Movie Review: "Aloha"

"Aloha": B-.  How much sympathy can you give to a guy who, in the space of a few days in Hawaii, has both Rachel McAdams and Emma Stone pining for him?  Well, not the real McAdams and Stone, but the characters they play.  All single males should be so lucky as to have problems of the type Brian Gilcrest (Bradley Cooper) has.  The US Air Force, at the insistence of billionaire Carson Welch (Bill Murray), hires aerospace contractor Gilcrest to assist in its mission to launch a rocket into outer space.  Over the half-hearted objections of General Dixon (the seemingly omnipresent Alec Baldwin), Welch wants Gilcrest specifically for the purpose of preventing the Chinese from hacking into Mission Control's computers during the lift off.  Welch gets his way because he is funding the project, and there is a mutual expectation that he will fund future Air Force projects as well.  Exactly what is the payload which Welch intends to have orbiting in outer space?  That question is not answered until near the end of the movie.

On its face, the selection of Gilcrest for this top secret project is puzzling, considering that his major screw-up several years ago in Kabul resulted in him sustaining eighteen gunshot wounds.  Mindful of Gilcrest's propensity for being easily distracted from his responsibilities, General Dixon assigns Captain Allison Ng (Stone) to be his shadow, making sure that Gilcrest stays on task.  Wherever Gilcrest goes, Ng is right there with him.  Contemplate, if you will, the logic of Dixon's line of thinking.  Being accompanied by the pretty blonde, vivacious and intelligent Ng is supposed to enable Gilcrest to focus.  Right!

Ng is not the only distraction awaiting Gilcrest in Hawaii.  Within minutes after his arrival, who is standing on the tarmac but the comely Tracy Woodside (McAdams), his former flame whom he hasn't seen in fourteen years.  Tracy, now married to an Air Force pilot (John Krasinski from TV's The Office), is the mother of a thirteen year old girl and an eight year old boy.  Did you notice the juxtaposition of the words "fourteen" and "thirteen" in this paragraph?  Ever since Gilcrest opted years ago to stay on Guam instead of keeping his promise to meet Tracy in San Francisco for a vacation, she has been waiting for the opportunity to confront him.

Writer-director Cameron Crowe can't decide whether to make his film comedy or drama.  If the former, it does not reach the usual quota of laughs.  Yet the casting of comedic actor Baldwin to play the general leads us to think this is the interpretation we're supposed to use.  As a drama, the story is too contrived.  As is often said about the television show Seinfeld, the movie appears to be "about nothing" for the first forty-five minutes or so.

The relationship between Gilcrest and Ng works in similar fashion to the one we saw in Silver Linings Playbook (reviewed here on November 24, 2012; B+) between Cooper and co-star Jennifer Lawrence.  There is tension, but not really a sexual tension, between the male and female leads throughout much of the story.  Cooper has that type of role down pat.

Stone is a screen grabber, just as we saw in Birdman (reviewed here on January 17, 2015; B).  She is jacked up in every scene as if she'd downed an energy drink moments ago.  Ng is "a quarter Hawaiian," a fact repeated several times.  She is well versed in Hawaiian spiritual lore and native dancing.  Her most important contribution to the space mission is to assist Gilcrest in negotiating a land trade with the "Hawaiian King" Bumpy (Dennis Kanahele), who sports a black and white T-shirt which reads "Hawaiian By Birth" on the front, and "American By Force" on the back.  The King is portrayed as a genial mafia figure.

Of the movies I've attended so far this year, Aloha might be the toughest to grade.  I believe "B-" is the fairest rating, although I will admit it falls closer to a C+ than a B.  I prefer movie endings which do not tie up all loose ends.  Crowe goes overboard in doing just the opposite here.

Movie Review: "Far From The Madding Crowd"

"Far From The Madding Crowd": B-.  It is always good to get the disclaimers out of the way.  Therefore, here is mine:  I have not read the English classic novel by Thomas Hardy, Far From The Madding Crowd, on which this film by the same name is based.  To the extent I have objections to the film version, therefore, I am only holding script writer David Nicholls and director Thomas Vinterberg partially at fault.  Hardy, even though he has been dead for eighty-seven years, must shoulder at least some of the responsibility.  The movie is beautifully filmed and, for the most part, splendidly acted.  Alas, it is also one of the most predictable romantic tales I've seen in several months.

The story centers around a young woman, Bathsheba Everdene (Carey Mulligan), who is able to transition, thanks to the beneficence of a deceased uncle, from a nondescript life on a farm in southwestern England to becoming the proud and rich owner of a nearby estate.  Shortly before and just after she becomes aware of her good fortune, two important events occur.  First, she meets her ridiculously handsome young neighbor, Gabriel Oak (Matthias Schoenaerts), who proposes to her within minutes of their introduction.  "I own one hundred acres and two hundred sheep," he proclaims.  When Bathsheba politely declines, stating her position that she has no intention of ever marrying, he is momentarily surprised at her rejection and then shrugs it off, bidding her farewell as he returns on foot to tender to his flock.

The second important event is the most memorable scene in the film.  Allowing you to witness it without a detailed introduction is the best course here.  Suffice it to say that, as a result of that second event, the bright future of Gabriel is placed in jeopardy -- a reversal of fortune, you might call it.  Shortly thereafter, Bathsheba, partially out of a sense of pity, hires him as a shepherd on her magnificent ranch.

Bathsheba is no shrinking violet.  Within days of assuming ownership of the ranch, she warns her staff not to assume that her gender will lead to a laissez faire style of management.  She is setting the bar high, and in fact terminates one of her top assistants on the spot for dereliction of duty.  Bathsheba does not delegate all the hard labor, as evidenced by her working in the fields and stepping right in to the filthy trough where the sheep are washed.  She's frequently seen with dirt smudges on her cheeks.  She may be a diminutive female, but her reputation as being a worthy rancher spreads throughout the region.

This news piques the interest of William Boldwood (Michael Sheen), a wealthy and older land baron who is curious enough to make a personal visit to Bathsheba.  Just as was the case with Gabriel, he too pops the question to a startled, but not quite flustered, Bathsheba.  While Gabriel was more reserved -- in fact, unemotional -- about wanting Bathsheba, Boldwood articulately reveals to her what he hopes a future together might bring.

Enter yet a third male suitor, army sergeant Francis Troy, sporting the worst looking mustache I've seen since Bret Saberhagen toed the rubber for the Kansas City Royals in the mid-eighties.  The character of Troy, and the casting of Tom Sturridge to play the part, are two huge weaknesses of the movie.  Almost nothing that occurs between Troy and Bathsheba is believable.  The worst example is a short scene in the woods where Troy, in full dress military attire, practices Zorro-like moves with his military sword above and around the stationary Bathsheba.  (And here we thought she was a smart woman!)

So there you have it, the core cast.  I guess we are supposed to feel suspense over which male Bathsheba will ultimately end up with: the humble, honest and hard-working ranch hand; the older guy who means well but for whom love is not a two-way street (cue the Moments' 1970 hit, Love On A Two-Way Street!); or, the soldier who resembles Snidely Whiplash and acts even worse.  In my view, once those three possibilities were established it was a no-brainer as to who would be the lucky fella.  I might have lost interest at that point, save for the fact that I happened to notice that Carey Mulligan has the cutest nose, strongly resembling that of my beautiful granddaughter, Rose Marie.  I entertained myself by guessing from time to time how long it would take director Vinterberg to shoot the next profile of his lead actress.  Usually I did not have to wait more than a few minutes; Vinterberg must admire Mulligan's nose too.

Getting back to my disclaimer, unless a movie is a biopic or documentary, my contention is that a filmmaker should not feel constrained to stay faithful to the original written material in adopting the story for the screen.  In fact, one could make the argument that he is required to deviate a little here and there for entertainment and commercial purposes.  Gabriel should be at least slightly imperfect, and Troy should be much less of a cad.  Regardless of how Hardy created those characters in his book, those are refinements I would have strongly suggested to Messrs. Nicholls and Vinterberg, if only they'd asked.   

Movie Review: "Tangerines"

War is not the answer.

 

- What's Going On

  Al Cleveland, Renaldo Benson & Marvin Gaye (1971) 

 

"Tangerines": B+.  Momma Cuandito has opined more than once that Howard Zinn On War should be required reading for everyone.  I would like to supplement that thought by adding the film Tangerines, an Academy Award and Golden Globe nominee recently released in the US, as required viewing.  This fascinatingly instructive movie delivers a powerful message in an entertaining way, and provides food for thought even several days after having seen it.

 

The setting is Georgia in southwest Asia, just a few months after the official collapse of the Soviet Union in late 1991.  Georgia, a beautiful land on the east coast of the Black Sea in the foothills of the Caucasus Mountains, has become one of fifteen (supposedly) independent countries which were once republics under the USSR.  A civil war has broken out between the Georgian government loyalists and the Abkhazians, who want to separate their northwestern section of the country and form their own.

Ivo (Lembit Ulfsak) is an Estonian carpenter who has made the tough decision to stay in his humble cabin in the Georgian woods, just a quarter mile or so from his neighbor, Margus (Elmo Nuganen). The rest of Ivo's family, including his beautiful granddaughter Mari, whose picture adorns Ivo's living room wall, returned to their native European land when the fighting broke out.  Ivo's time is occupied mostly by making wooden crates which he supplies to Margus, a tangerine farmer with a crop that's ready to be harvested.  Margus is preoccupied with worries over finding laborers to do that work; all the young men have left to become soldiers.

 

When two armed Chechens arrive on Ivo's property, he is unperturbed, inviting them to sit at his table, packing them a lunch and even offering them a bottle of vodka to take on the road.  The Chechens are mercenaries from the Caucasus, soldiers of fortune hired by the poorly equipped rebel Abkhazians.  This is not really Chechnya's war.  Ivo's stance as an Estonian is that he does not have a dog in the fight, so it's not his war either.  Or is it?

 

The tranquil setting is abruptly shattered shortly thereafter, as a lethal firefight breaks out at the edge of Ivo's property.  Explosions penetrate the air.  Dead bodies from both armies abound.  A jeep sits on the road, incapacitated by a bazooka.  There appears to be just one survivor, a Chechen near death.  After Margus helps Ivo stanch the burly man's bleeding, they drag him into Ivo's cabin and place him in a bed where he lies in a semi-delerious state.  Then they hide the jeep by sending it over a ridge and gather the corpses outside for a mass burial in a shallow grave.  There they discover a mortally wounded young Georgian soldier, barely alive and closer to death than even the Chechen.  Good thing Ivo's cabin has two bedrooms, because they stash the Georgian in the unoccupied one.  Thus these two soldiers, Ahmed the Chechen (Georgi Nakashidze) and Niko the Georgian (Misha Meskhi), who just minutes ago belonged to military units blasting away at each other, are now both under Ivo's roof, in separate rooms a few feet apart.

 

As predicted by the village doctor summoned by Ivo, Ahmed is the first of the badly wounded pair to recover, although far from fit to return to the front.  Upon learning who his "next door neighbor" is, he vows to kill him as soon as he can muster the strength.  But as his relationship with Ivo evolves and Ahmed realizes that carrying out his threat would be disrespectful to the man who saved his life, the Chechen backtracks a little, promising he won't do the deed until Niko steps out of Ivo's house or sticks his head out the window. "What if he pees out the window?" asks Ivo.

 

What will happen when Niko becomes ambulatory?  Will he and Ahmed kill each other?  How will Ivo, more than twice the young men's age, be able to stop them?

 

Three-quarters of the way through the movie, I still had no idea how the enmity would be resolved, or even if it could be.  The story raises big questions, and better yet, comes up with some wise answers, mostly provided by Ivo.  Ulfsak, in spite of -- or perhaps because of -- his age, conveys the gravitas, dignity and strength required to play the part of Ivo perfectly.

 

As the final credits roll, the camera pans out over the snowcapped Caucasus, with the twilight blue sky behind them.  That beautiful panoramic shot reminded me of the Sochi Winter Olympics held last year, when the NBC cameras treated us to similar views.  The comparison is not coincidental; Sochi is only thirty miles from the Georgia border.

Beyond Designated Hitters

When the Minnesota Vikings host the San Diego Chargers in Week # 3 of the NFL season this September and then travel to Denver to face the Broncos in Week # 4, they will play by exactly the same rules that will be in effect for Weeks # 1 and # 2, when the Purple Gang takes on the San Francisco 49ers and the Detroit Lions.  The Vikes, Niners and Motor City Kitties are in the National Football Conference of the NFL, while the Bolts (SD) and the Orange Crush (DEN) are in the American Football Conference.  Don't matter none!  All sixteen NFC teams and all sixteen AFC teams use a uniform set of rules, regardless of where or when the game is being played.

The same principle holds true for the National Basketball Association and the National Hockey League.  When each opponent comes from a different conference, there are no special rules of order for that game.
 

Not so baseball.

Even the most casual fan knows that in Major League Baseball, games played in American League parks use a designated hitter ("DH"), whereas games played in which the home team is from the National League do not.  Recently there has been some discussion about whether that discrepancy might change in the near future when the current Collective Bargaining Agreement expires.  So far this season the Twins have played every game under AL rules, but that will change one week from today, May 19, when they visit the Pittsburgh Pirates.  In honor of our home town heroes' lofty achievement of playing over .500 ball at this point of the young season, let's consider what some of the DH/no DH ramifications are.

Automatic Outs.  The most obvious difference pertaining to the American League incorporating the DH is that you don't have what usually amounts to an automatic out.  In other words, pitchers don't bat; the DH bats for them.  With the exception of a half dozen hurlers like the San Francisco Giants' Madison Baumgardner, pitchers are notoriously poor batters.  They make their living with their arms, not their bats.  Consequently, many pitchers give, at best, a half-hearted effort to become good hitters.  If they can lay down a good bunt once in awhile, they feel they've done their job at the plate.  If you check the box scores from NL home games, you'll see that managers almost always relegate pitchers to the "9 hole" in the batting order.  The Cubs' manager Joe Maddon and retired Hall Of Fame manager Tony LaRussa are the two skippers most likely to deviate from that tradition.  Imagine the ignominy of being a position player who bats behind a pitcher slotted into the 8 hole!
 

Double Switches.  Former Twins manager Tom Kelly used to make fun of his NL counterparts by telling the press that he wasn't sure he understood "the complexity" of making the maneuver known as the "double switch."  Of course TK was kidding because, first of all, he has a sharp baseball mind, and secondly, it really isn't all that complicated, even though some elitist NL fans look upon the double switch as rocket science.  A double switch, which you'll see only in National League games, occurs simultaneously with a pitching change, when a manager removes not only his pitcher but also one of the eight other fielders (aka position players), and replaces them with a different pitcher and a new fielder who swap spots in the batting order.
 

Let's say that the Twins are playing in an NL park, and the last three places in the Twins batting order are:
 

7. CF Jordan Schafer

8. SS Danny Santana

9. P  Brian "The Dunce" Duensing
 

In the top of the 7th inning, Schafer makes the third out.  Now in the bottom of the 7th with two outs, manager Paul Molitor decides to bring in Casey Fien to pitch to the next batter.  If Fien gets the third out, he is due to bat second in the top of the 8th.  Assuming Molitor feels that Fien is not a good hitter, Molitor pulls the ol' double switch by (i) removing Schafer at the same time he pulls Duensing, (ii) replacing Schafer with Eddie Rosario in center field, and (iii) inserting Fien in the "7-hole" and Rosario in the "9-hole."  It's important to note that Schafer is the most likely position player to be removed as part of the double switch because he made the last out.
 

Following the double switch, the last three places in the Twins batting order look like this:
 

7. P Casey Fien

8. SS Danny Santana

9. CF Eddie Rosario
 

Thus, the first two batters in the top of the 8th will be Santana and Rosario instead of Santana and Fien.  Fien's spot in the lineup won't come up for awhile, if at all.  This saves Molitor from having to use a pinch hitter for Fien in the 8th inning, which has the double benefit of (i) preserving the bench strength strength for possible future pinch hitting scenarios, and (ii) allowing Fien to pitch in the bottom of the 8th, thus preserving the bullpen.
 

One thing to keep in mind about double switches:  The manager has to tell the home plate umpire that he's using the double switch before the manager crosses the foul line and goes to the mound.  Once the manager crosses the line, it's too late to pull off the double dipper.
 

Using a double switch isn't always a good move.  For one thing, a manager won't use it unless the pitcher is one of the first three batters scheduled to hit in the next half-inning.  Also, a manager is hesitant to remove a good fielder late in the game.  In the example above, if manager Molitor deems Schafer a much better center fielder than Rosario, he might not remove Schafer as part of a double switch when he takes out Duensing.  Instead, he might choose a different position player to remove, or he might opt not to use the double switch at all.
 

Roster Ramifications.  Because National League games call for the pitcher to be in the batting order, it follows that you need more than just a couple of worthy pinch hitters on your bench.  Put another way, you need more potential pinch hitters on your bench in an NL game than you do in an AL game.  The result of having more potential pinch hitters on your team means that a team will probably restructure its pitching staff.  The pitchers who are trimmed from the twenty-five man roster are typically # 5 starters and long relievers.  Thus, a team might go from having five starting pitchers, two long relievers and five short relievers to four starters, one long reliever and seven short relievers.
 

Pitcher vs. Batter Strategy.  In a National League game you are much more likely to see pitchers "pitching around" certain batters, or even issuing more intentional walks.  If the # 7 or # 8 batter comes up, especially with two outs, a pitcher might be more conscious of avoiding throwing the ball over the heart of the plate, because even if that batter draws a walk (i.e., "pitching around" the batter), the next one or two batters following in the order are usually weak sticks, one of whom will produce the third out.  You don't see that as much in the AL, which typically has bona fide hitters throughout the batting order.
 

In the later innings of a close game, many managers like to employ a "lefty against lefty" or "righty against righty" matchup to increase the odds of getting an out.  Let's call those desired matchups "LRMs."  The theory, easily provable through statistics, is that left handed pitchers have a better success rate against left handed batters, and right handed pitchers fare better against right handed batters.  The main reason is that curve balls and sliders break away from (instead of into) a batter of the same "handedness" as the pitcher.  Former Twins manager Ron Gardenhire was notorious for using up his bullpen for the purpose of getting his desired LRMs.   In an effort to make it tougher for the opposing manager to use LRMs, Gardy would also arrange his batting order to avoid two batters in a row swinging from the same side of the plate.  (Exception: when Justin Morneau played for the Twins, he and Joe Mauer, both lefties, often batted in the 3 and 4 holes.)  In National League games, however, you don't see managers pulling their pitchers as often as their AL counterparts do in order to get a LRM.  The reason, as alluded to above, is that the manager in an NL game always has to be aware of when his pitcher is due to bat in subsequent innings.  Whenever a pitcher is due to bat (except very early in a low scoring game), the opportunity to lift him for a pinch hitter trumps the desired LRM.  The manager only has so many pitching substitutions he can make before he'll run out of pitchers.  Contrast this with managers in AL games.  They don't have to worry about pinch hitting for the pitcher, so they are more likely to execute the LRM.
 

Bean Balls.  Thankfully, modern baseball does not have as many bean ball wars as the old days, when the majority of squads seemed to have headhunters on their pitching staff.  You will hardly ever see it in the NL, because the pitcher who launches a bean ball is probably going to have to bat at some point.  In the AL, retaliation to a bean ball is usually executed against the first batter in the next half-inning, whom you might call "an innocent bystander."
 

The Overriding Consideration.  Probably the most important thing to remember is that the strategic philosophies for NL play vs. AL play are, generally, quite different.  If you have an extra five minutes, I recommend to you a rereading of my April 22, 2013 post, Manufacturing Runs.  Your assignment is to git'r done before the Twins take on the Buccos one week from today in beautiful PNC Park.