FILM: Knives Out

Our Thanksgiving weekend movie was Knives Out. What a fun suspenseful whodunnit, contemporary but with the classic feel of an Agatha Christie mystery. It has all the elements: a big mansion with hidden elements and creaky stairs, the apparent suicide (or was it?) of an elderly multi-millionaire author (who made his fortune on – what else – murder mysteries), and a houseful of dysfunctional family members each with their own motive for wanting grandpa dead. Something is clearly afoot at Thrombey Manor, and only ace mystery solver Benoit Blanc (charmingly played by Daniel Craig sporting a genteel southern accent) can get to the bottom of it. Writer/director Rian Johnson skillfully spins out the mystery Rashomon style, as each family member is interrogated in turn, and we see each recollection of the events of the fateful night, colored by their biases and motives, then airbrushed and embellished as they tell it to the detectives. Jamie Lee Curtis, Don Johnson, Chris Evans, Toni Collette, and several others provide the colorful characters on this Clue board. The deceased patriarch was portrayed by Christopher Plummer as such a chess-master that his stories must have been at least this good (and how much of this one last story did he himself orchestrate?). And then there’s Marta, the nurse-companion, an immigrant from some ambiguous Latin country with the inconvenient inability to lie without throwing up. Everyone seems to love her and consider her part of the family. At least until the knives come out. This mystery has donut holes inside donut holes, and you probably won’t figure it out before Benoit Blanc does, but looking back, you’ll see that all of the clues were there. Such good fun!

Also have to give a shout out / plug to Exceptional Minds Studio, a local non-profit professional training academy and studio for visual effects artists and animators with autism. Exceptional Minds did the closing titles for this film. They provide individuals on the autism spectrum with the technical and behavioral skills required for employment in the entertainment fields of animation and post production visual effects, with the goal of breaking the vicious stereotypes resulting in low expectations that burden those in our society with special needs. I have two cousins who have graduated from this exceptional academy, and we are regular supporters. (Thanks, no doubt, to Jamie Lee Curtis for the opportunity to work on this film. She is a notable supporter of Exceptional Minds.)

Remembering Unc

From my earliest memories and throughout my life, my Unc Hal was a presence in my life that embodied what family meant. If you asked me at any point in my life who my “close family” was, after my Mom, Dad, and brother, there was no question that it was Tante Elayne and Unc Harold, and their kids, my cousins Donna and Victor. My mother and her sister were not to be separated, so when my Mom got married and settled in Los Angeles, Tante and Unc uprooted their young family and moved from New York to be close to us. Thus, when I was growing up, they were just always part of our family life. Most days, we were over at their house or they were over at ours. I know I had other aunts and uncles and cousins in Indiana and New York and Washington, and we loved them too, but more abstractly. Tante and Unc and Donna and Victor were my familiar family, the ones I just took as a given that we saw all the time, so that when you say “uncle”, I can’t help but picture Unc Hal.

When they first moved to California, Unc drove a delivery truck for Frito Lay, and as a very little kid, I have memories of Unc’s truck parked in the driveway, and sometimes being allowed to go into the truck and pick out a bag of Fritos. (In those days, the delivery trucks were not huge, more like the size of neighborhood ice cream trucks.) Among the Dads in our family and the neighborhood, I think he was the most likely to get down in the grass and wrestle and tumble with us on the front lawn. He had a growly voice, but teddy bear growly, not scary growly. He was mostly soft spoken, although he was certainly capable of raising the volume when the discussion around the family dinner table got loud, and he and Tante had no trouble shouting to each other across supermarket aisles (“ELAYNE! DO WE NEED MORE COOKIES?”). (Unc did love his cookies, and there was always a well-stocked cookie jar at their house.) At some point in my childhood, Unc quit the FritoLay truck and started his own business washing windows for shops and restaurants, a job he would work until he retired. As a kid, I only understood that he had to get up crazy early in the morning because he had to drive to far-flung locations all over the city, and that his clients preferred their windows get washed before their open business hours. I also came to understand that some of the places he went were parts of town that the rest of us might be apprehensive to go to, but Unc was unassuming and approachable, the sort of guy who could talk to pretty much anybody. And he’d sometimes come back with funny stories. I remember one time, he asked us “Did you know that ‘bad’ can mean ‘good’?” Turns out he was washing windows at a furniture store, and while he was there, a couple of black women were there on the sidewalk looking in the windows and saying “Look at all that baaad furniture!” After they’d said this a couple of times, he got curious and asked them, “did your family have a bad experience buying furniture here?”, and they laughed and gave him a lesson in Inglewood street slang. His openness to talk to anyone extended even beyond borders and language barriers. When Tante and Unc traveled to Paris with my parents, at one point when they needed directions, Unc was the one who, despite any useful French, was willing to go up to someone and ask directions. He went to ask a nearby vendor whether they spoke English, but his attempt at “Anglais?” must have come out more like “une glace”. When he returned and the others asked what he had found out, he laughed and said “I still don’t know where we are, but I got this ice cream cone.”

Our family liked our routines and little traditions: Saturday night was always “restaurant night”, and we would always meet up with my aunt, uncle, and cousins at a neighborhood restaurant for a dinner out. Usually nothing fancy, except for birthday celebrations which were diligently observed. Sunday nights were “hamburger night” when I was young, and later evolved to “family dinner night” after the kids had all grown up and left home. Sunday nights alternated between my parents and Tante & Unc’s house, with whichever “children” were not out of town expected to show up. Conversations ranged from politics to family news/gossip to just the minutiae of our lives, as you do when you see someone so regularly. Unc and my Dad also shared an interest in business and investments, and would talk about that until Mom would scream “Are you two still talking about IRAs??”. (You can’t dispute that Unc must have saved and invested prudently, as he leveraged his modest window-washing business toward paying off a house in the suburbs, raising a family comfortably, and having enough retirement savings that his children never had to worry about paying for his care.) I’ve been grateful to have these family routines as steady markers throughout my life, something I could always count on even when other things changed. Except for the few years I lived on the east coast, and until he moved to Virginia just a year and a half ago, Unc has celebrated every one of my birthdays with me, and we’ve had a meal together probably three out of every four weekends my entire life. It’s only now looking back across all those years, realizing that our last birthday or family dinner together is passed, that I fully appreciate how remarkable that is.

When Tante passed three years ago, we kept up our Sunday nights, either bringing in take-out food to Unc’s or driving him over to my folks’ house. But after a while, he was becoming less capable and more depressed, so we convinced him to move to Virginia where he could be near his daughter Donna and her three grown children. Though we missed him in California, it was a great move because he got to see Donna and his grandchildren all the time, and he got to celebrate their family events together. He lived to see his granddaughter Brenna have a baby boy, and just days before he passed, he got to meet his newborn great-granddaughter. He saw his granddaughter Rachel regularly through her pregnancy, and was eager to meet the baby, excited to be a twice great-grandfather. It seemed he was hanging on just for that, before going to his rest after a good long life (just a couple months short of 90). Thanks, Unc Hal, for showing me what an uncle is, and for the gift of your faithful presence throughout my life.

STAGE: The New One

This evening we saw The New One at the Ahmanson Theatre. I hardly stopped laughing this entire show, so I need a moment to catch my breath. If you’re a fan of This American Life, you’ve probably heard Mike Birbiglia before. With his voice and his delivery, he could read a phone book and make it funny, so when he’s really got something to say, it’s hysterical. In this show, he relates his experience of reluctantly becoming a father. Those things that all new fathers probably think at one time or another but would never dare say out loud, he says out loud. And it’s so funny because it’s so true and ultimately so humane. Birbiglia is a stand-up comic by nature, and he turns the Ahmanson into a comedy club, deftly drawing in a few low-hanging audience members into his act. The stage and show are largely devoid of props and set, just a stool, except for one point where props come in to great effect. If you have kids, or if you know people who have kids, or if you’re dead set against ever being around kids, you’ll enjoy this show tremendously.

FOOD: Guerrilla Tacos

In the dynamic culinary explosion that is LA, some of the best food is served not on white table cloths but in places where you order at the register, take a number, and seat yourself. That’s how it is at Guerrilla Tacos in the DTLA Arts District. Chef Wes Avila’s food truck had been rated one of LA’s top restaurants, but he’s now parked the truck and set up a brick-and-mortar where you can enjoy his dazzlingly creative tacos along with micheladas or cocktails if you like. The pork terrine taco takes inspiration from Vietnamese banh mi sandwiches: pork paired with julienned carrots and jicama, cilantro and mint, fresno pepper, enriched with a schmear of chicken liver mousse. Just take away the French sandwich roll and serve it on top of a blue corn tortilla (fresh from nearby Kernel of Truth Organics tortilleria in Boyle Heights). Served with the tortilla folded over the meat, with the schmear on the outside and the veggies and herbs piled on top, that’s when I realized why I was given a fork and knife. My other two tacos came open-faced, also on those blue corn tortillas. The saag curry eggplant taco features fried eggplant chunks bathed in two sauces, a rich curry and a piquant mint chutney. The fire is strong, but balanced with sweet raisins and marcona almond bits. The famous sweet potato taco (others vary seasonally but this one has been a persistent signature) covers slices of roast sweet potato with an almond chile sauce, dollops of soft fresh feta, fresh scallions, and crumbles of fried corn. It’s all a creative feast of hot, sweet, fresh, rich, soft, crunch that makes this taco stand worthy of Michelin notice (now that those Michelin folks have crawled out from under their white table cloth and learned how to appreciate LA).

FILM: Harriet

I knew little about Harriet Tubman beyond the barest synopsis of her as a leading figure in the Underground Railroad, and was thrilled to expand my understanding of this inspirational woman’s story as told in the new biopic Harriet. (As is inevitable for any biopic, some characters and details have been invented for dramatic necessity, but the film is fairly historically grounded in the broader story.) I was on the edge of my seat through most of this film as this diminutive but determined woman not only made her own solo run to freedom (when nobody thought she could do it on her own), but then made repeated daring returns back into slave territory to help others escape. It’s one thing to read in school about the Underground Railroad, the network of just-minded people who offered temporary hiding places and onward guidance. It’s quite another to have it brought to life on the screen, with all the powers of film-making harnessed to make you experience the feeling of running through the woods at night with hounds in hot pursuit. A textbook just doesn’t quicken the pulse like a film can. But much more than just a sequence of harrowing escapes is the monument of this woman’s faith and determination. I learned that, like Joan of Arc, Harriet Tubman experienced visions. Explained at least in part as seizure-like episodes resulting from a head trauma when she was young, she understood them as God showing her things, sometimes premonitions of immediate danger, sometimes prophesies of things to come later. In any case, they affirmed her faith that God was leading her, and gave her a fierce courage to do what she needed to do. This, together with her resolve to live free or die, leads her to the central purpose in her life, that she should return and help others rather than cling to safety in the North. When other leaders of the Underground try to dissuade her, telling her that an illiterate black woman would not be able to succeed, she thunders back like an Old Testament prophet, “Nobody thought I could escape on my own, but the Lord was with me. And here I am. So don’t you tell me what I can’t do.” The performance of this character by Cynthia Erivo is transcendent, inspiring awe that makes the film. She is steely fierce, but also has some very human moments. While Harriet Tubman is not an unsung hero, this film, surprisingly the first feature film to be made of her, shows me that she hasn’t been sung enough. Can’t wait for her to be on the $20 bill.

FILM: Parasite

The Korean film Parasite won the Palm d’Or at Cannes this year, and has been raved about by critics. It was definitely not what we expected, though I’m not sure what I did expect. It’s hard to even categorize. While it has a few moments of suspense and even horror, it’s not a horror suspense film. In fact most of it deals fairly lightly and deftly with some heavy social commentary about the widening chasm between rich and poor, and its thoroughly unexpected ending is a strangely beautiful alloy of hope (wistful? misplaced? persistent?) and irony. The most comparable films I can think of are last year’s Shoplifters (a beautiful Japanese film also about a sympathetic family near the bottom rung of society doing what they can to scrape by) and Alfonso Cuaron’s Roma. One could say that Parasite is like Roma, but with more plot and less brooding. (HG Wells’ The Time Machine also comes to mind, not for the science fiction but for the social critique.) In the opening scene, we meet the Kim family in their basement apartment with a transom window looking onto a gritty street, and the young adult son and daughter trying to maneuver their phones to just the right corner of the ceiling where they can get a bit of free wifi. Soon after, we meet the Park family, living in luxury behind a gate, in a house designed by a renowned architect with a light and spacious yard. When the Kims insinuate themselves into the lives of the Park family in various positions of service, it sets off a chain of very unexpected events that serve to illuminate the contrast in their social positions. These contrasts are beautifully underscored with cinematic artistry: the spaciousness and lightness of the Parks’ house emphasized with long / wide angles and tracking shots, while tight strained angles show the cramped and dingy nature of the Kims’ basement. Director Bong Joon-Ho created a very visual verticality to the social dynamic, most fulsomely brought out when some of the Kims make a dash in the rain from the Park house to their own home, and it’s all down, down, down. As their near their home, we get a high downward shot on their street, half obscured by a rat’s nest of exposed utility wires (probably half bootlegged), and the muddy rainwater gushing down the street toward their apartment, below grade at the bottom of the slope. The claustrophobia of their apartment is ratcheted way up when it is literally filling up with sewage overflow, and they struggle to grab a few key possessions before bailing out to a shelter. Meanwhile this same rainstorm that is catastrophic to the poorer part of town below is for the Parks just an inconvenience that has spoiled plans for a birthday camping trip. The Parks live their lives on a cloud of effortlessness. As mother Kim observes, their lives are full of creases and wrinkles, but when you have money like the Parks do, money is like an iron that smooths out all the creases. Mr. Park walks through his house and up his stairs, and the lights turn on as he approaches and off as he goes past. He doesn’t understand how this happens, and he doesn’t even really think about it. The Parks give no thought to a lot of things that have to happen to make their lives just work so smoothly. The structures that the great architect has designed into the foundation of their house are long forgotten and taken for granted. But like an iceberg, it’s the submerged part that you can’t see that proves the most dangerous. I came away from this film haunted by the allegory and the poetic imagery of social divides; George just said he’s going to have nightmares. While this isn’t exactly Roma, I think Roma is a good yardstick. If you’re the sort who loved Roma, then I think you’d appreciate this.

Evergreen Cemetery in East LA

The cemetery that I visited for Dia de los Muertos was an especially interesting cemetery. Evergreen Cemetery was established in 1877 and is one of LA’s oldest. Many LA scions and pioneers have prominent stones here, names you would recognize from streets and towns like Van Nuys, Lankershim, Bixby, and Hollenbeck. Joseph W. Robinson (department store founder) is here, as is George Ralphs (grocery store founder). But this cemetery represents LA in all its facets. It is notable for never having banned African-Americans from being buried here, unlike many other cemeteries of its time. I visited the grave of Biddy Mason, a remarkable woman I’ve written about before who began life as a slave and ended it as a wealthy philanthropist who co-founded the First AME Church in LA. And I visited James Banning, an aviation pioneer who was the first black pilot to fly coast-to-coast. Many Japanese are interred here, including the Garden of the Pines, a section for the Issei (first-generation immigrants), and an impressive monument to the Japanese heroes of the 442nd Regiment in World War II. Many Armenians are here, and from the dates on their stones, I could see that many were from their first generation of immigrants fleeing the WWI-era genocide in their homeland. Many generations of Mexican-American families are here. The only marginalized group were the Chinese-Americans, who were forced to use a corner of the “potter’s field”, a large area on the east end of the cemetery where indigent people were buried in mostly unmarked graves. They were allowed to build a small shrine in their corner of the potter’s field, which from 1888 is the oldest surviving structure of Chinese settlement in LA. In 2005, when the Metro Gold Line extension was being put through along 1st Street, the excavations uncovered skeletal remains of 174 people who forensic analysis determined were all Chinese. The remains were interred near the shrine, and a memorial was erected, with 174 stones containing messages in Chinese, English, and Spanish of remembrance and blessing. This whole sprawling cemetery is such a great capsule of our city’s demographic history. (See full album of photos.)

Dia de los Muertos, East LA

I spent much of today in a cemetery in Boyle Heights (an East LA neighborhood with a traditionally Mexican-American population) seeing how people there were marking Dia de los Muertos. While it was a large cemetery, the bright orange marigolds specific to the Mexican tradition, used in abundance, made it easy to spot the graves that had been decorated for the occasion. The bright orange flowers, both whole and strewn petals, were arranged to illuminate a path for the souls to make their way back to earth for one night. It is presumed that the souls would be thirsty from their journey, so bottles of water, or perhaps the deceased’s favorite beverage (beer, tequila) would be left on the grave. Candy was common as well, and at one grave, I even saw fries and chicken strips awaiting one returning soul. I saw a number of people in the graveyard visiting loved ones and decorating their graves. The mood is somehow both reflective and festive. I saw whole families with children, some setting up umbrellas and making a picnic of it, some blaring Nortense music from their car. There was an elderly couple visiting some graves, the man in a wheelchair and his wife reading inscriptions to him. (I helped them back to their car when I saw she was having trouble maneuvering his wheelchair through the uneven grass.) As I always do in graveyards, I get lost in reading the inscriptions on the stones, finding little pieces of stories. In this cemetery, many had died way too young, and some had married and parented quite young too. Others lived good long lives and were mourned by generations. I like the attitude of this holiday. It reminds us all that we are a thread in a larger tapestry, a thread with a beginning and an end, but which finds a larger meaning woven together with the threads that came before us, and that have touched us, and that we will touch.

In my Dia de los Muertos tour, I also made a couple of other stops. Self Help Graphics & Art is a community art center in Boyle Heights, and in October, it’s an ofrenda factory. You can find it easily by the murals covering the building on East 1st St. While most of their handiwork is now on display in Grand Park, there were a few community-themed ofrendas still here. One was an altar to those who had died suffering the stigma of mental illness. Another was an altar to children who had died trying to cross the border, with a “sea” of messages of encouragement written by local school children on construction paper fish. Yet another was a tribute to passed heroes, where people left photos and notes to those who had inspired them, some famous figures and some very personal. My other stop was La Monarca Bakery, a Boyle Heights tradition, where I sampled pan de muertos, a mildly sweet bun with hints of orange zest, with crossed bones on top. They had piled boxes of these, which many people will bring to the graveyard tonight and tomorrow, or just to other Dia de los Muertos celebrations. And they also had an ofrenda, remembering those passed in the La Monarca family. (And of course this altar had pan de muerto on it!)

(See full album of pictures from my Dia de los Muertos tour.)