The Daily Grand and Sundry

He has to be the likeable James Stewart of THE PHILADELPHIA STORY, and by the end of the film, the James Stewart of THE MAN FROM LARAMIE.

But the role demands more than that, we not only saw in Nate, the James Stewart boy next door quality, but also the TOMMY UDO quality; the famous, or infamous star making role of Richard Widmark,in KISS OF DEATH. In that role, Widmark, the all American boy, pushed a sweet lttle old lady down, in a wheel chair no less, down a flight of stairs, all the while laughing like a guy at a Chris Rock Concert.

Nate has that potential to be film noir dangerous.

You can see his film work in WORKSHOP, http://workshoptheseries.com/watch.php?s=1&ep=8

  http://workshoptheseries.com/watch.php?s=1&ep=11

His stage work can be seen in two upcoming plays at the ;“Godly Acres”, opening April 23rd, and “It’s A Living”, opening May 24th. Both comedies. 

Nate co wrote the web series, WORKSHOP with Kimberly Legg. He is currently wrapping up the the writing of the second season.

He is also developing the project GENERATION U as a Cable TV series, the success of WORKSHOP has generated interest from studios and distributors. 

WORKSHOP is interesting, I could call it a mockumentary, like SPINAL TAP; it follows the loves, lives, triumphs, and self destruction of a group of Hollywood wannabes from the same acting workshop.

I could call it a mockumenatry, but this is the WestSide New Wave; they don’t mock. This results in insightful, humanistic and refreshing films, web series and shorts. These young talents have REJECTED the ironic, detached, brutal, distant, and  dull  mockery exhibited by film makers in their thirties and forties.  The WestSide New Wave has  embraced their characters as full human beings, worth exploration on their own dramatic or comedic terms.

I was fortunate enough to sit in on some of the auditions for his pilot, GENERATION U. Nate has a pitch perfect ear for the everyday vernacular of the Millennials. It is like he is channeling FACEBOOK postings.

Nate as FILM MAKER

He has a great eye for talent; his chosen Director, Andre Welsh is brilliant.

What I admire most about his Film Making is that it is not vanity; his projects are not ego driven nor vanity showcases. He has something to say.

I hope he finds his audience; if he does, he has a distinct chance to rank up there with Warren Beatty as a wondrous Actor/Film Maker with something to say.

Nate Golon

 Nate Golon

I am a single mother from Texas, Mexcan American and proud of it. I was introduced to your blog by a friend, and am catching up. I just finished your blog about angry white males and Richard Rodriguez.

I wonder if the angry white males will add to their list of things for which to be angry, deadbeat fathers being allowed to enlist in the national guard and given  $20,000 (sometimes more) as well as a paid education and healthcare without first requiring them to provide the same for any/all children for which they are responsible.

Healthcare reform? Being someone who as an adult has never had health insurance, for yet other reasons that should be added to the angry white males’ list, have, out of necessity, researched preventative healthcare in particular nutrition and natural healing alternatives. I changed my diet completely in order to prevent the onset of diabetes, high blood pressure, cancer, and musculor sclerosis, all of which are dominant on both paternal and maternal sides of my family.     

Wow! I was researching the history of the texas railroads on which my grandfather worked and came across this interesting bit of history the angry white males overlooked, disregarded or missed altogether. This must be where the term “I’ve created a monster” originated.  http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/BB/omb1.html

Best Regards,
J!

Hyperbole?

Go see for yourself , Greg is playing crippled war veteran KENJI in the World Premiere of  the play,NO-NO BOY at the Miles Memorial Playhouse in Santa Monica.

www.nonoboy2010.com

NO-NO BOY is based n the Asian American book by John Okada. It is a companion piece to Lane Nishikawa’s film, ONLY THE BRAVE in which Greg co starred. That film is about  the Nisei Japanese Americans who volunteered out of the Internment camps to not only fight for the nation who had put them and their families into those camps, but became, by the depth of their valor, the most decorated unit in American fighting history.

http://gerrymaxeyworkshop.com/blogging/?p=3007

NO NO BOY, written Ken Narasaki, is about those Japanese American boys and men who refused to fight for the United States during World War II, and their return home from the prisons.

The NO NO BOY himself, does not fight for America because his mother forbids him; she not only wants Japan to win the war but believes Imperial Japan will win; that Samurai will soon be marching down the streets of Seattle(the No No Boy’s hometown).

The No No Boy accedes to his mother’s wishes, but then again it is very convenient to be a Momma’s boy when you are hiding the fact you are a coward.

For anyone interested in a good play, World War II, or an insight into the sub culture which gave America its  greatest  clump of heroes, NO NO BOY is a worthy engagement.

Mr. Watanabe’s performance is above the price of rubies, he has Gable’s speech diction, carriage and easy manliness. He couples that with a doomed quality, a modern John Garfield.

Troubled, haunted, generous, heroic…still full of grace though the vessel of his body has been half blown away, and is now being eaten away, KENJI is the best of our American Brothers. Mr. Watanabe catches every nuance, despair,sadness and wisdom, a wounded war hero has to offer.

A masterful performance, especially when he must suffer the fate of watching the whole NO NO BOY sleep with the woman, he the hero, cannot fulfill.

This is the best performance by an actor playing a maimed soldier, on stage or in film, since Tyrone Power’s performance as an impotent veteran in Hemingway’s THE SUN ALSO RISES.

Mr. Watanabe is also a wonderful sketch comedian; he belongs to the Asian American comedy troup

18 Mighty Mountain Warriors,

http://www.18mmw.com/

They did a sketch about a boy, a girl and her dog that is the most hilarious observation of what a boy goes through when the smart dog knows his mistress loves him above any human male.

  Greg Watanabe

Greg Watanabe showing his comedy chops (in the middle)

There is something going on comparable to  La Nouvelle Vague ,happening right now on the West Side of Los Angeles.  La Nouvelle Vague, French for New Wave,” La Nouvelle Vague,….a group of French filmmakers of the late 1950s and 1960s, influenced by Italian Neorealism and classical Hollywood cinema.”

This WestSide New Wave is spearheaded by actor/film maker Nate Golon, Director/editor Andre Welsh, Writer/Actor Kimberly Legg, British actor Leanne Wilson and American actor, Chioke Jelani Clanton.

They are crafting a worldview, combining the technical craft of the 1970s,last Golden Age of Hollywood, the modern technology of the 21st Century, the Classical editing techniques of the studio system, and the slash and burn editing techniques of music videos with a humanistic sympathy for the characters in their projects.

This results in insightful, humanistic and refreshing films, web series and shorts. These young talents have REJECTED the ironic, detached, brutal, distant, and  dull  mockery exhibited by film makers in their thirties and forties.  The WestSide New Wave has  embraced their characters as full human beings, worth exploration on their own dramatic or comedic terms.

I am continually shocked and disappointed by the network TV shows, MODERN FAMILY and UGLY BETTY. They mock their characters, with a ferocity only equal to Henry James’ alter egos. Their outlook is all caricature, mean little caricature. In real life, you would not like to know any of the characters on MODERN FAMILY or UGLY BETTY or THE NEW ADVENTURES OF OLD CHRISTINE. I would have loved to have known, in real life,  the characters of THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW, SANFORD AND SON, even ROSEANNE.

The purpose of modern film seemingly is to make the film maker feel superior to the characters in his scripts. 

I was introduced to the WestSide New Wave by their brilliant comedy web series, WORKSHOP, which is screening tomorrow at the EDGEMAR SHORT FILM FESTIVAL in  Santa Monica.

The Director of WORKSHOP was Andre Welsh. Today, I saw his film noir short, THE METHOD at the EDGEMAR  film festival.

It was stunning; the best film noir I have seen, as either a short or a feature since Roman Polanski’s REPULSION.

The film was about the madness or faux madness of a black actor who is cast as the first black serial kller in California.  It achieves what SHUTTER ISLAND attempted, role playing in life is dangerous.

It is  a film noir variation of themes covered in the comedic films  PUTNEY SWOPE and Robert Townsend’s HOLLYWOOD SHUFFLE. CARL DAWSON is a talented black actor who is either too black for commercials, or not black enough to play a thug in films.

In his frustration, he is afforded an opportunity to play the role of a lifetime, a black serial killer. He accepts,but the preparation for the role, THE METHOD needed to become a black serial killer is more than he bargained for, much like David Fincher’s underrated, THE GAME. Welsh blends reality, games, social content, social discontent and fine actors into a vibrant, mysterious blend.

In the end the black actor is cruising the white Beverly Hills, seeking either new victims to stalk as a black serial killer, or merely recognition as a fine black actor.

The role of CARL DAWSON is played by Chioke Jelani Clanton, who is OTHELLO on film, a young actor with the power of James Earl Jones in his THE GREAT WHITE HOPE  period or  Morgan Freeman in his STREET SMART period. 

That is what the Westside New Wave has done, leeched mockery out of Film Making, and made their characters unpredictable, from their comedies to their film noir, their characters are unpredictable.

TRAILER FOR THE METHOD

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvSQS-7k9AU

 Director Andre Welsh

Chioke Jelani Clanton

STILL FROM THE METHOD

An email responding to my blog about BREAKING BAD, and Redemption

http://gerrymaxeyworkshop.com/blogging/?p=4038

“Redemption is rhe key. Something Alan Arkin says all good movies have.  Doesn’t mean a happy ending. Doesn’t necessitate a moral but it’s as u say. Ultimately it’s affirming the value of human life.  Even if that means a terminator 3 where the annihilation of much of the human race occurs. …”

S

Thanks S,  I was intrigued by your observation” Doesn’t mean a happy ending”.

This blog’s BEST FILM for 2009 was Henry Jaglom’s neat little gem, IRENE IN TIME, which I called and believe to be a vest pocket masterpiece.

http://gerrymaxeyworkshop.com/blogging/?p=2885

It has a sad ending, but in that sad ending, IRENE, pays a price for a life not lived well. It was an oddly redemptive experience watching her pay that price, in that she finally understood what was at stake in living; it is an important thing to do, and if you do not live it well, you do have options.

IRENE IN TIME fits neatly into Mr. Arkin’s observation, about a sad ending may be redemptive.

“I love your blogs on immigration, but as a student of  the American West, I have to tell you Wild Bill Hickok was a better gunman that Wyatt Earp and should be the American Example”

Vi

Vi is commenting on the immigration blog which mentioned Wyatt Earp as the American philosopher  deeply ingrained in the American spirit.

http://gerrymaxeyworkshop.com/blogging/?p=3923

Well Vi, you may know a lot about the American West, but dare I say it, you don’t know much about the American psyche.

Wild Bill Hickok was THE Greatest Gunfighter who ever lived, and he was murdered by someone who shot him in the back.

My personal American Idol, John Ford, saw Earp as a key American archtype.

Why?

Earp was a bonafide American killer,

 ”…he killed not less than eight of the assassins.”  — National Police Gazette, July 21, 1883 (speaking of Wyatt’s retaliation for the killing of his brother Morgan)

“Wyatt Earp is credited with ten men, ”  — Seattle Post-Intelligencer, July 22, 1900

“[Wyatt Earp] Has killed more than a dozen stage robbers, murderers, and cattle thieves.”  — G. W. Caldwell in the introduction to his interview with Wyatt, 1888

“[Wyatt] Earp has a cemetery which he has stocked with over 30 men, and no one seemed desirous of questioning his word.”  — Los Angeles Tribune, June 2, 1888″

By my research, Earp killed 17 men.

His brothers Morgan and Virgil were better gunfighters, though Morgan was murdered and Virgil was maimed.

I used Wyatt Earp as the baseline for the character development of my protagonist, SETH HOLLISTER in my John Ford Western, LOS PISTOLEROS.

Why Earp is more respected than Hickok, is more the American Icon, is simple, HE WAS NEVER WOUNDED, NEVER.

Not even grazed. 

Earp killed and got away with it; then married the Jewish American Princess, Josephine Sarah Marcus. He lived to be 80, died a natural death in Los Angeles, admired by John Ford.  “John Wayne later told Hugh O’Brian that he based his image of the Western lawman on his conversations with Earp. ”

Is there any better American Dream?

Mrs. Wyatt Earp

Back last year, at the beginning of the health care debate,  Republican Senator DeMint said, that if the Republicans could defeat President Obama on health care it would be his Waterloo;they could break him. On Sunday, President Obama got his health care bill passed into law.

No Waterloo. Bad Analogy.

In the House vote, President Obama and his Marshal Ney, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, have defeated the Republicans at Borodino. They have entered Moscow in Tolstoian triumph. They quarter their horses in the Kremlin,  waiting for the Republicans, properly chastised, to come, to seek bipartisanship on cap and trade and immigration.

What are the Republicans to do?

If they are smart, and they seem smarter than they were  before, they should become Prince Mikhail Illarionovich Golenishchev-Kutuzov, burn Moscow.

Then President Obama and his Marshal Ney , Nancy Pelosi, will have to retreat to the Neman. On that retreat, cut them to shreds in time for the November snows.

Republicans cannot get a Waterloo out of the health care debate, Senator DeMint was wrong in that analogy. But they sure as hell can get a Russian Campaign out of the health care debate; with the Republicans as Cossacks, and the Democrats as le Grande Armée.

This current  victory for Obama is his taking of Moscow.

Prince Mikhail Illarionovich Golenishchev-Kutuzov, the first Republican strategist against President Obama.

In a review  of a new biography of  the British painter Ford Madox Brown, the ECONOMIST called artist Maria Spartali, “impossibly beautiful.”

Below is her picture, I ask the reader to  form their own opinion.