How Not to Make Friends
A One-Act Play.
Scene: Crowded New York City subway hurtling midtown.
Characters: Me, wearing dirty bun and caftan, reading Thomas Hardy’s Far From the Madding Crowd. My seat mate, a female stranger roughly my age, clad in yoga gear and shiny blond hair.
Seatmate (looks down at my book, sniffs.) “I don’t like Carey Mulligan.”
Me (not looking up): “You’re in luck. She doesn’t star in the book.”
–fin–
Pretty Trifles: ‘Aloha’ and ‘Gemma Bovery’
Perhaps to compete with the bounty of the season, movie theaters are full of good-looking trifles this time of year. Some films aren’t just good to look at (witness the feminist revolution lurking in the brilliantly shot fever dream of “Mad Max: Fury Road”); some are so good looking we can scarcely remember anything else about them. That’s certainly the case with “Gemma Bovery,” the latest from director Anne Fontaine (“Chloe,” “Coco Before Chanel”).
It’s just as well. Instead of being an adaptation of Gustav Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, “Gemma Bovery” is a French-language adaptation of Posy Simmonds’ eponymous graphic novel loosely based on the 1856 classic; on every level, this film is about the idea of something rather than the thing itself. Fabrice Luchini stars as middle-aged Martin, a former Parisian publisher who’s taken over his father’s bakery in Normandy and now experiences everything, from his dough-kneading to his lightly mocking wife to his dog walks, with the same degree of ennui-inflected pleasure. When English couple Gemma and Charlie Bovery (Gemma Arterton and Jason Flemyng) move in next door, though, literature-obsessed Martin perks up. Upon spying Madame, cheeks and bosom abloom, tromping through the gardens in good Englishwoman boots, his nose quivers like a mole experiencing sunlight for the first time. “It’s the end,” he exclaims in a happily resigned voiceover, “of ten years of sexual tranquility.” Continue Reading →
Silver Spoons and Fighting Seasons: Ricky Schroder and Me
Ricky Schroder may be the best pop culture indicator of whether a person was born before or after 1985. Mention his name to those born after that year, and chances are good they’ll smile blankly. But someone born before that year will light up. They’ll yammer about how heartbreaking he was in 1979’s “The Champ,” and how funny he was in the 1980s sitcom “Silver Spoons” with Jason Bateman. If these don’t resonate, they’ll recall his work in the 1990s series “NYPD Blue.” And they’ll invariably tell you: “You know, he prefers to be called Rick now.”
These days, Rick Schroder goes by “Ricky” again, and he’s been busy behind the camera instead of in front of it. He’s the producer and creator of “The Fighting Season,” a six-episode DirecTV docu-series about 100 days in the run-up to last year’s Afghan presidential elections. No matter how you feel about U.S. involvement in that part of the world, the show offers a fascinating glimpse into how our military wages contemporary battles, with the sort of footage that used to proliferate the nightly news in the Vietnam War era but is increasingly rare these days.
For AOL Build, I got a chance to talk with Ricky about “The Fighting Season” as well as his feelings about being a longtime show-biz veteran. (Spoiler: He’s pretty over the Hollywood scene, and only stays in touch with Robert Duvall and Jon Voight.) Easygoing and generous of spirit, Ricky is that rare star who is as pleasant in person as he seems on screen.
Here’s our full conversation: