Chicken Fried

Cage in top form - Pic courtesy of WorldView

by Trebor Snillor
Today I’m on vacation, sitting at the Knox Street Starbucks. Thought I’d have the whole place to myself and I’m amazed to see it crammed with people. I’m having to type this from an arm chair -- a first for this blog. The weather is overcast and cold -- 54 degrees outside. The national news isn’t too exciting. Kathleen Sebelius just resigned from Health & Human Services.. considering the disaster that was the Affordable Care rollout I’m surprised it took that long. From various summaries I saw, the IT aspect was almost an afterthought for the senior politicos involved. Obamacare finally signed up 7.5 million people but not without a protracted period of apologies, fixes and finger-pointing. With that said, I’ll move along to my movie review..

SOUTHERN GOTH

I love movies with a Southern setting. There’s something about the crazed emotions and perverse trajectories of faded gentry in a Louisiana swampland -- it gets right down to the business of human frailty. There is but a thin veneer of politesse to conceal the criminal pasts and sexual improprieties of the characters at hand. Why this has to happen in Jackson, Monroe or Dallas (never Detroit) I don’t know. I guess the North just lacks tempestuousness.

This weekend I watched two movies that easily rise to the occasion -- August: Osage County and a sleeper movie titled Joe. Osage County is an all-star movie giving us the highly dysfunctional Weston women in a large farm house near Tulsa. Meryl Streep is a standout as the bitter, nasty, pill-addled matriarch battling mouth cancer. Her three grown daughters all bear the marks of that turbulent upbringing, with their own individual baggage to carry along. The movie does not disappoint -- it gives us a suicide and incest before the day is done. Southern gothic movies walk a fine line between serious storytelling and self-parody. Unfortunately, so does real life, so maybe that’s OK after all.

JOE

Nicolas Cage is one of my favorite actors and to me at least -- he’s a living legend. His bearish persona is balanced by a smart sensitivity that is rarely seen. The 50ish actor has lapsed into some silly exploitation films like Ghost Rider, but in the movie Joe -- we get to see Cage at his best. In this movie he plays a burly ex-convict trying to rehabilitate himself as a foreman on a crew of day laborers who clear trees out of pastures. He extends a helping hand to a 15 year old boy from an abusive home; from there Joe is ensnared in a toxic fight with the boy’s ruthless father and a scar-faced associate. Joe was filmed in Austin, Bastrop and Taylor, Texas -- all places close to where I grew up. The movie has an authentic feel to it -- even if it takes you to places that are squalid and crude. Joe is rated R and earns that in a couple of places -- don’t watch if you’re squeamish. Do watch if like me -- you are a fan of Nicolas Cage.

CONCLUSION

The sun has come back out and Starbucks is less crowded. I have actually composed this entire article balancing a Chromebook in my lap. If you’re looking for some good movies I’d recommend either of the above. Joe is actually in theaters now -- I viewed a “pre-release” on Apple TV for $6.99.

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