Movie Review: "Big Eyes"

"Big Eyes": C-.  Big Eyes is the most ridiculous drama I have seen since the inception of The Quentin Chronicle.  It also contains the poorest rendition of a courtroom finale in recent memory.  For the benefit of those of you who decide to blow off my advice and see the flick anyway, I will try not to spoil it for you.  But, imagine the following scenario.

In late '50's northern California, a man and a woman, neither one of whom is famous, both claim to be artists.  The man has "shyster" written all over him.  The woman is shy and lacks confidence.  They get married, and she spends most of her time in a home studio producing paintings which become a national sensation.  All of the human subjects in her pictures feature huge eyes.  Most would call the artwork "kitchy," but that's not the case in this tale.  Her husband, on the other hand, can barely paint a stick man, but he is good at one thing in particular: as the saying goes, he can sell ice to the Eskimos.  He uses that skill to sell his wife's work to dozens of people, including dignitaries like Dino Olivetti.  The man is a marketing genius.  He soon realizes that he can peddle even more paintings by claiming himself to be the artist.  After all, the pictures are signed "Keane," which is the surname shared by both him and his wife.  She doesn't really like the idea of him taking credit for her work, but they're raking in so much dough that she can't bring herself to say no.

When she finally reaches the point where she's had enough of living a lie, she comes forward with the truthful claim that it is she, not her husband, who produced the famous paintings.  He vehemently denies her assertion, even suggesting that she is mentally unstable.  The dispute becomes national news.  They end up in court.

Now, here comes the $64,000 question:  If you were the woman, or her attorney, what would be the first, obvious and only thing you would need to demonstrate in front of a judge to prove you were telling the truth?  If you can't think of the answer, then by all means go to see Big Eyes.  The picture appears to be directed at those folks who think this is high drama with the outcome in doubt.

Amy Adams does her best in the role of Margaret, the true creator of the big-eyed portraits.  Christoph Waltz, generally one of my favorite actors, is not as effective here in the part of Walter, her husband, because we catch on from the first line he speaks that this guy has "used car salesman" in his blood.  Waltz is more effective in roles where there is a hint of that, instead of the sleaziness being an overt characteristic.  In Big Eyes, he's not a tich off center; he's downright loopy.

Margaret has a daughter, Jane (as a little girl played by Delaney Raye and as a teen by Madeleine Arthur), whom Walter and Margaret try to keep in the dark about their private secret, i.e., that Margaret is the artist and Walter is not.  As a parent of three kids and a former teacher of teenagers for eleven years, I have to question just how well the script writers, Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, know what teens are like.  Part of Walter's grand plan is to prevent Jane from discovering the truth, even though Margaret's studio is in their glitzy house, right off the living room!  I don't mind a little Hollywood license occasionally, but I have never known an able-bodied teen who would fall for such a ruse. 

Movie Review: "Unbroken"

"Unbroken": B+.  Unbroken, one of the most eagerly anticipated movies of the year, opened Christmas Day to large audiences.  The movie tells the story of Olympic track athlete Louie Zamperini, who served his country in World War II with the Army Air Corps as a bombardier on a B-24.  The first third of the film establishes "Zam" as a kid with an adventurous spirit who had his share of run-ins with authorities.  Only his older brother, Pete, was able to connect with him.  Being a gifted runner was Louie's ticket off the path of juvenile delinquency.  Although he made the US Olympic team for the Berlin Games in 1936, he had his sights set on the next Olympiad, to be held in Tokyo, as his chance for a medal.  Unfortunately, the war got in the way.  The competitiveness, zeal and physical stamina which Zam drew upon to reach athletic stardom not only served him well as a civilian, but were ingredients necessary to enable him to survive the two major, life-threatening chapters he faced as an airman.

The first of those was a combination of being airborne target practice for the Japanese as Zam and his mates flew overhead in their B-24 bomber, and the multi-week ordeal of being afloat in a rubber raft following a crash in the western Pacific.  For personal reasons, the scenes inside the plane were my favorite sequences in this long (137 minutes) movie.  The B-24's structure and interior architecture were very similar to the B-17s my father flew on eleven bombing missions over Germany.  Like Zam, the Marquis was a bombardier, and as the film correctly shows, when the plane maneuvers near the target its course is actually under the direction of the bombardier, not the pilot or copilot.  (By the way, the only officers on board were those three plus the navigator; the rest of the crew were enlisted men.)  While the bombardier is lining up his sights, the plane is taking on both ground anti-aircraft fire and the enemy's evasive fighter jets.  Inside and outside the plane, lethal bullets and rockets are everywhere.  It is hard to imagine the courage it took for those airmen to risk their lives in that fashion.

The second major life-threatening event was Zam's gut-wrenching experiences as a prisoner of war on the Japanese mainland.  The camp was run by a sadist, Wantanabe (Takamasa Ishihara), derisively referred to by the GIs as "the Bird," who finds out early on that one of the new prisoners is an Olympic athlete.  Of course, that is Zamperini, who thereupon becomes the focus of much of Wantanabe's unwanted attention.  The rules of the Geneva Convention concerning the treatment of POWs is willfully ignored.  Beatings, forced labor and death threats become par for the course.  We never see Wantanabe without his bamboo-wrapped cudgel, and we unsuccessfully hope that he won't use it to strike a prisoner.

The challenge facing director Angelina Jolie is familiar to any filmmaker telling a story to an audience comprised of people who already know the ultimate outcome, if not many of the details.  Even if we did not know whatever happened to Zam, the film's title is, itself, a giveaway.  Thus, Jolie's accomplishment in providing us a gripping account of the almost unbelievable heroic story is all the more extremely impressive.

Equally impressive is the film's editing, a combined effort by director Jolie and editors William Goldenberg and Tim Squyres.  For example, Zam and some of his mates were afloat on the raft for forty-seven days, a length of time almost impossible to fathom -- no pun intended.  During that ordeal they had to withstand hunger, thirst, shark attacks, violent storms and a relentless sun.  The movie stays on this chapter just long enough for us to appreciate the hardship without turning the story into a "lost at sea" marathon.  In a similar vein, Jolie leaves no doubt as to the cruelty inflicted upon Zam by the Bird, but does not go overboard with guts and gore (unlike, say, Quentin Tarantino in 2012's Django Unchained).

The casting for Unbroken is noteworthy for a couple of reasons.  Jack O'Connell, a mostly unknown English actor picked to play Zamperini, hits the mark in every scene.  Fifteen year old newcomer C.J. Valleroy, cast as young Zam, bears an uncanny resemblance to O'Connell.  But Jolie's choice of Ishihara to fill the role of the Bird is generating the most buzz.  In his native Japan, Ishihara is a rock star who goes by the name of Miyavi.  Jolie had to talk him into accepting the part.  His soft sad eyes and smooth voice set us up for a surprise when, as the camp commander, he turns into an inhumane thug.    

Album Review: "Melody Road" - Neil Diamond

"Melody Road": A.  When Neil Diamond and his wife of twenty-five years, Marcia Murphey, ended their marriage in 1995, the settlement resulted in the singer shelling out $150 million in alimony.  That unhappy occurrence ranks as the fourth most expensive American celebrity divorce in history, behind only those of Michael Jordan, Arnold Swarzenegger and Mel Gibson.  Many of Diamond's fans rightfully wondered if he would ever tie the knot again -- Murphey was his second wife -- and whether the experience might sour him on love to the point where it would adversely affect his songwriting.  Those questions were finally answered in 2012, when Diamond married production assistant Katie McNeil, twenty-nine years his junior, and a few weeks ago, when he released Melody Road.  Apparently love and marriage agree with the crooner, as this new album is one of his best.

Although the sequencing of tracks might lead the listener to conclude that Melody Road is not a concept album, there is no denying that the common threads of love, hope and appreciation permeate throughout.  Two of my favorites are third person tales of romantic pairs.  Seongah And Jimmy tells the story of two kids, a Korean girl and a Long Island guy, meeting and falling in love in Brooklyn.  They learn about each other's native culture at the same time they are getting to know one another as a partner.  Love has more than one language. 

He says "I love you," she knows he means it,

She says "Sarang-hae," he knows she means it too. 

 

Similarly, Sunny Disposition  is a story of a twosome's beginnings.  Just as in Seongah And Jimmy, at first blush one would not pick the two individuals to have a love connection.  He "had a cloud that never went away," while she, as the song's title says, "had a sunny disposition."  Made for each other?  Hardly, until he saw the light and came around to her way of thinking.

 

The female saves the day once again in Something Blue. This tune presents the same original predicament as Sunny Disposition, although it is sung from a first person perspective.  The male singer was in the dumps until she pulled him out of it.  Now he expresses his gratitude. 

 

You showed me what a little bit of love can do…

Took me to a place I never knew.

Goodbye to my little bit of something blue. 

 

As I alluded to above (and as I also alluded to in my March 28, 2012 review of the Bruce Springsteen album Wrecking Ball), a true concept album should have a definite logic to the pattern of its track sequence.  The sequencing of Melody Road throws a curve ball at us by placing two songs, In Better Days and especially Nothing But A Heartache, in the middle of the playlist.  Both of those numbers should, rightfully, be at the beginning of the album, because they point to a previous relationship, not the one that has inspired most of the rest of the album.  From the latter, directed to his new love and clearly referencing a lost love: 

 

Was a one way conversation

I never got the invitation

the sharpness of her words deceiving

and I couldn't stop the bleeding.

 

Nothing But A Heartache also contains the following great lyrics: 

 

Lord I tried to be forgiving

but getting by don't mean you're living. 

 

I also love this metaphor from the same song: 

 

… on that highway going nowhere

was an exit overdue. 

 

A mystery surrounding the negative tone of Nothing But A Heartache is that Diamond has publicly admitted that the dissolution of his long marriage to Murphey was almost entirely his fault.  Perhaps the song is not a slam against Murphey but some other failed love interest.  Equally likely is that the song recollects a fictitious flame. 

 

In Better Days is sung to his ex, bemoaning the fact that they were happiest when they "didn't have a dime between us."  The relationship was unable to find a balance between gleam of success and the grind of simplicity.

 

There are many other worthy songs on this new album.  Poignant lyrics prevail.  The Art Of Love, classic Diamond and for my money the best song on the album, is simply beautiful and meaningful. 

 

… love's not what you have

but what you give,

and the art of love is

who you share it with. 

 

The orchestration throughout the collection is superior, including the ethereal keyboards and chimes in (OOO) Do I Wanna Be Yours, and the ragtime brass instruments in Marry Me Now.  Most importantly, Diamond's voice sounds like he's in mid-career form.  To have a performer gifted with his song-writing ability and his vocal talent is certainly a rarity.  Even the great Tony Bennett does not write his own music.    

Movie Review: "Fury"

"Fury": C.  I guess I am a sucker for attending super-hyped war movies starring matinee idols.  In May I caved in to the multitude of promotions and saw Monuments Men, featuring George Clooney as the leader of a GI troop with a mission to save priceless art confiscated by the Germans.  Ho hum; B- (reviewed on May 9).  A few days ago, more or less the same thing happened.  Fury was heavily promoted as a World War II story starring Brad Pitt.  For a $2.50 investment at Hopkins Theater, I thought it was worth a gamble.  War stories are a film genre I like, and some of them (The Dirty Dozen, Apocalypse Now, and my gold standard, The Deer Hunter) are among my all-time favorites of any kind.  I am sad to report that Fury is not in that august company.  I can't, in good conscience, rate it higher than a C.

The movie follows a five man tank group, led by tough guy Sergeant Don Collier (Pitt).  The title of the movie is the name of their tank, painted in white on the long gun protruding from the vehicle's front.  Despite its length of 135 minutes, the story basically takes place over three scenes, all behind enemy lines inside Germany: the rescue mission of other GIs who are playing dead while under fire in an open meadow, the invasion of a small village providing lots of hiding places for the bad guys, and the defense of a countryside crossroads for the purpose of keeping the Germans from making their way to a distant American supply line.  For the most part, each of these scenes is independent of the other two, and consume too many minutes of viewing time.

As you would expect from a war movie, there are a fair number of gun battles, but their staging is not impressive.  One problem is that the focus is always on Pitt, who does not, himself, shoot any of the tank's weapons; he merely instructs his four underlings where to aim.  If it is true that soldiers manning tank weaponry needed their superior to tell them whom to shoot, it is a miracle we won the war.  Another problem is the annoying habit of saying everything at least twice.  "Watch out for the tree line!  Watch out for the tree line!"  Or, "Krauts at ten o'clock! Krauts at ten o'clock!"  It reminded me of coaching youth baseball games, when I could hear the players' parents yelling from the grandstand.  "It only takes one, Billy.  It only takes one!"  Or, "You can do it, number seven.  You can do it!"

I usually like Pitt as an actor, but it seems he mailed this one in.  There are several scenes when the viewer expects him to say something forceful, perhaps even witty, but instead he strikes a silent pose, sometimes even displaying a goofy face.  Is this acting?  Casting Shia LaBeouf as a hardened army veteran is also questionable.  He comes across more as a short order cook at Liquor Lyle's.  Perhaps I'd have a problem with LaBeouf being cast in any movie.

The only interesting character in the bunch is the greenhorn newcomer, Norman Ellison (Logan Lerman).  Trained for clerical duty, he is nevertheless assigned to man a gun inside Fury, the tank.  "I was trained to type sixty words a minute, not to kill people," he protests to Sergeant Collier.  Of course, as soon as those words part his lips, you know he is going to have to do just that, maybe more than once.  Collier's words of advice to Ellison are, "Do what you're told. Don't get too close," meaning don't get too personally attached to your colleagues, because they might die in a flash right before your eyes.

Predictability is a problem with any movie, especially war movies, and Fury has its share of it.  The movie also falls victim to portraying the Germans as imbecilic opponents, especially in the last act.  Are we to believe that a company of over a hundred jerries can't figure out how to put an American tank out of commission?

If you have an extra moment, go back and read the last paragraph of my June 25, 2014 review of Jersey Boys.  The topic of that paragraph is ensemble movies.  Jersey Boys is the story of the four guys who comprised the singing group the Four Seasons.  Fury is the story of a five man tank group.  Fury is the antithesis of Jersey Boys.  That, in a nutshell, explains why the music movie is a triumph while the war movie is not. 

Movie Review: "The Judge"

"The Judge": B+. Courtroom dramas are hard scripts to sell to audiences convincingly if authenticity is a goal of the moviemakers.  The main obstacles are the abundance of evidentiary rules and rules of civil procedure which are important components in actual litigation.  Most civil and criminal trials are not nearly as interesting in real life as Hollywood portrays them.  For example, surprise witnesses, which seem to constitute a staple of Hollywood trials, almost never materialize in real life, because the court's procedural rules not only require each side to disclose its witness list ahead of trial, but to reveal essentially what each witness will state under oath.  Another stark contrast is that in a real criminal trial, the defendant's lawyer's sole mission is to convince the jury that reasonable doubt exists, thereby resulting in a not-guilty verdict.  It is important to note that there's a big difference in the eyes of the law between "not guilty" and "innocent."  In Hollywood films, that distinction is often lost.  There, the defense attorney usually not only gets his client off the hook, but solves the crime too by identifying the real bad guy, a la Perry Mason.  In short, the filmmakers bend the rules a little bit for the purpose of engaging the audience.

When I choose a courtroom drama for my movie selection, I want to be entertained just like everybody else.  But I also want what's portrayed on screen to bear strong resemblance to what would transpire in real life if presented with the same facts.  In other words, to borrow a phrase often used by my father when he saw a war movie which was ridiculously inauthentic, I don't want to see a legal "fairy story."  One of the characteristics I appreciated while watching The Judge is that, for the most part, it is not a fairy story.

The tone is set early on when Hank Palmer (Robert Downey, Jr.) is packing to travel from Chicago to fictional Carlinville, Indiana for his mother's funeral.  He tries to distinguish for his inquisitive little daughter the difference between his mother, who is biologically dead, and his father, "who is dead to me.  It's just a figure of speech."  The father to whom he refers is also the title character, Judge Joseph Palmer (Robert Duvall), a veteran of almost forty years on the bench.  Although his courthouse is in a small river town far removed from the national legal scene, Judge Palmer's constant concern is the legacy he will leave behind once he no longer possesses the gavel.  He compares himself to Ronald Reagan, whom the judge believes should be remembered as a great president who presided over the end of the Cold War, instead of the White House occupant who enjoyed frequent naps and ate jelly beans.  The judge takes his job seriously and is well respected, if not feared, throughout Carlinville, yet he's haunted by a sentencing decision he made years ago which will indirectly lead to his own freedom and reputation being put at risk.

In addition to Hank, Judge Palmer has two other adult sons who both live in town.  Glen (Vincent D'Onofrio), the oldest, was a promising pitcher whose career was cut short as a result of an automobile accident, the details of which we learn piecemeal.  The youngest, Dale (Jeremy Strong), is autistic but high functioning.  His hobby is shooting and editing sixteen millimeter film.  At times Dale draws his family's sympathy, other times its scorn.

Hank Palmer is a sharp but shady defense attorney, whose compliance with the ethical expectations of the bar is borderline.  "Innocent clients can't afford me," he tells opposing counsel during a testy men's room conversation.  One would think that high roller Hank would book himself a room in a nice local hotel, but then that would eliminate several of the family interactions among the brothers and their father.  Instead, Hank bunks down in the judge's big old house.  He hates being in Carlinville, and can hardly wait to fly back to Chicago.  But after his mother's funeral he gets an SOS call from Glen minutes before the plane's scheduled departure.  Their father has been accused of a felony, and Glen (unbeknownst to the judge) persuades Hank that the old man needs Hank's services.

The best moments in the film take place in the courtroom.  The prosecutor is not the County Attorney, but a hot shot prosecutor from Gary, Dwight Dickham (Billy Bob Thornton), who is equipped to match wits with the Chicago trial ace.  It turns out Dickham has some history with Hank.  Billy Bob looks quite dashing in his trial togs, and is convincing as a skilled barrister.  The criminal trial judge, Judge Warren, is played by none other than The White Shadow himself, Ken Howard.  One of the several humorous segments occurs during the voir dire (aka jury selection), when people from the jury pool are selected or rejected for the trial.  Hank does not ask them the usual questions, preferring instead to inquire about what their vehicle bumper stickers state.  One man in the pool claims that his bumper sticker reads, "Gun control means two hands on the revolver."  Hank accepts him without further questions.

We are also treated to a subplot involving Hank and his old high school flame, Samantha (Vera Farmiga), who is the owner of The Firefly, a busy watering hole.   Samantha is the mother of Carla (Leighton Meester), a law school student whom Hank gets to know up close and personal in a phone booth.    There are some nice moments between Samantha and Hank, but their scenes together are not essential to the story.  One note of interest is that Farmiga, at age forty-one, is only thirteen years older than Meester.  Well, they both do look younger than their ages.  No wonder they're actresses.  

Conflicts Of Interest Mar College Football

Imagine your job puts you in a position where you have a lot of discretion regarding the decisions you make.  One day you are faced with a tough decision requiring an instantaneous verdict.  If you rule one way, your employer will make approximately $18 million with a good chance at $40 million.  If you rule the opposite way, instead of $40 million, the revenue will be approximately $5 million, at best, and more likely around $2 million.  Oh, yeah, there's one other component of this scenario: There are millions of people watching in real time as you perform your duty.  Do you think you would be up to the task?

That is precisely what awaits the officials for the four major conference title games this weekend.  You might recall the brilliant explanation of the new college football playoffs contained in my August 28 post (Musical Chairs, Football Style).  In that post I explained how a "select" committee of thirteen people was going to chose the four teams to play in a playoff format for the national championship.  (One panelist, Archie Manning, had to resign for health reasons, so the committee ended up being comprised of twelve members.) The committee's decision will be announced this Sunday.  In the meantime, starting tonight, four of the five so-called Power 5 conferences (i.e., all but the Big 12 Conference, which does not have a title game) will hold their championship games on neutral fields.  Let's take a quick look at what's at stake.

SEC Conference.  This game, to be played in Atlanta, pits SEC West Division champ Alabama against SEC East Division champ Missouri.  (Yes, you read that correctly; Missouri is in the east!).  Alabama is currently ranked # 1 according to the committee's latest poll, which was released three days ago.  If 'Bama wins, they are a shoo-in to be chosen for the four-team playoff.  If the Crimson Tide gets upset by Mizzou, there is an excellent chance that the SEC will not have any team in the playoffs, especially if the favorites in this weekend's other big games win as predicted.   Currently, Missouri is ranked relatively low at # 16.  The second highest SEC school is Mississippi State at # 10.  Mizzou and Mississippi State are too far back to jump other teams to reach the top four. The result of having no SEC team in the playoffs would be flabbergasting, because the SEC is universally considered the best conference in the world of college football.  In fact, about five weeks ago, three of the committee's top four teams were SEC schools.  If Alabama loses tomorrow, the best hope for the SEC is that the committee only drops them down to # 4, an unlikely result since, at that point, 'Bama would be a two-loss team.

PAC 12 Conference.  This game features PAC 12 North champ Oregon versus PAC 12 South champ Arizona.  The site is Santa Clara, California.  The analysis here is pretty close to that for the SEC.  If Oregon wins, it's a lock for the playoffs.  At its current # 2 ranking, it is a heavy favorite.  A Wildcat win probably leaves the PAC 12 without a playoff team.  My guess is that Arizona at #7 is likely too far back to jump other teams up to the top four, and Oregon would be a two-loss team.

ACC.  The Atlantic Coast Conference championship will be played tomorrow in Charlotte.  Florida State, the Atlantic Division champ, is the sole undefeated major college team, but they are only ranked # 4.  They allegedly run a dirty program, and my guess is that the committee will drop them like a rock if they lose to Georgia Tech, the Coastal Division champ.  Georgia Tech, at # 11, has virtually no shot at making the playoffs, even with a win over the 'Noles.

Big 10:  This is the only one of the four major conference championship games which does not have a team currently in the top four.  However, Ohio State is poised at # 5 to claim a playoff spot if at least one of the four teams above it (Alabama, Oregon, Texas Christian or Florida State) loses. The Buckeyes' opponent is Wisconsin, currently ranked # 13.  Just like Missouri and Georgia Tech -- and possibly Arizona -- a conference championship does not guarantee a playoff berth for the Badgers.  They are too far back and already have two losses.  Ironically, Wisconsin is a slight favorite to beat Ohio State, because State's two best quarterbacks have injuries which will deprive them of playing.

Now, back to my point.  The payout per team for the two playoff semi-finals (this season, the Rose Bowl and the Sugar Bowl) is $18 million.  The payout per team for the college football championship game, to be played in Arlington on January 12, is a cool $22 million.  According to my North Dakota high school math, therefore, each of the two teams making it to Arlington will be paid a total of $40 million, the lion's share of which goes to those schools' respective conferences to be split among all its member schools.  The highest payout for any bowl outside of the four-team playoff is the Citrus Bowl on New Year's Day, with a  payout per team of $4.25 million.

In summary, for the first three championship games described above, if the favorites (Alabama, Oregon and Florida State) win, their respective conferences are practically assured of benefiting to the tune of at least $18 million, and possibly $40 million.  If any of the underdogs (Missouri, Arizona and Georgia Tech) win, their conferences can probably kiss the mega bucks goodbye, because those winners will not make the playoffs.  Regarding the Big 10 title game, that conference's only realistic hope for the two huge paydays is for Ohio State to win.

In college football, referees are employed by a conference, and each conference obviously uses one of its own crews for their title games.  Contrast this with professional sports, which employ their game officials on a national basis, without consideration to a particular league or conference.  For example, Major League Baseball might use a certain umpiring crew for a National League series, and then send that crew to another city to work an American League series.

So, put yourself in this situation.  You are a back judge on the SEC crew which is assigned to work the SEC title game tomorrow night.  Your main job is to decide, in a split second, whether there is pass interference on any passing play.  Alabama has the ball, 4th down on the Mizzou 35 yard line.  Missouri is winning, 24 to 20, and there are only three seconds left in the game; time for only one more play.  The ball is snapped, the Alabama receiver and the Missouri cornerback are hand-checking each other all the way downfield as the quarterback lofts the ball toward the end zone. Theoretically, each player is entitled to go for the ball, but whether the Missouri DB is being too aggressive is up to you.  Do you, as the back judge, think about who signs your paycheck?  Do you think about the fact that an Alabama loss means no $40 million pot of gold for the SEC?  Is this not a conflict of interest?  Even if you decide to throw the flag in good faith, is there not the appearance of a conflict of interest?

It is time for major college football to end the conference alliance of game officials.  There should be one national referees association, just like there is for professional sports.

Movie Review: "Whiplash"

"Whiplash": B+.  If you have heard of the legal tort of intentional infliction of emotional distress but are not sure what it is, Whiplash could serve as a case study.  It is the story of life in a highly competitive, elite music academy located in New York City, where extremely talented young musicians attempt to endure what amounts to a battle for survival.  Several are forced to throw in the towel before graduating because they are unable to cope with the headmaster or meet his demanding requisites.  The film examines how high a price promising performers are willing to pay for a diploma that likely paves the way for a career in music.

Miles Teller plays Andrew Neiman, a drummer who dreams of making his living in the rhythm section of a jazz orchestra.  Buddy Rich is his idol.  Andrew is no slouch on the skins, immediately drawing the attention of Terence Fletcher (J.K. Simmons), the imposing, muscle-bound headmaster of Shaffer Conservatory.  Year after year, Shaffer turns out some of the world's finest star musicians of the future.  A lot of Shaffer's reputation is a result of Fletcher's exacting standards.  But at what price are those standards tolerated?

Fletcher is into mind games, many bordering on mental cruelty.  Fletcher is keen on embarrassing students in front of the entire studio band, which is the ensemble at Shaffer in which the best musicians play.   When he dismisses a plump trombone player, the ensuing verbal attack includes harsh criticism of the young man's musicianship as well as his weight.  He derisively calls a demoted drummer "Mr. Gay Pride of the West Side."  When Andrew confides in Fletcher regarding Andrew's rough childhood, Fletcher uses that against Andrew publicly minutes later.  The musicians are treated like pawns, some brought by Fletcher into the studio band for the sole purpose of making incumbent players think they are about to be demoted.  He relegates some students to the job of being merely page turners for the musicians deemed superior.  The ultimate insult is to be labeled a permanent page turner.

Writer-director Damien Chazelle is quite good at setting tension-packed moods throughout the story.  The viewer never knows when Fletcher is about to explode in a tantrum.  Chazelle's script is not as successful in its attempt to paint Andrew as a likable normal college-age kid.  His relationship with his girlfriend, Nicole (Melissa Benoist), never seems on track, and his dinner table conversation with his male cousins is totally out of character.  Of course, you can't have a movie about a jazz academy without a terrific score; I have no complaints there.  (By the way, the film is named after the title of a tune heard frequently both in rehearsals and on the performance stage.)

The last act of the movie is triggered by a sad piece of news announced earlier by Fletcher to the studio band regarding a former Shaffer student.  We don't think much of it at first, but everything is not as it seems.

Unlike the fake singing, piano playing or horn blowing we might see in a lot of films, it's pretty difficult for an actor to convincingly pretend to be drumming.  Therefore, a huge tip of the hat to Teller, who obviously is a skilled kit man in real life.  But the scene stealer in Whiplash is clearly Simmons.  With his sculpted torso and bulging biceps, he commands attention whether by intimidation or credentials.  I would not be surprised to see Simmons nominated for an Oscar as a supporting actor.

We often hear about college and professional athletes who decide voluntarily to quit their sport while still in their prime and in relatively good health. The reason most often given is that the game is no longer fun for them.  After having seen Whiplash, one similarly wonders what musicians have to bear to achieve a career in music.  Is burnout a strong possibility because the fun is missing?  Whiplash raises another question too: How many musicians had the talent to be successful performers and entertainers, but were left at the wayside because of personal discouragement suffered at the hands of an instructor?      

Dillon Hall Diaries: Angst About Angers

I have never set anyone's cleats on fire, put peanut butter or Ben Gay in anyone's jock strap, or shaving cream inside anyone's cap.  Therefore, as a prankster I am not in the same league as someone like Bert Blyleven.  For the most part my shenanigans were more juvenile, like short-sheeting a bed, hiding a text book or leaving a fake phone message.  However, in all humility I must further state that I was the mastermind behind one of the best pranks ever executed in the fabled history of Dillon Hall.

 

You might recall from my September 9, 2014 post (Kiwi Can Contests) that during my junior year at ND, my roommate, Wayne Cuchna, and I occupied one of seven "doubles" in an isolated wing on Dillon's first floor.  The band of fourteen guys living there was comprised mostly of juniors and sophomores, with a sprinkling of freshmen, also known as "freddies."  I wouldn't go so far as to say the fourteen of us were like brothers, but because of the proximity of our quarters, we ate many meals together, often studied together, borrowed each other's records -- I am still waiting to get my Paul Revere & The Raiders album back from my next door neighbor, Rich "Rinny" Reinthaler -- knew each other's families and friends, engaged in dozens of bull sessions together, and generally supported one another through the highs and lows of the long and arduous school year.  And of course, as you already know, there were always the Kiwi Can Contests.

 

One of those "freddies" was Ed Beck, who lived at the far "dead" end of our wing.  The other three or four freddies, including Ed's roomie, Bill "The Bird" Powers, were low key, rather humble guys, who more or less recognized the unwritten pecking order amongst the fourteen.  No one actually thought that the upperclassmen among us were any smarter or wiser than the underclassmen, but still, there was some deference shown by the younger guys to the oldsters.  There were no big fish in our little pond, but if, indeed, there had to be small fish, that role was fulfilled by the frosh.  There were certain things, particularly those relating directly to Notre Dame the institution, for which the juniors would have a better feel or a deeper understanding, if only for the fact that they had more experience as a university student than did the underclassmen.

 

Good ol' Ed did not see it that way.  Perhaps he couldn't help himself, being a native New Yorker and all (tip o' the cap to Salinger for my usage of those last two words), but any outsider with an overview of the entire scene would easily observe that Ed was the proverbial know-it-all.  His most distinguishing characteristic was rubbing folks the wrong way.  Regardless of the topic, be it current events, football, girls, politics, professors, music, what have you, Ed knew best and was not bashful about sharing the wealth of his knowledge with the remaining underprivileged thirteen.  He gave me a pain where I sat down, and I was not alone with that sentiment.  Ridicule, confrontation and avoidance did not work; he'd dig in even more.  Avoidance, by the way, was hard to accomplish, given the logistics of our wing.  But what really gored our collective ox was Ed's incessant referral to his acceptance into Notre Dame's Angers Program for the following school year.

 

Angers (pronounced "ahn-ZHAY") is a mid-sized city in western France and the home of a handful of colleges and universities.  During the years I attended ND, the University of Notre Dame had a program affiliated with Universite Catholique de I' Oust  located in Angers.  Participants in that program were usually sophomores who desired to spend one or two semesters across the pond.   In those days, studying abroad was not nearly as common as it has become during the last few decades.  Almost every one of my contemporaries dreamed throughout high school of some day attending Notre Dame, so why would we want to leave?  Even if we had that inclination, most of our families could not afford to send us overseas for even a semester, let alone a year.  The thought of applying for the Angers Program never crossed our minds.

 

Ed, on the other hand, did not think along those lines; just the opposite.  From the moment (probably around February) that he was accepted into the Angers Program, that is all he talked about or cared about.  We could be talking about dining hall food, Major League Baseball, South Bend crime or an upcoming kegger, and without fail Ed would manage to get Angers into the conversation.  He had a knack for slanting the discussion into a comparison between how much better off he would be in France versus us slugs stuck in The Bend.  At first it was funny, as Ed was turning into a caricature of himself right before our eyes.  But after enduring his patronization for weeks on end, retaliation was in order.  Luckily, two separate ingredients fell perfectly into place, enabling me to pull off my caper, which I prefer to refer to simply as "The Letter."

 

The first ingredient was the fragile social status and simmering mood of the US, and elsewhere, in 1968.  That year has been called by many historians and political scientists the most tumultuous year in US history.  The Cold War was in full swing, the civil rights movement was surging, Viet Nam War protesters dialed up their demonstrations several notches, especially following the Tet Offensive, and the US presidential election, including the intra-party nomination campaigns, was no holds barred.  The Reverend Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis on April 4 of that year, and race riots ensued.  Democratic candidate Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated in Los Angeles nine weeks later.

 

But the US was not the only place of social unrest.  In May, 1968, France was the scene of violent protests and strikes carried on predominantly by students and laborers.  That country almost came to a standstill, as students occupied campus buildings and workers shut down industry.  The police were outnumbered.  Demonstrations turned into riots which got out of hand.  It would take several weeks, and an actual dissolution of the French Parliament, before order was restored.

 

The second ingredient, strange as it may seem, was what we found in the practice space used by my band, Lemon Oil Mahogany.  LOM had "inherited" from my first band, the Dark Ages, a postage stamp size storage room located at the bottom of an extremely narrow stairway near the front of Dillon.  Apparently the room had not been used, or even visited, in many years.  Dust, mold and cobwebs were everywhere.  It could have functioned as a chamber of horrors from a Stephen King novel.  The guys in the Dark Ages made a deal with our rector, Father James "Flash" Flanigan, that in return for our cleaning the place up, he would let us practice down there.  Now, a year later, LOM was the beneficiary of that arrangement.

 

Originally we just cleaned out enough space to squeeze in our equipment and ourselves.  Subsequently one late spring day after practice we had a little more time, so we started clearing shelf space.  The books on those shelves were so old that the bindings gave way when we opened them.  But then, pay dirt!  Tucked away in a corner was a box of official Notre Dame stationery, with letterhead designating "Administrative Offices" and a beautiful etching of the Administration Building (aka the "Gold Dome Building") above it.  This was like finding gold.  My scheme to prank Ed Beck was hatched!

 

Father James Riehle (pronounced "really") was the no-nonsense Dean Of Students in those days.  The main responsibilities of the person holding that position were to oversee the conduct of the student body, and to enforce the multitude of rules and regulations which ND men were expected to follow.  If you're inclined to think that the incumbent in that office would, necessarily, be tough as nails, you would be correct.  Father Riehle, although only in his mid-forties, was one of those guys who appeared to be many years older than his actual age.  A cigar-chomping, gruff ex-hockey player, he was surely cut out to be the Dean Of Students.  No news from Father Riehle was good news for all Domers under his figurative thumb.  An aside:  My first sophomore year roommate,  Mike "The Ripper" Rippey, was called on the carpet by Father Riehle on many sad occasions before finally getting the heave-ho after the first semester.  The Ripper's downfall was mostly alcohol related; he was a well-known fixture in after-hours South Bend.  Every time he got called in to the Dean's office he'd say to me, "John, this time I'm Riehle in trouble!"

 

It took me a few days to compose The Letter to Ed.  I went through several drafts on notebook paper before I was finally satisfied.  Once I had crafted my masterpiece, I borrowed The Bird's typewriter under the pretext of having to submit a research paper, and hunted and pecked my way through.  Of course, I typed The Letter on my newly found Administrative Offices stationery.  It has been over forty-six years since I composed The Letter, but to the best of my recollection, it read something like this: 

 

Dear Mr. Beck,

 

I regret to inform you that, due to the civil unrest in France, including Angers, the University of Notre Dame has decided to cancel the Angers Program for the coming school year.  Please know that this was a very difficult decision to make, as the administration is well aware of the eagerness with which many of our students, including yourself, looked forward to the opportunity to study in Angers.  We will revisit the situation toward the end of the current calendar year, and if circumstances merit doing so, we will consider reinstating the Angers Program for the 1969-1970 school year.

 

The safety of our students is always our foremost responsibility.  Thank you for your understanding.

 

Sincerely yours,

 

James L. Riehle, C.S.C.

Dean of Students 

 

I did my best forgery job of Father Riehle's signature, stuck the letter in a regular ND envelope which was available in the bookstore, and mailed it to Ed on a Thursday, using an intra-campus postal box.  I knew it would reach his Dillon mail slot the next day, Friday, the hardest day of the work week to get ahold of anybody in the Ad Building.

 

The rest is history.  Ed did, indeed, receive the letter on that Friday.  I can still hear his wail, like something out of The Hound Of The Baskervilles.  His whole reason for being was gone.  There was no one else nearby in the dorm heading for Angers with whom he could commiserate, so he tried to get ahold of Father Riehle by phone.  I knew that would be next to impossible, especially on a Friday afternoon.  Ed was beside himself as he ran over to the Ad Building, letter in hand.  I did not see him for several hours.  My guess is that it took that long for many phone calls to go back and forth to ascertain whether the Angers Program was in jeopardy and if Father Riehle had actually sent that letter.

 

When Ed finally entered the South Dining Hall, barely in time for the swill they called "dinner," he was totally exhausted, yet evidently relieved that he had merely been the victim of a hoax.  We didn't hear much from Ed about Angers for the rest of the school year.  The Angers Program was not cancelled, and as far as I know, Ed was there as planned for the '68-'69 school year while I made the best of things on campus my senior year.  I have not seen nor heard from Ed since the spring of '68.

 

Other than my roomie, whom I swore to secrecy, I have never admitted my prank to anyone -- until now.  As much as I wanted to take credit for the caper, the price of being found out was too much to risk.  Of course, the guys in our wing figured the culprit was one of our group, and their level of enjoyment was almost equal to mine.

 

The Statute Of Limitations has long since expired, and Father Riehle passed away in 2008.  I think I am safe. If you ever watch the movie Rudy, keep an eye out for the man playing the role of the Notre Dame football team chaplain.  That guy is no Hollywood actor; it's Father Riehle who, in addition to his day job as Dean Of Students, was the football team's chaplain in real life.  I wonder if he will read this post from that great cigar lounge in the sky.   

Movie Review: "John Wick"

"John Wick": B-. My favorite professor at Notre Dame was Easy Joe Ryan, a former Chicago newspaper man who taught freshman composition.  His nickname came about not from his grading methods -- heavens no!  It had to do with his cool demeanor, his patience and his kindness.  I am not sure what his family history was, but he lived by himself in Lyons Hall.  No matter how well a student thought he had written, Easy Joe could find several places for improvement.  I corresponded with Professor Ryan via Christmas cards for a number of years after I graduated, until his brother notified me of Joe's passing some time around 1978.

I was thinking of my old prof Wednesday afternoon when, by default, I sat through John Wick at the West End theater.  If I had written the script for that movie and submitted it to Easy Joe, it's likely he would have returned it to me replete with dozens of not-quite-acerbic comments, all written with the fire engine red ink he favored, admonishing me to try harder.  Viewing John Wick drove home the fact to me that, when putting together a film to appeal to the targeted demographic, presumably males under 40, you don't have to strive for greatness.  What you strive for are fast cars, non-stop action, and a high body count.  Evaluated under that premise, John Wick hits the mark.

The story-telling structure is one we've seen before.  In the opening sequence, Wick (Keanu Reeves) drives his car at a relatively slow speed, head-on into a barricade in front of a loading dock.  He slowly opens the door and half-falls into the street.  The blood all over his clothing and upon his face clearly could not have resulted from the impact.  He must have been in a fight.  We wonder if the lead eponymous character is going to croak ninety seconds into the film.  But, no, 'tis not to be.  As Wick takes out his cell phone to take one last look at his deceased wife on video, the story flashes back so we can see how he got into this predicament.

Wick is a "retired" hit man who used to work for the Russian mafia in New York City.  The mafia's kingpin is Viggo (Michael Nyqvist), who has a real dolt for a son.  The son, Iosef (Alfie Allen), makes the stupid decision to steal Wick's 1969 Mustang, and exacerbates the stupidity level by intentionally killing Wick's dog in the process.  Among other things, Iosef is unaware of two important facts.  First, because the dog was given to Wick posthumously by Wick's wife, Wick considers it the main link between him and her memory.  Second, Iosef is clueless that his chosen victim is a former hit man once employed by Viggo.  Even when the owner of Iosef's chop shop, Aureilo (John Leguizamo), gives him a heads up on the Mustang's owner, Iosef shrugs it off as a minor inconvenience.  When Aurelio then gives Viggo a call to tell him what Iosef has done, that's when the story kicks into another gear. 

John Wick is to guns what Bruce Lee movies were to martial arts.  Whenever Wick gets into a fight, which is often, he is always outnumbered by the bad guys.  But just like in the martial arts movies, the villains line up one at a time to do battle with the hero.  The thought apparently never occurs to them to rush Wick en mass.  Also, they conveniently come out from behind their hiding places and fire a few wayward shots before Wick easily plugs them.  It makes no difference how far away Wick's target may be.  He is deadly with a hand gun from any distance; no need for a rifle.  On occasion, the mafia baddies bring knives to a gun fight.  One interesting, albeit physically impossible, technique employed by Wick is that whenever he flips a guy over his shoulder, he manages to keep one hand free so that he is able to fire his hand gun point blank before the fallen warrior can rise.

This movie has other "touches" which are noteworthy.  John holes up for a couple of nights at The Continental, a hotel which caters to assassins.  The one house rule is that no "business" can be conducted on hotel premises.  By the way, don't make the mistake of assuming that all the paid killers are of the male persuasion!  Willem Dafoe plays Marcus, an older mentor who shows up at the funeral of Wick's wife, but then accepts a $2 million contact to bump off his protege.  Marcus' calling card is that, no matter whom he's paid to shoot or in what location, he always gains access to a perfect rooftop perch with an absolutely clear view of his prey.  How lucky can a killer be?  I also liked Charlie (David Patrick Kelly).  Need a dozen dead bodies removed, no questions asked?  Just call Charlie and make dinner reservations for twelve.

There is a scene about a third of the way through the movie which struck my funny bone.  It involves a conversation in Wick's doorway between Wick and a cop named Jimmy (Thomas Sadoski).  Jimmy peers in and sees a corpse in the hallway, but because Wick is a friend, they simply bid each other good night.  It wasn't until then that I realized that the movie is practically devoid of humor; I decided to keep count of how many times the writers and director gave us a break from the tense action by using a funny line.  The final tally was three (in a ninety-six minute movie).

I wrote above that I ended up seeing John Wick "by default."  My original plan was to see Fury, but the ticket seller at the West End told me that it would not be shown that day due to a special, unadvertised event for a private audience.  At that point my only options were to view St. Vincent, Bill Murray's latest which had already started ten minutes earlier, or JW.  I would have preferred Murray, but since I didn't want to start watching after it had already started, I opted for the latter.  At least I got to see if Keanu Reeves had improved his acting ability since I first saw him in 1994's Speed.  Not so much.

Movie Review: "Gone Girl"

"Gone Girl": C+.  Major clues are discovered, almost in plain sight, inside a suspect's house days after the police supposedly combed the place with high tech tools looking for evidence.  (Maybe they were in a hurry to get to the doughnut shop.)  A character enters the hospital with dried blood on the skin, and emerges days later with the blood still visible.  (Maybe there was a shortage of soap and wash cloths inside the medical facility.)  No one orders a paternity test for a fetus playing a key (invisible, of course) role in the story, even though the purported father has already willingly submitted his DNA to the authorities.  (Why didn't he or his lawyer think of ordering the test, even if the police didn't?)  A missing woman's former boyfriend is identified early-on to the cops, but they don't bother to set up a stake out or put him under any kind of surveillance. (Maybe the script writers ran out of time, but this film does run two and a-half hours.)  One of the greatest mysteries surrounding Gone Girl is how a movie with so many holes can be a major hit at the box office. (The film, which was released in October, has a very good chance of becoming one of the top ten grossing movies of all time for that month.  As of November 5, ticket sales had exceeded $137 million; it must reach $164 million to crack that top ten.)  The only explanation I can come up with is that the film's success is mainly attributable to the mega-hit 2012 book by Gillian Flynn bearing the same title.  Flynn also penned the movie's screenplay.  Her adoring reading public must have flocked to the theater for multiple viewings.

Many studies have shown that three of the most common elements in troubled marriages are money, fidelity and children.  Nick and Amy Dunne (Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike) have hit that trifecta, and then some.  When the story opens, Amy is already missing.  Ben, alerted by a phone call from his neighbor that the front door to his house is wide open, rushes home from the bar he owns to discover the living room ransacked.  There is no sign of his wife, the police are called in and the usual questions are asked. From that point, the storytelling goes back and forth, with intermittent flashbacks revealing that the "perfect" couple had their behind-the-scenes problems.

The police, led by Detective Rhonda Boney (Kim Dickens), do not initially look upon Nick as a suspect, but little by little both the police and we, the viewers, start to catch on that Nick might not be the all-American guy he outwardly seems.  Why was Amy's life insurance policy recently upgraded?  (Isn't that true in all such TV shows and movies?  The missing person or the deceased always carries an enhanced life insurance policy, naming the prime suspect as the beneficiary.)  Why did Amy secretly buy a hand gun?  And what about all those accusatory entries in her diary?

Less than half way through the film, we learn that Nick has had a little nookie nookie going on the side with Andie (Emily Ratajkowski), one of his former college students who looks more like a high school sophomore.  How dumb can Nick be?  He even invites Andie over to spend the night with him at the house of his twin sister, Margo (Carrie Coon). The scads of media members who have been camping outside Margo's house inexplicably are nowhere to be seen when Andie enters and exits; how convenient!

My two favorite aspects of Gone Girl are the performances by Tyler Perry and Missi Pyle.  Perry plays Tanner Bolt, a Johnnie Cochran type of attorney, the camera-loving kind that celebrities hire when their backs are against the wall and public opinion has already found them guilty.  Pyle is absolutely dead-on as a cable TV pseudo-journalist in the style of Nancy Grace, who immediately presumes all suspects to be guilty, especially if the alleged victim is an attractive woman.  Speaking of which…

Rosamund Pike, a former "Bond Girl" (2002's Die Another Day), is outstanding as Amy, a difficult and taxing role.  Not having read the book, I was surprised at the number of scenes in which she appears.  Not that I'm complaining.

Quarterly Cinema Scan - Volume XVII

It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done;

It is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.

Those words, among the most famous in all of English literature, are spoken by Sydney Carton in Charles Dickens' A Tale Of Two Cities, my favorite novel of all time.  The story depicts life in Paris at the beginning of the French Revolution in the late eighteenth century.  The national motto of France, "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity," is said to have its origins from the Revolution.

In the mid-1990's Polish film maker Krzysztof Kieslowski decided to create a trilogy of stories loosely based on the three words comprising the aforementioned French motto.  Appropriately enough, the film titles, in their shortened form, are simply called Blue, White and Red.  (The on-screen titles are each preceded by the word "Tri-color.")  It is no accident that the three colors precisely correspond to the vertical bars of the French flag, seen left-to-right as blue, white and red.

When these movies came out in the United States, I intended to see them, mostly out of a combination of my admiration of the Dickens book and a curiosity over how the famous Kieslowski worked the colors into his themes.  Alas, I never made it to the theater in 1993 in time to see Blue before it disappeared from the Twin Cities, and I was reluctant to view the remaining two films when they were released a year later because I thought -- it turns out mistakenly -- that I needed the background of the first.  (PSA: Although you do not need to see the three films in order, the ending of Red makes more sense if you watch that movie last.)  About ten years ago I almost bought the boxed set of the trilogy, but due to my basic nature of being frugal -- okay, cheap -- I decided against it.  I finally had an opportunity to watch all three films four months ago when they were featured on Turner Classic Movies television.  It was worth the wait.

I also remember that after Red was released in 1994, the local critics declared it to be the best of the trilogy.  On the other hand, national film critic Leonard Maltin, who published his forty-fifth and final annual film guide this year, bestows that distinction on White. Initially, my personal preference was to give the nod to Blue.  Of course, I must confess that I could watch a two hour movie of Juliette Binoche picking flowers in a garden or shopping for floor tile in Menard's, and I would still be inclined to give it two enthusiastic thumbs up (to borrow a phrase from the late Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel).  But after a few doses of honest deliberation, I am forced to declare White the superior film, with Blue coming in second.

In Blue, Binoche stars as Julie, the widow of a world famous music composer who had been commissioned by the European Council to write a major concerto titled Concert For The Unification Of Europe.  The piece was to be played only once, simultaneously by orchestras in twelve European cities.  As the story develops we learn more about the influence Julie had on the composition, working behind the scenes while her husband was hailed as the master.

When she loses her family in a tragic accident, Julie decides to rid herself of almost all of her possessions, including the unfinished concerto score.  She instructs her attorney to sell her villa, and heads for the city with only a small box.  Her ambition is to start a new life by living anonymously and alone.

Will she be able to find liberty from the life she has left behind?  It may not be as easy to do so as one might originally believe.

In White, Zbigniew Zamachowski plays Karol, a Polish hair dresser who marries Dominique (Julie Delpy of the Before Sunrise trilogy), a Parisian who owns a small shop.  The story opens with a short courtroom scene, in which Dominique is telling a French judge that she wants a divorce because Karol can't perform in the boudoir.  Karol still loves Dominique, but due to the language barrier caused by his inability to converse in French, he has little grasp of what the testimony is, and is unable to assert his own position coherently to the judge.  He asks the judge if he is not entitled to a fair trial because he speaks only Polish.  In his mind, the principle of equality of legal rights should not be compromised just because one of the parties does not speak the language of the court, viz., French.

When Karol gets back to Poland, he concocts an ingenious scheme to get back at his ex.  Will it work, or should he have left well enough alone?  By far, this film has the most humor in the trilogy, and has the most "going on" as the story takes place.  Add to the mix that Zamachowski is a brilliant actor, and that explains why I place White as the signature piece of the trio.

In Red, Valentine (Irene Jacob) is a young Swiss fashion model whose picture is splashed on billboards all over Geneva.  She accidentally injures a dog with her car, and meets the mysterious retired judge Joseph Kern (Jean-Louis Trintignant), who is identified on the dog's collar as its owner.  Inside Kern's house, Valentine discovers that he has set up an intricate eavesdropping apparatus which enables him to listen in on his neighbors' telephone conversations.  Despite Kern's position, explained at length, that his practice has merit, Valentine shows her disgust and leaves to take the dog to the veterinarian.  Kern seems disinterested.

Their paths cross again when the dog runs away from Valentine and ends up back at Kern's house.  The two lead characters, who originally could not seem any more disparate, have more conversations.  In a strange way, a fraternity is established, and despite their age differences, what they have to say to each other has an impact on their lives.

Kieslowski co-wrote all three of the scripts.  As a result there are certain common threads throughout, the most obvious being the use of the respective film titles' colors in each picture.  For example, in Blue Julie keeps a blue chandelier after getting rid of all the other items in her villa.  That chandelier appears in several subsequent scenes.  Many of the filmed scenes appear to be shot through a blue filter.  In White, Karol hangs on to a white porcelain bust of a woman's head, which he repairs (and even kisses!).  That bust stays with him, whether in France or Poland.  There are several outdoor scenes with snow, and a few flashbacks to Karol and Dominique's wedding day, obviously having white as the predominant color.  In Red, that color is pervasive throughout; even the dog, Rita, is red.

Each of the three movies contains a "throwaway shot" involving a very old, hunched-over person attempting to insert a bottle into a tall recycling bin.  There are varying degrees to which the main character in each story interacts with the senior citizen.  There is also one scene in each movie where one or more characters from the other two movies make an extremely brief appearance.  Watching the three films in a short span of time will assist you in spotting those moments.

***

I am approximately a month late in posting this Cinema Scan of the movies I've seen on the tube during the third quarter of 2014.  Hopefully my editor won't fire me.

1. And God Created Woman (1956 drama; Bridgette Bardot is a sexy teen foster child, who marries Jean-Louis Trintignant to avoid being sent back to the orphanage, even though she is more smitten with his older brother Christian Marquand.)  B

2. Blue (1993 drama; see the above mini-review.) B+

3. Breakfast Club (1985 dramedy; Emilio Estevez and Molly Ringwald are among five high school students from five different cliques who serve a Saturday morning detention in their school's library.) B+

4. Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid (1969 western; Paul Newman and Robert Redford are humorous train and bank robbers who, with occasional assistance from Katharine Ross, stay on the run to evade capture by the lawmen.) A

5. A Farewell To Arms (1932 war romance; Gary Cooper is an American army lieutenant who secretly marries nurse Helen Hayes in Italy, but World War I doesn't make things easy on them.) C

6. The Fault In Our Stars (2014 romance; Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort are teenage cancer patients who meet in a support group, fall in love and travel to Amsterdam to meet a favorite author.) B+

7. Gallipoli (1981 war drama; Mel Gibson and Mark Lee are young track stars who volunteer to fight for Australia against the Ottoman Turks in World War I.) B+

8. Harper (1966 detective drama; Paul Newman is a slick LA private dick, hired by super rich Lauren Bacall to track down her alcoholic philandering husband.) C

9. Her (2013 drama; Joaquin Phoenix is a nerdy loner who develops a relationship with the woman "inside" his future (?) word operating system.) B-

10. The Lovers (1958 romance; Jeanne Moreau is married to French business owner Alain Cuny, and dallies with handsome polo player Jose Luis de Vilallonga, but when her car breaks down she turns her attention to the motorist who gave her a ride, Jean-Marc Bory.) C

11. Our Man In Havana (1959 comedy; Alec Guiness is a British vacuum cleaner salesman who gets talked into becoming a spy in Havana, where cigar chomping Ernie Kovacs is the chief of police.)  B+

12. Random Harvest (1942 romance; show girl Greer Garson helps Ronald Coleman avoid the authorities as he escapes from an asylum where he was an amnesia patient, but their budding romance is cut short when he's struck by a car and suddenly is able to recall his former life.) B+

13. Red (1994 drama; see the above mini-review.) B

14. Shine A Light (2008 documentary; Martin Scorsese filmed the Rolling Stones performance at New York City's Beacon Theater in the fall of 2006, with Mick Jagger doing almost all the singing, while Keith Richards, Ronnie Wood and Charlie Watts let the great backup singers fill in the accompanying vocals.)  B+

15. Spencer's Mountain (1963 drama; Henry Fonda and Maureen O'Hara raise nine kids on the Grand Tetons, and don't mind being poor until their oldest, James MacArthur, needs money for college.) C

16. Three Days Of The Condor (1975 drama; Robert Redford is an analyst for the CIA who unwittingly uncovers a top secret scheme, then relies on photographer Faye Dunaway to assist him in keeping alive while he gets to the bottom of it.) A-

17. White (1994 dramedy; see the above mini-review.) A-

The MHT 8, Part IV: The Aisle Cloggers

The Ugly stands alone.

We first spotted them in the Tel Aviv terminal late Sunday night, about an hour before we weary travelers were to board our 12:30 a.m. Delta flight to JFK in New York.  Groups of boys, obviously Hasidic Jews, running all over the place, like kids being turned loose at Disneyland.  The main attraction was sprinting the wrong way on the people movers, with occasional spurts into and out of the stores.  They ranged in age from young teens to college age.  Their apparel consisted of knee length bottoned black coats, black top hats, and braids coming way down from their ears where sideburns ought to be.  "I'll bet they are bound for Russia," said Tom Hart, one of the MHT 8.  If only he were right.

Our final day had started early, of course, with the walk down the Via Dolorosa and the visit to the Church Of The Holy Sepulchre, as described in my September 30th second installment of The MHT 8.  We concluded the morning with a thirty minute stop at the Western (aka Wailing) Wall inside the Jewish Quarter of The Old City.  Then, that Sunday afternoon was free, the first mid-day period we had without an organized activity since arriving in the Holy Lands nine days before.  Between our return to the Inbal Hotel and our final group dinner at 6:30, we had a leisurely outdoor lunch at a nearby cafe, visited the famous King David Hotel -- I enjoyed the celebrity signatures on the floor tiles of the main hallway -- packed our bags, and (in Momma Cuan's case) swam in the Inbal pool.

Following dinner, we bade farewell to the ten Magi group members (including Father Joe) who were "extending" to Istanbul the next day, and then boarded the bus for one final ride.   Tel Aviv was a little over an hour away, and by the time we arrived at the airport, all we wanted to do was fall asleep on the plane and wake up twelve hours later at JFK.  To put it mildly, however, things did not go without a hitch.  First there was the fatiguing wait to pass through not only the regular security check point, but also the energy-sapping formality of customs.  Following that ordeal, we still had plenty of time, so most of us gathered near our gate to drain an Israeli beer or two -- Goldstar amber was quite tasty -- and hang out, waiting for the midnight boarding.

It wasn't long after we were seated on the jumbo jet that we realized the Hasidic Jews we'd seen running around the terminal were not going to Russia after all; they were getting on our plane.  A simultaneous surprise was that they were in the company of dozens of male adults of all ages, including sixties and seventies, whom we hadn't spotted in the terminal.  Where were these older folks when the teens were frolicking in the terminal?  On a plane which held close to four hundred passengers, the Hasidic delegation comprised at least two-thirds of it.

What followed was one of the strangest, most surrealistic sights I have ever experienced.  The ultra-orthodox Jews refused to take their seats, and were blocking the aisles.  Small groups would proceed toward the rear of the plane, only to return back up the aisle, against the flow.  Then they would stand there aimlessly.  They placed very large suitcases in the overhead compartments, some of which were too big to allow the shutting of the compartment door.  Then they'd return to the overhead compartment, and open it for purposes of retrieving articles from their carry-ons, or re-adjusting the contents of the compartment.  Whenever they did this, which was often, they would have to lean into whoever the poor soul was sitting in the aisle seat underneath the overhead.  One of them was our fellow pilgrim, Chuck Neerland, who I thought was going to clobber the guy who went to the overhead above Chuck for the fifth or sixth time.  Luckily Chuck thought the better of it, or he may have been escorted off the plane, but I would not have blamed him if he had acted on his impulses.

This mockery of decorum, civility, safety and airline protocol went uninterrupted for over an hour.  There were more people standing than sitting.  The Delta flight attendants were ineffective, flabbergasted and incompetent.  About forty-five minutes into this ridiculousness, the pilot (or copilot) got on the intercom, and asked people to take their assigned seat.  This announcement, which sounded more like a plea than a command, fell on deaf ears.  A few minutes later, two of the officers came out of the cockpit and convened with a small group of Jews halfway down the starboard aisle.  Again, this conference had no effect.  The aisles remained clogged.  Several minutes after that, someone (a flight attendant?) asked over the P.A. if there were people who were willing to trade their seats to accommodate the passengers who did not like the seat to which they were assigned.  (At this point, we had no idea what their beef was.)  I only saw one passenger, who did not appear to be Hasidic, get up to trade seats, and as he was doing so, there was an unfriendly verbal exchange between him and another passenger whom I could not see.

What I could see were many Hasidic "elders" who did absolutely nothing to help resolve the situation, but chose instead to bury their collective noses in their prayer books, oblivious to what was obviously going on all around them and refusing to take any responsibility.  I momentarily thought back to my teaching days, when my eighth graders simply would not have dared to misbehave on any of our several public outings.  They might not have been angels on school premises, but never failed to toe the mark in public.  Yes, it is a different culture now, and we live in a much different era.

Along with the total ineptitude of the Delta flight crew, the biggest surprise to me was that this airplane insubordination would be occurring in Israel, of all places.  If there is one country on the globe known for its tight travel security and enforcement of the rules, it is Israel.  Yet, if the same thing happened on a domestic flight in almost any other country, the perpetrators would have been taken off the plane by a marshall and charged with a crime.  On Flight 469, no police or security officer ever came on the plane.  We did not push off from the gate until 1:10 a.m., an hour and ten minutes after we boarded, and forty minutes after we were scheduled to take off.

So, what was the cause for the ruckus? The MHT 8 found out later that disruption caused by Hasidic Jews failing to take their seats is not an uncommon occurrence.  Their unhappiness stems from their refusal to sit next to a woman, and of course there were many women on the plane.  When I first heard this I was incredulous, but after some research I've learned it's true.  It's hard to believe that a religion teaches that awful practice, but apparently that was one reason why the elders did not admonish their young proteges.  I still wonder why Delta puts up with such foolishness, or if it's even within the rules of accepted international travel regulations.  I still find it hard to believe that airport security never made an appearance.

When all the commotion was going on, I wanted so badly to take a picture to memorialize the sad event.  I did not for two reasons.  First, I was in a window seat, so I would have had to raise my camera quite high to capture a picture over fellow passengers' heads.  Second, the last thing I wanted was to start another brouhaha in the event someone saw me taking pictures and wanted to "make something of it."  In any event, if you care to see pictures of a similar happening which occurred on an El Al flight going from New York to Isreal, check out the following article which appeared last month in the Gothamist: http://gothamist.com/2014/09/26/ultra-orthodox_jews_flight.php.  Finally, I am happy to report that the Hasidics did not accompany us on the final leg to the Twin Cities.  Once they deplaned at JFK, we never saw them again.        

The MHT 8, Part III: Beleaguered In Bethlehem

In the final paragraph of my September 30th second installment of The MHT 8, I promised to share a small sampling of "the bad" and "the ugly" regarding our recent pilgrimage to the Holy Lands.  The good far outnumbered the bad, and accordingly, I have chosen merely three items to describe in that category.  The first two can be classified as annoying; the third was disheartening.  I've decided to save "the ugly" for a subsequent, fourth post.

The Layover. The first irritant of our adventure was the layover in Charles De Gaulle Airport outside of Paris.  After taking off on Friday from MSP at 5:28 p.m. CDT, we had arrived at De Gaulle at 8:06 Saturday morning, Paris time, which was 1:06 a.m. body (Minneapolis) time.  We had been in the air seven hours and thirty-eight minutes.  How would we kill the six hour interval until taking off for Amman later that afternoon?  If the layover was, say, eight or ten hours, we could have taken a train into the city for a couple of hours before returning to the airport.  But six hours?  Too short a time to take a chance on leaving the confines of De Gaulle.  Then, to our collective dismay, the layover was extended from six hours, which was bad enough, to seven and a-half hours.  Sigh.

The pre-trip buzz was that De Gaulle was a good airport for travelers with long layovers, similar to MSP.  I'm not sure who gave us that false hope, but they were dead wrong.  We were stuck in terminal 2E, which seemed to be isolated from the rest of the airport.  This being Saturday morning, the place was almost deserted.  If what you were looking for was perfume, cosmetics or cigarettes, no problem.  There must have been eight stores and kiosks selling those products.  But what we really craved was a comfortable place to sit, preferably inside a bar or restaurant.  We eventually found an area, hidden behind an almost unmarked wall, which functioned as a makeshift bar, selling wrapped day-old sandwiches and bottles of Heineken out of a deli case.  As we sat on hard plastic chairs sipping our brew around tiny tables, we were too tired to go exploring on foot in an effort to discover a passageway to a different, more welcoming section of De Gaulle (if, indeed, there was one to be found).  We also wondered why Magi Travel routed us this way.  Did we save a few bucks by putting up with this interminable layover?  Those were dollars we gladly would have paid for better routing.  We were not happy campers when we eventually boarded the Air France flight to Amman.

The Inbal.  Magi Travel has a reputation for booking its clients in first class hotels. The Crowne Plaza in Amman, during our short single overnight stay, seemed nice enough, and as I wrote in my September 30th post, the Scots Hotel in Tiberius was phenomenal.  Then we spent the final four nights -- five if you count our getaway night -- at the Inbal Hotel in Jerusalem.  While not as posh as the Scots, the Inbal  upheld Magi's reputation, but with one major exception.  The service in and near the bar and commons areas was, for all intents and purposes, non-existent.

Picture a group of twenty-nine people who have been up since dawn and have spent most of their day either on a bus or on foot visiting designated points of interest.  It is now the hour before (or after) dinner, and their fondest desire is to sit down, relax, enjoy each other's company and recount the splendid things they've witnessed while they quaff an adult beverage.  It all sounds good, but soon after the large group congregates a few feet from the hotel bar, they realize that no one is going to take drink orders.  So a few unlucky ones go up to the bar, where they are ignored by the staff.  Finally, when it dawns on the staff that their guests would like to order drinks, they act as if they have never taken a drink order before.  And these are the hotel bartenders!  Then they can't find the correct bottle or a clean glass.  Finally when they attempt to "ring up the order," they can't find the right button on their register's keypad, so they wait for their colleague to finish what she's doing and then ask that person for instruction.  They rarely have change in the cash drawer.  If you didn't really need a drink before you arrived, you certainly did by the time you were eventually handed your glass.

This routine repeated itself every night we were there.  When we congregated in the lounge or on the nearby patio, moving chairs and heavy tables around so we could sit together, no staff member ever came to assist or to serve us.  We were invisible to them, notwithstanding our numbers.  Almost every time we wanted to order something, we had to belly up to the bar and go through the aggravating routine all over again.

When I returned home I did some research regarding the Inbal, and was shocked to find that, on some sites, it is rated a five star hotel.  Apparently those reviewers are teetotalers!

Astonishing Poverty.  I remember reading a Twin Cities Reader (predecessor to City Pages) review of the former restaurant, Aquavit, located years ago on the ground floor of the IDS Building in downtown Minneapolis.  The critic's comment that stayed with me was something like this:  "It is very hard to enjoy your nine dollar dessert at Aquavit when you happen to glance out the window next to your table and see someone shivering in the cold begging for bus money."  More than once on our trip, that recollection came to me.

Our first tour guide was Sammy, a very personable fellow who greeted us at the Amman airport Saturday night, got us to our hotel in time for a late dinner, and then accompanied us on the bus the next morning and afternoon while we visited Mount Nebo and Bethany Beyond The Jordan, where John The Baptist baptized Jesus.  Sammy, a Jordanian, was very proud of his country, and emphasized to us that it's not just Israel (which he often referred to as "the other side") which comprises the Holy Lands.  This was important information, and the more he talked about Jordan's connection to the Bible, the better we could understand why we didn't start the tour in Israel.

Sammy talked almost non-stop, from the time we boarded the bus at the Amman hotel until we re-boarded following the baptism sight.  But then, during the seventy-five minutes or so it took us to drive north to the heavily secured border crossing, he barely said a word.  The reason was evident by observing the crumbling towns we passed through.  What was there to say?  Buildings falling apart, people sitting idly on the edge of the curbless roads, broken and boarded-up windows, stray dogs and cats meandering across the rubble.  The thought occurred to me that Jordan is one of our most important allies in the Middle East, and yet it is clearly a third world country.  One explanation offered by Sammy for the depressing conditions is that, unfortunately, there are no oil deposits under the sands of his country.

Although things did immediately change for the better once we crossed from Jordan into Israel, scenes of abject poverty once again were before us three days later when we entered the occupied West Bank.  I am tempted to use the word "god-forsaken" to describe a large portion of that area.  Miles and miles of endless arid desert, distopian towns where it was hard to find a smiling face, barbed wire fences, guard towers at the corners of long impenetrable walls, garbage in the streets and in the yards, crumbling buildings, falling roofs.  I have been on a number of American Indian reservations, but this was far worse.  Most of all I felt sorry for the kids.  Kicking a soccer ball around on a dirt pitch was the closest thing I saw to happiness.

It is one thing to witness the gloom of the occupied territories through the tour bus window.  It is quite another to encounter it on a personal basis.  This happened a handful of times throughout the week.  We pilgrims would be led into a shop or a restaurant which would be run by Christian friends of our Israeli tour guide, Wally, where we were encouraged to spend our money.  Although there was no real pressure to buy, the atmosphere was such that one felt almost compelled to purchase something, anything, even if for the mere sake of helping the proprietors out.

The most disappointing experience of the entire pilgrimage was witnessing what has become of Bethlehem.  Before our trip, my image of that place conformed to the lyrics of the well-known Christmas carol, O Little Town Of Bethlehem.  The present day city of Bethlehem could not be more opposite.

Forget about pictures of a young couple entering a small village with their donkey, and hoping to find lodging where their child might be born.  Bethlehem today is a large, grimy, bustling city, almost adjacent to Jerusalem.  There is no countryside separating the two cities, no sense of pastoral cleanliness, quaintness or enchanting stargazing.  Those concepts are quickly dispelled when you must pass by a security checkpoint to enter; unlike Jerusalem, Bethlehem is in the West Bank.

Of course the only reason to come to Bethlehem is to visit the Church Of The Blessed Nativity, built over the stable where it's believed Jesus was born.  But our first stop in Bethlehem, once we got past the security gates, was a large gift shop owned and operated by Wally's friends.  All of the men in our group collectively moaned when Wally told us he'd give us an hour -- an hour -- in the store.  That was about fifty minutes longer than any of us needed or wanted.  Upon entering the store, we were immediately handed a medium size basket into which we were supposed to place our selections of statues, crucifixes, jewelry, scarfs, paintings, trinkets, toys, clothing and other assorted items which, had we been in a US shopping mall, we would have ignored without giving it a second thought.  There seemed to be a sales clerk on hand for each one of the twenty-nine of us.  I commented to a friend that it reminded me of my one trip to Nate's Clothing Store in the Minneapolis Warehouse District back in the '80's.  In both instances, the clerks descended upon you as soon as you set foot in the shop, and would not let go of you until you were out the door.  In the Bethlehem store, I ditched my basket as quickly as practically possible, and waited near the door with my other three male counterparts from the MHT 8 while our wives explored the aisles.

Momma Cuandito did end up buying a few items, but the worst was yet to come.  A pack of Palestinian men had gathered outside the store's door, blocking the path to our bus.  They were shoving beads, wood carvings and other religious artifacts in our faces, beseeching us to buy with stories about their families' desperate circumstances.  Our three-word reply, "No thank you," did not work.  A couple of them became belligerent, and I had to wrap my arm around Momma Cuan and get her into the bus.  I used to think the panhandlers on the streets of San Francisco were the most aggressive I'd encountered.  The Palestinians in Bethlehem made those beggars by the bay look meek.  Accosting us on the sidewalk was bad enough.  I don't know what would have happened if they'd climbed aboard the bus.

The MHT 8, Part II: Lasting Impressions

The pilgrimage to the Holy Land, particularly once we crossed from Jordan into Israel on September 14, was in many ways more like a college class than a guided tour.  The usual routine was getting a very early wake-up call, making our way down to breakfast, and boarding the bus before 8:00.  On most days we visited as many as four or five different biblical sights, with a running verbal narrative in advance of, and during, the visits.  There was a lot of information to absorb, and I soon realized any thoughts I had of detailed journaling were strictly idealistic and unfortunately very impractical.  After a few days the recollection of churches, shrines and other holy sights we had visited seemed to meld together in my strained memory.  Good thing I took a lot of pictures to help me reconstruct what was one of the most unique short periods of my life.

I'm thinking of the number "eight" in honor of the eight beatitudes, so here are eight experiences that, notwithstanding the whirlwind pace, have left lasting impressions.

Mount Nebo.  Many of my fellow travelers questioned why we started our adventure in Jordan.  We arrived in the capital, Amman, and went directly from the airport to our hotel, the Crown Plaza, where our first meal together awaited.  We had been on the go since we reported to MSP at 2:30 p.m. CDT on Friday the 12th.  It was now almost twenty-four hours later, 9:30 p.m. Jordan time on Saturday the 13th.  We were grateful that the hotel kept its kitchen open for us.  The late dinner would turn out to be the only time all twenty-nine of us sat at the same table.  The answer to our travel question regarding Jordan became apparent the next morning.

When I was a kid I owned a beautifully illustrated children's bible.  One of my favorite stories was Moses leading the Jews out of Egypt across the Sinai desert.  You probably recall that, according to scripture, God allowed Moses to see the Promised Land from a mountain top, but due to a momentary lapse of judgment in the form of displaying a lack of faith, Moses was not permitted to enter.  The mountain was Mount Nebo.

In my illustrated bible, the Promised Land appeared in the vast distance, perhaps fifteen, twenty or more miles away across sweeping sands.  That is how I've pictured it for almost sixty years.  The first important sight of our Holy Land pilgrimage was the famous Mount Nebo, located about thirty miles south from Jordan's capital, Amman, where we spent our first night.  Looking west from Nebo, we could easily see the shores of the Jordan River, which appeared as a dark green stripe across the brown valley below.  The Jordan forms the boundary between the countries of Jordan and Israel, long-time enemies but, since a 1967 treaty, living in peace as next door neighbors.  The city of Jericho, about eight miles beyond the Jordan, is also visible from the top of Mount Nebo.  This is what Moses saw.

It turns out that the illustrator of my children's bible was a little off.  At most, the Jordan River is three miles from the mountain top, at the bottom of the rise.  Poor Moses!  Did his punishment fit the crime?

Wally, The Scholar.  There were two particular ingredients which were key to making our pilgrimage outstanding, and without which the trip could easily have been viewed as a long grind.  The primary key to the success of the entire venture was in the hands of our fabulous Israeli guide, Waleeb, affectionately called "Wally."  As we traversed the heavily secured Jordan River Crossing into Israel, Wally boarded the bus, introduced himself, and explained that he was more than just a tour guide; he was a scholar.  My immediate thought was that such a proclamation was rather presumptuous, but it did not take me long to come around to agreeing with his self-evaluation.  He wisely set us straight about the different ethnic and religious mixes in the country, placing special emphasis on what constitutes an Arab.  "The word 'Arab' has nothing to do with religion," he said.  "You can have Christian Arabs, Jewish Arabs and Muslim Arabs."  The term "Arab" is more akin to a race of people and the part of the world from which they originated.  Wally said he was a Catholic Arab.

As the week went on it was clear that this man, who attended college at the University of Miami and thereafter lived in the US for several years, was an expert on both the Old Testament and the New Testament, plus the fascinating history of his relatively new (since 1948) country.  Without fail, he had a wealth of information about every one of the many places we visited.  Some of that information would be delivered en route to the destinations, with the rest given on site.  Since the days were long it was important for us to know why a particular stop was included on the itinerary, and then what to watch for once we arrived.  He was the difference between our simply visiting a sight and actually understanding their respective significance.

I was amazed at the planning and coordination of the agenda each day.  No matter where we went, there was only minimal waiting in line.  Father Joe celebrated Mass each day, sometimes outdoors, sometimes on the main altar of famous churches, and other times in small side chapels.  This was all made possible by Wally's impeccable planning.

Throughout it all, Wally maintained a sense of humor, and welcomed questions.  It was apparent to all that he was a former teacher, and that his twenty-seven year career as a Holy Land tour guide was a natural extension of that vocation.  Since he was fighting a cold, sometimes he'd clear his throat without turning off his microphone, causing one of the women to declare with a chuckle that she thought her earphones became wet.  I will always remember how he would conclude many of his mini-lectures with the words, "Thank you very much," sounding (intentionally?) like Elvis Presley.

The Sea Of Galilee.  I must admit that, before I started planning for our trip, the name of the mountain (Nebo) from which Moses viewed the Promised Land had escaped my mind.  Not so the Sea Of Galilee.  When I first saw it out the bus window, a kind of chill came over me.  This is where the apostles fished and where Jesus walked on water.  We were now in the land of the New Testament!

One of the best highlights of the trip was an hour long Monday morning boat ride across the northwestern quarter of the sea.  The boat was called a "Jesus boat" because it resembled the type of boats which plied those waters two thousand years ago.  The "sea" is really a very large lake, approximately thirteen miles long and eight miles wide.  But as Wally explained, the ancient civilizations, lacking a frame of reference, often labeled any large body of water a "sea," and in similar fashion used the term "mountain" to describe what we would presently refer to as a very high hill.  A moving moment occurred a few minutes into the boat ride when the small crew hoisted Old Glory and played a recording of the Star Spangled Banner.  The picture I took of the US flag unfurled at the top of the pole next to Israel's flag is a favorite, although its presence did cause me to comment to a companion that I was glad the bad guys did not have drones like the USAF does.  Otherwise we would have been sitting ducks.

At the northern end of the Sea Of Galilee lie four noteworthy pilgrimage destinations, all of which we visited.  The first stop, the Mount Of The Beatitudes, was my favorite.  Once again, when we walked on the same grounds where Jesus rendered His famous Sermon On The Mount, the reality was gripping.  The atmosphere was serene and it did not take much imagination to picture Christ advising the throngs to live peaceful, merciful lives.

Also on or near the northern shore was the Church Of The Primacy Of Peter, where Father Joe celebrated Mass in a mini-amphitheater, Tabgha, famous for the mosaic of the Loaves and the Fishes, an emblem seen all over the Holy Lands, and Caphernam, the home town of the first pope, St. Peter.  Caphernam brought back memories of our visit to Pompeii, but on a much smaller scale; an archeologist's paradise.

The Scots Hotel.  We stayed three nights in the Scots Hotel in the seaside town of Tiberius.  From the small balcony outside our room, we could see the Sea Of Galilee.  The Scots, which had its origins as a hospital built by Scottish surgeon David Watt Torrance in 1894, is one of the best and most beautiful hotels I've stayed in during any trip.  For breakfast and dinner our travel group feasted on enormous spreads of food displayed on long tables in an area adjacent to the dining room.  Imagine having small -- or for that matter, large -- portions of top grade meat, fresh fish, pasta, cooked vegetables, salads, delicious soup, fruit and scrumptious desserts available at dinner.  The breakfast variety was just as broad, anything you could imagine in whatever amounts your heart desired.

A beautiful swimming pool, accessible via the hotel's private pedestrian bridge, gave some of us respite from the heat.  One floor above the dining area was a boutique bar where we gathered for a happy hour and recounted the days' activities.  Maybe best of all was the terrace on the hotel lawn, overlooking the scenic Sea Of Galilee.  A large group of us enjoyed each other's company there, sipping nightcaps as we gazed out across the glistening waters at the Golan Heights on the opposite shore.  I would not have been disappointed in the least if we could have stayed another night or two at the Scots.

The Garden Of Gethsemane.  On the second-to-last full night of our Holy Lands sojourn, we attended Mass which Father Joe celebrated in the Church Of All Nations, which is adjacent to the Garden Of Gethsemane in Jerusalem.  What followed immediately thereafter was truly unique.  All twenty-nine of us walked outside and silently meditated along the fence of the Garden, each person alone in her thoughts.  (I wish I could report that we actually strolled into the Garden proper, but alas, it apparently was not permitted.)  This was the first and only visit our group would make in the darkness.  The olive trees were softly lit and a moderate breeze made them seem almost animated.  Recollections of younger days, when as a grade schooler my classmates and I recited the Sorrowful Mysteries as we prayed the Rosary, came to me.  The first such mystery, the Agony In The Garden, when Christ asked His Father to "remove the cup from my hands," took on a deeper meaning.  I also thought about all the places we'd been lucky enough to see for the past week.  It was so nice to have the chance to ruminate quietly and without ceremony.  Sometimes it can be hard to find a good time, or any time, to pray.  This was our opportunity.

The Dead Sea.  The shoreline of the Dead Sea is 1,312 feet below sea level, making it the lowest spot on the face of the earth.  The trip there from Jerusalem took us across the deserts, past Bedouin encampments perched on the sandy wastelands.  We ate lunch in Qumran, where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in a series of caves, and spent an hour or so in Jericho, which Wally told us was the oldest city in the world.
 

Joshua fought the Battle of Jericho
And the walls came tumbling down!

From the hills outside of town we could, once again, see the Jordan River and above that, Mount Nebo.

The heat was stifling as we finally made our way down to the nearby Dead Sea.  I brought my bathing suit, but the thought of an uncomfortable ride back to Jerusalem dissuaded me.  Momma Cuan, ever the trooper, was not deterred.  Even if we lived to be a hundred years old, we'd never be back here again, she said, so she was determined to experience the sea.  About a dozen from our group joined her, while the rest of us took pictures and drank cold beer in the shade.  I have to admit, some of the best photos of the hundreds we took are of the "swimmers."  (You don't actually swim in the Dead Sea; you float.  It's impossible to submerge in the thick salt water.)

Fellow Travelers. I wrote above that there were two keys accounting for the ultimate success of our pilgrimage, the first being our guide, Wally.  The other, of course, were the individual travelers comprising the tour group.  If you think that the folks you're traveling with don't have a major impact on your level of enjoyment, think again.  As I noted in Part I, Momma Cuan and I were already comfortably familiar with seven of of the twenty-nine, so our gamble wasn't huge, but by the end of our eleven days together I can report that our circle of friends quadrupled.  We ate three meals a day together, spent hours on the bus as we rode from sight to sight across two countries, took each other's pictures and compared notes and observations as we walked around the various holy places.  What really got the group comfortable with each other aside from the prearranged activities was the opportunity to sit outside and enjoy a few beverages together, a scene repeated on the terrace of the Scots Hotel, at Decks, the seaside bar across the road from the Scots, and on the patio of our Jerusalem hotel, the Inbal.

The Church Of The Holy Sepulchre.  This particular place of worship bore significance for several reasons.  After spending over a week visiting churches, chapels and various holy grounds, the Church Of The Holy Sepulchre would be the final church on our itinerary.  Our visit was preceded by walking as a group along the Via Dolorosa, the actual "way of the cross" which Jesus endured on his way to His crucifixion on Calvary.  The route was not as I'd imagined it, as we made our way through the very narrow congested open air markets of the Old City.  Some, but not all, of the fourteen stations were clearly marked above the cobblestone street.  The bustling crowd and the need for us to stay together to the extent possible -- an unenviable job well done by our Magi travel companion, Ann -- made it tough to think very long about the significance of each station.
 

Once we got inside the church, Wally explained that the interior of the huge structure is compartmentalized into three sections, so that the Roman Catholic, the Greek Orthodox and the Armenians can each have their own space.  Other than the crunch inside the Church Of The Nativity in Bethlehem, this would be the only real waiting-in-line we encountered all week, a fact no doubt attributable to Wally's connections.  Actually, there were two lines inside the church.  The first was to view the sepulchre where Christ's body was taken after being lowered from the cross.  The second line, on an upper level, ostensibly led to the spot where the cross was raised on Calvary.  As was the case with other sites we'd visited, it mattered little whether this was actually the very spot where Jesus died.  Regardless, this was the place determined by archeologists, bible scholars, historians and other experts to be it.
 

Father Joe selected Momma Cuan and two others from the MHT 8, Nancy and Julie, to be the readers at the Mass he celebrated in a side chapel.  He told us that he picked them because, until more modern times, women were prohibited from serving in any capacity at Masses celebrated in this church.  When Mary teared up while doing her reading, it made us think about what happened two thousand years ago along the Via Dolorosa and on Calvary.  Many of our companions, and Father Joe, expressed gratitude to Mary after Mass for showing her emotions, something they too were feeling themselves.
 

***

Almost all of the foregoing Part II could be labeled "The Good."  I am saving Part III for a small sampling of "The Bad" and "The Ugly."  Look for it in a few weeks.