Musical Chairs, Football Style

Everyone is familiar with musical chairs, the game in which contestants walk around a group of chairs until the music stops.  When it does, everyone dashes to plant her posterior extremity on a chair.  Since there is one less chair than the number of participants, the one person left standing is the loser.  For each subsequent round, one chair is removed.  The final round starts with two players fighting over one chair.

As we head into the 2014 college football season, a game of musical chairs awaits at least one of the five so-called power conferences (i.e., the Atlantic Coast Conference, the Southeastern Conference, the Big Ten, the Big 12 and the PAC 12).  That is because, for the first time in NCAA history, there will be a four team tournament at the end of the regular season to determine the national champion.  Five power conferences but only four teams.  Somebody will be left standing on the outside looking in.  I can hear screams of "We was robbed" already, and it's only August.

 

In case you hadn't heard, the BSC (Bowl Championship Series), which had a sixteen year run, no longer exists.  The name was, at best, a misnomer, because the only real function of the BCS was to pick the top two teams to play a single championship game.  No playoff whatsoever.  The algorithms used to determine those two squads was dependent, to a large extent, by several computerized rankings which only the wonks followed with any exactitude. Furthermore, the BCS system was not transparent because, among other things, the polls incorporated into the BCS formula were conducted by anonymous voters with little to no accountability.  In many years, the fans of the team ranked third (or even fourth) in the BCS final pre-bowl ranking argued that their team deserved to be in that title game.

 

Starting this year, all of that is changing.  A select Committee of thirteen people will determine which four teams will play in the semi-finals.  (I use the word "select" loosely here, as Tyrone Willingham, who was fired from his last two head coaching positions in 2004 (Notre Dame) and 2011 (Washington), serves on the Committee.)  The Committee's first ranking of the top twenty-five teams will not be until October 28, after the ninth week of the college season, and then they'll issue subsequent weekly rankings throughout the season.  All the other polls (USA Today, Associated Press, ESPN, etc.) you might see before or after October 28 carry no weight.  Only the Committee's opinion will count for purposes of filling the tournament brackets.  On December 7, 2014 ("Selection Sunday"), the final rankings, including the four national title tournament teams with their respective semi-final pairings, will be announced.

 

In addition to Willingham, the Committee is an amalgamation of former head coaches, assistant coaches, athletic directors, conference commissioners and media members.  I am not sure what credentials Condoleezza Rice brings to the table -- football fan(?) -- but her vote counts the same as Jeff Long, who is the A.D. at the University of Arkansas and is chairman of the Committee.  No one on the Committee has a direct tie to the University of Minnesota and, unfortunately for the Irish, no one besides Willingham has a direct tie to ND.

 

This season, the two semi-final games will be played on January 1, 2015 in the Rose Bowl and the Sugar Bowl.  One of those sites will host the # 1 seed (as determined by the Committee) against the # 4 seed; the other site will feature # 2 vs. # 3.  The Committee will decide which bowl gets which of the two games.  The fact that both semi-finals are being played on New Years Day is cause for celebration.  Under the old BCS system, there was never one day on which so much was at stake.  A lot of fans, including me, felt like the BSC ruined what used to be, perhaps, the greatest sports day of the year, New Years Day.  Now that holiday is back to the preeminence of the pre-BCS era.  

The two semi-final winners from New Years Day will play for the national title on Monday night, January 12, 2015 in the Jerry Dome in Arlington, Texas.  Just like the procedure used for the NFL's Super Bowl, in subsequent years the NCAA title game will be awarded to different cities which will bid for it.  You can be sure that the Twin Cities sports moguls will try to obtain the game for the Vikings stadium at some point.

 

Not only will the Committee choose the four semi-finalists to play in the Rose Bowl and Sugar Bowl, they will also be charged with the responsibility of selecting the combatants for four other bowls which are not semi-final sites.  At least one of those four other bowls (Orange Bowl, Fiesta Bowl, Cotton Bowl and Peach Bowl) will be played on New Years Eve and the rest on New Years Day.  In following years, the two semi-finals will be rotated among all six of those bowl games.

 

Five more things to keep in mind as you play armchair quarterback in front of your TV:

 

1. There is no restriction regarding how many semi-final teams can come from the same conference.  For example, if Alabama and LSU are deemed by the Committee to be two of the top four teams on Selection Sunday, they will both be semi-finalists even though those schools belong to the same conference, the SEC.

 

2. Strength of schedule is going to be more important than ever.  That is one of the key criteria which the Committee is going to consider in their deliberations.  Teams that schedule cream puffs to fill their pre-conference schedule will pay the piper in the end.

 

3. In addition to the schools which belong to the five power conferences named above, Notre Dame and schools from five other conferences (American Athletic Conference, Conference USA, Mid-American Conference, Mountain West Conference and Sun Belt Conference) are also eligible for the four team playoff, and will be included in the Committee's rankings.

4. Transparency is still an issue, just as it was with the BCS protocol.  All of the Committe's votes are to be conducted using a secret ballot.  I can't believe this rule is going to last for long.  Why allow the Committee members to hide behind a veil of anonymity?

 

5. Now that we have gone from no playoff to a four team playoff, you are going to hear a lot about the prospect of expanding the playoff brackets in the future from four to eight teams.  The current contracts with the networks and the bowl committees call for the four team playoff arrangement to last twelve years. Although I think expansion to an eight team playoff will probably happen, I hope it does not.  There is an inverse correlation between the number of teams in the playoffs and the importance of the regular season. With room for only four playoff teams, any more than one loss during the regular season will knock a team out of playoff consideration.  But if the tournament field is enlarged to eight or more teams, each individual regular season game will be rendered less important, because there will be more margin for error in terms of losses.  Retaining the integrity of the regular season should be a paramount goal of the NCAA, regardless of the extra money that could be added to its coffers via playoff expansion.

Movie Review: "Calvary"

"Calvary": B-.  Father James (Brendan Gleeson) is the pastor of a Catholic church in a small seaside village in Northern Ireland.  He is a bear of a man, standing tall with his long graying reddish hair and snowy beard. He is a physical presence as he makes his way around the village, following up on a woman who sports a bruise under her eye (an apparent victim of abuse), consoling a young grieving widow, downing a pint at the local pub, visiting an elderly writer who lives on the outskirts, fly fishing in a local stream, and mixing in with his parishioners in various shops around town.  He is there for whoever needs him.  His life has purpose.  He has the demeanor of a college professor, self assured, steady and reliable.

In the opening scene Father James listens in the confessional, where he can't see what sounds like a young male who has entered the adjoining "box," ostensibly to confess his sins to the priest.  Instead, the man calmly advises Father James that he is going to kill him on the beach the following Sunday, one week away. The man's calm and apparently rational conversational tone makes what he says even more chilling.  He holds no personal grudge against this particular priest.  On the contrary, the troubled man's plan is to right a wrong from the days of his youth by killing a good priest.  He figures that would hurt the Church more than dispatching an evil one.

How does Father James respond?  To an outside observer, the priest's reactions belie the turmoil he must feel within.  He does not jump out of the confessional to confront, or even identify, the purported penitent. He continues with his day and with his week as if he'd never heard the threat.  Other than knowing the potential murderer is a man, we, the viewers, do not know who he is.  In many respects the story plays out like an Agatha Christie novel.  Every time we are introduced to one of the townsfolk, we wonder if he is The One.

One of the film's sidebars is Father James' relationship with his daughter, Fiona (Kelly Reilly).  We find out that James was married before he became a priest, and Fiona was an only child.  After James' wife died, James devoted himself to his new-found vocation, enrolling in a seminary and eventually becoming ordained, whereas he should have placed his priorities with his daughter.  Now that she is an adult, she still loves her father and has (for the most part) forgiven him. Yet, that does not stop Fiona from calling her father out for his past decision when she needed a parent.  The irony is obvious.  The priest is in the business of forgiving people for their sins, yet he is the one who cannot fulfill his vocation without being forgiven by his daughter.

The story is a little one-dimensional.  The days of the week are identified like chapters as we progress toward the potentially fateful Sunday.  The fact that we know the murder is planned for that day takes some of the tension away. If I were the script writer, I probably would have had the would-be murderer in the confessional tell the priest "by the end of the week" instead of "next Sunday."  Keeping the audience more on edge would have been an improvement.

For such a small village, it certainly has its share of kooks.  The chief of police, the butcher, the auto mechanic, the doctor, the neighboring millionaire landowner, even the pub owner; there's something about each of them that is oddly off-base.  Nevertheless, director John Michael McDonagh gives us an excellent portrayal of what life would be like in a remote, non-touristy town on the coast of Northern Ireland.  The story is more a character study of how the priest goes about his business in the face of a death threat than it is a whodunit (or who's gonna do it).  The people of his parish need help, and as their priest he is in a position to help them.  But are his efforts paying off?  As he gets closer to the targeted Sunday, what Father James experiences causes him to at least question his effectiveness.  Kudos to actor Gleeson for his ability to educe the many emotions of a complex man. 

Movie Review: "Get On Up"

"Get On Up": B.  In the late 1960's, there were six days of the year when the city of South Bend was the center of craziness in the Hoosier State.  Those were the  five autumn days when Notre Dame hosted football games, and the day of the annual gig James Brown played in The Bend.  When the Godfather Of Soul hit town, the vibe on Michigan Avenue was electric.  It certainly was not business as usual.  Even though Brown was from Georgia, one would have thought the occasion was the homecoming of a native son.  There is little wonder why Brown made South Bend a regular stop; his fan base there was huge, loyal and rabid.

A common saying in sports is that an athlete "left everything he had on the field."  That description fits Brown's concert performances.  He would be soaked with sweat after the first two numbers, perpetual motion with a beat.  He fed off his audience as much as any entertainer ever has and probably ever will.  He held back nothing, leaving it all on the stage.  That's why he was often referred to as "the hardest working man in show business."

In view of all the foregoing, you can understand why I looked forward to seeing Get On Up, the new Brown biopic.

I'm sure that the two biggest challenges facing director Tate Taylor while planning the movie were, first, finding an actor who had the requisite package of physical energy and stamina plus the acting and vocal chops to portray the emotional singer and dancer; and then, just as importantly, finding a way to film the music so that the movie goers would feel like they were seeing Brown in action live.  Taylor successfully meets those challenges.  Other problems curbed my enthusiasm for the picture, but with respect to those two essential elements, Taylor comes through with flying colors.

First for the good stuff.  Chadwick Boseman is superb in his portrayal of the enigmatic Brown.  The singer could turn on the charm, but within seconds become a jerk, even toward his friends and family.  He slugs his wife for wearing a revealing Santa costume at a Christmas party.  He does not allow anyone to get close to him for long, a characteristic illustrated by his insistence that the members of his band address him as "Mr. Brown."  He thinks nothing of betraying his fellow singers in the Gospel Starlighters, the jail house group which gave him his first break, and the Flames when the music label suggests that he be given separate top billing. (Shades of Diana Ross & The Supremes.)  One of those singers, Bobby Byrd (Nelsan Ellis), unfathomably sticks by Brown, but even he is not exempted from the harsh treatment doled out by the star. Brown attracts women, yet he is clearly a misogynist.  If the film accurately portrays Brown's character, the viewer has to wonder if he suffered from bi-polar disorder or even schizophrenia.  Regardless, Boseman is up to the task of displaying all facets of this talented but troubled singer.

Without question, the best and most enjoyable parts of the movie are the "live show" shots.  I can't think of another film (including documentaries) I've seen in which the moviegoer feels like she's sitting front row center while witnessing an unforgettable concert.  Boseman has all the moves, with his moon walks, twists, hand movements, microphone stand twirling and swaying, always in cadence to his world class backup musicians and always letting loose will full-throated singing. 

Get On Up is not the easiest story line to track.  The time frames of the film's many episodes are randomly sequenced.  One moment we are in present time, then we see James' days as a teenage prisoner, then more present time followed by his pre-teen days when we witness the sorry state of affairs between Brown's parents in their back woods Georgia shack, followed by more present time, etc.  The flashback structure struck me as artificial, not really serving any useful purpose.

Another beef is that the story takes too long to get going.  If director Taylor insisted on eschewing chronological order in unveiling the story arc, he should have opened with one or two of the dazzling performances which we eventually get to experience.  Instead, we are kept waiting, wondering when we are finally going to see what all the commotion was about back in the sixties and seventies.

James Brown was his own man.  Sometimes that worked for him, such as when he insisted that his next album be live instead of a studio record (the former being six times more costly to produce, according to the honchos at his record label), or when he convinces Harlem's Apollo Theater promoter not to cancel his gig immediately following the assassination of Martin Luther King.  But that egotistical trait also got him in major trouble, particularly with the IRS for failure to pay his income taxes.  Brown had many sides, most of which have now been revealed on the silver screen. 

Movie Review: "A Most Wanted Man"

"A Most Wanted Man": B. If it were not for the fact that A Most Wanted Man stars Philip Seymour Hoffman in one of his final roles before his accidental death last February, I may not have chanced viewing the movie.  The film is based on a novel by British spy novelist John le Carre, a writer whose stories I've usually found unfathomable and opaque.  The plot for the new story is, indeed, a tough one to follow at times, but Hoffman is a treat as usual and the other actors follow suit.

The story takes place in Hamburg which, as an introductory on-screen script explains, continues to be considered a hot spot for terror group cells and international intrigue ever since the 9-11 plane highjackings were plotted there.  Hoffman plays Gunther Bachmann, the head of a counter-terrorism group which runs independently from the German government's spy agencies.  There is a difference in philosophies and approaches between Bachmann's desire to be patient in hopes of nabbing the kingpins of the terror groups, versus Dieter Mohr's (Rainer Bock's) M.O. of acting quickly to take the bad guys off the streets, even if by doing so the chances of eventually catching the terrorists' leaders are greatly diminished, if not cancelled. Mohr, the local chief of the German intelligence agency, has a few meetings with Bachmann.  American CIA operative Martha Sullivan (Robin Wright) acts as a consultant.

To whom does the title of the movie refer?  There are a couple of possibilities.  The more logical choice, at least initially, is the Chechen, Issa Karpov (Grigoriy Dobrygin), the very first character to appear on the screen.  He arrives covertly in the dark of night, hidden on one of the dozens of boats landing in Hamburg's busy port.  Before long he comes under the wing of human rights attorney Annabel Richter (Rachel McAdams), who connects him with a Chechen family living in the city squalor.  They give Karpov temporary shelter.  Ostensibly, Karpov has made his way to Hamburg to lay claim to a fortune which his deceased father has stowed in a Hamburg bank administrated by Tommy Brue (the enigmatic Willem Dafoe).

The other possibility is Dr. Faisal Abdullah (Homayoun Ershadi), known to the general public as a philanthropist, but suspected by both Bachmann and Mohr of being a money launderer and an expediter for the channeling of funds to terrorist organizations.  Bachmann considers Abdullah the big fish in the terrorists' network, as opposed to small potatoes Karpov.  Mohr, with a hesitant nod from Sullivan, agrees to sit tight for just three days while Bachmann tries to reel in Abdullah with concrete evidence set up by means of a sting.

It's unclear what Bachmann's official title is or who he's working for.  I assumed at first he was connected with a British spy agency, I guess mostly because of the story's connection to le Carre.  But Bachmann's first name is Gunther, he speaks with a Germanic accent, and neither he nor any of his crackerjack team give any hint of affiliation with the Brits.  Upon further review, it appears Bachmann's operations are financed under the table by the Germans, who would probably disavow any connection if Bachmann or his group did anything illegal.  He is merely tolerated, albeit respected, by Mohr.  Bachmann operates in plain view, yet has his secrets just like Abdullah.

There are two parts of the movie, both involving attorney Richter, in which a character's movement is restrained for a long (too long!) period of time.  One of those occurs when Richter stashes Karpov away in an apartment abandoned by one of her relatives (as if the intelligence agencies would never think to look there).  The other occurs when Bachmann's underlings kidnap Richter off the street and confine her to a holding cell, during which time they attempt to convince her to spill the beans on Karpov's whereabouts. "You're more of a terrorists' social worker than a lawyer," yells Bachmann.  If the director or editor could have found a way to trim those scenes by several minutes, the result would have been a better-paced story.

In order to accept and enjoy the climactic ending, you have to buy into what happens in Brue's bank a little before that.  I did not.  If counter-intelligence drama is one of your favorite genres, or if you can't get enough of Philip Seymour Hoffman, this movie will not disappoint.  Otherwise, you might wait for its arrival at the Hopkins Theater or Netflix.