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Arts
Wednesday, November 2, 2016 — 5A
NETFLIX
It’s kilt season.
Guest’s ‘Mascot’ lacks
luster of his prior films
Mockumentary focused on mascot competition silly, but overkill
FILM REVIEW
A few months ago, GQ ran
a health-focused profile of Bill
Clinton. The former president
was but a sliver
of his former self,
the color drained
from his lips and
his
southern
grit
and
charm
absent
from
his
defenses of liberal
politics.
Quietly
devastating,
the
profile painted a
portrait of greatness (scandals
aside, President Clinton was
indisputably
a
phenomenal
politician) in decline.
Similar words could be written
about Christopher Guest, the
king
of
mockumentaries.
A
starring role in Rob Reiner’s
“This Is Spinal Tap,” about a
British hard rock band in decline,
led to a brief stint on “Saturday
Night Live “and then a string
of phenomenal improvisational
mockumentaries, “Waiting for
Guffman,” “Best in Show,” “A
Mighty Wind” and “For Your
Consideration.”
These
films,
planned but unscripted, brilliantly
pick apart inane, niche worlds
ripe for comedic emasculation:
Small-town community theater?
Dog shows? Folk music? Oscars
fanaticism? Nothing is off limits
for Guest and his repertory
company
of
improvisational
actors, who inhabit quirky roles
with a deftness that defies human
comprehension.
Guest, who would star in his
films
alongside
the
brilliant
likes of Jane Lynch (“Talladega
Nights”),
Catherine
O’Hara
(“Home Alone”), Eugene Levy
(“Finding Dory”) and so many
others, showed just as much
brilliance in front of the camera
as behind it. But in “Mascots,” his
return to filmmaking after a ten-
year hiatus (albeit interrupted by
a TV show, “Family Tree,” and a
wonderful segment at the 2012
Oscars), Guest is only a remnant
of his former self, color faded from
his face like the former president.
Reserving himself to a small
role, and lacking
O’Hara and Levy,
his two greatest
stars, Guest’s latest
project resembles
more an off-kilter
impression
of
himself
than
a
further
addition
to his impressive
oeuvre.
Perhaps that’s because the
subject of the film — a mascot
competition — feels like a rehash
of “Best in Show,” which focused
on a dog show competition.
Quirky characters from around
the
world,
dedicated
to
a
pointless competitive activity,
are introduced one by one and
descend on the host city, mix
and mingle and then compete
(with a number of setbacks) until
a winner is named. But it’s not
just the context that feels overly
familiar; so many of the specific
events and character types that
feature in “Best in Show” return
in “Mascots,” which renders
the
film
utterly
predictable,
especially if one has seen “Best
in Show” countless times like me.
Even the opening scene — a couple
in the competition bickering with
each other in a Shakespearean
depiction of ill fate — is directly
copied. It’s unfortunate because
Guest’s
films
revel
in
their
imagination
and
creativity.
Predictability ought to be an
anathema, rather than a defining
feature of a Guest film.
Perhaps it’s also the strong
sense of removal the film can’t
help but evoke. Netflix is a great
platform for experimentation, but
its penchant for expressive color
palettes (think the bright pinks
and yellows in “Unbreakable
Kimmy Schmidt” or the intensely
faded colors in “House of Cards”)
gives “Mascots” a sheen of artifice
that ruins its lived-in world.
Mascotery, as the characters call
it, isn’t nearly present enough
as a competitive field in pop
culture for us to really laugh.
Dogs aren’t particularly silly in
and of themselves, but dog shows
are rather ludicrous. The Oscars
aren’t inherently ripe for humor,
but the pageantry surrounding
the desire to be nominated for
one is. I had thought that mascot
competitions were an invention
of
Guest
(Google
corrected
me — they are in fact real), but
mascots themselves are a rather
funny concept. The added layer
of a competition seemed to be
overkill.
That’s not to say the film isn’t
worth watching. Anytime Guest’s
regulars are assembled on screen,
hilarity ensues. I lost it when
Jennifer
Coolidge
(“Legally
Blonde”)
and
Bob
Balaban
(“Moonrise Kingdom”) appeared
as
a
wealthy,
disinterested
couple. Parker Posey (“Dazed and
Confused”) and Ed Begley Jr. (“St.
Elsewhere”) are funny as ever.
Fred Willard’s (“Anchorman”)
appearance
and
troublingly
funny aloofness on any screen is
cause for celebration. And while
Guest’s younger generation of
new collaborators don’t quite
rise to their predecessors’ level,
they still add blissfully funny
moments.
“Mascots” isn’t so much a
failure as it is a disappointment.
Each laugh amplified the silences
in between, of which there
were far too many, when the
awkwardness between characters
simply proved too artificial, too
phony or too familiar. Guest’s
model is perhaps unsustainable
— luck no doubt plays a role in
encountering terrains well suited
for comedic deep dives — but I
never expected Guest’s fortune to
run out.
DANNY HENSEL
Daily Arts Writer
C
“Mascots”
Now Streaming
Netflix
LIL WAYNE
“Smell my armpit!”
Celebrity culture and its inter-
textuality have always caused
tension in hip hop, a genre found-
ed on authentic-
ity. Famous people
strive to control
their public per-
ceptions by pre-
senting themselves
through
care-
fully crafted, often
glamorous lenses,
but rappers have
traditionally been
expected to por-
tray themselves unashamedly. At
the art form’s inception, cyphers
occurred on street corners, and
lyrics
represented
livelihoods.
Fibs were pounced on. Word was
bond.
By the 2000s, hip hop had
exploded into the mainstream and
its fanbase evolved into a reliable
market. Clothing labels, movies
and TV shows emerged, all repre-
sented by rappers, the 21st-centu-
ry rock stars and starry-eyed fans
were expected to purchase the
products. Veterans who retired or
lost steam — Diddy, Jay Z, 50 Cent
and more — expanded into less
artistic industries and the expres-
sive lifestyle that the genre once
stood for started to dissolve into a
corporate scheme. Artists’ focus-
es seemed to switch to creating
crossover hits and earning enough
celebrity status to do an expensive
endorsement. Hip hop’s humanity
was dwindling.
Throughout the aughts, Lil
Wayne combatted this mental-
ity switch ferociously. He released
what felt like infinite mixtapes
of fully engaged lyrical exercises
for free on the Internet and chal-
lenged peers to match his work
ethic by rapping on beats that
belonged to them. From 2003 to
2007, he pushed out 11 free proj-
ects and two major-label albums.
In between his own hits, he
hopped on other artists’ songs to
stay creative. An avid sports fan
and
self-described
competitor,
he started rapping at eight-years-
old and released his first album
at age 15. Much like Michael
Jackson, Dwayne Carter seems
to view himself as a performer
first, human being second. He
never “turns off” Lil Wayne. Years
before hip hop’s morphing with
social media, he worked endlessly
to be present in his fans’ lives.
It should be unsurprising, then,
that Lil Wayne’s first literary
endeavor is a chillingly personal
memoir. But what’s
most intriguing is
its setting: Rikers
Island Correctional
Facility. In Novem-
ber 2010, Lil Wayne
was sentenced to a
year in prison for
firearm possession,
and though other
rappers have served
time
—
notably,
Bobby Shmurda, who’s still incar-
cerated, and Gucci Mane, who was
released in June — few have done
it with the theatrical quality of Lil
Wayne, who was well-represented
by his then-rookie prodigy, Drake,
during his absence and even
appeared on new songs from jail.
Lil Wayne’s first book — titled
“Gone ’Til November” and pub-
lished in his handwriting —
offers unfiltered glimpses at the
thoughts and emotions that fueled
the rapper’s persistence through-
out his incarceration. It’s more of
a cathartic clearing of conscience
than a project designed for fans:
the journal is part of a daily regi-
men that Wayne creates to stay
busy and sane. His other routine
activities include watching televi-
sion in the dayroom, listening to
sports on the radio, praying and
making phone calls to friends,
family or his children (whom he
refuses to allow to see him in pris-
on, despite never wasting a visita-
tion day).
On the second day of his
sentence,
Wayne
becomes
acquainted
with
a
group
of inmates that he calls a
“brotherhood,” and its members
ease each others’ time by sharing
food, wisdom and conversation.
A lot of the group’s activities
are documented in “Gone ’Til
November” — cooking dinners
with items from commissary,
watching sports and fantasizing
about the outside — and Wayne
narrates their routine with an
underlying sense of gratitude.
When Flea, one of his peers, is
released, he says: “I am happy like
I am getting out.” When Coach,
another peer, wants to marry
another inmate, Wayne grabs a
Bible and officiates the ceremony.
He often sounds stripped from
star power and humbled by his
surroundings. Wayne sincerely
cares about his peers’ happiness.
Yet “Gone ’Til November” is
filled with analyses of different
guards and the special privileges
that each grants Lil Wayne. On his
first day, two female guards are
suspended for leaving their posts
to seek him out and Wayne accepts
the news as proof that attracted
fans will pursue him anywhere.
The most exciting thing about this
book is its constant and inevitable
Lil Wayne-ness: even while incar-
cerated, his optimism and humor
remain mostly intact. His visitors
include Diddy, Chris Paul and
Kanye West; he makes a phone
call to order a new Ranger Rover
after seeing it in a commercial;
he doesn’t wear the same pair of
underwear more than once.
It’s been years since Lil Wayne
released a relevant solo album.
With “Gone ’Til November,” he
offers something different to
appease fans while court battles
with Birdman, his former busi-
ness partner and father figure,
continue to restrain his musical
freedom. In the book’s preface, he
notes that he didn’t initially intend
to publish the journal. Thus, some
sections are scarily dark and hope-
less. Wayne’s willingness to share
such deeply pained material is
another example of his unswerv-
ing commitment to pleasing fans.
During a mild confessional that
occurred on Twitter last month,
Lil Wayne hinted at his retire-
ment and publicly dreaded his
own helplessness. He claimed that
his final album, Tha Carter V, is
finished and sitting in a drawer,
waiting to be released at the con-
venience of Birdman. “I AM NOW
DEFENSELESS AND MENTAL-
LY DEFEATED,” he wrote. It’s an
upsetting road to retirement for a
performer who was once the best
at his craft, who has been cited
as a major influencer by younger
stars like Kendrick Lamar and
Chance the Rapper, who actively
steered hip hop toward its mod-
ern, anarchic race to release music
constantly. He should at least be
able to walk away from his field
at peace. Lil Wayne tweeted that
he: “ain’t lookin for sympathy, just
serenity.” I hope he’s able to find it.
SALVATORE DIGIOIA
Daily Arts Writer
‘November’ full of heart, history
Lil Wayne memoir chronicles his experience being incarcerated
It’s the blurring of traditional
gender roles with non-conforma-
tive ones; it’s the cognitive dis-
sonance that accompanies men
acting as women
and women as men;
it’s the reversal of
sex and sexuality
in a play written by
one of literature’s
most eccentric, con-
troversial
homo-
sexuals. It’s a case of
mistaken identity.
As written, “The
Importance
of
Being Earnest” is a
comedy masked in
layers. Written by Oscar Wilde and
published in 1895, the play centers
around relationships, specifically,
the relationships of two men and
women who fall in love over the
course of the play. But of course,
simplicity is not an option in a Wil-
dian world or in a comedy, and as
these two men, Jack and Algernon,
pursue courtship, they digress into
a web of lies tied together by the
name “Earnest” — the man they’re
both pretending to be.
Apparently, according to Wilde,
women prefer a man
named Earnest; it’s
the
predominant
aspect we look for
in a man. As confu-
sion arises over the
course of the writ-
ten play and the
men’s lies devolve
into
chaos,
their
façade is mercifully
put to an end. But in
a campus produc-
tion from the Rude
Mechanicals, a key aspect of the
facade persists through the cast.
Opening
Thursday,
Rude
Mechanical’s production of “The
Importance of Being Earnest” fea-
tures an all-female cast with the
exception of one boy, who will be
playing Lady Bracknell, a role tradi-
tionally played by a man dressed in
drag. A play that is already charac-
terized by deceit, this feature adds
an entirely new dimension to the
dynamics of deception.
“It was an interesting season
for the U-Prod mainstage. They
had very male heavy casting, so
we were trying to figure out how
we could compensate for that in a
show that has a decent sized male
cast,” School of Music, Theater
and Dance junior Elle Smith. “My
assistant director and I were brain-
storming and trying to figure out
how we compensate for that. We
had this idea, that originally wasn’t
anything we were ever expecting to
do, but then thought, ‘An all-female
production of Earnest? That could
totally work.’ And then we realized
that it really could work.”
Taking place in post-war Britain
during the 1950s, in this adaptation
not only will the men be played by
women; there won’t be men at all
NATALIE ZAK
Daily Community Culture Editor
Rude’s original spin on ‘Earnest’
Resurrected theater troupe takes on Oscar Wilde’s most famous play
COMMUNITY CULTURE PREVIEW
— the traditional characters are
revisioned as women disguising
themselves as men in an attempt
to come to terms with both the
spheres of separation instilled in
the 1950s home, as well as the spec-
trum upon which their sexuality
lies.
“During the 1950s and coming
off of World War II, there were
more women in the workforce, so
we’s picturing Jack and Algernon
and their female identities as they
would have been involved in that,”
Smith said. “But then, “Oh, the
men are back from war’ and they
lose all this independence they had
during the war time, so they create
these two male alter egos that they
wouldn’t have been able to have as
women.”
All of this — the elaborate analy-
sis of these women, their sexual-
ity and their places in a post-war
society — exist under the umbrella
of the original play’s script. Noth-
ing has been verbally changed to
accommodate this drastic creative
interpretation of the play. Through
the careful emphasis on certain
pronouns and pointed stage direc-
tion, the goal of conveying these
women’s stories is achieved, and at
no cost to the central theme of love.
“We’ve been playing with this
idea that the character Jack is a les-
bian, and the only way she can work
through her sexuality is by pre-
tending to be a man,” Smith said.
“Whereas Algernon, who is essen-
tially Wilde inserted into the play,
loves everything and does every-
thing and lives this life of complete
pleasure and finds herself caught
off guard by Cecily and surprised
by falling in love with her.”
As the first of two shows put on
by Rude Mechanicals this year,
“The Importance of Being Ear-
nest” opens their 20th anniversary
season. Rude is re-solidifying its
place on campus under the leader-
ship of producers Lindsay Harkins,
a SMTD senior studying perfor-
mance arts management, and Vio-
let Kelly-Andrews, a SMTD junior
in the same program.
“It’s mostly about us trying to
give Rude more credibility now by
continuing producers. Because it’s
student-run theater, it’s really just
about opportunity and experiences
for students,” Kelly-Andrews said.
“People don’t know about Rude
Mechanicals yet though because it
has only just been raised from the
dead.”
“Earnest” appears to be a strong
promise from Rude Mechanical’s
resurrection. Broaching sexuality
and gender as accepted in 2016 and
placing it in the 1950s with a script
from the 1890s brings “an inter-
esting mix of ideals from differ-
ent generations that actually work
really well together” Smith said,
while also adding to the continuous
layers that envelop this production.
And although Rude has only
recently been revived, as an under-
dog it has room to grow, along with
a vast community of students in
and outside of SMTD who audition
for shows.
“We’re definitely the underdog
but that’s what makes it exciting,”
Violet said. “The payoff is so much
more worth it. When we accom-
plish something it’s a huge accom-
plishment, and it’s an amazing to
feel like you’re working on some-
thing that’s brand new but also
been around for a while.”
Just like the play itself, Rude
Mechanical exists within the curi-
ous paradox of old and new, having
both a sense of freshness and youth,
while also holding a certain legacy.
But this paradox plays to their
advantage, for as Smith’s direction
of “Earnest” demonstrates, any
limitations can be handled — and
handled in style.
There’s an underlying sense that
Wilde would approve of the direc-
tion his beloved play has taken in
this production, for as Algernon
exclaims in one of his Wildian epi-
taphs, “In matters of grave impor-
tance, style, not sincerity, is the
vital thing.”
The Importance
of Being Earnest
Fri. and Sat. at 8
p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m.
Lydia Mendelssohn
Theater
Students and Seniors
$8, Adults $10
“Gone ‘Til
November: A
Journal of Rikers
Island”
Lil Wayne
Plume
BOOK REVIEW