The Pain in "A Real Pain" Never Goes Away

Today, I went to the Coolidge Corner Theatre in Brookline to attend a screening of A Real Pain starring Kieran Culkin and Jesse Eisenberg (who also wrote and directed the film).

Before getting to the substance of A Real Pain, this was my first time attending a movie at Coolidge Corner since attending a screening of Midnight Cowboy in July 2023. In the year and a half which has followed, the 90-year-old plus movie house has undergone a renovation which has made it quite the attraction again. 

I actually tried to see A Real Pain on Friday night, but all showings were sold out. Back in August, I had plans to see 2001: A Space Odyssey, but it too was sold out. Having been burned twice, I made the point of buying my ticket online and sent to my phone. The wonders of post-modern technology.

A Real Pain is a story of two cousins who fly to Poland to honor their recently deceased grandmother who had survived the Holocaust. The two cousins are part of a tour group which views the Warsaw Ghetto and the Majdanek concentration camp before leaving the tour to find their grandmother's childhood home.

The two cousins, while close since childhood, are polar opposites in terms of temperament and disposition. Benji (Culkin) is the outgoing life of the party who was closer of the two to his grandmother while David (Eisenberg) is more analytical and reserved. Benji is whiling the way the hours smoking weed while David is juggling a wife, child and a job in the hi-tech sector. 

Both men, however, are shielding demons. Benji is manic-depressive and prone to fits of anger wondering why they are traveling to a concentration camp by train in first class as he thinks of his grandmother. David's turmoil revolves around worrying about Benji and his moods while at the same time envying him for being the guy everyone loves and his outward fearlessness.

The sense I got is that despite their visit to Poland to get in touch with what their grandmother endured, the experience doesn't really change them much. David goes back to wife, child and job in New York while Benji is back at the airport where we found him at the beginning of the movie having nowhere really to go. Their real pain shall remain with them.

I was aware that Jennifer Grey was in the movie, but did not recognize her until the credits rolled. Grey plays Marcia, a divorcee whose mother was a Holocaust survivor. Benji and Marcia flirt with each other a bit but it doesn't go beyond that. Grey is old enough to be Culkin's mother (she is 64 while he is 42). Whatever her age, Jennifer Grey is sexy as all hell, and I don't care who knows.

A Real Pain has been nominated for and won several prestigious awards particularly for Culkin's acting and Eisenberg's screenplay. I will not be surprised if Golden Globe and Oscar nominations are to follow.

Escape from New York Was an Escape

 

On Saturday night, I went to the Brattle Theatre to take in a screening the 1981 John Carpenter film Escape from New York starring Kurt Russell.

While I am old enough to remember its initial release, I had never seen it until tonight. Russell led the stellar cast which included Donald Pleasence, Lee Van Cleef, Ernest Borgnine, Harry Dean Stanton, Adrienne Barbeau (who was married to Carpenter at the time) and Isaac Hayes. There were also cameos from Russell's then wife Season Hubley and professional wrestler Ox Baker. 

Escape from New York is set in 1997 where Manhattan is an inmate run prison. Snake Plissken (Russell) is about to be sent to the prison when Air Force One is hijacked and crashes in Manhattan with the President (Pleasence) taken into captivity. The police commissioner (Van Cleef) makes a deal with Plissken to get the President out of New York. Along the way, he is helped by the Cabbie (Borgnine) who takes him to The Brain (Stanton) and his girlfriend Maggie (Barbeau) but must overcome The Duke (Hayes).

Despite its dark overtones Escape from New York was 100 minutes of pure escapism. At the conclusion of the film, I overheard several audience members how much fun they found Escape from New York and enjoyed the experience of watching it in a theatre. 

I am someone who likes watching a movie until all the credits have rolled. While watching the closing credits, I noticed that one of the assistants was Matt Franco. It made me think of Matt Franco who played in MLB with the Chicago Cubs, New York Mets and Atlanta Braves during the 1990s and early 2000s before finishing his professional career in Japan. Well, it turns out that Matt Franco is Kurt Russell's nephew. Franco's father Larry (married to Russell's sister Jill) was a co-producer of Escape from New York.

In retrospect, this factoid shouldn't come entirely as a surprise. Kurt Russell has a strong connection to baseball himself playing in the minor leagues in the California Angels organization in the early 1970s and later with the independent Portland Mavericks which were owned by his father actor Bing Russell. 

I, too, enjoyed Escape from New York as it was another opportunity to escape from the house on a Saturday night.

The Las Vegas Bomber & Why America Does Not Respond to "Wake-Up Calls"

Authorities reportedly recovered a letter from Las Vegas bomber Matthew Livelsberger explaining his motivations for blowing up a truck in front of Trump International Hotel on New Year's Day:

This was not a terrorist attack, it was a wake up call. Americans only pay attention to spectacles and violence. What better way to get my point across than a stunt with fireworks and explosives.

I am reasonably sure the seven people who sustained injuries as a result of Livelsberger's actions would disagree with his assessment.

What sticks out to me though is Livelsberger's use of the term "wake up call". 

Yes, Americans do pay attention to spectacles and violence. But our attention span is short. 

That the attack took place on a Trump property will give this incident more attention. But I somehow doubt it will result in the sort of "wake-up call" that Livelsberger would have wanted whatever his wishes might have been.

After all, the past quarter century of this country's history has been full of spectacles and violence - the September 11th attacks, the Boston Marathon bombing, an attack on the U.S. Capitol along with too many school shootings and mass shootings to mention. 

Well, I'll mention one mass shooting in particular.

The largest mass shooting in U.S. history took place all of three miles away from where Livelsberger took his own life. In October 2017, 60 people were killed at the Route 91 Harvest Music Festival by a gunman staying at the nearby Mandalay Bay Hotel. Yet I suspect most people outside the immediate area would not be aware of this fact much less remembered that such a thing even happened. Perhaps Livelsberger was one of those people.

Despite the best efforts of incoming Trump Administration officials to link Las Vegas to the ISIS inspired terrorist attack in New Orleans, one wonders if Livelsberger was aware of the spectacles and violence which occurred hours earlier. 

Of course, I must also bear in mind there are reports that Livelsberger had sustained some kind of traumatic brain injury in the course of his military service in Afghanistan. If this was the case, then his state of mind would have been in a diminished capacity adversely affecting his decision-making ability. Planning and carrying out an act which took his own life, and which could have taken the lives of others much less hoping that such a plan would be wake-up call is not a sign of prudence and sound judgment.

In the final analysis, I think this country is far too desensitized to spectacles and violence not to mention a pandemic which killed more than 1 million Americans to even comprehend the idea of a wake-up call.

2025 Opens with Terror in New Orleans & Las Vegas

I began 2025 with a day full of laughter attending the New Year's Day Marx Brothers Movie Marathon at the Brattle Theatre.  

But amid the laughter, 2025 got off to a terrifying start in New Orleans and Las Vegas.

First came the terrorist attack during New Year's celebrations in New Orleans. A man in a vehicle drove onto Bourbon Street ramming down people while shooting others before authorities gunned him down. In all, 15 people were killed and 35 were injured. 

The assailant was identified as Shamsud-Din Jabbar, an American born former U.S. Army specialist who converted to Islam and had recently pledged allegiance to ISIS. While it was initially thought that Jabbar acted in concert with others, the FBI has concluded that he acted alone. It was the deadliest act of Islamic terrorism committed on U.S. soil since the attack at the Orlando nightclub which killed 49 people in June 2016. 

President-elect Trump did not help matters when he claimed the perpetrator had entered the U.S. through the Southern border. This is bound to get worse when returns to the White House in 18 days.

Speaking of Trump, news then came of a truck explosion in front of Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas. The driver of the truck evidently committed suicide before the explosion. Seven people were wounded in the attack. 

Given the attack occurred only hours after the ISIS inspired attack in New Orleans, it was not unreasonable to consider the possibility of another ISIS inspired attack or at the very least an attack directed (however indirectly) at President-elect Trump. The man responsible for the explosion was an active-duty U.S. soldier named Matthew Livelsberger who was on approved leave from his base in Germany. 

Livelsberger reportedly left his home in Colorado Springs around Christmas time over a domestic dispute. It has also been reported by acquaintances of Livelsberger that he was a Trump supporter. Even if this is the case, the fact that this act took place in front of a Trump property isn't likely to quell speculation. Indeed, there has been speculation about an old photo of Livelsberger wearing a pro-Ukraine t-shirt.

I will say that if Livelsberger's motivations had nothing to do with Trump it is awfully peculiar to commit this kind of act in front of a property bearing Trump's name. Perhaps he thought it would draw more attention to himself. I mean how many people outside of Nashville remember the RV explosion on Christmas Day in 2020? 

Whatever the motivation, the fact this happened only hours after the New Orleans attack will not lend itself to sober second thought. Attempts to link the two attacks are continuing given that both men served at Fort Bragg and in Afghanistan. However, this hardly means these two men knew each other.

This country is not in an age of reason. We proved that by giving a man who tried to prevent the peaceful transfer of power access to our nuclear codes once more.

Welcome to 2025. It is going to be a long, long year. Perhaps all we can do is try to stay out of its way.