Farragut North (Atlantic Theatre Company, The Linda Gross Theatre 336 West 20th Street)

November 13, 2008

Got a chance to see the hottest play in New York City. Bad weather got me the last ticket. Farragut North is play loosely based on experiences of working on the Howard Dean and Hillary Clinton campaigns of 2004.

The play starts in a bar couch with two political hacks, their assistant and a New York Times reporter. Just what you would expect to paint the scene of back office politics. Chris Noth ( you know from Law and Order and Sex and the City) is the senior hack. Broadway star John Gallagher Jr. plays the hotshot Stephen. Stephen has the press in the palm of his hands. The banter goes back and forth. Noth takes up most of the space as the guy as gained a considerable amount of weight, he is much bigger than you may remember from TV. The chemistry doesn't work. The actors seem forced. Gallapher dominates the scene, Noth doesn't seem comfortable with that. Nevertheless, the scene works, because characters and conflicts are set up.

Everyone leaves except Stephen. Two things happen that set the story in motion. Stephen meets Molly. Molly is an attractive 19 year old intern. I wish that she wasn't an intern. I mean you know where this is going. An intern, come on! Molly is played by Olivia Thirlby. Olivia Thirlby couldn't look less like Monica Lewinsky, but her shadow is all around this character.

The second thing is that Stephen gets a phone call from the opposition in the Democratic Race. He meets this guy and doesn't tell his boss Noth. Stephen is asked to jumped ship. He told that the polls have been manipulated, and Stephen's candidate is not way ahead but in fact way behind. Stephen is conflicted and gives a tenuous "no!" Stephen goes back to the bar and screws the intern.

The next day, Stephen realizes that he has committed mutiny and confesses to his boss (Noth).

Stephen tries to make amends for his action, but things have changed. Shortly, knowledge of Stephens meeting is leaked to the New York Times reporter. He is confronted by the reporter. Now Stephen knows he in deep trouble. He tries to find out who screwed him. It seemed obvious to me that it was Noth. However, in the play, Stephen laboriously confronts everyone else but Noth. Until the lastly, Noth spills the beans.

This is a very good scene. Stephen is being a whinny little bitch. Noth plays it perfectly. He is the man. Watching the play you wonder what women see in Noth. He just looks an old fat guy. Here, though, he shows that he is a man's man.

Stephen goes backs and begs for the job on the other team, but they won't hire him. They just wanted Stephen out of the game. Either on their side or just out. It would look bad to hire him at this time under this heat. They knew that Noth was big on loyalty so they figured they would get Stephen or Noth would fire him. Stephen has just been screwed again.

He returns to his hotel room drunk and Molly, the intern, enters. After almost beating her. Stephen call the New York Times reporter from Molly's phone, and tells her about Molly and Noth. So, now everyone gets screwed.

In the very end, Noth is fired too, because of the scandal with the intern.

The play has excellent acting. A smart script full of bad words and fast double talk. The play obviously has more relevance before the Election. It does lack in overall story. It is a little predictable. Except for Noth's character there wasn't much character development. Olivia Thirlby plays exactly like she does in every film I have ever seen her in; that and the fact you never her face the audience directly was very disappointing. Still, it is very good, but it could have been much much better.

The Wackness (2008)

OMFG! They have already made a 90’s nostalgia movie. This is a film about a teenager in the summer of 1994 in New York City. I was a teenager in 1994 in New York City. Dude, do I feel old!

The Wackness is a historical period piece centered on a teenage boy circa 1994. It is another coming of age film. There has to be, like, ten a year, but unlike Rushmore, Napoleon Dynamite, and Juno, which are basically the same movie, where the audience sees a quirky and somehow brilliant lead character , and how the world reacts to him or her, this one is pre-Wes Anderson, Old Skool, where the teenage character is the only sane person in a sea or crazy or shallow people around them.

This is not a happy drug film a la Harold and Kumar. Instead this is a moody and sometimes dark feature where the character has some seriously instabilities in his life. His parents are losing their apartment and he might have to live with his grandparents in New Jersey. He has graduated High School and had gotten into his safety college. The only support he has is Hip-hop, which provides a false persona that he has control of his life, which is really has no control over anything at all. The only personal support he has is a therapist whom is pays in drugs. He tries to take care of his family by trying to sell enough drugs to save his home.

Our hero’s name is Luke.

A social outcast and loner, people his age, who are mostly lost, bored, and wealthy kids (like from the movie Kids) are only interested in him for the drugs. He does meet one girl, Stephanie; Juno’s honest-to-blog friend played by Olivia Thirlby. Stephanie is uses Luke mainly because she is bored and Luke is a distraction.

In the end, everything falls apart for Luke, but somehow like every teenage films, he will survive. I guess, such films are a solute the resiliency to an age group that knows much drama real or imaginary.

A tribute to the nineties, The Wackness drops as much nineties references that it can per second of screen time. Whether it be a Zima, biggie Smalls, or having Mary-Kate Olsen who seems like a living relic under 30 years old, the film never lets you forget the time period. Sadly in the pre-9/11 movie the CGI World Trade Center towers they get wrong. Maybe the outsourced the work. The towers don’t look right. They look shorter and fatter than the original structures looked.

Overall, the movie is rather depressing. The characters, all of them, are lost. Despite the fact that these types of people are plentiful in New York City, they are not the majority; nor do represent life and vivaciousness of the time, especially in the nineties.

Juno (2007)

Coming to the Lifetime network for women soon, is the new movie Juno. Juno had all making of a woman’s movie, except for the man screwing the woman over part. There are women helping women. Every woman is a heroine. Every man is nebbish. So, it is a like a heterosexual feminist movie.

The movie tries very hard to be a cool indie film a la Napoleon Dynamite (2004) and Rushmore (1998), which are the archetypes. It might have faired better taking a bit from Ghost World (2001), which is a similar and superior movie with the same themes as this one. I see this as the fault of the director, Jason Reitman. Actually, movie tries so hard at the beginning to be artsy film of the year that it is a bit boring at the start. There is the very pretentious animated introduction, which was like so cool, like seven years ago. The symbolism of cross country male runner being sexuality gets old real fast. Luckily, the story kicks in and the film becomes very enjoyable. I think the biggest reason that the film is lacking at the beginning is that you don’t really understand the true nature of the relationship between Juno, Ellen Page and Bleeker, Michael Cera.

In the film, Juno is pregnant, and Bleeker is the father. ( I think that the name Bleeker is a side referring to the Muppets Bleeker in a gen-X way, because the character comes across as a teen Bleeker from the Muppet show. ) It is towards the end of the movie that you realize that Juno and Bleeker are two friends that hang out all the time and decided to have sex one day, as oppose to typical boyfriend-girlfriend dynamic. It would have been good if that was clearer in the beginning.

When the story does kick in, you fall in with the dramas and character of Juno, who is an angelically delightful. Juno is pregnant, and is supported by friends and family, plans, to give her baby up for adoption. She finds the perfect yuppie couple to take the baby. After that she has to deal with the pregnancy and a love triangle of sorts between the baby’s father, Bleeker, and the husband of the yuppie couple; who is played by Jason Bateman, and a he looks a lot like a slightly younger Bono. It sounds cheesy but it works.

Juno, herself, was a joy. Ms. Page brought a lot of good energy and youthfulness to the role. It sort of makes the film. I am always impressed by the generation 9/11. I always get the impression that 90’s were so weird and the era 9/11 has been for horrible that this generation is somehow looking for normalcy. I see this in the way they speak and dress. Somehow it seems both youthful and straight forward. In some ways it is hopeful where previous generations have tried to be so extreme or iconoclastic. It is refreshing to get away from that.

I think what I like the most about Juno, the character, is that she just goes on. This is a coming of age film, probably the millionth one this year. In the end things work themselves out but not without some working at it. I liked that too.

One of the more interesting aspects of the film is the attention to detail in the film. Take a look at the walls in the film, like an old Simpson’s episode, it is filled with interesting stuff. Bleeker has Hebrew letters on the back of his door, Juno’s friend has a picture that has Bill Clinton’s face and really built guy’s body, which I am not sure if really funny or disturbing. On the wall by the staircase, there is really cheesy couple of pictures of the couple who wants to adopt the baby.

I think I will see this movie again. It is not the greatest film ever made, and it has plenty of flaws but I would say that it is one of the ten best films of the year. If Rocket Science (2007) was the male equivalent of this story this year, Juno is the female version. The dialogue is charming and fun. In the end, it is a cute movie.