Movie Review: "The Post"

"The Post": B.  Katharine Graham found herself in a pickle in 1971.  As owner-publisher of the Washington Post, she was faced with the choice of allowing her newspaper to publish top secret documents known as the Pentagon Papers, or killing the story against the wishes of her editor-in-chief Ben Bradlee, other Post veteran newsmen who had devoted immeasurable time working on the story, and her own attorneys.  At first blush this was a basic First Amendment/freedom of the press legal issue, but there was much more riding on Graham's choice behind the scenes.

Your enjoyment of The Post will be enhanced if you go into the theater knowing at least a little bit of the background of the Pentagon Papers.  True, director Steven Spielberg spends a portion of the first act setting the stage, but you nevertheless may want to do your own preliminary research.  Alternatively, you might read the remainder of this paragraph.  The Pentagon Papers were the creation of military advisor Daniel Ellsberg, who embedded with the US front line infantry in war-ravaged South Viet Nam in 1966.  His assessment of the war and the U.S. prospects for victory, as he related directly to President Lyndon Johnson and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara on their return flight to the States, was abominably dismal.  The U.S. was, at best, in a stalemate position fighting the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong.  In fact, it would not be unfair to opine that America was actually losing the war, with little hope for ultimate victory.  But within minutes of the plane's landing, McNamara deceitfully informed the press that the U.S. was winning the war.  This falsehood was additionally perpetrated by Presidents Johnson and Nixon, neither of whom wanted to leave as their legacy being the first U.S. president to preside over a lost war.  In 1971, when Ellsberg could no longer remain silent as the deceit emanating from the White House continued year after year, he secretly photocopied reams of military analyses and strategies concerning Southeast Asia from the offices of his employer, Rand Company (a government contractor), and bestowed them upon the New York Times.

The Times planned to run a huge, multi-installment expose of the executive branch's lies and deceit concerning the war, based on the classified documents furnished to them by Ellsberg.  But after only three installments had been published, U.S. Attorney General John Mitchell successfully persuaded a federal court to grant an injunction prohibiting the Times from doing so.  This is where the Post comes in, eventually leading to Decision Time for Graham.

Shortly after the injunction against the Times was issued, the Washington Post, via the connection of assistant editor Ben Bagdikian with Ellsberg, got its hands on the same documents.  The film The Post is mostly about how that newspaper, with Graham at the helm, handled that once-in-a-blue-moon treasure trove of information.  

The inestimable Meryl Streep, the most decorated actress in the history of the cinema, plays Graham.  Although Graham was the titular head of the paper, she had at least two or three hurdles to overcome, not the least of which was her being a woman in an industry historically dominated by men.  There are several instances where the male honchos seem to consult and debate with each other as if Graham was not even in the room, notwithstanding her position. Everyone knew Graham ascended to her throne because of her husband's suicide.  Before he died, he hand-picked Bradlee (Tom Hanks) to run the company as editor-in-chief.  Bradley was the Post's prime minister to Graham's queen.

Another hurdle, like the proverbial Sword Of Damocles, was the IPO which the paper was counting on to capitalize its balance sheet.  [An IPO, aka initial public offering, is the process by which a private company makes its shares available to the public, including mega-buck institutional investors.]  The Post suffered from a kind of inferiority complex.  They saw themselves as a regional, albeit very good regional, paper, but playing second fiddle to the Times, a powerhouse national, if not international, news source.  Graham and company aspired to close the gap with the Times, and going public would give them financial wherewithal to make that dream a reality. The last thing the Post needed at a time when it was trying to attract millions of investment dollars was to have its senior officers indicted on charges ranging from disobeying a federal injunction to treason.

One of Graham's most interesting dilemmas was how to separate her close friendship with McNamara from her obligation to serve her company and its readers.  Other than a string of U.S. presidents dating back to Kennedy (if not Truman), no one was hit harder by the information brought to light in the Pentagon Papers than McNamara.  One of the best scenes occurs when Bradlee, who was Graham's direct report, accuses her of fence-sitting out of her concern for McNamara.  Graham then accuses Bradlee of going soft on some of his buddies, such as President Kennedy.  It does make one wonder how much personal relationships of news source executives get in the way of mission performance.

I found it interesting that Streep has been nominated for a Best Actress Oscar, but the Academy chose not to nominate Hanks for Best Actor.  In the latter case, it probably makes little difference other than the personal recognition garnered by a nomination, as that category is considered a two horse race between Gary Oldman (Darkest Hour, reviewed here December 30, 2017; A-) and Daniel Day-Lewis (Phantom Thread).  As for Streep, I found her a little guilty of over-acting -- is it sacrilegious for a laymen such as I to say so?  Was Katharine Graham really that fidgety and lacking in self-confidence?  The women I have known in powerful corporate positions were anything but.  Still, if Meryl's research found Graham to be outwardly indecisive, almost to the point of nervous twitchiness, then I guess that's how Streep felt compelled to portray her. 

As I wrote in my December 15, 2015 review of Spotlight (B+), I have a weakness for movies which offer us a glimpse of behind-the-scenes action in a newspaper office.  While The Post is an entertaining movie, I cannot grant it a grade as high as Spotlight, which I feel is a superior film.  The scenes concentrating on the paper's legal issues, especially those scenes with a room full of in-house lawyers and outside counsel, were the most compelling part of the movie, more so than those showing how a newspaper goes about its business.  The Post is more on a par with 1976's All The President's Men, a fine film to which I gave a pre-blog B.  I sincerely hope my valuation does not send Mr. Spielberg's career southbound. 

Football Fans Fund Foundations

Up until the last month or so, I never paid much attention to foundations which were set up by professional athletes.  The one exception is the Page Education Foundation, named after its originator and leader, Alan Page.  The mission of that foundation is to provide college scholarships to Minnesota high school students of color.  In return, the recipients enter into a contract by which they agree to perform community service, mentor younger students, and maintain a certain level of academic achievement. 

Alan, a living legend in Minnesota sports history as one of the Vikings' four Purple People Eaters, is an NFL Hall Of Fame member and a recently retired justice of the Minnesota State Supreme Court.  I know him as a fellow Notre Dame alum who graduated two years ahead of me in 1967.  He was a starting defensive lineman on our 1966 National Champion team.  The combination of praiseworthy mission and ND connection have led Momma Cuandito and I to be donors to Alan's foundation since its inception in 1988.    

So, why have foundations set up by other professional athletes caught my eye (and maybe yours) recently?  It all began on December 31, 2017, the last day of the current NFL regular season.

Andy Dalton's Foundation.  We Vikings fans are feeling cursed by our team's string of bad luck in playoff games.  The team has broken our hearts time and again, including two weeks ago in the NFC Championship Game, yet we keep tuning in.  But if we think we have it bad, consider the plight of the Buffalo Bills' fans.  Going into the current season, the Bills had gone seventeen years without making the playoffs, not even as a wild card team.  That is the longest drought of any team in any of the four major North American profession sports leagues.

On that last regular season Sunday, the Bills still had a glimmer of hope to finally achieve the playoffs, but required two things to happen.  First, they had to defeat the underachieving Miami Dolphins in Miami.  Check.  Final score: Buffalo 22, Miami 16.  Next, the Bills needed the Cincinnati Bengals, who had no hope of making the playoffs and thus were mostly just playing for pride, to upset the Baltimore Ravens in Baltimore. A Ravens' win would clinch the playoffs for them and eliminate the Bills.

The Bengals trailed 27-24 with forty-four seconds left when Cincy quarterback Andy Dalton threw a forty-nine yard desperation bomb to wide receiver Tyler Boyd.  Touchdown!  Bengals win, 31-27, the Ravens' season ends and the Bills make the playoffs, ending their futility streak!

The Bills players, still in their uniforms following their Miami game, were able to watch the final moments of the Cincy-Baltimore game on locker room televisions.  The room erupted with glee, as did virtually every sports bar in the city of Buffalo.

This is where the foundation follies begin.  Some ecstatic Bills fans took to twitter and suggested donating to Dalton's foundation, the Andy & Jordan Dalton Foundation, as a way of showing their collective appreciation for the Bengals' quarterback's last minute heroics.  The Dalton Foundation states its mission as follows: "To provide daily support, opportunities, resources and life-changing experiences to seriously ill and physically challenged children and their families in Cincinnati and Fort Worth."  (Andy and his wife, Jordan, are both alums of TCU, located in Fort Worth.)  The twitter suggestion caught fire.  In less than a month, approximately 16,000 Buffalo fans have donated $360,000 to the foundation.  "I think I'm the hottest guy in Buffalo right now," exclaimed the Cincinnati QB.  He and his wife have expressed their gratitude to Buffalo by putting up five billboards in that city.

You might wonder, "What about Tyler Boyd, who caught the game-winning TD pass?"  The Bills fans did not forget his role in the victory.  Boyd's favorite charity, the Western Pennsylvania Youth Athletic Association, has received over $20,000 from Buffalo donors this month.

Blake Bortles' Foundation.  There are many heated rivalries among the fans of the thirty-two teams in the NFL.  Various ranked lists have been compiled, but regardless of the author, you are almost sure to find the Bears-Packers, Chiefs-Raiders and Redskins-Cowboys among the top ten, if not the top five.  Another no holds barred relationship is between the Bengals and the Steelers.  They are both NFC North Division teams, and therefore face off twice a year.  There is an old saying, "Familiarity breeds contempt."  That applies to those teams' fan bases.  Each derives almost as much pleasure from the other guys' losses as it does from its own victories.

That's the set up for what transpired in the second week of the playoffs earlier this month.  Most of the football gurus and oddsmakers had already penciled in the New England Patriots and the Steelers as the two teams who would meet in the AFC championship game the following week.  Their respective opponents in the playoffs' second week, the Tennessee Titans and the Jacksonville Jaguars, respectively, would be mere speed bumps.  Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin even let it slip a couple of times while talking to the media that he was thinking ahead at least a little bit to facing the Pats.  The Jags had other ideas.

Playing with a huge chip on their collective shoulders, Jacksonville upset Pittsburgh 45-42.  Jaguars quarterback Blake Bortles, usually considered several tiers below Pittsburgh QB Big Ben Roethlisberger, managed the game well enough, completing fourteen of twenty-six passes for over 200 yards and a touchdown.  The Jacksonville fans were dubbing the upset a prevention of the Steelers "Stairway To Seven," a reference to the number of Super Bowls Pittsburgh would have attained had they beaten Jacksonville as expected.

The Cincinnati fans, delirious with joy over seeing their enemy, Pittsburgh, lose, and still mindful of the Buffalo fans' donations to the Dalton Foundation, decided to play it forward.  Within a few days, more than $11,000 from approximately five hundred Bengals loyalists had poured into the Blake Bortles Foundation, whose dual mission is to support those with intellectual and developmental disabilities, and to support first responders in the Jacksonville and Oviedo (Bortles' home town), Florida communities. 

Thomas Morstead's Foundation.  Thomas Morstead is the punter for the New Orleans Saints.  Most NFL games are played with each team's punter participating with total anonymity.  (How many of you can identify the Vikings' punter?)  But in the Saints' January 14 playoff game against the Vikings, the final game-winning play of which has been called the Minneapolis Miracle, Morstead stood out for two reasons.  

On Morstead's first punt of the game in the first quarter, he fractured his ribs while tackling Viking punt returner Marcus Sherels.  A little while later Morstead had to punt again, and he clearly grimmaced in pain, holding his side as he kicked.  It was tough for anyone, fan or foe, to watch.  Because NFL teams activate only one punter for each game, Morstead ended up punting four times, with an unbelievably excellent average, even for an able-bodied athlete, of forty-eight yards.

Here's the second reason.  NFL rules dictate that if a game ends with a touchdown on the last play of overtime, the scoring team does not have to attempt the extra point kick, aka PAT for "point after touchdown."  But -- and here is the stupid part -- if the game ends with a touchdown on the last play during regulation (60 minutes), the scoring team does have to line up for the PAT.  So, when the Vikings ended the game with the historic touchdown pass from Case Keenum to Stefon Diggs as regulation time expired, the game was not technically over.  By rule, both teams had to line up on the two yard line for some semblance of a PAT.  This would prove to be more difficult than you'd expect.

The home town fans were delerious, as were the Vikings players celebrating on the field.  The Saints, whose coach, Sean Payton, had been irking the fans with "skol claps" moments before, hastily retreated to their locker room.  One of the game officials had to fetch eleven Saints back onto the field.  Who should be the first of their fifty-three man roster to make the long trek?  None other than Mr. Morstead, the punter with the broken ribs.

This display of sportsmanship so impressed some Vikings fans that a suggestion was made on Reddit to do what Bills and Bengals fans had done, viz., make a donation to Morstead's foundation, What You Give Will Grow.  That organization, founded by Morstead and his wife Lauren, donates raised funds to other non-profits in New Orleans and Gulf South communities, with a focus on children's charities.  Only four years old, it has delivered over $2.5 million to those causes.

The latest reports indicate that over five thousand Vikings fans have followed the suggestion by donating more than $200,000 to What You Give Will Grow.  Morstead graciously thanked the Minnesotans, with a promise to hand-deliver a check equalling 100% of the Minnesota donations to the Child Life Department at Children's Hospital in Minneapolis.  Wow!

Gratuitous question which I cannot resist asking:  Do you think the Eagles fans, whom veteran Star Tribune columnist Jim Souhan called "the worst fans in sports" and "a rotting orchard," would recognize the good will of the Bills, Bengals and Vikings fan bases?

Noteworthy Numbers:  Several Buffalo fans who contributed to Andy Dalton's foundation did so in the amount of $17, representing the length of their team's playoff drought.  Some Cincinnati fans who contributed to the Bortles foundation upped the ante a little with gifts of $45.42, the final score of Pittsburgh's defeat at the hands of Bortles and his teammates.  But most of the donations made to the three players' foundations described above were for smaller dollar amounts, often matching the relevant players' uniform numbers: Dalton # 14, Bortles # 5, and Morstead # 6.  One lesson to be learned for aspiring NFL players: choose the biggest two-digit number you can, in case some day you become a hero.

Quarterly Cinema Scan - Volume XXX

In 1963 Universal Pictures released a movie featuring an actor and actress considered two of the most charming, elegant, chic, suave and attractive stars ever to have graced the silver screen, Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn.  The movie was Charade, a cleverly written combo comedic/romantic mystery set mostly in Paris.  The script offered several opportunities for both stars to display those assets for which they were best known.  For Grant, that included bright wit, calmness in the face of danger, a cosmopolitan aura and a countenance that belied his age (59).  For Hepburn, sheer femininity, grace, sophistication and beauty.  

Sadly for those of us who love the movies, Charade was the only film which paired those two lovable English actors, although Grant was famously quoted later to proclaim, "All I want for Christmas is to make another movie with Audrey Hepburn."  It was not to be.  Perhaps their twenty-five year age difference accounted for some of it.  In fact, that age span was of such concern to Grant that he insisted some romantic aspects of the script be modified, changing his character from pursuer to the pursued (by Hepburn); less of a creepiness factor that way.

Hepburn plays a woman, Regina Lambert, whose husband is murdered -- thrown off a rapidly moving train in the opening shot.  Of course she is upset, even though she confided to a friend that she was contemplating divorce.  But what really rankles Reggie is that her Paris apartment has been ransacked.  (Note: This does not prevent her from wearing Givenchy clothes to die for in virtually every scene thereafter!)  Things get very peculiar at the funeral when a trio of bad guys shows up to make sure the husband is really dead, going so far as jabbing a sharp object in the decedent's side and sticking a mirror under his nostrils.  They even verbally threaten the widow, demanding to know where she has stashed the loot her dead husband has stolen from them.

The rationale for that trio's "concern" is explained but, in this kind of story, unimportant.  What really matters is that Grant's character, Peter Joshua, shows up at just the right times to come to her aid.  The title of the film hints of and points to many twisting developments, the true identity of Joshua being among them.

The supporting cast is star-studded with many well-known names such as Walter Matheau, James Coburn and George Kennedy.  It is hard to think of a character who is not harboring a secret.  Add to this a memorable score and theme song by Henry Mancini and one of the best closing lines ever uttered in a movie, and what you've got is one hundred thirteen minutes of sheer entertainment.

Charade has many of the hallmarks of an Alfred Hitchcock film: Cary Grant (who appeared in four Hitch films), a beautiful leading lady, clever dialogue, suspense, romance, smart villains, an international setting, and a surprise ending.  There's even a cameo appearance by the director, a la Hitchcock.  But, alas, Charade is not a Hitchcock film; the director was Stanley Donen, who is best known for dance musicals such as 1952's Singin' In The Rain.  Nevertheless, Charade has sometimes been referred to as "the best movie Hitchcock never made."

***

Here are the movies I viewed during the last quarter of 2017 in the cozy comfort of the Quentin Estates:      

1. Blazing Saddles (1974 western spoof; State Attorney General Harvey Korman's plans to take over the little town of Rock Ridge backfires when the black sheriff he installs, Cleavon Little, surprisingly becomes a local hero to the all-white townsfolk.) B+

2. Charade (1963 dramedy; Audrey Hepburn, a recent widower, is in the line of danger due to her late husband's nefarious associates, but Cary Grant, a man with a mysterious past, is there to hold her hand.) A- 

3. The Dirty Dozen (1967 war drama; Lee Marvin leads a group of hardened military prisoners in a do-or-die mission to take out a French chateau being used by German officers.) A-

4. 89 Blocks (2017 football documentary covering the East St. Louis High football team's 2016 season.) B-

5. The Hero (2017 drama; Sam Elliott, having just been handed a terminal cancer diagnosis, tries to reconcile with his estranged adult daughter and falls for a much younger stand-up comic, Laura Prepon.) B-

6. Monterey Pop (1968 music documentary covering the May 1967 Monterey Pop Festival, with many excellent performances, including those by Otis Redding and Janis Joplin backed by Big Brother & The Holding Company.)
A-

7. Room At The Top (1959 drama; government office worker Laurence Harvey falls in love with an older woman, Simone Signoret, but can't avoid dreaming of having an easier life with Heather Sears, the young adult daughter of the city's tycoon.) B

8. Rope (1948 drama; John Dall and Farley Granger strangle a former classmate in their apartment and hide the body in a living room chest shortly before hosting a formal party to which they have invited several guests, including their former prep school house master, Jimmy Stewart.) A-

9. Table 19  (2017 comedy; Anna Kendrick, recently dumped by the bride's brother and consequently replaced as maid of honor, is relegated to sitting at the least desirable reception table along with other random guests, including Lisa Kudrow and June Squibb, all of whom the bride felt would be bad fits with the folks at the eighteen more desirable tables.)  B

Movie Review: "Lady Bird"

"Lady Bird": B+.  In our circle of friends there are many who attend movies on a regular basis.  We usually compare notes when we get together.  More than any other film of recent vintage, Lady Bird not only has been seen by many of these folks, but has drawn universal acclaim.  I can appreciate their point of view, and don't try to talk them out of it.  But my take is that it is one of those films for which the whole is a little less than the sum of its parts; still, a very good movie.

Christine McPherson (Saoirse Ronan) is a senior in a Catholic high school who is not afraid to (sometimes) unilaterally change things about her life she doesn't like.  Examples.  She wants to be known as Lady Bird, which she calls her given name because "I gave it to myself."  She hates her home town, Sacramento, and does not want to be relegated to attending nearby UC-Davis for college.  No culture there, she claims. Instead, she applies only to East Coast schools even though her parents are experiencing financial distress.  When her audition for the school play fails, she writes in her own name on the bulletin board list of those students who passed.  In order to impress popular classmate Jenna (Odeya Rush), she tells Jenna a beautiful house in the swanky part of town is hers, when in fact it belongs to her ex-boyfriend's grandmother.  In reality, the McPhersons' modest house is literally on the wrong side of the tracks.  She also stretches the truth about the coziness of her relationship with a drifty boy band member, Kyle (Timothee Chalet).

The film takes us through, and a little past, Lady Bird's senior year.  Writer-director Greta Gerwig populates the story with several interesting characters who interact with the protagonist.  The two male contemporaries in her life, first love Danny (Lucas Hodges) and the aforementioned Kyle, impact her emotionally.  Her father, Larry (Tracy Letts), is a rock, the strongest support in Lady Bird's life, notwithstanding mental health issues tied to his employment situation.  Of course every coming-of-age movie's leading person needs a "bestie," someone whose friendship is often taken for granted but who nevertheless comes through when the chips are down.  That role, Julie, is ably filled by Beanie Feldstein.

Where Gerwig's script crafting really shines is in the several scenes shared by Lady Bird and her mother, Marion (Laurie Metcalf).  Two moments especially stand out, one during a car ride and the other in a clothing store where Lady Bird is trying on prom dresses.  In both instances the two talented actresses segue from cordial dialogue to comical bitter arguments in the blink of an eye.  This is a tremendous mixture of expert writing, directing and acting.  If I were watching this on a TV, I would rewind both segments ad infinitum and admire their collective work.

There are many other humorous moments interspersed throughout, including Lady Bird and Julie snacking on unconsecrated communion wafers, a college advisor who can't control her laughter when Lady Bird, an average student, informs her that her dream school is the Ivy League's Columbia University, and a substitute drama coach who, due to his background as the football coach, diagrams the stage positioning of his student actors as if they were on the gridiron.  We also are treated to Lady Bird's lethargic brother Miguel (Jordan Rodrigues) and his multi-pierced live-in girlfriend Shelly (Marielle Scott).

One pleasant surprise is the way Gerwig uses the Catholic school setting, which comes into play a handful of times.  Too many writers, especially comedic ones, make fun of "anything Catholic" as a source of cheap laughs.  To them the Church and its traditions are low hanging fruit.  In Lady Bird I did not find this to be the case.  In fact, two of the most hip adults who come into Lady Bird's life are school principal Sister Sarah Joan (Lois Smith) and regular drama coach Father Leviatch (Stephen McKinley Henderson).

The two weakest parts of the story are those involving Prom Night -- too cliche -- and the very last scene -- too pat an ending.  It is hard for me to give a grade above a B+ to a movie with a pat ending, so B+ it is; to borrow a phrase from Billboard Magazine, maybe "with a bullet."