Movie Review: "Love & Friendship"

"Love & Friendship": C+.  I'm not saying film critic Tim Robey of The Telegraph was on wacky tobaccy, but calling Love & Friendship "flat-out hilarious" is, itself, hilarious.  Robey's two-word description is at the top of the related movie poster, surely cause for a truth-in-advertising investigation.  I failed to do more than twitch a faint smile or two during my viewing, and I did not hear any laughter from my fellow movie patrons.  I can attest that not everyone in the audience was Scandinavian, a people often accused of possessing a dour sense of humor, because I, for one, am not.

The story is based on a novel, Lady Susan, written by Jane Austen in her teenage years.  Kate Beckinsale plays Lady Susan Vernon, a recently widowed mother of sixteen year old shrinking violet Frederica (Morfydd Clark).  Although marriage is the farthest thing from the daughter's mind, it's at the top of Susan's not only for her own sake but for Frederica's as well.  A common theme of Austen's works is the dependency which wives have on their husbands for financial well-being, and how the death of the latter results in unfair consequences for the former, mostly due to the laws of the land.  Susan has been rendered poor by her spouse's demise.  She is not in a position to wait for a true love to enter her life.  She is a huntress, and any male with a pulse and a bank account is fair game, regardless of age or marital status.  If the term "cougar" had been around in seventeenth century England, Lady Susan would have filled the bill perfectly.  The facts that Susan is beautiful and possesses a wardrobe befitting a princess help her on her quest.  Those qualities are counter-balanced by her cunning and deceit.

 

The film attempts to be a comedy, first with the too-rapid introduction of a dozen or more characters by showing their pictures accompanied with clever descriptive captions.  A poppy violin score fills in transitions between scenes throughout the movie.  The dialogue is a mixture of thoughtful observations, clever retorts and witty reproaches.  I would have appreciated the wit more if I didn't have to strain to decipher the dialect.  Maybe I will rewatch the movie on a DVD with subtitles.  Director Whit Stillman tries too hard to play the humor card with Tom Bennett's character, Sir James Martin.  Rather than being lovably cute and naive a la Mrs. Bennett in Pride & Prejudice, Sir James comes across like an ignorant dolt.  For example, he gets the largest charge out of the estate's name, Churchill; he can't imagine why there is neither a church nor a hill.  The lead male character, Reginald DeCourcy (Xavier Samuel), accurately refers to Sir James more than once as "a blockhead."

 

Even though, to director Stillman's credit, the running time of the movie is only ninety-two minutes, the pacing is not brisk.  Some of the problem is caused by the defect of sameness among scenes and characters.  For example, the settings change among two estates, Langford and Churchill, and a London apartment, yet it's not always clear which space we are watching at any given time.  Likewise, although young Reginald is the main male character, most of the supporting older gents all seem the same.  And even if there were some barely traceable marks of distinction, none of the males, including Reginald, is particularly interesting.  Perhaps that's the way things were back then in jolly old England.

 

Yesterday I was reading a review of the Broadway touring production of The Bridges Of Madison County, about which Star Tribune theater critic Rohan Preston wrote the following: "There are no surprises or unexpected turns in the story."  Compare that with the following short notes I took three days ago less than an hour after I watched Love & Friendship:  "Lacks suspense.  What you expect will happen does happen."  Two great minds thinking alike regarding two productions, one on stage and the other on the silver screen.  At least I got to watch Kate Beckinsale for an hour and a half; Mr. Preston didn't.    

Movie Review: "Money Monster"

My stockbroker made me a millionaire.  I used to be a multi-millionaire.
 - Anonymous

"Money Monster": B.  It's quite possible you have seen Jim Cramer, the real life host of CNBC's Mad Money.  Cramer's schtick of rolled up sleeves, loosened tie, almost out-of-control fast talking, and frequent gesticulations as he strides across the show's set, belies his smarts.  He used to be a hedge fund manager after starting his finance career as a stockbroker with Goldman Sachs.  This Harvard man knows his stuff, but he does not fit the prototype of a buttoned down conservative Wall Street numbers cruncher.  In Money Monster, George Clooney's character, Lee Gates, is cut out of the same mold as Cramer.  As part of his financial advice show there are costumed dances, horns, buzzers, whistles, big red desk top buttons, music, funny videos and general foolishness, all to accompany Gates' can't miss tips.  The name of his cable program is the title of the film.

Patty Fenn (Julia Roberts) is Money Monster's veteran but under appreciated director.  Her job is to reign Gates in, a tough task in any context but especially in the realm of live television.  Gates never sticks to the script, is cracking jokes with the crew seconds before air time, and seems, in a laid back way, more concerned about which restaurant to patronize afterwards than he is about what the market is doing or how he's going to advise his viewers.  Fenn is used to Gates' antics.  She even has a code word, "Sacagawea," which, when she whispers that from her headset in the booth into Gates' earpiece, is a signal to cease and desist whatever he's doing or saying and move on to something else.

Once we get a taste of how Gates operates, director Jodie Foster decides to have bad guy Kyle Budwell (Jack O'Connell) make an early -- maybe too early -- appearance.  You might say he comes in with a bang.  Budwell has snuck into the building posing as a delivery man, and while the cameras are rolling, he brandishes a large caliber handgun, blasts a shot or two into the ceiling, and threatens to blow away Gates in front of thousands of viewers.  His beef?  Several weeks beforehand Gates had promoted a rosy future for a company called Ibus.  It was that day's Pick Of The Decade, not to be confused with yesterday's or today's.  Budwell, following Gates' confident recommendation, sunk his entire fortune, a $60,000 inheritance from his mother, into Ibus.  Now, Ibus stock has tanked and its shareholders are left holding the bag.  The word on the street is that a computer glitch was the culprit for Ibus capital shrinking $800 million in a matter of minutes, but Budwell is holding Gates responsible.  Not only that, he makes Gates strap on a bomb-laden vest which Budwell can detonate by releasing his grip from a remote trigger.  At Budwell's insistence, the cameras keep rolling, and people around the world are watching.

 

A large portion of the movie's second act is spent trying to pinpoint the whereabouts of Ibus CEO Walt Camby (Dominic West).  He has some explaining to do.  Gates had lined him up for a video interview to explain the nosedive of Ibus stock, but not even his direct reports know where he is, only that he's in his private plane.  They say he is notorious for cutting off all means of communication, including his cell phone, while he's flying.  One of those direct reports, company spokesperson Diane Lester (the glamorous model/actress Caitriona Balfe), stands ready at an offsite location to pinch hit for Camby on Money Monster.  Gates grills her with some tough questions, but she claims to have no inside information.

 

Although off to a very good start, the story bogs down as both the Money Monster staff, under the calm guiding hand of Fenn, and Ibus' Lester try to crack the mystery of how the Wall Street giant could suffer such an extraordinary setback.  In the course of their separate investigations, we are introduced to the algorithm writer in Seoul used by Ibus, computer hackers in Iceland, and Avery Goodloe (Dennis Boutsikaris), the Ibus CFO who attempts to fire Lester until she reminds him that her boss is Camby, not him.  While all this is going on, the NYPD SWAT team has entered the building, trying to figure out how to take out Budwell without reducing Gates to vapor.

 

Clooney gets to show range here beyond his usual Mr. Cool persona.  If Clooney was a reality TV personality instead of actor, I imagine he'd be a lot like Gates, pre-Budwell intrusion.  Roberts is on-screen a lot but has limited duties.  Almost all her lines are delivered into a headset.

 

Hands down, the best part of the story occurs when the police locate Budwell's pregnant wife, Molly (Emily Meade).  They hook her up with a phone connection, figuring she can talk the father of her unborn child off the ledge of despair.  Things don't exactly go as planned, due to her outrage at the thought of him blowing all their money.  "You spent all that energy to make a bomb when you don't even know how to use a screwdriver?"

 

As I was leaving the theater I resolved not to let the film's last twenty minutes, which are downright silly, cause me to overlook the fact that I was entertained by the story.  Okay, I'm willing to give it a strong B, but it was heading higher before losing its sharpness.

Passed Balls & Wild Pitches

There I was, minding my own business while sucking down a Steel Toe along the rail at the Park Tavern.  The Twins were on the tube, which is usually a PT irrelevancy if there is a hockey game being simultaneously telecast.  The bar was busy for a pre-happy hour Thursday, with most of my fellow patrons offering up unsolicited critiques on the ineptitude of our out-manned home town heroes.  The more the viewers pounded down their Bud Lights, the louder their opinions became, audible even to those on the other side of the room.  I was reminded of a T-shirt I saw in a Hayward store: "The smarter I sit on this barstool, the longer I get."  The TV audio was muted, but eventually I got to the unfathomable point of thinking maybe I'd rather be listening to Roy "The Boy" Smalley give one of his patented four minute answers to a simple question.

 

By the time Twins manager Paul Molitor had brought in long reliever Michael "Gulf Of" Tonkin as the sacrificial lamb out of the bullpen, the Twins were hopelessly behind.  In the tavern, only those without jobs to go back to were left.  The chairs to my right were all empty, and only the three seats to my immediate left were occupied.  So far I had not joined in the banter, which in a sick way was more entertainment than our team was providing.  Tonkin wasted no time putting runners at the corners, but had the next batter in an 0-2 hole.  His third pitch was a knee high fast ball for a third strike, but the pitch crossed up catcher Kurt Suzuki, who probably had signaled for a breaking ball.  The pitch clanked off Suzuki's mitt, allowing the runners to advance.

 

The man next to me cried out, "That's an error on Suzuki!  E-2!"  One of his buddies agreed, further opining that Suzuki should at least be demoted to Rochester for his miscue, if not summarily given his outright release.  Their friend at the far end begged to differ, insisting that, even though the pitch was knee high in the strike zone, Tonkin should be charged with a wild pitch.

 

I knew better, especially since I had already tabbed out and was seconds away from leaving, but for some foolish reason (my own beer consumption?) I had to set the record straight.  Therefore, instead of simply making my way out I took it upon myself to inform the trio that, in fact, all of them were wrong.  What they witnessed was not a wild pitch, nor was it an error; it was a passed ball.  Things could have gone badly from that point -- I probably would have kept my lip zipped if I were in Philly or the Bronx -- but these guys actually nodded in agreement as they listened to my rationale, or at least pretended to.  I kept the explanation short, about twenty or thirty seconds, bid them a good day and exited, stage left.  Whether they remembered any of it once the effects of the beers had worn off, I'll never know.

 

My PT story is a springboard to the rest of this post.  I would hate to learn that any of you found yourself in a similar discussion without being armed with the truth.  So as a public service, here is a much longer version which I wisely decided not to tell my new-found, if momentary, friends at the PT.

 

Each home team employs an official scorer, who is usually a retired baseball writer.  His job is to issue a ruling on every single play that occurs throughout a game.  Some official scorers have a tendency to be batter friendly, meaning that on a play which could arguably be ruled either a hit or an error (e.g., a short hop, sharply hit grounder which an infielder tries unsuccessfully to glove backhanded), he will more often than not award the batter a base hit.  (Note: The official scorer for the Baltimore Orioles, Mark Jacobson, is notorious for granting "cheap hits" to O's batters.  At least that's what Minnesota media members have opined.)  By necessity, if an official scorer is pro-batter, he is therefore "anti-pitcher," because a base hit has direct and immediate negative implications on the pitcher's stats, whereas an error does not.  Official scorers are supposed to be unbiased, just like umpires, but the human element in performing their job is a factor. 

 

When a pitch gets by a catcher, that occurrence alone is never ruled an error.  The official scorer has the discretion of determining whether the fault lies with the pitcher or the catcher.  If the former it's a wild pitch, if the latter it's a passed ball.  As a general rule, if a pitch is in the dirt the official scorer will call it a wild pitch.  Keep in mind that even a strike can be ruled a wild pitch, such as when a batter swings and misses at a pitch (usually a slider or a cut fastball) which nosedives into the dirt, allowing a baserunner to advance.  If a pitch gets past the catcher and, in the official scorer's judgment, the catcher should have been able to latch on to it without extraordinary effort, he will score the play a passed ball.

 

If the catcher's failure to catch a pitch can't be ruled an error, then what difference does it make whether the official scorer calls it a PB or WP?  The first answer is an obvious one.  Baseball has always been a game built on statistics, and statistics provide the measuring tool by which we gauge performance.  The number of WPs is one of many stats by which pitchers are evaluated.  The same goes for PBs when evaluating catchers.  The second answer has to do with ERA, i.e., a pitcher's earned run average (number of earned runs per nine innings).  If, in any inning, a run scores which, in the opinion of the official scorer, would not have scored but for a passed ball, the run will be unearned (good for the pitcher).  If the passed ball had, instead, been ruled a wild pitch, the run will be earned (bad for the pitcher).  Check out the following scenario.

 

The Twins have a runner, Trevor Plouffe, on second base with one out.  Brian Dozier is batting and the count is 1-1.  Royals pitcher Yordano Ventura unleashes an ankle-high slider with which Dozier tries in vain to connect.  Without hitting the dirt or the plate, the ball glances off the mitt of Royals catcher Salvadore Perez and rolls to the backstop.  Plouffe prances into third base, standing up.  On the next pitch, Dozier lofts a fly ball to center fielder Lorenzo Cain, whose throw to the plate is not in time to nail Plouffe, who had tagged up.  The next Twins batter, Byron Buxton, strikes out on three pitches for the third out.  Is Plouffe's run earned or unearned?  The answer depends on whether the official scorer ruled the play allowing Plouffe to take third a WP or a PB.  If it's a WP, the run is earned; if, instead, it's deemed a PB, the run is unearned.

 

An example of when it's useful to know whether a pitcher is prone to throwing WPs or a catcher is prone to PBs has to do with base stealing.  A baserunner with decent but not great speed might wait several pitches for a WP or PB before attempting a steal if he knows the pitcher and/or catcher are likely candidates.  In other words, why take a gamble with a base stealing attempt if there is a decent chance of getting a free pass to the next base via a WP or a PB?  Another example would be a batter who suspects that a pitcher will not throw a slider or cut fastball -- two types of pitches which are often most effective when purposely headed for the dirt right in front of the catcher --  with runners on base because the pitcher does not trust his PB-prone catcher.  In such a case, the batter might "sit on" (i.e., wait for) a straight four seam fastball.

 

Finally, you may be asking yourself this question.  If a passed ball has the same effect on ERA as does an error, why don't we just call each passed ball an error?  As they say on WCCO News, "Good question!"  The company line is that wild pitches and passed balls are deemed to be part of the act of pitching, not fielding.  I call "balderdash!"  The real answer lies in what I wrote before in my July 17, 2014 post (Arbitrary And Capricious Traditions) about baseball tradition.  Most of it is sacrosanct.  We've been separating passed balls from errors for over a century.  Why change now?