It’s here, kids! Finally. It took me a long time to read this book because I just get nervous about hyped books as I hate to be like “Um, I guess” after three hundred plus pages. This “eat pray love” book by Elizabeth Gilbert pleasantly surprised me. India was a thick section but I got through it and felt like I accomplished a marathon - rewarding!

I secretly love Julia Roberts sometimes on different days at different times so I might be able to do this:

This video is Kill Billy Genius. Even for “older” women like myself, the dancing totally takes me back to when people really memorized routines for videos. Even if you don’t get Lady Gaga, you have got to admit that she has put her own box around herself and nobody else is able to penetrate it. Everyone else is damn near xeroxing each other. Hell, she even made Beyonce avant garde (off page that is - we all know Miss Thing loves to pull some “Mahogany” shots on the regular)…not so much for the acting though. Sorry, B. I stan for you but you need to pull a Marilyn Monroe and get some more method training. Tyrese…just thank them as many ways as you can, brother. Pray to the relevancy gods…

This happens in my idea of heaven…I mean this song and her? This song is the soundtrack of so many parts of my life. This is up there with “Mo Better Blues” the movie for me because these are both examples of when I think God just comes down and sits inside some art to chill, unbeknownst to the artist.

For all of you “true to the game” artists in NYC or NJ, here’s your chance to make some cash and teach the babies:

SUBMISSIONS
Teaching Artist—Princeton, NJ

McCARTER THEATRE CENTER’S Education Department is seeking applicants for a PAID freelance teaching position in its First Stage After-School Theater program. The position runs March–May, 2010. Successful candidates will have extensive experience working with urban youth, specific knowledge of acting theories and styles, and a strong desire to create a stimulating and exciting curriculum. Artists with expertise in storytelling, particularly African folktales, and devised theater are strongly encouraged to apply. Teaching Artist will be responsible for creating a compelling performance with students involved in the Trenton After School Program (TASP), as an employee of McCarter Theater’s Education Department. Candidates should email their headshot and teaching resume to: jmurtha@mccarter.org, or mail to: Jim Murtha, Education Programs Manager, MCCARTER THEATRE CENTER, 91 University Place, Princeton, NJ 08540.

McCarter Theatre is an equal opportunity employer and encourages the application of all qualified individuals.

Dave Chapelle talks Depression

This is why I love him. Sometimes people offer you advice and they have NO idea where you are coming from. While I was taught to nod and smile, Dave just broke the mold.

I adore Brooklyn though not necessarily enough to live there (I did for a little bit and realized I loved Brooklyn more when I could visit from Harlem). I have such fond memories of going to my friend Jessica Care Moore’s crib on Willoughby with a GANG of folks falling through, cooking Kwanzaa meals, almost getting attacked by bats in Prospect Park at night crossing through from the Tea Party poetry show that night, dragging my dad all the way to Atlantic to try mafe and plaintains for his first time…so many great things in Brooklyn.

Except Antione Fuqua’s new much anticipated movie, “Brookln’s Finest.”

The BF and I hit the midnight screening because we ache for the NYC so much sometimes. Going to the Arclight Hollywood, you never know what kind of crowd you’re getting at midnight. Sometimes it’s a bunch of hardcore film heads and sometimes it’s full of kids and dates. Last night we saw more black folks than we’d ever seen at once there. But the theater wasn’t even ¼ full…figures.

I’ll start with a summary. If you’ve seen “Training Day”, you’ve seen “Brooklyn’s Finest.” What’s the difference? Brooklyn. Three main characters (Ethan Hawke, Richard Gere, Don Cheadle) all playing the Denzel Washington character rolled up into one. There. That’s the movie.

Now the details. The three characters are all cops in Brooklyn who are dealing with their various woes of the job (this is NOT a recruiting movie for NYPD, I can tell you that much) – some are more dire than others. Don Cheadle was the best I’d seen him be in awhile (I know he loves “Traitor” and I wish I loved it as much as he did but alas I didn’t. None of this make me waiver in my stan for him though). His storyline almost seems not worthy of his acting skills. I mean I get how hard it is to be undercover (hello! “Deep Cover”! What beats Clarence Williams III lashing of Laurence Fishburne’s going over the deep end? And if you’re going to New York undercover movies – not TV – “Serpico” doesn’t hurt to revisit). But my problem with his storyline, aside from my distraction because of Wesley Snipes’s face (what did you do, Wes?), is my problem with most of the movie. There are some gaping holes that would resolve these character’s storylines pretty quickly and, while that’s not the point of a movie, it shouldn’t be the point of distraction either. However it was good to see my buddy Jas Anderson working as he’s been grinding his acting thing for a minute now! Conflicted, Cheadle’s character wants to get out, wants to be loyal to his frienemy Wesley, wants to make Detective, wants his life and wife back. He wants a lot and doesn’t want to give up much. Pretty much you realize that the life he wants to have back really doesn’t exist anymore. Thus the moral of most undercover movies – so deep that it’s real before you know it.

Ethan Hawke’s character line was the most difficult for me in that his quest to better his family was so narrow and I couldn’t really figure out why. He only had one solution to fix his problem the entire movie. And, what a tragedy that Lily Taylor is only in the movie for like three minutes! She’s an indie queen! Forget these little waify forgettable blurs of blonde hair you see now. Lily and Parker Posey are the Rizzo’s of that Pink Lady Gang. Too bad she’s so underused as Ethan’s pregnant wife. His blind pursuit of a better life for his kids ultimately makes him blind to the lines of the law and he enters a point of no return. It is refreshing to see that kind of Brooklyn cop (Catholic, too large family, loud, smoking, drinking, probably Italian/Irish blend) not have racism as part of his corrupting MO. His character’s issues are far more universal. But it’s so hard to take acting that so good for value since the alternatives to his plight are so obvious.

Lastly, Richard Gere’s retiring cop. I love this character because he’s not a good cop and not because he beats people up or anything but because he’s been phoning it in for 22 years. His boys consider him a bad cop because he’s not passionate. That’s such an interesting take on the classic NYPD character because ultimately think of cops as too aggressive, ego tripping and not passionate about people at all. This character was ripe with potential but it doesn’t quite bloom, even in the end where he decides reluctantly to rectify his 22 years of passivity with a heroic action. This act makes me sad for him. Even sadder is his faux love for a prostitute he sees on the regular. Not so sad about his attempts to kill himself sporadically or his drinking. Everyone in theater reacted to the scene where he recounts his day to the prostitute. If you see the movie, you’ll see why.

Here’s the filler. There are some kind of half-hearted disconnected attempts to interweave the character’s storylines. As a writer, I can totally tell this was a last minute act to glue some scenes together. I’ve done it so I can smell it a mile away. It doesn’t really work because we don’t care that much if they do intersect. This only proves that the movie is trying too hard sometimes to be clever, to be hard, to be gritty and everything you want it to be but it knows it’s not.

I’m surprised Antione Fuqua agreed to do this as this seems like one of those “been there done that” things for him. Maybe in this economy everyone wants to do the familiar. I mean that new Matt Damon movie smells like a Bourne movie but it’s not (even though Bourne’s name is all over it because it’s from the makers of the franchise) and Tom Cruise does repeatsies all the time even though I swear he needs to do more “Tropic Thunder” bundles of joy.

All in all, this isn’t the Brooklyn movie I really wanted to see. It’s like that movies okay cousin.