BEFORE: Today's film comes with a story, and I have to go back to February 4 of last year. Biden was still President, the world wasn't on fire, Lizzo was overweight, it was a different time, OK? Oscar campaigns were still going on, and there were guild screenings at the theater where I work, and while Emma Stone would win the Best Actress Oscar for "Poor Things" a few weeks later, at the time Annette Bening was still eligible for "Nyad", so there was a Netflix-sponsored screening of the film for the SAG or PGA, but come on, it was really a push for the Oscars.
Now, as a general rule, I'm not supposed to interact with the panelists - often I'll sneak a pic while they're on-stage, but that means I could end up with a blurry photo of the back of someone's head, and I later have to convince people that's a shot of famous person, but really, it could be anybody. But this was a special case, Annette Bening was going to be interviewed after the film, one on one, by Kathleen Turner - and Ms. Turner had a foot injury, she was walking with a cane and had a medical boot on. So in my role as house manager I have to anticipate problems before they happen and think up solutions - how were we going to get her on-stage? So I approached her in the green room and proposed the use of the ADA elevator, which we use to get people in wheelchairs or with walkers to their seats. But the elevator goes one level higher, past the front row seats and all the way to the stage.
So my task was to convince these two famous actresses that I knew what I was doing, that this room that looked like a tiny dark closet was really a lift that would take them to stage level, and that I would be waiting at the top to open the gate and let them out on to the stage. I guess I looked serious and trustworthy because they complied, and at the right moment I activated the elevator, which is slow and makes a lot of noise, also there's a bright light that turns on automatically when the elevator reaches a certain level, plus the audience could see them after a time, so really, it was a rather grand entrance. And after they got to their chairs on the stage and then I had to remind Ms. Bening that the chairs were in a particular position and should not be moved, I got to step back and take a photo of them - of course, you can only see the back of Kathleen Turner's head, and I still have to convince people that's her. But I think I did right by them, and the Q&A went well, all things considered.
Erica Cho carries over from "The Benefactor". I'd say here that Annette Bening was probably ROBBED last year when she didn't win the Oscar, but honestly, I haven't seen "Poor Things" yet, so saying that would really be influenced favoritism. Those are probably the most famous people who I've seen use that elevator, but it's still not the weirdest reason I've used it, that would be for a giant statue of an ostrich, but that's another story.
THE PLOT: The remarkable true story of Diana Nyad, who, at the age of 60 and with the help of her best friend and coach, commits to achieving her life-long dream: a 110-mile open ocean swim from Cuba to Florida.
AFTER: To say I'm flying blind here would be an understatement - I can't swim, I don't swim. But I can't really fight worth a darn either, and that doesn't stop me from watching movies about boxing. Well, look I don't play any sports, so I'm flying blind with any sports movie. So I appreciate everything this movie did to inform me that what Diana Nyad did was a really big deal. Pointing out that the distance from Cuba to Florida is over 110 miles at best, and that's the equivalent of FIVE times the swim across the English Channel, which itself is a pretty big deal. And Diana Nyad succeeded in doing this in 2013, at the age of 61, which is also incredible. It took her 53 hours, that's over TWO DAYS without a break, even for sleeping. We're watching that show on Food Network called "24 in 24" and it features chefs competing in cooking challenges for 24 hours straight, but imagine going TWO DAYS without sleeping and swimming that whole time. It seems impossible.
Nyad had first tried this feat in 1978 at the age of 28, and in that attempt, she had covered 76 miles of swimming, but kept getting pushed off-course toward Texas - so those 76 miles were apparently not in a straight line, and worse, she was swimming inside a shark cage for protection. Doctors removed her from the ocean on her third day of swimming because the strong winds and waves were slamming her against the shark cage - but she decided to try again 33 years later, as she felt the need to finally cross this accomplishment off her bucket list. Or really, it seemed more like a "Fuck it" list, at the age of 61 she just wanted to say that and really go for it. As someone who's 56 and feeling like I've been kind of put out to pasture, maybe I need to take a page from Nyad's book and try out for "Jeopardy!" again or something, I kind of have a little extra time right now. If I wait any longer I'll be eligible for the Seniors Tournament, which, you know, might not be such a terrible idea.
Anyway, let's get back to 2011, when Diana decided to enlist her best friend (and former romantic partner? Not sure...) as her swimming coach, and really take another run at this long-distance swimming thing. This time she assembled a whole support team of about 25 people - navigators, medical personnel, shark experts, weather experts and boat crew. Research by the weather experts said that the best conditions would occur in July or August, so they assembled in Key West and waited for the right starting moment, which came on August 7. No shark cage this time, instead her crew used electronic devices that sent out a signal to repel sharks. They were also standing by with tennis balls mounted on metal rods as a back-up. A medical reaction to a painkiller given to her for shoulder pain caused her asthma to flare up, so that attempt was stopped after 29 hours. Another attempt six weeks later got called early because of jellyfish stings and currents that pushed her off course.
The following year, another attempt started on August 21, 2012 - but similar problems from jellyfish stings, and two storms also ended her swim on the third day, however she had covered more distance than ever before. Finally the team came back together in last August, 2013 for one more attempt, because "why not?" at that point. No shark cage, but with a full protective suit and mask to prevent jellyfish stings, no NSAID pain relievers, and thankfully no storms, so being able to take full advantage of the ocean currents, that proved to be the winning formula. She reached the beach in just 53 hours, having trained for a possible 60-hour swim. And they were very careful to not let any spectators touch her, she had to come out of the water and on to land for the journey to count. Also she was not allowed to touch the boat that traveled along next to her, or any of her team members, the governing board apparently has very strict rules. (It's the World Open Water Swimming Association, which yes, has the acronym WOWSA. Like, wowsa!)
Unfortunately, it seems that WOWSA has refused to certify her 2013 Cuba-to-Florida swim, something about incomplete observer logs, or discrepancies in the crew reports concerning her food and water intake, I don't know, can't we just give a senior citizen a break, here? Nyad swam for 48 hours straight to raise money for victims of Hurricane Sandy, plus she once swam around the entire island of Manhattan - 28 miles - in a record-setting 7 hours and 57 minutes. I don't think I could even walk 10 miles in that amount of time, jeez!
I sort of identified with her coach, Bonnie Stoll, who according to this film, quit after her 2012 attempt but then came back for the 2013 swim because she didn't know what else to do with her life. I just quit my career in animation after spending 31 years working for an independent animator who was always JUST on the edge of being successful, and I felt I couldn't wait any more for him to get his act together and make some real money. I kind of felt that if he would just take my advice and get a real agent, he'd be better off, but he didn't like that idea, so I bailed out. Watch, with my luck he'll strike it rich and sign a big distribution deal three months from now, but that really petty part of me kind of wishes he'd realize that's not going to happen and just close down the studio. Really, I would take it as a personal compliment if he couldn't survive without me - I guess I'm still waiting to find out which way that one's going to go. Honestly, I just got tired of struggling with fundraiser after fundraiser, comic-con after comic-con and never QUITE being able to get enough money to catch up on paying off his debt. I tried, I really did, and now, unlike Bonnie, I'm determined to find something else to occupy my time.
During her long swims, Nyad was known to dissociate herself from her situation, and thus swim in something like a hypnotic state - it makes sense, swimming for so long has got to be incredibly boring and tiring, and perhaps entering this state could be seen as some kind of substitute for sleep. I find myself in a similar state on long car trips, so thank God I'm usually not the one behind the wheel. But this state is used in the film to show the audience flashbacks from Nyad's past, it's a very sneaky way to get some non-linear storytelling in there.
Part of this covers her childhood, when as a teen swimmer competing, she was molested by a noted swim coach, and of course the movie falls just short here of suggesting that there might be a correlation between the sexual abuse by a man and her sexual orientation later in life. I suppose that would be too easy of an answer, as this is a complex issue and many people now believe that (what we used to call sexual preference, then sexual orientation and now) sexual identity is determined at birth, but as you might imagine, I'm not so sure. This is a complex issue and it would be very non-PC of me to suggest that there's a correlation between trauma that occurs to a teen and that teen's behavior later in life - however, some studies say that the rate of sexual abuse reported by LGBTs is 3 to 8 times higher than the rate among straights. For all we know, though, the rate of sexual abuse could be the same across the board and straight people just don't report it as much.
Directed by Jimmy Chin, Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi
Also starring Annette Bening (last seen in "Jerry and Marge Go Large"), Jodie Foster (last seen in "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore"), Rhys Ifans (last seen in "Mr. Nobody"), Karly Rothenberg (last seen in "Win a Date with Tad Hamilton!"), Jeena Yi, Luke Cosgrove, Eric T. Miller, Garland Scott (last seen in "Bullet Train"), Anne Marie Kempf, Carolyn McCormick (last seen in "Nights in Rodanthe"), Marcos Diaz, Johnny Solo (last seen in "Man on a Ledge"), Nadia Lorencz (last seen in "Jackpot!"), Ethan Jones Romero, Hanler Rodriguez, Harraka Eliana, Marcella Acuna Baez, Sophia Hernandez, Katherine Klosterman (last seen in "Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates"), Toussaint Merionne (last seen in "The Lost City"), Katherine Montes (ditto), Tisola Logan, Orpha Salimata, Jose Mota Prestol (last seen in "Shotgun Wedding"), Samantha Gordon (last seen in "American Fiction"), Lilo Grunwald, Anna Harriette Pittman, Belle Darling, Pearl Darling,
with archive footage of Diana Nyad, Johnny Carson (last seen in "The Last Movie Star"), Fidel Castro, Ellen DeGeneres (last seen in "Citizen Ashe"), Andy Kaufman (last seen in "George Carlin's American Dream"), John F. Kennedy (last seen in "Fly Me to the Moon"), Nikita Khrushchev, Kate McKinnon (last seen in "Barbie"), Ed McMahon (last seen in "Bathtubs Over Broadway"), Diane Sawyer, Brian Williams (last seen in "Trial by Fire"), Oprah Winfrey (last seen in "Mike Wallace Is Here")
RATING: 6 out of 10 guests at the surprise birthday party
No comments:
Post a Comment