You should have some sense of how busy I've been that I'm only now, in the middle of June, getting around to wrapping up my thoughts about 2011. I don't know quite what accounts for the tardiness of this post. I've been working consistently, certainly, but I've taught this number of classes before. It just seems that I don't have as much available time to collect my thoughts and write. I'd also suspect that being in a relationship has a direct impact on one's free time, but he and I are hardly jetsetters. In fact, we spend most of our time at home either studying for exams (him) or grading papers or reading for lesson preparation (me).
Ah, well, let's put the past behind us so that we can move on.
Last year I read 44 books, not a bad number overall. Included in that number were several books of poetry, but I'm not listing any of them as a favorite this year because most contemporary poetry seems so...distant. I enjoy reading a poem or two in a collection of new work, but the rest will leave me quite unimpressed. I managed to see 26 full-length movies last year and four collections of short films on the big screen (26 short films in all). I would love to go to the movies more often, but sometimes you can't get everyone on board to get out of the apartment to see a film. That is even more true for going to see a live show, given that I went to the theatre only three times this past year and all of the shows were at my college. Sigh. Perhaps this year will be better.
Favorite Fiction Book: Dean Bakopoulos' Don't Come Back from the Moon has been sitting on my bookshelves since Bakopoulos was our college's Visiting Writer several years ago. I purchased the book then and put it aside, promising to read it someday. I finally got a chance this past year, and I wish I had started it sooner. It's a novel about a town where all of the men begin to disappear, leaving teenage boys to become the "men" of the community. It's by turns amusing and enlightening. I particularly admired Bakopoulos' ability to capture the voice of boys on the cusp of manhood and all of the concerns that they have about what it means to be a man. The novel deals with the responsibilities of work these boys must assume and their first fumbling attempts at becoming sexually active men. The title, by the way, refers to the assumption made by the remaining townspeople that the men have all gone to the moon. Don't assume, however, that this is just a science fiction or fantasy tale; it's really an evocative picture of a small town and of the moment in life when one becomes an adult.
Runner-Up: Years ago, thanks to a friend of my mother's, I received dozens of Agatha Christie novels. I have read and reread them over the years and decided to pick up three more this past year to enjoy: Dead Man's Mirror, The Labors of Hercules, and There Is a Tide. What I have always enjoyed about Christie's writing is the depiction of her major characters, whether Hercule Poiroit (my personal favorite), Miss Marple, or Tommy and Tuppence. I will admit that I do not always figure out "whodunit" before the end of the novel when I read a Christie book, but I always enjoy the journey.
Favorite Nonfiction Book: Norah Vincent's Self-Made Man was a book that I assigned my Honors Critical Reasoning and Writing class. I had read the synopsis of Vincent's book online and thought it would make for an interesting discussion point about definitions of gender and gender roles. I was fascinated by how Vincent was able to disguise herself as a man and be accepted by other men without question (well, for the most part, anyway). She manages to make some very trenchant points about what it means to be a man (and, by extrapolation, what it means to be a woman) in this book. It's a fine piece of investigative journalism, and the papers the students wrote as a result of reading this book covered some very intriguing topics as well.
Runners-Up: I have been a fan of both Pat Benatar and Rick Springfield since their heydays in the 1980s. This past year, I saw both of them in concert, the first time that had happened since the 1980s, and I read their respective autobiographies. Both of them are very direct and often blunt about the issues that they faced to become successes. Benatar's Between a Heart and a Rock Place give you a clear sense of just how sexist the music industry is and just how level-headed (most of the time) Benatar was. It's also a great love story about her relationship with her husband, Spyder. They've managed to last through some pretty difficult times in life, but you get a very real sense of just how much they have come to depend upon each other. Springfield's Late, Late at Night, similarly, discusses his romantic entanglements, including a liaison with Linda Blair that I didn't remember. However, what I found most intriguing about this autobiography was his honesty about his battles with depression. The directness with which he describes himself as being at times suicidal is particularly shocking. I would have found both of these books interesting just for the background they give of two of my favorite performers, but to learn what they have endured has given me a deeper appreciation of their talents.
Favorite Film: Source Code was such a good movie, and I don't think it got the attention that it deserved. The plot involves a soldier (played by Jake Gyllenhaal) who has to keep returning over and over to the same commuter train in order to stop it from blowing up. He's only given a few minutes each time to discover who is carrying the bomb before he returns to some sort of vehicle. He only has contact with a woman identified as Goodwin (Vera Farmiga), but she won't give him information on where he is or what has happened to him. Did I mention that he's also in someone else's body when he "wakes up" on the train? And that he starts to fall in love with one of the other passengers (played by Michelle Monaghan)? It's this combination of science fiction and thriller and romance and mystery that kept me intrigued throughout this film. I don't know if other audience members found it too confusing, but I was surprised when it received little to no attention at the end of the year. It's a great movie worth finding on DVD.
Runner-Up: Hugo was a magical movie, a treat for fans of silent film, in particular. Direct Martin Scorcese managed to capture the excitement and wonder of childhood discovery and pay homage to one of the founders of cinema in the process. I didn't see the film in 3D because I've tried to avoid paying extra for the privilege of wearing a pair of glasses over my own pair of glasses, but even in plain old 2D, I appreciated the remarkable world of that Paris train station where much of the movie takes place.
Favorite Documentary: Making the Boys details the history behind one of my all-time favorite movies, The Boys in the Band, a significant movie in gay history. Including interviews with the playwright, Mart Crowley, and many of the surviving cast members, the documentary details how the 1970 film was created from the play and the reception that it received and its place in cinematic history. I dragged The Boyfriend to the Laemmle Sunset 5 (not long before it closed, actually) to see this documentary, and even he found it rather interesting even though he had never seen The Boys in the Band. My first published work in a journal was an article on The Boys in the Band, so I was intrigued by all of the details that the filmmakers managed to include about the background of Crowley and other key participants.
Runner-Up: I had hopes that We Were Here might win this year's Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, but even though it was shortlisted, it didn't make the final set of nominees. That's a shame because this film manages to evoke a very clear sense of time and place. It's a history of the early years of the AIDS crisis in the city of San Francisco, and it features interviews with some remarkable people who survived that era. Many of the stories captured in this film might have otherwise been lost, and We Were Here can serve as a good introduction to people who don't know (or cannot recall) what happened in those scary times of the early 1980s.
Favorite Female Performance: Kirsten Wiig in Bridesmaids manages to mix slapstick comedy and broad, physical humor with touching, quiet moments of sadness and loneliness. It's a hell of a great performance, but comedic performances do not tend to get much appreciation. Wiig throws herself into the role of friend of the bride and never looks back. She allows you to see the envy she feels that her friend is getting married and the sadness she experiences when she realizes that they are no longer as close as they once were. She displays deep jealousy when a rival for the bride's attention seems to be winning, and she is absolutely charming when she meets a police office who might be a romantic interest for her. Much of the attention for Bridesmaids was on the so-called gross-out humor, but in truth, that's only a couple of scenes. The rest of the film is about the nature of friendship and the complications of love and the fragility of relationships. And Wiig is at the center of all of those themes.
Runner-Up: I have yet to see Meryl Streep's performance in The Iron Lady, so I don't know how it would stack up to Viola Davis in The Help. However, of the nominees for Best Actress that I did see, Davis was far above the rest. No one is in her league when it comes to showing just how crushing and silencing years of racism can be on the soul of a person. When she has a rare moment of humor, her smile is so luminous, revealing just how important such moments are to the sanity of people who must endure oppression. It's a remarkable performance, the likes of which we are not likely to see again for a long time.
Favorite Male Performance: Ewan McGregor in Beginners almost steals the movie back from Christopher Plummer, who won a long-overdue Oscar for playing an aging man who comes out as gay just before his death. Just the description of Plummer's role should indicate just how much flashier it is. McGregor gets the more difficult part; he has to play the son who must adjust to his dad's new life and then to his father's declining health. He also gets a romance of his own with a charming Frenchwoman (Melanie Laurent), but that too has its complications. McGregor manages to garner our sympathy because he is such a naturalistic performer. He just disappears into his roles and you forget that you're watching an actor. I think it's that subtlety that has caused him to be overlooked for many years. I found him charming and believeable as a man who is facing what amounts to a midlife crisis a few years earlier than expected.
Runner-Up: Ryan Gosling gave two great performances last year in Crazy Stupid Love and Drive. He's the epitome of the smooth-talking player in Crazy Stupid Love who becomes absolutely smitten with Emma Stone's character (and who wouldn't be smitten with Stone?). He realizes that what he's teaching Steve Carrell's divorced sad sack in terms of how to attract women is what he wants to give up in order to be with Stone's Hannah. Yes, there are several scenes of him shirtless, but if you get past how attractive Gosling is (and I realize I'm not past that point myself, honestly), you'll also see just how talented he is. Drive is perhaps an even better example of just how minimalist acting can be and still be successful. Gosling plays a stunt driver with a mysterious past who slowly gets involved with a woman who lives in his building. His character doesn't talk much; he spends a great deal of time observing other people, and he is not prone to sharing his thoughts with or about them. I thought the entire movie was an intriguing throwback to the films of the 1980s, and I don't think I've ever been quite as fascinated watching someone's reactions to other actors in a movie. I've yet to see his other film from 2011, The Ides of March, but I have no doubt it will only add to my appreciation for his talent.
Highlight of the Year: Pat Benatar at the Orange County Fair and Rick Springfield at the Greek Theatre were my two favorite performances of the past year. I've already mentioned that I hadn't seen either performer since the 1980s, and I was grateful for the chance to relive a little bit of my college years by listening to them sing. Benatar still has a powerhouse voice, and she managed to hit all of those high, high notes that she could when she was younger. She may not move around the stage as much as she did when I saw her on the Get Nervous tour (probably around 1985 or so), but she's lost none of her ability to fire up an audience. She and her guitarist husband Spyder managed to burn through most of her biggest hits and even introduce a couple of more recent, lesser known songs. I'd never been to the Orange County Fair or its ampitheater, but it was worth the terrible parking situation to see Benatar again. Springfield was not, sadly, the main act on the night we went to the Greek Theatre. He was the middle act of the night, sandwiched between the former lead singer of Everclear, whose name I cannot remember, and REO Speedwagon. I must admit that I have never really liked REO Speedwagon, but after Springfield's performance, I was actually singing along with them. Like Benatar, Springfield managed to perform most of his most popular songs and a couple of newer ones. He also demonstrated the same showmanship that I remembered from the Living in Oz tour that I saw almost thirty years ago. I tried to get pictures but he moves around so much on stage that all of them came out blurry. You don't often get the chance to reclaim two pieces of your younger days in one summer, but I'm still relishing the opportunties I had in 2012 to do so.
Runner-Up: While The Boyfriend was out of the country to visit his parents and take advantage of Taiwan's national health care system, several friends and I went to see Joan Rivers at the La Mirada Center for the Performing Arts. I've always loved Rivers' comedy and have seen her many, many times on television. I really admired the documentary about her life and career from a few years ago, A Piece of Work. Nothing, however, quite prepares you for seeing her live. I laughed so hard that my sides began to hurt, a feeling I've not had in a long time. She's remained very topical, making jokes about events that had only been reported that afternoon. She's perhaps funniest when she discusses what it's like to grow older; some of her descriptions of what's happening to her body elicited howls from the audience. I loved, too, how she kept saying she would get to "the show" eventually and just kept talking nonstop.
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