Slowhopes has always had a soft spot for Minnesota and Wisconsin and Michigan, the states dad spent many summers driving the fam through en route to our summer sojourns living in a campsite, circa 1967-1970. (More about that at another date)
While the people aren't what you'd call lookers, the states themselves are quite gorgeous. They're green, quiet and modest places--well, Minnesota and Wisconsin, anyways. Michigan is a little more torn up. But Michigan has its charms as well.
Still, pop culture manages to pretty much avoid this verdant corner of the planet. Apart from the film Fargo and Prince at the top of his game, you never really come across these places.
Until tonight, when the NY Times website featured Bemidji State's hockey team on its front page. I have been to Bemidji any number of times, and of course the first thing I thought, upon seeing the word 'Bemidji' on the front page of the NY Times website was: the statue of Paul Bunyon was sleeping with Babe the Blue Ox!
But no. The college hockey team is on a win streak for the ages, and all the town's t-shirt shops are selling out of Bemidji State memoribilia.
To which, all I can say is: go Bemidji State!
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/08/sports/hockey/08bemidji.html?hp
Showing posts with label York. Show all posts
Showing posts with label York. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Friday, March 27, 2009
I've been watching Catherine Keener since she played a thirtysomething New Yorker who ends up dating the video store guy (Kevin Corrigan) in Walking and Talking, Nicole Holfcenser's first film, back in the mid-1990's.
If you ever wondered what living in New York is like, it's sort of just like Catherine Keener: cool, smart, not too into itself, prone to little emotional disasters, and ultimately a bit of a closet sweetheart.
It's great to see that she has gone on to have a fantastic acting career, because she always fell a little bit in the cracks between the pretty girl (I think the other one in Walking and Talking was Naomi Watts) and wacky sidekick (think Joan Cusack).
Catherine Keener is the pretty, wacky sidekick, and her presence in anything makes it worth checking out.
She has two new flicks coming out: Genova, and Where the Wild Things Are, a popular kid's yarn that Spike Jonze turned into a movie that has freaked out the studio who made it. (More about that later).
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/mar/26/catherine-keener-genova
If you ever wondered what living in New York is like, it's sort of just like Catherine Keener: cool, smart, not too into itself, prone to little emotional disasters, and ultimately a bit of a closet sweetheart.
It's great to see that she has gone on to have a fantastic acting career, because she always fell a little bit in the cracks between the pretty girl (I think the other one in Walking and Talking was Naomi Watts) and wacky sidekick (think Joan Cusack).
Catherine Keener is the pretty, wacky sidekick, and her presence in anything makes it worth checking out.
She has two new flicks coming out: Genova, and Where the Wild Things Are, a popular kid's yarn that Spike Jonze turned into a movie that has freaked out the studio who made it. (More about that later).
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/mar/26/catherine-keener-genova
Sunday, February 15, 2009
David Barton
One of Slowhopes favorite movies is Tootsie, if for no other reason than its better-than-average depiction of the life of a middle-aged New York actor named Michael Dorsey. Although I never was a middle-aged New York actor, I hung around a few, and the essential conceit of Tootsie--that Michael would do absolutely anything to get cast in a part--revealed itself plenty of times. It's just hard to be an actor, and the subtext of "New York actor" is that you're talking about a certain type: a character actor, not a leading man. Not a looker, but someone possessing something, but not necessarily something that earns them many juicy parts in their twenties and thirties.
Character actors, like fine wine, usually take a few years to emerge into their best light.
(All of which is fine and dandy, but tell that to a schlubby, eager, sensitive young man with a little too much hair growing on his back that he may not really work until he hits his forties).
Of course, there are exceptions: Liev Schrieber is the patron saint of character actors, and has worked steadily since he graduated from Yale 15 years ago.
David Barton isn't Liev Schrieber. He was a high school teacher in Hendersonville, Tennessee, married to a minister and the father of two daughters until, in spring 2007, he decided to visit New York for spring break, for two reasons: 1. His daughter was in grad school and he could hang out with her for a week, and 2. There was an open call for a touring production of Annie, and Barton had always played Daddy Warbucks in various amateur community productions over the years. He was Daddy Warbucks before he turned 30.
So he flew to New York, and at the age of 47, became a working New York actor for the very first time.
Here's a story I wrote about him in the Herald:
http://www2.canada.com/calgaryherald/news/entertainment/story.html?id=81031f2d-0bae-497a-bcb9-e50a3ff37602
Character actors, like fine wine, usually take a few years to emerge into their best light.
(All of which is fine and dandy, but tell that to a schlubby, eager, sensitive young man with a little too much hair growing on his back that he may not really work until he hits his forties).
Of course, there are exceptions: Liev Schrieber is the patron saint of character actors, and has worked steadily since he graduated from Yale 15 years ago.
David Barton isn't Liev Schrieber. He was a high school teacher in Hendersonville, Tennessee, married to a minister and the father of two daughters until, in spring 2007, he decided to visit New York for spring break, for two reasons: 1. His daughter was in grad school and he could hang out with her for a week, and 2. There was an open call for a touring production of Annie, and Barton had always played Daddy Warbucks in various amateur community productions over the years. He was Daddy Warbucks before he turned 30.
So he flew to New York, and at the age of 47, became a working New York actor for the very first time.
Here's a story I wrote about him in the Herald:
http://www2.canada.com/calgaryherald/news/entertainment/story.html?id=81031f2d-0bae-497a-bcb9-e50a3ff37602
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)