Notes on Pop Culture: Keaton's Memoir, 'The Descendants,' 'Boss' Rules & Meeting 'Morning Joe'

Diane Keaton’s Charming Memoir

Perhaps Diane Keaton’s Then Again, should be called a “mom-ior” instead of a memoir as Keaton decided that instead of simply writing about her life and loves (Allen, Beatty, Pacino among them), she’d write an autobiography in which she parallels her story with that of her housewife mother Dorothy Hall, someone whom Keaton called the most influential person in her life.

After I finished reading the moving and endearing book -- I was especially fond of Keaton’s honesty and self-effacement -- I wrote a column about it and Keaton's attachment to her mom.

One little nugget of trivia which I found cool: Keaton's parents nicknamed her "Di-Annie." Her given surname was Hall. Di-Annie Hall. Yes, Woody Allen based the flighty lead character of his Oscar winning film Annie Hall on Keaton, whom he’d dated, and some of the characters, including Grammy Hall (which is what Keaton called her father’s loan shark of a mother), were loosely based on Keaton’s family members.

After spending several hours languishing in Keaton's world -- and learning that she drives her kids to very early swimming practices while she sits in her car and waits for them -- I've developed a hankering to see Annie Hall again. I’m also curious about Reds, which I’ve never seen, as Keaton said she thoroughly despised her character when the film was shooting and only emotionally opened up to it during the “train station” scene.


Image credit: Fox Searchlight

The Descendants Asks How Well We Know Our Parents

In the same week in which I finished Aimee Bender’s quirky, cool novel The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake -- where the protagonist discovers she can discern the feelings of the person who made or harvested her food by tasting it – I also laughed and sniffled my way through the new George Clooney film, The Descendants. When I exited the theater, I was surprised to discover similar themes in both the movie and the book I’d just read, hence my column which asked the question of whether we ever really know our parents, or our children for that matter.

In The Descendants, Clooney plays a distant husband with two kids, who learned, after his wife was critically injured and in a coma, that she’d been cheating on him. The film explores what happens when we open our eyes and really see what’s right in front of you and the fallout when you hide parts of yourself from the ones you love.

In the book, the lead character Rose, who is a child when the book begins, is horrified to discover by tasting the food they made that her mother is severely depressed, her father is dissatisfyingly withdrawn and her older brother is plagued with all manner of unhappy problems. This was knowledge Rose really wished she didn't have.

I didn’t wind up happening upon any unique answers to the question of whether you can really know anybody all that well, but I was thoroughly entertained and moved by both.

Boss Rules

Over on the TV blog to which I contribute – CliqueClack TV -- they recently had a poll asking readers to vote for their favorite new fall show. While I really like some of the top vote-getters like Homeland and Once Upon a Time (which I cover for CliqueClack TV), I made the argument that, despite the fact that Boss is on Starz, which artificially limits the number of viewers it has, it is the shining dark freshman show of the fall season.

After comparing Kelsey Grammer’s fictional Chicago Mayor Tom Kane to Tony Soprano, I wrote: "For a news and political junkie like myself, Boss has everything. It’s like The West Wing, only meaner, more sinister, more profane, violent and set in the gritty underbelly of Chicago politics. And if Grammer doesn’t win an Emmy for best actor in a drama, that’ll be a crime.”

Its first season has been stellar. If you have the chance to check it out, do.

Meeting Morning Joe

I’ve written here numerous times about my love of the MSNBC morning chat show Morning Joe. It’s on my TV every weekday morning, entertaining me, challenging me, angering me and informing me. I’m a fan of the fundamental organizing conceit of the show: To have rational, intellectual discussion about the important issues of the day without chopping everything down to soundbites and without demonizing one political side or the other. Both sides get a voice.

Thus when I attended the Massachusetts Conference for Women in Boston this week, where Morning Joe’s hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski gave the keynote address, and learned that they’d be meeting and greeting folks and signing books, I had to get in line.

They were very gracious and Joe Scarborough was incredulous when I told him that my kids watch Morning Joe along with me as they get ready for school and that my fifth grader has actually gone to school and had arguments with his classmates over tax policy. True story.

The photo quality is pretty cruddy – what do you want from a BlackBerry camera? – but the smiles were genuine.

Image credits: Amazon, Fox Searchlight, Amazon.

Notes on Pop Culture: What Films Are You Jonesing to See? Would You Pay Theater Prices to See Them at Home?

I finally got to set foot inside an actual movie theater last weekend. My plan was to, at long last, catch The Ides of March, the film about the loss of innocence of a political operative (Ryan Gosling)who’s working for a flawed presidential candidate (George Clooney). However the universe and the movie theater people conspired against me and I was unable to see the movie, the one that's perfect for a presidential primary season, that night.

Last Friday was my chance to revel in the political film but when I showed up, money in hand, The Ides of March was only showing at 10 p.m., too late for my husband and I to be out when our 13-year-olds were watching their occasional recalcitrant younger brother. So we wound up seeing J. Edgar instead. (It was an interesting flick, though the film was wildly uneven, unfocused and was grappling for a raison d'être. Leonardo DiCaprio was outstanding however and I was intrigued enough to want to delve more into the events of J. Edgar Hoover’s initial rise in the FBI.)

I still want to see The Ides of March, but seeing as though it’s now playing at awkward times that don’t fit all that well into my schedule, I’m going to have to accept that I may just have to wait until it’s available on DVD/On Demand.

In the meantime, I was able to watch the excellent, infuriating and taut Margin Call – about the 2008 economic crisis -- on its opening weekend only because it was simultaneously released in movie theaters as well as through my cable provider’s On Demand system. Even though I paid a higher price than I would’ve for a movie released on DVD and regular On Demand, it worked out great because, once the kids were all in bed, I got to watch the film at my leisure, at a time that worked out for me.

The On Demand-while-still-in-the-theaters set-up is how I’m planning to see the critical darling Melancholia  – about a woman (Kirsten Dunst) who gets married just as the world is about it end – that’s currently playing in theaters. (The title just appeared on the list of new releases on Friday.)

Would I have liked to have see Melancholia and Margin Call in actual theaters with actual other grown-ups and not have to worry about letting the pile of unfolded laundry on the sofa taunt me with its unfoldedness? Of course I would have, plus I would dressed a lot nicer to go out to see the movies than I would to watch them in my living room. But for right now, for the kid-centric space my husband and I are in where we've got youth hockey and hoop games in the mornings and in the evenings, this is where we’re at.

I was very disappointed to see that independent-minded film The Descendants, which is amassing oodles of critical plaudits, hasn’t been made available On Demand-while-still-in-the-theaters like Melancholia. Instead, The Descendants is only playing in “selected” theaters. (Note: If you’re going to go the “selected” theaters route with your movie – meaning the film won’t be run at most movie theaters outside of a handful of big cities – you’ll boost the number of eyeballs watching if you simultaneously make it possible for people like me to watch your film On Demand. I’ll pay a theater price, I just can’t get to the theater, especially when you make it so difficult by limiting the number of showings.)

What films are you anxious to see in the theaters and would you be willing to pay theater prices for the chance to watch it On Demand at home?

Trailer Time: 'The Help' and 'The Ides of March'

Last year I slugged my way through The Help, the novel that seemed to be on every book club’s required reading list. It wasn’t as grab-me-by-the-lapels-and-make-me-read-it as I'd hoped it would be, at least not until the very end when I wound up staying up until the wee hours of the morning to finish it.

Yes, the fact that it's main character is an upstart writer was intriguing to me (as I'm a writer myself), but the book seemed longer than it needed to be. Nonetheless, I soldiered on to read through to the end because of all the raves I’d heard from women whose literary tastes I respected.

I think that if the story had been streamlined, I would’ve liked it better and that’s why I’m hopeful that in the film version, that’s exactly what will have taken place. Normally I wax poetic about the beauty of the written word and how the dead tree book versions of any story are generally superior to the cinematic interpretations. But in this case, I’m hoping that the opposite is true and that the film, set for an August 10 release, is better than the book.

Great cast. (George Clooney, Ryan Gosling, Paul Giamatti, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Marisa Tomei, Rachel Evan Wood)


Great topics. (Presidential politics, political consulting, ideology, duplicity, public integrity)

Great timing. (Slated for an October 7 release, just as the presidential primaries should be heating up)

The Ides of March.

This better be good.

'The Descendants:' George Clooney Plays a Middle-Aged Dad

Just caught this trailer for a new George Clooney movie, slated to open in December, based on the novel The Descendants by Kaui Hart Hemmings. Clooney plays the dad of two daughters who is forced to become more involved in their lives and actually parent them after his wife goes into a coma following a boating accident.

I haven’t read the book yet – though I may after watching this movie promo – but Clooney looks like he might be really affecting in this. He hasn't been in a really good film since Up in the Air, where some critics said he played a character that was very similar to himself.

Anyone read the book? Recommend it?