The Great Black And White Way

Back tonight from New York and started in on the effort to catch up on TV from the past week. I'm a little confused by the strategy in this week's Survivor. Also there was a typo in one of the subtitles that said the word "feasable". Yikes. Putting that aside...

I stood in line at the TKTS booth in Times Square last night and had my choice of a quite a few different shows. Having seen a number of ads on TV, my colleague and I settled on tickets for David Mamet's new play, Race. It actually opened for previews last Friday. It is a four-person play with big name actors. It deals with a rich white man (played by Richard Thomas, Broadway veteran and Emmy-winner as John Boy on The Waltons) who is accused of raping a black woman. He comes to a law office to ask them to defend him. The office consists of two male partners, one white (James Spader) and one black (David Alan Grier), and a younger black female associate (Kerry Washington). The lawyers discuss whether or not they want to take the case and also whether or not they could win it.

It's a short play (two acts consisting of three total scenes and probably about ninety minutes if you don't count the intermission), but it is, as is often the case with Mamet (Glengarry Glen Ross, among many others) funny, frank, and powerful. It deals with questions of racial shame. Do black people hate white people? Do white people feel shame about their relationships with black people? Do black people feel shame about their hatred of white people and themselves, for how easily they are victimized? And so on. The writing is superb, as one would expect. Even in so short a play, I can think of at least four lines that caused the audience to clap and cheer so loudly that the actors had to stop for a second. The language is beautiful, even the frequent obscenities, which are used more as punctuation and emphasis than for gratuitous shock value. Similarly, the choreography stands out, with the movements -- or sometimes lack of movement -- accentuating the dialogue and tension.

It's in previews, so there are still some kinks to be worked out before opening night. Most notably, Washington, making her Broadway debut, seemed lost in the first act. She, so much smaller than the men, had a hard time projecting her voice and acting at the same time. Thankfully, she improved greatly in the second act, really catching a groove. If she hadn't, two of the crucial moments of the play would have fallen short as she is set one-on-one against Spader. Yet she held her own and the confrontation worked. Spader, for his part, slipped on a couple of lines. Still, he is a great actor and not only recovered, but gave a great performance. With those small slips from the others (except Thomas who is not in it quite as much), Grier stole the show. Although known for comedy, he is a classically-trained actor and it showed. His comic timing also helped on a number of lines.

I don't go to a lot of shows and I go to even fewer plays. I'm pretty sure it was the first non-musical that I've seen on Broadway. So while I was blown away, leaving with a feeling in the pit of my stomach because of how powerful the play is, I wasn't sure if I'm really just a sucker with no "refined" taste. However, the standing ovation was given freely by the audience and a lot of people who seem to go to a lot more shows than I do were buzzing, as we left, about what a hit this play is going to be. I agree, if people have any sense. It's not only well-written and well-acted, but it made me think and I still can't get parts of it out of my head. Can't ask for much more than that.

So there you go, my turn as theater critic. Back tomorrow as we resume our regularly-scheduled program.

In The City, cont.

Walking by Ground Zero as I type this. It is such an underrated and immense failure of Giuliani/Pataki/Bloomberg/whoever that there is no finished memorial at the site. Over eight years later? Inexcusable.

In The City

A delayed train meant I didn't get into New York until pretty late. There's just such a feeling excitement here. I love New York. Is that too cliche?

Also, the pizza is pretty freaking good.

While Waiting For The Adrenaline Rush To Die Down At 12:45AM

• NFL Week 10:
• I watched football all day, but it's really hard to remember anything at this point besides the ending to Pats-Colts. So hard to believe. I was surprised that Belichick went for it, but not that surprised, because he does that sometimes. I was more surprised at how he wasted his timeouts, which ended up hurting the team as much as anything else.
• Great day though. Other last-second wins for the Jaguars, Dolphins, and Chiefs. A huge win for the Bengals that all but clinches the division for them. The top teams stand out, but the wild card picture has started to get very muddy.
• Random Pop Culture:
• I'm pretty surprised at how well Brian and Ericka have hung around The Amazing Race. I don't think they're a real threat to win, but Brian has willed them far beyond what anyone could have expected.
• I like that there has been, in effect, a Seinfeld reunion, but it's just happening on a different show. They even brought back George's mother, Banya, and Newman for tonight's episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm. But (surprise, surprise) the greatness of the episode came from Leon's portrayal of a Jew. First, that he dressed like someone from the Nation of Islam. Second, that it led to them finally riffing on Michael Richards' racial problems. And more than any of those, his made-up rant about being Jewish and having Groat's Disease. "Danny Duberstein is good at two things: math and f***ing." So many great lines this season.
• I was going to watch Dexter, but I ended up deciding to watch the last ten minutes of the football game, just until the Pats put it away. Glad I decided to do that.
• Coming Up:
• I may post tomorrow during the day, but I have rather unexpectedly been called to a week of meetings in Manhattan. I'm taking the train up tomorrow afternoon and coming back Friday evening. So, hopefully I'll have the chance to post something, but it may just be about night life in the big city.

Worst of the Worst: #64, Corky Romano

I'm going to make this short and sweet. There is no redeeming quality to Corky Romano. Every second of it is agonizing. I question why the villains in Saw or Hostel need to do the crazy things they do when they could just show their victims this movie and be done with it. There came a point about halfway through where I was in physically uncomfortable watching the movie because it was so bad. I wanted very much to shut it off. The fact that I soldiered on means that I can make it through any of these. I deserve a Veterans Day just for finishing this film. The director, the writer, and all of the actors should be embarrassed. It's no surprise that of the main people, the director has never worked again, Chris Kattan's career in comedy is dead, Peter Berg is no longer acting and sticking to directing, Chris Penn is dead, Peter Falk is a shell of himself, and Matthew Glave (the guy who played Glenn Gulia in The Wedding Singer) is only doing TV. A pox on their houses.

Here's a typical scene:


Now that I've watched ten of the worst 100 movies of the decade, according to Rotten Tomatoes, here is my current ranking (#1 being worst, with Rotten Tomatoes' ranking in parentheses):
10. A Sound of Thunder (#93)
9. The New Guy (#94)
8. Pavilion of Women (#86)
7. The Adventures of Pluto Nash (#79)
6. BloodRayne (#48)
5. Rollerball (#28)
4. The Celestine Prophecy (#55)
3. Epic Movie (#21)
2. 3 Strikes (#8)
1. Corky Romano (#64) -- 3 Strikes is way worse of a movie, but it's really low budget. The expectations that would go into a Saturday Night Live-ish movie with some budget mean this is at the top/bottom of the list.

NFL Picks (Last week, 8-5; overall, 74-55-1, including a win on SF -3 on Thursday night):

• Tennessee (-6.5) vs. Buffalo: Now that Vince Young won me actual cash in the office pool last week, I'm firmly on his bandwagon.
• New Orleans (-13.5) at St. Louis: I find it hard to pick another team to win the Super Bowl besides New Orleans right now.
• Tampa Bay (+10) at Miami: When did Miami deserve to be giving double-digit points? I feel like, if Josh Freeman is as good as he seemed last week, we're in an arbitrage position with the Bucs until Vegas catches up with them being better than they've been.
• Minnesota (-16.5) vs. Detroit: At home, coming off the bye.
• New York Jets (-7) vs. Jacksonville: See above.
• Cincinnati (+7) at Pittsburgh: The Steelers look great, but so do the Bengals. Figure this has to be a close game.
• Denver (-3.5) at Washington: 3.5?! It's not like they're playing Baltimore or Pittsburgh again.
• Atlanta (-1.5) at Carolina: I smell a trap. I can't pick Carolina, but wouldn't be surprised at all if they won.
• Kansas City (+1.5) at Oakland: I don't know how Oakland gives points to anyone.
• Green Bay (+3) vs. Dallas: Dallas has been playing above their heads lately.
• Arizona (-8.5) vs. Seattle: I'm sure what I'm about to say means that Seattle will win, but this seems like really easy money.
• San Diego (-2) vs. Philadelphia: That two points means that Vegas thinks the two teams are exactly equal. I don't see that.
• Indianapolis (-3) vs. New England: I don't care who wins this. I just want to sit back and enjoy.
• Baltimore (-11) at Cleveland: Brady Quinn's back!

What You See

I recommend the "Written in Bone" exhibit that is currently (through February) at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum. It deals with forensic anthropology, the science of looking at bones (in this case, unearthed skeletons from Jamestown and St. Mary's City) to learn about the people and culture of the times when the people died. It's fascinating and the skeletons are all laid out for you to examine.

Otherwise, it's Friday and I didn't get to watch my bad movie yet. I do have G.I. Joe from Netflix, so maybe I'll get to see two bad movies tomorrow! In the meantime, from the album Simple Things, released eight years ago today, here's Zero 7 with a cool song that made the Garden State soundtrack as well:

Doesn't It Pop?

• The Monologue:
• In Sarah Palin's new autobiography, she bashes Katie Couric and talks about how dysfunctional the campaign was. Also, it's a pop-up book!
• Look, I'm not saying that Palin's stupid, but the first draft of her autobiography was a narrative about her car.
• Forbes ranked the sixty-seven most powerful people in the world. #1 is a foreign-born Muslim who hates freedom and wants nothing more than to bring about Karl Marx's vision. Bastards...
• Random Pop Culture:
• Not my favorite Community episode tonight, but still pretty funny. The funniest part was the throwaway line about the basketball team that paid off ten minutes later.
• Does Russell get credit for being a genius? Do we knock Dave for not even considering that Russell could have had the idol? Do we knock the producers for hiding the idol about as well as Shambo hides her white-trashiness? Either way, tonight's tribal council ranks among the tops in show history in terms of ridiculous tension. When Jeff grabbed the first vote, I seriously had no clue what name was going to be on the other side.
• If you've ever loved Survivor and you're not watching this season for whatever reason, I feel sorry. It's as good as, if not better than, any recent season has been.
• Izzy Stevens is my least favorite character on TV. Yes, she's even more annoying than LaGuerta or Quinn on Dexter.
• Random Movie Scene:
• Released ten years ago today on November 12, 1999. Ten years!