Summer Movie Season: It's No Rocky...

Is there any other sport that has been built for the screen better than boxing? Maybe Baseball. And Football. And let’s not forget Space-Basketball, best encapsulated by the wonderful documentary, Space Jam. I guess the bottom line is that sports can make good movies. But Boxing seems to stand tall among them. Perhaps it’s the storytelling involved with a good boxing match. Maybe it’s all our conditioning from the various Rocky movies. (There’s another one coming out this Fall, starring the same guy that played the Human Torch. Presumably he won’t be on fire, nor will he be in a horrible movie.)

Such is the case with Southpaw, the latest boxing drama to tell the story of downfall and then eventually, redemption.

Oh, and if you’re worried that this is a spoiler “there will be redemption” let’s be real for a few minutes. It has redemption. You know there’s going to be redemption from the trailers. Even the “sad ending” movies feature redemption, or lessons about going the distance. Let’s be reasonable. 

The movie is about Billy Hope (played by Jake Gyllenhaal, who at this point really might be a shapeshifter. Seriously. Look at the way he melds into each role, including this one) who is on top of his game. He’s the Light Heavyweight Champion, he’s got a beautiful wife (Rachel McAdams), a daughter (Oona Laurence, asked to carry a lot of the movie), a mansion, a bunch of hangers on... He’s got it all. Naturally, he has to fall, because there’s only so much time that can be spent in a movie where someone has it all. Even Tony Stark is kind of insufferable until he loses his heart. Although in that case it’s sort of literal. But you know what I mean.

During a charity event, he’s challenged by an up and coming plot device jerk who stirs things up during a charity event, because why not? Don’t worry, Miguel “Magic” Escobar won’t pop up again until things are needed narratively. During the fight, though, Hope’s wife is killed. Not really a spoiler as it was mentioned in the trailers, and not really a spoiler so much as “part of the plot.” This leads Hope to depression, alcoholism, suspension from boxing, and the loss of literally everything including his daughter who is not only in the foster care system, but growing emotionally distant from him as well.

All is lost!

The problem with Southpaw is what I just managed to write there... that’s the setup. We’re show all of this in glorious detail, learning all about how Hope has a wonderful life that’s taken away, and if you forget it, the movie hammers in it during several scenes that pretty much could be part of the backstory. The far more interesting part is watching Billy get back on his feet again: learning to be an adult, working at the old gym under Titus Wills (Forest Whitaker) who should have entered holding a cane wearing a robe and speaking like Fozzie Bear, because he’s very obviously the Yoda character. But by the time we get to these scenes we’ve already witnessed a lot of Hope’s self destruction. He’s stopped caring (in fact it’s only when he loses his daughter than he starts caring) but it’s difficult to really care about this character. 

The redemption is what gets the short end of the stick, with Hope obviously rejecting the offer to clean up the gym - he has his pride - but crawling back when he doesn’t have a choice. This is the in the span of a few minutes, where we’ve just witnessed an hour in of Hope’s destruction in excruciating detail. It sort of makes you wonder what the movie is trying to be about: Hope’s redemption or Hope’s suffering?

And that’s a shame, because the second half of this movie, the one that focuses on him as he rises up from working in a tiny gym and fighting in charity fights back to competing for the championship, is really interesting. But we’re relegated to just a few shots of him training, bonding with the teenager that will die and motivate him, and eventually we are literally back where we start - Hope boxing in the big time, narrative built around the man who was involved in the altercation that resulted in the death of a woman but didn’t really suffer for it at all. 

The actors are really the good sell with this movie, particularly Gyllenhaal and McAdams, who are pretty convincing as a husband and wife who have known each other most of their lives. Even 50 Cent shows up as Hope’s manager, a sleazy character that probably needs just a little more screen time to develop as someone who is riding the Hope train long enough. Really i could have used more of 50 Cent, as he holds together a lot of the narrative theme of the movie, particularly helping Hope overcome his suspension by doing what he does, capitalizing. 

Overall, not a bad movie by any means. Just one that doesn’t live up to the potential set up in it’s second half. 

Seven out of Ten

Bad Shakespeare Takes England: Training with the Royal Shakespeare Company

            Back when I was beautiful, I wanted to be an actor.

            Well, not an actor, per se, but I loved the theatre. Which is why initially ended up on a theatre tour of London that was specifically noted towards undergrads but I figured they’d allow me because I’m so handsome and awesome and why not? But I knew Rick Davis, the leader of our merry band of misfits, from back when I wanted to work with the theatre and be a director. I even continued this trip during my little jaunt down Education Way, when I took some classes in teaching theatre, because, well, I still love theatre in my heart.

            Of course, nothing could prepare me for the announcement that I would be taking classes with the Royal Shakespeare Company.  In Stratford Upon Avon. Mere Steps from where the man himself, Will.I.Am Shakespeare was born and got the inspiration to steal most of this most famous plays.

            (Hey, I’m the biggest bardolator you will find, but let’s remember that good writers write, great writers steal. It’s how we ended up with Fast and the Furious, Tokyo Drift.)

            Needless to say, after the squealing stopped (I found out about it in early December, I still had about a month and some change and that’s a long time to keep squealing like a fangirl at a One Direction concert. Are they still a thing? Zayn was carrying them for a while.) I was ready to get started to train with the Freakin’ RSC. The kings and queens of Shakespeare, the bard himself.

            I was a little bit nervous as I walked up the stairs that took me towards the theatre space where I would be training with them. As mentioned, the last time I was in any type of role that could be considered an actor, I really don’t think the world knew what a “Barack Obama” was just yet, and many of the members of One Direction were just learning to speak and had not yet been thrust into the spotlight.

            Sorry, this Zayn thing has really gotten into my head.

            Anyway, my group was filled with some really talented actors and actresses, and here I was, some guy that wanted to come along to analyze some plays and eat some of the best fish and chips on the planet. (And. They. Were. AWESOME.) But, I sucked it up, partly because I was graded, and partly because, let’s face it, it’s the freakin’ RSC, and how many other opportunities will I get to work with them.

            Once there, the lovely young lady who was leading the group started to talk to us about that night’s play, Love’s Labour’s Won or Much Ado About Nothing. As I refuse to refer to it as both for the rest of this post, I’m going with what the fancy British people told me to call it, and that is Love’s Labor’s Won, and since that’s a pain to keep typing with the whole apostrophe thing, I’m going to start abbreviating as LLW.

            So, the crux of LLW is the fact that it is one of Shakespeare’s most verbally challenging plays. It’s a prose play, which means limited use of iambic pentameter. So, this was going to be a lot of physical and verbal exercises.

            The whole thing started with us getting in a giant circle, and having to introduce ourselves with hand gestures. It helped at this point that we had all been hanging out for a week, so we all pretty much knew each other, but there were a few people who’s names I didn’t quite know and still managed to butcher when I did. (Sorry, Alessandro.) From there we moved on to movement, moving around the circle while saying everyone’s names, from there we started to move while NOT saying anyone’s name and cuing people non-verbally.

            Then we did this really cool exercise with some chairs where we tried to mimic each other as much as possible. It was a fun little trip as we tried to find more and more creative ways to top people, and ended up in a clap off with, once again, Alessandro. This was done because Benedict and Beatrice were constantly trying to one up each other in LLW with their dialogue, and we wanted to a visual cue of it.  It was actually pretty awesome.

            There were a few other exercises, but by the end we were performing scenes using narrators, and limited actors (in which I had a pretty interesting turn as Hero. This was Shakespeare. There were only male actors. I’d like to think I was the prettiest.)

            I’ve always been interested in acting along with the whole “play” thing (in which we capture the conscience of the king…) but this gave me a different understanding for it. All of the games, exercises, and whatever were geared toward better understanding the play we were about to see. And it started small. It started with just a few minutes calling each other’s names, getting to know each other. Because acting is very much a group activity. You have to play with the energy that you’re given. This is something that was very evident in the Scottsboro Boys, and something I’ll talk about when I recap their visit to our classroom. But especially a play like LLW, that lives and dies on the belief that these two characters are falling in love, or that three of these characters have been best friends for a while, or even when a certain Dogberry makes his presence known as the smartest…. Or luckiest guy in the room. These aren’t just random actions. These are cultivated from months of intensive work, from trusting your fellow actors, and from the risk taking that can only be had by making a fool of yourself a little bit.

            I’d like to think I held my own with the talented actors and actresses that allowed me to accompany them on the trip to train with the RSC. But we all have two bucket lists. One we admit to – Hey, I want to drop everything and take a trip to Japan one day… and another one that we don’t think will ever happen, not in our wildest dreams. “Hey, I want to take a trip to Japan and treat Nicolas Cage to a hot sake.” Training with the RSC, even for one day (let alone BEING IN Stratford Upon Avon) was on that second list. The Nicolas Cage list. And I got to do it.

Acting! First You Must Make Your Voice High Like This, Then Go Low, Like This...

        Another semester down!

As I have mentioned, I took a class in Theatre. More specifically, how to be a Theatre Teacher. A little bit because when I started the class I had been a George Mason Employee and I wanted to take the class and it was free. A little bit because Theatre is really an overlooked art form for anyone who speaks in front of people, and that’s just about everyone except those scientists who work in basements creating some of the coolest things on the planet but then give it to other people who do the presenting. And who probably took theatre! FULL CIRCLE, BABY!

Moving on.

When I first started the class, I kind of felt a bit like an outsider. Everyone knew everyone else. In my zeal to sign up for the class, I’d neglected to see that it was actually the second part of a two part course, and pretty much everyone met and knew each other during that first class. (Also, theatre is notoriously close knit so... yeah. ) I was just sort of the oddball English guy that sat in the corner and went to the Professor after the first day of class and explained my situation. Her name is Mary Lechter, and I’ve never felt more included than when she let me know that I should stick around, and it would be fun. And boy, was it.

It was actually the more informative of classes I’ve taken over the past few semester. We’d get a unit, something that had to be taught, then we’d have to make an entire lesson plan around this unit, down to how much time we’d spend on each thing, then we’d pick one of those things and teach the class. It ended up being a lot of fun, we’d spend time annoying the other classes that were learning to math or something like that. (Take THAT, Mason Scheduling that won’t put us in a theatre classroom.)

I really enjoyed the time I spent in the class and the time I spent getting to know everyone. I’d like to think that not spending all that time not taking theatre classes let me think outside the box and do unique activities and things other people didn’t think of. I don’t know if it actually was, but I had a good time doing it. I can even remember the dark period, when things were falling apart, this was still a groovy class to come to, and a good time where I was able to cut loose, and the times I did have enough and I had to dread what came next... well it really helped me go through that.

It’s rare that a class ends, and I wish I were still taking it. Tuesday mornings were horrible... I was running around until 10 at night... but man... I’m going to miss having that class on Monday nights.

So, now it’s on to what’s next for my teaching adventure. Next up I’ll be chronicling my adventures in attempting the Praxis 2, then hopefully soon I will be chronicling my adventures in student teaching. That’s what’s next for me.

Quickly, Someone Call a Folklorist!

               As you may be able to tell from reading this blog, the commercials on the radio or television, or just looking out the window at the bright yellow school bus starting to roam around neighborhoods, looking for children’s summer dreams to crush, we are firmly within the grip of back to school days.

                This is true of everyone, including your good buddy here at Bad Shakespeare. That’s right… as of Monday, I will be returning to the classroom to take two very special classes. I call them very special because I don’t have to take them. I’m just learning for the sake of learning at this point. But this year I will be taking an introduction to teaching Theatre class, and a class in Folklore. As you can tell that I am expecting to be given ALL OF THE MONEY once I finish these two classes and emerge into the world.

                I joke but this goes back to a point I’ve made time and time again: classes for the sake of learning. The Theatre class might be useful in my future as a teacher (Whereupon I can throw my arms up Jon Lovitz-style and scream “ACTING!” at the top of my lungs. If they don’t teach us how to do this properly in the class, then my tuition is wasted.) However outside an episode of Supernatural or Buffy the Vampire Slayer, there’s not much need for a folklorist in modern society. (But if any werewolves want to attack around this area so I can come to the police’s aid, I’d appreciate it.)

                So why am I taking it? Because I like Folklore. I’d like to know more about Folklore. I’d like to enjoy my time in class, read some cool folklore stories, and I’d like to explore what makes folklore folklore. (I’m also going to try to stop using the world “Folklore”. It’s starting to look strange.) I want to enjoy my time. I’ve had several years of education courses, not all of which were my first choice to take but required by “the man.” So now I have a rare opportunity. I’m a Grad Student who’s done with most of his classes, can’t take one of them just yet, someone else is paying and I have the time. So why not?

                But that’s just me. I know a lot of students are going to get their heads filled with (and I’m paraphrasing) “omygodyouhavetotakeacoursenowthatwillsecureyourwholefuture!” Yes, I understand that when it comes time for the job market, “folklore” isn’t going to be as enticing than “economics” or “just about anything else.”

                At the end of the day, beyond the perfect future that you think you’re planning for yourself (and will inevitably change based on the whims of whoever is pulling the strings) you have to take a few minutes to enjoy yourself. Relax. Take a stupid class that won’t count for something. Why? Because learning should be enjoyable. Remind yourself what learning is supposed to be about: discovering more about something that fascinates you.

                But you know, if a werewolf were to hang around here for a bit, I'd be pretty useful.