Reflections On Twenty Years and 'Youth'

Time flies! This week marks my 20th anniversary of moving to Atlanta.

Though the exact date of arrival eludes me, it was the first few days of January 1996 when I packed the Volkswaggen Jetta in St. Louis and hauled a carload of belongings to Georgia for the first time.

Some details are still with me. A cassette of "Medusa" by Annie Lennox played on that drive into the Olympic city, and upon arriving at my initial Atlanta address -- a 1920's brownstone apartment at 198 Ponce de Leon Ave. in Midtown -- my apartment was not ready so upon my late evening arrival the panicked owners (City Councilman Vern McCarty and his business partner Ray) put me in to an occupied unit of a vacationing tenant for the first night (!!!).

Many meals at Mary Mac's Tea Room followed (the only restaurant in town that accepted checks -- in those days I had no ATM card), and the youth hostel on the corner became the social hub where I watched the news (no cable nor TV at my place) and met longtime friend Nippy Feldhake, a fellow transplant arriving for Olympic work from Arizona.

Another vivid memory: After four years of frigid Januaries in Mankato, Minn., I could hardly wait to brag to college classmates that Atlanta was a balmy 50+ degrees for the first week of the year.

Man, was it frustrating to wake up after only a couple of days in the city to find an ice storm hit Georgia, and The Weather Channel reported of warmer in Minnesota that week (Oh, the humanity!).

Not long after settling in, my unit finally opened to me in February (that first month I enjoyed a spacious, vacant two-bedroom flat), I started my grown up life at my first real job with the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games. Not a bad start to the second half of my life, and though there were a couple of brushes with potential moves Out West or to Milwaukee, I remain proud and pleasantly at ease calling Atlanta home.

Reflecting on this milestone and the transition to the new Olympic year brought to mind several memories and as many thoughts for future possibilities. I'm really optimistic for 2016 and beyond, and so far things are going well.

This positive outlook was reinforced tonight while viewing the outstanding film "Youth" starring Oscar winners and nominees Michael Caine, Harvey Keitel, Rachel Weisz and Jane Fonda. This film also features another award-worthy performance by Paul Dano, fresh from his amazing acting in "Love & Mercy."

"Youth" first piqued my interest when National Public Radio aired an "All Things Considered" feature on the original music composed by David Lang, who I learned has both a Grammy Award and Pulitzer Prize.

Lang's work previously made it into my CD collection via the jarring, haunting string quartet notes he composed for the "Requiem For A Dream" soundtrack.

Lang's trophy case is likely to expand soon to accommodate a Golden Globe and Oscar for "Simple Song No. 3" composed for "Youth." It is gorgeous!

Not much can be written on "Youth" without big spoilers.

Fortunately, the official trailers don't reveal major plot points, but one actress in this trailer leaves nothing to the imagination (in "Youth" there is a bit of all ages nudity with the screen flashing everything from twenty-something to septuagenarian skin).

Caine and Keitel play aging artists (a composer and filmmaker, respectively) on holiday at a famous Swiss spa and hotel. Caine is invited to perform for Queen Elizabeth II, who wishes to surprise Prince Philip with a concert of the composer's most famous work, which he has long-since stopped performing "for personal reasons."

Biggest surprises (no spoilers, I promise):

-- Amazing mud bath monologue when Weisz, cast as Caine's daughter and manager, unfurls 30 years of pent-up angst in a tearful, dizzying single take. Best mud bath scene since "The Player."

-- Spectacular vistas of the Swiss Alps; like the Scandinavian hotel in "Ex Machina," the Swiss spa setting for "Youth" has me dreaming of a European vacation.

-- Writer/director Paolo Sorrentino crafted some excellent, quotable dialogue that brought to mind the great writing in another Italian classic that gets audiences misty about age: "Cinema Paradiso."

-- Dano turns in an amazing supporting role, especially when he dons full makeup of a moustached dictator; I also learned a thing or two about futbol star Diego Maradona.

-- Four young film assistants aiding Keitel's character share repeating debates as they attempt to write the final scene to their big project. Their conversations are brilliant and sharp while building toward one of the biggest reveals in "Youth" (a fine example of filmmakers discussing film making in a film about a film maker).

Not surprisingly, Jane Fonda nailed it as Keitel's aging actress/muse-turned-financier. Keitel is excellent and delivered another thought provoking performance (for this writer and fan, his best work since "The Piano" -- glad to see him get more screen time, this time without full-frontal views).

Keitel's character actually reminded me a bit of my dad in his 70's, at times wistful for days gone by though unafraid to suggest big ideas for down the road. The actor's NPR interview reinforced this POV.

Michael Caine, of course, is on his A-game and his character's comments about his wife brought lumps to the throat a couple of times (as friends and family see this film they'll learn how a few key scenes hit close to home).

The last 10 minutes of the film brought to mind visions of attending an opera at The Met or Royal Albert Hall. Breathtaking! The last time I heard such great singing may be when Pavarotti performed at the Torino 2006 Olympic Opening Ceremony (Turin, by the way, is noted in the credits for "Youth" for some production work in the city famous for its "birthplace of Italian cinema" connections).

Whether you're in a reminiscing mood or looking to the future, you'll be doing yourself a favor when you make time to see "Youth."

Photos via Fox Searchlight

Binge Watching for Olympic Connections

Binge watching shows on Netflix can be fun.

For this viewer, the trend in blocking out a weekend to devour a TV program by the season began on a holiday featuring back to back episodes of "24" a few years ago.

Every "Curb Your Enthusiasm" DVD soon followed, and, of course, "House of Cards" and "Orange Is The New Black" became favorites (did anyone else notice both series' most recent season closers involved the same white van?).

My latest binge arrived via the early May debut of "Grace and Frankie," the new series starring former Atlanta resident Jane Fonda with her "9 to 5" co-star Lily Tomlin.

Readers of this blog may recall my conversation with Tomlin on stage at Georgia Tech's Ferst Center for the Arts (a client) in 2008; looking back on that chat, I can't help wonder whether that gleam in Tomlin's eye was an early version of "Grace and Frankie" starting to take shape from Fonda's appearance at the same event.

"Grace and Frankie" is good stuff. Finished it in a couple of days, intentionally spreading the cheer over two lunch breaks and evenings at home.

It delighted me to learn season two was quickly approved for production (hooray!).

For the uninitiated, "Grace and Frankie" (Fonda and Tomlin) are the wives of two successful business partners (lawyers played by Martin Sheen and Sam Waterston) who, in the series' opening scene, announce the fruits of their labor also inspired their closeted, decades-long gay love affair.

Determined to approach retirement without secrets, Sheen and Waterston reveal their intention to divorce their wives and marry each other.

Their formerly even-keeled lives set adrift, Grace and Frankie -- a Los Angeles socialite and a free-spirited art instructor, respectively -- reluctantly form a partnership as roommates in the Malibu beach house their soon-to-be-ex husbands purchased as an investment property.

Their adult children (including a recovering drug addict and an adopted son) and many others, such as former convicts in Frankie's post-prison art classes, work to console the women and help them build new lives.

At its core, "Grace and Frankie" is a show about grief and its many stages. Here are two couples, four adults and their families who've suddenly lost their identities, each forced -- for better or worse -- to forge ahead.

I like the bone dry humor, and though laughter is the best medicine, I wouldn't call "Grace and Frankie" a 'happy' comedy; it's not a drama, but many of the topics are a step closer to dramatic than, say, episodes of "The Golden Girls" that dealt with 'serious' issues of people in their sixties or seventies.

Tomlin's hippie character steals the show almost every segment, but Fonda's uptight freak-outs crack me up, too. As the retired founder of a cosmetics company now run by her daughter, some of Fonda's best lines arrive in conversations about how to run the business now versus back in the day.

The ladies' experiments with social media and online dating are a riot -- confused by a (fictional) app that seemed to blend the best of Facebook pokes and Tinder swipes, Grace corrects Frankie that in search of a date she has emphatically "NOT been punching or fingering anyone" via her mobile device.

Frankie's special blend for personal lubricant also earned many belly laughs in later episodes -- for anyone who recalls "The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin" think of the lube as the 21st century answer to "grot."

Also enjoyable is the brainy chemistry shared by Waterston and Sheen. The latter seems to borrow from his folksy Southern lawyer character spotted dancing at the kitchen sink in "Catch Me If You Can." Perhaps their best shared scenes take place at their public 'coming out' event, which happens to be at the funeral for another longtime law firm partner.

I found Waterston enjoyed an Olympic-tied project as the actor narrated the NBC Olympic featurette "The Great Race" detailing a Winter Games rivalry. Regrettably, I missed the air date and binge-watching of the Torino 2006 Olympics as work took me to Italy for most of that event.

While describing "Grace and Frankie" to friends, I've cautioned the first two episodes can be heavy; the jokes and story seem to gain steam in episode three, and by episode five -- which sets up an interesting sort of flashback scenario -- the laughs are frequent and very funny. There are some very subtle, perhaps accidental, references to "9 to 5" scenes, and it won't surprise me one bit if Dolly Parton and/or Dabney Coleman show up in cameos during season two (we can hope they will).

Bottom line: "Grace and Frankie" is a binge-worthy series worth a look.

Images via Netflix and/or the 'Grace and Frankie' page on Facebook

He Ted, Not Jane

On the eve of travel to work at IAAPA Attractions Expo 2008 in Orlando (er, actually it was just a couple of hours before the flight to Florida from Atlanta, on Nov. 14), the Atlanta Press Club hosted another great lunchtime event at downtown's Commerce Club just a few blocks from my desk at Edelman.

The guest of honor was one of my favorite fellow-Atlantans: The one and only Mr. Ted Turner. "The Mouth of the South" has a new book titled "Call Me Ted" which I've found to be an interesting read that filled in the blanks on several excerpts from another Turner biography of the mid-1990s titled "Citizen Turner" (sidebar: I picked up a copy of this book from a dumpster at Columbia University's School of Journalism, which was undergoing asbestos abatement while I was house sitting in Manhattan during October 1996, on post-Atlanta Games holiday -- by contrast, I paid the cover price for "Call Me Ted" and it is worth every penny).

Turner was on site with several members of his family (no sign of his former spouse, Jane Fonda, who was filmed for this blog just the week before Ted's press club engagement -- thanks again, G-CAPP, which wants you to know that three out of 10 girls in the U.S. become pregnant at least once before age 20 - see their other "fast facts" to learn more). There were also many current or former CNN employees in the audience, and Ted spent most of his time at the podium answering questions from the standing room crowd.

As shown on the video for this post, I posed an Olympic question to Mr. Turner that was only half-answered by "Citizen Turner" and escaped mention in "Call Me Ted." Paraphrasing here:

Mr. Turner, your book mentions milestones of your sailing career, but not your attempts to make the U.S. Olympic Sailing teams of the early 1960s (as noted in "Citizen Turner") -- can you please talk about any level of regret or recollections on the Olympic trials?

Turner's answer was very good (see video) and not entirely surprising, and he also kept on message about his book talking about his last days at AOL/Time Warner. Thank you, Mr. Turner, for answering my question.

Among many other memorable remarks of the event (reported by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in "PeachBuzz" the day after the lunch event) was the notion that Mr. Turner is looking for new friends (an audience member suggested he create a new reality TV show to recruit a few). I also loved Turner's answers to audience questions about CNN Headline News ("I can't watch it anymore"), President Bush and General Motors. Former CNN Chairman Tom Johnson's introductory remarks were outstanding as well.

One other remark that stuck with me was that Turner commented about litter and downtown, with sort of a "Give A Hoot: Don't Pollute!" Woodsy Owl tone. He explained that while walking through urban Atlanta he often takes time to pick up litter, and my impression was that he encourages his current team to do the same.

Since we are neighbors and he made a good point, since Nov. 14 I've taken a moment to pick up cans, discarded newsprint or other waste while walking to lunch at CNN Center or on MARTA, and it would be cool to see others do the same (that was, after all, an action that led me to that copy of "Citizen Turner" while exploring Columbia University back in the day).

I'd love to hear other reader feedback about "Call Me Ted" and hope folks will post their impressions of the text as a comment. Happy reading!

Fun With Nick & Jane

Georgia Tech's Ferst Center for the Arts (disclosure: an Edelman client) was the funniest place in Atlanta last night, with Mark Twain Prize (and Emmy, and Tony, and GRAMMY) winning comedienne Lily Tomlin playing to a standing room audience.

As a special treat (though not surprising), local star resident Jane Fonda -- Tomlin's co-star from one of the first Beta-tape home video cassettes I ever viewed: Nine To Five -- was in the audience. Jane was seated on the center aisle, on about row 15. My seat was on the front row (purchased online at 12:01 a.m. ET/12:01 p.m. Beijing time, as I was working in China during the on-sale moment, determined to have an excellent seat, and it was, as we could practically see Tomlin's nose hairs whenever she strolled stage left!).

During her 90 minutes of monologue, in-character sketches and even some pantomime and dancing, Tomlin delivered and outstanding array of laughs. Given this week's election news, perhaps Tomlin's best pseudo-impromptu line was her lamentations on how she is "now deeply worried about the future of comedy" in a post-W. presidency. She also described how graffiti in her hometown of Detroit sold thousands of cars:

"Teenagers used to spray paint that four-letter word that started with 'F' on bridges, and overnight the adults would repaint it to read 'BUICK'!"

Tomlin also touched on Hollywood, family and sexuality several times, noting that in her youth, family and society, "no one was gay -- they were only shy."

Following a sustained standing ovation, a couple hundred "VIP" ticket holders joined Tomlin and Fonda on stage for a delightfully informal meet-and-greet session. Everyone got as much time as they wanted to snap photos, ask questions or seek autographs from both stars.

For the sake of this blog, when it was my turn to chat with Tomlin, I decided to reprise my "reporter" role in an Olympic version of "The Chris Farley Show" and ask whether Lily had a favorite Olympic moment, athlete or experience (Tomlin is now the fifth celebrity to indulge my Olympic curiosity after Ennio Morricone, Kelly Clarkson, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley and most recently Garrison Keillor).

Tomlin took a minute to think about it, and eventually replied (see the video) that she was amazed by the opening ceremonies in Athens and Beijing, in particular the giant LED "scroll" in the Bird's Nest. A bit later, off camera, Tomlin introduced the topic to her stage manager while we were exchanged e-mail information (Tomlin missed Fonda's departure from the event, and I offered Fonda's G-CAPP manager's e-mail to Tomlin & Co. -- thanks, Ms. Tomlin, for answering my questions and for signing my ticket).

Before she left the venue, I also asked Fonda whether she had ever seen Tomlin perform live on stage. The answer was, "No. No, not ever in Atlanta. And this venue [The Ferst Center and Atlanta] was a great place for this."

On the advice of Fonda's team from G-CAPP, I did not go down the Olympic path of questions, which I now regret. One of Fonda's G-CAPP colleagues said that she did not believe Jane had attended an Olympics, and unsure about the Goodwill Games with Fonda's then-husband Ted Turner.

Today, the morning after, the Web yielded that Fonda DID have at least one five-ringed connection as host of some sort of 1984 televised "Olympic Gala" (with Neil Diamond, The Beach Boys, James Stewart, Paul Hogan, Olivia Newton-John, Christoper Reeve, Dizzy Gillespie, Brooke Shields, Bruce Jenner, Peggy Flemming, John Houseman, Robert Wagner, Placido Domingo, Johnny Mathis, Henry Mancini, Barbara Walters, Andy Williams, Gregory Peck, Gene Kelly, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Jack Lemmon, Burt Lancaster and even Prince Charles and Princess Diana -- man, I need to find a tape of this) which presumably took place in Los Angeles before or during the Games of the XXIIIrd Olympiad.

Oh, well -- guess I'll have to ask Jane the next time we cross paths at the Midtown Whole Foods Market.

But back to Tomlin. Of several dozen celebrity introductions over the years, Tomlin was one of the most gracious, friendly and genuine. I appreciated her time to talk with so many people and her thoughtful answer to my questions -- some of the best 1x1 celebrity time since working with Benazir Bhutto's media tour at CNN. To paraphrase the interviewer Chris Farley, "That was AWESOME!"

And that's the truth.