Mountain Views News          Saturday, October 11, 2014

11

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

Mountain Views-News Saturday, October 11, 2014

Jeff’s Book Picks By Jeff Brown

SEAN’S SHAMELESS REVIEWS: 

GONE GIRL


Being Mortal: Medicine 
and What Matters in the 
End by Atul Gawande 
In Being Mortal, bestselling author 
Atul Gawande tackles the hardest 
challenge of his profession: how 
medicine can not only improve 
life but also the process of its 
ending.Medicine has triumphed in 
modern times, transforming birth, 
injury, and infectious disease from 
harrowing to manageable. But in 
the inevitable condition of aging 
and death, the goals of medicine 
seem too frequently to run counter 
to the interest of the human spirit. 
Nursing homes, preoccupied with 
safety, pin patients into railed beds 
and wheelchairs. Hospitals isolate 
the dying, checking for vital signs 
long after the goals of cure have 
become moot. Doctors, committed 
to extending life, continue to carry 
out devastating procedures that in 
the end extend suffering. Gawande, 
a practicing surgeon, addresses his 
profession’s ultimate limitation, 
arguing that quality of life is the 
desired goal for patients and families. 
Gawande offers examples of freer, 
more socially fulfilling models for 
assisting the infirm and dependent 
elderly, and he explores the varieties 
of hospice care to demonstrate that 
a person’s last weeks or months 
may be rich and dignified.Full of 
eye-opening research and riveting 
storytelling, Being Mortal asserts 
that medicine can comfort and 
enhance our experience even 
to the end, providing not only 
a good life but also a good end
The Roosevelts: An Intimate 
History by Geoffrey C. 
Ward (Author), Ken Burns 
A vivid and personal portrait of 
America’s greatest political family 
and its enormous impact on our 
nation—the companion volume to 
the seven-part PBS documentary 
series With 796 photographs, some 
never before seen.The authors of the 
acclaimed and best-selling The Civil 
War, Jazz, The War, and Baseball 
present an intimate history of three 
extraordinary individuals from 
the same extraordinary family—
Theodore, Eleanor, and Franklin 
Delano Roosevelt.Geoffrey C. 
Ward, distilling more than thirty 
years of thinking and writing about 
the Roosevelts, and the acclaimed 
filmmaker Ken Burns help us 
understand for the first time that, 
despite the fierce partisanship of 
their eras, the Roosevelts were 
far more united than divided. All 
the history the Roosevelts made 
is here, but this is primarily an 
intimate account, the story of three 
people who overcame obstacles that 
would have undone less forceful 
personalities. Theodore Roosevelt 
would push past childhood frailty, 
outpace depression, survive 
terrible grief—and transform the 
office of the presidency. Eleanor 
Roosevelt, orphaned and alone as a 
child, would endure her husband’s 
betrayal, battle her own self-doubts, 
and remake herself into the most 
consequential first lady in American 
history—and the most admired 
woman on earth. And Franklin 
Roosevelt, born to privilege and so 
pampered that most of his youthful 
contemporaries dismissed him 
as a charming lightweight, would 
summon the strength to lead the 
nation through the two greatest 
crises since the Civil War, though 
he could not take a single step 
unaided. The three were towering 
personalities, but The Roosevelts 
shows that they were also flawed 
human beings who confronted in 
their personal lives issues familiar 
to all of us: anger and the need for 
forgiveness, courage and cowardice, 
confidence and self-doubt, loyalty 
to family and the need to be true 
to oneself. This is the story of the 
Roosevelts—no other American 
family ever touched so many lives.
Live by Night: A Novel 
by Dennis Lehane
From Gone, Baby, Gone to Mystic 
River to Shutter Island to The Given 
Day, the phenomenal Dennis Lehane 
has proven himself to be one of the 
most versatile and exciting novelists 
working in America today—whether 
he’s breaking new ground with 
uniquely inventive psychological 
suspense, redefining the detective 
story, or bringing a bygone era to 
life with sweeping and masterful 
historical fiction. He’s back with 
Live by Night, an epic, unflinching 
tale of the making and unmaking of 
a gangster in the Prohibition Era of 
the Roaring Twenties.Meticulously 
researched and artfully told, Live 
by Night is the riveting story of one 
man’s rise from Boston petty thief 
to the Gulf Coast’s most successful 
rum runner, and it proves again that 
the accolades Lehane consistently 
receives are well deserved. 

By Sean Kayden

David Fincher’s “Gone 
Girl” is a new psychological 
thriller that’s based on the 
novel by Gillian Flynn. 
It stars Ben Affleck and 
Rosamund Pike as a once 
loving couple who’s seemingly perfect marriage spirals 
out of control due to unemployment and personal 
issues. The film examines many social elements such 
as marriage, deceitfulness, the media, economic 
problems, and identities. Flynn noted the film, which 
she wrote the screenplay for, deviates from her own 
book. The 149-minute running time whizzes by at 
least for the first two-thirds of the way. The dialogue 
is swift, sharp, and incredibly witty. “Gone Girl” is a 
dark drama that explores the concept of an American 
marriage gone wrong. It’s shot extremely well with a 
color palette that’s moody yet visually stunning. The 
direction from acclaimed director, David Fincher 
(“The Social Network,” “Zodiac,” “Seven,” “Fight 
Club”) is precision sharp. There may be a few qualms 
to nitpick along the way, which would include the 
very last shot of the film. However, overall, at a purely 
entertainment standpoint, the film mostly delivers. It 
may not be strikingly perfect, but on a technical and 
creative level Gone Girl is fairly rock solid. 

 Ben Affleck plays Nick Dunne, a magazine writer 
whose wife Amy (Pike) has gone missing one morning 
after he returns home from the bar he owns in town. The 
disappearance and peculiar behavior of Dunne causes 
the media and small town to get involved. The first act of 
the film consists of numerous flashbacks of the couple’s 
earlier days. It depicts their deep connection as well as 
their overwhelmingly sexual desires for one another. 
However, there’s something amiss with their idyllic 
marriage. Layoffs, moving from New York City to Nick’s 
hometown in Missouri to care for his dying mother 
as well as money problems all have appeared to taint 
the once promising marriage. There’s also something 
strangely off about Amy even though the attention is on 
Nick’s behavior. The film quickly swifts to the central 
question, Did Nick kill Amy? As time continues on and 
new revelations are unfolding, Nick starts to look like 
the most hated man in America. Along the way there are 
twists and turns, but the biggest surprise comes around 
the halfway point. However, after the somewhat shocking 
discovery, “Gone Girl” starts to run low on stream. It 
almost feels like the balloon was popped too soon. Don’t 
get me wrong, it was still an entertaining time at the 
theater. However, seeing as how much time you already 
invested into the story by that far, I felt as if it wasn’t as 
ultimately gripping as I had intended it to become. 

 The outrageously crazy third act almost seems to 
go overboard just a bit with Amy’s character. Her 
sociopathic tendencies clearly get the best of her. 
Affleck over the years has become a better actor since 
he’s picking better projects. He’s good for the role, but 
his character is sort of aloof. The persona he displays 
is straight out of real world headlines. “Gone Girl “is 
a movie that feels like real life. It tracks the suspicious 
behavior of a once loving husband, how a small town 
bands together to help find one of their own, and how 
the media portrays this know of scenario at hand. I 
certainly enjoyed the social commentary and the way 
America can put someone’s life under a microscope. 
Even if the media is wrong, they still can spin it well 
enough to make them appear as if they were right 
all along. It’s a sad, but cruel reality. The notion of 
marriage and whom you’re sleeping with every night is 
at the forefront. “Gone Girl” will have you thinking or 
at least scratching your head as the credits roll. If it can 
at the very least allow you to do that, I think it’s safe to 
say it’s worth the price of admission. 

Grade: 3.5 out of 5


On the Marquee: Notes from the Sierra Madre Playhouse


MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE By Artistic Director, Christian Lebano

I write these essays every week without 
any real sense of whether anyone 
is reading them. But I continue to 
write them because they are one way 
that I can share what is going on at 
the Playhouse with the readers of the 
Mountain Views News. I’m so proud of 
what is going on behind the marquee.

Our production of 4000 Miles has 
gotten wonderful reviews. I am so 
proud of this work. Audiences have 
been telling me how much they have 
enjoyed the play and how terrific the 
performances are. Unfortunately, 
those audiences have been small. It 
may be because the play doesn’t have great name recognition, but the play isn’t selling very well. And 
that is such a shame – and is costing us. In the calculus of the season (as I explained a few essays back) 
I tried to create a season that was balanced and that had something for everyone. In theater there are 
no “sure things” but I was counting on that by insuring that everything that we put up is of the highest 
quality we can manage – that audiences would trust that the work at the Playhouse – recognizable or 
not – was worth attending.

SMP is really at a watershed moment in our history. We are being acknowledged by the wider theatrical 
community for all the strides we’ve made, we are hiring theater artists who are bringing a higher level of 
sophistication and talent to our stage than ever before, we are stretching ourselves with new initiatives 
and programs and yet we don’t seem to be able to make an impression on our local community. 

I have begun to wonder if we closed our doors if anyone in town would notice or care? Would we be 
missed? As I meet people in town and introduce myself as the Artistic Director of SMP I am saddened 
by how many locals tell me that they have never been to the theater – but that they hear that we do good 
work. No theater can survive on box office receipts alone – it has to be a healthy mix of earned (box 
office) to unearned (donations, grants, and underwriting) income. Most theater analysts suggest that 
ratio should be 60/40 unearned to earned income. We come nowhere near that ratio.

Our theater needs you. We are about to launch a fundraising campaign to address long-delayed capital 
improvements and to rebuild our reserves. We have a long list of serious needs that will make our 
theater more comfortable and our productions more enjoyable. There are several ways you can help – I 
call it giving us ADVICE:

Attend our plays and make sure that you bring someone new to every show – empty seats cost us;

Donate what you can to keep our theater alive and vibrant;

Volunteer to help us – we are a very small staff (all unpaid) and there is always more to do than we 
can alone;

Include us in your conversations with the City Council members and local businesses as one of the 
things you treasure about Sierra Madre;

Connect us to people to 
whom we can reach out 
for help;

Express yourself – let us 
know what you like and 
don’t like about what we are 
doing – I can be reached 
at ArtisticDirector@
SierraMadrePlayhouse.org

To purchase tickets 
call 626.355.4318 for 
reservations or go 
to our website www.
sierramadreplayhouse.org