I have to laugh. Just her dancing in some weird strip club.
I just finished Lambada The Forbidden Dance, a film that we watched in this Brazilian-Jewish family that I lived with for four years. I’m looking for references for their family lambada parties, a different vibe for sure, but “the people of the United States of America” did flock to Miracle Mile for these parties to dance at the very same time this film was made since KAOMA took the world by storm with their lambada hit at the end of the 80s. This was the song of Miracle Mile, it was my favorite. And that, that really made Angelita laugh.
This family was a hilariously talented unit of movers — 6 kids born to dance also Jewish, so there you go. Angelita, the mother in this psychological drama I hope I get to write — keep walking down the street in Portici with gelato: it’s done, it’s a done deal — danced 24/7. She lived in a state of love and dance. She blows this lady out of the water, I assure you. She was a hot lady, HOT, I mean that as a compliment. She was the life force, a whippersnapper. And she was the one who literally, seriously speaking, stepped ONE foot, one, into my house — that’s it — and she saw that baby, me. She felt it. Something is wrong with that baby. She took me out — stat.
They had parties often, but she was dancing regardless, like this lady in her room dancing all sexy, well, that’s what she was doing. Cracking up. It was a bit less — how do I put this ? — a bit more celebratory than strictly sexual, let’s say, but still — that’s what she was doing. She was a woman who loved sex.
There’s a layer of family fun here that this movie will hopefully offer to everyone — the masses — in the midst of a psychological drama. It’s not a party inappropriate for kids, type of thing, but there isn’t anything wrong with sex, you see, something in my four year old studies struck me as normal. A good idea. It’s a wholesome Brazilian good time.
I mean, Angelita and I had conversations, since I was a bit of an unusual kid. I didn’t understand what the issue was with sex very young. Why is this bad…if I am here because of it? It wasn’t. I was young, but I was already a bit freaked out. Like relax, no? I am four, five, seriously, I wasn’t exactly asking for specifics, but I was blown away by the conflict. It was not white, you know, it wasn’t American, lol, north, hilarious. It is American.
And then, this rich white lady in this movie begins to tell her in this film as the maid, “the other maids from Mexico…” when she’s from Mexico, this actress, and she says, I’m Brazilian. None of these people knows what that is, sort of, outside of a resort. The racism in this film when I was a kid totally escaped me. Angelita typically fast forwarded to the sexy parts lol. I cracked up, I really did, I thought she was a total star.
So imagine this film now, I suppose times have changed, but I was there at that time.
Angelita was very popular in West LA. I don’t know what her experience was in that regard.
I cracked up at her starting at 4, and you know what, she cracked up at me. She was one wildly lovable person. A real character. Just her teaching us these love songs, getting pissed if I cracked up too much, because I wasn’t listening to the words of the theme song from Ghost. "Alone.” No one else. “Pay attention.”
I had to learn how to dance the lambada, so sweet. Nicole, Dorothy, teaches me the steps in the kitchen in a scene of baking — rum cakes. I had the hardest time leaving these parties. I got a bit psychologically stuck here. I just hung onto them, and the rest I put away.
None of my friends got it, now they probably would: the cultural significance of their hybrid, the lambada, the heartbreak, the transformational experience of the dance, the life force, that’s what it is. I asked her so young, what the words meant. She began to sing it to me in her angel voice on the edge of her bed…which, for now, comes at the end of the movie. “But this is a sad song…” I snapped. It blew my mind at that age…watching these people celebrate? Laughing, clapping, dancing — it never left me.
If you think about what a people have gone through, even in taking this hilarious movie where she’s an Amazon princess whose home is being destroyed, man, you’d think wouldn’t you? How could you get through such a thing…? History. Cruel. You have four seconds to leave as we knock down your house. As a kid, very young, I felt that. Culture was present. History was too. I was a part of it. The, um, Amazon tribe aside. And still — for the AMAZON!
This blond dude in a Porsche cares, okay? He goes straight to his parents from the PG naughty dance club to get them onboard. Here I am turning my head over the — details — forget it. Just get in the PORSCHE, drive home with the scandalously dressed or just regularly dressed LADY — and breach the topic.
I think these family lambada parties give the story some real flavor where the alcohol dissipates from the cake, so it’s an innocent affair. I just love Dorothy teaching me the steps, just a couple of little girls, and there she — lol — is at seven, transforming somehow, it’s just in the genes. It was sort of healing. I think, at least for the movie, Angelita didn’t want to ruin my innocence, isn’t that funny? It was beautiful, what life is all about, which is true, you know, when you think about it. She tells me as a little girl about the forbidden dance, sexy, me laughing. So pure.
I use the dance, for now, as a device to communicate that she’s taking me in more and more. I mean, these love songs, “it must have been love but it’s over now,” and “through the years…” if you can picture the front door opening to my father just standing there… “when everything went wrong…together we were strong…” watching their family videos. We loved that song. These four years were scored to only that type of music with Nicole’s amazing choice, it will be, “Building up a Mystery” with Jose being a DICK, hilariously, “you come out of night.” “Jose!” He cut the track.
I found some DOCU Christmas FLICK that I intend to watch, since I’m still working on structure, obviously, and those years were deep, they were. I might watch Fleabag again. I might be able to have me as an adult in some fashion that’s sort of “hip,” right? Break the fourth wall. As they do in A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints due to the unbelievable nature of the story, type of thing. That movie made a couple of stylistic choices that I could riff off of. I even watched Justin Timberlake’s music video — oh yes — by accident with the camera being shown flying around him…that feels very current.
I’ll probably speak to him next week since we couldn’t connect last week, but I have to keep working the style. Maybe I can do something cool walking through this story, this house, telling it to you. I still like the psychological drama, the family fighting to keep her, just bringing that issue up, so I’m still feeling into what that arc would be if I’m an adult telling this story to you…“Through the Years” by Kenny Loggins, heartbreaking.
But at least in this meeting with this production office in Turkey as I was just someone coming off “the street,” as in a wine bar. I am in a totally new place, and I’m approaching this story from another angle, but you also get a taste of how I dealt with this story in the past? I just didn’t go into the lambada parties, all that, but I could work that back in, but I didn’t want to perform, but I sort of had to because I wasn’t sure WHAT would translate since people were puzzled in English, even. But this producer more or less got it.
The younger guy asks me how much of this is true?
At a certain point, would one expect me to blow?
My enthusiasm.
I was sitting there — going — I could use this. I could “perform” for you, no? On stage, flashing Jenny Koons eyebrows, since she always laughed at me.
“You’re a pillar of strength,”the producer said with scotch, and I just thought Ben Affleck would do this so well, and you know what? THANKS. I got all sorts of shit. “That’s,” he said, “what people don’t expect,” really? Wow. But that’s…what it is. We had a conversation about that: expectations. Very real. Very real indeed. It was an obstacle, and I got THE OPPOSITE reaction at the same time. Like I went through nothing. I never tried to approach that story from either direction. The scene at the production office is cool for these reasons. I might post that one as the story about Miracle Mile when I re-do my website.
I still don’t know — so there you go —but the family psychological drama was the path of least resistance, and that’s great, I have no issues with that. All the same, I’m still thinking about how I could do it as me, the adult, looking back on this. I did that in Everything Flows, but that’s a super tight focused set of flashbacks. I confront Dr. J.
In the production office thread — the Indie director in the back wonders as we’re getting onto the onramp, if I’m going to call Dr. J…and there, even the female director turned to me. I laughed, a flash of the past, but — this was the other problem with me — I was trying to be honest and open with my character…always this question. But thank you, of course, for it. “Why would I do that?”
“To ask her…why she did it…”
These sorts of questions…
She has a protector for one, you see, and does that bring me any closure? Other than calling her with a lawyer? Like, hahaha, Dr. J, I assure you, I can play in the performance space, though I wouldn’t, but it could be satisfying as a scene. Was it? Was it true? I mean, seriously. For me, personally. I have no idea. I hope not. But when you remember a woman telling you that the way your MOTHER handled you was — she wasn’t too sure there, I mean, just please. I mean, for real. In this production office, giving them “the look,” you know, in “the movie version,” but then, I could do it like this, like this, like this. How am I supposed to ACT? To be believed in real life! Like I give a SHIT about personality. Anger being a new idea. It’s not the same story…
I’ll think about Robert Downey Jr. He would knock one of these roles out of the park, no? Dancing on this line. I’ve had my moments. Cracking up. Now, I’m just playing around with my character, but you could see how that might be thrilling in the right context. And these people are like whatever, cool, let’s do it. Ben Affleck Turkey is in. He’s emotionally involved. And wasn’t that my job? In that context? I so love them, him.
I hope it was just the Alzheimer’s? You know? Since my father…then got diagnosed with Parkinson’s and then Alzheimer’s, and then, I had to hear a woman tell me — whose husband has this problem in some regard — that they ruled out Parkinson’s — that, that was a mirror too close for me to handle.
In this film production office, I’m showing these Turkish filmmakers, my father’s behavior, and the Indie director did not believe it, “so what some woman is acting really nice?” She’s playing some sick game with him? It’s just, on the outside, it isn’t that…sick. Sure, you feel that subtext, because it really was a performance, because “look who it is?” Looking at me, laughing, wanting to slice his dick off, literally, not his throat, smiling, so happy, so grateful, even, for his call. It’s funny. Because she has an excuse. But she can’t, I guess, give away too much, something, since we were going to string him along until my mother filed for her divorce. “The child molester.” And he’s calling her house? Wanting to chit-chat about his vacation plans. Inviting me to go on vacation. To then, request visitations…standing at her wide open door as I put on a show along with her daughter — which was really a performance of “how happy I was” as he stood and watched. He can’t walk into her house. He never tried.
Now, some, now that I’m telling this story differently — go, is he acting guilty? Nothing was said.
A couple of weird people.
I came up with a father/daughter scenario, a couple of people coming out of a WACK JOB, which I really liked, but I had to put that aside a moment since that journey feels more advanced, if that makes sense. I had to fictionalize it, and problem solve, really problem solve, which I enjoyed the most. So, he’s being manipulated too, he’s someone who’s going to go on a real journey.
Even this: I got back from Miracle Mile, and I didn’t have a room, right? We had to go to IKEA after the mirrors were smashed off the walls to go buy me a room. I started picking out, trying to, my room. NICK wouldn’t allow it. It was HIS HOUSE, HIS MONEY, I was under HIS roof. Okay? Thank you. After all that. He was a weird guy. He came from his generation, also, since he was born in 1926. But at least in the movie, NICK must hilariously break down on an IKEA bed, he’s sounding like his father, and he’s going to gave to start making different decisions — this is the father/daughter path. Then, his utter incomprehension of a girl who would want a color other than pink. Pink = girl.
That was clear to him. It was inconceivable.
The two of us at the driving range after the doctor suggests that he rise to the occasion — that too. Me trying to play golf, lol. His swing, “we’re going to be the best of friends.” Nothing but opportunities there. Nick cheery to travel, taking in the miracle of flight out the plane window: an aerospace engineer.
I love that story idea, I really do, even if I don’t quite know what to do with it yet.
I tried going to NJ, thinking about Hope Floats, and his family is tough, you know? Aunt Jane is. RIPE for comedy, ripe, JANE ripping into NICK, the Great Depression alive and well. Jane claiming me as her daughter. Him taking me to “the old house” on Lathrop Ave. and JANE RIPS into him about how he and Gus do this… I started exploring the option of him going home. I don’t know what to say — from there.
He has to get crushed? Maybe, in a way. He’s a MAN, made to feel useless, the girl needs a mother, not you, because that’s what JANE was really like. Plus, he’s older. I did a spin through her Magic Room, of course I did, since she turned one of her son’s room into her “Magic Room.” Lavender. A blow up King Tut doll. Maria screams what is YOUR OBSESSION with Egypt?! Since her father has an Egyptian panel above his desk of Egyptian Gods cruising down the Nile. Aunt Jane knocks her down, “I don’t know if we are OBSESSED with EGYPT.”
From A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, I can see that camera work. It’s just that her house is just ripe with opportunities with the rubber bands… on every door knob. Jane and Joe fight like MAD constantly.
I wasn’t sure what to do: if I should keep it tight in LA, or develop the story in NJ —we go to Italy too.
I know that the point of this one would be…a couple of people who can’t cross a huge gap between them due to this story they’re coming out of…and they will, I think, over the course of that story. NICK is going to undergo a transformation of some kind…that’s going to be real, satisfying, and maybe surprising to him. What NICK comes to discover. I cracked up, really. Even my father making Bruschetta with like Omega 3s, trying to. Going to the Italian market in Culver City, if it still exists. He’s truly funny, odd, his obsession with health — cereal? He looks at me as if I want to die. He evaluates the nutritional content of the buffet at the TWA lounge. He’s this person giving me royal jelly, hoping it will make me taller, since he got completely looney, in real life, around me reaching the height of 5’6” even took me to a hormonal doctor. He didn’t tell me…until we got there. Tried to…
This scene with this hormonal doctor was truly funny as my friend was also there, Sandra Moreno. She couldn’t even handle it. “I want her to be 5’6”,” my father began. The doctor didn’t break. Sandra Moreno did. Especially when the doctor asked to measure him…and he flat out refused, no pause. I shook my head, Moreno lost it, and the doctor held his regard, his papers. Such a funny scene. So awkward.
I always come back to that one. It’s about an aerospace and mechanical engineer, so that has its appeal, I think, for a male actor who is older but doesn’t have to be as old as Nick is, in that, he has to look younger. I suppose he doesn’t have to, I don’t know. Someone has to go through a looney awakening in getting his daughter back from this Miracle Mile story…they are working that out, I guess, no matter where they are…starting over. I had them moving to Hollywood.
I asked my friend for movie recs on that end as well, character driven plots, oh, another one came to mind — Requiem for a Dream, even, no? I have to watch it though that’s a tough one. I remember a narrator just laying out what she eats for breakfast. But maybe not. American Psycho? There’s something about that but comedic — he gets up at 5 AM. Nick leaves the house at dawn…for LAX. He enjoys diffusing instructions. “Always travel light.” Close up shots of his face coming into frame determined — “now listen here, Maria, you listen here” — to then cut away to him, calm, hands turning around the attachment to the spaceship, his face out the window at the miracle of flight.
Dammit! What’s the movie? Fast changes. I’ll keep meditating on it. Fear and Loathing?
Huh.
The image changed, flashed, not sure. I have to keep watching.
I haven’t given up on that one yet, I just haven’t spoken to this producer yet. That’s why I’m just trying to WATCH movies. I have to communicate that, regardless. I’m watching more films tomorrow. I had to take a total day off today and I watched the lambada movie this evening because I was at sensory overload. I just think Nick listening in to his daughter, ten, interviewing her mother’s lover to be — ripe. Some ten year old telling this asshole “do not insult me.” No one…cares to…let him in…on what’s…going on…
So anyway, I’ll keep going. I’ll look up Robert Downey Jr., movies, maybe Jim Carrey movies too, for directors. I’ll look up some actors, that might be a better in for me.
Night night! Nick at night. Chuckling.