WCBE 90.5 FM: "The Namesake," "The Lookout," "Reign Over Me"

WCBE 90.5 FM: The Namesake, The Lookout, Reign Over Me
John DeSando & Clay Lowe
Recording Time: Wednesday 1:30 pm, March 28, 2007
Air Time: Friday, 3:01 pm and 8:01 pm, March 30, 2007
Streaming live on the web and on-demand at http://www.wcbe.org

Clay

"The Namesake" is a tale of two cities . . .

John

"The Lookout" is not really about a bank heist . . .

Clay

"Reign Over Me" is more Dylan than Sandler . . .

HIT MUSIC(THEME FROM "STAR WARS"), THEN UP THEN UNDER FOR:

Richelle

"It's Movie Time" in Columbus with John DeSando and Clay Lowe . . .

MUSIC UP THEN SLOWLY DOWN AND OUT

John

I'm John DeSando . . .

Clay

And I'm Clay Lowe . . .

John ("The Namesake")

Clay, for an example of the word “saga,” see Mira Nair’s [nyer’s] Namesake. She traces a young Indian, Gogol, from his youth through his almost mid-life in New York with the attention to detail we all should hope from our biographers.

Clay

Yeah, well, the devil IS in those details.

John

Nair’s gentle narrative shows that no character’s fate seemscapricious, no culture overwhelming enough to keep a progressive child from emigrating to the New World.

In a way, Nair [nyer] has caught the bittersweet nature of change, embodied in America as the Promised Land and India as the nurturing, safe past. In Namesake both worlds are the province of the adventuresome child, whose challenge is to retain the values of both.

No one who has seen Salaam Bombay or Monsoon Wedding can question Nair’s romantic capture of culture crude and sublime.

Clay ("The Namesake")

Well, folks, Nair's "The Namesake" is based on a three-hundred some page novel that details a Bengali Indian family's move from Calcutta to New York City. Picking up on the novel's theme about the difficulties of cultural transitions, Mira Nair (Nyer), obviously identifies with the plight of the young man whose parents made him the namesake of a Russian novelist.

Neither truly Indian, nor truly American, Gogol thus comes to resent both the loss of his cultural identify and his own inability to more fully
integrate himself into his not so brave new world.

Playing down the exotic cultural differences she so colorfully featured in
"Monsoon Wedding," Nair (Nair) flattens out the differences this time, and forces us to more fully identify with the characters themselves.

John ("The Lookout")


Character? You want character?


You want a heist film? See Dog Day Afternoon. Don’t think the sweet Lookout will carry the same tension because Lookout heavily relies on the character exposition of its protagonist, Chris (Joseph Gordon-Levitt). The heist is just an artful ending to an absorbing study of depression and rehabilitation.

Chris, a rock-star hockey player in high school, terminates that celebrity with a reckless accident that leaves him impaired emotionally and physically. So he’s easy prey for a gang that entices him to help them rob a rural Kansas bank, where he is a janitor.

The Lookout is a small film, an invigorating study of humans under stress. All of us should “lookout” where we’re going, either on a lonely road or in a foolish heist.

Clay ("Reign Over Me")

And all of us, folks, should look out for movies that feature characters more media inspired than real. Case in point, Adam Sandler's psychotically grieving character in Mike Binder's new movie "Reign Over Me."

Seemingly inspired more by Bob Dylan album covers than the events of 911, Sandler's [former dentist] character dresses like Dylan, poses in the movie's poster like Dylan, and walks around with the hang-dog look of Dylan's adopted persona.

Come on, Binder and Sandler, get Real.

Mimicking the persona of a pop cultural icon, and borrowing pop music themes to serve as your movie's theme, has got to show through as shallow and false. And shallow and false it does show through with Sandler failing to exhibit real grief in this (too bad) pseudo-reality based film.

Nice try guys, but there'll be no Grammies this time.

(Pause)

But enough of inappropriate monikering, dufus grievering, and pop-cultural posturering, John, because it's grading time.

John

Holy HAPPENING HEIST, Hooray!

HIT DRUMS THEN UNDER FOR

John (Cont.)

"The Namesake" earns an “A” for brilliantly ANALYZING the notorious melting pot. . .

Clay

"The Namesake" gets a "B" because it's much longer than it needs to BE . . .

John

"The Lookout" earns a “B” for BASKING in characterization . . .

Clay

"Reign Over Me" gets a "C" because COMIC CHARACTERS become only more COMICAL when they try to be too serious . . .

John

Clay, my dentist, Dr. Dan Ward, could show Adam Sandler a thing or two about a happy practice without stress. I'm outta here.

Clay

John, Dr. Dan practiced good on you, and you've got the pearly whites to show it; but I'm cancelling my next visit to Dr. Sandler.

I'm outta here too.

HIT CLOSING THEME MUSIC("AIN'T WE GOT FUN?"), THEN UNDER FOR

Richelle

It's Movie Time with John DeSando and Clay Lowe is written and produced by John DeSando and Clay Lowe in conjunction with 90.5 FM, WCBE in Columbus, Ohio.

MUSIC UP, THEN DOWN AND OUT

Copyright 2007 by John DeSando & Clay Lowe