The Actor Unprepared

Star Mad Trek Men (plus a little GoT)

I was emailing George Edelman my thoughts about the latest episode of Mad Men when I stumbled across a little bit of trek magic.  

Actually, this is one of the first episodes of the season that felt like it was course correcting to get back on some semblance of a track.  

George, you’re right about them jamming every single possible plot line into this episode.  It was overkill, but at least SOMETHING happened.  This season has been a meander and at least they finally hit the gas and picked a direction…or eight.  They could have cut about 4 of the plot points out of the show and probably would have been a lot better, but better that than no plot points.

What I enjoyed most was the resurgence of Don Draper and Roger Sterling.  As I harped on before, Don is our central character and we need to see him move his life in a direction.  Forward is great, backward is fine, but spinning the wheels screwing the Geek downstairs while his wife gets the glory is boring.  Watching Don being Don is the central part of Mad Men.

But before we address that, the resurfacing of Roger Sterling is a pivotal moment.  They’ve been beating up Roger almost as much as Don, maybe worse.  He gets divorced, loses clients to Pete and weeps about a shoeshiner.  Again, not what we want to see.  Roger is Don’s Id, unrepressed sexuality and ability to say what Don can’t.  He’s the Jester, and only the jesters can make fun of the King or speak the clearest truths.  Getting Roger back on top (or on bottom with the stewardess that can only fall in love with a 60 year on man on TV) of his game allows Don to step into his strong and quiet role.  Roger says the outrageous things we all think but won’t say, while Don says nothing but we think he’s brilliant.  

I’m meandering with this email, but it’s thematic.  I’m going to add Pete Cambell into this little equation as well. Pete is anti-Don.  Whatever Don does effortlessly, we watch Pete struggle and fail.  Cheat on his wife?  Caught.  Drop a horrible client?  Instead, he gets dropped.  Get into a fight?  Get punched out by a Brit.  But we need to see him fail to understand that what Don does is not easy.  Pete isn’t a foil for Don, so much as a broken copy of him.  

And this leads me right back to Star Trek!  Don is our Captain Kirk, a fearless leader that loves the women.  Between him is Roger and Pete.  Despite his bacchanal impulses, Roger is Spock because there’s an ultimate logic behind his advice.  Roger is mostly amoral and therefore driven by a default logic of  chasing the easiest path to booze and women.  Pete is McCoy.  His caution and lack of impulsiveness is driven by deep human emotions of fear and guilt.  His advice is often the right course, but never the sexy one.  

So when both Pete and Roger are at the top of their game, the show thrives.  When there’s a business decision to be made, they both pile on Don with advice.  The advice is usually too extreme in either direction, allowing Don (and the audience) to choose the sensible middle ground.  Don looks like the hero and the audience is happy.

I havet to concede it’s not fair watching Game of Thrones right next to Mad Men.   They’re both amazing shows, but GoT is in it’s prime right now while Mad Men is heading for the exit.   But I felt like both shows were waffling for the first three episodes before GoT started moving while Mad Men stalled.  So maybe I’m tainted by Game of Thrones rapid pace and unending introduction of new characters and am now finding Mad Men a little static.  They don’t have dragons or white walkers, so they have to rely on drunks and prudes to drive the action.

Damnit!  Is there anything Star Trek has influenced?

10 Things About Iron Man 3 That Were Terrible (and a couple of cool things)

I’m not going to write that all cap word that precedes the spilling of secrets to movies, books, TV shows or whatever has a secret that can be spilled.  If you can’t read my highly informative title and glean that I’ve seen the movie when you haven’t, then anything I say won’t ruin the experience for you anyway.  

To steal a line from my friend, Iron Man 3 plays like a good episode from some unmade Iron Man TV show.  It’s entertaining enough in places and there’s a lot of robots fighting dudes with fire skin.  But to look at it as a stand alone movie…well, it had some issues.  And since deconstructive criticism plays better on the net than praise, let’s dig into the bad things and elevate them for scrutiny…

In no particular order:

• The good/evil/good botanist. - Okay, she’s a sexy botanist who sleep with Tony Stark and has exploding plants in her hotel room.  And that’s in the first 10 minutes. Then we find out she turned evil for 13 years to do research with a crazy evil guy, but repents after about 30 seconds with Tony Stark.  What?  TERRIBLE!  This character has such a terrible character arc that is only to service the plot.  
• Guy Pierce and his brain machine - He throws marbles on the ground to turn on his hologram (is there NO other way to display that?  What if one rolls under a couch?) machine and shows her the human brain.  ”There’s an open slot in our brains for upgrades, yo! (approximate dialogue) I can exploit it!”  Pepper, “No!”  Guy, “Then I’ll just use my inner fire dudes to conquer the world”  Wait…what about the brain thing?  Are we gonna come back to that…ever?  No…okay.
• Potato gun boy - Could this kid be anymore aggregate perfect for “Kid with potential, but has a sob story?”  I felt like he was CGI - he was too perfectly constructed to exist in reality.  And potato guns?  Hello 1957!
• Where the hell is SHIELD?  - they broke into Tony’s house like 5 times in the past movies to bug him about whatever crap they wanted to, but when he gets attack WHERE ARE THEY?  No Helicarrier, no Nick Fury, no Captain America, Hawkeye, Black Widow.  Kind of bad friends, huh?
• Tony’s 50 Iron Man robots that he doesn’t use - Okay, the mandarin attacks him and blows up some of his armor.  Later it’s revealed he as a bunch more hidden right under the house, very safe during the attack.  Why didn’t he use them when his house was being destroyed?  When he was drowning?  When he needed another suit in Tennessee?  
• Tennessee - I think Marvel has safely explored the dynamic storytelling available in the Great State of Tennessee.  We don’t need to have another story there.  Ever.
• The Shamdarin - Okay, there’s some real fun in Ben Kingsley turning out to be this weird drugged out actor who has no idea all the terror his causing.  It’s a fun parody of the current plot device of bad guy as teachers (see: Batman 3, Star Trek 12) and hopefully it encourages other writers and studios to look for other ways to satisfy a 3rd act without having a boogeyman at the end.  But it’s also a cheat of all the marketing we’ve seen for the last 18 months.  We’ve been promised this dark, evil overlord that has been Iron Man’s main nemesis for years.  Instead, we get a cardboard cut out of a villain and a fire dude who wants to make money off the fear mongering.  Again, a great idea, but if I buy a hot dog, I don’t want to find a banana in the bun as the vendor winks at me, knowingly.  
• The Tag - About 57% of the reason I went was to see the tag to the film.  The Marvel movie tags are now required viewing. You have to watch the names of 1,100 effects dudes getting underpaid so that you can see that one minute tease of what’s to come.  It’s a promise of a larger story, that each movie is a piece of the Voltron robot (sorry for the mixed universes) that will combine to form a kick-ass Avengers 2 movie.  Marvel did handled this brilliantly in ‘Phase 1’, and now they have a responsibility to their audience to keep it going.  As the light came back on, one dude shouted “That’s it?” about the tag.  We were all disappointed.  While it was funny he was spilling his guts to the Hulk, it would have been even cooler if at the end, Dr. Banner recommended he visit his friend…DR. STEPHEN STRANGE!  Damnit Marvel, let me write your tags!
• Tony blows up his armor at the end - In an effort to do…something toward bettering his mental health, Tony Stark blows up the things that just saved his life…his Iron Man armors.  This makes so little sense that it makes me think that Tony is actually regressing mentally.  What if there’s even one more fire dude?  What if the real Mandarin shows up?
• Bonus!  The Stakes - Here’s the secret about all these superhero movies (SPOILERS…damnit!): the hero will never die.   Never.  Do you think they’ll kill off any established, branded superhero (or villain for that matter?) and ruin the money train it produces?  Especially now that they’re with Disney?  Remember that time that Mickey Mouse died?  never happened, and these guys will never die either (and even the tertiary death of Agent Coulson in the Avengers is being retconned for the new SHIELD TV show).  So if we all know that, then what exactly are we supposed to care about?  I watched IM3 and never felt like there was ever any true danger to Tony or his co-horts.  They’re too marketable, and that will become a problem.  I’m not saying they need to kill Tony Stark or Steve Rogers, but they could sacrifice a few pawns to protect the queen.  I’m looking at you, Happy.

Okay, I’ve bashed enough.  Now here’s some things I actually liked about the movie…

• Fire dudes - they looked amazing.
• Tony Stark never getting mushy with Potato Gun Kid - crisp, witty dialogue prevented it from sliding too deep into the “aww” mode.
• Robert Downey Jr. - Good job.  Kept up his end of the acting deal through 4 films.
• Creepy fire guy and girl - Good jobs.  Very creepy.
• Closing credits and music - fun, splashy and hum-able.
• Lots of Iron Men.  Very marketable!
• The thugs at the Miami mansion.  Funny and real. 

As a final thought, I will say that any bitching done by me and 10,000 other nerds about the finer points of this movie will be unheard over the barrels of cash pouring into Disney’s coffers for this film.  And to be honest, they deserve it.  Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America are all third tier heroes as far as Marvel properties go.  And yet, they’ve somehow managed to turn each of them into huge cash cows.  While DC struggles with their A list heroes not named Batman, Marvel hits homeruns with everyone not named Daredevil.  That certainly earns and “Excelsior” from this dude.

Sandy Lawson

I’m a little floored today.  

One of my best friends in college, Sandy Lawson, died a day ago.   I can’t go into the specifics of how, but I can say it was not expected. 

Certainly not by me.  

The facebook sort of provides us with “Hallway Heaven.”  It’s like being in between classes in Heaven and everyone you’ve ever known is there.  You rarely have enough time for more than a passing “S’up,” but you are comforted just aware of the fact that these people from every part of your life is instantly available for a deeper conversation at a click’s notice.

But that’s not true for me and Sandy any more. And I am stunned and saddened by that fact.

I’ll be the first to say that the high water mark of our friendship was 20 years ago in college.  She was my forensics duo partner.  A spunky, lanky, awkward freshman with brown curly hair and hipster glasses before they were hipster.  We were supposed to meet for a few minutes to talk about our performance piece.  We ended up talking nonstop for 3 hours.  The birth of a friendship.

Sandy was funny.  Big time funny.  She had a self-deprecating style of humor that lulled you into thinking she was a pushover.  But then, she’d slip in a cutting, sardonic aside that would demolish you and any comedy bit you were trying to assemble like a Jenga puzzle.  She was beyond funny and into that celestial category of ‘witty.’  But she could also handle physical comedy, improv, stage plays and comedy speeches with a deftness and subtleness that belied her facade of awkward.  She was that good and I gravitated to that level brilliance. We made each other laugh every time we got together.  And for a couple of years, we were inseparable. 

We performed together in forensics.  The team went to a campground in west Virginia to prepare for nationals.  I made her hike up a mountain with me to simulate the challenge of being the best in the nation at speech.  When we got to the top, we hung our underwear on the trees.  When we both got knocked out of semi-finals our last year, we sat together on a curb and sulked.  We were bad sports, but we were bad sports together.

I made her go to Cedar Point with me to audition for atmosphere entertainment.  I was the mayor of the theme park, she was the street sweep. We sang, “We’re happy to be here!” even though we weren’t.  We hung out everyday, that Summer.  We even tried to get drunk on occasion.  Sandy was so worried that she’d get caught (She was 20) that she drank in my car, under a towel.  We didn’t get that drunk, but we laughed a lot about it.  Two Summers, over a thousand shows and everyday filled with laughter.

I tried to get her to sing.  She was terrified of it, but still we practiced.  Years later, I found out she conquered that fear and was even in the choir.  Bravo to that.

I cast her in my interactive dinner theater.  She directed my plays.  She was at my wedding, being the only person to roast me.  We bickered and argued, then made up.  We talked about our lovers, and were there when the other needed us.  There was never any romance between us, we were brother and sister from the start and I’m grateful for that.  

And then, just as suddenly, we drifted apart.  I graduated, then Sandy did.  I moved to Cali, then Sandy did.  We met up a few times out here, but more often than not succumbed to the ‘SoCal flake effect.’  Missed you this time, but I’ll catch you later.

But I didn’t.  

Sandy moved back to Michigan.  I stayed here.  Things seemed to be going well for her and then…she’s gone.  

So, what do I say to you, Sandy?  What does ‘Mr. Small mouth’ (inside joke) tell you now that it’s too late?  How do I say goodbye to my duo partner, my theme park buddy, my improv gal?  Why is it that I was thinking about Cedar Point - today before I heard the news- and dreaming up some way we could both go back and laugh about it?   What about the remorse I have that I’ll never get that time we could sit and talk and laugh for hours on end?  All those memories I have with you are now under my sole guardianship.  I can relate them to others, but I could only share them with you.  That’s what makes me sad today. 

I shed some tears for you today, which is the exact opposite of how I need to honor you.  So I want you to laugh at this self-involved, bullshit, hipster blog post I’m erecting for you as a monument.  We’d laugh at this pretension and narcissism, but fuck it, it’s cheaper than flowers or a headstone, right?

I hope that made you laugh.  And I hope this makes people remember your laugh.  Your laughter was pure light, lady.  Whatever troubles people had, when you laughed, they all vanished.  That’s a powerful legacy.

I’m leaving a couple of crazy pictures of us for the internet to see.  It’s us when we were at our silliest, at our best.  Two clowns laughing at the world.  I miss you, and the world misses you.  But you gave us laughter and insight to who we are.  You did that.  You, Sandy!  Thank you.

Goodbye, friend.