Calypso (2018) by David Sedaris: Sedaris is an extraordinarily gifted comic writer whose observations about family, life, and the FitBit in this volume often move into an understated poignance that never becomes mawkish or overly flippant. The comic essays included here (no short stories this time around) appeared between 2016 and 2018.
The adventures of his family and himself go into some dark places here, including the suicide of a sister whom Sedaris and his siblings (there are six Sedaris children in total) have been avoiding because of exhaustion for years... in David's case, eight. He never lets himself off the hook. He also never loses his almost-trademarked gift at portraying the absurd moments of almost any event, any person.
Most notably himself.
A sequence involving a snapping turtle, a beach house, and a non-cancerous fatty tumour on Sedaris' stomach really has to be read. Maybe with a bit of vomit coming up in one's mouth from time to time. Sedaris doesn't spare us his misadventures in stomach flu, falling off ladders on Christmas Day, and failing to interact in a meaningful way with his emotionally distant and physically and mentally declining nonagenarian father.
I think it's all pretty much dandy, the sort of humour that supplies catharsis and belly-laughs. It's not his finest collection of humourous essays -- that would probably be When You Are Engulfed in Flames (2008). But it's a lot of sometimes serious fun. Calypso will certainly delight longtime readers of Sedaris, and it also serves as a fine introduction to his work. Highly recommended.
Apocalypse Now: The Final Cut (2019): written by Francis Ford Coppola, John Milius, and Michael Herr; loosely based on the novella Heart of Darkness (1899) by Joseph Conrad; directed by Francis Ford Coppola; starring Martin Sheen (Willard), Marlon Brando (Kurtz), Laurence Fishburne (Mr. Clean), Harrison Ford (Lucas), Scott Glenn (Kurtz Convert Lt. Colby)), Robert Duvall (Kilgore), Sam Bottoms (Surfer Lance), Frederic Forrest (Chef), Albert Hall (Chief), Dennis Hopper (Photojournalist), G.D. Spradlin (General Corman), and [Uncredited] Joe Estevez (Stand-in/Partial Voice-over 'Stand-in' for brother Martin Sheen):
Hey, it's Apocalypse Now, so a chance to see it in any cut on a big screen was a treat. And it improves on Apocalypse Now Redux by omitting the dire, momentum-killing 'Crashed Playboy Bunnies' sequence!
However, it keeps the other major addition, the French Plantation sequence, to mixed effect: it's the one part of the film that plays as potentially supernatural, which is not really in keeping with the rest of the movie. However, there are also cues throughout the sequence that it might not really be happening at all -- not least of which is the sudden transition from Willard's opium scene to the boat back on the fog-saturated river.
Brando is great, and on a big screen, almost life-sized! One of no more than a hundred of the greatest movies ever made, all done without CGI! Highly recommended, though you could replicate it by simply omitting a couple of scenes from Redux on a rewatch. The surfboard-stealing scene is also a hoot, though also in Redux. Highly recommended.
The Godfathers of Hardcore (2017): written and directed by Ian McFarland, co-written by Tony Fernandez; featuring Roger Miret and Vinnie Stigma of Agnostic Front: Fascinating documentary on seminal New York Hardcore Punk band Agnostic Front, still touring and recording now after 35 years in the business. The film focuses on founding guitarist Vinnie Stigma and current (for at least 25 years) lead vocalist Roger Miret.
Stigma is fascinating and outspoken. It's Miret who does all the stuff that keeps the band going in terms of bookings and financial work, however, and his self-imposed overwork seems to lead to a heart attack documented late in the film.
But he keeps on going -- as the film notes, Agnostic Front had played over 400 shows between the completion of filming and the release of the movie, all this after Miret had a wireless heart monitor implanted to monitor his still undiagnosed heart problem. Makes a fine bookend to Crave's 2019 4-part PUNK miniseries. Recommended.
