Ms. Hen reviews GREEN PORNO, LIVE ON STAGE and learns about the sex lives of other species

GREEN PORNO, LIVE ON STAGE

Cutler Majestic Theater

Boston, MA

February 13,14, and 15

Last night Ms. Hen went to see Isabella Rossellini in a presentation of her Sundance Channel show Green Porno. Ms. Hen is a fan of Ms. Rossellini, but she had no idea what to expect from the show. She learned beforehand that it was about the sex lives of animals, and she thought it would be videos of animals mating. She was wrong.

The videos were not of animals mating, but of Ms. Rossellini acting out the scenes, which Ms. Hen found hysterical. One of the best films was the actress dressed as a female duck and the male ducks all jumped on her to have sex with her. But the female duck has eight passageways that the semen could get it and she only allowed her favorite male duck to fertilize her eggs.

In the film about dolphins, Ms. Rossellini appears as an underwater diver. She said that with dolphins anything goes. They can even have blow-hole sex, whitch shocked Ms. Hen, because she had never heard of such a thing. Ms. Hen thinks that dolphins seem like innocent creatures, but she was wrong.

Ms. Rossellini talked about sex with birds and Ms. Hen knows about this. Male birds and roosters don’t have external penises, so they have to shoot for the female’s vagina and hope they make the mark. Hens make eggs and don’t need roosters, but in order to make a fertilized egg, they need do need the males.

Ms. Rossellini was funny and charming and was passionate about the subject of sex. She is very European in her candor. She used a lot of props and she kept throwing them all over the stage: tomatoes, stuffed animals, paper and flowers.

One of the interesting points that she made was that she wondered how Noah could put two of every animal on his ark, when some animals don’t have males of the species, some are hermaphrodites, and some are homosexual. A hilarious film was shown that showed a hand pointing down and asking each species that was not male or female to find the other one. Ms. Hen was sure that Ms. Rossellini knows that Noah’s Ark is just a story. She was just having fun with the notion.

Ms. Hen goes to the theater often enough, but this was a different type of show. It was just one person, Isabella Rossellini performing, and it was about science and animals. Ms. Hen wished chickens appeared in the play, but there was a point when Ms. Rossellini said that cows and cats were boring. Ms. Hen doesn’t think chickens are boring and hopes Ms. Rossellini doesn’t think so either. Hens are intelligent animals, smart enough to know when a show dazzles or not. And this one did.

Ms. Hen reviews ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK and cherishes her freedom

ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK, MY YEAR IN A WOMEN’S PRISON

by Piper Kerman

Since Ms. Hen is a cool kid, she’s watched the Netflix TV show ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK. She loves watching a show about women who are locked up because it forces her to look at her own life with more appreciation. The show is violent and brims with tension. Ms. Hen is an avid reader, so she decided she would read the memoir. It differs from the TV show.

At first, Ms. Hen noticed how bland the writing is in the book. The real Piper was not a literature major at Smith; she was a theater major. Reading this is not at all like reading Tolstoy or Jeanette Winterson. But Ms. Hen kept reading because she wanted to discover how similar the book is to the TV show.

In the book, there are too many characters and any reader, including a hen, would get confused. The characters on the TV show are composites of the ones in the book; the reader can recognize pieces of characters in all the different women.

The TV show has more violence and tension than the memoir, and the show is written better. In the book, Piper discovers what it means to live in the moment at all times and to try to learn to make the best out of every situation. She looks for the good in every day, which is a useful survival tool for anyone. She made great friendships with the women with whom she was incarcerated and discovered that she had a lot to give. She learned in prison that she was not the bad girl she wanted to be, but a good girl.

Ms. Hen was disappointed that the chicken episode had nothing to do with the book. In the episode, a chicken runs around the prison that the cook Red wants to catch. She says that she wants to eat the chicken because it’s so smart she wants to absorb its intelligence. Ms. Hen is a very smart hen and she knows that Red would want to eat her, too, if she were real.

Even though Ms. Hen thinks ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK is not the best book she’s ever read in her life, she was reminded of how precious and fragile freedom can be. Anyone who’s been locked up should know how to appreciate life and the small things, like a hen purse or a cup of good coffee. All the little things should matter to everyone, because it's the details that make life so colorful.

Ms. Hen reviews GENEALOGIES OF A CRIME and decides she likes to be shocked by a film

Genealogy of a Crime 1997

GENEALOGY OF A CRIME (GENEALOGIE D’UN CRIME)

Directed by Raoul Ruiz

1997

Catherine Deneuve is one of Ms. Hen’s favorite actresses. Every film in which she appears, she commands attention. She has been the grande dame of French cinema for over forty years, and she is always brilliant to watch.

In GENEALOGY OF A CRIME, Deneuve plays two characters: a lawyer, Solange, who only takes on hopeless cases which she always loses; and the aunt of the man she’s representing, Jeanne, a psychoanalyst who toys with her nephew and makes him believe he is destined to become a killer.

Turn the film one way, and it is a comic farce. Turn it another way, and it is a stylistic film with bizarre angles and blurred camera work. Many mirrors and reflections grace the film, most likely because the world looks different and backwards in a mirror, but then the camera turns away and the real scene is shown.

The film is filled with quirky characters, not all of whom Ms. Hen liked. There is Solange’s mother who torments her daughter and incessantly criticizes her; the psychoanalyst Georges Didier, who mocks Solange and always brushes off his shoulders; the unstable accused murderer, Pascal, who plays mental games with Solange.

Ms. Hen gets excited when hens or chickens are mentioned in films or books. In this film, the mother has a therapy session and she tells the doctor about her dream, “I saw her standing there, and totally unconsciously, I cut her up. I say, it’s only a hen, it’ll need a lot of boiling. Then she arrives, her or her double, and says ‘Sorry I’m late mum, what have you got me for dinner?’  (The doctor) She says, what have you got me for dinner? That’s right.  (The doctor) Continue. Then she rushes at her body, that I’ve just carved up, and swallows it raw.”

Another strange character in the film is Georges’ rival, Christian, who believes that people all live in stories. He fanatically expresses that every story is told over and over again throughout everyone’s lives. He is in the process of building a museum to the genealogy of crime, so people will know the stories throughout history. Solange, intrigued by this, doesn’t understand her own story until the end.

The beauty of this film is in the surprises. Ms. Hen did not see the ending coming.  This is a film that makes a viewer think, which Ms. Hen doesn’t mind because she likes learning and trying to figure things out. Sometimes she can figure out an ending, but a good film will shock her, like this one, and she enjoys that as much as she enjoys walking free on a farm, clucking her little heart out.

Ms. Hen reviews GUT SYMMETRIES and ponders on the strangeness of being critic who is a purse

GUT SYMMETRIES

by Jeanette Winterson

Ms. Hen recently read GUT SYMMETRIES by Jeanette Winterson. She has read other books by the author, and once again, she was not disappointed. Winterson is a master craftsperson when it comes to the art of prose. Ms. Hen was swept away in the story of love and despair.

GUT SYMMETRIES is about Alice, a physicist who has an affair with another physicist, then meets his wife and starts an affair with her. Intertwined are the history of physics and formulas about the time space continuum and the way the world turns and changes.

The most fascinating passage in the novel is when Stella’s mother decides she has a craving for diamonds when she is pregnant with Stella. The old Jewish men have their diamonds sitting around the kitchen table and Stella pops them all into her mouth. The men try to get all the diamonds back, and they do except for one, which is lodged in Stella’s spine when she is born. The diamond cannot be removed without crippling Stella permanently.

When Ms. Hen read this, she couldn’t help but wonder about the logistics of having a diamond in her spine. She wiggled her spine around to try to wonder what it would feel like. Of course, nothing like this could really happen. Only in fiction.

GUT SYMMETRIES is reminiscent of AN INVISIBLE SIGN OF MY OWN by Aimee Bender in the way that it is about the obsession with the world of science or math. But GUT SYMMETRIES is a more sophisticated, international version of the story, taking the reader to Nazi Germany, New York City in the forties and fifties, and Liverpool, England.

Ms. Hen liked this novel because it was like reading poetry in the form of prose. Every fiction writer should aspire to write like this because it reads like listening to music. Interspersed are bits of dialogue in the form of a play. Ms. Hen enjoyed this because she likes things that are weird. After all, she is an accessory that writes reviews. If that’s not weird, then Ms. Hen can lay eggs.

Ms. Hen reviews BLUE LIKE JAZZ and mediates on what is it to be human and give bad reviews

Blue Like Jazz 2012

BLUE LIKE JAZZ

Directed by Steve Taylor

2012

Ms. Hen wanted to like BLUE LIKE JAZZ. It seemed like an independent, cool film about a young person trying to find himself and become a better person. But it wasn’t. It was about a character that didn’t change and went back to being the person he used to be.

BLUE LIKE JAZZ is about Don, who lives in Texas, goes to a junior college, works at a communion cup factory and is an assistant youth pastor at his church. He parents are divorced and his liberal father suggests he transfer to Reed College instead of Trinity Baptist College because Reed College is a decent school where everyone has a genius IQ. Don doesn’t want to go, but he discovers that his mother is having an affair with the youth pastor and drives to Portland, Oregon to Reed College in a rage.

When Don drives to Portland, he magically turned into a rabbit chasing a pretty carrot. This is the only shining moment in the film. Ms. Hen thought the story would turn out to be like DONNIE DARKO, but it didn’t. Ms. Hen kept waiting for the rabbit to come back, she thought maybe it would appear again, but after driving across the country, the rabbit disappeared. Other people dressed in animal costumes dot the film, but they are few and far between, and when they do appear it’s strange, but oddly charming.

Reed College is a liberal bastion; a far cry from Texas, and Don is a fish out of water, a conservative Christian trying to find his way in a college in the Pacific Northwest. He tries to fit in to impress a girl named Penny, who seems like she has a mission to be as radical as possible. Don doesn’t know which end is up. Ms. Hen rooted for him so he would change and become more of an adult.

None of the students at the college who seem hip and trendy are realistic, and are caricatures. Ms. Hen hated the ending of the film when Don changes his mind and go back to his old ways. Ms. Hen wanted him to change, and not be another brainwashed robot.

Ms. Hen didn’t know what she was getting into when she started watching this film. She didn’t know that she was watching a Christian film. But she enjoys not liking things and complaining, so she decided to give reviewing it a go. It’s her first real negative review, but you can’t love everything. It’s part of being human, or being a hen.

Ms. Hen reviews Paul and dreams of eating a croque-monsieur chicken

Paul

631 Assembly Row

Somerville, MA 02145

Ms. Hen recently had lunch with one of her chicken friends at Paul, a bakery and café in Somerville, in Assembly Row, a new shopping destination that Ms. Hen has described as Newbury Street  (a trendy, high-rent district) plopped down into the Kmart shopping center. Ms. Hen thinks it’s a strange place, an afterthought that somebody came up with to make the strip mall more appealing.

One of the gems of this afterthought is Paul. Ms. Hen has been there a few times and the ambience is relaxing and the pastries are gorgeous. Ms. Hen’s friend ordered the croque-monsieur turkey and Ms. Hen ordered the croque-monsieur salmon, which both came with a side salad. They ordered chocolate macarons for desert.

Ms. Hen’s chicken friend loved the croque-monsieur turkey. The sandwich had cheese melted on the outside of the bread. Ms. Hen was a little disappointed with her salmon. She thought the salmon was a little fishy and not quite fresh, but the cheese on the bread on the outside was scrumptious. She wished she had gotten the leek quiche she had gotten before, which had the perfect flaky crust, just like they’re made in France.

Ms. Hen wondered why they didn’t have croque-monsieur with chicken, which was introduced by Jacques Pepin when he collaborated with Julia Child. Turkey is not usually a French way of making the sandwich. Ms. Hen thought Paul might have the turkey for the Americans, since Americans love their turkey. Ms. Hen would like a croque-monsieur with chicken. She will make that a lifetime mission of hers: to eat a delicious grilled chicken and cheese sandwich with melted cheese on top.

The place where the bakers make the pastries is open for the customers to see in the store. Ms. Hen didn’t want to be a nosy hen and bother the bakers, but she was curious about how the glorious pastries are made. Paul started in 1889 and it has been family owned since then.

The extra large chocolate macaron was the best pastry Ms. Hen has had since she has come back from France. They’re a little pricy, but worth every penny. Ms. Hen could eat every pastry in the store, but she would become a big fat hen.  She doesn’t want to be stuffed with chocolate, just small amounts will be fine for her, thank you.

Ms. Hen reviews PADDINGTON and meditates on the necessity of charm in film

PADDINGTON

Directed by Paul King

2015

Ms. Hen does not like family films of today. She used to like Disney when THE LITTLE MERMAID and ALADDIN were stylish, but she has little tolerance for computer animation and silly stories anymore, since she has become a more mature hen. However, she had an urge to see PADDINGTON, because the preview looked so adorable and the film got smashing reviews.

She was not disappointed. PADDINGTON is charming as a film can be. The bears look so real that they resemble kittens that can talk. The story shines with innocence. The Brown family discovers Paddington and gives him his English name. The Browns are complex characters and teach Paddington about the meaning of home.

Nicole Kidman as the villain frightens the audience with her evil doings, but toward the end, we discover there is a reason behind the things she does. Close-ups of her stylish shoes add a touch of glamour to the character.

Ms. Hen does not like the idea of a film considered a family film. She thinks that charming movies about characters that are not crass or rude should have a place in everyone’s life, even people who are not children or who don’t have children. She thinks that the comedies of today that are geared toward adults have no charm in them, and they only go for cheap laughs and are offensive. There is a place for charm everywhere, even in comedies or tragedies or science fiction.

Ms. Hen feels like she might be turning into an old fuddy-duddy hen and is not up to date with today’s sense of humor. Charm goes a long way, especially when you’re a hen and you go to see a film meant for children and you get swept away in the story and you get emotional. She only teared up a little, because hens don’t really cry. (Okay, they do, but don’t tell anyone, okay?)