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)
Monday September 30, 2024
Mariners are No. 1 Losers. Again.
Except for a makeup doubleheader this afternoon between the Mets and Braves (currently tied for the second wild card spot with identical 88-72 records), the 2024 regular season is now over. Amazing things happened: things that have never happened (50-50) or rarely (Jarren Duran leading the league in doubles + triples). But one thing remained dully the same.
This is a list of teams with the best record in the American League who fell short of the postseason:
- 2020: Seattle Mariners
- 2021: Toronto Blue Jays (Mariners second)
- 2022: Baltimore Orioles (Mariners make the postseason for the first time since 2001!!!)
- 2023: Seattle Mariners
- 2024: Seattle Mariners
Cue Seinfeld: “Of all the losers, you came in first—of that group. You're the No. 1 ... loser.”
Sunday September 29, 2024
In Search of Lost Times
I found this piece via that SFGate piece on how self-satisfied The New York Times is its coverage of Donald Trump and the 2024 presidential race. And you could sub in the 2020 race, too, or the 2016 race, or go back to 1973 and the first time they covered him, via an article on his father, and how they bought the lie and printed the lie and didn't correct the lie, because just look at him, just look at that blue-eyed boy, Mister Death.
Anyway, in that SFGate piece, there's a reference to “sanewashing,” a new term for me, that was linked to a website called the defector, and an article by Tom Scocca entitled “Where Racism Goes to Become Rhetoric.” The “where” there, well, that, too, is The New York Times, or the mainstream media generally. It's about something Scocca heard Donald Trump say that he thought was the most racist thing he'd heard any major presidential candidate—including earlier incarnations of Donald Trump—ever say. He said it to a crowd on Long Island, N.Y., about how the U.S. is being overrun by immigrants released from prisons in other countries:
“They're coming from the Congo, they're coming from Africa, they're coming from the Middle East, they're coming from all over the world—Asia! A lot of it coming from Asia. And what's happening to our country is we're just destroying the fabric of life in our country, and we're not going to take it any longer. And you got to get rid of these people.”
Scocca initially thought someone was simply exaggerating what Trump was saying, since no one was reporting on it; and when he found the speech verbatim on C-Span he dug further and discovered that Trump had been saying this exact thing for months. And no one was reporting on it simply because he'd been saying it for months. It wasn't news. When they wrote about it, they wrote to dismiss it:
The Washington Post put it into a fact-check roundup in March (“no such decline in Congo's prison population is shown in the data”); critic at large A.O. Scott of the New York Times, in a “Critic's Notebook” item reviewing Trump's speech after his criminal conviction, wrote about it knowingly, as if it were old news: “A citizen looking for campaign issues might find some boilerplate in a peroration that conjured images of Venezuela and Congo emptying their prisons and asylums onto America's streets.”
Yet the Times hadn't ever directly reported on those remarks, and it still hasn't. In its story from Nassau Coliseum, the paper wrote that Trump had “continued to stoke fear around immigration,” and then quoted only the later part of the passage: “We're just destroying the fabric of life in our country,” Mr. Trump said, referring to Democrats' immigration policies. “And we're not going to take it any longer. And you got to get rid of these people.”
But the truly telling point, which I admit I missed on first glance, is the part I've highlighted, which isn't a quote from Trump but reportage from the Times, so supposedly a fact. But it's the opposite of a fact. It's the Times doing Trump's heavy lifting for him. “What Trump was referring to,” Scocca writes, “in the literal text of his speech, was some agenda by which the United States is importing convicted criminals released from other countries' prisons. The Biden administration has no policy that does anything like what Trump was talking about.”
That said, that Times article by Michael Gold on the Long Island rally isn't bad. I like the lede:
On the day that he was originally set to return to his hometown and receive the sentence for his 34 felony convictions, former President Donald J. Trump found himself a few miles east, basking in the raucous adulation of a packed arena on Long Island.
Standing in front of thousands at the Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale, N.Y., Mr. Trump received a local hero's reception, as he drew an exaggerated depiction of a New York in decline, made false claims and hammered Democrats over crime, inflation and immigration.
Even this, though, makes you wonder. An exaggerated depiction of a New York in decline? Meaning it's only slightly in decline? Or is it not at all in decline and Donald Trump is a big fat liar?
But again, the article isn't bad: “exaggerated attacks,” “exaggerated claims,” “exaggerated depiction,” “false claims,” “falsely maintain,” “exaggerated claims,” “debunked claim,” “debunked claims,” and “misleadingly claimed.” They're so close.
Saturday September 28, 2024
What is Lucille Ball 'Known For'?
Who loves Lucy? Not IMDb and its algorithm.
I'm gonna do the conversation bit again. Imagine someone, maybe someone young, asks you what Lucille Ball is known for. What would your answer be? Would it be this?
IMDb: Lucille Ball? Yeah, she's known for producing various Lucy-themed TV shows, such as 'I Love Lucy,' 'The Lucy Show' and 'Here's Lucy.' Often uncredited.
Someone young: So were they named for her? I mean, did she also star in them?
IMDb: If she did, it's not what she's known for. But she was an actress because she played the seminal role of Tacy Collini in “The Long, Long Trailer.” That is the role, as an actress, that she is known for.
Someone young: K.
IMDb: But mostly she's known as a producer.
Someone young: Of various Lucy-themed TV shows.
IMDb: Now you've got it.
Remember in “Calvin & Hobbes” when Calvin's dad gave him false history and science lessons—for fun? IMDb does that with our cultural history through sheer ineptitude. And none of it is fun.
Thursday September 26, 2024
Times, Times, Times, Look What's Becomes of Them
It seems everyone is as sick of Times/Post/NPR coverage, particularly RE: Donald Trump, as I am. This article came through the social media transom the other day via historian Kevin Kruse (who, not for nothing, has zero fucks to give): “The New York Times is washed: SFGATE columnist Drew Magary is done with caring about the Times, and you should be, too.”
(I love including author and source in the subhed but couldn't it have used a better hed? What's washed? As in brain-? Is it new slang from the kids I have to look up? Alright, I'll look it up. And it's ... apparently short for “washed up.” Got it. Way to go, kids.)
So Magary begins with the poll numbers, and this one says that or the other, and whatever. But he gets at the heart soon enough, calling the Times, “an institution that has never met a story it couldn't water down” with “its patented strain of prestige clickbait.” Then he gives a brutal example: HOW J.D. VANCE'S COMBATIVE CONSERVATISM IS SHAPING TRUMP 2.0. Good god, that's awful, but they've been doing it for years. Remember this Rick Perry hed from 2011?
Magary is a little too chummy for me, and assumes a little too much about his reader, but he's not wrong. He writes:
“[Readers] understand that the Times has so thoroughly isolated itself from the zeitgeist that it's written itself right out of it. ... In the process, they've left the New York Times alone on its bespoke soapbox, screaming centrist nonsense into the void. I'm done listening to any of it. I'm not going back, and neither are you. The Times doesn't matter anymore, and they're the last people on Earth to realize it.”
Yep. And what a shame.
Wednesday September 25, 2024
Since the Mariners Last Won the AL West
The world's biggest pop star when the Mariners last won. (Paul Skenes photo unavailable.)
The Seattle Mariners led the AL West for much of the summer, shockingly, since they were not that good, but everyone else in the division was even worse. Until they weren't. Until the Astros started Astroing and took over the lead again in ... was it August? I guess July and August. Just Googled it and got this via Daniel Kramer at MLB.com:
The Mariners carried a 10-game lead atop the AL West entering June 19 before squandering it on July 19 in just 24 games, the shortest span — by far, per Elias — for any team to lose a double-digit lead in the divisional era (since 1969). A more elongated stretch of struggles pushed Seattle from occupying sole possession of a playoff spot since Aug. 7.
And last night, the Astros clinched—for the seventh time in eight seasons—and fittingly against the Mariners. Care to guess who won the division the time the Astros didn't? It was 2019, 'Stros were wild card and wound up in the World Series, but the division winner was ... the Oakland A's. Soon to be Vegas or Sacramento A's. Or Portland A's? That would make way more sense but MLB is into the gambling these days. There's no addiction they won't push on fans already addicted to baseball.
Anyway, while figuring out the A's answer, I came across this Wiki page on the AL West and its winners: all that strata, all those epochs. I could go into the usual on how much time has passed since the Mariners last won it in 2001: eggs cost this, Kamala Harris worked for the city attorney in San Fran, Taylor Swift was 11, Paul Skenes was in utero. The Astros weren't even in the division at the time, and wouldn't be for another 10+ years. Meanwhile, the A's were being followed by Michael Lewis, and the Angels were just beginning their phase of going through about 12 name changes before deciding on ... I can't even remember. The Anaheim Angels of Los Angeles in California?
Here, let's just focus on the stats since 2002. It ain't pretty:
AL West Titles | Pennants | Championships | |
Houston Astros* | 7 | 4 | 2 |
Oakland A's | 6 | 0 | 0 |
Anaheim/LA Angels | 6 | 1 | 1 |
Texas Rangers | 4 | 3 | 1 |
Seattle Mariners | 0 | 0 | 0 |
* since 2013
Seriously, heads in Seattle should be rolling. Like 10 years ago.
Tuesday September 24, 2024
Mercury Morris (1947-2024)
I heard about Mercury Morris' death via Joe Posnanski's blog:
At an event the other day, we talked about great nicknames, and I said the greatest football nickname of all time is Night Train Lane. I do still believe that... but Mercury Morris has to be right up there. His full name was Edward Eugene Morris, and he was a running back and kick returner for the Dolphins during their glory years, 1969-75. He's best known for 1972, of course, when he and Larry Csonka provided the lightning and thunder for the undefeated Dolphins.
The New York Times obit digs deeper (Joe is on a book tour), reminding us that there were three men in that Dolphins backfield: Morris, Csonka, and the wonderfully named (and spelled) Jim Kiick. I tend to associate Csonka and Kiick. They were both white, thick, low to the ground grinders who barrelled through the line. Mercury was opposite in every respect: black, lean, and (in my memory) forever dancing along the edges and down the sidelines. He was beautiful to watch.
He started out mostly as a kick returner but his star began to rise in 1972 when coach Don Shula decided to use him more. And then five games into the season, Bob Griese got injured and was replaced by the ancient Earl Morrall, and, as the Times obit reminds us, the running game became more important than ever. Kiick's attempts actually went down that season, from 162 to 137, while Csonka's rose (195 —> 213), but Morris was the real difference:
ATT | YDS | Y/A | TDs | |
1971 | 57 | 315 | 5.5 | 1 |
1972 | 190 | 1,000 | 5.3 | 12 |
Those 12 rushing TDs over 14 games led the league, Morris and Csonka became the first backfield to both gain 1,000 yards, and the Dolphins went undefeated on their way to a Super Bowl VII victory over the overmatched Washington Redskins, 14-7. The next season, Morris led he league in yards-per-attempt (6.4!!) as Miami repeated as Super Bowl champs by dispatching my overmatched Minnesota Vikings 24-7. Yeah, I hated them. The oddity is I that liked a lot of their players, particularly Morris and wide receiver Paul Warfield. I don't know why. They had grace. They were fun to watch.
How many guys from that '72 club are in the Hall of Fame? I read six, not including Shula. In order of induction: Warfield, Csonka, offensive lineman Jim Langer, Griese, guard Larry Little, and linebacker Nick Buoniconti. Not Morris. His career was too short, I guess. Csonka, for example, played from 1968 to 1979 while Morris began a year later and was done by '76. He made the Pro Bowl three times.
The Times obit goes into his post-career drug problems which I vaguely remember. In the '80s he was busted for cocaine trafficking, sentenced to 20 years (!), but evidence had been suppressed at his trial and he was released after three. Did he sue the state? He should have. No reason was given for his death Sunday at age 77.
Monday September 23, 2024
Movie Review: Wonder Bar (1934)
WARNING: SPOILERS
After I became aware of that great triumvirate of 1933 Warner Bros. backstage musicals (“42nd Street,” “Gold Diggers of 1933,” “Footlight Parade”), each with lavish, risqué choreography by Busby Berkeley, and each featuring a a Dick Powell-Ruby Keeler romance backstory with a different male lead (Warner Baxter, Warren William, James Cagney), I wondered whatever became of them. Yes, the Production Code killed the more risqué aspects of them. But before Joe Breen brought the curtain down, did Warners fit in one final version ?
They did! This one. And it’s awful.
It’s also hard to find. And I imagine it’s hard to find not because it’s awful but because of the big closing number: Al Jolson doing “one of his characteristic numbers, for which he is famous,” per bandleader Dick Powell.
Yes: blackface.
It’s brutal to watch but a good lesson for anyone wondering if we’ve made any racial progress in this country. Or for kids in this era of racially blind casting who might not know just how easy it was to make money off racist tropes, and how the majority of the country was totally fine with it.
Wheeeeeps
So (beyond the racism) why is “Wonder Bar” awful? Why is it different than the triumvirate above?
Those movies are all about struggle. How to put on a show. How to survive. That’s a Great Depression theme, so we identify. Hell, it's a universal theme. It's 100 years later and I still identify. This movie is about rich people falling in love in Paris with the wrong person and who gives a shit. Both Al and Tommy love Inez, but Inez loves Harry, as does Madame Renaud, even though Harry only loves himself. None of them are worth a dime. They all deserve each other, but we don’t deserve them.
Should I start from the beginning?
Acclaimed dance partners Inez and Harry (Dolores Del Rio and Ricardo Cortez) wake up in the same apartment, but he’s leaving her. “You knew it was coming,” he says. “See you tonight at the bar.“
Meanwhile, Madame Renault (Kay Francis) is cheating on her husband with Harry. Meanwhile, Tommy (Dick Powell), sings a love song to the photo of Inez on his piano. Meanwhile, Al Wonder (Al Jolson) awakens with a kiss from Inez … but she dissolves into a fantasy. But he decides, that night, to ask her to marry him!
All these machinations collide that evening at the Wonder Bar.
That’s where we also get comic relief Americans: two couples from Schenectady, New York. The husbands, inebriated, and played by Guy Kibbee and Hugh Hubert, are tired of their wives and prone to the flirtations of Mitzi and Claire (Fifi D’Orsay and Merna Kennedy). Their wives (Louise Fazenda and Ruth Donnelly) keep them in check with stern admonishments and dry wit. Fazenda is great, while Donnelly underused. Then the women become prone to their own continental enticements. We get no resolution on this. We don’t see anyone follow through and/or come to their senses.
Between musical numbers, Al Wonder gladhands with his clientele, but the bits come off as old-fashioned ”bits“ rather than real life. Example:
Man: Where ya been for the last three weeks, Al?
Al: Oh, I’ve been to a nudist colony.
Man: A nudist colony?
Al: Yeah, but I’ll never go again.
Man: Why not?
Al: You get tired of looking at the same faces all the time!
Since Al’s work is never done, he also tries to buck up Capt. Hugo Von Ferring (Robert Barrat), who recently lost all of his wealth—as Warner Baxter did in “42nd Street”—except Baxter kept fighting. Von Ferring just plans to kill himself. Al keeps trying to talk him out of it ... until the moment when he basically gives him a push.
And it’s all because of that third musical number.
In the first musical number, Jolson/Wonder welcomes us with “Vive La France.” Then we get the much-ballyhooed Harry and Inez dance routine … which quickly dissolves into a Busby Berkeley fantasy involving masked blondes and their masked beaus. Finally, the third number, a “Gaucho Dance,” with Harry duded up like Valentino, and equipped with a whip. Al’s intro: “In this dance, monsieur Harry whips her with a whip. He whips her, and he wheeps her, and he wheeeps her. But she loves eeet!” Is that a pun I don’t get? Or just more racism?
Cortez (née Jacob Krantz) played the screen’s first Sam Spade, and he was often posited as a post-Valentino Latin lover, but he’s less Valentino than Zeppo: handsome enough, but c’mon, gals. Yet each of the beauties here is crazy for him, begging him to stay, blackmailing him to go to America with him. Before the Gaucho Dance, Inez says she’d turn him over to the cops if she couldn’t go, which leads Harry, in the number, to coming awfully close with that whip. Sensing this, at its close, rather than fake-stab him, she stabs him for real—and the only one who sees it is, of course, Al Wonder. Backstage, Al assures Inez that Harry will be fine. As if on cue, Harry dies.
Worried for Inez, Al remembers his good friend Von Ferring talking about driving his car over a cliff on the way home. So they put Harry in the backseat. In other words, Al decides he shouldn’t stop Von Ferring from killing himself but rather use his suicide to cover up the murder Inez committed.
And this is the movie’s hero.
After the closing number, Al, seeming to realize he’s too old for Inez, pushes her toward Tommy, the Wonder Bar carpet is rolled back up, and that’s that. Think of the crimes swept under that carpet. The greatest of them is the closing number.
The Gaucho Dance: Del Rio and Zeppo.
Goin’ to hell on a mule
Tommy announces the closing number, ”Goin' to Heaven on a Mule,“ the camera pans over, and suddenly we’re no longer on a pristine Parisian stage. There’s dirt and wood chips and a log cabin, and Jolson in blackface talking to a little white girl (also in blackface) about why he loves his mule, Zeke, and why he’d rather ride Zeke than a horse. Then he starts singing:
Ever since I was a little pickaninny
I rode an old Missouri mule
And that’s the only way I’m ever going to travel
I’m a superstitious foolAnd when the good Lord tells me
That I’ve sung my closing song
My soul will be on that mule
A’jogging right along
Eventually that comes to pass, and he rides his mule across the rainbow bridge and into an Art Deco heaven. Is it far-sighted that everyone there is black? Or at least blackface? We see St. Peter, Gabriel, the inevitable Warner Bros. gay tailor. Old Black Joe and Uncle Tom are there, too, as is Emperor Jones. Al licks his lips over Pork Chop Orchard, digs into some fried chicken, and takes The Milky Way streetcar to Lennox Ave. and the Big Dipper Cabaret, where, on stage, a giant watermelon is sliced open to reveal a tap dancer. Each second you think, “It can’t get worse,” and then it does.
Anyway, that’s what killed the Warner Bros. musical: this big number. Everyone was shocked by the racism so Warners stopped making them.
Kidding. “Wonder Bar” was one of Warners biggest hits of 1934. Grossing $2 million worldwide, it was considered a good comeback for Jolson, who all but made Warner Bros. with “The Jazz Singer” but had fallen out of favor with the likes of “Hallelujah I’m a Bum.” In its review, The Kansas City Star felt he was too old for the “Vive la France” number, but that final number, “Goin’ to Heaven on a Mule,” they wrote, “is particularly well done.”
People need to see this stuff. Just this closing number, really. See what everyone was fine with—Warners, the Production Code, The Kansas City Star. See what was deemed, to 1934 eyes, ”particularly well one."
Sunday September 22, 2024
The Early Drafts of Star Wars, or Whatever Happened to Emperor Ford Xerxes XII?
Artist Ralph McQuarrie's first drafts of R2-D2 and C-3P0, with the latter looking very Metropolis. Lucas originally wanted the droid to speak like a Brooklyn used-car dealer
Everything below is directly from Brian Jay Jones' “George Lucas: A Life,” which is much recommended. The key point, Padawan, is that Lucas wanted to make this Flash Gordon-type movie because he wanted to watch it, but no one else was making it so he had to do it. But no studio wanted to make it with him because no one else was making it. Get it? Lucas' idea was the opposite of the zeitgeist, and business people only try to tap into the zeitgiest, not what lies beyond the zeitgeist or what the zeitgeist may be missing. Cf., Steve Martin's standup comedy career. Cf., Jackie Chan distinguishing himself from Bruce Lee with comedy. Cf., pretty much anything that shifts the culture. See what everybody is doing and do the opposite. Particularly if the opposite is exactly what you want to do in the first place.
1973-74
Lucas began the writing process by making lists of names and locations for his fantasy, scrawling Emperor Ford Xerxes XII—a suitably heroic-sounding name—at the top of one of his notebook pages, followed by single names like Owen, Mace, Biggs, and Valorum. ... Luke Skywalker was on the list from the very start, but he was “Prince of Bebers,” while Han Solo was “leader of the Hubble people.”
- On April 17 [1974], Lucas began writing another treatment, this one titled The Star Wars. This draft contained the dogfight in space that Lucas wanted to see, as well as a more fully realized plot that channeled bits of Flash Gordon and Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress. Lucas poured everything he had ever loved about the Saturday morning serials into his treatment, with plenty of chases, close scrapes, exotic creatures, and general derring-do. From The Hidden Fortress he borrowed a few key plot points—namely, a princess being escorted through enemy territory by a wise and battle-scarred general and, more important, two bumbling, bickering bureaucrats to serve as comic relief.
- The main character in this [May 1974] draft is a young man named Annikin Starkiller, who trains to become a Jedi Bendu under 70-year-old general Luke Skywalker. There are two droids providing comic relief, one short and squat, the other a gleaming “Metropolis style” robot ... There's a “huge green-skinned monster with no nose and large gills” named Han Solo, a feisty 14-year-old Princess Leia, references to “lazerswords” and Wookiees, as well as to a “tall, grim-looking general”—and relatively minor character—named Darth Vader. And for the first time, one character bids good-bye with “May the Force of Others be with you.” Lucas was still holding on to elements from his first treatment that he liked, including a fight in a cantina, a chase through an asteroid belt, a rescue from a prison, and the concluding awards ceremony.
1975
- In this latest [Jan. 2] draft, Lucas had more carefully fleshed out the concept of the Force—still called the Force of Others in this version—dividing it neatly into a good side called Ashla and a bad side called Bogan. He had also decided that the Force could be intensified through the possession of a mystical Kiber Crystal...
- This time Luke is prompted into action when he receives a hologram message from his brother Deak, who asks Luke to bring the Kiber Crystal to their wounded father, the Starkiller. Luke hires Han Solo, now a “burly-bearded but ruggedly handsome boy”—pretty much [Francis Ford] Coppola as a starpilot—and his copilot Chewbacca (“resembling a huge gray bushbaby monkey”) to take him to Cloud City, where Deak is now being held prisoner. Luke and Han rescue Deak, escape with the Death Star in pursuit, then head for Yavin, where they use the Kiber Crystal to revive the Starkiller. Luke leads an assault on the Death Star—and though he isn't the one to fire the fatal shot that destroys the space station, Luke returns to Yavin a hero, to lead a revolution at the side of his father.
- Lucas realized he had no leading female characters—he had shuffled Leia off to secondary status too quickly—and therefore decided that Luke was now a girl...
- By May, Luke was male again, and Lucas submitted to [Alan] Ladd a new, hastily written six-page synopsis in which he'd added a new character, a mystical old man he had lifted straight out of the pages of Carlos Castaneda's 1968 The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge. ... “Old man can do magic, read minds, talk to things like Don Juan,” Lucas wrote in his May 1975 treatment. By the time Lucas completed the next draft in August, the old man even had a name: General Ben Kenobi.
- In fact, by the third draft, completed in August 1975, Lucas had tightened and improved the script even further, moving Luke more firmly to the center of the script as the hero, and making Leia—instead of Deak—the character who gets captured and needs rescuing. Lucas still had the Kiber Crystal in the script but was beginning to realize that pursuing the stolen plans for the Death Star made for a much more interesting story.
- As 1976 approached, Lucas was finishing up his fourth draft, now officially titled The Adventures of Luke Starkiller, as Taken from the Journal of the Whills, Saga I: Star Wars.
1976
- He had a much better handle on the Force at this point, and had wisely decided to remove the Kiber Crystal from the story altogether, making the Force “more ethereal,” he explained, rather “than to have it solidified in a thing like a crystal.”
- In his latest draft, Kenobi survived his lightsaber duel with Darth Vader by retreating through a blast door that slammed shut behind him. That not only left Vader “with egg on his face,” as Lucas put it, but also made the assault on the Death Star little more than a bit of galactic breaking and entering, with Vader as a flummoxed shopkeeper shaking his fist in rage as the heroes escaped unharmed.
- It was Marcia [Lucas] who had put Ben Kenobi's head on the block, pointing out to George that after escaping the Death Star, the old general didn't have much to do for the rest of the film. Lucas had to agree—“the character stood around with his thumb in his ear”—and Marcia suggested that Kenobi be killed in his lightsaber duel and then offer Luke advice as a spirit guide in the final act.
- “In the end,” Lucas said later, “I really didn't think we were going to make any money at all on Star Wars.”
Saturday September 21, 2024
Sho-Time! Shohei Goes 50-50 (and Counting)
He's the National Gallery, he's his own salary, he's fireworks
I went to the Mariners getaway game against the Yankees on Thursday afternoon with my friend Andy, who grew up a Mariners fan but doesn't know from baseball these days (case in point: He hasn't heard of Aaron Judge), and the game wasn't awful. We didn't get swept. We won 3-2, via first-inning ineptitude by Yankees fielders, and by keeping Aaron Judge, if not Jazz Chisolm Jr., in the park. Judge hit a towering shot to dead centerfield that drews oohs and aahs from the crowd, like fireworks, but Julio Rodriguez caught it near the wall. Jazz, meanwhile, hit a liner that barely snuck over the rightfield wall for their 2.
We got our 3 in the bottom of the first: single, foul out, BB, and then a bunt by Luke Raley that the Yankees pitcher Clarke Schmidt pounced on, dropped, picked up, too late. Bases juiced. Justin Turner followed with a liner to left that was a sure sacrifice fly ... until Yankees call-up phenom Jasson [no sic] Dominguez dropped it for a run. Bases still juiced. Then we got a legit sac fly to right for our second run. The third came on a J.P. Crawford single. Three runs, one earned, I'll take it. Yankees looked bad. We'd blown the game the night before (Julio thinking Randy's bat flying at him at third meant dead ball, and it didn't, and he was picked off), which clinched another playoff berth for the Evil Empire, so maybe there was some letdown on their part this afternoon. Maybe they didn't like the blue skies in Seattle. This was my first Mariners game since Dan Wilson took over as manager and Edgar as hitting coach, and, yes, it wasn't as dispiriting as it's been. My friend Tim has crunched the numbers and they suggest we've made one small step in the standings and one giant leap at the plate. Go, Edgar!
Anyway, I was telling my father all of this when I returned home. Dad, who's been recovering from a stroke at a hospital in Minneapolis, was trotting out his usual complaints about the sinking Minnesota Twins and the managerial ineptitude of Rocco Baldelli, and between us it was a bit dispiriting; so, as I made myself a drink in the kitchen, to liven things up, to accentuate the positive as the man sang, I passed along to my father an ESPN headline I'd seen earlier: Shohei Ohtani, whom we'd been tracking all summer like all true baseball fans, had hit three homeruns and stolen two bases against the Marlins in Miami, and now sat at 51-51 in each category.
For those who don't know, there are many members of the 30-30 club (30 HRs, 30 SBs, indicative of power and speed), and there are six members of the 40-40 club, Shohei included, and now there is one member of the 50-50 Club: him. He's the only member of the 45-45 Club, too. Put it this way: between the 43-43 Club and wherever he winds up, it'll be just him. In all of baseball history. He's that much of an outlier. He's that good.
When I told Dad the good news, he laughed, and then asked the appropriate question I hadn't considered: “How do you steal two bases when you hit three homeruns? He must've gotten some other hits.”
He did. He went 6-6. He had a day. He had a career in a day. He hit three homers, two doubles, a single, and stole two bases. He drove in 10. He had 17 total bases.
Some perspective: Only three players in baseball history have ever had more total bases in a single game. Only five have ever driven in more runs in a single game. And he did it while also becoming the first man to reach 50-50 and while also helping clinch a playoff berth for the LA Dodgers. Crazy. And one of his doubles he tried to stretch into a triple but was tossed out by a step. If he'd made it, he would've hit for the cycle. Some are wondering if it isn't the greatest game anyone's ever played. Some are wondering if he isn't the greatest player who's ever played. One thing is certain: He brings joy and amazement wherever he goes.
Oh, and next year he goes back to pitching. Since this year he's recovering from Tommy John surgery. This is his recovery year.
I remember when he first came up—or over from the Japanese leagues, in 2018, this guy who thought he could both hit and pitch at the Major League level, and was that even allowed? Wasn't that just asking for trouble? And then I saw a replay of him hitting his first triple and was just dumbfounded. Wait, the guy's FAST, too? He was tall and broadshouldered and he moved with some combo of grace and speed I'd never seen before. I remember jumping on social to extol his virtues. Are people SEEING this? And then he got injured and I guess that showed him. No. He kept going. From 2021-23, with the moribund Angels, he won two MVPs, finished second the other year, and finished fourth in Cy Young voting that same season. As a pitcher, he's gone 38-19 with a 3.01 ERA and 608 strikeouts in only 481 innings pitched. As a hitter, he keeps improving. As a baserunner, he keeps improving. In 2021, his first MVP season, he had 10 caught stealings, leading the league, against only 26 stolen bases. This season? 52 SBs against four CSs. He's leading the league in HRs, RBIs, runs scored, SLG, OPS and total bases. He's 17 TBs from 400, which would make him the first player to 400 since 2001. If you eliminate the PED years, no one's done it since Jim Rice in 1978. He belongs in a higher league. He's joy and amazement. He's fireworks.
This season, no doubt, he'll make it three MVPs, so he'll become only the second man in baseball history, after Frank Robinson, to win MVPs in both leagues. That's nice. He'll finally get to join a club that has another member.
Friday September 20, 2024
John Roberts' Dipshit Jurisprudence
Amen. Last week, the Times did a lengthy piece on Chief Justice Roberts' machinations behind the scenes of U.S. v. Trump:
In his writings on the immunity case, the chief justice seemed confident that his arguments would soar above politics, persuade the public, and stand the test of time. ... But the public response to the decision, announced in July on the final day of the term, was nothing like what his lofty phrases seemed to anticipate.
Both conservatives and liberals saw it as an epic win for Mr. Trump. The former president and his supporters exulted over the decision, which greatly expanded presidential immunity and pushed off any trial until well after the election — if ever. To Democrats, the Republican-appointed justices were brushing away the violent Capitol attack and abandoning the core principle that no one is above the law. The chief justice, who had long said he wanted to keep the court out of politics, had plunged it more deeply in.
Roberts really comes off as a dipshit in this. Reading the piece, I kept thinking of Deep Throat to Bob Woodward in All the President's Men: “The truth is these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.”
Anyway, the above Thread made me laugh. It would be amusing if Biden disabused Roberts of his notion that his jurisprudence was anything other than dipshit.
Tuesday September 17, 2024
Jong-Fast Reminds Us What Trump Does
“Donald Trump doesn't so much run for something as he runs against somebody. His latest attacks are aimed at Haitian immigrants, but what we're seeing is a playbook previously used to target other ethnic or religious groups, and with a similar goal: to make the MAGA base feel like they're under attack.
”'The followers must feel besieged,' as the late Italian writer Umberto Eco, who grew up in fascist Italy, wrote nearly three decades ago in The New York Review of Books. 'The easiest way to solve the plot is the appeal to xenophobia.' Indeed, in order to enact much of his radical right-wing agenda, Trump needs his people to think America is on the brink of collapse—and to associate that collapse with an 'other.' The goal is to panic the base, and since there isn't a scary enough truth, lies will do.“
-- Molly Jong-Fast, ”Donald Trump's Springfield Scapegoat: Haitian immigrants in Ohio are just the latest target in Trump's long-running ploy to convince his supporters they're under siege,“ on the Vanity Fair site. Cf., Doctorow's words in ”Ragtime."
Monday September 16, 2024
Movie Review: Paris, Texas (1984)
A confused man walks out of the American desert. How did he come to this state? That's a driving force of the film.
WARNING: SPOILERS
How long has it been since I’ve seen this film? This long: I thought it was the one where Nastassja Kinski was married to John Savage. That’s “Maria’s Lovers.” This is the one where she’s married to Harry Dean Stanton.
The confusion makes some sense. Both are independent films, released in 1984, from foreign directors. Andrey Konchalovsky, a Russian, directed “Maria’s Lovers” while here it’s Wim Wenders of Germany. That might make a good filmfest, by the way: movies set in America, with American actors, directed by foreigners.
A lot of “Paris, Texas” went over my head when I first saw it in 1984. It’s a story of a crazy, maddening love, and I hadn’t experienced my own crazy, maddening love yet. It’s about a responsible man trying to save his ne’er-do-well brother, and that would’ve fallen on deaf ears for me back then. Now it resonates too deeply.
I’d forgotten it won the Palme d’Or. I’d forgotten it was written by Sam Shepard—though much of the dialogue seems improvised. Watching it the other night at SIFF Egyptian, a 4K rerelease on its 40th anniversary, I kept liking it, and liking it, and then Nastassja Kinski shows up looking more beautiful than any woman has a right to … and it kind of dragged for me. Apparently Shepard was on set and adapting the story as it went along but he couldn’t be there for the final scenes in Houston. It shows.
Red cap, shirt, car, sweater
Does the opening resonate more in 2024 than in 1984? Out of the American desert, a confused man emerges wearing a suit and a bright red baseball cap. Unlike most of the MAGA crowd, though, this guy is all but mute. (Stanton doesn’t say anything for the first half hour.) He collapses, is revived by a doctor, keeps going. He’s not so much wandering as making a beeline for something and somewhere.
From the scraps of paper on his person, the man who revives him, the Pennsylvania Dutch-looking Dr. Ulmer (Austrian actor Bernhard Wicki), calls his brother, Walt (Stockwell), in LA, who flies out to get him. His wife Anne (French actress Aurore Clement) asks what they should she tell their son. Walt says to say he’s away on business but the wife nixes that idea. Then just tell him the truth, Walt says. It takes a while for this conversation to make sense.
When Walt arrives at the makeshift desert hospital, which looks like a sad little motel, his brother Travis has already flown the coop and Walt is left to pay for his belongings. Then he tracks him down in the desert—no mean feat. Then he coaxes him into the car. He goes to buy him clothes but Travis bolts again. One wonders what Travis is thinking. Does he just need to keep moving? Away from his past maybe?
This scenario repeats itself several times: Walt as responsible but exasperated adult, Travis as blinking, innocent troublemaker. They’re going to fly to LA but Travis suddenly can’t stand being in an airplane. They’re going to drive but Travis wants the exact same rental car they had before. Eventually they make LA, where Travis is greeted warmly by Anne and warily by their son, Hunter (Hunter Carson, son of co-screenwriter L.M. Kit Carson and actress Karen Black). Hunter turns out to be Travis’ son.
The middle of the movie is whether father and son can reconnect. There’s a heartbreaking scene where Travis waits on the corner opposite Hunter’s school to walk him home, but Hunter is with a friend, is embarrassed by the old man, and gets into a car with his friend. When admonished by his parents, he says “Nobody walks.”
Eventually he warms to the old man. The family watches Super 8 footage of all of them, plus Hunter’s mom, Jane (Kinski), from a trip five years earlier. Despite the difference in ages (35 years separate the actors) and looks (he’s normal, she’s Nastassja Kinski), Jane and Travis seem in love. Everyone seems so happy. So what happened? How did he become the confused dude in the red cap in the desert? That’s the question we wonder throughout. It’s like the shark beneath the surface in Steven Spielberg’s “Jaws.”
I assume Anne tells Travis about the money they’ve been receiving from Jane—via a bank in Houston—because she’s worried they’ll lose Hunter and she wants to push Travis toward Jane. It works, but not in the way she wants. Now Hunter wants to go with him—and does. And the camera follows them. And we don’t see Walt and Anne again. Shame. Something goes out of the movie when they go out of the movie.
The bank in Houston turns out to be a drive-thru, but they know the day she makes her deposits and stake it out, with walkie-talkies, like kids in a caper. The red of his cap reappears in the red shirts father and son wear, and in the red compact car Jane drives. They follow it to a sketchy section of town.
I’ll cut to the chase: She works at a peep show, like in the Madonna video “Open Your Heart,” where men watch women in different fantasy outfits and settings (nurse, waitress), the women can’t see them, and the men talk through a phone. Travis orders up a blonde with short hair, gets the nurse, tries another booth, and bingo, there she is. He asks several halting questions, she attempts to take off her sweater and he stops her, then leaves. At his earliest convenience, he goes to a bar. Hunter tells him he reeks and walks out. The kid is the adult in the room.
But Travis returns to the peep show, gets Jane again, and this time, without specifically telling her who he is, he tells her who he is. This is the moment we’re supposed to get the shark from “Jaws” but it turns out to be a big fish. He relays a story about a man so crazy in love with a woman that he couldn’t leave her alone to go to work, so he kept quitting his jobs, and then getting another when he needed money again. Over and over. Then he began to drink, and get mean, and he tied a cowbell to her ankle so he’d always know where she was. And it’s a long, drawn-out monologue. And throughout, there’s a dawning look of realization on her face. Then it’s her turn for a long drawn-out monologue. The climax of their intermingling stories is when he wakes up and finds himself on fire. She’d set fire to their trailer home and left with the boy. And in a way he remained on fire. How she began working in a peep show, who knows.
It's an ending that peters out. The mystery was better as a mystery.
Widening gyre
You’ve got to hand it to those Henderson brothers, though. They look like Harry Dean Stanton and Dean Stockwell but somehow managed to land Nastassja Kinski and Aurore Clement. Nice work, boys.
As a 61-year-old—older Harry Dean in the movie—I liked it better than I did as a 21-year-old, and Wenders has some nice moments in those peep show rooms, where Trevor’s face is silhouetted by her head, and vice-versa. I like the detail of the exposed insulation on the woman’s side of the one-way mirror, too.
But it’s not top-tier for me the way it is for some. I’m remembering this period now. I was coming of age into a time when popcorn movies became a little dumber, and important movies became a little more boring. That center, where we’d get a good movie with a story that resonated, wasn’t holding.
Sunday September 08, 2024
VICE Endorses VEEP
“In our nation's 248-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump. He tried to steal the last election using lies and violence to keep himself in power after the voters had rejected him. He can never be trusted with power again. As citizens, we each have a duty to put country above partisanship to defend our Constitution. That is why I will be casting my vote for Vice President Kamala Harris.”
-- former vice-president Dick Cheney in his endorsement of Kamala Harris for president
When was the last time a former president or vice-president from one party endorsed the candidate for the other party? Ever? Curious who else will step up, now that Cheney has. (W. has said he won't make an endorsement.) What I like about the above? No punches pulled. Dems could learn from this. Niceties are for peacetime.
Saturday September 07, 2024
GOP Desperation?
“On any given day it is difficult to measure desperation. Polling offers a snapshot of what voters think, but not how the campaigns view the arc of the race. Official statements from campaign officials are rightly viewed with some skepticism.
'In the final weeks of an election, you should focus on what the campaigns do, rather than what they say. Pay particular attention to what they are spending money on. [And] there is nowhere Republicans are spending more than in the courts. In recent weeks they have filed a flurry of lawsuits targeting the voting process. They can call their voter suppression program whatever they please, but it is still a massive voter suppression effort.
”Consider this: when the Democratic National Convention began, there were 88 pro-voting lawsuits and 85 anti-voting lawsuits that had been filed during this election cycle. Three weeks later, anti-voting lawsuits now outpace pro-voting 99 to 90. Adding to the GOP's troubles is their dismal record of success. By the first night of the DNC, pro-voting forces had won 167 cases and lost 73. That record is now 184 wins and 76 losses.
“Republicans are in real electoral trouble and they have turned to the courts to bail them out. And with less than 60 days until the election, that strategy is failing.”
-- Voting rights attorney Marc Elias in his newsletter today. More here. I hope he's right.
Saturday September 07, 2024
Donovan & Dave
This morning, I walked the several miles down to Lake Washington. I usually do it in the afternoon but, you know, late-summer heat wave. Plus let's shake things up a bit, Erik. Write another time. Get off your keister.
Since I walk east to Lake Washington, I was walking toward the rising sun, partially obscured by morning fog and/or mild wildfire smoke, so it looked like a big red ball in the sky. It also meant, when I got down to the lake, I got to see the light glinting off the waves in ways I didn't normally see at 3-4 PM. It was quite lovely. So I sat on one of the benches at Madrona beach and just watched the light glinting off the waves and tried to find some inner peace.
And then them.
Their noise was distant at first. A couple talking? No, arguing. It was a black couple arguing very loudly in a very white area of town—most areas of Seattle are very white, but this area was super so—but as they got closer I realized they weren't the man-woman couple I envisioned but two guys. Dave was the guy with the bag and he had something the other guy, Donovan, wanted. (They kept using each other's first names in their discourse.) I guess Dave had several of whatever the thing was. At one point they almost brokered a deal—Dave was about to give Donovan one of the things but then Donovan had to be rude about it and so Dave held back. I'm pretty sure it was beer. Dave had a beer, open, and he had more beers, but he wouldn't share them with Donovan. It was 8:30 AM. Neither man sounded drunk.
Dave wanted to be left alone, too. He kept walking and Donovan kept following. And where did Dave stop walking? Right near me, of course. He stood on the lake side of where I was sitting, while Donovan remained behind me, out of my vision. And for about five minutes they argued over me. The same words. Round and round.
I'd been sitting there trying to find some inner peace because it was already a frustrating day amid a sad and painful year. I'd woken up in the middle of the night (again) and then our kitten Maise woke me up at 6 AM (again). She's in the habit of crawling under the bed and scratching at it, like a scratch pad, to get us up, and probably because she likes doing it, too. She wants us up but not in the way cats normally want people up. It's less FEED ME than LET'S PLAY. It's the feeding that's the frustrating part. She needs gastrointestinal canned food because of a tendency toward looseness (which killed Clem), and even then we mix it with a probiotic, and even then it's only successful 50-70% of the time. As a result, the other cat, Griffey, has to have the same canned or she'll go for his. He's bigger and stronger but she's alpha. It's the oddest thing—particularly after Jellybean, who could never get enough food—but you often have to place Griffey physically in front of his dish before he'll dig in. And lately he hasn't been digging in. Lately he'll take a sniff and walk away. So it's been frustrating.
Last night Patricia suggested giving him some other canned food but then what do we do with Maise? Plus we'd tried different canned food before and Griffey didn't go for it. Patricia had forgotten that. Even so, this morning I tried one of those other canned foods, some beef puree thingee, and again physically set him before his dish. He sniffed at it and walked away. Maise, meanwhile, made a beeline for it. Something new! So I had to put it in the fridge. The kibble bowl was empty, so, at some point, I thought, Griffey will get hungry enough and we'll try again. But then Patricia got up and filled the kibble bowl and Griffey chomped through it. So we argued. The same words. Round and round.
Eventually Donovan and Dave moved off. Or Dave moved off and Donovan followed. When I left, they were still in Madrona Park, still circling each other, still reiterating the same excruciating minutiae, still drawing worried or annoyed looks from people who just wanted to walk or run down by the lake on a Saturday morning and now had to deal with all this. Hell, they're probably still circling each other, still at it, on a different part of the lake or in a different part of the city. But they helped me this morning. They helped me find the humor in it.
Friday September 06, 2024
Movie Review: Seems Like Old Times (1980)
WARNING: SPOILERS
Most critics at the time, Dad included, wrote that Neil Simon’s “Seems Like Old Times” was an homage to screwball comedies of the 1940s. The plot specifically recalls the 1942 Cary Grant vehicle “Talk of the Town”: falsely accused man hiding in the home of a judge about to be nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court—that old gag—except in the updated version the guy is hiding in the home of his ex-wife whose husband is in the running for attorney general of California. The ex-wife, a public defender, winds up repping the man in court while hubby prosecutes him. So toss in “Adam’s Rib.”
It was a true tribute to those old movies, Dad wrote, because it stunk: “Watching it makes us long for the original, most of all when Chevy Chase is trying to be Cary Grant.”
Yeah, it’s not a good movie. It actually reminded me less of 1940s screwball comedies than 1960s sitcoms—particularly “Bewitched”: Oh no, the boss is coming over to dinner and … you know, chaos. Followed by flustered attempt to keep the chaos in the kitchen.
Dogs + minorities
This is one of those rare Neil Simon-penned screenplays written straight for the screen rather than adapted from one of his plays. So it’s odd that most of the action takes place in one location. We can’t get away from the home of Glenda and Ira Parks (Goldie Hawn and Charles Grodin). Odder? That’s its main problems—that we don’t leave there. Or that he doesn’t leave there.

Nick Gardenia (Chase) is a writer staying at a friend’s home along the California coast when he’s kidnapped one afternoon by two men who force him to rob a bank. Why do they pick Nick? Never answered. But he’s photographed by bank cameras, has a drug charge against him already, and goes on the lam.
Why does he pick his ex-wife’s house to hole up in? Because he’s injured and it’s nearby? Or because he knows she has a thing for strays?
Her strays include dogs (the family has six) and former clients (the family has three). Chester (T.K. Carter) acts as chauffeur while Thomas and Robert (Joseph Runningox and Ray Tracey) are … gardeners? I forget. Is it problematic that the people strays are people of color? Dad thought so. “The film is full of stereotypes—Indian car thieves, uppity blacks—that seem designed to show that charity is wasted on undeserving minorities,” he wrote in 1980. Oh, and the Hispanic maid, Aurora (Yvonne Wilder), disappears just when the governor is coming to dinner for her famous chicken pepperoni dish. You can’t count on these people for anything.
But the movie's biggest problem is Chase. Nick never has our sympathies because he seems less terrified man on the lam than privileged SOB poking at other privileged SOBs while trying to get into his ex-wife’s pants. “He seems to have two basic schtiks,” Dad wrote: “a dopey-looking deadpan that barely conceals a smirk, and a propensity for pratfalls, including one tumble down the side of a California cliff.” And most of these pratfalls are now done by stuntmen.
For some reason, we’re supposed to cheer him on. He’s the star, Glenda’s current husband is uptight, so we’re supposed to want her to wind up with Chase. We don’t. I didn’t anyway. Watching, I begged Neil not to do it.
Does he? Well, first there’s a trial before Judge John Channing (Harold Gould), who can’t fathom how interconnected everything is. Then it becomes more so. Those two bank robbers? They try the same stunt with Aurora but don’t get far, so they’re in the courtroom, too, and confess to doing the same thing to Nick. Freed! Outside, Nick kisses his counsel, long and slow, in front of Ira, leaving her dazed. Then Glenda and Ira are heading out on vacation, it starts to rain, he crashes the car to avoid a cow and breaks his leg, she runs through the rain to a cabin. The door opens and she smiles. The End.
If that’s Nick, that’s a helluva coincidence. Also: ick.
Old shtik
“Old Times” is the first and only feature film directed by Jay Sandrich, who came to prominence directing some of the most beloved sitcoms of the ’70s and ’80s: “Mary Tyler Moore” (119 episodes), “Soap” (54 eps.) and “The Cosby Show” (100 eps.). There’s hardly a sitcom during this period he didn’t touch, and he seemed happy doing them, so why did he do this? Who knows. But you get why he didn’t do it again. Reviews were meh, and while box-office wasn’t bad ($44 million, 15th for the year), both stars, that same year, appeared in movies much more acclaimed, lucrative and long-lived: for Hawn, “Private Benjamin,” which grossed $70 million, sixth-best in 1980, and garnered Goldie her only lead actress nomination; and for Chase, “Caddyshack,” where his smirky rich-guy persona fit in better.
At this point, Simon was coming off some of the best years a writer can imagine. He’d been nominated for Oscars in 1975 (“The Sunshine Boys”), 1977 (“The Goodbye Girl”), and 1978 (“California Suite”), which coincided with being nominated for Tonys about every other year since the late ’60s. He was hot. And then not. On Broadway, he’d still do “Biloxi Blues” and “Lost in Yonkers,” and on television “Laughter on the 23rd Floor,” but he never got another Oscar nom, and his movie output became increasingly less relevant and popular: “Only When I Laugh” ($25m, 31st for the year), “I Ought to Be in Pictures” ($7m, 80th), and “The Slugger’s Wife” ($1.8m, 143rd). I didn’t even know “Slugger’s Wife” was his.
Only two years separate “Old Times” and the original Hawn-Chase team-up, “Foul Play,” but that one felt very ’70s while you can almost taste the coming Reagan years in this one. The ’70s smart ass was still the hero, but nonsensically. His shtik was old and there was work to be done.
Here's Dad’s review.
Thursday September 05, 2024
Dreaming of Taipei Streets and English Profs in 1989
At some guy's house near the Uptown area. I was using the house as a quiet place to study and then bounced downstairs into the living room to announce I was heading out to get something to eat. The house owner, watching TV, was abrupt. He seemed angry. Do you want something? I asked. Yes, he said, with an “About time” air. I was dispatched to get him a Clark's sub.
Turning the corner, I watched as a drunk mildly terrorized a couple in a car, throwing bricks, then staggered down the road, where, way in the distance, a cop car drove by. I turned into a diagonal street like they have in Taipei: dirty, hustles and bustles, crowded with Chinese people. In a restaurant, Prof. Solotaroff was making food. He offered to make me some, and I accepted, thinking it would be for there. Instead, he packaged it up rapidly and told me I could eat it anytime—just follow the directions on the side. I made a move to leave, realized I hadn't paid, reached into my back pocket. But he indicated no, it was free. Out of guilt for assuming it was free, I kissed him on the cheek.
At the doorway I came across a tiny, tiny baby, crawling and wailing. I picked it up and tried to calm it. Prof. Solotaroff and I tried to get the attention of the Chinese family that had just entered to see if they knew whose it was, but they seemed preoccupied.
-- from a journal in 1989. When I was in Taiwan, in 1988, I'd heard that some Chinese people believed deja vu was simply visiting a moment in time that your dream self has already visited, and so I began to write down my dreams with the hope that, in the future, I'd recognize the moment: “Wow, this is me in 1989 describing a moment I'd be living through in 1998!” I'll let you know if that ever pans out.
Wednesday September 04, 2024
Movie Review: The Fall Guy (2024)
WARNING: SPOILERS
Is the movie an argument against women directors?
I know, it’s just a comedy, shut up. But I kept thinking of that “Godfather” line: “It’s not personal, it’s strictly business.” While directing her first film, Jody Moreno (Emily Blunt) does the opposite. She makes everything very, very personal.
Eighteen months earlier, we’d gotten intimations of a romance between Jody, then a movie editor, and cocky stunt man Colt Seavers (Ryan Gosling), who suddenly breaks his back during a stunt and winds up quitting the business and parking cars for a living. (Cf., Wade Wilson getting rejected by the Avengers and becoming a car salesman in “Deadpool & Wolverine.” If your exciting dream job falls through, 2024 movies are telling us, the only fallback is car-related customer service. Beware, beware.)
Ah, but then Colt gets word from producer Gail Meyer (Hannah Waddingham of “Ted Lasso”) that they need him on the set of the new big sci-fi action flick, “Metalstorm,” being filmed in Australia. More, Jody needs him, because she’s directing her first film. She’s asked for him. So off he goes. And for his first stunt, shortly after he arrives, he rolls a car eight and a half times—a new world record!
Except it turns out Jody didn’t ask for him. In fact, she’s not happy to see him at all. During his convalescence, we later learn, she tried to nurse him but he disappeared on her. Basically he disappeared. She didn’t see it as a man losing his raison d’etre and thus sinking into depression; she thought it was all about her. And she took it very, very personal.
So for the next stunt, while telling him the backstory of the romance within “Metalstorm”—which, in key details mirrors their own—she has him do a stunt where he’s lit on fire and, post explosion, slammed against a giant boulder. And then she has him do it again. And again. And again. She’s like a cat toying with a trapped mouse. She uses precious time and studio resources to wage a personal vendetta against a man who—let’s not forget—was attempting to return from a broken back! For her!
What a fucking dick.
Anyway, that’s why women shouldn’t direct movies.
Fall from a tall building
“Fall Guy” is flip and flippant. Cars flip, people are flippant. It’s movie insider-y and popculture-y. Since it’s based on an ’80s TV series, we get references from that awful decade (from hair-metal music to “Miami Vice” homages), as well as post-credit cameos from the TV series’ stars Lee Majors (looking great at 85) and Heather Graham. We also get a snippet of bionic sound-effects from Majors’ previous series, “The Six Million Dollar Man.” I liked that bit even if it was nonsensical. But you get the idea: the movie doesn’t take itself too seriously. It doesn’t take anything seriously except stunts.
The movie also gives us a double meaning for the title, since Colt is being set up to take the blame for a crime. If you unpack the plot, though, it makes zero sense. But who would do that? That’s not nice. Let people have their fun.
Yeah, here I go.
While partying in Australia during the filming of “Metalstorm,” movie star Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson)—who, it turns out, sabotaged Colt’s stunt 18 months earlier out of jealousy or something—is taunted by his stunt double Henry Herrera (Justin Easton, Gosling’s own stunt double) about not doing his own stunts, and they get into a drunken fight that Ryder wins. Yayyy! Except he’s kicked Henry into an end table and killed him. Ooops! Plus it’s all been filmed on his phone. He’s guilty of murder. What’s a poor movie star to do?
This one calls producer Gail Meyer, forever sucking on the straw of something Starbucks-y while literally chained to her cellphone. And she, or they, decide to pin the blame on someone else. They’re going to use AI to deepfake the phone video so it appears someone else did the kicking. Sure, why not? More, they’re going to do this not with someone at the party—and there were, what, about 20 people there?—but with someone who wasn’t even in the country. They’re going to make Colt Seavers the fall guy.
Why not a stuntman who’s in country? Cuz that’s not the story. As is, Gail has to call Colt, get him to give up his life, buy a ticket, and fly to Sydney—a 15-hour nonstop flight—and then be driven to the movie set, where tests are done, including the CGI stuff so they can duplicate his face. Then he begins to work. He does the rollover record and the numerous lit-on-fire takes. He doesn’t discover the body of Henry on ice in a bathtub until that evening. So that’s what, 24 hours? At best? And is a corpse on ice really going to fool forensics about time of death?
Plus, whey are they assuming everyone in the room will keep quiet? If it were me in that room, seeing what I saw, and then reading that Colt Seavers was arrested for the crime, I’d mull it over for all of five seconds before heading to the police. Or the press. Or both. Moral reasons, sure, but also self-preservation. I’d know I was a loose end. Sooner or later, I’d feel, they’d come for me, too. All to save the career of a worthless movie star making a worthless movie in the Australian desert.
Roll a brand-new car
So is Tom Ryder supposed to be Tom Cruise? After he kicks Henry, but before he realizes he’s killed him, he shouts at the camera, “Do I do my own stunts? I think I do!” That’s very Cruise. Elsewhere, they use Cruise’s name twice, maybe to suggest, “No, see, not him, he’s over here,” and thus avoid litigation, but I’m not convinced. Is Cruise known for having riders in his contracts? Maybe about doing his own stunts?
The director was a smart choice anyway. Before he began helming such actioners as “Atomic Blonde,” “Deadpool 2” and “Bullet Train,” David Leitch was a longtime stunt man. Looks like he never doubled Cruise, but he was the longtime stuntman for Brad Pitt.
Overall, Gosling’s great, Gosling and Blunt have good chemistry (even if her character is a dick), and I liked “Black Panther”’s Winston Duke as stunt coordinator Dan Tucker. Teresa Palmer’s in this? I guess she played the chick with the sword who attacked Colt? Here’s a wake-up call: I think of Palmer as one of the newbies, someone the kids dig. Turns out she’s nearly 40.
Aaron Taylor-Johnson is another good choice. He feels like a movie-within-a-movie star rather than the real deal. Out in the wild, he doesn’t survive. Waddingham’s Gail Meyer is the movie’s true villain but you wonder over her motivation. Is Ryder important enough to orchestrate all this? To implicate yourself? To ruin your life?
The theme song, once sung by Lee Majors, has been given an update by Blake Shelton. References to Farrah, Bo, Cheryl Tiegs, Robert Redford and Clint Eastwood have understandably been removed—even though, wow, 45 years later, Redford and Eastwood are still making movies. No new movie stars’ names have been added. Not even Tom Cruise.