Last night I saw “Chalk,” this mockumentary that follows the lives of fictional teachers who work together, which I heard about on NPR. It wasn't bad, a good idea and I do tend to like movies that take place in schools, though I felt it could have been funnier and better-executed, and the characters could have been given more time to be more fully fleshed out. The main part that annoyed me was that they had a dream sequence in it, where one teacher dreams he’s dancing with another, and they show it. But it’s a mockumentary! They’re supposed to be using the documentary format, and documentaries don’t typically have dream sequences because you can’t exactly document someone’s dream on film. And then the filmmakers did a Q&A after and touted that dream sequence as something the actors did while fooling around and the filmmakers thought it was hilarious and put it in. Yuk. Violates all rules of mockumentary.
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Sunday, May 13, 2007
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I'm an editor in the Style section at The Washington Post, and I've written about arts, entertainment, business, and technology for the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Slate, Los Angeles Magazine, and other publications. I was previously deputy editor at L.A. Weekly, overseeing arts and culture coverage. I've won awards for my stories about slash fiction, magicians, and television in India, among others. I've appeared on CNN and NPR and I wrote a book about Avenue Q. I've taught journalism at Loyola Marymount University and creative nonfiction at the University of Virginia Young Writers Workshop.
I also have performed standup comedy at venues such as the Laugh Factory, Westside Theater, and ComedySportz.
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