Do the 23andMe on Todd Phillips' Joker, and most of the DNA is from two Martin Scorsese films: Taxi Driver (1976) and King of Comedy (1983). King of Comedy's influence is clear in the story of a failed comedian. On the Taxi Driver side, we find the influence scriptwriter Paul Schrader brought in from Robert Bresson, a master of austerity. What if Joker had been a movie about a man imploding instead of exploding? Instead of an Au Hasard, Balthazar, Au Hasard, Joker about a man with laughing sickness, stuck in the worst city in the world--a million bleak tenements rimming an erupting volcano of garbage. There'd be no "cathartic violence" to allow the wretched Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) pass for anything but a doomed antihero. » Read More

Universal's monster movies may be slow and theatrical. But just as today's White Claw guzzler is tomorrow's finicky martini sipper, the darkness and stillness of these films will one day lure new fans away from gory pop-ups. On the screen of the nearly century-old Stanford Theater, they still have the power of nightmares. William Henry Pratt was a kindly British gent. The mists of German Expressionism, chased away by the Nazis, coalesced in Hollywood and shrouded Pratt. He took on the stage name Boris Karloff and created some of cinema's most uncanny, undead characters. Mummy (1932), and the Lurch-like butler in 1932's The Old Dark House (the model for the Addams Family) were famous roles. But Karloff's signature piece was Frankenstein » Read More

My heartbeat accelerated when I caught a glimpse of Joan Mitchell's Before, Again IV from the bottom of the wide steps that lead up to the main gallery upstairs. Her periwinkle- and rust-colored scribbles were the welcoming salvo into abstract expressionism that I'd been waiting for. As I approached the second-floor landing, I started to register the presence of dozens of other monumentally sized paintings alongside Mitchell's. I suddenly felt like a hound who'd caught the scent of the hunt, dumbstruck by the thought of what my senses had stumbled upon. » Read More

At this point, it's unclear whether anyone will be able to restore a sense of decency to public discourse, inspire a sincere spirit of bipartisanship and ultimately save our republic. However, if that individual exists, I have to believe they would be a lot like Nick Offerman. The actor, comedian, woodworker and all-around straight shooter has a knack for cutting through the bullshit without being condescending. Speaking with Offerman, it's tempting to believe that you are talking with his best-known character, Ron Swanson. A light-hearted libertarian and begrudging bureaucrat, Swanson dutifully served the fictional city of Pawnee, Indiana, on the beloved NBC sitcom Parks & Recreation. » Read More

My family and I have a New Year's tradition, born of my daughter's experience living in Korea. We bypass staying up past midnight--a custom too freighted with booze and melancholia anyway. Instead, we rise before dawn and greet the sunrise on the beach, as the Koreans do. In our case, we largely have Seabright Beach in Santa Cruz to ourselves. Then, it's off to the best breakfast we'll have all year, at the Crow's Nest. If Patti Smith's new memoir, Year of the Monkey is to be believed, a few years ago, while we were lingering over our crab omelettes and brioche, Smith herself was about a mile up the coast, stumbling around an unfamiliar waterfront looking for breakfast and, more urgently, coffee. She found the Ideal Bar & Grill which was, » Read More

There is a blender in the corner of the Skovran biology lab on the fifth floor of Duncan Hall at San Jose State University. It's similar to the kind found in kitchens everywhere, only this one's not for making pesto. The brand name is Blendtec, made quasi-famous by a series of cheeky YouTube videos known collectively as "Will It Blend?," in which a white-lab-coated technician tosses golf balls, cigarette lighters and even an Amazon Echo into the appliance. (Spoiler alert: They always blend.) The blender at SJSU operates in that same spirit--except in Elizabeth Skovran's lab, they aren't looking for likes and lulz. Instead, Skovran and her team are chopping up electronics in an effort to help the environment and potentially launch a very » Read More

At the piano, Maestra Barbara Day Turner of the San Jose Chamber Orchestra is accompanying violinist Rick Shinozaki inside the Schiro Gallery on the fifth floor of the main library, adjacent to the Beethoven Center at SJSU. Passages of musical consonance seem to bookend "non-note" sections of noise and cacophony. For downtown San Jose's Noon Arts & Lectures series, Turner is previewing the chamber orchestra's 29th season--in particular, a violin and piano reduction of Durwynee Hsieh's "Memoir of an Ordinary Man," which premieres this Sunday. Hsieh is present to help answer audience questions about the piece. I'm in the back row of the classroom seats, just like I often was in college. » Read More

Next, consider the view from psychiatrist and evolutionary researcher Randolph Nesse that painful emotions are important motivational tools--just like physical pain, when you, say, lean back at a party, all apex of cool, and rest your palm on a hot stove. Just as the searing pain gets you to lift your hand pronto, you can use your guilt-induced discomfort in a positive way: as reinforcement against your stepping out on the guy once you two do have a relationship. Other helpful insight comes from research on attachment. The attachment behavioral system, explain social scientists Mario Mikulencer and Philip Shaver, motivates human beings, from infancy on, "to seek proximity to significant others (attachment figures) in times of need." A » Read More

"Love is when you meet someone who tells you something new about yourself," wrote poet Andre Breton. I think that's an excellent principle to put at the top of your priority list in the coming weeks, Aries. To be in maximum alignment with cosmic rhythms, you should seek input from allies who'll offer insights about you that are outside your current conceptions of yourself. You might even be daring enough to place yourself in the paths of strangers, acquaintances, animals and teachers who can provide novel reflections. There's just one caveat: Stay away from people who might be inclined to fling negative feedback. » Read More