet and romantic and charming. It's a shame too few people went to see this movie. It only played in theaters for a short while during the spring. Maybe it was the fact that the movie is set in the late 1980s, and we're not ready to revisit that era yet. However, even though I was already a college graduate (twice) by that time, I found so many moments in the life of Jesse Eisenberg's James that resonated with my own experiences. It's worth renting to catch this gem.

P.S. I'd also like to mention how much I engjoyed getting a chance to see the short films, both animated and live action, that were nominated for Oscars for 2008. Someone had the bright idea to package them (and throw in a few more notable short films) and put them into theaters. I've written about all of these films on my other blog, but they provided some of my favorite moments in movie-watching last year. It takes real talent to compress a story into a few moments and have an impact, but the film makers of these shorts succeeded. I hope that this year's crop of nominees is similarly honored by being released for the movie-going public to enjoy.

Favorite Performance (Female): Abbie Cornish in Bright Star. Cornish plays Fanny Brawne, the young woman with whom English Romantic poet John Keats fell in love. If the real Fanny were anything like Cornish's performance, you can understand why. She's luminous and quite understated as an actress, allowing you to see glimpses of how she has internalized her emotions. Watching Fanny convey her talent through her sewing and then seeing her learn to understand and appreciate Keats' poems are both revelatory moments in Cornish's hands. She is ably surrounded by wonderful actors, including Ben Whishaw as Keats, but if you had the chance to experience this beautiful but sadly underseen film by the great Jane Campion, you won't quickly forget Cornish. She gives one of the best performances of the past decade, in my opinion.

Runner-Up: Gabourey Sibide and Mo'Nique in Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire. The title is ridiculously long (and kind of ridiculous), but the performances are first rate. Mo'Nique has justly been lauded for her work as one of the darkest characters in recent film history. She's a heartless, opportunistic, scheming woman who seems to feel no pleasure or joy in life. Her last scene in the film reveals a monstrous personality; I don't know how anyone could pull it off as well as she does. I do think Sibide is her equal here even though she has the quieter role. She has to portray a victim of abuse, yet we also need to see just how much spirit she manages to keep inside her despite the constant ridicule of her own mother and the ways that society seems to be against her. Both women are amazing to watch together. Their scenes have a vitality and energy and even a sense of fear and tension that you don't see in the movies enough these days.

Favorite Performance (Male): Joseph Gordon-Levitt in (500) Days of Summer. Who knew when we were watching Gordon-Levitt years ago on Third Rock from the Sun that we were witnessing the start of a great career? Gordon-Levitt has been stunningly good in movies as diverse as Mysterious Skin and Brick. Now he adds this charming little movie to his resume. He plays a young architect stuck in the wrong job and in love with what turns out to be the wrong girl. Gordon-Levitt's part is the best written in the movie, which is more than a little unkind to its lead female character, and he makes us empathize with all of the ups and downs that his character faces. And you have to love the expression on his face during the musical number choreographed to a Hall & Oates song. It does a fantastic job of capturing how it feels the morning after your first time with someone.

Runners-Up: Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna in Rudo y Cursi. Reunited years after their hit Y Tu Mama Tambien, Bernal and Luna here play brothers who are recruited to play professional soccer but on different teams. The film gives almost equal time to each actor, and they are both good as they reveal how emotions like familial love and professional (and personal) jealousy can drive people to engage in some stupid behavior at times. These two brothers try to support each other, but they just can't help but become selfish at times too. This movie was little seen in the United States, but it deserves attention for the performances by these two fine young actors.

P.S. I'd also like to note the astounding work by Jeremy Renner in The Hurt Locker. As a man who can't seem to live without the thrill of his high-pressure job of dismantling bombs, Renner taps into the rage and sadness of a generation of soldiers. It's a stunning movie and a great performance by him in the lead.

Favorite Play: Leslie Jordan: Full of Gin & Regret. This performance consisted primarily of Jordan and a microphone and a bare stage. But when you have the stories to tell that Jordan does, you don't need more than that. Best known for his work on Will & Grace or his role as Brother Boy in Sordid Lives, Jordan has several decades' worth of material on the entertainment industry, his Southern family, even his love life, and it's always a pleasure to travel down memory lane with him. His stories are not always for the faint of heart, as even he would admit, but his personality and charm make you want to listen.

Favorite Musical: Monty Python's Spamalot. This touring company production of the Broadway show managed to capture all of the silliness of the movie upon which it is based and to send up the whole genre of musical theater while it does so. John O'Hurley, best known for his work on Seinfeld and on the American version of Dancing with the Stars, made a wonderful King Arthur, and he received able help from the supporting cast, particularly Merle Dandridge as The Lady of the Lake. I loved her song "The Diva's Lament" about how long it's been in the show since she was featured. I don't know that you'll necessarily sing the songs after you leave the theater, but you'll probably be humming "The Song That Goes Like This" for a few days afterward.

Runner-Up: Guys and Dolls. This was a production done by my college, which has a remarkable Theater Arts Department. They took a musical that has been done many times, including a movie version, and made it entertaining and dazzling and fun. Kudos, in particular, to the male chorus of the show. Their singing and dancing got the loudest applause of the evening and deservedly so. And the performance by Ryan A. Coon as Nicely-Nicely Johnson, especially his rendition of "Sit Down, You're Rockin' the Boat," was a showstopper.

Favorite Books (Fiction): Rainbow Boys, Rainbow High, and Rainbow Road by Alex Sanchez. This trio of books follows the adventures of three gay high school boys as they come to terms with their sexuality. Two of the boys fall in love with each other--the romance is handled with great tenderness and sweetness--and the other one is initially jealous. However, he too manages to have a few romantic moments along the way. In one of the books, the boys take a cross-country trip that is really a journey into a greater understanding of the gay community and its culture and history. I wish I had had books like this when I was a teenager. I know Sanchez has said he only planned a trilogy involving his characters of Jason, Kyle, and Nelson, but I would like to know what happened to them in college and later in life. That's how engrossing these books are.

Favorite Book (Non-Fiction): The World without Us by Alan Weisman. Weisman takes on an interesting premise here: what would happen if the human population somehow disappeared from the Earth? Could the Earth recover, and how would it do so? He then talks to scientists and others who discuss sites around the world where nature seems to have regained control over what had been the domain of man. It's a fascinating read and an intriguing bit of speculative writing. He never spends too much time bogged down in the science of whatever issue he's discussing, but there's enough there to give you a sense, for example, of how a city of buildings would eventually collapse without the constant attention of humans. It's a compelling book about the ways in which we have damaged the Earth and how we might be able to restore it.

Favorite Book (Poetry): The World of the Ten Thousand Things by Charles Wright. Wright is from my part of the country, a Southerner by birth. He pays attention to details, and his descriptions of the landscape are so beautifully rendered. I hadn't read his book since it was assigned to me in college more than a decade ago. Oddly enough, I read it while at the University of Southern California, not Mississippi State University, despite its focus (at times) on Wright's home region. Reading this collection of poems again was like getting in touch with an old friend. Wright has moved beyond the subject matter of his regional roots, but his work is clearly still influenced by the sense of connectedness he learned while growing up in rural Tennessee.

Highlight of the Year: I had a blast seeing Barry Manilow at the Hollywood Bowl this fall with five dear friends. We sang along to all of his hits, and I had an opportunity to remember the last time I saw him perform live, 1977 at the Ravinia Arts Festival in Illinois. He's older now and doesn't dance around the stage quite as much, but he still puts on a spectacular show. I never had a chance to see him perform live during the intervening 30+ years and I stopped buying his records sometime in the mid-1980s, but it was such a thrill to get to hear him one more time. And I will likely never forget the sight of all those glowsticks with his name emblazoned on the side lighting up the hillside.

Runner-Up: I was invited to participate in a staged reading of The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later: An Epilogue in October, and despite not having performed on stage since my junior year in high school, I agreed. I was given three small parts with only a few lines each so, thankfully, I had no major blocks of dialogue to remember or perform. The play itself, a follow-up to the Tectonic Theatre Project's original production on the impact of the death of Matthew Shepard, is brilliant and emotional stuff. I had a chance to watch real actors going through the process of preparing for their roles, and I got to watch some astounding performances through the rehearsal process and then in the three actual productions we had on National Coming Out Day. I feel privileged to have been a part of what turned out to be something of a national phenomenon, with more than 100 productions throughout the United States on the same day, including one at Lincoln Center in New York. You don't get many chances like that in life, so it's best to take advantage of them when you do.