MY HEART WENT BOOM

It was 50 years ago today that the British conquered America. On February 9, 1964, the Beatles made the first of three consecutive appearances on the Ed Sullivan TV show. 



American kids still shell-shocked over the assassination of President Kennedy ten weeks earlier had something to cheer about.

We were delighted by the Beatles' infectious music and cheeky, irreverent sense of fun. Absolutely nothing fazed them: they had a wisecrack for every occasion, which made quite an impression on us gawky kids who were fazed by absolutely everything.

And let's not overlook the sheer adrenalin rush of being swept along on a groundswell of adolescent hysteria. Like everyone else in America, my family always watched Ed Sullivan, Topo Gigio notwithstanding, so it wasn't weird that I was propped up in front of the TV on that fateful night, secretly stuffing demented giggles back into my mouth as Paul bounced and laughed, John ("Sorry girls, he's married") flashed his Cheshire-cat grin, George did a silly impromptu dance step, and Ringo surveyed it all with Buster Keaton aplomb. It was all over for me.

Beatles booty, ca. 1964

 Or rather, it was all beginning.

Puberty hit like a tsunami when the Beatles took the stage that night. The yearning of those "Yeah! Yeah! Yeahs!" and the urgency of that high note in "I Want To Hold Your Hand" touched something primal and scary and irresistible in my 11-year-old bosom. People who don't understand why little girls scream for pop stars must be hormone-free robotic mutants.

My bedroom walls were soon papered in Beatle Centerfold Modern. I spent hours on the phone with my girlfriends Jeannine and Nora over every new Beatle song on the radio, let alone the supreme ecstasy of a Beatle appearance on TV. (In those prehistoric days before You Tube, we were completely at the mercy of network broadcasting.)

We memorized the Beatles' jokes, copied their clothes, and imitated their Liverpudlian slang. I joined the fan club, bought the bubble gum cards, and, not content with buying my own plastic Paul doll, I also sewed one of my own.


Beatle movies only stoked the flames. (I saw Help! 13 1/2 times during the summer of 1965.) But true Nirvana was achieved in August, 1966, two days after my 14th birthday, when we saw the Beatles live at Dodger Stadium.

Every other car on the freeway that Sunday afternoon, like ours, was full of blithering teenage girls, with a harried mom gritting her teeth at the wheel.



It wasn't like a modern supergroup concert with a lot of pyrotechnic effects, mountains of amps and giant screens. We paid top price—$6—for seats way up in the third tier overlooking home plate. The stage was out at second base; it was like watching the show from the moon. The four opening acts—the Remains, Bobby Hebb, the Cyrkle, and the Ronettes—paraded across the stage like ants.



Official Beatles concert program, 1966

But when the Beatles came onstage, it didn't matter. We already knew their songs and mannerisms well enough to piece together in out fevered imaginations what we couldn't actually see or hear (for all the screaming). It also didn't matter that even though Revolver had just hit the stores, their primitive touring equipment wouldn't allow them to play anything much more complicated than "Ticket To Ride."

We were in the same place, breathing the same air, sharing the same historical moment as John, Paul, George, and Ringo, and the ecstasy was indescribable.



As it turned out, that was the next-to-last concert the Beatles ever gave. (How I wish now I hadn't cut those wallet-size photos of Paul out of the official program!) The next day they flew to San Francisco to finish up the 1966 concert tour at the Cow Palace; the day after that, they gave up the road forever to concentrate on writing and recording.


I still can't watch those old Ed Sullivan appearances without feeling that same rush of exuberance. How often do you get a chance to re-experience your adolescent self? (And frankly, who would want to? I'd look pretty silly now in those go-go boots and painted-on Twiggy eyelashes.) But watching the Beatles transports me back to that moment in time when delirious possibilities beyond reckoning were opening up before me. It was more than the merry mop-tops calling to me. It was life.

ART TO GO

Hearts For the Arts at Artisan's Gallery

If you're in the market for some tasty, affordable art (and who isn't?), gather round. The best art deals in town are happening this week at two local venues. The annual Hearts for the Arts silent auction (a fundraiser for the Arts Council of Santa Cruz County) is in full swing at Artisan's Gallery.  And the affordable art show, Take Aways: Art To Go, continues for one more week at the Pajaro Valley Arts Council in Watsonville.

Here's a recap of the original Hearts for the Arts concept. It was a combination live/silent auction, wine and chocolate tasting, and schmooze-fest held on a massive scale at the Santa Cruz Civic right around Valentine's Day every year.

Nowadays, the spirit of the original Hearts event lives on at Artisan's. For several years now, owner/curator Linnea Holgers James has invited local artists to donate a 10"x10" work of art on the theme of hearts and/or love, which she displays grouped together on a back wall of the gallery like a quilt.  Bid sheets are available for anyone who wants to come in and place a bid on their favorite piece(s).

"Every Which Way," by James Aschbacher, at PVAC

Participating artists this year include Doug Ross, Isobel George, Sally Bookman, T Mike Walker, Isabelle Fearnsby, James Aschbacher, Brenda Mills Brannan, printmaker Liz Lyons Friedman, sculptor Peter Koronokos, and jewelry-maker Alena Byrnes, among many others.

Artisan's is open 10:30 am to 6:30 pm Sunday-Friday, and 10:30 am to 8:30 pm Saturday. Bidding on these items closes next Friday, February 14, with all proceeds to benefit ACSCC—which, in turn, supports the arts in Santa Cruz County.

Meanwhile, down at the PVAC, the month-long Art To Go show is heading into its final week. In this user-friendly exhibit, a staggering array of local artists—more than 50, at last count—offers smaller work at ridiculously reasonable prices.

From "Ancestors," by Chris Miroyan

Nothing in the show is over $300, and many pieces, including a lot of glass, ceramics, and jewelry, are priced under $100. Such a deal! Look for 2D art by Jane Gregorious, d. hooker, Marie Gabrielle, Sefla Joseph, Beth Shields, Roberta Lee Woods, the ubiquitous James Aschbacher, the mysterious bird-headed "Ancestors" series by Chris Miroyan, and so many more.

There's also glass art by Jim and Connie Grant and Penny Waller, sculpture from Jamie Abbott and Fanne Farnow, rustic, hand-shaped tea cups by Mike Beebe, book art by Donna and Peter Thomas, jewelry from Lynn Guenther—well, I could go on and on.

But, hey, don't listen to me—go check it out for yourself. Gallery hours are Wednesday-Sunday, 11 am to 4 pm. Closing reception will be on Sunday, February 16, 2 - 4 pm, and will also feature a drawing for donated art.

And even if you don't bid or buy, these shows give us all another chance to marvel at the abundance and variety of art produced right here in our burgh. Bask and enjoy!

YEAH, YEAH, YEAH!

Celebrate 50 years of Beatlemania with these fab films


Sunday marks the (ulp) 50th anniversary of The Beatles' first of three consecutive appearances on the Ed Sullivan TV show. The date was February 9, 1964, and nothing in music, society, or pop culture was ever the same again.

Only two and a half years later, The Beatles stopped touring in order to concentrate on writing and recording the music that was the defining soundtrack of the 1960s. And their influence continued to shape the culture, if no longer on stage, definitely over the airwaves and onscreen. The group made five official movies together as a band, not to mention various individual solo acting projects, vanity productions, and concert films.

The Beatles' infectious music and cheeky irreverence are as irresistible today as ever. To celebrate fifty years of the Fab Four in America, here are some of their best onscreen appearances to get you into that vintage Beatlemania vibe.

A HARD DAY'S NIGHT (1964) The first Beatles movie is a day-in-the-life adventure full of the knockabout slapstick and faster-than-a-speeding-bullet wisecracks that taught an entire generation how to be cool. It's also a radical comedy of class and youth as the upstart lads from the industrial north gleefully overrun fusty old rules and traditions. More than a great rock 'n' roll movie—and it's one of the best, especially since the soundtrack was digitally restored in 2000—it has only improved with age.

HELP! (1965) This lavish color musical comedy is a slapstick spoof on the James Bond spy film craze with a tribe of scimitar-wielding East Indian cultists pursuing the boys from London to the Swiss Alps to the Bahamas because Ringo is wearing the sacred sacrificial ring of the next chosen victim. But there's still plenty of time for music.

YELLOW SUBMARINE (1968) The Beatles lent their blessing to this opulent, psychedelic animated fairy tale with an opium-dream plot in which the band is whisked off to save the magical kingdom of Pepperland with their special brand of music and merriment.

LET IT BE (1970) Director Michael Lindsay-Hogg's doc on The Beatles' last recording sessions captures John, Paul, George, and Ringo on the verge of splitting up, yet they still create some indelible musical moments.

THE CONCERT FOR BANGLADESH (1972) Years before Band-Aid and Live-Aid, George Harrison organized and headlined this first all-star charity rock concert, which features Ringo Starr, Eric Clapton, Leon Russell, Billy Preston, and, oh yeah, Bob Dylan.

GIVE MY REGARDS TO BROAD STREET (1984) Paul McCartney returns to the day-in-the-life format in this musical confection. Despite a feeble plot, it has a terrific soundtrack of 14 McCartney songs. Released exactly two decades after A Hard Day's Night, it offers a sharp commentary on his 20 years in the pop culture mainstream. (Read complete article in this week's Good Times)

TA-DA!

Ladies and Gentlemen, may I have a drum roll please?

Presenting—the brand new cover for the US edition of Alias Hook!

Pretty cool, huh?

If you've been following my cover design saga, this is the ultimate reveal. The folks at Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin's Press have come up with this very graphic and mysterious original art concept to grace the hardcover edition due out July 8, 2014.

I'm so relieved it's not just a photograph of a model in period costume. Or worse yet, a headless bodice! (Eek!) This cover should stand out on a crowded bookshelf.

I like the subtlety of those male and female silhouettes. (That's a thicket of roses surrounding them, btw, a concept that looms large in the story.) I love the ship in the center and, of course, the second star on the right! And I couldn't be more thrilled that Laurie King's generous pull quote is featured front and center. (Thanks, Laurie!)

What's the deal with Captain Hook, anyway? Here's a little background on my novel,  and here's a history of the character in the 106 years since he made his debut on the London stage.

Alias Hook is available for pre-order, nationally, on Amazon, and locally from Bookshop Santa Cruz. It also has its own page on Indie Bound to match up readers with an independent bookseller near you.

And speaking of Bookshop Santa Cruz, I'll be there, reading from and signing copies of Alias Hook on Thursday, July 17, 7:30 pm. Get in line now! (Okay, just kidding, but I hope to see you there!)

ALL FOR ONE!

We did it!

Shakespeare will Play On in Santa Cruz for another season.

Theatre lovers across the Bay Area and beyond will be thrilled to know that three months of community crowd-funding to keep the spirit of Shakespeare Santa Cruz alive and on the boards for another year has paid off.

Thanks to a plucky assemblage of donors, supporters, cheerleaders, playgoers, and angels of every description, the company formerly known as SSC (and currently operating as Shakespeare Play On) will mount a two-play 2014 summer season. Former SSC Artistic Director Marco Barricelli and beloved actor Mike Ryan will take the reins as Co-Artistic Directors.

Seeking to raise some $800,000 in advance to fund a new season as a nonprofit organization, independent of UCSC, SPO reportedly tallied up closer to $1 million in donations from community supporters like you.

And how will that money be spent? Even now Ryan and Barricelli are hiring actors, directors, designers, and all the other backstage personnel involved in making a successful season. Negotiations are underway as we speak to secure the Sinsheimer-Stanley Festival Glen for the new season, scheduled to begin over the Fourth of July weekend. Details about the season, including the designated plays, will be revealed in March.

But for now, a round of applause (or better yet, champagne!) for everyone involved in making this happen—from Sir Patrick Stewart and the rest of the SPO Advisory Board, and the Arts Council of Santa Cruz County, fiscal sponsor of SPO, to you, the community, for keeping Shakespeare alive in Santa Cruz.

Congratulations to all—you made it so!

(Above: The Three Musketeers, SSC 2011 season)

HE'S SO FIENNES

The Invisible Woman a splendid tribute to Dickens and his era

If Ken Russell had ever made one of his notorious creative-genius biopics about Charles Dickens, and the famous, middle-aged Victorian novelist's secret love affair with teenage actress Nelly Ternan, one can only imagine the bombastic sturm und drang that would ensue.

Fortunately, Ralph Fiennes—in addition to being a marvelously subtle actor—is a filmmaker of much different mettle than Russell. In his second outing as a director, The Invisible Woman, in which he also stars as the charismatic Dickens, Fiennes does not give us the expected hothouse tale of illicit passion.

Instead, his film is a shrewdly observed portrait not only of the relationship between Dickens and Ternan, but between the artist and his public, and the larger milieu in which their story plays out.

Fiennes plays Dickens as a man of almost maniacal energy and bubbling bonhommie. At the height of his considerable artistic powers, he's an indefatigable actor in a play of his friend and colleague, Wilkie Collins (an irascible Tom Hollander, right, with Fiennes), as well as a popular orator whose readings of dramatic scenes from his own novels leaves audiences spellbound.

He's also a devoted family man who delights in his ten children. Yet he's increasingly unhappy in his longtime marriage to Catherine (Joanna Scanlan), a well-meaning but conventional woman who, he feels, can never be his equal in energy, intellect or sensibilities.

Ellen (Nelly) Ternan (Felicity Jones) is a dewy 18-year-old who, along with her mother, Frances (Kristin Scott Thomas), and two sisters, are engaged for roles in the Collins play. The Ternan women are a family of actresses, but Frances realizes that Nelly's "talent lies elsewhere."

Felicity Jones and Kristin Scott Thomas

Nelly is a great fan of Dickens' novels, and converses with him avidly about them. When Frances notes that the novelist is, in turn, attracted to her youngest daughter, she encourages an attachment that might provide a better living for her daughter than the stage.

Thanks to a savvy script by Abi Morgan (The Iron Lady), based on the non-fiction book by Claire Tomalin, the story proceeds from the viewpoint of Ternan, it's protagonist, heroine, and occasional victim.

While Fiennes' Dickens lights up the screen with his warmth and creative pizzazz, it's Nelly's story that touches us as she (and we) face the ever-narrowing circle of options open to a single woman of that era with but a precarious means of earning a living and without male financial and social protection.

Meanwhile, director Fiennes pays loving hommage to the era that spawned Dickens and his work. Besides the Collins melodrama, staged with all the panache of a Vincent Crummels production, there's an eerie night ramble through the streets of London teeming with the impoverished and outcast, as well as a Fezziwig-worthy party of dancing, music, and magic tricks.

As in so many of Dickens' novels, the characters in The Invisible Woman are highly flawed, yet compelling in their unvarnished humanity. The film is a lovely gift to Dickens and his fans on the occasion (next week, February 7) of his 202nd birthday.

WEIRD and WONDERFUL

Welcome to the intricate and amazing mechanical found junk sculptures of Belgian artist Stephane Halleux.

Are they not way cool?

There I was, previewing the Oscar-Nominated Animated Shorts program over the weekend, when I was beguiled by French filmmaker Laurent Witz's Mr. Hublot.

It's a delirious steampunk fantasy in which Halleux's wacky world of stitched leather cars, mechanical insects, toaster dogs, keypad clothing and serenely winged humanoids comes to life onscreen.

When I looked up Halleux online, I was delighted by the variety and sheer ingenuity of his work. The time it would take just to assemble all these gears, springs, sprockets, rotary blades, clockface dials, bits of pipe, random handles, and grilles is daunting enough.

Then consider the unfettered imagination required to put them all together in such weird and wonderful ways!


Some exhibition sites refer to Halleux's work as "toys," and there is certainly an element of that in their 3D solidity. Maybe it's my misspent past as a doll collector and dollmaker (mine were scrap fabric dolls) that makes me so responsive to these little guys.

Who could resist the urge to pose them and play with them? Let alone the urge to make up stories about them! (Although that might be strictly a writer's thing...)

Now imagine them animated and moving around in an entire retro-urban, slightly crumbling mechanical landscape inspired by the Halleux aesthetic. That's Mr. Hublot.

The Oscar Nominated Shorts programs (one live-action, one animated) opens Friday. (Read my Good Times review here.) But in the meantime, feast your eyes on Halleux's work!

Visit his website (Luddite Alert: it's tricky, so remember to hit every tiny blank square on the Home page to see a selection of work).

Or just Google his name and hit Images.

Prepare to be amazed!

THE RYAN GAME

Durable Clancy hero back in diverting reboot 'Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit'

Jack Ryan has more lives than Morris the Cat. The brilliant CIA analyst-turned-op, fictional hero of some dozen spy thriller novels by Tom Clancy, has also been featured in several high-profile spy movies of the '90s.

Now the folks at Paramount have decided to give the character a face-lift (or should I say a youth potion) and trot him out anew for the next generation of audiences in the sleek, efficient thriller Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit.

Scripted by Adam Cozad and David Koepp, this is an origin story that borrows elements from the well-known Jack Ryan canon, but updates and reassembles them for the modern world. The first bright idea was to cast Chris Pine in the role, an appealing young actor whose nifty balance of humor and intensity has already served him well playing the young Captain Kirk in the recently rebooted Star Trek franchise.

But the producers' smartest decision was to hire Kenneth Branagh to direct; his epic sense of drama and full-bore theatricality keeps the story percolating along.

The story begins in London, where visiting Yank, Jack (Pine) is doing graduate work at the London School of Economics when he's politicized by the events of 9-11. After he joins the Marines and volunteers for combat duty, an injury nearly cripples him for life and ends his active service career, but his stint in rehab not only nets him a new girlfriend, Cathy Muller (Keira Knightley), a doctor-in-training, it puts Jack on the radar of Navy commander Harper (Kevin Costner) of the CIA.

Director Branagh casts himself in the juicy role of Cherevin, a sinister Russian mastermind with a Napoleon complex who's plotting to destroy the U. S. by crashing its economy. (Although we wonder why he doesn't just sit back and let Wall Street do it on its own.)

The action is fast and complicated, and the metaphorical blooding of Jack Ryan, from whiz-kid to activated field op, resonates throughout the film. (Read more)

FIRST PASS

The Alias Hook saga continues! In our last thrilling episode, I was fooling around with cover ideas.

This week, I received this manuscript in the mail. It's the hard copy from the US edition coming out this summer from Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin's Press, all typeset and formatted—cool fonts, and all!

In the publishing biz, they call this a first pass, although, technically, it's my last chance to excise all those embarrassing typos, misspellings, and gratuitous punctuations that will haunt me the rest of my life if they appear in print. The second pass is being performed by a proofreader at TDB as we speak.

This is NOT the time to rewrite a chapter, rename a character, or introduce a clever new plot twist that changes everything that happens in the last four chapters. That time is definitely past!

So far, I haven't discovered anything too dire that can't be fixed in a few swift strokes. The story reads pretty well too!

Why Hook? Why now? For those of you who came in late, read up on my fascination with Captain Hook here. If you're wondering what on earth was I thinking when I started this whole project, find out here.

My new pub date is July 8, 2014. In hardcover, yet! Watch this space for further details!

TALES FROM THE DARK (CHOCOLATE) SIDE

Loot gleaned at the 2014 Fest—I ate all the rest of the chocolate!

Ladies, start your engines. If you haven't yet attended the annual Santa Cruz Chocolate Festival, presented by the UCSC Women's Club, now's the time to plan for next year's event. For those of you who came in late, here's how it works.

While I'm still sucking chocolate out from under my nails after this year's Fest, here are my notes on what's trendy and tasty this year. Salty Caramel, the poster flavor two years ago, and various combination of chocolate and chilis are still popular, but this year, my intrepid tasting buddy, Marta, and I noticed an upsurge of toffee varieties.

Best of show for me were the toffee samples at Goose's Goodies. We got two hefty, brittle-like toffee samples per tasting ticket, and while the Mexican Chocolate Chile and Pepitas was good, the Dark Chocolate, Orange Peel and Cashew toffee combo was a religious experience! A perfect combination of dark, dark chocolate (my favorite) and crunch. Of everything I tasted, this was the goodie I most wanted to take home, but, quel horreur! When we returned to the booth, they had run out of that flavor! Next year, get there early and buy immediately!

(Goose's Goodies are local, but they have no storefront; at the moment, their only contact info is their Etsy shop online.)

We also loved the pudding-rich dark hot chocolate from Harwell Hot Chocolate in Freedom. (We didn't even bother sampling the Milk Chocolate variety—we have our standards!) And we discovered a gorgeous Dark Chocolate Cabernet Truffle from Lula's in Monterey (above). Not much of a Cabernet flavor on the tongue, but you could sense the presence of the wine in an impossibly smooth and sophisticated chocolate mouthful. Yum!

A returning favorite was Theo Chocolate from Seattle. They advocate for sustainably produced chocolate items (their dark chocolate is now GMO free), and while I was seduced by their combustible Pili Pili Chili variety last year (it burned so good!), this year I discovered a very tasty 70% Dark Chocolate and Ginger bar with a nice candy crunch inside.

Also popular this year was Mission Hill Creamery, serving up a nicely complex Lime Cardamom Yogurt dipped in (what else?) dark chocolate. Marta had hers rolled in nuts too, but I took mine straight!

Marich Confectionary from Hollister had a novel set-up. One ticket bought you a small paper cup, into which you could scoop as many of their chocolate-covered treats as you could cram in from deep, fishbowl-like display jars. We sampled, chocolate covered blueberries, strawberries, cherries, curry cashew, and, of course, toffee.

For the terminally sugared out, there was David Jackman from Chocolate dishing out Chicken Mole, and Joe Schultze from India Joze doling out savory Chocolate Pork. Several local wineries were pouring as well (a tasting glass costs $5 in addition to the $15 entrance fee, which buys you six tastings), but, hey, we were there for the chocolate!

The event is a fundraiser for Re-Entry Student Scholarships at  UCSC. So make plans for next year, and taste away with a clear conscience—it's for a good cause!

A STUDY in SHERLOCK

It seems like such a crack-brained idea—adapting Sherlock Holmes to the modern era. Arthur Conan Doyle's eminent, erudite High Victorian consulting detective stranded in the frantic modern world of bullet trains, Tweeting (not to mention twerking), and Reality TV? Oh, please.

But the PBS series Sherlock made a believer out of me. Only three episodes are produced per season, but each episode is a complete 90-minute feature film, and, boy, are they fun! After a long hiatus, the third season begins this Sunday night (January 19) on PBS. Since I just caught up with the first two seasons last month, I am primed and ready!

The principal key to the show's success is, of course, Benedict Cumberbatch in the title role (his naturally fair hair dyed brown, and curled, because, seriously, update, reboot, or no, you can't have a blond Sherlock Holmes). Touchingly naive at times (mostly involving "normal" social concourse), with an intellect so restless, it's exhausting, the marvelous Cumberbatch plays Sherlock with every ounce of the character's famous wit, eccentricity, and ego intact, but it's all refracted in the prism of 21st Century life and culture.

Fancier toys: Sherlock's kitchen chem lab

And it all works. It's wicked, scary good how well it works!

This energetic, thoroughly modern Sherlock still resides at 221B Baker Street, with a motherly landlady downstairs called Mrs. Hudson. ("I am not your housekeeper!" she keeps reminding him.)

His keen interest in forensic science remains; he just has fancier toys to play with in the age of digital information. But it still takes his superior brain to assemble all the factoids, readouts and graphic imaging into a coherent deduction.

Vintage Holmes at work

Martin Freeman co-stars as Dr. John Watson, Holmes' friend and biographer, rescuing the character from the dufferdom rampant in so many past Holmes adaptations. A military man just back from the Afghanistan and in need of lodgings, Watson is as awed by Sherlock's brilliant mind as he is appalled by his manners. In the first episode, he appears with a cane and a limp, but he quickly loses both, revitalized by the dangerous adventures Sherlock leads him on.

(And, of course, in the digital age, Watson's stories about Holmes' cases aren't published in anything so fusty as a magazine; he posts them online on his blog.)

As roommates and co-investigators out about town together on a case, Watson has to keep calmly, but determinedly, deflecting assumptions that they are a gay couple. Watson enjoys women and is often surreptitiously lining up dates in the course of their adventures, but such assumptions roll right off Sherlock's back. As does the opinion (voiced by someone or other every couple of episodes) that he may be a virgin. Sherlock does not protest, one way or the other; idle speculation about his sex life simply does not register among the subjects that interest him.

Not that kind of couple

The filmmakers have fun with the Holmes canon. Every episode is named after a famous Conan Doyle story, with a twist. (A Study in Scarlet becomes A Study in Pink, featuring a pink cell phone as a key piece of evidence.)

Cumberbatch and Pulver: scandalous

 A Scandal in Belgravia (not Bohemia) introduces the formidable Irene Adler (Lara Pulver), but in this version, she's not a stage actress, but a high-priced dominatrix with an exclusive client list.

(Last season ended with Sherlock's spectacular, apparently fatal plunge off a high building—and yes, Reichenbach Falls are referenced—in broad daylight, in front of witnesses. But even though we (if not Watson) know Sherlock is not dead, the question of how the heck they'll explain it remains.)

The ever-harried Inspector Lestrade, the slippery Mycroft Holmes, the nefarious criminal mastermind, Moriarty (an unexpectedly boyish Andrew Scott, who's won two BAFTA Awards in the role), they're all here and waiting to be rediscovered by an eager public. (That's you!)

Showtime is 10 pm (after Downton Abbey) for the next three Sunday nights. You know where I'll be!

BOOMERS on BROADWAY

Spirit of the '60s alive in Stockton's entertaining 'Are We There Yet?'

They say if you remember the '60s, you weren't there. But don't say it to Richard Stockton.

The longtime stand-up comic, monologist, and chief perpetrator of the Planet Cruz live comedy revues not only remembers the 1960s (and the postwar decade that spawned them), he traces the influence of that era on the popular and political culture of today in his entertaining one-man comedy extravaganza, Are We There Yet? at the Broadway Playhouse.

Three years in the making (not counting the lifetime of experience distilled into the show), Are We There Yet? is a multi-media celebration of the Baby Boom generation. While the show is mostly storytelling, Stockton has also composed a handful of songs to highlight certain themes (like the title tune, which metaphorically refers to the Boomers' progress through life, and "Things We Had Then We Don't Have Now"), which he sings con brio, accompanying himself on guitar or banjo. He also employs a video projector which sets the tone with newsreels, pop culture montages from the era, and a reel of vintage TV commercials.

The resulting show is a sort of Boomer Hit Parade of cultural touchpoints from the '50s, '60s, and into the '70s. And even as the Boomers age (Stockton salutes our generation's collective passage "from Hi-Fi to WiFi...from Jonathan Livingston Seagull to crow's feet"), he traces the ways that the seeds sown in our youth have borne fruit in the socio-political landscape of today. There's plenty to resonate with people of a certain age; on opening night, audience members were shouting responses like "Amens" in a Baptist church. (Read more)

WALKING TALL

Man behind myth explored in 'Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom'


Due to the usual nutty holiday deadlines at this paper, it's taken me this long to catch up with Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom. The good news is this biographical drama from Justin Chadwick (The Other Boleyn Girl) is in many ways as thoughtful and imposing as both its subject, the formidable Nelson Mandela, and its impressive star, Idris Elba.

The real-life Mandela passed away this past December, at the age of 95, lauded and eulogized the world over as an icon of peace, humility, forgiveness and cooperation. But Mandela was far more complicated than the stoic, sagacious, grandfatherly peacemaker so beloved by the world in his later years.

 Chadwick's film (based on Mandela's own autobiography) is a manful attempt to explore the currents of deeply ingrained racism, political injustice, and corrupted human nature that turned an ordinary South African child into a lawyer, activist, and uncompromising fighter for social justice and racial equality—at any cost.

The story touches all the known incidents of Mandela's political life: his trial for conspiracy (and his famous speech professing himself "prepared to die" for the ideal of equality), his 27 years in prison, mostly spent in one tiny cell. (Where black inmates suffer such petty indignities as being made to wear short pants.) 

But the film is most effective in showing the toll Mandela's activism takes on his personal life.

Driven off not only by his dangerous politics, but by Mandela's extramarital affairs, his first wife leaves him and whisks away the children he rarely sees again. After he marries vivacious Winnie Madikizela (a vibrant Naomie Harris), she bears two daughters, but they're still small children when Mandela goes to prison.

Elba's presence centers the story as his Mandela evolves and matures. And the film succeeds in portraying both Mandela and Winnie with human faults intact on their respective long walks to their destinies. (Read more in this week's Good Times)

GOLDEN GIRLS

Fey and Poehler: not sick of 'em yet

OK, it was less uproarious than last year's show. But Sunday night's Golden Globes telecast, the annual doling out of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association's movie and TV awards—it's like a dress rehearsal for the Oscars, with alcohol—still provided its share of refreshing irreverence, thanks to returning co-hosts Tina Fey and Amy Poehler.

(Because, as Fey pointed out, "In Hollywood, if something works, you just do it over and over again until everybody's sick of it.")

The industry and its denizens were the ripest targets for stealth zingers. That perennial nominee Meryl Streep was in the running again proved, according to Fey, that there are still "great parts for Meryl Streeps over 60" in Hollywood. Poehler 's take on Gravity was that "George Clooney would rather float away in space and die than spend another minute with a woman his own age."

Cate Blanchett: extraordinary year

To play an AIDS patient in Dallas Buyers Club, Fey noted that Matthew McConaughey "lost 45 pounds. Or what actresses call 'being in a movie.'" (Okay, clumsily worded, but point taken about how much harder women have to work to be considered camera-ready.)

Accepting her Best Actress (Drama) award for Blue Jasmine, Cate Blanchett opined "It's been an extraordinary year—the last ten years, really—for women in the movies."

But you wouldn't know it from the dearth of females nominated for anything in the non-actress categories. I counted a grand total of three, two of whom—one of them Taylor Swift—received co-credit for writing two of the nominated songs.

At least the third, Jennifer Lee, who won with Chris Buck for co-directing the Best Animated Feature, Frozen, got a chance to come up onstage and claim her honor. Unlike Brenda Chapman, creator of last year's Disney Princess movie, Brave, who never even got invited to the party after she was removed from the directors chair halfway through the project.

Chris Buck, Jennifer Lee

Fey and Poehler's traditional halftime costume change, with cocktails, was pre-empted this year by Emma Thompson (looking fabulous in a gold burnout top and platinum hair). She arrived onstage to present the Best Screenplay award clutching her high heels in one hand and a martini in the other. As an actor, she said, "I appreciate a good script. And as a writer, I know how hard to is to get one." (Thompson won an Oscar awhile back for adapting Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility.)

Diane Keaton was her relaxed, wonderful self accepting the Cecil B. DeMille Award on behalf of Woody Allen. The Allen clip reel was a highlight of the show, and La Keaton even sang a sweet little Annie Hall-style song commemorating their 45-year friendship.

Emma Thompson: shoeless

Matthew McConaughey, accepting his Best Actor (Drama) award for Dallas Buyers Club, gave a shout-out to his mother, who never let her kids absorb too much TV or other media. "She said, don't watch somebody doin' something, go out and do it yourself!"

The technical glitches were kept to a minimum this year. The only weird thing was that the section for television nominees was about three zip codes away from the stage, which made for some long, long marches to collect awards.

But otherwise, a fairly brisk and breezy show. And with Globes divided up between American Hustle (Actress (Comedy) and Supporting Actress; Best Comedy/Musical), Dallas Buyers Club (Actor and Supporting Actor), The Wolf of Wall Street (Actor, Comedy/Musical), Gravity (Director), and 12 Years A Slave (Best Picture, Drama), looks like it's anything goes (again) at the upcoming Oscars.

LIFT-OFF

New musical, 'Lunch,' launches at Cabrillo Stage

You can't get much further off-Broadway than Cabrillo Stage, at least geographically. Yet CS may be instrumental in launching a new musical on the road with its spirited production of Lunch. Instead of its usual year-end holiday production, CS opted this season for a new year's show, a modern urban fable about life, love, answered prayers, and second chances—a subject the authors know something about.

With a book by Emmy-winning TV writer Rick Hawkins, and songs by award-winning composer Steve Dorff and lyricist John Bettis, Lunch was first produced in 1994, when it went on a five-city national tour. Its collaborators moved on to other things until a series of serendipitous events—including a request from CS Artistic Director Jon Nordgren—led them all to reconvene in 2013 to revamp the show. This CS production of Lunch has a rewritten and updated book, ten new songs, and a hard-working cast directed with verve and chutzpah by CS veteran Andrew Ceglio.

When conductor Nordgren raises his baton in the pit, we hear not the expected musical overture, but a montage of city sounds—footsteps, bits of conversation, traffic, a hot dog vendor, screeching brakes. The curtain rises on a scrim of heavenly clouds and an ornate gate which admits a confused Mackenzie Richards (the affable and reliable Max Bennett-Parker) into a reception area presided over by chain-smoking, unflappable Mona (a very funny Samantha Pistoresi).

Mackenzie, who's just met his untimely demise via hot dog cart, finds himself knocking on Heaven's door, but given his line of work as a Wall Street player, he'll be fast-tracked straight to Hell unless he can prove himself worthy. He has one hour, from noon to 1 p.m. (the "Lunch Shift"), to answer the prayers of four random people in downtown Manhattan. (Read more)

I confess, I had some problems with the book. The "prayers" were often so nebulous and unformed, I wasn't always sure how or if they were being answered. Since this is the central premise of the show, some clarification is in order. But this is a great cast featuring such CS stalwarts as the scene-stealing Nicholas Ceglio and Ashley Rae Little, with her big, powerhouse voice. They give Lunch a hearty and heartfelt lift-off.

JUDGING A BOOK...

Happy 2014 to all!

Out with the old year, and on with the show!

While we've been enjoying our holiday revels, the merry elves at Thomas Dunne Books are busily cooking away on the forthcoming US edition of Alias Hook.

While it would probably be illegal, immoral, and fattening to reveal the cool new cover art they've devised for the book at this early date, I can show you some of the sketches I sent in when they flattered me by asking if I had any cover ideas.

(As I told the brain trust at TDB, try to imagine these as rendered by a professional designer who actually knows what she's doing.)


This is my attempt at being graphic (above). That's a swatch of fairy dust curling across the sky, along with a Red Moon that figures prominently in the plot. At this point, there was talk of changing the title, so I didn't include any verbiage on this image.

I notice the actual TDB cover art is similar in color scheme to this sketch, except much more graphic and interesting!

And here's another idea I submitted, going for mood and narrative this time, instead of a clean design. I'm so partial to this one—I managed to sneak in a mermaid and a fairy!

And since my editor wants potential readers to know the book is female-friendly, I put my heroine's face on prominent display to suggest that the book is, in fact, a love story. In general, I'm not a fan of characters' faces plastered on the cover, for fear of interfering with the reader's imagination. (Unless the book is, you know, The Girl With the Pearl Earring.)

But, happily, the design team at TDB came up with a way to suggest a feminine presence in the cover design without resorting to a conventional portrait. How did they do it? Stay tuned.

Oh, those clever elves!

SURVIVOR: HOLLYWOOD

Space patrol: Gravity

Big and small films to remember from 2013

What is it about these angsty times that's causing the movies to go all Gloria Gaynor on us? The biggest trend in the films of 2013 was the simple fight for survival—on land (Dallas Buyers Club; 12 Years a Slave), sea (All Is Lost; Captain Phillips), outer space (Gravity), even in the music biz (Inside Llewyn Davis; 20 Feet From Stardom). Some of these were great, but I was mostly drawn to small human stories this movie year. Here are a few of my favorites (including some you might have missed):

GRAVITY A couple of astronauts on a routine mission outside their spacecraft suddenly find themselves adrift in space. What can they possibly do? The variety of answers may surprise you in this smart, lean, elegantly composed edge-of-your-seat thriller from filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón. Neither sci-fi nor space opera, it's a space procedural in which ordinary human ingenuity meets ever more incredible and daunting odds.

Mud: McConaughey's performance of the year

20 FEET FROM STARDOM Morgan Neville's documentary tribute to the heroines of rock, the background singers, is as incendiary as the voices of these incredible vocalists. The stories of these primarily black women—how they were used, abused, and/or empowered by the industry, whether or not they dared to take that 20-foot walk into the spotlight—are a remarkable cultural document of five rich decades in the pop music scene. And OMG, the singing!

MUD Jeff Nicholls' hypnotic tall tale simmers with danger, disillusion, humor, and heart, and Matthew McConaughey's star performance radiates all of the above. Tye Sheridan and Jacob Lofland are astonishingly good as two 14-year-old boys growing up on the banks of the Mississippi in rural Arkansas who get involved in the crazed romantic schemes of a disheveled desperado. An entertaining yarn of fathers, sons, and surrogates.

BLANCANIEVES Pablo Berger's flavorful retelling of Snow White is a silent film (no spoken dialogue, but a vivid musical soundtrack), shot in luminous black-and-white, set in Seville, Spain, ca, 1920. The heroine is a young lady matadora, and her story unspools in a heady milieu of flamenco music, bullfighting, and women's emancipation.

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING Who else but Joss Whedon could set William Shakespeare's romantic comedy (original Elizabethan-era wit and wordplay intact), in modern-day Santa Monica, and shoot it in black-and-white? This visual detail suggests the sparkling vintage screwball comedies of the 1930s, an impudent idea, realized with great charm and affection.

GINGER & ROSA The remarkable Elle Fanning and a very affecting Alice Englert star in Sally Potter's simple, yet potent story about teenage girlfriends, mothers, fathers, and daughters, and all the ways those delicate balances can be tipped. The touching authenticity of these young female voices will speak to anyone who has ever been a 17-year-old girl.

CAPTAIN PHILLIPS This harrowing true story about an unarmed US freighter captured in 2009 by four trigger-happy Somalis with automatic weapons is a bracing dose of recent history from director Paul Greengrass, told with his typical no-frills realism and escalating intensity. Tom Hanks' is riveting as the cargo ship's captain; Barkhad Abdi is excellent as the leader of the Somalis.

Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Fassbender: 12 Years a Slave

12 YEARS A SLAVE Chiwetel Ejiofor gives a haunting performance in Steve McQueen's blistering, unexpurgated portrait of what slavery was like in the pre-Civil War American South. Based on the true story of Solomon Northrup, a free black New Yorker abducted and sold into slavery in 1841, the film shows with heartbreaking precision how the loss of common humanity is the true cost of slavery. A film of rare courage that educates and mesmerizes.

THE HUNT A child's remark brings lives to the brink of ruin in Danish filmmaker Thomas Vinterberg's complex drama, set in the twilight zone between acute moral responsibility and witch-hunting. The film plays like a compelling thriller, with Mads Mikkelsen giving a performance of astonishing force and subtlety.

Girl Power: Darlene Love: 20 Feet From Stardom

MUSEUM HOURS Anyone who has ever haunted an Old World museum with a rich collection of Late Middle Ages and Renaissance paintings may find herself strangely beguiled by this meditation on art and life, past and present, and the many ways and places in which they intersect.

JUST FOR FUN:  GOOD OL' FREDA Freda Kelly was just 17 when she landed a job as personal secretary to The Beatles in 1962. Ryan White's documentary is as ebullient, down-to-earth, and irresistible as Freda herself.

GUILTY PLEASURE:  THOR: THE DARK WORLD Chris Hemsworth's charismatic thunder god, and Tom Hiddleston's utterly delicious performance as his ne'er-do-well brother, the trickster god, Loki, propel this idiotic, yet surprisingly fun mangling of Norse mythology.

SONGS in a MINOR KEY

Great music, atmosphere, problematic character in "Llewyn Davis'


The new film, from Joel and Ethan Coen, Inside Llewyn Davis, may not quite be what viewers expect. After the Coens celebrated the rural, regional folk music of the American South of the 1930s in O Brother, Where Art Thou, a few years back, fans may expect more of the same from the new film, with a more urban vibe.

But while Llewyn Davis is set in the Greenwich Village folk scene ca. 1961, and positively teems with yearning, vintage-sounding music that might very plausibly have come from that era, it mines a much darker vein of experience as a down-on-his-luck, would-be folk singer struggles against all odds to get a foothold in the music business.

In fact, the new film has more in common with the Coen's A Serious Man, an ironic update of the Biblical story of Job, in which a hapless suburban Everyman had to cope with one damn thing after another thrown into his path by an unforgiving universe. The protagonist in Llewyn Davis also endures trials, but they mostly stem from his own bad judgment and bristly personality.

The problem is,the character as written is all angsty exterior. Oscar Isaac, an appealing actor who has been wonderful in supporting roles for years, manages to bring moments of poignancy, even fleeting tenderness, to the title character. He even turns out to be a terrific singer.

But we never do get inside Llewyn Davis; the journey he takes in the course of the film, both physically and emotionally, lands him back in exactly the same place.

But where the movie comes alive is in the music, and the spot-on depiction of the era. (The legendary T Bone Burnett, along with Marcus Mumford, produced the music.) Isaac sings Llewyn's gritty solos with plenty of verve.

And the novelty song, "Please Mr. Kennedy (Don't Send Me Into Space)," that he sings with Justin Timberlake, with the very funny Adam Driver providing bass and counterpoint (above), is exactly true to the era, and hilarious too. (Read more)

Btw, much is made in the movie of Llewyn hauling a friend's runaway orange cat all over New York City until he has time to return it to its owner. I can't imagine what they gave that cat to mellow him out.

I'm sorry, but if I tried to take one of my cats on a noisy subway at rush hour, my back would be shredded like the Watergate transcripts.