Movie Review: "Blue Jasmine"

"Blue Jasmine": A.  Allow me to make this bold prediction right off the bat.  It will take a jaw-dropping performance for someone other than Cate Blanchett to win the Best Actress Award at next year's Oscars ceremony.  She is brilliant in her portrayal of Jasmine, a riches-to-rags widow who flies cross-country to San Francisco to seek pity and lodging from her earthier, uninhibited, low-brow sister, Ginger (Sally Hawkins). Blue Jasmine is the latest offering from director Woody Allen, whose M.O. is to release one film a year. This movie has the familiar Allen film characteristics.  The base story is quite simple, but the characters are so rich that all kinds of tentacles spread out from that core.  There is humor in serious scenes, and vice versa. The music is both appropriate and catchy, the pace is brisk and the running time a little shorter than average. Also notable about Allen movies is that, notwithstanding 1977's Annie Hall, the ones in which Woody does not appear are superior to those in which he does.

The movie is split into happenings at two locations, San Francisco and New York City.  The former is the site for the present day story.  Jasmine is surprised at the very common, modest house in which Ginger lives. She tells Ginger that she is flat broke, and needs to crash at Ginger's pad for the foreseeable future, while she attempts to start a new life.  That will be a difficult row to hoe, as Jasmine has no marketable skills.  She puts up with Ginger's rambunctious sons, but it doesn't take more than a few seconds for Jasmine to disapprove of Ginger's boyfriend, the uncouth garage mechanic, Chili (Bobby Cannavale).  Such behavior is consistent with Jasmine's track record, as she was always putting down Ginger's ex-husband, blue collar Augie (Andrew Dice Clay).  Jasmine's attitude toward Chili is plainly visible.  At first Chili tries to shrug it off, but pretty soon the feeling is mutual.  Chili was all set to move in with Ginger, but now with Jasmine hunkered down there without any viable exit strategy, Chili has reason to be resentful.

How did Jasmine get to such a sorry state of affairs?  That part of the tale is told with flashbacks set in and around New York City.  In happier times, Jasmine was married to Hal (Alec Baldwin), a wheeler-dealer financial manipulator who employs a legal team to keep his company slightly ahead of the bare securities regulations pronounced by the federal government.  Jasmine lives the good life, residing in a mansion, dripping with jewels, shopping in the swank stores, eating in the best restaurants and socializing at the chic clubs.  She proudly tells her friends that she is happy to let Hal take care of their financial future, and doesn't care to know the ins and outs of his business affairs.  Before the movie is half over, however, we find out that Hal is a philandering crook.  When the Feds catch up with him, he is jailed and Jasmine is rendered penniless.

Another level of complication evolves from a private party which Jasmine and Ginger attend at an estate on the shores of San Francisco Bay.  Jasmine strikes up a conversation with the smooth and debonaire Dwight (Peter Sarsgaard), a foreign services professional with aspirations of someday running for political office. Embarrassed by her past, and even more so by her current circumstances, Jasmine tells Dwight she's a widowed interior designer whose clients include the rich and famous folks living in The Hamptons. Meanwhile, Ginger hooks up with Al (Louis C.K.), temporarily and conveniently forgetting that she is engaged to Chili.

As we sense that the movie is nearing its completion, there are still a few revelations to be made.  I won't say that the end is shocking, but the story does not exactly finish the way that most viewers would predict.  That aspect of storytelling is a big plus in my book, especially considering that nothing preposterous needs to occur to achieve the level of resolution that Allen, the author of the script, desires.

Sally Hawkins, a British actress whom I've never seen on film before, makes Ginger the perfect foil to Blanchett's Jasmine.  One sister was part of the "one percent."  The other is a single mom, working in a little grocery store and living on the poor side of town.  Which one was better off?  Alec Baldwin is also a wise choice for the part of Hal.  I suppose one could argue that Baldwin plays the same character in every role he takes, be it on television or the silver screen.  That does not make him a bad actor, however, as one could probably make the same accusation of Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart or John Wayne.  Hawkins, Baldwin, and of course Blanchett, are three key ingredients to Allen's masterful storytelling, making Blue Jasmine an "A" movie.  Allen has written and/or directed forty-seven movies since 1965, and I have seen twelve of them. I'm sure Mr. Allen will be excited to learn that Blue Jasmine has displaced Annie Hall as my favorite.   

Movie Review: "Lee Daniels' The Butler"

"Lee Daniels' The Butler": B.  Watching The Butler brought back memories of teaching eighth grade geography back in my glory days at Most Holy Trinity.  Our limited school budget did not provide for anything beyond the basic text books and a few maps.  The thick eighth grade geography book was simply titled Eurasia, covering both the continents of Europe and Asia in their entireties.  Chapter 1 focused on Scandinavia, and then we progressed in linear fashion from west to east, all the way to Japan and the Philippines.  In my first couple of years, we did not quite make it to the Pacific, ending instead somewhere on the subcontinent or southeast Asia.  I made it my mission, rightly or wrongly, to finish the dad burn book my third year, and golly darn it, we did!  We sailed through the chapters, learning three or four things about each country, and then we were off to the next one.  That surface level, breakneck pace is how history is presented in The Butler.

The butler of the title is Cecil Gaines, perfectly played by standout black actor Forest Whitaker.  After his father is shot in cold blood by the white son of a Macon, Georgia cotton plantation owner, eight year old Cecil is brought from field work into the mansion to be taught how to be "a house [n-word]."  That is a term used throughout the movie by blacks, whites, presidents and servants, mostly all without compunction.  Once he becomes a teenager, Cecil sets out on his own and, after being taken under wing by a head butler in a North Carolina hotel, he accepts a position as a junior butler in the White House.  It is at this point in the movie that the viewers are sent on a whirlwind history course, not too much unlike my eighth grade geography students.

When Cecil starts his long tenure, President Dwight Eisenhower (Robin Williams, believe it or not) is in charge.  The big issue of the day was the 1957 confrontation which occurred at Little Rock Central High School, when the state authorities, under the direction of Governor Orval Faubus, defied federal law and attempted to prevent nine black students from attending class.  Ike could not believe Faubus' actions, and wasted little time sending out the US Army to protect the kids.  Cecil, although instructed more than once by the head butler to "see nothing, hear nothing and say nothing," took it all in, like a fly on the wall.

Next we are watching President John Kennedy (James Marsden), accompanied by his wife, Lyla Garrity (oops, I mean Jacqueline, played by Minka Kelly of Friday Night Lights fame). Of all the mini-chapters in the film, this gets my vote for the weakest.  Kennedy confides to Cecil that until he became president, he never quite grasped the plight of African-Americans.  Really?  Given the fact that Kennedy served in both houses of Congress for fourteen years before he became president, that "admission" is hard to believe.  The most ridiculous scene in the film shows Jacqueline, still wearing her blood stained pink suit, sitting alone in the White House on the day her husband was assassinated in Dallas.  Only Cecil is nearby.  Shades of Forrest Gump.

President Lyndon Johnson (Liev Schreiber) follows JFK as the chief executive.  Of course LBJ was in charge when the Civil Rights Act Of 1964 was passed.  As luck would have it, Cecil always seemed to find himself near Johnson at the most dramatic times, whether it be in the Oval Office or right outside the presidential "throne," on which LBJ sat, conducting business as usual while he answered mother nature's call. Schreiber may not look much like Johnson, but his short stint as the big Texan was the funniest of all the presidential portrayals.

Presidents Richard Nixon (John Cusak, complete with prosthetic ski nose) and Ronald Reagan (veteran actor Alan Rickman) follow in quick order.  Although these two men were president for over fourteen years, their tenure is only skimmed, a weakness which pervades the film.  Nixon is portrayed like a clueless stumblebum, without one positive (or even neutral) attribute.  Reagan is the president who gives the black White House staff their long-deserved raises, but when he refuses to consider putting the pressure on South Africa, a US ally, to terminate its apartheid policies, his position goes unexplained to the viewer.

You may ask, "What about Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, the two presidents who served in between Nixon and Reagan?"  The answer is that the film makers decided not to cast those parts, opting instead to show brief news reel footage of each.  Well, at least for that decision they were impartial, as Ford was a Republican and Carter was a Democrat!

Running parallel with the White House scenes is the story arch of Cecil's family.  He is married to Gloria, played by Oprah Winfrey, who seems to be on the screen  almost as much as Whitaker.  Cecil and Gloria have two sons, one of whom, Louis (David Oyelowo), goes off to college and becomes active in civil rights causes and later the Black Panther movement.  The most effective scene in the film is the rapid back-and-forth transposition between Cecil setting a dinner table in the White House and the famous sit-in at the Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina by a small group of black college students, including Louis.  The disparity between the elegance and pomp of the dining room and the violence and disgraceful inhumanity at the lunch counter is gripping.

One's evaluation of this movie's merits hinges to a large extent on whether the choice to merely touch the surface of each of the presidential administrations from the mid-fifties to the mid-eighties was a wise one. The answer is debatable, but most of the negative impressions I feel about The Butler stem from that choice. The movie shows civil rights as being the only issue addressed by the presidents over that span, when in fact it unfortunately had to take a back seat to other burning issues of the day.  The promotions and posters for the film use the tag line, "One quiet voice can ignite a revolution."  While it's true that Cecil's voice was, in fact, quiet, he certainly did not start a revolution in any sense of the word.

Most of the casting decisions were good, if not excellent, choices, but there is one swing-and-miss that bears mentioning.  Ronald Reagan must be spinning in his grave to see his wife, Nancy, played by the Communist-sympathizing, anti-aircraft posing traitor, Jane Fonda.  You have got to be kidding me!  If Nancy has any interest in seeing The Butler, I hope her friends and family talk her out of it.          

Album Review: "The Civil Wars" - The Civil Wars

"The Civil Wars": B.  It is mere coincidence that the last album I reviewed (on June 30, 2013), Modern Vampires Of The City by Vampire Weekend, and the subject of this post, The Civil Wars' self-titled album, both debuted on the Billboard charts at # 1. However, the two acts appear to be going in opposite directions, with the former ascending in popularity and the latter on the verge of disintegrating.  I thought it strange that this second album by The Civil Wars is eponymously named, because most new artists, if they are going to go that route at all, do so in naming their first disc, not their second.  But after having read about some of the turmoil darkening the door of opportunity for this country folk duo, the title seems not only acceptable but, alas, downright fitting.  Another clue indicating internal discord is that there is not one single picture, neither inside or on the cover of the CD jacket, nor in the lyrics booklet, of Joy Williams or John Paul White, the singers comprising The Civil Wars.

Williams and White wrote most of the twelve songs for this CD while they were still in the midst of a prolonged international tour in support of their first album, Barton Hollow, which was released in 2011.  In retrospect, that may not have been the wisest of decisions, as living on the road and always "being on" for the media is grueling in and of itself.  On the other hand, the hectic backdrop to their composing effort arguably enhances the emotion which pours out on so many of the songs heard on their new record.  The recording took place last autumn, but the mysterious communications breakdown between the two partners made it difficult to mix, master and market a finished product until two weeks ago.

The strife between Williams and White notwithstanding, this is a very fine sophomore offering, with enough quality music to warrant a continued presence on the national music scene.  The album is front-loaded, with three of the best songs among the first four tracks. The song that I keep replaying in my mind is Same Old Same Old, in which the singers know they're in a rut but, up to this point, have been unable or unwilling to talk about it with each other.  They swear they won't throw in the towel, and yet if things don't change, who knows?  One characteristic of the Civil Wars is that, unlike other guy and girl duos where they play off each other or sing response lines to their partner's lyric, Williams and White sing from the same perspective.  It is two people taking turns with lines that could just as easily be sung by only one of the pair.  Thus, although the song is directed to another person, that person is not necessarily the person with whom the singer is singing. Depending on the song, this kind of arrangement can be good or bad, but I mostly find it perplexing.

The lead-off track is a lament called The One That Got Away.  It's a tale relating how things were better when they were at the flirting stage and she was playing hard to get.  But sparks flew and now they're in too deep. 

Oh if I could go back in time

When you only held me in my mind.

The accompanying sting instruments, including guitar, mandolin and dobro, lend a spooky feel to the music. Charley Peacock produced all but one of the tracks on this record.  He is generally deserving of high marks, but I definitely do not like using vocal distortion on The One That Got Away.  Williams' voice is too pretty to be subjected to that kind of production overkill. 

Dust To Dust is one of the first songs Columbia chose to release for air play prior to the album's August 6 release. The singing protagonist is calling out the listener, declaring that his laughter and "perfectly delivered lines" belie his loneliness.  Up to now it's all been an act.  Later in the song the singer admits that the reason she's on to the charade is that she herself once behaved the same way.  She offers a cure: 

Let me in the walls

You've built around.

We can light a match

And burn them down.

There are a few other tunes on The Civil Wars which deserve positive mention.  I admire the clever ambiguity in Eavesdrop, wondering what the singer is referencing when she sings,"Don't say it's over."  Is she talking about their romantic moment under the stars, or does she mean their affair? 

Devil's Backbone is a prayer in which the singer finds herself in the unenviable position of asking God to allow her children's father, who was "raised on the edge of the devil's backbone" and now has committed a terrible crime, to avoid capture by the authorities. 

Oh Lord, oh Lord, he's somewhere between

A hangman's knot and three mouths to feed.

This song, together with From This Valley, have a western frontier feel to them.

The album could use some better pacing.  With the exception of From This Valley, all of the songs are slow tempo. That leads me to wonder what The Civil Wars' live concerts are like.  It also casts doubt on the wisdom of including a cover of the Smashing Pumpkins' Disarm on this record.   The overall tone and mood of the collection is already sombre enough, almost to the point of moaning.

Will there be another album?  Is it possible the rift between Williams and White is merely a publicity stunt?  It seems unlikely to me because, having won three Grammy awards, their star is rising.  A phony tiff is something a publicity-starved, slumping band would be more likely to stage.  According to several sources, including a Rolling Stone interview from earlier this year, neither side is willing to reveal what caused the duel. In fact, White isn't granting interviews at all, nor is he taking to social media to state his position.  Williams, at least, has told the band's fans that she'd be open to a face-to-face.  But as the saying goes, it takes two to tango.

White has a nice, although rather soft, voice, in the style of Art Garfunkel.  This is particularly noticeable on D'Arline.  Still, from my vantage point, White has more at stake here than does Williams.  She has the stronger voice, and on those songs on which one is featured more than the other, she gets more spotlights than he.  Additionally, Williams, at age thirty, is ten years younger than her singing partner, and would therefore have more time to rebound in her career should The Civil Wars never reach a truce.  We know that singing duos don't last forever.  Brooks & Dunn is one of the most recent examples of that.  But those guys lasted twenty years, and won seventeen CMA Awards, twenty-six Academy Of Country Music Awards, and two Grammys.  It would be nice to see The Civil Wars make a little more of a run before permanently calling it quits.

North Of The Stress Line

It only took Momma Cuandito and I three tries driving around the block to figure out how to get into the grass parking lot alongside Lucy's Place, the Bayfield B & B where we had reservations for two nights.  We made our way up the front steps, where we were greeted by Bruce, the male half of the husband and wife team that owns Lucy's.  I immediately predicted this would be a place that puts comfort first, as Bruce was in his bare feet, shorts, and a plain T-shirt which looked like he may have slept in it.  He reminded me of another B & B proprietor we had met seven years ago at Green Duff Mansion in Vicksburg, Mississippi, who came out of his house to greet us with a drink in his hand and invited us to join him in the library for a bump after we'd settled in.

Bruce gave us the Readers' Digest story of his life, which in a nutshell was that he and his wife, Barb, were frazzled professionals who decided to quit their jobs about a decade ago and pursue their mutual dream of owning a B & B.  Lucy's Pace is "north of the stress line," he said.  "My house is your house.  Make yourself at home."  He gave us a brief history of the place, which he claimed had a real estate abstract as thick as a phone book, introduced us to his Siberian rescue dog, Tyson, and showed us to our first floor quarters, the "North Room," one of four guest bedrooms.

After getting the lay of the land on the Bayfield restaurant scene -- Bruce said he was "Maggied out," referring to the local hotspot, Maggie's, where Momma Cuan and I had eaten several years ago and which is generally considered the "go to" dinner spot for most tourists -- we decided to walk the half mile down hill toward downtown.  The main drag, Rittenhouse Avenue, ends at the harbor overlooking Lake Superior and Madeline Island.  The best view in town, however, is the sun deck on top of the Bayfield Inn, adjacent to the harbor.  I'd imagine the deck would be wall to wall people on a weekend, but since this was Wednesday afternoon the scene was a perfect blend of sun, lake view, cold beer and classic rock coming over the sound system.  The entire scene was north of the stress line too, even calm enough for me to be able to Shazam a deep cut Buffalo Springfield song.

We poked around a couple of stores on our way back up Rittenhouse to Ethel's At 250, a pasta and pizza restaurant we'd passed on foot a short time earlier.  By now the place was packed, with the long line of people waiting for a table extending outside the door.  We were only two hours away from the starting time of the ghost walk tour we had booked, so we resorted to our oft-used strategy: we sat at the bar instead of joining the que for a table.  We have found that sitting at the bar, even when there is other seating available, is a smart move because there is always more action at the bar, the people watching is better, and if we're lucky, the bartender just might provide more entertainment, not to mention better service.  Such was the case at Ethel's, where the bar was being tended by (again!) the male half of the husband and wife team that owned the place.  As was true of Bruce, the B & B owner, Bill the bartender said that he and his wife always dreamed of owning their own business, and the cards fell just right several years ago for that to happen.  The menu, by the way, has a very well written story about the owners' family and how Ethel's came into being.  As for the food, my lobster ravioli would have been better with a less thick alfredo sauce, but I still enjoyed it.  Momma Cuan gave a thumbs up to her shrimp ravioli with pesto.

We met Mary Jane, our guide for the ghost walk tour, outside the town's heritage building, across the street from the old library.  I knew ahead of time that we'll probably never go on a walking tour as freaky as the 2004 Jack The Ripper evening tour we experienced in London, conducted by expert historian and author Donald Rumbelow .  Nevertheless, I was hopeful that there might be some scary moments awaiting us in the shady back streets of Bayfield.  Mary Jane assumed the role of a mid-eighteenth century orphan, and since she looked like she stepped out of a Dickens novel, it was an easy sell.  Our first stop was a huge old house in a quiet neighborhood on the corner of Rice and 3rd.  Mary Jane told us that when new buyers of the residence moved in many decades ago, they did some remodeling which involved knocking down a few interior walls. This upset the deceased ancestors of the previous owners, so they vented their displeasure by turning lights on and off in the house and committing other spooky acts which angry spirits do.  We also heard some stories of haunted ships on Lake Superior, and of the great flood of 1942 which washed away so much land in Bayfield that a deep ravine extends through the town for several blocks.  The effectiveness of that story was enhanced by the fact that we listened to it while standing on a wooden pedestrian bridge, more than a hundred feet above the crevice.  We could hear water running below, but we could not see it, despite the fact that the gaps between some of the planks were two or three inches wide.

Mary Jane saved her best story for last.  It was about a Bayfield boarding house, the identity of which she was not permitted to reveal.  About seventy years ago there was a woman (let's call her "Greta") who was raising her nine children in the house.  Unbeknownst to Greta, her oldest unwed daughter gave birth to a girl and immediately gave the baby up for adoption.  One of Greta's younger daughters spilled the beans, and Greta tracked her granddaughter down in a Chicago orphanage, whereupon she brought the baby back to her Bayfield house.  There was a huge confrontation between Greta and her older daughter, the baby's mother.  Greta yelled at her daughter, "No!  You cannot have this baby!"

Fast forward sixty years from that point.  The boarding house is still there, but Greta is long gone.  One morning a house guest (who, coincidentally, is pregnant) reports to the owner that she had been awakened by an elderly woman in her bedroom holding a baby and screaming, "No! You cannot have this baby."  Some years later, another guest reports to the owner that he was awakened by an older woman tickling his feet as he lie in bed.  In both instances, the woman was wearing a pink nightgown.  It turns out that Greta had a fondness for pink nightgowns, and used to awaken her children by tickling their feet!

The next morning, following a delicious egg bake breakfast at Lucy's Place, we strolled down to the harbor in time to catch the Grand Tour of the Apostle Islands.  The three hour twenty minute ride is on the Superior Princess, piloted and narrated by Captain Deborah and her two man crew.  Here is a trivia question you can use to make some money on a bet:

Question: How many Apostle Islands are there?
Answer:  Twenty-two.

If you answered "twelve" (or thirteen), join the club.  All of the Apostle Islands except Madeline are part of the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore.  Captain Deborah explained that when the islands were being acquired by the Feds for the National Lakeshore, they passed on Madeline due to the relatively large numbers of individual land owners who would have to be bought out via eminent domain.  There are also many parcels of real estate on that island which are subject to ninety-nine year leases, making the legal complexity of a buy-out even greater.

The Grand Tour passes closely by eleven of the islands, and almost all of the remaining eleven are clearly visible.  Captain Deborah grew up in the area, and sailed among the islands as a young girl.  Her stories were fascinating and often humorous.  A few of the highlights from her narration relate directly to: Stockton Island, which contains more black bears per acre than any other parcel of land in the lower forty-eight states; Hermit Island, so named because the fur trader who first inhabited it, a man named Wilson, lost a boxing match with a political opponent on Madeline Island, and immediately sought solitude on Hermit; Cat Island, which was charted by a cartographer who circled it in his boat and was left with the erroneous impression that the island was shaped like a cat; Raspberry Island, which has a famous light house used by mariners who were looking for the channel that leads to the Bayfield Harbor; and Devils Island, my personal favorite, which is the northernmost point in the state of Wisconsin, containing beautiful sea caves on its northeast and northern shores, and a lighthouse which emitted a red light instead of the customary white beam.

After we disembarked the Island Princess we perched upon bar stools at the busy Pickled Herring, and enjoyed a bowl of clam chowder.  Eddington's in downtown Minneapolis remains the gold standard for clam chowder, but the offering at the Pickled Herring was a worthy challenger.  Of course we had to wash it down with a couple of cold ones.

A few more stores, another uphill climb to the B & B, a nap and a shower later, and we were off to see Gaelic Storm at Big Top Chautauqua.  On the way we stopped at Portside, a restaurant two miles outside of town and very highly recommended by Bruce.  Portside is well off Highway 13, located in Port Superior Marina where the fat cats dock their beautiful yachts.  Momma Cuan and I had the best seats in the house, right next to a large window overlooking the marina.  We saw many people with rolling carts filled with whatever belongings they'd need to spend a night or two on board their vessel in the Great Lake.  Another place north of the stress line!  There must have been over a hundred and fifty boats, almost all of them with huge masts, tied up in the harbor.  I guess the recession is over.  After a pre-dinner cocktail -- I settled for Dewers since they did not stock J & B -- Momma Cuan and I each had the lake trout, no doubt brought in from Lake Superior earlier that same day.  I had mine blackened and it was perfect, one of the best fish dinners I've ever had.

Gaelic Storm was in fine form, just as we knew they would be from having attended two of their concerts before.  They are a five person group which features original Irish songs, and a few traditional Irish and Scottish folk songs to boot.  They have been around since 1996, and although some of the personnel has changed over the years, the two mainstays are impish Patrick Murphy, who sings lead with a thick brogue on most of their songs, and Steve Twigger, whose smooth tenor voice has an uncanny similarity to Ed Robertson of Barenaked Ladies.  I don't believe it's an exaggeration to write that Gaelic Storm establishes more rapport with the audience than any other band I've seen in concert.  When we saw them on the Guthrie's thrust stage three St. Patrick's Days ago, they all came out with a mug of beer in their grasp.  At Chautauqua, at least three of them repeated that eloquent entrance.  After the first song, Twigger told the crowd that the Big Top is one of their most favorite venues, and then Murphy faked emotional hurt when it was brought up that they had not been invited back to play last summer after having done so several summers in a row before that. "Thanks a lot," he said with bemused sadness and mock anger.

One thing that impresses me about Gaelic Storm, and I know this sounds weird, but they are better than they need to be.  They sing a lot of Irish drinking songs to loving fans who are themselves probably enjoying a pint, and the whole vibe is "party hearty."  Yet, their original tunes have catchy hooks and lyrics, and their musicianship is outstanding.  All five members work hard not just as entertainers but as practitioners as well.  One of the funniest moments during their two and a half hour (including a short intermission) show occurred after they played an instrumental called Dead Bird Hill off their newest album, Chicken Boxer.  Kiana Weber and Pete Purvis were just shredding it on the fiddle and the bagpipes, respectively, and the crowd gave them a standing O.  Before the applause died down, Murphy went up to the mic and said with a straight face to the crowd, "I know what you're thinking... Twigger and Murphy are tremendously talented on the guitar and accordion!"

When we got back to town we just had to discuss the concert highlights over a beer, so we found Morty's and bellied up to the bar.  Momma Cuan and I agreed that when their next album, The Boathouse, is available, we intend to buy it.  That will be the fifth of Gaelic Storm's nine albums (excluding a compilation) which we will own.  The omission from the set list of our mutually favorite Gaelic Storm song, Don't Go For "The One," was only a minor disappointment.  A bigger disappointment was the boorish behavior of several of the fans who kept on calling out for the band to play their signature song, Johnny Tarr, even after Murphy told them in reply that "Johnny Tarr is kind of our Free Bird," referring of course to Lynyrd Skynyrd's anthem which those southern rockers usually save for the end of their shows.  I was surprised Murphy kept his cool as long as he did when the idiots persisted with their request.  And yes, as promised, the band did play Johnny Tarr toward the end.  They also repeated a gimmick they used during the Guthrie concert for Me And The Moon, which includes the lines, "I brought the whiskey, he brought the light."  During the playing of that song, Twigger instructs one half of the audience to hold up their drinks for the first part of the lyric, and the other half to hold up their lit cell phones for the second part.

Little did we know when we walked out of Morty's Thursday night that we'd be in for a surprise at breakfast the next day.

The conversation among the B & B guests around the Friday morning breakfast tables turned to a discussion of what we'd all been doing since we had arrived in Bayfield.  When MC and I mentioned the ghost walk, the loquacious Bruce revealed that Lucy, for whom the inn is named, is the grandmother in the story told by Mary Jane.  In other words, the woman whom I referred to as "Greta" above was, in fact, Lucy.  The North Room was Lucy's room, and the confrontation between Lucy and her older daughter occurred in a bedroom upstairs called the Wicker Room.  Bruce stated that he knows everything Mary Jane said about Lucy is true, because he confirmed it with one of Lucy's daughters who still lives in town.  According to Bruce, when that daughter moved to a different Bayfield house ten years ago, Lucy's ghost moved with her.  There have been no paranormal activities in Lucy's Place since then.         

Movie Review: "Fruitvale Station"

"Fruitvale Station": A-.  Fruitvale Station could have been titled, A Day In The Life Of Oscar Grant. That day was New Year's Eve, 2008.  The movie employs two film making devices which, because they are used effectively, add extra dimensions to the story.  The first relates to the chronological unfolding of the movie's events.  The movie opens with actual footage, captured as videos on the cell phones of several witnesses, of a crime being committed around 2:00 in the morning on the platform of a BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) station in Oakland, California.  Once we have watched the commission of the crime, the movie "flashbacks" to the events of the previous day, culminating with the platform scene.  I would not call this non-linear strategy rare, but is incorporated only occasionally in the film industry.  Citizen Kane, Doctor Zhivago, The English Patient, 500 Days Of Summer and Lawrence Of Arabia are examples of successful films where we begin at or near the end.

Following the crime, we are retrospectively introduced to Oscar (Michael B. Jordan), a twenty-two year old living in Hayward, a multi-ethnic, blue collar East Bay city.  Although Oscar has "done time" in San Quentin and has recently been fired from his grocery store job due to tardiness, he and his girl friend, Sophina (Melonie Diaz), are trying to be good parents for their darling pre-school daughter, Tatiana.  Oscar and Sophina may not be married, but there's no denying that, with little Tatiana, they're a family.

We see both the good and bad sides of Oscar.  He maintains respectful (albeit repaired) relationships with his mother, Wanda (the fabulous Octavia Spencer), and grandmother, his friends are a decent bunch of guys, and by most outward appearances he's is a mellow cat who likes to listen to funky music.  On the other hand, Oscar has a temper which occasionally surfaces, such as when he asks his boss to reinstate him at the grocery store.  There is also an effective scene going two years back, in which Wanda visits him at San Quentin.  There, the conversation between mother and son does not go well. When Oscar tells Wanda that she never "had his back," implying that it's her fault that he's in prison, tears well up in her eyes.  We are witnessing a tremendous acting performance by Spencer, who won an Academy Award for the 2011 film, The Help.  As she is sitting across a table from him, another inmate enters the room and profane words are exchanged between the two men.  The prison guards have to step in.  Oscar has to be restrained as Wanda gets up to exit.

The second film making device, which I also consider risky but which works well here, is that the director intentionally includes several scenes which do not really advance the story, i.e., they have little, if anything, to do with getting the central characters to that BART platform near the end of the movie.  For example, consider these four scenes from Fruitvale, each lasting over three minutes: Oscar helps a grocery shopper select fish to use for a dinner party; Oscar meets an acquaintance near San Francisco Bay to sell him some marijuana; Oscar pets and cares for a stray dog; and, Oscar offers a store owner ten dollars to reopen his shop so that his girlfriend can use the bathroom after hours.  Only one of those four scenes directly relates to the film's climax.  Why include scenes which fail to advance the story?  Usually, they would end up on the proverbial cutting room floor.  It is what I would suggest calling the "comprehensive" strategy.  I am guessing here, but I believe it coincides with the director's goal of showing how the roughly twenty-four hours preceding the sudden events on the platform were not extraordinary at all.  Almost all of Oscar's activities from the preceding day are filmed, not just those of apparent import.  Nothing we see occurring the day before the early morning crime would lead us to suspect that something bad was about to happen. 

Fruitvale Station was written and directed by Ryan Coogler, making his first full length feature.  The movie won the Grand Jury Prize at this year's Sundance Film Festival, and the Best First Film Award at this year's Cannes Film Festival.  The film makers of the other entrants must certainly have realized they were up against some tough competition.