The Post Mortem

So another year with no winnings to show for my efforts. Oh well. I think I had a down year, relative to years past. However, I couldn't be more pleased about getting Best Picture wrong. The Departed was the best movie I saw last year and it won. To my thinking then, they got it right. I just felt Babel had the edge for its "differentness."

I was also happy to see Germany's The Lives of Others get best foreign film. It's a great movie, better than Pan's Labyrinth. Another movie in that category, Water, was also quite good.

Happy Feet was one of my favorites last year. I found it thoroughly entertaining. I thought they'd give it to Cars because of its heavier-hitting producers, but the better movie won.

I guess I'm happy for Alan Arkin for Little Miss Sunshine. I still think Mark Wahlberg's was the strongest supporting performance in that group.

I found the movie Dreamgirls to be uninspiring, with the exception of Jennifer Hudson. So it was nice to see her win. I also found the song Listen, at least in the movie, to be a highlight. Beyonce nailed it on the show the other night and I still say it's a good song. I had heard the Melissa Etheridge song only once, when I saw An Inconvenient Truth. Watching her perform it the other night I realized it's a good song too. So I wasn't disappointed.

I'm most happy that Martin Scorsese finally got recognized for his excellent work. I think he deserved to win his last two "attempts," for Gangs of New York and The Aviator. Not only should he have won for his direction, but the films should have won too.

So time to start lining them up for 2007. The race is on...

Things To Do in NYC ... when you're an entertainment industry addict

So in two trips to New York, last fall and last month, I've managed to see just about everything new on the Broadway scene. Already this looks to me to be a more exciting season in a few years, with some great new work, some solid revivals, and a truly fresh piece that offers a new direction. My thoughts....

Twyla Tharp's Bob Dylan piece, The Times They Are A-Changin', came and went faster than the blink of an eye. I'm one of the few I guess, but I liked it. It didn't come close to matching Movin' Out, but I found it entertaining nonetheless. Good singing, good dancing. You had to think a little to determine meaning, but I believe meaning was there. Unfortunately it didn't catch on and has closed.

Grey Gardens is in the spirit of the traditional musical and features a heck of a performance from Christine Ebersole. It is not perfect and in fact suffers from a lackluster and over-developed first act. But the second act is brilliant and packs a solid punch.

The revival of Sondheim's Company is directed by John Doyle. And a John Doyle production, at least lately, means actors will be playing their own instruments. I didn't like it, but didn't particularly mind it either, with Sweeney Todd. It worked best with Mack and Mabel in London last season. With Company, I found it more effective than in Sweeney Todd, but found it annoying in a couple of scenes. The best part about the instrument thing is that the lead, Bobby, is the only actor not playing an instrument, emphasizing his isolation and disconnection. And Raul Esparza's rendition of Being Alive is worth the price of admission, provided that price was obtained with a discount code or at the half-price booth.

The Little Dog Laughed either just closed or is about to. And too bad for its short run. I thought it was quite funny. Not uproariously funny, but funny. An entertaining day at a show. It probably should have opened in the spring. A fall opening really should be reserved for something you expect to be big or something you plan to be a short run. In the spring I think you get bigger audiences and a chance to make it through the summer and into the next season.

Tom Stoppard's three-part piece, The Coast of Utopia, requires sitting through three different plays. I didn't want to commit to three without knowing what I was getting into. So I saw the first part, called Voyage. I thought it was good, but not great, and certainly not good enough to warrant rushing to see the other two. If I could fit them, I would have. And maybe I still will. But typically Stoppard, it's cerebral stuff and you need a venti coffee or a caffeine pill before sitting through it.

The Apple Tree is worth seeing for one reason ... Kristen Chenoweth. She is fantastic in an otherwise bland musical. She has fast become one of those names people will talk about a generation or two later (as in, "I saw Kristen Chenoweth in...." and people will respond with ooohhs and aaaahhhs). So I think it's always worth seeing her in whatever she does.

The Vertical Hour was a timely piece on the Iraq War and the spectrum of opinion on what America's international role should be. I like Julianne Moore a lot, and she held her own here in her Broadway debut.

The revival of the World War I drama Journey's End is this year's History Boys, at least for me. This was among the most thrilling two hours (plus) I've spent in a theater. Great writing, which is more poignant given today's international climate. Solid performances, especially from Hugh Dancy and Boyd Gaines (who is the heart and soul of the show). Effective lighting and set design. A killer curtain call. A not-to-be-missed production.

And finally, Spring Awakening. The so-called Rent for the "next generation." I'm not sure it's getting the traction it needs to be that groundbreaking, but it is most definitely the "freshest" thing on a New York stage this season. I hesitate to call it great, so I'll say very good. Some excellent music and songs (and a couple lame ones). A unique and effective means of staging. It clearly speaks to a younger, and very adolescent, audience. And they were there in large numbers at the performance I attended. And they loved it. And anything that appeals to a new audience and brings in new people to theater, I think is at least good. Having said that, it's not for everyone and even PG-13 would be a generous rating. But if you would like to see something different, you're not going to do better than this.

That Time of Year

On Sunday night they will hand out this round of Oscars. This year I outdid myself in the number of movies I saw, including in the Foreign Film and Short Film categories. So my thoughts, with my own vote listed first, followed by who I expect the Academy will award.

Original Screenplay
Little Miss Sunshine
Little Miss Sunshine

Adapted Screenplay
The Departed
The Departed

Visual Effects
Superman Returns
Pirates of the Caribbean - Dead Man's Chest

Sound Editing
Blood Diamond
Letters from Iwo Jima

Sound Mixing
Blood Diamond
Dreamgirls

Short Film - Animated
No Time for Nuts
Lifted

Short Film - Live Action
West Bank Story
West Bank Story

Makeup
Pan's Labyrinth
Pan's Labyrinth

Film Editing
Babel
Babel

Cinematography
Pan's Labyrinth
Children of Men

Costume Design
Marie Antoinette
Marie Antoinette

Art Direction
Dreamgirls
Pan's Labyrinth

Original Score
The Queen
The Queen

Original Song
Listen, Dreamgirls
Listen, Dreamgirls

Documentary Short
The Blood of the Yingzhou District
only category I saw nothing in, so this is just a prediction of a winner

Documenatary Feature
Jesus Camp
An Inconvenient Truth

Foreign Language Film
The Lives of Others
Pan's Labyrinth

Animated Feature
Happy Feet
Cars

Supporting Actress
Jennifer Hudson, Dreamgirls
Jennifer Hudson, Dreamgirls

Supporting Actor
Mark Wahlberg, The Departed
Eddie Murphy, Dreamgirls

Actress
Helen Mirren, The Queen
Helen Mirren, The Queen

Actor
Leonardo DiCaprio, Blood Diamond
Forest Whitaker, The Last King of Scotland

Director
Martin Scorsese, The Departed
Martin Scorsese, The Departed

Picture
The Departed
Babel

This Is The Week That Was

So I guess in my first week they threw everything at me ... including the kitchen sink. Okay, well maybe not the kitchen sink. But a carbon-monoxide scare instead.

In the first three hours in my new position, I taught two AP junior classes (one on Our Town, the other on Walt Whitman), managed a personnel issue that involved two different bonehead moves by the same teacher, physically moved fourteen classes to other rooms and/or teachers, transferred eight students to new English classes, fought with the guidance department about the proper protocol for schedule changes - twice, and hung up some posters in the new office. The rest of that first day was more of the same, with more moving out of one classroom and into an office.

The second day was a bit quieter. The third day was more of the same, plus my first "downtown" meeting, mostly about personnel evaluation and supervision. On Thursday, I led my first department meeting, but not before dealing with a potentially toxic (literally) situation.

One of my teachers left school at 9am with a bad headache, a recurring ailment for him the last two weeks or so. He felt that his room might have poor air quality, and might perhaps contain carbon monoxide since children had been complaining of similar aches too. What followed was a crash course for me on carbon monoxide poisoning, detection, and protection. I was brought to the bowels of the building, where computers store and analyze information supplied by various carbon monoxide detectors throughout the building. The head custodian showed me the data from the detector nearest the classroom in question. Then he showed me data from all other detectors for the sake of comparison. I guess a reasonable person would conclude that we have no carbon monoxide problem anywhere in the building. So I concluded just that and reported, with the custodian, as much to the principal.

The teacher returned on Friday, having spent part of Thursday at the doctor's office. He was armed with medical documentation of raised levels of carbon monoxide. So the order was placed for a more advanced test of his room and area, scheduled for Friday afternoon. The result ... nothing. I suspect he might test his apartment and vehicle, just to be sure he's following all precautions.

In the meantime, the principal ordered that I remove the teacher and all classes from the room. So I spent some time Thursday afternoon trying to figure out exactly where to remove them to. I ended up creating a new classroom out of a previously "abandoned" place. The jury is still out on whether it will work as a functional classroom, but it satisfied all concerned parties.

On Friday I attended my first principal's cabinet meeting. I expected a snoozer and got a fireworks display. Some of the other department chairs wanted to use the time to address their concerns over discipline and security issues in the building, and the administration's perceived inability to handle them appropriately. The administrators (i.e., principal and vice principal) became very defensive and a small group of department chairs became borderline offensive (in both meanings of the word). I'm not sure we resolved anything as much as we simply aired many concerns in a loud and chaotic manner. But it was nonethless an exciting first cabinet meeting for me.

And that, in a nutshell, was my opening week. It culminated in a much anticipated, and probably deserved, Budweiser (actually several) among colleagues Friday afternoon.

For the record, Monday of week two was very quiet and mundane. Here's to an uneventful second week.