Movie Review: "Hearts Beat Loud"

"Hearts Beat Loud": B+.  It's fathers like Frank Fisher who make the rest of us inferior dads look bad.  Thankfully he is only a fictional character in writer-director Brett Haley's newest film, Hearts Beat Loud.  For starters, Frank is cool, a mantle which I used to assume for myself until Momma Cuandito and I had teenagers to raise.  Not only was  Frank a guitarist in a long-haired rock band in his younger days, but he still plays proficiently.  For seventeen years he has operated  a (mostly) vinyl record shop in the trendy Red Hook neighborhood of Brooklyn, a way for him to keep connected to the '80's and '90's music he loves.  As a single parent of eighteen year old Samantha, he has done quite well.  Samantha recently finished high school with grades high enough to gain admission to UCLA's pre-med program.  She has a beautiful singing voice and is a talented keyboard player with a knack for setting some of her poetry to music, an endeavor encouraged with gusto by Frank.

Most importantly, there is a father-daughter bond which seems almost too good to be true.  Frank is a pretty good listener, and as a result Sam has actual conversations with him.  Most dads would not pull their reluctant child away from her studies for the purpose of participating in their daily "jam sesh."  Frank has even set up a mini-recording studio in their apartment. When Frank talks Samantha into demonstrating for him a new song she's written, he decides what they really need to bring it to the next level is an electronic sampler, which he immediately purchases in time for the next day's sesh.  There's not much Frank wouldn't do for his only child.  When she breaks her midnight curfew and doesn't come home until 2:30 a.m., does he chew her out?  No way.  He barely raises an eyebrow when she uses that moment to come out of the closet.  "Next time call, or at least text, if you're going to be late," is the only scolding he can muster.

Nick Offerman is a perfect fit as the teddy bear father.  Kiersey Nicole Clemons is a twenty-four year old actress who has no problem filling the role of Sam.  Although the father-daughter connection, together with the music they make, is the central force propelling the story, there are enough side bars, populated with three well known actors and one newcomer, to bridge the gaps.  Two of those diversions are the complicated respective love interests of Frank and Sam.  Frank isn't actually dating Leslie (the versatile Toni Collette); they are more like good friends.  But she also happens to be his landlord, and the record shop has a serious cash flow problem.  Sam's romantic connection is with Rose (Sasha Lane).  Unlike Sam, who plans to spend the next four years -- and maybe the rest of her life -- in L.A., Rose's future is less glamorous, destined to remain in Red Hook.  The most heart-tugging line of the film is rendered by Rose in the final act.

Frank's sounding board is Dave, the barkeep at the neighborhood saloon where Frank spends many an evening.  In a bit of brilliant casting, Ted Danson plays the wise, advice-giving Dave.  Unlike Danson's character in Cheers, the reformed alcoholic Sam Malone who swore off drinking, Dave is more than willing to share a bump with his good friend Frank.  Dave's ambition is to return to Woodstock so he can smoke dope and relive his experience at the famous 1969 concert.

Blythe Danner (or as I like to call her, Chris Martin's former mother-in law) has a minor part as Frank's mother, Marianne, who is reaching the point where her days of independent living are numbered.  This adds another level of concern for Frank as the revenue from his shop is not paying the bills. Her scenes with granddaughter Sam provide more warmth to an already sweet story.

When Frank and Sam create a song which Frank judges to be a potential hit, he submits it to Spotify without Sam's knowledge, identifying the artist as "We're Not A Band."  It turns out Frank's prediction proves accurate, so now what?  There may be endless possibilities, but most of us know how it will shake out.  Nevertheless, it's hard not to like this movie.  I'm even willing to give it a B+ notwithstanding the grammatical error in its title.        

Concert Moments

Last Friday night the intimate Warming House in south Minneapolis presented a concert featuring two bands.  Intuitive Compass, a southern Oregon duo, opened for Resonant Rougues, a quartet calling Ashville, North Carolina its home.  The first band's website describes its roots as "vaudevillion folk music," while the latter claims influences by Appalachian classic and early New Orleans jazz, among others.

The style of Intuitive Compass fit perfectly with the ambiance of Warming House.  The venue is on the basement level of an old building on 40th and Bryant.  The theater's capacity is less than fifty, and the acoustics are near-perfect.  In this no-frills setting, the thoughtful lyrics of Compass' music could not only be heard but digested as well.  Curiously, the band did not reveal the title of most of their selections until they had finished playing each song.

Aurelia Anne Cohen's work on the accordion evoked a beat and style reminiscent of the Decemberists.  In front of her on the floor were five bells.  I was amused and slightly distracted by watching her tap one or more bells at various times throughout several songs.  I found myself guessing when she would ring a bell, and whether just one or several consecutively.

Compass has played throughout the country, but focuses on the Northwest.  I can't blame Cohen or her partner, guitarist Jason Dea West, for name dropping the The Violent Femmes and Trampled By Turtles, two well known bands for which Compass is opening this month.  

My only knock on Intuitive Compass is that they could have used more variety in tempo.  Tempo variety was not a problem, however, with Resonant Rogues whose co-leader Sparrow, an effervescent personality with an exquisite voice, started her band's set on the accordion but then switched to banjo a few tunes in.  The Rogues are real troubadours who have been all over the US and Europe.  At least a couple of their songs were written while they were in the Balkans and northern Turkey, soaking up the culture of the locals.  This was their second visit to Warming House, and the last of four gigs for which they paired with Intuitive Compass.

Between visits to Minneapolis, Sparrow married co-leader Keith J. Smith, a guitarist who multi-tasked with percussion via a foot pedal which he played with his heel.  The band was headed to South Dakota that night after the show, with Alaska being their ultimate destination.  The Rogues' sound was smartly completed with a stand-up bass and a superbly talented violinist, Kristen Elaine, who is a former bandmate of our good buddy, Tony Cipolle, from their Whiskey Chasers days.  According to Tony's dad, Admiral Bob, Kristen is classically trained but currently prefers life in a traveling folk band "because it's more fun."

The highlight of the evening was the occurrence of a Moment, one of perhaps only seven or eight in the history of my concert-going experiences.  An explanation follows.

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Every once in awhile I've been lucky enough to attend a concert when I realized during a song, "This is a Moment that is going to stay with me forever."  I first came to this realization in high school when I saw the Ronettes live in the Minot Municipal Auditorium, circa 1964.  They were one of the headliners in a lineup of about ten popular '60's groups to perform in the Magic City that night.  Each group sang four or five songs.  The bands that preceded the Ronettes were well received, but nothing out of the ordinary.  Then the Ronettes, three sexy biracial chicks from New York in tight, red hip-hugging dresses, spiked high heel shoes, plenty of mascara and big hair took the stage.  Culture shock on the tundra!  All of a sudden, what seemed like every airman from nearby Minot Air Force Base was on his feet, going wild.  Their excitement was contagious, and the clamor in the audience drowned out the girls' opener, Baby I Love You, and the rest of the trio's other offerings.

Going back to my college days, I remember standing ten feet away from my favorite South Bend band, the MRQ, who launched into a cover of the Hollies' Look Through Any Window.  Another Moment!  They totally nailed the Mancunians' three part harmony, together with a perfect replication of the guitar parts and drums. This sounds like hyperbole, but believe me when I say that the MRQ is the best live cover band I have ever seen; maybe the best live band, period.  Every time they played on campus, usually in Stepan Center (dubbed by Paul Stookey the "Big Popcorn Shaker"), I made it a point to see them.   MRQ was a tribute band before the term gained wider acceptance.  Their specialty was primarily hits and deep cuts by the Hollies, and secondarily the Byrds and Beatles.  They're also responsible for my becoming a life-long Hollies fan (and a Bobby Elliott wanna be).

I still remember the first time I heard those Florida rednecks, Lynyrd Skynyrd, rip into Gimme Three Steps.  I could feel the hairs on the back of my neck start to curl even before the instrumental intro was completed.  I'm guessing the year was 1987.  I am not a huge Skynyrd fan, but since then I've paid to see them two other times just for the sheer joy of hearing them perform that one song.  No wonder it's on Pud's Plethora Of Platinum!

An almost identical experience transpired with Styx, a Chicago band I have always liked going back to the days when Dennis DeYoung was lead singer on over half the group's repertoire.  Their song which absolutely grabs me is Blue Collar Man.  I have seen Styx four or five times over a span of four decades, and twice they opened with "my song."  Did they know I was in the crowd?  Do they know Blue Collar Man is Track # 1 on Pud's Plethora?     

In the eighties, Anne Murray dedicated her hit Can I Have This Dance to a young man sitting in the second deck of the Met Center who was about to propose to his girlfriend.  When Anne finished the song, she called out to him, "What did she say?"  He yelled back, "She said 'Yes!'"  Nine thousand fans erupted with a standing O.  Suddenly there was a speck of dust in my eye.

Although I was not fortunate enough to see the Beatles in concert, I did see both Paul McCartney as a solo, post-Beatles and post-Wings act, and Ringo Star with his first All Star Band.  One Moment from the McCartney show stands out.  It was in the mid-eighties when Paul was in the midst of cranking out five albums in a seven year span.  My recollection is as follows.  Because Paul was touring in support of a recently released solo album, his set list was weighted in favor of new songs.  That was probably acceptable to the younger fans in attendance, but it really wasn't what baby boomers most wanted to hear.  The first twenty-five minutes or so were a mixture of Wings gems and newer stuff.  Then, it happened, the Moment.  Everyone in the packed house recognized the first couple of notes from the Beatles' song, Drive My Car, and the place erupted.  The Fab Four may have ceased to exist over a decade before, but that's the material we most wanted to hear.  For the remainder of the night, the phenomenon of early recognition of Beatles tunes repeated.  We could not get enough of the Mop Tops, even though there was only one of them on stage.

So, now we are back to the present.  Ticket Master, public drunkenness and, as I get older, my lower level of tolerance for boorish behavior -- I'm talking to you, Mister Let's Make A Video Of Every Song With My Cell Phone Raised Above My Head Guy -- have caused me to severely reduce my live music experiences, especially in connection with nationally famous artists.  Thus it has been many years since my last Moment; that is, until Friday night.  When Resonant Rogues played Coco, I knew right then and there a Moment was underway.

Coco came about two-thirds of the way through the set.  The Rogues had already won over the crowd with their sublime craftsmanship, the vignettes preceding many of the songs, the smart mix of slow and bouncy tunes, the solo instrumental snippets by each of the quartet's members, and especially the winning personality of Sparrow.  As she sang Coco in what struck my layman's ears as beautiful French, I felt almost transported to Parisian streets.  I immediately recalled the French film Amelie, starring Audrey Tautou.  Both Sparrow and the character Amelie have that mischievous mannerism, a twinkle of the eye and a sweet smile to go with a kind spirit.  I had only a vague idea of what the song was about, but it didn't matter.

If someday Resonant Rogues comes back for a third visit, I'd like to see them again, with the hope they reprise Coco.  In the meantime, maybe I'll take up French.  

Two Infield Plays Examined

I had almost forgotten how enjoyable it can be sometimes to listen to a baseball game on the radio instead of watching it on the idiot lantern.  Such was the case a week ago today when the Twins anemic offense could not muster more than a single run in a 2-1 home loss to the Los Angeles Angels (formerly known as the Los Angeles Angels Of Anaheim, the Anaheim Angels and the California Angels, but never, to my knowledge, as the Disneyland Ducks).  Momma Cuandito and I were driving home from Wisconsin, passing the time listening to Corey Provus call the play-by-play and Dan "The Dazzle Man" Gladden provide analysis on the Twins Radio Network.  For my money the former Twins left fielder offers more astute insight than any of the retired ballers employed by FSN television.

What I remember most from listening to that game is the occurrence, in consecutive innings, of two plays which, unless you were carefully watching or listening, would appear uneventful.

Teaching An Old Dog A New Trick.  Although I don't claim to be an MLB rules guru -- the Official Rules are more than 150 pages long -- I found out that crediting a fielder with an assist is not as cut-and-dried as I'd believed.  The play in question occurred in the top of the fifth inning when Angels second baseman Ian Kinsler hit a blistering grounder to Twins third baseman Eduardo Escobar.  Esco, with less than a split second to react, tried to short-hop the ball, but it glanced off the heel of his mitt.  Luckily for the Twins, the deflected ball went directly in the air to shortstop Ehire Adrianza whose throw to first barely beat Kinsler.  I immediately said to Momma Cuan, "Just your routine 5-6-3 putout," an opinion verbally confirmed very soon thereafter by Gladden and Provus.  

Before the next Angels batter stepped to the plate, word came to the radio guys that Target Field veteran official scorer, Stew Thornley, did not give Escobar an assist; he scored the play a straight-up 6-3.  Gladden and Provus went apoplectic.  (I would have behaved in similar fashion, but I was behind the wheel.)  "I'm not changing my scorecard," proclaimed Gladden, almost peevishly.  "Neither am I," agreed Provus.

After the half-inning ended, Provus went to the Twins media people and came back to the mic with the following explanation.  Thornley did not credit Escobar with an assist because, in Thornley's opinion, Escobar should have fielded Kinsler's hot hopper cleanly; had the play not been rescued by Adrianza, Esco would have been charged with an error.  The official scorer does not have to award an assist to the fielder who first touched the ball in that scenario.

I have been an avid baseball fan for over sixty years.  I never knew an official scorer had that much discretion, and I'm relatively sure I have never seen (or heard of) a fielder being deprived of an assist if the ball glances off his person, uniform or equipment only to have his teammate successfully complete the play.  Yet, here is an official comment to MLB Rule 9.10(a) which clearly opens the door for the Official Scorer to rule as Thornley did:

Mere ineffective contact with the ball shall not be considered an assist.

Lesson learned.  I hereby swallow a slice of humble pie.

Sometimes You Must Be Unorthodox.  In the bottom of the sixth inning Angels first baseman Jose Miguel Fernandez, a thirty year old rookie, executed a play the way he was probably coached to do, and it ended up costing his team a run.

With one out the Twins had runners on first (Robbie Grossman) and third (Eddie Rosario), with Max Kepler up to bat.  The Angels needed a double play to get out of the inning.  Kepler hit a a sharp grounder near the bag to Fernandez.  The "book" says in that situation, the first baseman should step on the bag to get the sure out, then throw it to second.  The "catch" is that the receiver of the throw, typically the shortstop, needs to apply a tag on the incoming runner (Grossman) because once the first baseman (Fernandez) has stepped on first, there is no longer a force play at second.  Sure enough, Fernandez stepped on the bag to retire Kepler, but that's where the Angels' trouble began.

Grossman, a six year veteran who might have eyes in back of his head, did not oblige the Angels by dutifully sliding into second into the awaiting tag of Angels shortstop Zack Cozart.  Instead, Robbie pulled up thirty feet short of second, intentionally getting himself into a rundown.  That opened the door for the speedy Rosario to score from third while the Angels were in the process of completing the double play with a time-consuming 3-6-3-4-6 hot box.  The rules state that once the force play is removed from the standard double play, Rosario's run counts provided he crosses the plate before Grossman is tagged.  Unfortunately for the Angels, due to Grossman's smarts and Rosario's speed, that's what happened.

In hindsight, what should Fernandez have done?  Given the fact that Rosario is an extremely fast runner, Fernandez should have gone for the standard 3-6-3 double play instead of first stepping on the bag to retire Kepler.  Even though first base is sometimes called the easiest of the nine defensive positions to play, baseball remains a thinking person's game.  Sometimes you just have to think outside the box.