My Favorite Flicks of 2011: The Social Network God, I love this flick, and God I love Mr. Aaron Sorkin.  A movie-writing friend of mine doesn’t understand why I love this flick oh-so-much, and it’s because it’s what Aaron Sorkin writes best:  Smart people who love their work.  It’s also, like A Few Good Men, a genius courtroom drama and one is better with dialogue.  Toy Story 3 Pixar never misses.  It’s insane.  The Kids Are All Right Is there a better feel good movie of the year?  And it’s so, so hard to write about real damn people.  Inception This was a buy the ticket, take the ride movie, and I did.  Just don’t think too, too hard about it afterwards.  True Grit Classic, fantastic storytelling, and so enjoyable to view.  Also, one of the many movies this year that proves storytelling is alive and well.   The Town The Rodney Dangerfield of 2011:  Where’s the respect?  It’s not like it’s easy to make an absorbing, well-told, exciting genre flick.  And I think this is a better movie than Gone Baby Gone.  The Fighter Yes, it’s a bit melodramatic, but it works.   Blue Valentine This is a brutal, brilliant flick.  A shout-out to my movie-going colleague, and if you Netflix one flick that you haven’t seen yet this year, this is it.

Rent this please!

Overlooked Movies: Solitary Man A terrific performance by Michael Douglas, and a reunion with Danny DeVito.  A good character film. Cairo Man Is anyone better than Patricia Clarkson?  How is she not up for an Independent Spirit Award?  The Other Guys If you know me, you know I’m a sucker for a Will Ferrell pic, and this is the best one in years.  Rent it! Please Give Oh, Nicole Holfocener, you’re the new, better, female Woody Allen.  Mother and Child Terrible title, good movie, and yes, it was associate produced by a dear friend.  The Ghost Writer Not a great flick, but an entertaining thriller nonetheless.  And yes, I know who helmed it.

Controversial Flick Everyone Else Loved But I Didn’t: Black Swan My father adores it.  To me– and yes, there are good scenes, and yes, you know the scene I’m talking bout– it’s a schlocky psychological mess that if you saw on your couch at 11 pm on the late movie on Cinemax, you’d turn off.  Go ahead, hate me, but watch this awesome Jim Carrey parody from SNL.

And then he goes down on Mila Kunis.

Benign, Heartwarming Flick That Is Overrated The King’s Speech Colin Firth is tremendous, and Geoffrey Rush is always good.  But in it’s history it was written as a two-hander play, and it’s stayed that on film.  Also, the camera angles: Really, Mr. Hooper, really?!

Indies That No One Else Saw: Greenberg, The Extra Man, It’s Kind of A Funny Story…, Tiny Furniture, Cold Weather, Douchebag, Breaking Upwards I’ll spare you a detailed breakdown of each one (and certainly the discovery of the year is Greta Gerwig!), but while I’m impressed they made the movies, none of them dazzled me.  Some were better than others (Breaking Upwards, Tiny Furniture) and some are guilty of the worst sin: wasting Kevin Kline (The Extra Man).

Oh, Greta. You'll be seeing a lot more of her.

What I Ain’t Seen Yet: Winter’s Bone, Another Year, Carlos, Rabbit Hole, Get Low, Daddy Longlegs, 127 Hours, A Prophet, Animal Kingdom

What I’ll Never See: Tron 2

Best Picture Will:  The King’s Speech Dances With Wolves beat Goodfellas, and people are still upset. Same deal here.  Should:  The Social Network Just go watch it again.  A perfect marriage of the storytelling of Sorkin with the artistry of Fincher.  Wasn’t Even Nominated?!  The Town You will not see a more entertaining picture this year.

The Oscar's nice, but I'd like to be knighted.

Best Actor Will:  Colin Firth Should:  Colin Firth I mean, sure, why not?  He’s been so good for so long, though to nominated best actor is Jesse Eisenberg.  ?! Ryan Gosling and Mark Whalberg Gosling gives, hands down, the most honest, raw performance since, really, John Cassavettes.  As for Whalberg, please repeat after me:  It’s a lot harder to pull of a person than someone with an addiction or an illness.

Best Actress Will:  Natalie Portman Should:  Annette Bening You just read what I wrote, right?  ?! Patricia Clarkson Rent Cairo Time and just gaze at her.

Best Supporting Actor Will:  Christian Bale Should:  Jeremy Renner Is there a better, more exciting actor working today?  And I’ll throw my hat in for Mark Ruffalo, as well.  ?! Well, I never, ever thought I’d write this, but Justin Timberlake gives a go-for-broke performance in The Social Network that convinced me he’s an actor.

It's a shockingly good performance.

Best Supporting Actress Will:  Melissa Leo Should:  Melissa Leo And I’m not just writing that because she did a favor to our theatre co. years ago.  She pulls off a real person, and she’s also been so good for so long.  ?!  Helena Bonham Carter over Julianne Moore?!  Are you kidding me?!  Also, keep an eye on The Town‘s Rebecca Hall: Beautiful and talented in a thankless role.

C'mon, Academy, c'mon! Red!

Best Director Will:  David Fincher Should:  David Fincher This’ll split the DGA vote, thankfully.  (Inside baseball?)  Go back and look at his work; it’s a marvelous and continuing career.  Heck, he should’a won for Zodiac.  ?!  Ben Affleck He was left for dead as a terrible movie star, and reinvented himself.  Bring on the next flick, please!

Best Adapted Screenplay Will:  Aaron Sorkin Should:  Aaron Sorkin And now I’m drooling on my keyboard.  Saw the flick twice in the theatre.  Is it too much for me to write he’s the President Bartlet of writers?  ?!  Hmm.  Even I don’t know.

An Oscar's nice. Not canceling "Studio 60" would've been better.

Best Original Screenplay Will:  David Seidler, The King’s Speech Should:  Lisa Cholodenko and Stuart Bloomberg, The Kids Are All Right Is there a film more generous to its honest, human characters?

Well, I know you’re excited about Sound Editing friend, but that’s the show.  Much on some popcorn, please, and root on the lovely Anne Hathaway and the everywhere James Franco!  Goodnight!

Hello, I'm Alec Baldwin.

And I'm Steve Martin.

Well, I don’t have children.  But I do have a blog.

There is so, so much more I want to write about.

The flicks of Woody Allen, 21st century dinner party etiquette, and the passing firing of Joe Morgan, to name a few (“We come not to bury Morgan, but to praise him.”).  The approaching on-slaught of the holidays, a review of the new Springsteen documentary The Promise and the new Muppet named, well, um, Walter, to name a few more.

A year ago today I started this blog.  What a year it has been, on both good and bad terms!  And no doubt I shall reappear with a blog, probably in a way cooler format, though.  But what started as a daily writing exercise has– as even the most casual observer most notice– not been happening too often, and when I get a little time to write, it can’t be for the blog–  for now.  (In other words, we need a new modus operandi.)

I want to thank you, yes you!, my faithful blog readers.  The best part has been hearing from new friends, keeping up with old friends, and even being ready by a stranger or two.

So, keep the faith and keep reading the Internet (you’ll get to the end sometime soon).  A Wally blog will be back.  As I take a leave of absence, here’s an essay I wrote several years back for a screenwriting class at UCLA Extension in good old Westwood, California, entitled ‘Why I Write.’

Why I write:  Because the position of manager of the New York Metropolitans is currently filled by Willie Randolph, and everyone from George Vecsey down to the drunk 22 year old in loge section G, seat 14 A will tell you he’s nowhere near getting fired.  [Editor’s Note: Uh, life changes quickly.  Check back here in a week.]  Because although I’m a trained actor who once nonetheless endured abject humiliation for the idolatry of Carson Daly by appearing gratis on a pilot for something entitled ‘Cyberhood,’ the people who currently have the power haven’t figured out what to do with me yet.  (Whew.  That was a fancy way of saying I’m the male Tea Leoni of my generation.)  Because although I make a really wicked clams risotto, it’s the only dish I make that is wicked.  Or features clams.  Or is a risotto.

Because even though my brain knows its way around a Cole Porter lyric the way Cole Porter’s brain knew its way around the city-streets of Paris, my brain apparently forget to tell my voice.  Because I can’t quite bring myself to complete the last few lines of the application for Rutgers School of Law, Newark.  And even if I could, do you know anyone who keeps a stamp handy in this day and age?

Because the truth is refreshing, but lies are even more delicious.  Because if I sit down to peck at the computer after I’ve had just a bit too much good wine or just a little cheap vodka, I can almost convince myself I’m Aaron Sorkin.  Because I still can’t figure out precisely why you’re supposed to balance your checkbook.  Because it’s been said by someone far less handsome and far more modest than I that Washington is Hollywood for ugly people.  And because I’ve gone on to surmise that Hollywood is strikingly similar to the world of off-off-Broadway, only there’s a slight chance that at the end of Hollywood, they give you a beach house.

Because I know the difference between ‘your’ and ‘you’re.’  Because the position of Zac Helm is apparently already being filled by Zac Helm.  Because it turned out I could kick a dodge ball about as well as I could dodge a dodge ball—which was about as well as I could tell you the chemical properties of the rubber used to make up the kind of ball ineffectively used in dodge ball.  Because I’ll turn thirty soon, and while everyone I know who is currently in their thirties tells me it’s a better decade than their twenties, they also choose to watch Jay Leno over Jon Stewart, so what the hell do they know, really?  And because I can no longer hold my liquor than way I used to be able to hold my liquor, and so the only logical course of events is to write about that most distressing course of events.

Because I absolutely adore run-on sentences.  And because like the writer/performer Spalding Gray, I find life hard, so hard that I sometimes think, ‘Wow.  Life is so hard that Spalding Gray hurled himself off the Staten Island Ferry and into the freezing-cold water.  That’s how hard life is.’  However, unlike the late Mr. Gray, I know how to swim.

Why I write:  A writer who had a more difficult upbringing than I, and thus who we shall presume is smarter, for that and other reasons that to list here would take us onto a verboten second page, once wrote, ‘Writing is acting is directing is living your life.’

Because I want to live my life.

It started out innocently enough: A Christmastime tune came on my iPod while walking home from the gym.  Now, I didn’t put it on, and it was a wintertime tune too (okay, it was “Wintersong,” by, yes, this is embarrassing, Sarah McLachlan) but I didn’t turn it off.  I let it play through.

Now, it is not Christmas!  I am ashamed for mankind to find decorations at the local CVS already, to see lit-up lights on the tree downtown, and I do not want to hear Christmas tunes yet.  (Some people don’t want to hear ‘em ever.)  It’s just past Halloween, we’ve got birthdays and Thanksgiving and then, then, fine: It begins.

But it was cold and the song’s a beautiful one and it came on between Springsteen (iTunes library: thank goodness there are more Bruce songs than holiday tunes) and Death Cab for Cutie (random) and, well, I let it play out.

Why?  Not sure.  Maybe sometimes you need to be reminded of what’s coming.  Maybe ’cause as fall plays out, winter’s going to sneak up on us.  Maybe because despite all my protestations (the decorating! the shopping! yuck!), it’s my second favorite time of the year (August on the Island, anyone?).   Maybe there’s no reason.

I smiled at the tune.  But I’m not ready yet.

No! No! Not Yet! Go Back From Whence You Came...

At the ol' house.

Halloween:  Either the single best day to be a kid (here’s Jerry Seinfeld on Halloween) or a holiday co-opted by drunken and promiscuous adults.  Or, like everything in America these days, both.

I remember the Halloween I was a young boy dressed as an old man (clearly I want to be old).  I remember a memorable one in which, too old to to trick-or-treat, I still went with a high school buddy in my father’s Bill Clinton mask.  A Halloween where I ducked into a few restaurants and parties in the city dressed as Harry Potter.  Senior year in high school, causing a stir as Kramer.

My father's pumpkin.

Last year at a cool Halloween wedding in Maine (yup, those exist) as Groucho Marx.  The year before, Barack Obama (not shockingly).  And of course, the best year:  I’m in second grade, my mother’s in law school so it’s my father’s turn to construct the Halloween costumes.  He gets, shall we say, a little competitive, and wins three out of four categories.  I’m the award-wining homemade Alf.

Below’s earlier today.  Happy Halloween!

Trick-or-treating with the little pumpkin niece. Super Grover!

I just finished season four of AMC’s Mad Men (I’m a busy bee, kids, and therefore a wee bit behind), and upon stumbling upon this most excellent Tumblr blog, a few thoughts in praise of Roger Sterling:

I want to be him.  Yes, it’s Donald Draper Dick Whitman’s show, and he is the spectacular mass of contradictions and foibles that get us to tune in to each precious episode, and not enough good can be said about Joan Harris either, but Roger Sterling:  He says whatever’s on his mind, and it’s usually what no one else will say (“I’ve got to go learn the names of a bunch of people before I fire ‘em.”) and he ususally does after a martini at two o’clock in the afternoon.  He wears a dashing gray suit.  Hell, he beds Joannie Harris.

I suppose one could view Roger’s actions (especially this season) as juvenile, irresponsible, and plain self-destructive.  Exactly.

Okay, so we don’t get to be Roger Sterling in our real lives; there’s laundry and food shopping and the dogs have to go to the vet and work piles up and that’s life, ain’t it?  But therein lies the appeal (and in typing that thought it reminds how we brush certain actions aside; it was Roger Sterling who unforgivably wore blackface and sang a terrible tune).  But all this and he helms an episode and just like Mr. Jon Hamm he gets to guest with Liz Lemon (and yes, I know I just conflated the actor and the character).

Speaking of conflating:  John Slattery’s an old theater hand (one of the reasons he’s so good; he was one of the three original actors in one of my favorite underrated plays, Richard Greenberg’s Three Days of Rain) and right before the launch of Mad Men I used to speak to him fairly regularly, in my favorite old coffee shop, early in the morning.   I’d be writing (or reading the paper) and he’d stop by for coffee and we’d chat baseball–  he being an avowed Boston Red Sox fan and my sympathies lying with the New York Metropolitans.  And he was just a very good regular joe.

So maybe I want to be Roger Sterling.  Or maybe I want to be John Slattery.

Recently a friend hipped me to Hipstamatic, the absurdly simple and addictive photography application (okay, app) for iPhone.

I both love, hate, and fear Hipstamatic because it turns almost any crappy photo snapped on the iPhone into something rather beautiful.  As if to prove, my Hipstamatic photos follow.  (Also, more of my photography is here, and for your true hipsters, here’s the making-the-rounds “save the date” video– yes, those are now a thing– that pays homage the ‘Yankee Review’ section to Rushmore.  It’s here, and it’s legitimately brilliant.  Not like some faux-hipster’s photos he took on his iPhone with an app everyone knows about.)

Ol' 533 Knickerbocker Road

Farmer's Market, Union Square

Lady Liberty

Lower Manhattan

The Metropolitan Transit Authority

Home

NYC

Autumnal

Finally, one of the great aspects of this on-the-go photography is getting to see familiar places in new ways.

With three uniformed Secret Service agents cramping their knees under wooden desks (and secretly wishing they had juice boxes), the President of the United States, unfortunately wearing ‘mom jeans‘, and the First Lady, looking effortlessly resplendent in off-the-rack J. Crew, sit opposite Mrs. Blankenship, their youngest daughter’s grade school teacher.

MRS. BLANKENSHIP.  Now, as you know, your daughter’s had some problems…  she may have taken on a bit too much.  Multiplication tables and primary color drawing may have overwhelmed her agenda.

BARACK.  Well, I think she had to do it all at once–  it was right for her, and it was right for the classroom.

MICHELLE.  Honey, let’s just listen to what the teacher has to say, okay?

MRS. BLANKENSHIP.  Right, well, it just feels like she’s somehow lost control of her own agenda.  I mean, now she’s talking about putting social studies back on the school desk!

BARACK.  Isn’t that were social studies belongs?  She didn’t enroll in grade school to duck the hard issues and pretend it’s preschool, right?

MICHELLE.  My husband and I are very proud of him–  I mean, her, her.

BARACK.  I’d rather she be a good grade school student that also finish junior high with a mediocre record.

MRS. BLANKENSHIP.  Um, I don’t really think that’s the way it works…

BARACK.  Besides, let’s look at what she’s done with her multiplication tables and primary color drawings.  Maybe she’s not getting the recognition she deserves!

MRS. BLANKENSHIP.  A lot of teachers to the left of this classroom feel she didn’t advance enough with her subtraction, while the teachers down the hall to the right think she has too many bold, even radical colors in her drawing.

BARACK.  Radical colors?!

MICHELLE.  I think what my husband is trying to say is that if she’s going to attempt to bring about a diverse and changing color palette to her drawings, you’re not going to be able to make everyone happy.

At this point the President of the United States stands up:

BARACK.  Fired up!  Ready to go!

MRS.  BLANKENSHIP.  Where are we going?  We haven’t even discussed what she said to the school nurse yesterday about death panels.

BARACK.  We’re going to first grade, with or without you!

And then Mrs. Blakenship drops dead– a fitting way to end any scene.

When prompted by a friendly Starbucks barista (there are no other kinds, whether I’m in close-by Englewood, NJ, across the country at the one in the Continental LAX terminal, or, say, in the middle of the country were there is blessedly a Starbucks– replete with the New York Times– a short walk from the hotel in Buda, Texas) I always give a fake name.  Not because I’m some sort of paranoid person, but because isn’t it fun in life– just for a moment, even– to slip your own identity.  So for the price of a latte I can become a ‘Will’ or a ‘Stephen’ or a ‘Max’.  And even though I do it all the time, I still feel a little thrill–  like I’m getting away with something!

I suppose this is the kind of harmless yet mischievous behavior that chases people onto the stage.

So try it, the next time you’re ordering a coffee or giving your name to a telemarketer or any of the other simple tasks that fill up our days while pretending to have a hold on our identity.  Become someone else, if only for the briefest of moments.

How did a pop song from 1981 (1981–  I was four!) conquer the world?

Everybody loves Journey, yes, and everybody loves the tune (and seemingly everybody, everywhere, knows all the words), but so so what–  the same can be said of lots of tunes, lots of wedding staples (okay, so “Jessie’s Girl” comes to mind).  How did this particular song– from 29 years ago– become so ubiquitous?

According to Wikipedia (and they’re never wrong, right?) the single never went to number one on the Billboard charts upon original release (stalling out at number eight), but is one of the most downloaded songs ever on iTunes.  It’s ben co-opted by popular culture and sports teams, and has even been covered by (a sure sign anything is here to stay) Alvin and his fellow Chipmunks.

Ad yes, I love the song, unironically.  It’s a great, hummable, everyone-loves-the-tune tune.  But why this particular tune?

I don’t know.  I do know that 29 years from now we better be ready for the surprising staying power of the Black-Eyed Peas’ “I Gotta Feeling”.

Though thanks to a friend of the blog I’m determined to not continually begin these mini-exercises with the words ‘What is it about…’, but:  Fall– everyone loves it!  (Some time ago The Onion had one of their brilliant headlines:  ”Fall, Beloved Classic Retires After 3,000 Years.”)  For a good number of people it seems to be their very favorite season, and I never concurred; to me– and any school kid– it meant the end of freedom, the return from Nantucket, the end of summer!

Now, of course, when you’re at a time and place in your life when the rhythms and guidelines of school would be especially welcome, I’m beginning to appreciate fall for the first time this year.  (Maybe it’s because this is really my first fall on the East Coast in five years.)  Yes, it’s wedding season (and I do love those, each and every one), but it’s also that crisp air, the excuse to bake with apples and take two walks with the dogs yesterday (it as just that beautiful) and look forward to what is really my favorite holiday, Thanksgiving.

Maybe fall’s a bit like Paul McCartney–  not your favorite Beatle when you’re young, a little dull in fact, but as you get older you appreciate him more.  (I mean, we’re young young the idea of taking a drive to look at leaves, the actual word for ‘foliage’, is just ludicrous.)

Or maybe this is just a guy waxing nostalgic on weather and playoff baseball and roasted root vegetables.