Recent Reviews
The Cagneys
A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935)
Something to Sing About (1937)
Angels with Dirty Faces (1938)
A Lion Is In the Streets (1953)
Man of a Thousand Faces (1957)
Never Steal Anything Small (1959)
Shake Hands With the Devil (1959)
Wednesday March 30, 2022
Why Dictatorships Fail
“We believe that Putin is being misinformed by his advisers about how badly the Russian military is performing, and how the Russian economy is being crippled by sanctions, because his senior advisers are too afraid to tell him the truth.”
-- U.S. intelligence official in a statement today. Here's hoping Putin doesn't learn the truth until it's too late. (At the same time, he must suspect something, right?)
Tuesday March 29, 2022
Movie Review: CODA (2021)
WARNING: SPOILERS
The hearing daughter of two deaf parents—fisher folk along the coast of Massachusetts—must navigate a crush on a cute boy, music class, and the needs of her family during her senior year of high school. Does the boy like her? (He does.) Is she a good singer? (She is.) Will she get into that prestigious music school? (She will.) Can her parents let her go? (They can.) Thanks for coming.
It’s a nice movie. I just don’t see best picture.
Both sides now
I will say this: Even when I anticipated what would happen, I was moved. Her parents, Frank and Jackie Rossi (Troy Kotsur and Marlee Matlin), don’t know from music, though Dad likes to turn up his gangsta rap full volume to feel the throbbing bass. So they wonder: Is their daughter, Ruby (Emilia Jones), a good singer? How can they tell? I assumed there would be a music pageant of some kind, and they would see the delight on the faces of other audience members, and that would be that. Which is what happens—though writer-director Sian Heder, adapting the 2014 French film “La Famille Belier,” adds a nice touch: halfway through the song, she eliminates the sound. We hear what Frank and Jackie hear, which is nothing. We, too, rely on the faces of others.
Then there’s the moment when Ruby auditions at Berklee College of Music in Boston, singing Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now,” and her parents and her older brother Leo (Daniel Durant) sneak into the balcony to support her. I told my wife, “She should sign the lyrics. That would bring her family into it.” A few seconds later, that’s what she does.
“You were right,” my wife said.
“Still made me tear up,” I said.
“Not me,” my wife said. She’s made of sterner stuff.
We root for Ruby throughout because she’s cute but not too cute, tough but not too tough, and bears everything with an equanimity most of us didn’t have in high school—if ever. She gets up at 3 AM to fish with her father and brother because they need a hearing person on board, then, smelling of fish, bears the scorn of the mean girls in school. Because she has to act as interpreter between her family and the rest of the world, she’s often the adult in the room, but the movie doubles down on this conceit. Her dad listens to too-loud gangsta rap and her parents have too-loud sex, etc. It’s supposed to be funny and mold-breaking—they’re rebels, damnit—but they often come off as irresponsible and selfish. The movie’s title stands for “Children Of Deaf Adults” but her parents don’t act much like adults. I’m curious if anyone in the deaf community has objected.
The movie’s main conflict—can the family’s fishing business survive without Ruby?—is resolved at the 11th hour, all but off-screen, and the mother, who’d always felt out of place among hearing contemporaries, suddenly gets along with them, and her older brother finds his place, too.
Kotsur has won every prestigious award he can carry—BAFTA, SAG, Oscar—but some part of me wonders if he’s the best supporting actor in this movie. At the least, I was more intrigued by Durant as the brother. He’s got something. A certain cool. Will be interesting to see what else he does.
I also liked seeing Mexican comedian/actor Eugenio Derbez as Bernardo Villalobos, the demanding music instructor who takes Ruby under his wing. Sadly, we lose the thread of that relationship. She keeps showing up late to his private instruction because of family obligations but he thinks she’s a typical spoiled teenager who can’t tell time. Me, watching: “Tell him. Tell him your parents needed someone to interpret during a TV interview for their new fishing collective. Tell him that’s why you’re late.” But she doesn’t. She doesn’t say the obvious true thing. Instead, she offers vague excuses. And oddly, we never see them reconcile. There they are at the high school music pageant. There he is accompanying her on the piano during her Berklee audition. There they are celebrating when she gets in. Thanks for coming.
Record-breaking
According to Nathaniel over at Film Experience, “CODA”’s best picture win set some records:
- It’s the lowest-grossing best picture winner ever (< $1 mil)
- It has the lowest amount of nominations (3) for any best picture winner in the modern era
- While it’s the 11th film to win BP without an editing nomination (“It Happened One Night,” “The Life of Emile Zola,” “Hamlet,” “Marty,” “Tom Jones,” “A Man for All Seasons,” “The Godfather Part II,” “Annie Hall,” “Ordinary People” and “Birdman”), and the fifth film to win BP without a directing nomination (“Wings,” “Grand Hotel,” “Driving Miss Daisy” and “Argo”), it’s the first film to win BP without a directing and an editing nomination
So I guess the stats didn’t really see best picture, either.
Monday March 28, 2022
'More Likely Than Not'
“A federal judge said Monday that then-President Donald Trump 'more likely than not' committed federal crimes in trying to obstruct the congressional count of electoral college votes on Jan. 6, 2021 — an assertion that is likely to increase public pressure on the Justice Department to investigate the former commander in chief.”
-- from an article in The Washington Post about U.S. District Court Judge David O. Carter, who had to read over sensitive emails between Trump and conservative lawyer John Eastman to determine if they were covered by attorney-client privilege. That was Eastman's claim before the Jan. 6 committee: You can't see this correspondence because of attorney-client privilege. But such privilege is void if the correspondence relates to the commission of a crime. Carter has apparently determined that that's the case. According to the article, Eastman's legal team says that he “intends to comply with the court's order” to turn over documents.“ As Richie Valens sang, ”Let's go."
Monday March 28, 2022
The Slap Seen 'Round the World
Will either man ever not be known for this?
What should've been the pinnacle of Will Smith's professional life turned into its nadir. It was both in one night. That's why it felt so hard to function. It felt like we all got slapped.
It was jaw-dropping and shocking and vaguely nauseating—and at the same time, not any of those things given the state of the world—but oh god does it play into the racial and racist stereotypes. I could write the bits myself. “You know, when Oscars was so white, no one ever assaulted anyone onstage.” Seriously, I hate the way this is going to be dragged through the mud by the usual suspects, but it will, for a long, long time. Did Will Smith just rewrite his obit? ACTOR WILL SMITH DIES, SLAPPED CHRIS ROCK AT OSCARS. Did he rewrite Chris Rock's?
It also obliterated, and I mean obliterated, all the other bad shit that happened last night, and there was a lot of it, which I'll get to in another post. First, this. Let's try to stick to the facts of it.
Chris Rock was onstage to present best documentary feature, which, by the way, went to “Summer of Soul.” He told some jokes about Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz: how both are nominated and “If she loses, he can't win. He is praying that Will Smith wins, like, please, lord.” (Rock's jokes, by the way, were not good. That's an opinion, not a fact, but it's worth stating.) At which point, Rock turned to that other front-row couple, Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith, saying “Jada, I love you. 'G.I. Jane 2,' can't wait to see it, all right?” The joke, such as it was, played off her shaved head and the 1997 Demi Moore movie, in which Moore's head is shaved. Except Pinkett Smith has alopecia, which causes hair loss in different parts of the body. I have family members who have alopecia. It's a frustrating condition. And the joke did not go over. Jada rolled her eyes and glared. And Will Smith saw her roll her eyes and glare. And he stood up, walked slowly and purposefully up the runway to the stage, and slapped Chris Rock in the face in front of millions and millions of worldwide viewers.
Initially people thought it might be staged? Because we'd never seen anything like it before. Even as Will Smith was approaching, Rock made a joke, something like “Uh oh, Richard,” referring to Smith's Oscar-nominated performance as Richard Williams, the father/coach/martinet of Venus and Serena. After the slap, he fumblingly tried to continue by stating what had happened: “Will Smith just smacked the shit out of me.” But his eyes had already crumbled. He said “Wow, dude, it was a G.I. Jane joke.” Smith, furious, from his seat, yelled, “Keep my wife's name out your fucking mouth!” And that's when everyone knew it was not staged.
By the time Smith won the Oscar an hour later, he knew he'd lost. He apologized to the Academy, and to his fellow nominees, and hoped to be asked back. He invoked higher powers: love and the devil. He joked it was art imitating life, the Richard Williams in him getting out to protect his family. He kept tearing up. He was allowed to talk on and on.
I should have more empathy because I've been there. I've done the zero-to-60 thing, too, where my anger overwhelmed me, getting me to act foolishly, and 10 minutes later, after the adrenaline has worn off and abandoned me and left me exposed, I'm left with just the horror of it. I'm left with, “Well, I'll never live that down. I'll never repair that relationship. That's over forever.” After the worst incident a few years ago, involving verbal abuse not physical violence, I saw an anger management therapist for a time. So I should have more empathy for Will Smith here. Not sure why I don't. Maybe because I never have much sympathy for myself after my own incidents? And I was lucky, too, oddly, in not being rich and famous, and not going zero-to-60 in front of millions and millions of worldwide viewers. My soul searching—“Is this me? Is this who I really am?”—didn't involve my professional career. There was no video of it. It didn't wind up on YouTube and newscasts and radio broadcasts. It didn't become a cultural touchstone for others to rub against. It didn't become a meme.
That Oscar is always going to hurt him. If he's anything like me, he'll look at it and chastise himself. Goddamnit. It'll cause him pain. Every damn day for the rest of his life.
I guess I just talked myself into some empathy for him.
There's going to be so much noise over this. That's why I like what Anthony Hopkins said before presenting the award for best actress to Jessica Chastain. He walked on stage, 84 now, still a great actor, alluded to the evening's event, and said, “Let's have peace and love and quiet.” Amen. Let's make that the meme.
Wednesday March 23, 2022
A Steve McQueen Vibe
That's what I got from Franchot Tone in this scene from MGM's “Three Comrades,” which was released in 1938:
He's between two Bobs: Robert Taylor on the left and future “Father Knows Best” Robert Young on the right. It's not a good film. I watched it because “Three Comrades” was one of those 1930s Hollywood movies denuded of any anti-Nazi themes. It's based on a novel by Erich Maria Remarque about three friends in the post-WWI Weimar Republic, and a romance for one of them, and, according to Louis B. Mayer biographer Scott Eyman, its production was watched closely by George Gyssling, the Nazi consul in Los Angeles. Yes, Germany had a consul there who pressured studios to do right by the Nazis. Eyman writes:
Gyssling had been emboldened by MGM's canceling of a film based on Sinclair Lewis's controversial novel It Can't Happen Here a few months earlier. The studio had been no more than a week away from going into production when the film was suddenly shelved. The studio blamed a high budget, but Lewis claimed that Will Hays, worried about a threatened boycott from Germany and Italy, had told MGM to cease and desist.
Then Gysslling set to work on this one. Apparently the novel was also vague as to who those early 1920s mobs were. Communists? Fascists? Whigs? The movie doubles down on the vagueness but it's vague on everything. MGM was good at sanding off any rough edges. Here's a quote from “Three Comrades” producer Joe Mankiewicz:
“Warner Bros. had guts. They hated the Nazis more than they cared for the German grosses. MGM did not. It kept on releasing its films in Nazi Germany until Hitler finally threw them out.”
“Three Comrades” is also of note because it's the only official screenplay credit for F. Scott Fitzgerald. In it, the two Roberts are dull boys—though Young gives us a little something something—but Tone seems like a real person, and interesting, as the photos above indicate. Poor Robert Taylor is the dude saddled with a dull romance, with the dull Margaret Sullvan (nominated for an Oscar), whose character suffers from a dull, nondescript illness that eventually kills her. Taylor was big back then but his movies haven't aged well, have they? Or they've just never crossed my path. Beyond this, what have I seen of his? “Quo Vadis,” I guess, once upon a time.
Tuesday March 22, 2022
Twins Grin!
“The Yankees have been beating up on the Twins for almost 20 years now — it's one of the PosCast's favorite/least favorite topics. So we will cherish March of 2022, when the Twins somehow outmaneuvered the Yankees by dumping Josh Donaldson's overpriced salary on them and then using the money to get the jewel of free agency, Carlos Correa. Whoa! I don't know how long Correa will actually stay in Minnesota, but you get the sense he's just about ready to have the monster, 'bow before Correa' year and I'm sure the Twins would be very, very happy for him to have that season in Minnesota.”
-- Joe Posnanski, “The Baseball Whirlwind,” about the various trades/signings each team has made in the past two weeks.
Saturday March 19, 2022
Criminal Charges 1, Lessons Learned 0
I began this story from the Minneapolis Star Tribune because it seemed another example of our rage-filled times. Earlier this year, at a high school basketball game in northwestern Minnesota, a man jumped from the stands to attack the ref, with whom he disagreed. He ripped off his whistle and tore his shirt. Then he got ejected. The other day he was charged with misdemeanor assault and disorderly conduct. I was shaking my head over the stupidity of it all when I got to this sentence about the man and laughed out loud:
In response Tuesday to a request for comment about the charges, he told the Star Tribune, “It's not any of your [expletive] business what I did”...
Criminal charges: 1. Lessons learned: 0.
Friday March 18, 2022
Ralph Terry (1936-2022)
Ralph Terry was on the mound for two of the greatest moments in baseball history.
The first was Bill Mazeroski's homerun that ended the 1960 World Series. That's a no-doubter. Mazeroski is the only player who ever did what every kid dreams of doing: hitting a Game 7, bottom-of-the-ninth-inning homerun that wins the World Series. And Terry was the guy who served it up.
The second moment, two years later, ended another World Series but it was kind of the opposite. In the '62 Series, the Yankees kept winning the odd games (1, 3, 5), the Giants countered with the even games (2,4, 6), and Terry started Game 7 for the bad guys. At that point, Terry had an unYankee-like 1-4 World Series record, but through five innings of Game 7 he was perfect: 15 up, 15 down, and the Yanks took a 1-0 lead in the 5th on Tony Kubek's double-play grounder. The first hit off Terry came from, of all players, pitcher Jack Sanford, who singled with two outs in the 6th. Willie McCovey got the second hit: a triple with two outs in the 7th. Neither man scored. It was still 1-0 going into the bottom of the 9th when Matty Alou led off with a single. The next two guys struck out, but that brought up the best player in baseball, Willie Mays, who doubled to right. How Matty Alou didn't score from first, I don't know. I've heard Maris made a good play in right. Anyway, that brought up McCovey again, who, on a 0-1 pitch, lined a rocket to right field—but right at second baseman Bobby Richardson, who was perfectly placed, one could say “shifted,” on the far side of second, closer to first, really. And the inning, game, season and series were over, along with you could say, Terry's ignominy. Imagine if that had gotten through. That's all Terry would be known for: losing Game 7s. Instead, it's the ying and yang of it.
So why was that McCovey/Richardson moment so great? Because it inspired Giants fan Charles Schulz to pen this classic strip in the off-season:
The date on that one is Dec. 22, 1962.
More than a month later, Jan. 28, 1963, he added another:
I always thought there were three such strips—going to one foot higher—but it's just the two. Even so, they're great. Every fan of every losing team relates. I certainly did after Super Bowl XLIX.
Terry had been recruited by many teams, including the Cardinals, but signed with the Yankees. Then he got caught in that NY-KC traffic. The 1950s Kansas City Athletics were a virtual farm-system team for the Yanks, and in June '57 he was sent down (along with Billy Martin, who was considered a bad influence on Mickey Mantle), and in May '59 he was recalled. His best season was probably '62, when he started 39 games, went 23-12, and led the league in wins, innings pitched, and homeruns allowed. He was good the next season, too, leading the league in WHIP, but he fell off in '64 and was traded to Cleveland ignominiously in October as a PTBNL (Player to be named later). In '66 he was traded back to the KC A's, and in August was purchased by the NY Mets, who, at the time, had a thing for ex-Yankees. He was released and signed and released for good in May '67. In his last game, he pitched in relief, two innings, and was perfect: six up, six down. The last batter he faced was one of the most fierce hitters in baseball: Dick Allen. He struck him out swinging.
Born in Big Cabin, Oklahoma, Terry died on Wednesday in Larned, Kansas, from complications after an icy slip-and-fall this winter. He was 86.
Thursday March 17, 2022
The World As We Know It Will End Because of Fossil-Fuel Interests, Joe Manchin and the Republican Party
Here are the reasons why Sarah Bloom Raskin withdrew her nomination from the Federal Reserve Board, according to Jane Mayer's New Yorker article:
- Joe Manchin (D-WV) joined the Republicans in opposing her nomination: “Manchin's family fortune is largely derived from coal, and he has taken more money from fossil-fuel interests than any other senator during the current cycle. Every Republican member of the Senate Banking Committee has also taken money from fossil-fuel interests, cumulatively accepting more than eight million dollars during their political careers from the producers of the carbon emissions that are helping to cause climate change.”
- Republicans, led by Pat Toomey (R-PA), accused her of vague improprieties while serving as a director of a Colorado trust company: “The allegations against Bloom Raskin, who has denied any improper behavior, dissolved under closer examination.”
- The GOP was holding hostage Biden's four other picks to run the Fed. So she withdrew her name to ensure good governance could continue.
Who is she? Some radical? Not. She'd been confirmed by the Senate twice before. She's just concerned about climate change. In her letter to Pres. Biden, she said she added that she's not the only one:
“The Department of Defense has been systematically analyzing the energy security risks of climate change for years, developing mitigation strategies to confront them. Banks and insurance companies incorporate financial aspects of extreme weather events into their plans. Farmers, ranchers and businesses across the country already are struggling to adapt to extreme floods, hurricanes, rising sea levels and wildfires. Central banks around the world have already begun acting on these issues. Chairman Powell has recognized climate change as a significant risk that needs to be incorporated into the supervisory process. Any vice chair for supervision who ignored these realities—which are manifesting every day across this country—would be guilty of gross dereliction of duty.”
This is the way to frame the argument, Democrats. It's here. Farmers and businesss are already suffering. Banks, businesses, insurance companies and the DOD are already acting. Everyone is already acting except the U.S. Congress. Because of the GOP and its interests. The GOP diddles while the world burns.
Wednesday March 16, 2022
Movie Review: Flee (2021)
WARNING: SPOILERS
At first I didn’t understand that Amin (our real-life protagonist, under an assumed name), laying on a couch and talking with his friend and filmmaker Jonas Poher Rasmussen, was a bit of an unreliable narrator. Like when he said he had no family left. That’s the lie the human traffickers—the good human traffickers—told him to say when he arrived as a teenager in Copenhagen; it would help him remain there.
What I never quite got, though, was how much of his story Amin was keeping from himself. Obviously he knew he had family. He visited some of them in Sweden. So when he was on the couch, was he just so used to the lie that it came more naturally? Or was he still afraid of being sent back to Moscow? Or Kabul? Or was it deeper than that?
Told via animation and historic footage, “Flee” depicts three ways Amin comes out: as a refugee from Kabul, Afghanistan shortly after the mujahideen took over; as a young gay man in Copenhagen, Denmark; and revealing his true story to Rasmussen, and to us, and maybe to himself.
Take on me
Chronologically, it begins with Amin as a young boy, wearing a dress while running around Kabul as A-Ha’s “Take on Me” plays on the soundtrack and on his walkman. It seems to be the last days of the Soviet occupation—a time of promise, one would think. But then the mujahideen, who mostly fought in the mountains, take over Kabul, and Amin’s father, a military officer, goes into hiding. At one point, Amin’s older brother is conscripted/shanghaied. Isn’t that him looking forlorn in the back of the military truck? Yet when Amin returns home, he sees his brother there. Mistaken identity? Unreliable narrator? Or just the sense that, growing up as Amin did, nothing is reliable.
It certainly isn’t when mother, brother and Amin escape to Moscow. There, as undocumented refugees, they hide out in small rooms watching Mexican soap operas while they make enough money to pay traffickers to take them to Sweden, where Amin’s older older brother lives. Or … could they work? I guess that’s murky, too. Maybe the money came from the older older brother.
But finally they go, in the middle of the night, being herded along with a large group by a man with a brutish face. In Estonia, the march is long and an old woman is slowing them up; she can’t make it. Will she be shot? No, several refugees carry her in a blanket to the port. But each step in the journey carries its own dangers. And in the ship they’re locked in the hold like in a metal tomb.
OK, up to this point, I thought the movie was fine if unspectacular. The animation was a bit crude, the story a bit familiar. Even this part was familiar. It’s how Ivan Reitman and his parents escaped Czechoslovakia after the Soviet Union took over, for example. They were placed in the hold of a ship and a floor was placed/screwed in above them. Can you imagine? The trust you’d need in people who weren’t trustworthy? He told this story on Marc Maron’s podcast in 2014, which I heard recently when Maron rebroadcast it after Reitman’s passing, and I flashed on it here. I also thought of the holds of slave ships. And seasickness. Wouldn’t they get seasick? I thought of my own struggles with that, and how, the best thing to do is keep watching the horizon. They couldn’t do that, of course. They were below, in the dark, packed together. And as the ship was buffeted about, yes, they got seasick; and I’m sure the retching of some led to the retching of others; and the smell of the vomit led to even more vomiting. And this is where the movie began to hit me on a gut level. Is it because it’s where I began to identify? Where I stopped thinking of the characters as “other” and thought of them as “me”?
Water begins to pour into the hold, so the refugees escape, see they're in the midst of a storm, and begin to bail water. Is there a crew at this point? I never got a sense of it. After the waters calm, they’re basically adrift until a huge Norwegian cruise ship is spotted and pulls alongside them. All the refugees cheer. All except Amin, who looks at the well-dressed vacationers, staring and taking pictures, and feels shame and embarrassment. Or maybe he senses what’s to come next? They’re not taken aboard. The cruise ship captain announces that the Estonian border police will be by to pick them up. And they’re returned to Estonia. And from there to Moscow. All that horror for nothing.
The week I saw this film I was also reading and listening to coverage of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine; and in one podcast, talking up all the U.S. companies pulling out of Russia, the guest, an expert in Russian affairs, reminisced about that moment of hope when the first McDonald’s opened in Russia. Well, we get that here, too, but it’s not a moment of hope. A crowd is drawn, including Amin and his older brother, who are distracted enough that they don’t see the cops until it’s too late. Money is demanded. Amin’s watch, a family heirloom, is taken. Then they’re tossed into a police van with a female refugee. She turns out to be their means of escape but not in a good way. The boys are let go so the Russian cops can rape her in private. Amin looks back to see the doors close, and his adult self, on the couch in Copenhagen, berates himself for doing nothing—when, obviously, he could do nothing. Or anything he could’ve done would’ve been a suicide mission. “It’s one of the most horrible feelings I ever had,” he says. You can’t help but wonder what happened to that woman. Amin’s story is horrific but he got out. He got to tell it.
Wheel of fortune
Amin’s refugee journey is occasionally interrupted to show us his current adult life in Copenhagen. He’s an academic, there’s talk of Princeton, he’s got a Danish fiancé named Kasper. They visit a house but something’s missing. I thought Kasper was distant but it’s actually Amin. He’s not quite there.
We also get glimpses of Amin’s budding sexuality throughout, and these tend to be the most humorous aspects of the film—such as when his Kabul-era poster of Jean-Claude Van Damme winks at him. Or when, in Copenhagen, with, I believe, his adoptive mother, he says he wants medicine so he’ll stop liking men. This is when we realize that there’s an element of good fortune to Amin's story, too. He landed in one of the most progressive cities in the world. Just imagine the reaction if he’d been in Alabama or Kansas. Imagine him under the Taliban.
Coming out to his family occurs in Stockholm, as his older older brother talks up the girls in Denmark, how pretty they are, and why doesn’t he have a girlfriend? Amin comes clean: He’s gay. Everyone is quiet. His sisters are shocked. Finally his older older brother takes him in a car to a nondescript part of town, hands him money and tells him to have a good time. There’s a neon rose above the door. We assume it’s a brothel. The animators misdirect us further by showing us a heavily made-up woman inside. But past some curtains we discover it’s a gay disco. And the beefcake bartender, like Jean-Claude, winks at him. And my heart filled.
In 2019, “Honeyland” and “Collective” became the first films to be nominated both Best Documentary andBest International Feature by the Academy Awards. “Flee” did them one better: It’s also nominated for Best Animated Feature. You figure it’ll win something. No story feels more relevant. Although I guess there are few moments in history when it doesn’t feel relevant.
Monday March 14, 2022
A 'Known For' Quiz
IMDb's problematic “Known For” algorithm is back, and this time it's a quiz!
Can you guess who this actor is?
Here's a hint: I associate him with none of these movies. But I do associate him with several fairly popular films from the 1980s. Am I wrong? Is the algorithm? Here are some of the factors that “may” (IMDb's word) count toward “Known For” designations.
The job performed on the title (a credit as director will have more weight than a credit as production assistant).
Our mystery guest is mostly an actor: 97 credits. He's directed two things. He's produced six. The above are all for acting.
The frequency of credits for a particular job in the context of the person's filmography (writing credits may have more weight for someone who is more frequently credited as a writer than as a producer).
Actor. See above. So far it's working.
The type of title (a credit for a theatrical feature has a different weight than a credit for a short film or a TV series).
Our mystery guest did have a semi-popular TV series in the 2000s but that didn't make the cut. But I associate him more with that series than with any of the above. Problems appearing.
The popularity of the title (this takes into consideration the number of hits/page views, the average user rating, any awards won by the title and several other indicators).
OK, this is where it starts getting crazy. Obviously “Dark Knight” is a popular title, and maybe “Foxcatcher” a little. But the other two? Not at all. And the movies that are missing? The ones I associate him with? More so. Here's how each of these movies rank, in terms of this guy's overall filmography, compared with the movies I associate him with:
Movie | Popularity | User Rating | No. of Votes |
War Machine | 10 | 15 | 11 |
Live By Night | 7 | 12 | 9 |
Foxcatcher | 9 | 9 | 4 |
The Dark Knight | 1 | 1 | 1 |
Movie | Popularity | User Rating | No. of Votes |
Movie 1 | 6 | 5 | 6 |
Movie 2 | 3 | 3 | 3 |
Movie 3 | 4 | 8 | 5 |
Movie 4 | 8 | 11 | 7 |
Movie 5 | 5 | 2 | 2 |
“Dark Knight” aside, most of my movies trump the “Known For” movies by IMDb's own criteria.
The relative importance of the credit among similar ones for the same title (for example an acting credit for someone who received top billing will weigh more than an acting credit for a cameo appearance).
And here's where it gets crazier. Along with his credit placement, per IMDb, I've included whether or not he's on the movie's main poster.
Movie | Credit | On poster? |
War Machine | 7 | X |
Live By Night | 17 | |
Foxcatcher | 6 | |
The Dark Knight | 15 | |
Movie | Credit | On poster? |
Movie 1 | 5 | |
Movie 2 | 6 | X |
Movie 3 | 2 | X |
Movie 4 | 1 | X |
Movie 5 | 4 |
In every one of the movies I associate him with, he's either a lead or supporting. And his credit in “Movie 2” is misleading. He's one of the six leads in it. He just gets sixth billing.
Ready to find out who the dude is? Here are the movies I've hidden until now:
Movie | Popularity | User Rating | No. of Votes | Credit | On poster? |
War Machine | 10 | 15 | 11 | 7 | X |
Live By Night | 7 | 12 | 9 | 17 | |
Foxcatcher | 9 | 9 | 4 | 6 | |
The Dark Knight | 1 | 1 | 1 | 15 | |
Movie | Popularity | User Rating | No. of Votes | Credit | On poster? |
National Lampoon's Vacation | 6 | 5 | 6 | 5 | |
The Breakfast Club | 3 | 3 | 3 | 6 | X |
Sixteen Candles | 4 | 8 | 5 | 2 | X |
Weird Science | 8 | 11 | 7 | 1 | X |
Edward Scissorhands | 5 | 2 | 2 | 4 |
Yes, it's Anthony Michael Hall.
And when you think Anthony Michael Hall, of course you think “Live By Night.” And “Dark Knight.” And “War Machine.” Doesn't everyone?
I mean, that's gotta be one fucked-up algorithm.
Here's the thing, though. While researching the above, I came across this beauty of a caveat on IMDb's explanation page for its “Known For” algorithm:
Since this is an entirely mathematical approach, some of our Known For choices may occasionally not be the best or most representative ones - if you're an active IMDbPro member, you may select your Known For titles. (italics mine)
Holy hell. So did A.M. Hall choose these films for himself? How does one know? Shouldn't there be a proviso stating so? If he did, there isn't. If he didn't, my original thought stands: that's one fucked-up algorithm.
Sunday March 13, 2022
William Hurt (1950-2022)
Hurt in “Broadcast News”: the devil then, benign now.
He kind of leapt right into it, didn't he? At least on the screen, there wasn't a lot of dues-paying. He did a couple of episodes of “Kojak” in '77, then a mini-series and another guest spot; and then it was “Altered States” (boom), and “Body Heat” and “Eyewitness” (boom boom). Now he was a star. He had a helluva run: “Big Chill,” “Gorky Park,” “Kiss of the Spider Woman” (Oscar), “Children of a Lesser God” (Oscar nom), and “Broadcast News” (nom). That was followed by “Accidental Tourst” and Woody Allen's “Alice.” And when the '80s ended, his star turn kinda did, too.
Oh sure, he did one of those privileged-men-brought-low movies of 1991, “The Doctor,” to go with Harrison Ford's “Regarding Henry,” which blah, and “Until the End of the World,” which was huh, and then he an I lost touch. We caught up with “Smoke” in 1995, which was mostly Harvey Keitel, and “One True Thing” in 1998, which was mostly Meryl Streep and Renee Zellwegger. A few years later he got another Oscar nom, this time in supporting, for playing a crime boss in “A History of Violence.” He kept veering away from the white-collar WASP roles that made him famous. Beginning in 2008, he began playing Gen. “Thunderbolt” Ross in the Marvel movies.
This is the wrong place to say it but I never quite got him. Women said he was good-looking and sexy but I never saw it or felt it. His screen personality just didn't jibe with me. It was like his characters were annoyed with things beyond the scope of the movie and maybe I felt he was annoyed with me. In real life, he came from a privileged background and maybe I felt that, too. He was just too blonde for me, and not in the e.e. cumming way. On the other hand, I thought he was great in “Broadcast News” as the shallow anchorman who would dumb us down bit by bit and ruin America. Now, of course, in the wake of Fox News and Facebook, Alex Jones and Tucker Carlson, his character seems benign. You watch it and go, “Those were the days, my friend.”
Here's a nice tribute from Mark Harris:
He was only 71. More here. Rest in peace.
Saturday March 12, 2022
New Baseball Rules: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Hey, the 2022 owner lockout is over! Major League Baseball is starting again, officially on April 7, which is a good day for Opening Day. (I hate it when they play in March.) More good news: They're playing all 162 games, even though they're starting a week late. How are they doing that? Apparently by adding double-headers (good) and by adding three games at the end of the season (bad, since the postseason already bumps up against November).
As for the rest? My friend Tim breaks it down in a piece called “The new normal: CBA changes leave a sour taste,” on the Grand Salami site. There's the monetary stuff—who gets what percentage of our dough—which he deals with in straightforward fashion. Then there's the baseball stuff. How are they changing this game that we love?
Are they, for example, making it easier for fans without cable to watch their home teams? No, we're still screwed on that. Are they doing anything to speed up the game? Probably. They're creating a beast called the “Joint Competition Committee” (what a monicker), which will consist of four active players, one umpire, and six reps/owners appointed by the Commissioner. (Meaning owners and Comm. Rob Manfred will have majority rule.) This group will suggest on-field rule changes that Manfred can implement within 45 days beginning in 2023.
And what changes are being bandied about? According to Tim, “a pitch clock, larger bases, and severe restrictions on defensive positioning.” Me: Larger bases? Who looks at baseball today and goes, “You know the problem with the game, don't you? Those damn bases aren't big enough.” (Follow-up: If it increases SBs, I'm down with it.) Pitch clock, if it's enforced, seems fine. Limiting the shift, though ... I get it, but I'd rather market forces took care of that. Teams should put a premium on guys that can hit to all fields rather than beefy pull hitters. Also not sure how they'll implement/enforce it. What the parameters will be. How much out of position can a shortstop be, for example? And who decides?
Anyway, all that's in the future. What's in the present? Let's break it down Sergio Leone-style:
THE GOOD
- Extra innings are extra innings again. No more stupid ghost runners.
- Doubleheaders are doubleheaders again. Nine innings rather than 7. As God intended.
- The amateur draft order changes. Instead of a last-to-first thing, there will be a drawing of the bottom six to prevent teams from tanking. Interestingly, I just rewatched the 30/30 doc “Reggie Miller vs. The New York Knicks,” much recommended, and the NBA did such a draft in '85 when the Knicks got Patrick Ewing. Seems smart. And dramatic.
- Just five player options. Teams can now only option a player to the minors five teams per season. Which seems plenty. Let's get to know these guys. Even if they suck.
THE NEUTRAL (Sorry, Sergio, but...)
- NL gets the DH. Tim really hates this one and I get it. You're reducing strategy—when to pinch-hit for a player who can't hit. But it is a player who can't hit—generally. So this doesn't bother me that much. I'm almost neutral on it. But in the great DH/No DH battle since '73, I thought it would only be resolved by war. Instead, barely a whimper from the NL. Kind of sad.
- Every team will play every other team. To begin in 2023. Again, both bad and good. The AL/NL border wall was thick until the mid-90s and now it's porous. Everyone's getting through. At the same time, seeing fewer games against, say, the Rangers, sounds fun. At the same time, I miss league specificity. I miss the romance and mystery of the other league. I miss All-Star Games that mattered a little. Maybe I just miss my youth.
THE BAD
- The playoff field grows from 10 to 12 teams. World without end here. When I was born in 1963, just two teams made the postseason: the pennant winners. From '69 to '93 it was four teams: the two division winners. From '95 to, what, 2012 or so, it was eight teams: the three division winners plus a wild card. Then it was 10 teams: the three division winners plus two wild cards, who would play each other in a die-or-day game. Now it's 12. We're playing 162 games, half a year, to eliminate 18 of 30 teams. And it'll only get worse.
- Game 163s are gone. You know, when teams tie and have to go sudden death? Yankees/Red Sox in '78, Mariners/Angels in '95, Twins/Tigers in '09? That excitement? Yeah, thanks but no thanks Bucky Dent, Luis Sojo and Carlos Gomez. We've had enough excitement for the season. We'll just trot out the mathematicians for this one. A formula will decide.
THE UGLY
- They're putting ads on uniforms. Let me repeat that: They're putting ads on uniforms! God, what fuckers. What greedy fuckers. According to Tim, a patch on every jersey and a decal on every batting helmet is now allowed. “How prominent these will be has yet to be revealed, but it's the first step toward NASCAR-like ad insanity or MLS-like team sponsorships that overwhelm a uniform.”
That last one hurts. It really does. And it's more evidence that the people who run baseball don't give a shit about baseball. It's more evidence that we need to save baseball from the people who run it.
Thursday March 10, 2022
Just a Reminder to All the Useful Idiots Who Claim Trump Was 'Tough on Putin'
“I think [Trump] feared [Putin]. I think he was afraid of him. I think that the man intimidated him. Because Putin is a scary man, just frankly, I think he was afraid of him. I also think he admired him greatly, I think he wanted to be able to kill whoever spoke out against him. So I think it was a lot of that. In my experience with him, he loved the dictators, he loved the people who could kill anyone, including the press. ... And I will say this, just in watching all of this with Zelenskyy, Donald Trump would be 57 feet below ground hiding. And Zelenskyy has been out there fighting for his country.”
-- former Trump White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham on The View on Tuesday, via Vanity Fair. Then, for those with short memories, we get some nice reminders of all the times Trump showed how much he loved dictators:
- Saying he believed Russia didn't interfere in the 2016 election because Vladimir Putin told him so—even though U.S. intelligence said otherwise
- Believing Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman that he had nothing to do with the murder and dismemberment of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi—even though the CIA said otherwise
- Taking Kim Jong-Un's word that he “didn't know about” the yearlong imprisonment of American student Otto Warmbier, who died of brain damage days after returning to the U.S.
- Hosting and praising autocrats such as Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt, and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of Turkey
Plus all the Putin shit.
Wednesday March 09, 2022
'You Keep Watching It': 'The Godfather' at 50
Dave Itzkoff: Have you rewatched the film recently?
Al Pacino: No. I might have seen it two, three years ago. It's the kind of movie when you start watching it, you keep watching it.
— from “The Godfather at 50: 'It's Taken Me a Lifetime to Accept It and Move On,'” in The New York Times
Truer words. I remember renting it in the mid-90s, on VHS from Video Isle, a great little video store about a block from where I lived in the Fremont neighborhood of Seattle. I think I'd seen the movie once or twice at that point, liked it enough, but this is the moment where I fell. Sunday evening, getting ready to return it, I rewound the tape, and then felt this tingle, this urge. “I'll just rewatch the opening, the 'I believe in America,' and the pullback to Brando. OK, just the wedding. Oh man, Tom in Hollywood. And the Turk. And Brando's shot. Michael at the hospital. 'You know my father? Men are coming to kill him. Now help me, please.' Looking at his unshaking hands. Then the pull in to Michael taking over.”
Readers, I rewatched the whole thing.
I haven't rewatched it in the last few years. Maybe it's too ingrained? There's not a lot left where I go, “Oh yeah, this.” But if I did start watching it, I'd keep watching it. Pacino's right. It's that kind of movie.
Tuesday March 08, 2022
Michael Schur for Baseball Commissioner
“I like it when faceless billionaires ruin things that bring joy to millions of people in order to make very slightly more money than they already had—which was, again, billions of dollars. I genuinely enjoy it when 30 anonymous rich lunatics display an utter lack of interest in protecting or caring for the national pastime they've inherited, and make children cry.”
-- Michael Schur, creator/producer of “Parks and Recreation” and “The Good Place,” on the Poscast with Joe Posnanski, talking about the 2022 baseball lockout. The first week of the season has already been canceled—91 total games—and we're on the verge of losing the second.
Monday March 07, 2022
Movie Review: Nightmare Alley (2021)
WARNING: SPOILERS
His rise is slow and measured, and I bought it. His fall is swift and ironic, and I didn’t. He falls, in part, because warnings in the first act are ignored in the third. Writer/director Guillermo del Toro and screenwriter Kim Morgan (his wife, a former movie critic, super hot) tie it up in a bow that, for all its griminess, is still a little too neat.
I’d never heard of the 1947 original, by the way, starring Tyrone Power and Joan Blondell, directed by Edmund Goulding (“Grand Hotel”), and written by Jules Furthman (“The Big Sleep”) from a 1946 novel by William Lindsay Gresham. Apparently it’s beloved by noir fans. It’s 7.8 on IMDb, 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, even though the Production Code was still in effect and the novel’s dark ending couldn’t be used. So they fudged it. They sweetened it.
Not here.
Holmesian
For the remake, Bradley Cooper takes the Tyrone Power role as Stanton “Stan” Carlisle, a down-on-his-luck mystery man who becomes a carny roustabout and grifter in the middle of the Depression. For the first 10 minutes of the film, we don’t hear him speak—to the point where I wondered if he could—but we do see him act. In an old house, he drags a body into a hole in the floorboards, then sets it, and the whole house, aflame as he walks away.* Then he takes a busride, follows a dwarf to a carnival run by Clem Hoatley (Willem Dafoe), gets a gig, and begins his rise.
(*The oddity of this opening scene is the dragging of the body. If you’re going to set the house on fire, a house in the middle of nowhere, why bother dragging it anywhere? Ashes are ashes.)
Stan has two things going for him: He’s a quick study who’s “easy on the eyes,” as Zeena the Seer (Toni Collette) says before jacking him off in the bathtub. The bath costs 10¢; I assume the other was freebie.
Zeena and her partner/hubby Pete (David Strathairn, nice to see you) do a bit for the rubes where, via Pete’s verbal cues, the blindfolded Zeena is able to “see,” say, a wallet or locket of an audience member. They’re also good at reading people, and they teach all this to Stan, who takes it to another level. I was reminded of Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock Holmes: the black dirt in your fingernails, coupled with the chalky residue of your shoes, means blah blah blah. It’s fun. Particularly when he uses it to prevent a local sheriff (Jim Beaver) from shutting down the carny.
So did he mean to kill Pete or was it an accident? He brings him a bottle of booze but it’s wood alcohol, and Pete dies. By this point Carlisle has won over Molly (Rooney Mara), assistant to Bruno the Strong Man (Ron Perlman), and the two escape the carnival. Then it’s two years later, they’re doing their act in swanky dinner clubs, and, at one such, Dr. Lilith Ritter (Cate Blanchett), a psychiatrist, tries to unmask him as a fraud. He gets the best of her. Then they begin an affair. OK. Then she starts feeding him well-heeled clients, including the Kimballs (Mary Steenburgen and Peter MacNeill), and because that goes well, he gets Ezra Grindle (Richard Jenkins), the most powerful man in town, who lost a lover to a forced abortion.
All this takes us back to the first act—something Pete said about never doing the grift about the afterlife. Turns out he was prescient. To join their child, Mrs. Kimball winds up killing Mr. Kimball and herself, while Grindle uncovers Stan’s ruse—the bloodied, risen ex actually being Molly—and threatens to ruin him. Or kill him? Either way, Stan beats him to the punch by literally beating Grindle to death.
Throughout, Stan has been a teetotaler, underlining the fact that he never touches drink: never never. In therapy sessions with Lilith, we find out why: the dead body he burned in the beginning was his alcoholic father. But then … what is it exactly? … Lilith takes a swig, kisses him, maybe slips him some of the booze, and suddenly he’s a full-blown alcoholic. That’s part of the swift fall I didn’t buy. He goes from zero to 60 in a second. And when he’s on the lam for the Grindle murder, riding the rails, he’s still after drink and sinks fast. Which is why, disheveled, unwashed, booze-ridden, he comes across another carny ...
Wait, back up. We have another first-act return. Back then, Stan was fascinated with “the geek,” the sideshow attraction that lives in filth and bites the heads off chickens. He asks Clem where they come from. And Clem admits they’re manufactured more than anything. An alcoholic comes along, needs a gig, you tell him this geek thing could be temporary but it’ll keep him in booze. Before you know it, he’s the regular, and you’ve got yourself an attraction.
You see where this is going, right? The new carny boss (Tim Blake Nelson) gets a whiff of Stan and trots out the temporary geek line. And Stan smiles. He smiles a desperate smile and laughs a desperate laugh. And he says, “Mister, I was born for it.” And that’s the end. It’s not bad. Great production values. But it’s a bit tied up in a bow.
Geeking out
You know what I wondered afterwards? Why was the geek even a thing? Not here but in our history. Why was it ever an attraction? Who’s attracted by that? A man in filth biting the heads off live chickens? That’s entertainment? Man, we’re a sad race.
And is the movie implying that psychiatry is the grift that replaced mentalism? And what exactly was Lilith’s game? She couldn’t unmask Stan so she brought him low? Or is she just a dick?
Anyway, it was nominated for best picture. It’s not, but it’s OK.
Sunday March 06, 2022
Box Office: 'The Batman' Has the Second-Biggest Opening of the Decade
Normally a $128 million opening weekend for a Grade-A superhero movie would be OK but kind of meh. Put it this way: It's $30 million less (unadjusted) than “The Dark Knight” grossed in 2008.
But obviously we're not in normal times. This haul for “The Batman” starring Robert Pattinson is in fact the second-biggest opener of the decade. Plus, even without the spectre of COVID, you'd expect some sort of Bat-fatigue. In the last 17 years, there have been three Christian Bale Batman movies and Ben Affleck has played him in three other films—and apparently in the upcoming “Flash” movie, too. We know how his parents die. We've seen it again and again and again. Now this third 21st-century reboot? With a third Batman, a third Alfred, a third Commissioner Gordon?
And yet ... $128 mil. The reviews probably helped: 85% on RT.
“Uncharted,” starring Tom Holland, came in second with $11 mil for a domestic total of $100. Channing Tatum's PTSD “Dog” came in third ($6/$40) while “Spider-Man: No Way Home” was fourth ($4/$786). That $786 million for Spidey is No. 3 all-time domestic.
Anyway, it's a sign of a kind of normalcy. I'll take it.
Sunday March 06, 2022
Quote of the Day
“My life today is wonderful. I believe that I am needed. ... That's the most important sense of life—that you are needed, that you are not just an emptiness that breathes and walks and eats something.”
— Pres. Volodymyr Zelensky, via translator, March 3, when asked about his living conditions a week into the attack of Ukraine by Vladimir Putin's Russia. David Remnick weighs in as well.
Saturday March 05, 2022
Rob Manfred, Ownerous
This was the picture shared by millions of baseball fans on social posts this week: a smiling MLB Commissioner, Rob Manfred, canceling the start of the 2022 Major League Baseball season. On his substack blog, Joe Posnanski called it “a travesty of a press conference” and wondered aloud about Manfred: “He's certainly a smart guy. Cornell. Harvard Law. He can be engaging in the right setting. So why is he SO bad at this? Why does he say unbelievably stupid things all the time?”
Then he tries to break it down:
- He's petty. Example: Firing Ken Rosenthal.
- He seems to think he's only talking to the person he's talking with. Example: The above shot, which is Manfred apparently joking around with New York Post reporter Ken Davidoff, who is leaving the gig, and with whom Manfred has bumped heads. But you just don't do it. You don't cancel baseball games two years after 2/3 of all games were wiped out by a global pandemic, at a time when we're all craving normalcy, when the world is at war, you don't cancel games with a fucking smile.
- He always seems unprepared for any question that comes along. Example: “That's how we've always done it” is never a good answer, for anything, in any situation, but that was apparently Manfred's answer on why baseball owners would not raise the luxury tax to at least match the level of inflation.
But what's really wrong with Rob Manfred is he's the owners' guy—as almost all MLB commissioners have been since Kenesaw Mountain Landis.
You look at the history of these guys and wonder how it is that baseball survived all these years. Off the top of my head, I'd give props to Happy Chandler, who helped integrate baseball, and A. Bartlett Giamatti, who had a genuine love of the game and a poetry to him. Otherwise we have: Landis (racist, tyrannical), Ford Frick (asterisk, though helped expand baseball across the country), William Eckert (nada), Bowie Kuhn (the Gerald Ford of baseball commissioners), Peter Ueberroth (collusion, megalomania), Fay Vincent (nada II), and Bud Selig (an owner).
And now this guy. Where did he come from? In another post, Posnanski writes about how the luxury tax is basically a salary cap, and he goes into the history of both, and we get a surprise ending:
In 1994, the owners decided to go to the wall for a salary cap. Their idea was essentially like in football and basketball — they would tie salaries to revenue, and they would set the cap so that 50% of the revenue went to the players. The owners wanted the players to counter with a higher percentage, even it was a MUCH higher percentage, but it goes without saying that the players wouldn't even negotiate if a salary cap was involved.
There's a particularly poignant scene in the classic [book] “Lords of the Realm,” where one of the owners' lawyers approached my friend Steve Fehr (a union lawyer and brother of union head Don Fehr) at the All-Star Game and basically shouted at him, “Give us a number! Give us a number! Give us a number!”
That owners' lawyer's name: Rob Manfred.
I had to do a doubletake on that one, even though I should know better by now. World is corrupt, world without end. Manfred is still the owners' lawyer, he just has a different title.
Poz also reminds us that April 15, 2022 is the 75th anniversary of the day Jackie Robinson played his first Major League game, integrated the then-national pastime, and helped pave the way for what was to come. It should be a day of celebration in parks around the country.
Happy Chandler, we hardly knew ye.
Friday March 04, 2022
Movie Review: Licorice Pizza (2021)
WARNING: SPOILERS
Huh.
So was the point that the movie contained some of the tropes of movies—awkward romance, crazy escapades—but was as plain and pointless as life? The dude in the 12 jersey isn’t like Altman’s assassin in “Nashville” or Scorsese’s in “Taxi Driver”; he’s not anything. He’s just standing there or sitting there. Our aimless heroes aren't quite Brad and Angelina and they never quite find aim; they just find each other, finally, running around Encino searching until they literally run into each other’s arms like in a movie—even meeting in front of a movie theater playing “Live and Let Die” and “The Mechanic”—but unlike in a movie, or unlike a romance but definitely like a comedy, they crash and fall into a heap. And then he blows it again at his blowout pinball-arcade opening by introducing her as his wife—her first name, his last—and she insults him and storms off. But no, this time they kiss and make up. This time they kiss. Hey, they kiss! And so it begins.
Even though she’s 25 and he’s 15.
That’s part of the controversy of the film, I guess, and obviously it wouldn’t even have been made if you’d reversed the genders; but watching, it doesn’t feel controversial. Maybe because the actor playing the 15-year-old is closer to 20, and looks it, and the actress playing the 25-year-old, while closer to 30, could easily pass for early 20s.
On our last episode…
It’s episodic, that’s for sure. How would you break down the film?
- Child actor
- Waterbeds
- Oil crisis
- Politics and pinballs
Each episode kind of relates to the others. He’s a successful child actor until he isn’t. Then he’s an entrepreneur. He sees a waterbed in the back of a wig store and starts his own business. Then at a teen fair he’s arrested for murder? And released? And nothing? Then it’s the gas crisis and, oops, their waterbeds are petroleum-based. So much for that. Then it’s the coked-up Jon Peters crisis and its various hijinks. Then she gets into politics and he pinballs.
And thanks for coming.
You can unpack the oddness of this movie forever. One small example from the above: What is a waterbed doing in the back of a wig store? And how the hell does he spot it from the street outside? And what’s going on with the sales technique of Wig Shop Brenda—an impossibly hot Iyana Halley doing a Claudia Lennear thing? Or is that the way waterbeds were sold back then? The sex, or intimations of sex, are free-flowing throughout the movie in a way that’s false like a movie trope (hot girls coming onto schlubby guys) but also feels correct for the period. It's the messy aftermath of the sexual revolution. Before the reign of terror.
I assumed this was autobiographical by time and place—the older auteur recalling his youthful craziness—but it’s set in 1973 and Paul Thomas Anderson was born in 1970. This isn’t his time. He was 3. But it is his place. The movie’s got all the weirdness and aimlessness of the San Fernando Valley between Manson and Moon-Unit Zappa.
Is there anything to the unfamous actors with the famous names? Is that a Valley thing? The cast list includes DiCaprio, Spielberg and Nicholson, but it’s George (Leo’s dad), Sasha and Destry Allyn (Steven’s kids) and Ray (Jack’s son). We get Tim Conway Jr. in a small role. And in the leading role, making his motion picture debut, is Cooper Hoffman, the son of Philip Seymour, playing 15-year-old Gary Valentine. He’s quite good. So is rocker Alana Haim playing 25-year-old Alana Kane, whose cinematic family is her real family. Mother, father, two sisters: all Haims.
Many of the actors looked familiar, too. I kept thinking, “Where do I know that dude from? Can’t wait to IMDb him.” When I did, I didn't know him. Is that what it’s like growing up in the Valley? You think you know that dude but you don’t. But everyone you meet is related to someone more famous.
If there’s any kind of connective tissue to the episodes, it’s that she keeps meeting men who drive her back to Gary: the ass-slapping photographer, the atheistic Jewish kid actor (Skyer Gisondo, good), the drunk matinee idol (Sean Penn, fantastic), Jon Peters (Bradley Cooper, SAG-nominated), the closeted politician (Benny Safdie). Every time, she’s like, “I’m ready to become an adult finally,” and then they use her. Even the gay one. “I don’t need you, I need a beard.” Whatever their game is, she’s a pawn in it, while she’s Gary’s world. After the drunken motorcycle stunt, everyone runs to see if the former matinee idol is OK but he runs to her. He’s the only one who runs to her. He keeps running to her. He keeps running. So does she. There’s a lot of running in this, until, pop, they run into each other.
I’m not looking anything up—interviews with Anderson in which he says “Oh, I did this for that reason, and that for this reason.” I like living in the questions. Begin with the title. What does it mean? Is she licorice and he pizza? Why would you put them together? They shouldn’t go together. But there they are.
Down in the valley
Anderson doesn’t make many contemporary movies, does he? “Magnolia,” “Punch-Drunk Love” and maybe “Hard Eight.” Otherwise he’s turn-of-the-last-century (“There Will Be Blood”), post-WWII/1950s (“The Master,” “Phantom Thread”) and various versions of the Valley in the 1970s (“Boogie Nights,” “Inherent Vice,” this one). That’s a helluva oeuvre, by the way. There’s oddities there but not one movie where you thought it was a waste of time.
I’d like to see “The Master” again. I’d like to see “Inherent Vice” again. Those are his lowest-rated films according to IMDb users. Which I kind of get. Like this one, they don’t quite cohere in any familiar way. I wonder how they cohere in Anderson’s mind? Or if he thinks cohering is the opposite of the point.
Wednesday March 02, 2022
Just for Laughs: Not Seeing John Mulaney in Concert
This is how I first heard about it, via email on Dec. 7, a date which will live in somethingorother.
How did the emailer know I was a John Mulaney fan? I assume the usual online trail we all leave. I've watched his concerts on Netflix, went down the YouTube rabbit hole to find appearances on the various talk shows, and SNL, and at the Independent Spirit Awards, and I've tweeted and blogged about him. It's out there.
But initially I was like: So what? No Seattle. Appreciate the news but let me know when it hits closer to home.
Then I saw this at the end:
Vancouver! Hey, we have family there! Hey, we could go up for a few days, see them, see John, enjoy the Canada craziness! (JFL, by the way, stands for Just for Laughs, a two-week long comedy festival. It's like SIFF but funny.)
I was particularly curious what his standup might be like now. For most of his career, Mulaney's been the smart, teetotaling, former blackout-drunk and “Mad Men”-looking standup with the Jewish wife and no interest in having kids. His persona was “boring ol' me, vaguely gay ol' me.” I think he once referred to himself as a slice of white bread. Then, beginning in late 2020, he:
- went into rehab
- divorced his wife
- took up with hottie Oliva Munn
- had a baby with her
Now he's tabloid fodder. In the New York Post headline hierarchy he once riffed on (angel, hero, tot, bozo, perv), he's the bozo. “A bozo is any man who cheats on his wife,” he said back then. That's him. Which, no judgment, I'm just curious how, with such massive changes in his life, how his standup might change. I mean, I'd seen him on Seth Meyers' show last September and it was kind of shocking how unfunny he was. Could he bounce back? I'd love to find out. Hell, since these “Just for Laughs” gigs predated his official “From Scratch” tour, we'd actually see it first.
Should we do it? I asked my wife.
Yes! she said. She likes Mulaney, too. Plus she's never said no to travel.
What about this new variant that I'm hearing about?
Oh, I'm sure it'll be gone by then, she said. Plus we can't not make plans forever.
So we jumped. And despite Omicron not going away, we kept pushing forward. We got a hotel just three blocks from the Queen Elizabeth Theater. We figured out all the border-crossing hoops we had to jump through. There was an app, ArriveCAN, where you had to fill out all your info, upload a photo of your passport, and upload a photo of your vax card. And did Canada still want proof of a negative PCR test within 72 hours of arrival? Yes, they did. Were PCR test hard to get? Not really. But to get a free gov't test, you had to either have symptoms or be exposed to someone who had it. But you could pay for one: a mere $175-$300 a pop. Those were our options: shell out $400 or lie. We lied.
The trip up was lovely, Vancouver was more beautiful than I remembered, it was great seeing family. The concert was scheduled for 9:30 on a Tuesday night, and we kind dithered away the time beforehand. Well, the morning and afternoon were good: walk to Stanley Park, visit to the Vancouver Art Museum. But then I tried to take a nap because 9:30 seemed late to me (I'm 59), but the nap didn't take. Then we got nearby sushi but it wasn't particularly good. Then we watched some episodes of “Community” on my laptop but it was odd, fifth-season stuff. Basically we were just biding our time before the show because I didn't want to miss the show. Then we left our room at 9 PM, even though Patricia thought that was way too early for three blocks away, because I didn't want to miss the show.
Three blocks away, at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre, we disagreed about which entrance to go to. Patricia went to the side. “There's some light here,” she said. Then she paused. It wasn't much light. In fact, the whole place seemed rather dark. In fact...
A slight panic crept in. Had we missed the show? Did I misread the time? Or the date?
About a dozen people were milling about on the Hamilton Street side, most dressed for a show, so we went toward them. They pointed to these signs taped to the inside of the darkened front door.
My wife and I looked at each other and just started laughing. All that hoop-jumping. All that waiting around. All that fear of missing out.
Then I began to wonder why it was cancelled. Was he relapsing? I was concerned. We talked to the other disappointed fans out front. It turned out, no, the entire Just for Laughs festival had been cancelled. Because of Omicron. One woman, thumbing through her smartphone, said the emails had wound up in her Spam folder. They'd sent one on Feb. 7, she said, and another on Jan. 21.
“January 21st???” I said. “They've known for weeks?”
Initially I was amused. Then confused. Then I began to get angry. And since this is the modern world, I didn't quite know who to be angry at. Just for Laughs? Mulaney? Me?
The week before I'd actually had an inkling something was off. I don't remember why, but I'd done a double-check on the concert and was somehow assuaged. Maybe because Mulaney's Twitter feed said nothing about a cancellation and neither did his website, and a Google search, and a Google News search, brought up nothing. It brought up ticket sales.
But apparently I hadn't dug deep enough. So some part of me was angry at me. Some of the anger, too, I think, was simply to cover up embarassment. I was a 59-year-old crossing borders in the middle of a pandemic to see some punk thirtysomething comic in concert? What had I become? What had my life become? I really was thinking this. It's a few weeks later and I'm cutting myself some slack. I was a 59-year-old crossing borders in the middle of a pandemic to see someone who had given me hours and hours of joy. I just wanted another hour.
Besides, by now I know whose fault it was: the Just for Laughs festival.
Back at the hotel I doublechecked my Gmail account. I checked the inbox, the deleted folder and the spam folder. Nothing, nothing and nothing. Deleted emails are kept for 30 days, so it went back before Jan. 21. But there was nothing from Just for Laughs or about John Mulaney or about cancellation. They'd never let me know.
So when I got home I shot off an email to Just For Laughs explaining all this. I got this a day later:
Thanks for your message and apologies for the confusion! We had send out updates about this postponement by email on January 21st, February 7th and 11th, but we've been ending up in junk mail, and we had also posted on social media and our website.
Even though I said the notice didn't wind up in my spam folder, they said check your spam folder. They also said they were working to reschedule him but if I wanted a refund I could have a refund. I went for the refund. And I reiterated the fact that they should recheck their system that sends out these emails since I never got one. They said they would. Or one guy said they would. One guy who's answering emails and probably has no say-so at any level of the organization.
Last week, I got to see some of the standup I might've seen in Vancouver when John Mulaney hosted SNL. He looks a little more worn, a little heavier, with less of an amused glint in the eyes, but it was much better than his Seth Meyers' appearance. He's worked his fall from grace into comedy. Not an easy thing to do. I particularly like the text exchange with the drug dealer. Also his son's reaction to the light.
Anyway we just got tickets to Chris Rock in October. Fingers crossed.