Movie: Iron Claw (2023)

I love sports stories although I’m not a huge sports fan and I am enjoying how feature films, documentaries and other media are exploring sports stories in different ways. 

It’s about the short reign of the Von Erich family and they’re so-called curse. The patriarch, Fritz, put a lot of pressure on his sons to be successful pro-wrestlers, so much so that they either gave up on or delayed their own pursuits of happiness. Surprisingly, within that storyline, Fritz wasn’t depicted negatively as an antagonist. The movie doesn’t cover everything exactly as it happened to this real-life family. For example, some characters were left out or multiple characters were rolled into one. But the film does a great job of artistically interpreting the broad strokes of their story. 

I really liked how emotions of the characters were explored and how their struggles were depicted. I enjoyed the use of super close-up cameras in action scenes so you got to focus on the characters emotionally while the very physical wrestling was happening. I was moved by the acting of Zac Efron. And ever since I started watching Shameless, I’ve enjoyed seeing Jeremy Allen White on the screen. I could definitely watch Iron Claw again.

I followed Iron Claw with Vice’s Dark Side of the Ring, season 1 episode 4, The Last of the Von Erichs, for a dose of the truth. It was helpful and filled in some of the questions that came up for me in the film. I feel like that’s a good double-feature if you’re going to watch Iron Claw.

Character-driven • Emotionally Intense 

I streamed Iron Claw on Max and Dark Side of the Ring on Hulu. 

Theatre: A Noise Within 2023-24 Season

This season I bought flexpass tickets that I could use to attend any show and I used all but one ticket. I like A Noise Within because they go above and beyond with their theatrical design and I really appreciate that most of the house seats offer great views and the productions often use the space of the theatre to expand the stage.

The Bluest Eye

Based on the Toni Morrison book, The Bluest Eye is a sad story made beautiful and worth experiencing through a quality production and acting that was emotionally intense and angst-filled. 

I saw this with the Parental Units and we ran into my boss. 

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
I was really excited to finally see this musical play live and on stage and I was not disappointed. Away from Tim Burton's workshop, Sweeney Todd includes much darker and sinister themes. 

In this production the actor who played Mr. Todd played a far more miserable version than Johnny Depp. Easy enough. The actors who played Mrs. Lovett and the sailor had amazing voices. I really loved the set design. The cast had to do some improv, when for some reason the wheeled piano almost fell while they were moving the stage around. Most of the audience didn't catch it, but some, including myself, caught it and it was great to see the actors improv around the situation. I saw this with my best friend. 

Theatre: Jelly’s Last Jam

Funny, I was recently saying to myself how oversaturated pop culture is with passing and colorism, but here we go again! Jelly’s Last Jam is the imagined experience of famed jazz innovator, Jelly Roll Morton, while in a kind of purgatory he examines his life. The play deals with his Creole family that turned its back on him, his musical success and his own issues with color, class, and insecurity. 

Music, dancing, costuming and styling were amazing. The New Orleans marketplace scene was so magical. Much more entertaining and a better production value than a similar scene I saw earlier this year in the stage revival of The Wiz. I enjoyed how they depicted the JRM's experiences in different cities. The actor’s voices were so good! Left me wanting to learn more about Jell Roll Morton and the history of jazz.

I saw this musical play at the Pasadena Playhouse in the 2023-24 season with the Valley Librarian. My parents told me that they took me to see Jelly's Last Jam at the Mark Taper Forum when I was little. I looked it up and apparently, I saw the premiere run in 1991, before it went to Broadway and won four Tonys! Cool!

TV: Monsieur Spade (2024)

A noir mystery set in a post WWII village in the south of France where a seemingly retired American PI, finds himself caught into a web of mystery as he tries to make good on a deathbed promise.

Intensifying pace • Intricately plotted • Moody storyline • Developed ensemble characters that supports a main character  

I like that Spade isn’t the normal reckless, sad and brooding detective I’m used to (Doctor Blake, Inspector Morse, etc.). And I like Clive Owen playing him even though his west coast American accent is crap.

I streamed this 6-episode limited series from Amazon Prime that offered this show as a sample of AMC+.

Theatre: A Strange Loop

Overall I thought this musical play was awful.

Theatre experience: I couldn’t decipher the lyrics of most of the songs, which was a combination of my deteriorating hearing and the sound system. One of the friends who accompanied me confirmed they struggled with the actors’ lines and song lyrics. One of the actors’ voices was so shrill, she was difficult to listen to and understand.
The audience didn’t know when to laugh which made for many awkward moments. More often if they did laugh, it was at something that felt inappropriate.
We sat in the back on the uppermost level and I was surprised that the view wasn’t that bad.

The musical play: This is a semi-autobiographical play about an overweight, Black gay man and aspiring playwright named Usher struggling to find success and love in NYC. An ensemble of actors called the Thoughts, bring to life Usher’s inner voices and his ghastly and offensively stereotypical family. There was an unnecessarily graphic sex scene that bordered on rape. A jarring set change evoking a Tyler Perry gospel play. And then it just ended.
It was so depressing with nothing hopeful and barely any humor. The funniest lines were in reference to Tyler Perry always using quotes from The Color Purple.

 
You can scroll through my other posts and learn that I don’t need everything I watch or listen to to be hopeful and/or positive, but I do need something to hook me. There wasn't anything like that in this play. I found this possible explanation for its existence in the program: "... the act of bringing people together from all walks of life to witness a story is still radical and art can still touch each and everyone of us if we let it.... And it is through this act of you sitting here in this theatre that we can all begin to peer through a window into someone else's life, someone else's story, and realize the world is big enough for all of us"(From Come Together: Creating Community by Zach Stafford). Okay. I get it. 

I saw A Strange Loop at the Ahmanson Theater with the East LA Power Couple. This is the only show I saw in the Center Theatre Group 2023-24 season.