I was wondering when I was going to find some content that would somehow reflect this Hy-Art of Picasso (the sick bed) and Alma-Tadema (the Hellenic Angels). Happily, I saw just the apropos film, Hamlet 2, yesterday, at a special screening for NYU West Coast alumni. (Though I was easily the oldest one there, I'm trying to participate, dammit!)
Hamlet 2 is the absolutely hysterical story of a drama teacher in Tuscson, Arizona who wants nothing more than to create great theater, but whose only real talent is the sort of tenaciousness that allows him to hold on to a dream even when he has been kicked, run over and stomped "like a baby kitten" -- as he puts it, in the kind of brilliantly simple mangling of the language that results in some of most sophisticated humor I've ever seen on the screen. The true miracle occurs in the finale, when the musical they put on actually manages to be pretty damn good. Steven Coogan as the teacher who can't do is brilliant, and Elizabeth Shue (as herself--becoming a nurse because she's tired of Hollywood) is adorable. I predict director Andrew Fleming is the next Judd Apatow, but even better. Kudos all around.
Today I go to the 5th sober birthday celebration of a friend who I knew briefly as a dealer and then who was in Chino with me, although on the other side of "campus." I ran into him a month after his release, and we've been keeping tabs on each other ever since.
I have watched Dale change from a man completely preocuppied by his own gratification to someone whose chief concern in life is being of service to others--all while keeping the most dazzling blue-eyed smile imaginable at the ready. If my transformation has been half as dramatic as his, I'm a very happy man.
Happy Birthday, my brother.
MCO 2008
Very nice review of Hamlet 2, makes me want to see it. I do homethat it is scheduled for a general release. Also a very nice description of Dale, and based on the man that I know now, I suspect that your transformation has been as dramatic