Where have all the actors gone?

I'm humming Paula Cole in my head right now. Either that or "Stacked Actors" off There's Nothing Left to Lose. I don't know what Paula Cole's done since the Dawson's Creek soundtrack, but the Foo Fighters have turned into classic rock revivalists/heavy metallers. But the song title is apt enough for what I'm thinking about. It seems like many actors these days are actually single-purpose tools- they can do one thing. Over and over. Does anyone actually act these days? Who are the current versatile actors?

First, an admission. Yes, I know that the characters on the screen are not the people themselves. I don't think that Seth Rogen in real life is the same as Seth Rogen on the screen. I'm saying that every single time I see Seth Rogen on the screen, I'm seeing the same character. And because the one constant amongst all of these characters is the actor himself, I call that character "Seth Rogen" as a matter of convenience.

Since I've been hanging out at the house these days, I've been watching some serious tv (my parents have UVerse and like a billion movie channels). In the course of the last 48 hours, I've watched movies like Couples Retreat, Four Christmases, Zach and Miri Make a Porno, Pineapple Express, Jennifer's Body, and more. Obviously the cream of the crop.

What do these movies have in common? Stars that don't act.

I'm not breaking any new ground here. Plenty of critics and reviews have harped, correctly so, on the unoriginality of Will Ferrell's inner-monologue-less man-child and Vince Vaughn's motormouth huckster. But I'll cast a even wider net. Yes, Seth Rogen's schtick is as played out as Lindsey Lohan is contagious. Yes, Vince Vaughn and Will Farrell have had nothing new to offer, with minor exceptions, since at least 2003 (for the former) and 2006 (for the latter). But what about some other actors? More "respected" actors? How about...I don't know...I'll go straight for the jugular- Daniel Day Lewis?

Gangs of New York was awesome, despite its blue-balling, whack-job letdown of an ending. DD-L had some primo scenes, including that fantastic eyeball-tapping monologue in the rocking chair blanketed by the flag. There Will Be Blood was awesomer. Better music. Better story. Better performances. Unrelenting tension (by the end of the movie, I was exhausted). And again, another flawless performance by DD-L, rightfully winning the Oscar.

Yeah, he acted his ass off. But where was the risk? What do you think went through Daniel Day-Lewis' head when he was gearing up for TWBB? "I know what the problem was- Bill the Butcher just wasn't intense enough! I learned how to tap my glass eyeball with the tip of a knife, and I fully embodied the xenophobic hate-mongering zeitgeist of Civil War-era New York, but I just didn't go far enough! There are depths of loathsome left to plumb!"

I mean, sometimes, watching There Will Be Blood is like sitting through Gangs of New York 2: Daniel Goes West. That's why I was pretty excited that he went and did Nine as his next movie.

Alright, Maybe not the best example. After all, he did come up with a different accent, and he did have a different moustache. And the motivations for the characters were different. I get it.

Another, better, example from the A-List of respectability: Denzel Washington. When's the last time Denzel created a memorable character that wasn't just the latest iteration of the standard-issue Denzel smile, charm, and swagger? Ok, maybe he didn't show too much swagger in The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, but that was only because he was an office worker nerd (the glasses gave it away. Thanks Tony Scott for the subtle clue). Overall, however, Denzel Washington trots out the same performance again and again, dressed up in different costumes and set up with different backstories. But the execution is always the same.

I mean, at this point, Ice Cube takes more risks as an actor, selecting at least somewhat diverse characters as he builds out his career.

One test I've been running for the last couple of years in order to see if the role/character was good is the name check: can I remember the character's name and not just the actor who played him? If the actor makes me forget him or her, he or she has probably done a pretty good job. So far the test gives too many false negatives, but not too many false positives (and those movies named after the characters don't count! Keira Knightly does NOT get credit for Domino, another Tony Scott flick- am I sensing a trend here?).

It's easy to see how stars fall into their personal ruts. What worked in the past should work in the future. Obviously. It's the ergodic hypothesis!

Want some more actors who don't seem to actually act? Hugh Grant, Sarah Jessica Parker, Owen Wilson, Ben Stiller (not a great one- Greenberg, Zoolander, and The Royal Tenenbaums all have different performances, I think), Sam Elliot to an extent, that total hack Shia LeBeouf, Gerard Butler (isn't it pretty pathetic that his most daring performance actually IS 300?), the rest of the Apatow posse, (immediate and extended), Jesse Eisenberg (it pains me to say), Michael Cera (it does not pain me to say, although he did tap into a small capillary of ballsy venom for Youth in Revolt and a little manic energy for Scott Pilgrim, both encouraging signs), JACK BLACK, and on and on. Uggh.

Sorry for my carpet-bombing. I know there are plenty of actors grinding it out, earning the rights to their profession. It's just annoying to see the same movie over and over. It'd be cool to see some star dig into a role for the sake of the role. How awesome would it be to see Daniel Day-Lewis in some comedy sidekick role, maybe unrecognizable, maybe not, indulging the idiosyncracies of some character. Wouldn't that be fun? Fingers crossed.

...but it's falling now

Hurricane Hermine ran into Texas last night, and the rain came down in buckets.

I chose today to start riding the bike around instead of driving, which might not have been the best of ideas in light of the rain. But it turned out alright. I'm still calibrated to Austin as my mental geospatial system (and since I've been a GIS monkey for the last few months for City of Austin's NHCD, I default to the 1983 North American Datum coordinate system (!)). Austin is spatially condensed much more so than is Dallas. I could get all over the place on my bike down there. Even though I used my car a lot in the last year, I was almost entirely on my bike last fall.

But Dallas is a little different. Like, it's way huger than Austin. At least, that's the way it feels right now. In Austin, I could get to four or five different coffeeshops within a reasonable radius (Flightpath, Tazza Fresca, Bennu, Cherrywood, and hell, even Starbucks). So far in Dallas, I can get to Legal Grounds, a Starbucks, and The Pearl Cup without too much effort (although Legal Grounds has some pretty spotty wifi, an unforgivable sin for a coffeeshop! Although that's a whole different subject, isn't it about time that any coffeeshop or institution that is designed for people to linger for even a little bit have internet?).

The coffeeshop is my personal litmus test for live-ability. I don't even like coffee very much. Coffeeshops might be private businesses, but they are de facto public spaces, spaces where people can mix, mingle, work, read, learn, talk, and more. Maybe I'd feel differently if I was a 9-5 office warrior, but at the moment, and for the past three or four years, I've been of the opinion that spots that offer a lot of diverse functions are where I like to be.

Brooklyn was the first place where I really understood on a fundamental level how urban layouts and infrastructure dictate how people live. Maybe NYC is giant, but its subway and bus system make the whole place accessible. Austin has a much less comprehensive public transit system, but it was physically smaller as well, upping its overall accessibility.

Of course, since I'm talking accessibility, I'd be remiss if I didn't refer to some of its components- specifically, housing and transportation. I already used transportation as an argument for accessibility in Brooklyn. The Housing and Transportation Affordability Index, although framed for "affordability" discussions, mostly by affordable housing advocates and groups, gets at what I'm talking about.

People can access first what's in close proximity to their homes, i.e. their neighborhoods. From where they live, people can walk to spots nearby. As amenities and desired places get farther away, they become less accessible by foot, and require more powerful modes of transportation- most often, cars. You could easily begin to build a mental map of your personal "accessible regions"- the radius that is walk-accessible, the radius that is car-accessible, the one that's mass-transit-accessible, et cetera.

Before moving to Brooklyn, I had only dim notions of any other radii than walk- and car-accessibility. I did bike some in Atlanta, but not really seriously as a mode of legitimate transportation; it was mostly for recreation. Living in Brooklyn, I was car-less for the first time. The subway system would pop me up like the mole game into different points in the city, and from each of those points, I developed a walk-radius. This situation- lots of walk-radii anchored at multiple subway station epicenters- was my mental map.

Moving back to Texas two years ago, I had some shock getting from one map to another. But eventually, I built a new one, featuring feet, bike, and car as the effective modes. There were enough facilities/shops/locations within my feasible walkable space to maintain it as a mode to consider. The same went for bike and car.

Growing up, I never thought of Dallas proper as sprawling. I knew that the suburbs stretched for miles, but my neighborhood and day-to-day "world" didn't feel unwieldy. Coming back to it, it feels massive, and in trying to recalibrate my walk-, bike-, and car-radii, I'm finding it harder to populate my walk- and bike-radii with places to go. Especially the walk-radii, there ain't much. Being forced to drive feels strangulating.

Nonetheless, I am going to maintain my bike-radius as a viable option. Today was day one. And it went pretty well. It will develop more and more.

Ain't this rambling?

Lastly, I'm posting a picture that I just really enjoy. Therese Frare took some pictures that appeared in TIME in 1990. The arguably most famous picture is of the dying David Kirby. He died of AIDS in 1990. His caretaker during his dying days, besides his parents, was a man named Peta, who himself died of AIDS in 1992:

Beautiful.

last night the rain just wouldn't fall

Thursday night, my parents, little little sister and i went to dinner for my birthday. we haven't been in the same town for our birthdays for five or six years now, so we hung out together for a change. we went to urbano cafe. It's BYOB, has a small dining room leading directly into the kitchen. It's been getting some very positive word of mouth, and my mom and abby have been there a few times. The menu is not too adventurous, but all the food was really good. Abby's chicken saltimboca was tasty. I had duck breast with some parmesan polenta. I don't eat duck often at all, not for any particular reason, I generally just don't seek it out, but this was really good.

Noah and Lindsey got married Saturday night. It was capital a plus awesome. Like full frontal awesome. Chris Mayes did a great job officiating. All of his words were thoughtful and heartfelt. And very fitting for N & L. Their vows were great. Glen Farris played some songs, including a fantabulous rendition of If I Needed You. It was really, really good. The Theatre Fire played the reception. Fun. Lots.

The last two weekends have seen me at two weddings, one in California and one in Texas. In both cases, the couples have seemed so good to and for one another. And the weddings had personality and idiosyncratic touches. Noah and Lindsey especially did a great job executing their own cuisine (not food, I mean their particular brand of coupled...life art). It would have been hard not to, as they both are strong personalities anyway. But it was really special to witness an event that was unequivocally theirs. What a beautiful manifestation of themselves together.

For a brief spell about two years ago, I got in the habit of saying i was a fan of break-ups. Not that I rooted for disaster, but if two people weren't fully committed to each other, then maybe a breakup was at least recognizing the "wrongness" of the thing, however defined. I might still think that, but I feel a lot less cold-blooded than I did then. I believe in and respect dedication a lot more than I used to, and I used to respect it a lot. But somewhere I lost my perspective, ended up down in a hole, and thought some things were insurmountable. Sometimes you forget what you're fighting for. You forget the preposition.

My friend James hates scenes of infidelity in movies and television. He gets real squirmy and uncomfortable when watching something like Unfaithful. When we've talked about it, I think it's the same reaction I have when watching people endure moments of embarassing awkwardness, such as in Borat (I mean, I haven't even brought myself to watch the movie; the tv episodes were enough. I get what he's doing- I even appreciate and academically enjoy what he's doing; it just unnerves me personally). It's a visceral uncomfortableness. But somewhere along the way, I picked up an aversion to infidelity and breakups. Attitudes shift.

So maybe the two above-mentioned movies aren't the most classic of cinematic fare, but they are good modern cultural touchstones that help me think things out.  Anyway, I find my heart going out more than it used to. Wait. Not "going out" like "failing". I mean going out to. To others. There's another forgotten preposition.

 I am trying to remember what I'm fighting for. Like Richard Buckner says: "What will you miss when things are fine?"

hihi

this is my new blog. I've been thinking about starting one for a while, and today's as good a day as any. i'll use it to blog. naturally. and talk about articles i've read. and repost stuff.

i like food. i like music. i like movies. i like books (i've got a kindle on order!). i like people, but sometimes i don't show it, but i'm trying to do so more.

my friends noah and lindsey are getting married in two days. i am very very very proud of them. they make it look easy.

for beth: i just had an argument with the guy who gave me a haircut about the ground zero mosque being neither ground zero nor a mosque. talk amongst yourselves. linda richman, discuss.