Movie Review: "Macbeth"

"Macbeth": B.  Here is a piece of advice for those of you planning to see the latest stunning rendition of Macbeth:  Don't go in cold.  Take a couple of hours to read the play first, if you haven't done so already, commit the main characters' names to your memory, and familiarize yourself with the setting and backdrop.  On the other hand, if your ears are finely tuned to the Old English vernacular delivered with a heavy Scottish brogue, then by all means skip my caveat, grab your six dollar box of popcorn and take your seat. 

Macbeth, one of the grimmest of Shakespeare's plays, features a bigger-than-life title character, only capable of being suitably played on film by an extremely small percentage of today's actors.  Thankfully, one in that tiny minority is Michael Fassbender, who hits another home run on the heels of his masterful performance in Steve Jobs (reviewed here on November 12, 2015; B+).  It appears that Fassbender has gone to the head of the class of actors who are cast for roles demanding visceral leaders from whom the viewers are incapable of removing their eyes.  He is a younger -- by thirteen years -- version of Russell Crowe. 

Macbeth is the story of a warrior who is the last remaining hope for Scotland's beloved King Duncan (David Thewlis) to preserve his throne.  The movie begins on the battlefields, where the loyalists, led by Macbeth, engage in hand-to-hand combat with the rebel forces fronted by the traitor Macdonald.  Director Justin Kurzel uniquely stages this combat with a mixture of real-time and super slow motion footage, thus enabling us to see the fury of war and the cruelty of the heartlessly delivered bloodshed.  It is one of the most effective renderings of combat I can remember since the Normandy Beach scene in 1998's Saving Private Ryan.

They say that behind every successful man is a successful woman.  Is it a corollary that behind every devious scheming man is a devious scheming woman?  Since Tom Petters and Deanna Coleman are not available for me to ask, I will take a cue from Shakespeare.  Enter Lady Macbeth (Marion Cotillard).

Macbeth incorrectly calculates that Duncan will reward him by designating Macbeth, the warrior who saved the throne, as Duncan's successor.  What Macbeth overlooks is that Duncan has a son, Malcolm (Jack Reynor), whom Duncan is not willing to demote notwithstanding Macbeth's heroics.  This does not sit well with Macbeth, but it is Lady Macbeth who suggests a nefarious scheme that gets Macbeth what he and his cold-blooded wife covet.  Simply poisoning Duncan's mead won't do; his murder at the hands of Macbeth is about as gruesome as can be.  Unfortunately, acquiring the kingship does not bring peace to either Macbeth or his wife.  They find that their troubles are just beginning.  Before the story is over, several more innocent victims meet their demise under the direction of Macbeth.  This is the quintessential tale of how lust for power can run amuck.

It would have made no sense to pair the mighty Fassbender with anyone but a strong female lead.  The casting of Cotillard, an exotically pretty actress with a mysterious aura, to play Lady Macbeth is a brilliant selection.  We have to believe that, notwithstanding her husband's battlefield bravery and powerful presence, Lady M has the gumption and seductive power to wile her husband toward unspeakable acts.  She is every bit his equal.  Although both guilty of the same crimes, Macbeth and Lady M react in quite different ways.  Fassbender and Cotillard seamlessly and dynamically illustrate how their dark sides overwhelm their characters.

Shakespeare often uses ghosts and spirits in his plays to serve a number of purposes.  They seem to be omnipresent and omniscient.  Sometimes the playwright uses them as vehicles to alert the readers (or theater goers) to plot developments which have occurred offstage.  At other times a spirit and one or more characters may interact in the form of a dream or dialogue to which the other characters are not privy.  Macbeth is no exception.  In this movie, three women become the personification of the famous witches (as they are called in the text of the play), who first prophesy the futures of Macbeth and his fellow general, Banquo (Paddy Considine).  The witches appear in the beginning, middle and end of the story.  You must pay close attention to their lines, especially at the beginning, as they chart the course and in a way explain the behavior of the main characters.

Movie Review: "Everest"

"Everest": B+.  If you've ever had an inclination or an aspiration to become a mountain climber, one viewing of Everest should be enough to disabuse you of that silly notion.  This exciting rendition of the ill-fated assault on the world's highest peak is based on a real life 1996 tragedy which was famously chronicled by Jon Krakauer in his book, Into Thin Air, published in 1997.

Everest expeditions are led by a handful of mountaineering outfitters from around the globe.  There is a delicate balance between these companies, as they are, indeed, competitors, but at the same time there is a certain amount of mandatory cooperation among them.  The optimal time for ascent is early May, due to usually favorable weather conditions.  As was the case in 1996, the climbing "season" might come down to less than one week.   The result is scores of climbers, most of whom have paid more than $60,000 for the privilege, attempting to traverse the same face of the mountain, across the same mostly narrow passageways, simultaneously.  Sometimes those treacherous passageways must be shared by climbers going up with those coming down.

The film follows Rob Hall (Jason Clarke), the leader of Adventure Consultants, one of the several companies offering guided climbing expeditions.  He bids his pretty pregnant wife, Jan (Keira Knightley), goodbye at the Auckland airport.  As he heads down the concourse to catch his flight to Kathmandu, Jan's eyes well up with tears.  Foreshadowing, or just a natural reaction by a young mother-to-be?

The first half of the story, which I found just as interesting as the second, establishes the preparation which the climbers and the guides must undertake before they even get close to the summit.  The frenzied street scenes of Kathmandu are in stark contrast to the tranquility the adventurers hope to find on the mountain.  From there it is on to a base camp, which resembles a refugee tent city with people from dozens of different nations.  Many of the climbers, such as Texan Beck Weathers (Josh Brolin), stroll in like rock stars.  They are experienced mountaineers who give new meaning to the phrase "living on the edge."  A big part of Weathers' personality is bravado.  Maybe that's a necessary component to climbers like him who are willing to risk their lives for a momentary thrill.

The venture includes almost six weeks of getting acclimated to the high altitudes.  In the base camp we meet Scott Fischer (Jake Gyllenhaal), Hall's counterpart as the leader of the rival mountaineering company, Mountain Madness.  Gyllenhaal's portrait of Fischer is what you might expect from a stoner waiting in line for a Grateful Dead concert: totally laid back, in the moment, seemingly oblivious to the impending perils, preserving his strength for the endeavors ahead.  Compared to Hall, Fischer appears almost detached from his responsibilities.  The two men have shared a mountain, this mountain, before.  Deep down these two realize that the other is not the enemy; the true adversary is the mountain itself.  There is some discussion about ropes being in place and oxygen tanks having been abundantly dispatched in more-than-adequate supply.  Fischer is coughing a lot.  Again we wonder, is some or all of this foreshadowing?  Perhaps red herrings?

Even before the groups leave for their final ascent we can feel the external forces which could lead to imprudent decisions.  If climbers with one of the groups successfully reach the summit while those from other groups do not, the public relations wound to those latter groups will be devastating.  For most of the climbers this will be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, either for reasons of health, advancing age or prohibitive costs.  It's now or never.  The presence of Jon Krakauer (Michael Kelly), a widely read writer for Outside magazine, with Hall's group adds another layer of tension.

The second half of the film, in which we go up Everest with the climbers, is an amazing feat of cinematography.  A tip of the hat must go to cinematographer Salvatore Totino.  The adventurers use shaky metal ladders to cross crevices so deep that they appear bottomless.  We simultaneously experience the beauty of "the earth's rooftop" with the hazardous traps the route cruelly entails.  Following many days at base camp, the climbers proceed to four additional camps, each a thousand or more feet higher than the one before.  The expert guides know that time must be spent at each location so that their charges can acclimate to the thinning air.  Oxygen deprivation will not only play tricks on the mind, it can also lead to life-threatening illness such as pulmonary edema.

On the day of the final ascent, when the Adventure Consultants group is awakened with 12:30 a.m. reveille, Hall announces more than once that their "turnaround time" (i.e., the time by which those who've managed to conquer the summit must begin their descent) can be no later than 2:00 p.m.  As soon as the words are out of his mouth we know that deadline will not be met.  What we don't know, unless we've read Krakauer's book, are the consequences of failing to do so.  The most prophetic line in the story is recited by someone at base camp.  "The mountain makes its own weather."

Unfortunately, choppy editing constitutes one of the most irksome defects of the movie.  We see a climber in a certain position on the mountain, and a moment later he is nowhere near the original spot.  This wouldn't be so bad if we could more easily differentiate among the multitude of climbers who look more or less the same with similar mountaineering apparel, fogged up goggles, hoods and scarves, and plenty of facial hair.  I suppose it would have been asking too much of director Baltasar Kormakur to require his cast to wear name tags.

Same Sport But Different Games

Last weekend marked the end of the regular college football season.  We are now on to the bowl games, forty of them to be exact.  That is about thirty too many, but like a fool I will probably watch at least portions of most of them.  That's what ESPN is counting on, right?  That network, together with their business affiliate ABC, will televise all but three of those games.  There are one hundred twenty-eight FBS (Division 1 Football Bowl Subdivision) programs, meaning that 62.5% of them will fill one of the eighty bowl team slots.  You have to be pretty mediocre -- or worse -- not to be a bowl game participant.  In fact, three teams with below .500 records (including the 5-7 Gophers) will play in a bowl because the NCAA was forced into making an exception to their rule of a team needing at least six wins to become bowl-eligible; otherwise they would not have had enough teams to fill up those eighty slots.

I personally enjoy the college game more than the pros -- most Notre Dame fans do -- but I have to admit that the more rigorous requirement for NFL teams to make the playoffs is a better system.  Out of the thirty-two NFL teams, only a dozen of them (37.5%) qualify for the playoffs.  That's one of several reasons the NFL has taken over as America's favorite sport.  (Yes, as a baseball fan, it's hard to believe I just wrote that sentence.)  One could argue that because it's relatively hard for a pro football team to make the playoffs, the importance of each regular season game is magnified.  Teams can rarely afford, say, a three game losing streak.  Plus, a team's won-loss record impacts whether they will get to play at home if they do make the playoffs.  You will seldom see a below average team in the NFL playoffs, and almost never see such a team playing at home in the post season.

What about the on-field games themselves?  Even though the NFL has a better playoff qualification format than the NCAA has for bowl games, which product is preferable from a fan's viewpoint?  Sure, you will find more elite athletes and excellent football players on a typical pro team than you will on a college team.  But that does not necessarily mean that the pros have a more entertaining game.  Let's look at seven rules differences between the college game and the pros which directly impact how the game is played and the level of fans' enjoyment of the sport.

1. Sideline Pass Receptions.  In the college game, a receiver (or an interceptor) has to get one foot in-bounds after he has control of a pass before he steps out of bounds.  If he fails to get at least one foot down in-bounds, the pass is ruled incomplete.  In the pro game, a receiver (or interceptor) must get both of his feet down in-bounds in order for the pass to be ruled complete (or intercepted, as the case may be).  Consequently, it's much tougher for a pro quarterback to complete a sidelines pass than it is for his college counterpart.  The Edge: I like the college rule better, as it results in more big pass plays, which in turn make the game more exciting.  I am surprised the NFL does not adapt the college rule, since almost all the rules which have been put on the books recently favor the offense.  As the saying goes, "Defense might win championships, but offense puts fannies in the seats."

2. Down By Contact.  In college football, a ball carrier is deemed down, and the play whistled dead, as soon as his knee, elbow, butt or any other part of his torso touches the ground, even if he slips on lose turf or trips over his own shoelace.  In pro football, a ball carrier is not deemed down unless contact with an opposing player occurs in the process of his going down, or if an opposing player touches the downed ball carrier before he can get up off the ground.  This rule gains importance in inclement weather or with poor field conditions.  The Edge:  I prefer the pro rule, although it could lead to more injuries.  For example, if a ball carrier is down, but not by contact, he might get reamed by a defender before he can rise.  Good sportsmanship and the threat of unnecessary roughness penalties mitigate the concern.

3. PATs.  Until this year, the college rules and pro rules regarding PATs (point after touchdown kicks) were the same.  The ball was placed on the two yard line.  Since the holder on a PAT puts the ball down seven yards behind the line of scrimmage, and because the goal post is ten yards beyond the goal line, the distance of a PAT when the line of scrimmage is the two is nineteen yards (2 + 7 + 10).  During the past offseason, however, the NFL Rules Committee decided that PATs were boring because they were almost never missed.  Every NFL kicker can kick a nineteen yard PAT or field goal in his sleep.  Therefore, to spice up the game and create more fan interest, the Committee moved the line of scrimmage for PATs from the two yard line to the fifteen yard line.  That makes PAT kicks thirty-two yards (15 + 7 + 10) instead of just nineteen.  The Edge:  Being a traditionalist, I was originally against the NFL rule change.  Too gimmicky, and NFL kickers should be able to handle a thirty-two yard kick with ease.  However, what we have learned in the first three-quarters of the season is that the longer PATs are not the gimmes that we thought they'd be.  Maybe the kickers are over-thinking it.  Anyway, I'm coming around to liking the change.  By the way, there are no rumors regarding the college rule makers following suit.  They still put the ball down on the two for PATs.

4. Hash Marks Width.  This is a subtle difference which isn't always apparent to TV viewers but is easily ascertained in person.  In college football, the hash marks are set wide apart; forty feet, to be exact.  The NFL used to have the same width, but in 1972 they narrowed the gap from forty feet to just eighteen and a-half feet, matching the width of the goal posts.  What are the ramifications of wide vs. narrow hash marks?  There is an old saying in football that the sideline is like an extra defender.  In college, when the ball is placed on a hash mark, you have a "wide side" of the field and a "short side."  A defense will position more players on the wide side because, as just noted, the sidelines act like a twelfth defender.  Some teams always have one of their cornerbacks (the better one) assigned to the wide side (the "field corner"), and the other CB assigned to the short side (the "border corner").  The offense, realizing that there are more defenders to the wide side, might position more of its players to the wide side to counter-act the defensive alignment.  It may run more plays to the wide side to give the ball carrier additional space to run laterally before heading upfield.  On the other hand, the offense might attempt to take the defense by surprise by running a play to the short side.  It is a cat and mouse game between the offensive coordinator and the defensive coordinator.  This additional element of strategy makes for a more interesting game versus the bland setup in the NFL where the narrow hash marks mean that there is no appreciable difference between the wide and short sides of the field; the ball is close to the middle, width-wise.  The other obvious difference is in the kicking game.  The NFL's narrower hash marks make it easier for a place kicker to line up his kick.  A college kicker facing the wider hash marks has to deal with severe angles, which get more acute the closer you get to the goalposts.  The Edge:  This is analogous to the old baseball debate about American League (designated hitter) rules versus National League (no designated hitter) rules.  Just like National League managers have to employ more strategy, so do the college coaches.  The distance from the pre-snap placement of the football to the sidelines is an extra variable which the pro coaches don't typically have on their plate.  If you enjoy more strategy, the college hash mark rule is for you.

 

5. The Clock.  College and professional football games all last through sixty minutes of running time, and in both cases, each team is provided with three charged timeouts per half.  But there are two major differences between the college and pro games concerning how and when the clock is stopped.  The most obvious difference is the presence of the Two Minute Warning in the NFL during each half.  Hooray for the NCAA for not falling victim to that shameless excuse to subject the television viewers to three or four more minutes of commercials in a game that already lasts too long!  Are we to believe that when the New England Patriots have the ball, quarterback Tom Brady, whose salary cap compensation this season is $13 million, does not know when there are two minutes left in the half?  The other major clock rules difference is the NCAA's momentary stoppage of the clock following a first down to enable the officials to "move the chains."  In the NFL, the clock keeps ticking while the chain gang does their thing.  The Edge:  I'm calling this one a tie.  I would like the Two Minute Warnings employed by the NFL to cease and desist -- I know that will never happen -- but I prefer the NFL method of not stopping the clock after first downs to move the chains.  Stopping the clock for such purpose, even if only for a matter of a few seconds, invites opportunity for foul play on the part of the timer.  Keeping the clock running is more transparent.

 

6. Defensive Pass Interference.  This is one of the most controversial subjects in the pro game, due to the severity of the penalty.  In the NFL, defensive pass interference (DPI) is a "spot foul," meaning that the ball will be placed for the next snap at the spot of the foul.  If the DPI occurs fifty yards down field from the line of scrimmage, the result is a fifty yard penalty.  (If the infraction happens in the end zone, the ball is placed on the one yard line.)  When you take into consideration that at least a fourth of the DPI calls are disputed, and are subject to human interpretation if not human error, the penalty is way too stiff.  In the college game, the penalty for DPI is fifteen yards from the previous line of scrimmage.  The Edge: The college rule is much more realistic and consistent.  The defense is still severely penalized, but the call is not a game changer as much as it is in the NFL.

 

7.  Overtime.  I have saved the category for which there should be the clearest preference for one set of rules.  In college, if a game goes into overtime, each team is guaranteed at least one possession, starting at the opponent's twenty-five yard line.  The offense retains the ball until it scores, turns the ball over, runs out of downs or misses a field goal attempt.  If the score is still tied after one overtime, another overtime period is played, and so on until one team ends an overtime period with more points than its opponent.  In the NFL, the overtime period is played more or less like a fifth quarter, which starts with a kickoff.  It is sudden death (i.e., whoever scores first wins), with one key exception:  If the team receiving the overtime kickoff scores a touchdown (or the defense scores a safety) on the initial overtime possession, the game ends at that point.  The Edge:  The NFL overtime rules are, by far, superior to the NCAA rules.  The college rules for overtime are analogous to the National Hockey League's three-on-three overtime rules, because the way the game is played during overtime employing those rules is vastly different from the way it's played during regulation.  In other words, it's artificial and gimmicky.  (There's that word again.)  Additionally, the team winning the college overtime coin flip will assuredly choose to play defense last, so that it knows what it needs to do (TD or field goal) when they get the ball.  The outcome of a football game should not be so dependent on who wins the coin flip.  In the NFL, it's obviously better to win the coin flip than to lose it, but losing it does not put your team up against the wall immediately.  In fact, Vikings head coach Mike Zimmer won an overtime coin flip against the Rams last month and chose to play defense (with the wind at The Purple's backs) first.  Just make sure your opponent does not score an opening drive TD, and you have an even chance of winning the game.

Movie Review: "Spotlight"

"Spotlight": B+.  There are certain categories of movies to which I am almost involuntarily drawn.  For example, I find myself making an extra effort to watch Alfred Hitchcock mysteries, Gary Cooper westerns, Woody Allen comedies and Diane Lane anythings.  Films showing behind-the-scenes newspaper operations usually fascinate me as well, and are therefore also on the list.  Spotlight does that genre proud, following the four-person investigative arm of the Boston Globe as it relentlessly tracks down and exposes the perverted crimes of the Catholic Church's Boston archdiocese.

Veteran journalist Robby Robinson (Michael Keaton) is the Spotlight group's hands-on leader, but he equally shares the grunt work with the other team members, including Michael Rezendes (Mark Ruffalo) and Sacha Pfeiffer (Rachel McAdams, sans makeup).  Spotlight had been working on a big police corruption story, but when new Globe editor-in-chief Marty Baron (Live Schreiber) arrives on the scene from Miami, he soon has the quartet shifting gears to probe some puzzling circumstances surrounding claims of priest pedophilia from decades ago.

 

The biggest hurdle standing in the way of the journalists' quest for the truth is not the lapse of time between the alleged acts and the present day.  Instead, it is the reluctance, followed by the resistance, of people directly or indirectly associated with the Catholic Church to cooperate with the Spotlight investigation.  Included among that group of people are some of the directors of Catholic Charities, who feel that any expose of church misconduct will undermine the nonprofit's philanthropic mission.  Potential witnesses, particularly older folks, refuse to provide information because of their misguided allegiance to the Church, which plays an important role in their lives.  Still other obfuscators are attorneys who hide behind attorney-client privilege or obscure privacy laws, and relatives of the suspected priests, hoping to let sleeping dogs lie.

 

Nevertheless, the Spotlight team is a band of intrepid investigators who, perhaps at the risk of their own career suicide if not their physical well-being, are not afraid to keep digging.  They realize they are taking on one of the most powerful institutions in the city, if not the entire country.  They pursue leads and cleverly connect seemingly unrelated evidentiary nuggets of information.  When they reach the point where they realize that the highest levels of the archdiocese are complicit in the crimes, the tension mounts.  Adding to the drama is the slowly unfolding realization that someone on the Globe staff itself may have buried leads to which concerned readers alerted them years before.

 

Two of the Spotlighters, Robinson and Rezendes, are native Bostonians.  People they've known all of their lives strongly urge them to quit their attempt to resurrect the cold cases.  Friendships and long-standing business relationships are threatened.  Some opine that it is the outsider, new editor-in-chief Baron, who is stirring the pot, not being appreciative of "all the Church has done for the city."

 

Keaton is convincing as group leader Robinson, a veteran newsman who doesn't let one dead end or uncooperative source dissuade him from carrying on.  He is dogged and feisty, and fits my stereotyped notion of a brash Bostonian.  Schreiber as top man Baron plays it straight, reminding me of a younger Harrison Ford.  He balances being the man with the veto power with simultaneously being the new kid on the block, listening carefully to the input of his subordinates before making decisions with historic consequences.  Most of the good lines go to Ruffalo's Rezendes, particularly when he wants the Spotlight team's discoveries to go to print immediately against the wishes of his boss, Robinson.  Stanley Tucci lends strong support as Mitchell Garabedian, a stressed out lawyer who represents many of the victims who, in their youth, were abused by priests and have psychologically suffered ever since.

 

People who live in the Twin Cities are quite familiar with this shameful black mark on the Church.  In fact it seems every year we learn of more diocese across the US where the transferring of pedophile priests from one parish to another was commonplace.  Were it not for the courageous investigations by the Boston Globe, followed by other media organizations, it's likely this sick practice would have been even more rampant.

Movie Review: "Welcome To Leith"

"Welcome To Leith": B-.  Every state has dots on the map which call themselves towns, but North Dakota has more than its share.  Leith, a one-horse, no stoplight village alone on the prairies of southwestern Nodak, is one of them.  The official 2010 census lists the population at sixteen, although at the time Welcome To Leith was filmed three years later, the townsfolk claimed "twenty-four, including children."  It was the twenty-fifth resident, Craig Cobb, who caused all the commotion, leading documentarians Michael Beach Nichols and Christopher Walker to begin their project.

People who live in towns like Leith are a fascinating lot.  They cherish their independence and value their privacy.  They do not rely on the government to support the hardscrabble way of life they have chosen.  They see and fully appreciate the stark beauty of the windswept land, with all the sights and sounds that nature provides.  Those things are trade-offs which they gladly accept at a cost of not being afforded the conveniences and amenities of city life.  Small towns on the plains have inhabitants who typically mind their own business, yet pitch in when a neighbor needs help.  One might say the residents are simultaneously tight-knit yet loose-knit vis-a-vis each other.

When the bespectacled Cobb quietly arrived in August 2013, he was noticed immediately.  Not that many strangers found their way into Leith, and Cobb's wild long gray hair, cane and long sleeve white shirt caused him to stand out.  Most of Leith's denizens took him for a laborer employed by the burgeoning Bakken Oil companies an hour away.  One woman's initial thought was to tip off her mother that she should check out the new guy as a potential romantic interest.  Little did they know that this lanky sixty-one year old man was a white supremacist with a plot to turn their little burg into a neo-Nazi haven.  Ironically, Cobb's plan was to accomplish all this legally.  When he made his first purchase of a ramshackle Leith house, his neighbors were unaware that said acquisition was merely the first step in his quest to move his fellow hate-filled sympathizers into home ownership there.  If he and his clan could get to the point where they'd constitute a majority in Leith, they would be able to pass laws favorable to their warped point of view, thus affording them the ability to operate with impunity.

The film does not explicitly connect the dots as to how the townsfolk uncovered Cobb's Aryan Nation plot.  Perhaps it was the arrival of offbeat characters like Kynan Dutton with Hitleresque mustaches, bald heads and rifles.  Maybe it was their women, who gave the appearance of having just arrived from a Sturgis bike rally.  Most probably, the biggest clue was the assortment of flags, each representing a "formerly all-white nation," displayed on Cobb's property.  The Leith people were smart enough to enlist the help of the Grant County Sheriff's office as soon as Cobb's scheme came to light.

From that point, Welcome To Leith chronicles the strategy employed by the townsfolk to keep Cobb and his cronies at bay.  The cameras take us into the homes of a couple of long-time Leith citizens.  We witness kitchen table interviews, town hall meetings and informal barroom conversations in nearby New Leipzig.  Nichols and Walker attempt to balance the footage by interviewing Cobb and a few skinheads, who are surprisingly willing to grant the filmmakers access. Cobb and company are not really given equal time in the film, but we get where they're coming from without the point being belabored.

The biggest hurdle for the people of the town matches the biggest problem with the film.  When the actions of Cobb and his followers are scrutinized from a legal perspective, it is hard to find any words or actions which are prohibited by law.  There is no law against flying a controversial flag, bearing an unchambered gun or spewing hate (unless it incites a riot).  Generally, the Constitution allows nincompoops to do their thing, as long as their behavior does not directly harm another.  No punches are thrown and no shots are fired.  No threats of physical harm are uttered, although Cobb does make the mistake of challenging a man to a fight.  Nothing is stolen or vandalized.  Cobb's mind is warped, but you have to give the devil his due; arguably he's smart enough to stay within the bounds of the law.  I wrote "arguably" because there is a point where Cobb is incarcerated -- a result of ineffective counsel, I'd guess -- but the film does a poor job of showing us why.  Perhaps the County Sheriff, who is not a lawyer, does not realize the weaknesses in the prosecution's case (he appears uncertain what to do), but the State's Attorney does.    

Welcome To Leith is fascinating, depressing and scary.  Fascinating for what it might be like to live in a tiny place forgotten by all but a handful of people.  Depressing to realize that, as is the case for all documentaries, these are real people, not actors, we are seeing.  The mindset of the neo-Nazis who invade Leith is so misguided that it's hard to believe they are Americans.  Scary, because we wonder what the future will bring for our country, a country which desperately needs unity, when there are radical thinkers living on the edge of society.  A powder keg ready to explode?

Movie Review: "Steve Jobs"

"Steve Jobs": B+.  Title character Steve Jobs, as played by superior actor Michael Fassbender, has to be the worst boss to appear on the silver screen since 2006 when Meryl Streep's Miranda Priestly gnashed her teeth in The Devil Wears Prada.    In a telling dialogue between Jobs, the co-founder of Apple, and a former subordinate, Jobs states that "a musician plays his instrument, whereas a conductor plays the orchestra."  Jobs sees himself as the conductor of various almost inanimate fungible minions who, were it not for his cerebral majesty, would be making widgets in a factory.

In the opening "long take" Jobs derides senior engineer Andy Hertzfeld (Michael Stuhlbarg) forty minutes before the 1984 product launch of the Macintosh computer because the engineer informs Jobs that it will be impossible to enable the Mac to say "Hello" for the demonstration.  The planned showcase will be attended by a few thousand industry insiders and media members.  Pointing out to Hertzfeld that he had three days to iron out the glitches, Jobs screams, "It only took six days to create the entire universe."

 

Hertzfeld's reply: "You'll have to tell us how you did it!"

 

In the same scene, Jobs is visited by a former girlfriend, Crisann Brennan (Katherine Waterston), who alleges -- not for the first time -- that he is the father of Lisa, the darling five year old girl accompanying her.  Up to this point Jobs has vehemently denied his paternity, producing statistical data (the source of which is never explained) to support his claim that 28% of the US male population could possibly be the father.  When Brennan informs him that she is now on welfare without a place to live, Jobs turns a cold shoulder.  He eventually agrees to buy her a house, but he makes sure she cries and demeans herself first.

 

Jobs is heartless and relentless, to go along with his other dubious qualities of being bombastic and narcissistic.  On more than one occasion, including the Mac product launch, he refuses the entreaties of fellow Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak (Seth Rogen) to give brief recognition to the contributions of the team that had helped make the Apple II a success.  Wozniak points out, correctly, that it was the Apple II product which paid the bills of the company over a period of seven years during which Jobs was experimenting with newer state-of-the-art designs, some of which failed.  The ungrateful Jobs offhandedly dismisses such a notion, patronizing Wozniak with the rationale that Apple II is now ancient history and would be out-of-place in a marketing campaign trumpeting Apple's future.

 

Other than Lisa, for whom Jobs slowly develops acceptance, Apple executive Joanna Hoffman (Kate Winslet) is the only person Jobs treats decently more often than not.  She is with him on-screen during most of his rants, fully aware of his typically abhorrent behavior.  Still, she puts up with him, describing herself as his "office wife" for better or worse.  Her thick skin sustains her.  To the extent Jobs remains grounded, thanks go to Hoffman.  If she walked out the door, Jobs would act even more erratically.

 

Winslet is superb as Jobs' confidant, aware of her bounds but unafraid to call out Jobs to his face when he deserves to be (which is often).  Rogen, known mainly as a comedic actor and writer, is solid as the unappreciated Wozniak.  Versatile actor Jeff Daniels, who has taken on roles running the gamut from comedy to high drama, is perfect as John Sculley, the CEO of Apple who over the years seemed to have a love/hate relationship with Jobs.  Fassbender meets the challenge of playing the larger-than-life leading man.  He commands each scene.  We wonder, how could such an unstable volcanic personality like Jobs be a multi-billionaire running an enormously complex business?  If the real Steve Jobs' presence was similar to actor Fassbenders', by virtue of watching the film we get it.  Incidentally, the resemblance between Fassbender and Jobs in his middle-age is striking.

 

A better familiarity with Apple's history and computer gizmos in general would have been beneficial to me as far as supplying context to the unfolding story.  The more you know going in, the better the chances of reaping the most value from watching the movie.  But even without much background, one can still appreciate witnessing the destruction and sporadic rebuilding of the human relationships between Jobs and the people in his life.

Movie Review: "Bridge Of Spies"

"Bridge Of Spies": A-.  As the title indicates, Steven Spielberg's newest heavily promoted film, Bridge Of Spies, is billed as an espionage thriller.  There is also a healthy dose of legal drama, as Tom Hanks plays an insurance attorney in a high brow Brooklyn law firm which is asked by the US Department Of Justice to defend a suspected Soviet spy.  At its core, however, the movie is more a study of negotiating gymnastics between Hanks and two of America's Cold War enemies, the Russians and the East Germans.  A subtitle for the film might read, "Negotiating 101."  The primary lesson: If you are able to assess the strengths and weaknesses of your rival, what's really important to them and what is merely window dressing, and what deadlines are in play, you will be advantageously situated at the bargaining table.

Hanks' character, Tom Donovan, is a named partner in the mid-size firm headed by Alan Alda's character, Thomas Watters.  The client is Rudolph Abel (Mark Rylance), an older man who keeps busy painting in between his spying assignments.  We know from the outset that Abel is guilty because we observe him covertly removing secret messages hidden underneath a New York City park bench.  When the FBI descends on his apartment, he manages to destroy incriminating evidence right under their noses as the feds are tearing apart the furnishings looking for hidden files, wires, micro-cameras, listening devices and other tools of the trade which a spy might possess.

Although Donovan is initially reluctant to take the case, once he does sign on he devotes relentless energy to the task.  The jailhouse scenes in which Donovan and Abel feel each other out and eventually establish a rapport are brilliantly written and acted.  Notwithstanding the fact that he is being charged with what could become a capital crime, Abel seems disinterested.  But, the wheels are ever-turning in his mind.  When Donovan insists on impressing upon him the severity of the government's criminal charges, Abel's reply is, "If I worried would that help?"

Meanwhile, there are two other cases of alleged spying taking place which will impact Donovan's handling of Abel's predicament.  First and most famously, US airman Francis Gary Powers (Austin Stowell) is shot down over Russia while flying a U-2 spy plane.  The Russians gleefully show the world that they are the victims of American aggression, as they parade the captured Powers in front of their news cameras and show his downed plane with a multitude of high-powered lenses attached to its wings.  The U-2 spy plane incident is arguably the most famous propaganda event in the history of the Cold War.  Secondly and much more under the radar, an American college student, Frederic Pryor (Will Rogers), has the bad luck of being caught on the East Berlin side of the city visiting his girl friend just as the final blocks of the Berlin Wall are being set into place.  When he makes a futile attempt to return to his West Berlin quarters, the Stassi arrest him as a spy.

 

Legally, Donovan faces an uphill struggle defending Abel.  The US district court judge is clearly biased against the defendant, and even Watters and the firm's other partners turn against Donovan when he decides to appeal the guilty verdict everyone knew was coming.  Donovan, with his picture splattered all over the New York papers, is given the evil eye by his fellow subway riders on his way to and from work.  How could a patriotic American defend a Russian spy?  The subway scene, with a clever ironic twist, is reprised at the movie's conclusion. 

 

Bridge Of Spies' two best attributes are the exceptional story-telling combination of director Spielberg with co-writers Matt Charman and the Coen brothers (Ethan and Joel), plus the performances by the two leading actors, Hanks and especially Rylance.  Rylance, whom the website IMDb labels as being "widely regarded as the greatest stage actor of his generation," has the uncanny ability to make us, the movie audience, root for his character as he and Donovan encounter a corrupt court system and public scorn.  The dynamic in the relationship between Donovan and Abel, first arm's length attorney-client but eventually one of mutual respect if not friendship, is convincing and key to the plot development.  Also of note are the scenes showing the selection and training of the men, including Powers, who would pilot the American spy planes.  Their instructions in the event of anti-aircraft explosions were twofold: don't let the Ruskies get their hands on the plane, and bite the "poison pill" if you are about to be captured behind enemy lines.

 

The film's weaknesses pertain to its shortcomings as a courtroom drama and a spy thriller; it is neither.  (Granted, it's possible that was not the movie-makers' intention, but then why advertise it as such?)  The trial scenes contain no sharp cross-examination, no strong opening or closing statements, and no surprise witnesses, all staples of the genre.  The ex-parte visit by Donovan to the judge's home is simply laughable, and surely not written by anyone who checked with legal counsel for accuracy.  Likewise, as a spy yarn there is no threat of imminent death for Powers the prisoner, and his captors take it relatively easy on him.  The story is more about Donovan's negotiating ploys.  He is a master at assessing the ever-changing political landscape, and not settling for anything less than the best possible outcome.  If you enjoy the art of deal-making, you will walk out of the theater quite satisfied.             

Friendly Confines?

Being a Cubs fan is like the guy who's been divorced six times and still believes in love.
- Scott Turow, Author and Cubs fan

Although the Milwaukee Braves were my team, I have followed the Chicago Cubs ever since The Marquis took me to my first MLB game, Cubs vs. Braves, at Wrigley Field in 1956.  Shortstop Ernie Banks, "Mr. Cub," was the star player.  Pitcher Bob Rush, who won only thirteen games that year, was their "ace."  As a Braves fan I did not really have a favorite Cubs player, but my mother and sister liked first baseman Dee Fondy, maybe because of his cool name.  That team also featured the worst defensive catcher who ever made it to the Bigs, Harry Chiti.  The Marquis used to say that Chiti couldn't catch a belt-high change up. 

All of the Cubs' home games, and those of their cross-town rivals, the White Sox, were televised on WGN.  Jack Brickhouse handled play-by-play duties.  (He had the same job on the Bears' radio broadcasts, thus making him the one guy in all of Chicagoland whose career everybody wanted.) Jack and his partner, Vince Lloyd, were shameless homers.  They were especially adept at encouraging their viewers to come out to "beautiful Wrigley Field."  I don't recall them ever referring to Wrigley Field without that adjective, "beautiful," preceding it.  All of the Cubs games were in the afternoon, and Ladies Day, which occurred every Thursday, was always heavily promoted.  A perfect way to spend the day was to visit what was universally known as "the friendly confines of Wrigley Field."  Even to this day, if you ask most baseball fans, "What are the 'the Friendly Confines'?" they will know; it's the ancient revered park on Clark and Addison, the pride of the North Side.

The irony of the term "Friendly Confines" was brought into focus on the evening of October 14, 2003.  It was The Bartman Game, Wrigley's darkest moment.  Today is the twelfth anniversary of that infamous event.

To fully understand the incidents that transpired during the Bartman Game, one has to appreciate the dismal team history of the Cubs.  Even their most ardent fans tend to label them as "lovable losers," and for good reason.  Do you remember when the Boston Red Sox won the World Series in 2004?  The Red Sox fans were ecstatic, and rightfully so, as the franchise had gone eighty-six years, from 1918, since their last world championship.  The Cubs fans have waited even longer, since 1908, for theirs.  In 2003, only those Cubs fans older than age ninety-five had experienced a Cubs championship in their lifetimes.  My grandfather used to opine that the Cubs liked to "stay in the cellar where it was nice and cool."  Cubs fans usually figure that, even when their team has a late inning lead, they will find a way to lose.

Following their championship season in 1908, the Cubbies made it to the World Series a total of seven times, the most recent one being 1945 (the final year of World War II).  They managed to lose each and every one of those series to the American League pennant winner.  In the post-war era leading up to 2003, the North Siders had qualified for the National League playoffs only three times. That's three times in a span of fifty-seven years!

In 2003, the Cubs won the NL Central by a game over the Houston Astros, and knocked off the Atlanta Braves in a best-of-five NL Division Series (NLDS).  That set up a NL Championship Series (NLCS) with the Florida Marlins, who had upset the favored San Francisco Giants in the other NLDS.  The winner of the seven game NLCS would advance to the World Series against the American League champ (which turned out to be the New York Yankees).

The Cubs and Marlins split Games 1 and 2 at Wrigley.  Then the series moved to Miami's Pro Player Stadium (now known as Sun Life Stadium) where the Chicagoans surprisingly took two out of three games from the Floridians to go ahead in the series three games to two.  (An aside: The original name of Sun Life Stadium was Joe Robbie Stadium, which opened in 1987.  Financing for the construction of Joe Robbie Stadium was mostly furnished through the sale of bonds.  The Pook was the lead secretary for the chief bond counsel, Jerry Mahoney of Dorsey & Whitney.  Today, Sun Life Stadium is the home of the Miami Dolphins and the Miami Hurricanes, and was the Marlins' home until the 2012 season.)  All the Cubbies had to do was win either Game 6 or Game 7, both of which would be played in the Friendly Confines, to get to the World Series.

The starting pitcher for the Cubs in Game 6 of the NLCS was Mark Prior, who was the Game 2 winning pitcher, giving up only two earned runs in seven full innings of that earlier game.  Prior is well known to Twins fans because the Twins opted to select Joe Mauer with the number one overall pick in the 2001 draft, notwithstanding the fact that Prior, a Southern Cal Trojan, was widely considered the top prospect in that draft.  Everything was coming up roses for the Cubs through the first seven innings in Game 6.  They were ahead 3-0, and Prior looked unhitable.  Not only was he hurling a shutout, he had given up only three singles and had retired the Marlins three up and three down in the sixth and seventh innings.  He also induced the leadoff hitter in the top of the eighth, Mike Mordecai, to fly out to left.  The Cubs were just five defensive outs from going to the World Series!

Even the glass-half-empty pessimists were hopeful.  The Curse Of The Billy Goat would expire.  Wrigley Field's capacity crowd, announced at 39,577 but surely closer to 42,000, was going nuts, and so were the overflow masses crammed together on Waveland and Sheffield Avenues behind the bleachers.  Living and dying with every pitch.  Thankful that not only themselves but their parents and grandparents might finally see a World Series champion before they went up to that big baseball diamond in the sky.

But remember, these are the Cubs we're talking about, and what followed is why it is called The Bartman Game and why the Billy Goat Curse lives on.

With one out, the second batter of the inning, Juan Pierre, lofted an 0-1 pitch high and foul toward the box seats three-quarters of the way down the left field line.  At first it looked like it might land eight or ten rows back, but the strong left-to-right wind which had been gusting all night was blowing the ball toward the nine foot high wall which runs parallel to the left field foul line, just beyond the Cubs on-field bullpen.  As Cubs left fielder Moises Alou sprinted over toward that wall, many of the fans in the first two rows did what baseball fans do; they reached for the descending ball, hoping to catch a souvenir.  With glove extended, Alou leaped high against the wall, and maybe -- maybe -- could have caught the ball were it not for that gaggle of arms, hands and mitts belonging to people attempting to do the same thing.  One young man, sitting in the front row up against the wall, appeared to make the initial contact with the ball, but it clanked off his outstretched fingers and fell to the concrete floor, where it was then pounced upon by four of five other folks, one of whom ended up with the trophy.  Alou was beside himself, slamming his glove against his thigh, screaming toward the seats where he'd been deprived of his important opportunity.  With anguished pain on his face, he resumed his left field position.  Prior and some of his teammates tried to convince left field umpire Mike Everitt to rule fan interference, but the ump correctly decided that since no fan reached over the wall, they were entitled to go for the ball.

From that point forward, things could not have disintegrated more swiftly than they did for the Cubs.  Pierre promptly proceeded to line a double to left (thus enabling the still-steaming Alou to finally touch the baseball).  Prior, also still steaming, threw a wild pitch sending Pierre to third, and then walked Luis Castillo.  Runners at the corners, one out, still 3-zip Cubs.  The fourth batter of the inning, Ivan Rodriguez (who was later selected the MVP of the NLCS), lined a single to left, scoring Pierre with Castillo stopping at second.  Now it's 3-1 Cubs, one out with runners at first and second.

The next at bat should probably go down in history as the most overlooked important play in the saga of the Friendly Confines.  Marlins cleanup hitter Miguel Cabrera, a tremendous player but stocky and slow afoot, hit a tailor-made double play ball to the Cubs' young slick fielding shortstop, Alex Gonzalez.  Gonzalez muffed the routine play (E-6), and everybody was safe.  Now the bases were loaded.  Derrek Lee followed with a line drive left field double to tie the game, and Prior was done for the night.  The air in Wrigley Field had been let out; the whole dynamic had changed.

 

While relief pitcher Kyle Farnsworth made his way in from the pen, attention turned to that young man who initially touched Pierre's foul ball.  He was kind of nerdy looking, wearing headphones underneath, of all things, a Cubs hat.  He had on a dark sweatshirt and a green turtleneck, and wore dark rimmed glasses.  That green turtleneck was easy to spot from afar.  While Fox Network was waiting for Farnsworth to warm up, they showed rerun after rerun of the Pierre foul ball and Alou's angry reaction.  They panned in for a closeup of the "kid" with the green turtleneck.  The focus of their attention, the accidental celebrity, the guy with the Cubs hat, the headphones and that turtleneck, turned out to be Steve Bartman.

 

Wrigley had no jumbotron, but the Fox replays could be viewed by the crowd on Waveland.  Some big dude had a TV on his head.  The fans on the street started chanting an unflattering term meaning "anal orifice," and before a minute was up the bleacher bums picked it up.  Soon the Bronx cheer spread throughout the grandstand and the entire stadium.  People were pointing at Bartman, swearing at him and (as audio proves) threatening to kill him.  Beer, brats and slices of pizza were hurled at him, sometimes by people who had come down from one of the upper sections specifically for that purpose.  Wrigley security was absolutely no help when they finally did arrive.

 

Farnsworth was likewise of little help.  He faced four batters and retired only one, thereby giving a fresh illustration of adding gasoline to the fire.  The big blow off Farnsworth was a bases-clearing double by Mordecai (who had led off the eighth) with the bases loaded.  By the time reliever Mike Remlinger came in to put Farnsworth out of his misery, it was 7-3 Marlins.  Remlinger gave up one more run, the Cubs went three up and three down in the eighth and ninth, and the game finished 8-3.

 

Bartman was taken away by security while the Cubs batted in the eighth.  Even as the guards were leading him down the stadium stairs, fans continued to throw things at him, threaten him and berate him.  The chief of Wrigley security had to sneak him into a cab and even brought him to her apartment for a few hours until the Wrigleyville mob had dispersed.  Even Mother Nature had no pity for Bartman.  Game 7 had to be postponed, thus giving the media time to seek out Bartman and investigate his background.  The poor guy had to hole up at his parents' house in suburban Northfield.  To this day, Bartman remains secluded.  His only sin was doing what 99% of all other fans would do: reaching up for a foul ball.

 

The $64,000 question remains.  Why did the fans turn on Bartman, when the biggest blunder, by far, committed during the top of the eighth was by Cubs shortstop Alex Gonzalez?  If he fields the Cabrera double play ball, no one would have ever heard of Steve Bartman.  One explanation is mob mentality; let's pick on the nerdy guy instead of the pro athlete.

 

By the way, the Cubs, with excellent pitcher Kerry Wood as their starter, lost Game 7 to the Marlins, 8-3.  The Marlins went on the beat the Yankees in a six game World Series.  The Cubbies are still trying to shake off the Curse Of The Billy Goat.

Quarterly Cinema Scan - Volume XXI

My best cinematic discovery during 2015's third quarter was the greatness of The Hanging Tree, a 1959 western starring Gary Cooper. Cooper plays Joseph Frail, M.D., a mysterious doctor who shows up at a rough and tumble Montana mining town during the Gold Rush craze.  We wonder if "Frail" is his real name, a curiosity that is piqued in an early scene when he nearly kills a man who accuses him of cheating during a poker game.  As the prone accuser wipes the blood from his lip resulting from a left hook by Frail, he repeats a rumor about Frail having set fire to an occupied house long ago.  We don't hear any more about this alleged arson for quite awhile, but it's clear this man Frail is no ordinary doctor.

Frail's dark side is apparent, and not just because of that rumor which has spread across the plains to Big Sky Country.  For example, after he removes a bullet from a young man, Rune (Ben Piazza), who was shot while escaping from a failed petty crime, the doctor tells Rune that if he doesn't agree to become the doctor's unpaid servant, he will go to the sheriff with the bloody slug as evidence and turn Rune in.  But Frail is not without a heart.  When he treats a little girl whose parents can't afford to pay him, he asks her to give him a kiss on the cheek in full settlement.

Not long after Frail sets up shop on a bluff overlooking the town, a stagecoach in the nearby desert is held up.  The driver and all the occupants are killed, save for a woman passenger, Elizabeth (Maria Schell), who turns up missing; the "Lost Lady," as she's come to be known.  The townsfolk form two posses, one to track down the killers and one to find the Lost Lady.  Frenchie (Karl Malden), an antagonist who somehow manages to be likable at times even though at the core he is a villain, eventually finds the Lost Lady, sunburned, dazed, dehydrated and temporarily blind.  Her husband was one of the murdered victims, and she is delirious.  It is up to Frail to nurse Elizabeth back to health.  When he puts her up at a cabin he owns next door to his abode, the gossip starts to fly.

Elizabeth looks upon Frail as more than a physician, but he seems to have a heart of stone.  Additional intrigue is created once the Lost Lady, bound and determined not to let her husband's murder ruin her dream of making a new life for herself in the Wild West, enters into a prospecting venture with Frenchie and Rune.  Unbeknownst to her, Frail secretly funds the grubstake.  Malden, who was a pinch hit director for this film when original director Delmer Daves temporarily fell ill, portrays Frenchie as a deliciously conniving rascal with dishonorable intentions. 

 

The Hanging Tree has a little bit of everything: secrets, schemes, romance, lynch mobs (as you might have guessed), extraordinary cinematography, strong acting -- Gary Cooper was only seven years removed from his Oscar-winning performance in High Noon -- and a dramatic finish.  It is also the film debut of George C. Scott, who plays a kooky street preacher, Grubb, threatened by the legitimate medical practice of Doctor Frail.  But that is not all.  Every great western seems to have a memorable song associated with it.  Examples: the title track from The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) sung by the one and only Gene Pitney, and Rain Drops Keep Falling On My Head from Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid (1969), with B.J. Thomas doing the vocals.  The title track from The Hanging Tree, sung by Marty Robbins (who had a # 1 hit with another cowboy tune, El Paso), might be the best of them all.  There are two things which are of particular interest here.  First, similar to Liberty Valance, the lyrics of Hanging Tree directly tell the unfolding of the movie plot.  Secondly, the fourth verse of the song, which describes the climax, is ingeniously swapped with the fifth verse of the song, so that you don't hear the fourth verse until the closing credits.  Thus, no need for a spoiler alert!

 

Ben Mankiewicz, a program host on Turner Classic Movies, called The Hanging Tree "one of the last of the great westerns from the genre's renaissance in the 1950's."  What he neglected to mention is that The Quentin Chronicle rates the movie the fourth best western of all time, behind Liberty Valance, Butch Cassidy and 2010's True Grit.

 

Here are the movies I watched in the third quarter from the love seat in the QE family room.

1. Anatomy Of A Murder (1959 courtroom drama; Jimmy Stewart defends Ben Gazarra, who is charged with the murder of a man who allegedly raped Lee Remick, Gazarra's wife.) A -

2. Elevator Girl (2010 rom-com; Ryan Merriman, a newly made partner in a silk stocking law firm, meets Lacey Chabert, a free spirit who doesn't fit the purported mold of a partner's significant other.) C

3. First Love (1977 drama; William Klatt is a private college student who falls for classmate Susan Dey, even though he knows she's the mistress of an older married man.) C

4. Frankenstein (1931 horror; Boris Karloff is a monster created from dead body parts, including a criminal brain, by mad scientist Colin Clive.) B

5. The Hanging Tree (1959 western; see the above mini-review.) A

6.  Hannah And Her Sisters (1986 dramedy; Mia Farrow , who is married to Michael Caine, has two sisters, Dianne Weiss who used to date Woody Allen, and Barbara Hershey who is lusted after by Caine.) A

7. My Fair Lady (1964 musical; Rex Harrison, a haughty bachelor linguistics professor, is challenged to turn guttersnipe flower peddler Audrey Hepburn into an aristocratic master of the English language.)  A-

8. One Sunday Afternoon (1933 drama; Gary Cooper is a dentist who has an opportunity for revenge when he's called upon to extract a tooth from Neil Hamilton, who years ago won the heart of the girl Cooper desired, Fay Wray.) C-

Red Head Of The Rockies

She came from the barrios

of the city Mile High,

In the foothills of the Rockies

where the snowcaps touch the sky.

 

Her hair was thick and crimson red,

Her pink tongue spotted black,

When the college kid first saw her,

There was no turning back.

 

The shelter dubbed her Sabrina,

A temporary name,

But Michael called her Moosica,

Which means "music" in Spain.

 

Moosie lived the good life

on Federal Boulevard,

She and Sopha even had

a ramp down to the yard.

 

Moose never backed down from a fight, 

She was an alpha queen,

So dog parks really weren't her thing, 

Could've been an ugly scene.

 

She scaled St. Mary's Glacier,

Swam in Lac Courte Oreilles,

Pranced alongside ski tracks

that criss-cross Cedar Lake.

 

Michael and Charlie would double date

with Sopha and The Moose,

They'd take them to a frolf course,

And there they'd cut 'em loose.

 

Without a leash the dogs ran free,

Exploring in the trees,

A half hour later, the girls returned,

The chow and the bernese.

 

Fed Boulevard, the Dupont Arms,

Toledo and QE,

At that last one Moose lived four-plus years

with Momma Cuan and me.

 

Breakfast and dinner, her favorite things,

But first a game we'd play,

We'd hug and smooch, I'd shake her paw,

Then dump the Canidae.

 

She'd gobble it down, two minutes flat,

But still she wanted more,

Her next stop was the kitchen

where she'd sniff along the floor.

 

When Momma Cuan sat down to eat

Moose parked under the table,

She knew her Mame would feed her more,

It happened without fail.

 

On walks she'd drop into a squat,

Her Larry Craig wide stance,

She'd turn her head and look around

to catch a fleeting glance.

 

Moose liked her privacy, I guess,

But still I had to laugh,

I'd then scoop up her "calling card"

and continue on the path.

 

She'd climb the snow banks for a deuce,

The "snow man" rolled on down,

She admired her art work from above,

Then descended to the ground.

 

I'd sometimes walk her 'round the Isles,

Sometimes she'd walk me,

Those little legs kept going strong,

Moose had such energy.

 

She'd camp under our piano,

Sleep on the tile floor,

When I'd shout, "Who's that?"

She'd bark and scamper to the door.

 

The QE Meadow was her turf,

Her kingdom, her domain,

The rabbits ran for cover,

Squirrels and chipmunks did the same.

 

In August Moosie left this world,

A month short of her twelfth,

Kissed her goodbye, went to my car,

And cried all by myself.

 

Will Moose make it past the Pearly Gates

to heaven? I don't know.

But if St. Pete won't let dogs in,

I'd just as soon not go.

 

 

Happy birthday, Moosie.

Love, Grandpa Johnny

 

September 11, 2015

Album Review: "Something More Than Free" - Jason Isbell

"Something More Than Free": A.  I may be guilty of morbid curiosity, but I need to know what happens to guys who get kicked out of their former bands.  If you know the answer to the question, "Name the bass player who got fired from Bon Jovi," that would certify you as a music nerd.  The answer is Alec John Such, who was canned in 1984 before Bon Jovi struck it rich as a big time band.  Instead of becoming a multi-millionaire like his ex-mates, Such owns a motorcycle shop and is out of the performing business.

Brian Jones -- not Mick Jagger or Keith Richards -- was the Englishman who formed the Rolling Stones in 1962.  As the rhythm guitarist who sometimes shared lead with Keith, he was instrumental in guiding the Stones to stardom on both sides of The Pond, including the halcyon era of the British Invasion.  But Jones was asked to leave the group in June of '69, and one month later he drowned under mysterious circumstances in a swimming pool at his country estate.

The most famous involuntary departure of all was that of the Beatles' first drummer, Pete Best.  His major sin was his introspective personality, which did not mix well with the other lads who were quite effervescent.  According to several sources, including John Lennon's biographer, Philip Norman, the other band members gutlessly had their manager, Brian Epstein, deliver the pink slip to Pete.  Best's termination occurred less than two months before the release of the Beatles first UK single, Love Me Do, in October 1962.  Best has had an on-again/ but mostly off-again career in music, never getting a sniff of the big money.

All of this brings us to Jason Isbell, whose new album, Something More Than Free, is the subject of this post.  Just as was the case with Such and Jones, drug and alcohol addiction proved to be Isbell's undoing as a key member of the southern rock band, Drive By Truckers.  His abuse of drugs made him an unsteady player and an unreliable bandmate.  His buddies in the band, including his first wife, bassist Shonna Tucker, begged him to take a break from touring in 2007 so he could address his issues.  When Isbell refused, they cut the cord.  This was quite unfortunate for both sides, partly because even though Isbell was not an original member, he had been a Trucker for six years and his song writing prowess made DBT a formidable presence in the rock genre.  He had contributed many songs to the Truckers' playbook, including the title song of their fourth album, Decoration Day.

Isbell's failures to confront his demons cost him his marriage to Tucker, and he lived in a state of limbo for almost six years.  During that time he made music with an under-the-radar regional band he formed called The 400 Unit, but to his credit his top priority was rescuing himself from an inevitably dire ending.  When he finally cleaned up his act, the writing muse returned, and 2013's Southeastern was the smash result.  Something More Than Free , released this summer, is the follow-up to Southeastern, and as Momma Cuan's friend Norma might say, "It is WONderful!"

Almost every song on the eleven tune menu has a hook that you'll have a hard time ejecting from your mental playlist.  The first two entries are prime examples.  If It Takes A Lifetime is about the singer attempting to redress his wild past by living a more responsible present.  But he finds it's a slow process  The chorus includes the lines: 

 

I thought the highway loved me but 

she beat me like a drum,

My day will come, 

If it takes a lifetime.   

 

Isbell sounds like a young John Prine, but with a better voice.  His delivery has that wisecracking air which the older Prime has mastered. 

 

24 Frames addresses the need to take responsibility for making yourself a better person.  The song is clearly influenced by the failure of his marriage to Tucker, thus bringing back thoughts of the last album I reviewed here, Neil Diamond's Melody Road (December 27, 2014; A).  When he was young, predestination was the singer's rationale for bad behavior.  Everything was out of an individual's control, he figured, because whatever happened was what God wanted to happen.  Wrong! 

 

You thought God was an architect,

Now you know. 

 

The song title refers to an amount of time equal to a single second, as that's how many frames pass by in a second when using a 35 millimeter projector.

 

Everything you've built

that's all for show

goes up in flames,

In twenty-four frames.

 

The jangly guitar might remind some sixties fans of the early Byrds.  Roger McGuinn would be proud.

 

Momma Cuan's favorite track, The Life You Choose, is another selection which makes the listener wonder if Isbell knows he "blew it" as a young man.  Like several other songs on the album, one school of thought is that he is singing to his ex, confessing that he could have handled things better.  Once again, responsibility and control of one's own life are the topics. 

 

Are you living the life you chose?

[or] Are you living the life that chose you? 

 

The bouncy beat with brushes on the snare resembles the Traveling Wilburys, in which Isbell, via time travel, would have been a perfect fit.

 

It has been said that a bridge is the hardest part of a song to write.  It needs to be different from, yet ideally relate to, the verses, while at the same time connecting to a chorus and/or a break.  I love the fluidity with which Isbell inserts his bridges.  The bridge in The Life You Chose is close to perfection.

 

Isbell is as much a poet and storyteller is he is a song writer.  The imagery he incorporates into his songs is almost tangibly visible.  Four examples.  Flagship describes an older couple sitting together at a table in the corner of an old hotel bar. 

 

She's got nothing left to learn about his heart.

They're sitting there a thousand miles apart.

 

In Speed Trap Town, the singer has hung around his home town, waiting for his terminally ill father to pass.  The old man outlives the prognosis. 

 

How long can they keep you in the ICU?

Veins in the skin like a faded tattoo.

 

Hudson Commodore, a song sung and produced in the fashion of Lyle Lovett, tells of a single mother with two kids who worked hard all her life.  She had plenty of proposals from wealthy suitors who would have carried her off to a better life.  But she had simple tastes and wanted to lay low, with one exception. 

 

She just wanted to ride in a Delahaye 135.

She just wanted to ride in a Hudson Commodore. 

 

Here is Isbell's description, in Palmetto Rose, of the interior of a taxi in Charleston, South Carolina:

 

Palmetto rose in the A/C vent,

Cross-stich pillow where the headrest went. 

 

The final track might surprise people who only know of Isbell through the Drive By Truckers.  To A Band That I Loved is not about his ill-fated stint with the Truckers, but is a combination tribute and thank you to Centro-Matic.  Before Isbell became an accomplished writer, that North Texas band, with which Isbell periodically played guitar, wrote lyrics expressing the thoughts that Isbell at the time was unable to pen.  Isbell's new song laments C-M's decision to call it quits at the end of 2014.

 

Isbell's star is rising once again.  He is sober, remarried -- coincidentally to another musician -- and now has two acclaimed albums to his credit in these early stages of his reformed and reshaped life.  I am sorry I missed him at this summer's Basilica Block Party, but if he returns to the Twin Towns I will be there.   

Movie Review: "Ricki And The Flash"

"Ricki And The Flash": B+.  I have always felt that movies about sports and movies about musicians generally suffer from similar flaws.  Sports movies tend to have weak on-the-field action shots.  An example is Hoosiers from 1986, a highly acclaimed film in almost all respects save for the fact that the basketball scenes are ridiculously fake.  The players look more like they're going through a choreography than actually playing hoops.  The football action in 1993's Rudy appears more like an intra-mural powder puff scrum.  Likewise, music films need good soundtracks, but the weaker stories are those where you might hear the same song repeatedly, or sub-minute snippets of a few other songs purportedly played by the actors.  I suspect reconciling the payment of expensive royalties with the movie's budget has a lot to do with it. Eddie And The Cruisers from 1983 is a film which received lukewarm reviews.  The story is about a band but, ironically, the music is a weakness in most critics' views.

Happily, Ricki And The Flash does not suffer that defect, and it's one of the reasons I enjoyed it so much.  One could easily make the argument that the music is the best part of the film.  I found myself foot-tapping throughout.  Meryl Streep is the title character, the leader of, and only woman in, a five person band, the Flash.  They're the house band at a blue collar bar in Tarzana, California, playing old school rock covers.  The role of lead guitarist Greg is rendered nicely by Rick Springfield who, in real life, is a rocker who has enjoyed a long career as a performer.  Ricki is dirt poor, living in a one star motel but fulfilling her dream of being a "rock star," at least in her eyes.  She is not delusional, but she enjoys what she's doing and that's all that counts.  She's living the life she has always wanted to live.

That enjoyment is disrupted when she receives a phone call from her ex-husband, Pete (smooth Kevin Kline), the father of her three adult children who all live in Indianapolis.  Their daughter Julie (Mamie Gummer, Streep's real life daughter) is distraught and depressed because her husband is leaving her for another woman.  At the behest of Pete, Ricki uses her entire meager savings for plane fare to Indy.  Upon Ricki's arrival at Pete's house, Julie storms down the stairs to the kitchen and greets her mother with this question: "Do you always dress like a hooker from Night Court?" Yes, the middle aged Ricki's appearance does resemble that of a poor man's Joan Jett.

At this point we get filled in on Ricki's history.  It is she who walked out on her family when her kids were in grade school, so that she could pursue rock stardom in LA.  Her real name is Linda.  She's making so little money at her music gigs that she desperately needs her day job as a cashier at Whole Foods, where her twenty-something male boss is dissatisfied with her conversations with the patrons who come through her line.  "You need to enhance your customer's experience."

Meanwhile, Pete has done extremely well for himself and lives in a sprawling house in an upper-crust neighborhood.  After Ricki walked out on Pete and the kids twenty years ago, he soon remarried.  His second wife, Maureen (Audra McDonald), is everything Ricki is not: classy, dignified, refined, elegant and educated.  And unlike Ricki, she is a cook extraordinaire.  It is Maureen who has raised the kids, while Ricki found little time from two thousand miles away to stay even tangentially involved in her kids' lives.

On the second night of Ricki's return, Pete unwisely decides to host a family dinner at a white tablecloth restaurant.  The mercurial Julie will be there, along with her gay brother and her engaged brother and his fiancé.  As they are seated in the center of the elegant room, you know this is a bad idea, and things will not go well.  It is fun to watch the uneasiness at the table, which only gets worse when the engaged brother and his fiancé make attempts to rationalize Riki's omission from the invited wedding guests list.

The movie was written by Diablo Cody, who has won an Academy Award, Best Original Screenplay for 2007's Juno.  The Ricki script has two particularly well-written dialogue scenes.  The first is a reserved showdown between Maureen, who has just returned from Seattle to tend to her ailing father, and Ricki, who the day before convinced Julie to skip her much-needed therapy session so the two could hang out at the salon.  It is noteworthy and laudable for McDonald that the viewer can't tell which of the two actresses on the screen is appearing in her first major motion picture and which is a veteran actress who has been nominated for nineteen (!) Oscars, more than any actor or actress in film history.

The second scene with especially good dialogue is a short one between Ricki and her lead guitarist, Greg.  He is attempting to convince Ricki to eat some humble pie and accept a last-minute invitation to her son's wedding, even though she feels unloved by her family.  "Your kids' job is not to love you.  But it is your job to love them."  Springfield may be a rocker, but he's a convincing actor too.

From the opening barroom song, Tom Petty's American Girl, to the last scene, Ricki And The Flash provides what I'm most interested in when I plop down in my theater chair, viz., entertainment.  Kudos to the actors for playing their own instruments on ten songs, and doing their own vocals. 

Easy Ev

Three months after graduating from college in 1969, I was teaching the twenty-seven member sixth grade class at Most Holy Trinity School.  I was still twenty-one years old, and my students were, for the most part, eleven.  That group has always held a special place in my heart because they were my first class.  I recently found out the sad news that one of "my kids," Evan Bower, died unexpectedly at age 57 on July 31.  Evan lived most of his adult life in Colorado with his wife and son.  He worked as a trouble shooter for a computer company, which sent him on projects all over the country.  To my knowledge, Evan is the only student from that cherished class to have passed away.

A celebration of Evan's life was held two weekends ago at the Gearty-Delmore funeral chapel.  The "ceremony" was hosted by Evan's twin, Kevin, who was also in that sixth grade class.  Most of Evan's five siblings spoke, recalling incidents especially from their young lives growing up together on France Avenue in St. Louis Park.  The stories were lighthearted and heartfelt, and laughter filled the small room several times.  Many of the siblings affectionately referred to their departed brother as "Easy Ev," a fitting nickname given his laid back personality.  After the brothers and sisters spoke, Kevin invited any of those present to share a story or a memory about Evan.  One person, who I believe was their neighbor, spoke briefly and haltingly.  Afterwards, notwithstanding Kevin's repeated invitation, it did not appear that anyone else was going to step forward.

I did not go to the service intending to speak, but I did have a story in mind which I thought folks might enjoy hearing.  After waiting for what seemed like thirty or forty seconds, I put up my paw, Kevin smiled and told me I had the floor.  This is the little story I told.

***

I was Evan and Kevin's sixth grade teacher during the 1969-70 school year.  Having just finished college, I was only ten years older than my students and this was my first class.  The principal who hired me, Sister Ruth, thought a first year teacher like me could use some advice, so she offered these two recommendations before the first day of school.  First, establish your rules from Day One, and be strict in enforcing them.  Then, as the school year goes by, if your good judgment tells you that you can relax the rules a little, go ahead and do so incrementally.  But starting out leniently, thinking you can get tougher if need be, is not a good strategy.

Her second pearl of wisdom was this: Don't play favorites.  It is a long school year and you will have twenty-seven students.  On most days during the course of the year there will be something that either happens or doesn't happen which, due to human nature, will make you want to treat certain students either more favorably or less favorably than most of their classmates.  That is a bad policy, and don't think the kids won't notice.  You must deal with all of your students even-handedly, regardless of their academic achievement, behavior, attitude, or what-have-you.

Sister Ruth's advice -- warnings might be a better word -- made perfect sense to me, and I did my best to adhere to them.  My job was to get these kids ready for junior high.  I knew a rookie teacher would not have all the answers, so I welcomed this guidance from my veteran principal.

It was common in those days for a lot of the kids to hang around after school and have, more or less, a bull session right there in the classroom.  One of the hot topics that fall and winter was the phenomenal season the Minnesota Vikings were having.  The Vikes ended the regular season with a record of 12-2, and their first playoff game was scheduled to be played in old Metropolitan Stadium, with a seating capacity of only 47,900.  It would be the first time in their young history they'd ever hosted a playoff game.  The opponent would be the Los Angeles Rams, and many fans were eager to see how those softies from tropical southern California would fare in the brutal cold of Minnesota.  The home games were not televised locally due to the seventy-five mile radius blackout rule imposed by the NFL.  The demand for tickets was so high that the team could easily have sold out a stadium nearly twice the size of The Met.

On the second-to-last school day before Christmas vacation, and a few days before that playoff game, Evan and Kevin were in a large group congregated around my desk after school, and the discussion turned to Christmas presents.  The kids were telling me what they bought for their family members, and what they hoped to receive.  The twins told me that their father worked for Triple A, and if I wanted anything from there they could get it for me as a present.  I figured they were talking about something like a state highway map, a key chain, or perhaps a window decal.  I jokingly replied, "Okay, how 'bout two tickets on the fifty for the Rams game?"  Everyone laughed and the gabfest continued.

The next morning I arrived in my classroom about fifteen minutes before the bell.  Eight or nine students, including the Bower boys, were already there.  On top of my desk was a business envelope with the Triple A logo in the corner.  In the middle of the envelope the following was handwritten: "Mister P, 2 on the 50."  It wasn't until I opened the envelope and found two fifty yard line seats to the big game that I realized the writing on the envelope was not a hoax.  There they were, two playoff tickets that thousands of die hard Vikings fans would have given anything to possess.  I was astonished and flabbergasted.  Evan and Kevin had smiles from ear to ear, as did I.

Class resumed two weeks later.  During that respite I thought about those two guiding principles Sister Ruth had given me.  I concluded that it was going to be pretty tough for me to comply with her second warning for the remainder of the school year.      

Movie Review: "Mad Max: Fury Road"

Second verse, 
Same as the first

-  I'm Henry The VIII, I Am
   Herman's Hermits (1965)

"Mad Max: Fury Road": B.  Mad Max: Fury Road is the fourth film in the Mad Max series, the franchise which boosted Mel Gibson to international star status.  This time, thanks to more than a decade of production postponements,  Mel has given way to Tom Hardy to play the title character, Max Rockatansky.  Getting at least equal time on the screen is Charlize Theron, who takes on the role of Imperator Furiosa.  Furiosa is a kick-butt warrior who more than holds her own against all comers.  When she dukes it out with a male foe, her ability to send him flying with a right uppercut comes as no surprise.

If you were to place plot, acting, cinematography and stunts in order of their importance as attributes of this film, those four categories would be listed exactly inversely.  The plot, such as it is (or isn't), makes little difference.  This is a film where we tip our collective hat in awe of the action sequences, which occur virtually nonstop for two hours against the backdrop of a magnificent, strangely beautiful post-apocalyptic desert.  At times it was hard to decipher whether the movie was shot in color or black and white.  The desert contains sparse vegetation, the sky is almost never blue, and the expansive sands melt into the horizon with a grayish hue.  The film was shot mostly in the southwestern African nation of Namibia.

When the story opens, Max is being held prisoner by a madman, Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne), who is a tyrant showing little mercy over his water-deprived subjects.  He teases them by releasing a few gallons of water from the mountain storage tanks, then is amused at how they nearly stampede over one another in a vain attempt to fill their buckets before he shuts down the taps.  Meanwhile, he has sent Furiosa on a trip over the desert to retrieve more water and gas from Gas City.  Unbeknownst to Joe, Furiosa has granted refuge to Joe's five "wives," one of whom is preggers.  They are hidden in Furiosa's battle wagon, and naturally, all five are baberahams, as is Furiosa in an athletic/masculine sort of way.  Before she gets half way to Gas City, Furiosa steers her vehicle hard left off course.   Destination: The Green Place, the homeland of the six women.  As soon as Joe gets wind of what's happening, i.e., desertion by Furiosa and her perceived kidnapping of the concubines, the chase is on.  Max, who is fully chained and fitted with an iron face mask, is brought along against his will by Joe as a human blood supply.  Too bad for Max that he's a universal donor!

As one of the initial battles rages, Max escapes and reluctantly joins forces with Furiosa as they continue down Fury Road in the battle wagon, heading for The Green Place.  A little later, one of Joe's soldiers, Nux (Nicholas Hoult), ends up in Furiosa's wagon as well.  Nux is something of a village idiot, not sure whose side he's on.  He is comforted and consoled by the red haired wife, Capable, played by Riley Keough who in real life is the eldest grandchild of Elvis and Priscilla Presley.  Their pairing is the only relationship remotely approaching a love connection

The evil pursuers catch up to Furiosa's battle wagon from time to time, but are never quite able to conquer her or her comrades.  The staging of the close range combat is amazing.  It's all done while traveling at very high speed across the sands.  Some characters seem to have nine lives, as combatants I thought sustained a fatal blow reappear in the next sequence.  Enemies are able to balance with ease standing atop a careening battle wagon.  Some are dozens of feet above the ground in what appear to be super flexible pole vault apparatus attached to high speed war machines.  Different people in Furiosa's group get behind the wheel of the wagon, but they don't stay long in the driver's seat.  While the vehicle is in motion they step out on a running board or the hood just as calmly as if they were getting off a bus,and someone else takes over the driving duties.  My favorite touch in all this is the soldier, hitched to the rear of one of Joe's trucks, who is playing a double-neck electric guitar belting out a metal tune, somewhat analogous to a bugler exhorting the cavalry.

What is shown doesn't always make sense.  For example, in one scene a rock formation resembling Utah's famous arches is blown up to prevent Joe's army from catching up.  But several scenes later, we see the same passageway through the mountains, and the formation is still intact.  Maybe director George Miller just wants to see if we're paying attention.

A recent article in Rolling Stone Magazine tabbed Fury Road as the best movie to be released so far in 2015.  If post-apocalypse action flicks is your bag, you just might agree.  Incidentally, I can't tip you off on the connection between the lyric from the Herman's Hermits song I chose to introduce this post and the story itself, as to do so would constitute a spoiler.  But, you'll understand the appropriateness of the choice near the beginning of the movie's final act.  

Suburban Exploring

In recent weeks there have been a number of local stories about people getting seriously injured, or even killed, inside abandoned mills, silos, grain elevators and deserted buildings.  These places are not in the boondocks; they are within the city limits of Minneapolis.  One University of Minnesota sophomore, twenty year old Emily Roland, was killed on June 6 when she fell thirty feet inside the Bunge grain elevator, a boarded up facility which has stood abandoned near campus since 2003.  She was with two other friends late at night when tragedy struck.  That was not their first such excursion, some of which were posted on Instagram accounts.  Six days ago, the city of Minneapolis decided to demolish the Fruen Mill near Theodore Wirth Park as a safety precaution, because the uninhabited structure was attracting not just vagrants and hobos, but curiosity seekers too.

Other sites frequented by these adventurers include underground tunnels, sewer systems, culverts and industrial complexes.  The name attached to the practice of rooting around in these structures is "urban exploring."  Prior to the past twelve month period, I had never heard that term.  It seems akin to box car jumping.  There is a combination of at least two things in play here, the rush of trespassing and a sense of taking the path less traveled.  What is more exciting, being among a bunch of tourists taking an elevator to the observation deck of a downtown skyscraper, or breaking into a dark spooky warehouse in the middle of the night?  Reading these sad stories brought back some memories.

In my youth I was an urban explorer, or more accurately, a suburban explorer.  I was introduced to this craziness by a classmate of mine, Charles Poorhus.  We were both seventh graders at St. Joe's in Libertyville, a town of 6,600 thirty-five miles north of Chicago (hence, the "suburban" modifier).  I was not really a friend of Chuck, although after being under the thumb of the Sisters Of Mercy ever since first grade, I secretly admired some of the "bad boys" like him in my class.  If compliance with the good sisters' rules was too inconvenient for them, they simply blew them off with total disregard.  Somehow those guys managed to avoid expulsion and got to live mischievously for another day.  Of course, unlike me they probably did not have parents whose code of conduct for their children mirrored that of the nuns.

My family lived on Cook Avenue, four blocks west of the main drag, Milwaukee Avenue.  The Pook did her grocery shopping at Jewel, also on Cook but a block east of Milwaukee.  One day while I was assisting my mother at Jewel, I ran into Chuck.  I was surprised to see him in there.  He seemed more like a dumpster diver than a patron of a civilized supermarket.  He had that Dead End Kids aura about him. Chuck pointed across the street over to Coy Lumber and asked me if I'd ever been over there.  Up until that point, I may not have even realized there was, in fact, a lumber yard across from Jewel.  The Marquis, from whom I inherited my complete absence of handyman talent, would have had no reason ever to set foot on Coy's property, and therefore neither had I.  (My dad did, however, make a trip or two to Schanck's Hardware Store each year!)  After replying "no" to Chuck, he did an impressive sales job on me, telling me Coy's was the best kept secret in Libertyville, with mysterious treasures yet to be discovered and wondrous spectacles to behold.  Trap doors, hidden rooms, fake walls, concealed tunnels.  It sounded too good to be true, but my curiosity was piqued to the point where I needed to find out what I'd been missing.  There was also a factor of getting to behave in a manner much more daring than I would ever have been willing to try in a school or household setting.  We agreed to meet the next evening after dinner so he could show me around.

 

I must admit that, from the perspective of this twelve year old, the results came pretty close to, though short of, matching Chuck's hype.

 

I didn't dream of requesting permission from my folks to go exploring the lumber yard.  There's no question what their answer would have been.  I never even told them when I'd play flashlight tag or hide-and-go-seek at Lakeside Cemetery, a mere quarter mile from our house.  In retrospect, partaking in such frivolity on burial grounds was in poor taste on my part.  But at least the cemetery was public property, while Coy's was not.

 

The main building on the lumber yard was like something out of a Stephen King novel.  A shadowy, creeky and rickety old wooden structure, it seemed out of place in a pleasant burg like Libertyville.  The eerily quiet premises was the antithesis of bustling Milwaukee Avenue, only a block away with cars and pedestrians making their way through Libertyville's classic downtown.  Coy's was not abandoned, but apparently business was not brisk enough to run more than one shift.  By 5:00 p.m. there was nobody left on site, not even a watchman.  Other than a yellow light above the main entryway, the ominous place was dark inside and out. Gaining access through a rear garage door was a piece of cake.

 

Twilight came fast, and we had one flashlight between the two of us.  Our mission was, quite simply, to see what we could see.  I had just finished reading The Tower Treasure, the first in the famous Hardy Boys mystery series.  In contrast to those sleuths, Chuck and I had no crime to investigate -- in fact, we were the ones breaking the law by trespassing -- but my imagination got carried away thinking he and I were Frank and Joe Hardy!

 

We did not discover anything out of the ordinary.  No secret passageways, ghosts or skeletons.  There were stacks of wood everywhere, sharp dangerous tools and equipment in every corner, and piles of unswept sawdust.  We could hear invisible four legged critters scampering behind the boxes and barrels.  The place was giving me the creeps within minutes of our arrival.  When we climbed two sets of stairs to the loft I was afraid the wooden slats would give way.  Adding to my anxiety was my distrust of Chuck.  Why hadn't I thought of that earlier?  I figured if trouble arose, either by injury or upon being found out, he would bail on the theory of "every man for himself."  Thankfully my theory never got tested.

 

The lumber yard also included several out buildings which, ironically, were locked.  It struck me as weird that they would padlock sheds and yet not secure the main building.  Additionally there were a number of what I'd call three-sided huts, cheaply built relatively tall rectangular structures which, although covered by a roof, were missing a fourth exterior wall.  My guess was that the company used those huts to store large pieces which would not fit in the main building.  We checked out all of them.  Most fascinating to me was the Milwaukee Road rail spur, terminating right in the middle of the yard, on which a half dozen flat bed cars and box cars were parked.  I had always wanted to see the inside of a boxcar; this was my chance.  Most of them were empty, but it was cool nonetheless.

 

After an hour we mutually determined that the outing was a rousing success.  We had not been arrested, nor had we tripped any alarms or accidentally amputated any limbs.  We made a pact not to tell anybody about our escapade.  I kept my end of that bargain, but as I wrote above, my faith in Chuck was shaky, so I could not be sure whether he would blab.  But as I considered what we'd done, the following thought occurred to me:  What good is having a unique and exhilarating experience like that if you have to keep it to yourself?  Good thing I have this blog.  The truth now comes out after hibernating for fifty-five years.

 

A month or two after our memorable night, Chuck approached me to suggest another visit to Coy's.  He had been back there in the interim, and once again made it sound like our next visit to the forbidden sanctuary would be more fun than a day trip to Chicago's Riverview Amusement Park.  I politely turned him down.  I figured we'd gotten away with one caper but did not want to press my luck. He was left to explore Shangri La on his own.