"Hotel Mumbai": B. If there is a sobering lesson to be learned from Hotel Mumbai, it's that if you happen to be trapped by terrorists inside a hotel, or any large building open to the public, your odds of survival are exceedingly thin. A secondary lesson might be this: if you are destined to find yourself in such dire circumstances, pray that it does not happen in India.
The film, directed by Australian Anthony Maras in his first such role, is based on real 2008 events which occurred in India's largest city, Mumbai (formerly known as Bombay), located on the west coast of the subcontinent. The action starts immediately as a small band of men, all bearing large backpacks, quietly lands their small craft among the bigger vessels in the city's quiet harbor. They disperse into a handful of locations, such as a train station and street markets, and simultaneously unleash barrages of machine gun fire and explosives. We viewers fear this will not be an easy story to watch; our hunches will prove to be correct.
We quickly shift to the Taj Mahal Palace, a five star hotel known to attract wealthy tourists and business travelers. The humongous structure is the architectural jewel of the city. The staff is polished and professional. Many of them have spent their careers in this service industry. Placing their guests' comfort before all else is their creed. The embodiment of this principle is found in head chef Hemant Oberoi (veteran Indian actor Anupam Kher), a dignified professional who displays just the right balance of discipline and humanity. One of his subordinates is Arjun (Dev Patel), a young married father trying his best to please his boss while he toils in the bustling kitchen.
Once the terrorists enter the Taj, it's Game Over. Although these radicals number only a half-dozen or so, their hapless victims are at their mercy. There is no mercy forthcoming. The jihadists, who we eventually learn are based in neighboring Pakistan, shoot at anything that moves. They don't really have to aim carefully as their automatic weapons spray dozens of rounds in a heartbeat. The targets are not chosen with discrimination toward gender, age or race; the body count includes a wide variety of guests and employees. In one particularly riveting scene, a female staff member is instructed at gun point to call each room on the fourth floor separately and tell whoever answers that the person knocking at their door is a security officer. The first guest she calls complies with her instructions. When the staff member hears gunshots through the phone, she balks at making a second call. The man holding the gun at her head gives her three seconds to change her mind.
The bad guys are working without much of a plan. For instance, they do not have a blueprint or floor plan. Taking hostages is not considered until late in the siege when Americans are discovered among the captives. Americans are rich, they figure, and therefore are worth more alive than dead. A collection of guests hides out in a second floor restaurant which, for unknown reasons, goes undiscovered for the longest time. It is here that chef Hemant shines, displaying courage and leadership over the staff and their dining guests who might otherwise panic and unintentionally draw the attention of the gunmen.
Although Dev Patel gets top billing as the best known of the actors in this film, I was most impressed by the performances of actresses Nazanin Boniadi and Tilda Cobham-Hervey, who, respectively, play an infant's mother, Zahra, and nanny, Sally. They are separated from each other on two different floors when the attacks begin. A scene in which Sally is hiding with the baby in a guest room closet while two terrorists are right outside the door is spine-chilling.
Another praiseworthy performance is offered by Jason Isaacs in the role of Vasili, a Russian and frequent guest whose reputation as a high-maintenance customer precedes him. The servers almost have to draw straws to determine who will be stuck waiting on him. Arjun accepts the dreaded assignment. Vasili is one of the few interesting characters, because neither we nor other guests trapped in the hotel restaurant know whether to trust him. He is, after all, a Russian. Vasili seems particularly drawn to Zahra, especially when her husband, David (Armie Hammer), sneaks out of the restaurant in an attempt to reach their baby. Is Vasili protecting Zahra while Armie is away, or hitting on her?
Director Maras and his co-writer, John Collee, do not provide back stories on any of the terrorists. What is their motive? Sheer madness is a possible but unlikely answer. Why did they choose the Taj, where they must have known that a large percentage of their prey would be non-christian? For the most part the terrorists are fungible, with no discernible differences. There is little character development with the victims and even less with the murderers. Although the film is historically interesting and even exciting in places, these shortcomings prevent it from rising to a grade higher than B.
Most of the events shown in Hotel Mumbai supposedly mirror what actually took place on that fateful 2008 day. If so, it is mind-boggling that a city of over twelve million people, the largest city in the world's second most populous nation, was so ill-prepared for this kind of terrorist attack. No SWAT team? No special forces? No trained negotiators? The terrorists entered the hotel before sunset, and were still killing people inside after sunrise the next morning. The explanation provided to us for the delay in obtaining rescuers is that the local government officials had to wait for Indian special forces to arrive from the capital, New Delhi, over eight hundred miles away. Meanwhile, the Mumbai police sent in Moe, Larry and Curly. Didn't work.
Monday, April 29, 2019
Friday, April 26, 2019
Our Lady Of Lourdes Church: Reflections Then And Now
Our Lady Of Lourdes, sometimes referred to as "the French church," is Minneapolis' oldest church in terms of continuous use. Its origins date to 1857 when the First Universalist Society constructed the building on a hill overlooking St. Anthony Falls. Following a ten year period of vacancy, French Canadian Catholics purchased the place in 1877, and named their parish Our Lady Of Lourdes in honor of the Blessed Virgin's appearance in Lourdes, France to fourteen year old Bernadette some nineteen years prior. Their new parish became the first one so-named in the United States.
Prior to our joining Our Lady Of Lourdes ("OLL"), Momma Cuandito and I had been registered members at three other parishes: St. Joseph's (Hopkins) where Gina and Michael were baptized, Holy Family (St. Louis Park) where Jill was baptized, and Most Holy Trinity (St. Louis Park) where we taught school for a combined fifteen and a-half years. Toward the end of our stretch as MHT parishioners, we found ourselves attending Sunday evening Mass at OLL much more often than Sunday morning Mass at MHT. If memory serves me correctly, a secondary cause for this practice was the Minnesota Vikings. Getting out of bed in time to make it to the early Sunday morning Mass at MHT was asking too much, and attending the late Sunday morning Mass there meant I would have to miss the first quarter of the Vikings' noon games, which in those days meant most of their schedule. Again, that was asking too much in those pre-DVR times. Way too much!
But the main reason we started going to OLL's Sunday evening Mass was that the celebrant was often a priest whom we both enjoyed immensely, Father John O'Hara. He was a middle aged man with rugged good looks, reminiscent of Kirk Douglas. Besides helping out OLL with these Sunday night "guest appearances," Father O'Hara was also doing parish work at St. Bridget's in north Minneapolis, and was the chaplain for the Minneapolis Fire Department. For seven years in the '80's he had been a chaplain in the U.S. Air Force. His homilies often included stories of bravery and heroism which he witnessed from his unique vantage points. Some priests simply have a knack for combining scripture stories (which we've all heard a million times) with real life lessons, and Father O'Hara was at the top of that select circle.
In January 2001, after the Vikings had embarrassed themselves, 41-donut, versus the New York Giants in the NFC Championship Game, Momma Cuan and I decided that, football or no football, we liked the Sunday night gig much better than the Sunday morning one. And, since it was now our plan to continue ending our weekends with Sunday night church at OLL, it was only fair that we should register as parishioners there. (Note: There was another reason having more to do with MHT. Here is the truncated version. The pastor, whom I won't name -- hint: his first name rhymed with "menace" -- had a personality much like a bag of rocks. With an air of entitlement and disinterest, he was totally clueless in Seattle. A short example was his failure to acknowledge, much less thank, all of the parishioners who did things voluntarily behind the scene. In my case, I was on one of the four four-man crews of money counters who took turns meeting on Sunday afternoons in the school's stuffy, un-air conditioned second floor library. We tallied the contributions from the collections of all the Masses that week, making sure to credit each parishioner for his or her offering. Then we deposited the funds at Citizens' State Bank. I did this for four years. The number of times the pastor thanked any of us for this work was easy to count: zero.)
Here is the kicker. A few months after Mary and I officially enrolled at OLL, it became spring. There were a couple of weeks in a row when we were out of town. When we returned home there were a couple more weeks when a different priest celebrated the Sunday night Mass. Finally the next week we asked one of the regulars why Father O'Hara was MIA. "Oh, he won't be saying Mass here any more. He moved to Jacksonville, Florida last month."
****
Now it's eighteen years later, and we still belong to OLL. Over the course of our forty-three year marriage, it's by far the longest stretch of our belonging to the same parish. For me personally, a weekday noon Mass, not always on the same day each week, has replaced the Sunday night routine. I made an exception this past weekend for Easter. While Mary took her mother to Christ The King, I went by myself to the 11:00 Mass at OLL. Here are some quick takes from that experience.
* The Easter morning bombings by terrorists of three churches and three hotels in Sri Lanka less than twenty-four hours ago is the top news story worldwide. More than three hundred innocent people have been killed, with hundreds more injured. What is to stop the same thing from happening here? Even a lone wolf gunman or a single suicide bomber can do untold harm. Our church has hired an off-duty, uniformed and armed Minneapolis cop to stand guard in the back of church. How much of a deterrent to crime can one policeman be?
* The altar boys are identical twins, Miguel and Louis. I remember them serving Mass when they could not have been more than seven or eight years old. Back then I could not tell them apart. Now they are only a month away from graduating from high school. They have always been excellent servers who obviously take their job seriously and perform it very reverently. I still cannot tell them apart, down to their facial features, hair and glasses.
* Today's gospel recounts the story of the first Easter, aka the Resurrection. Saints Peter and John hear that the tomb where Jesus was buried two days ago is now empty. They both rush to the scene. John, who is at least twenty years younger than Peter, outraces the older man to the entrance. He peers in but does not enter the sacred place, deferring to Peter. Why did John wait for Peter to enter? The reason is that Jesus had appointed Peter the head of the newly-founded Church. "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I shall build my church." The younger apostle waits for his elder out of respect. There are a handful of short stories from the Bible that have made me proud to have John as my patron saint. That is one of them.
* Our paster, Father Daniel Griffith, also happens to be an attorney who is on the faculty of the University Of St. Thomas Law School. Occasionally he will make reference to his double duty and the difficulty sometimes presented by his responsibilities to both the parish and the school. Part of the pomp and circumstance in the Easter Mass liturgy is the blessing of the congregation by the priest, performed by the sprinkling of holy water from a small bucket as he walks up and down the aisles after the opening prayer. Before he started his homily, Father Dan had a confession to make. He told us that whenever he performs the sprinkling of holy water ceremony, he is always worried that the heavy metal ball at the top of the dobber which he dips into the bucket will fly off from its base as he thrusts his hand forward to spread the water over the crowd. He admitted that, due to his legal training, he wasn't totally sure if he was worried more as a pastor that one of his parishioners would be injured, or as a lawyer that the victim would sue for personal injury damages. Laughter abounds.
* Jesus Christ is referred to in scripture and dogma by various descriptive names such as the Good Shepard, the Son Of God, the Son Of Man, the Second Person Of The Blessed Trinity, Lord, the Messiah, etc. "Christ The Redeemer" is the most apropos for Easter. It is the teaching of the Catholic Church, among other christian faiths, that Christ's sacrifice was in redemption for the sins (original or otherwise) of mankind. This was the theme of Father Dan's homily today. He cleverly started by pointing out that over the last two weekends there have been two remarkable redemptions in the world of sports. Two weekends ago in the Final Four, the Virginia Cavaliers won the NCAA basketball championship. This was viewed as an act of redemption for the team's performance in the 2018 tournament when the Cavs became the first-ever # 1 seeded team to lose to a # 16 seeded team, the University Of Maryland-Baltimore County. Father Dan could not resist pointing out that the Cavs are coached by a fellow Wisconsinite, Tony Bennett. (As you might have guessed, Father Dan is a Packers fan.) Last weekend, Tiger Woods won the Masters golf tournament for the fifth time. If one looks at redemption as a kind of deliverance or rescue, Woods' historic comeback from multiple injuries and surgeries, which at one time rendered him barely able to walk, let alone golf, might qualify.
* It never fails at a well attended Sunday Mass. Two ushers who, today, happen to be a man and a woman, are charged with taking up the collection from the center aisle. Both carry long-handled baskets. Because the aisle is only a few feet wide, they jostle each other with their handles' ends as they attempt to go side-by-side simultaneously. I thought at one point the male usher's basket handle was going to impale the female right below her rib cage. Who knows? Maybe he is a hockey player who is used to spearing. Here is a novel idea. Why doesn't the guy let his partner get a thirty second head start so that they won't be right next to each other as they promenade toward the back, thus avoiding insult and injury? Failure to recognize this makes one wonder if the age of chivalry is, indeed, dead.
* Finally, an illustration of the wisdom of the adage "you catch more flies with honey than vinegar." When we were parishioners at St. Joe's, we unfortunately could count on one of the associate pastors, Father Beckman, to admonish the so-called "Easter birds" for their failure to attend Mass on the other fifty-one Sundays of the year. That is not how to encourage better attendance. Contrast Father Beckman's style with Father Griffith's, who simply concluded the Mass by saying, "Thank you for coming. Have a wonderful Easter. We hope to see you again soon." Amen.
Prior to our joining Our Lady Of Lourdes ("OLL"), Momma Cuandito and I had been registered members at three other parishes: St. Joseph's (Hopkins) where Gina and Michael were baptized, Holy Family (St. Louis Park) where Jill was baptized, and Most Holy Trinity (St. Louis Park) where we taught school for a combined fifteen and a-half years. Toward the end of our stretch as MHT parishioners, we found ourselves attending Sunday evening Mass at OLL much more often than Sunday morning Mass at MHT. If memory serves me correctly, a secondary cause for this practice was the Minnesota Vikings. Getting out of bed in time to make it to the early Sunday morning Mass at MHT was asking too much, and attending the late Sunday morning Mass there meant I would have to miss the first quarter of the Vikings' noon games, which in those days meant most of their schedule. Again, that was asking too much in those pre-DVR times. Way too much!
But the main reason we started going to OLL's Sunday evening Mass was that the celebrant was often a priest whom we both enjoyed immensely, Father John O'Hara. He was a middle aged man with rugged good looks, reminiscent of Kirk Douglas. Besides helping out OLL with these Sunday night "guest appearances," Father O'Hara was also doing parish work at St. Bridget's in north Minneapolis, and was the chaplain for the Minneapolis Fire Department. For seven years in the '80's he had been a chaplain in the U.S. Air Force. His homilies often included stories of bravery and heroism which he witnessed from his unique vantage points. Some priests simply have a knack for combining scripture stories (which we've all heard a million times) with real life lessons, and Father O'Hara was at the top of that select circle.
In January 2001, after the Vikings had embarrassed themselves, 41-donut, versus the New York Giants in the NFC Championship Game, Momma Cuan and I decided that, football or no football, we liked the Sunday night gig much better than the Sunday morning one. And, since it was now our plan to continue ending our weekends with Sunday night church at OLL, it was only fair that we should register as parishioners there. (Note: There was another reason having more to do with MHT. Here is the truncated version. The pastor, whom I won't name -- hint: his first name rhymed with "menace" -- had a personality much like a bag of rocks. With an air of entitlement and disinterest, he was totally clueless in Seattle. A short example was his failure to acknowledge, much less thank, all of the parishioners who did things voluntarily behind the scene. In my case, I was on one of the four four-man crews of money counters who took turns meeting on Sunday afternoons in the school's stuffy, un-air conditioned second floor library. We tallied the contributions from the collections of all the Masses that week, making sure to credit each parishioner for his or her offering. Then we deposited the funds at Citizens' State Bank. I did this for four years. The number of times the pastor thanked any of us for this work was easy to count: zero.)
Here is the kicker. A few months after Mary and I officially enrolled at OLL, it became spring. There were a couple of weeks in a row when we were out of town. When we returned home there were a couple more weeks when a different priest celebrated the Sunday night Mass. Finally the next week we asked one of the regulars why Father O'Hara was MIA. "Oh, he won't be saying Mass here any more. He moved to Jacksonville, Florida last month."
****
Now it's eighteen years later, and we still belong to OLL. Over the course of our forty-three year marriage, it's by far the longest stretch of our belonging to the same parish. For me personally, a weekday noon Mass, not always on the same day each week, has replaced the Sunday night routine. I made an exception this past weekend for Easter. While Mary took her mother to Christ The King, I went by myself to the 11:00 Mass at OLL. Here are some quick takes from that experience.
* The Easter morning bombings by terrorists of three churches and three hotels in Sri Lanka less than twenty-four hours ago is the top news story worldwide. More than three hundred innocent people have been killed, with hundreds more injured. What is to stop the same thing from happening here? Even a lone wolf gunman or a single suicide bomber can do untold harm. Our church has hired an off-duty, uniformed and armed Minneapolis cop to stand guard in the back of church. How much of a deterrent to crime can one policeman be?
* The altar boys are identical twins, Miguel and Louis. I remember them serving Mass when they could not have been more than seven or eight years old. Back then I could not tell them apart. Now they are only a month away from graduating from high school. They have always been excellent servers who obviously take their job seriously and perform it very reverently. I still cannot tell them apart, down to their facial features, hair and glasses.
* Today's gospel recounts the story of the first Easter, aka the Resurrection. Saints Peter and John hear that the tomb where Jesus was buried two days ago is now empty. They both rush to the scene. John, who is at least twenty years younger than Peter, outraces the older man to the entrance. He peers in but does not enter the sacred place, deferring to Peter. Why did John wait for Peter to enter? The reason is that Jesus had appointed Peter the head of the newly-founded Church. "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I shall build my church." The younger apostle waits for his elder out of respect. There are a handful of short stories from the Bible that have made me proud to have John as my patron saint. That is one of them.
* Our paster, Father Daniel Griffith, also happens to be an attorney who is on the faculty of the University Of St. Thomas Law School. Occasionally he will make reference to his double duty and the difficulty sometimes presented by his responsibilities to both the parish and the school. Part of the pomp and circumstance in the Easter Mass liturgy is the blessing of the congregation by the priest, performed by the sprinkling of holy water from a small bucket as he walks up and down the aisles after the opening prayer. Before he started his homily, Father Dan had a confession to make. He told us that whenever he performs the sprinkling of holy water ceremony, he is always worried that the heavy metal ball at the top of the dobber which he dips into the bucket will fly off from its base as he thrusts his hand forward to spread the water over the crowd. He admitted that, due to his legal training, he wasn't totally sure if he was worried more as a pastor that one of his parishioners would be injured, or as a lawyer that the victim would sue for personal injury damages. Laughter abounds.
* Jesus Christ is referred to in scripture and dogma by various descriptive names such as the Good Shepard, the Son Of God, the Son Of Man, the Second Person Of The Blessed Trinity, Lord, the Messiah, etc. "Christ The Redeemer" is the most apropos for Easter. It is the teaching of the Catholic Church, among other christian faiths, that Christ's sacrifice was in redemption for the sins (original or otherwise) of mankind. This was the theme of Father Dan's homily today. He cleverly started by pointing out that over the last two weekends there have been two remarkable redemptions in the world of sports. Two weekends ago in the Final Four, the Virginia Cavaliers won the NCAA basketball championship. This was viewed as an act of redemption for the team's performance in the 2018 tournament when the Cavs became the first-ever # 1 seeded team to lose to a # 16 seeded team, the University Of Maryland-Baltimore County. Father Dan could not resist pointing out that the Cavs are coached by a fellow Wisconsinite, Tony Bennett. (As you might have guessed, Father Dan is a Packers fan.) Last weekend, Tiger Woods won the Masters golf tournament for the fifth time. If one looks at redemption as a kind of deliverance or rescue, Woods' historic comeback from multiple injuries and surgeries, which at one time rendered him barely able to walk, let alone golf, might qualify.
* It never fails at a well attended Sunday Mass. Two ushers who, today, happen to be a man and a woman, are charged with taking up the collection from the center aisle. Both carry long-handled baskets. Because the aisle is only a few feet wide, they jostle each other with their handles' ends as they attempt to go side-by-side simultaneously. I thought at one point the male usher's basket handle was going to impale the female right below her rib cage. Who knows? Maybe he is a hockey player who is used to spearing. Here is a novel idea. Why doesn't the guy let his partner get a thirty second head start so that they won't be right next to each other as they promenade toward the back, thus avoiding insult and injury? Failure to recognize this makes one wonder if the age of chivalry is, indeed, dead.
* Finally, an illustration of the wisdom of the adage "you catch more flies with honey than vinegar." When we were parishioners at St. Joe's, we unfortunately could count on one of the associate pastors, Father Beckman, to admonish the so-called "Easter birds" for their failure to attend Mass on the other fifty-one Sundays of the year. That is not how to encourage better attendance. Contrast Father Beckman's style with Father Griffith's, who simply concluded the Mass by saying, "Thank you for coming. Have a wonderful Easter. We hope to see you again soon." Amen.
Monday, April 22, 2019
Quarterly Cinema Scan - Volume XXXV
Of all the bands which made their mark during the British Invasion, perhaps none had a more mysterious history than the Zombies. The rock quintet headed by keyboardist Rod Argent and vocalist Colin Blunstone formed in southern England in 1962. Like hundreds of other European bands, they existed mostly in obscurity until 1964 when the Beatles paved the way for American audiences to hear music from across the pond. I have posted here before (March 10, 2014 and April 18, 2018) about that once-in-a-lifetime -- and probably once-in-forever -- phenomenon.
The Fab Four's first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show was on February 9, 1964. The Zombies were in what is sometimes called "the second wave of the British Invasion," not making their Billboard Magazine Hot 100 debut until eight months later on October 17, 1964 with the single She's Not There. That song stayed on the charts for fifteen weeks, peaking at # 2 on December 12, 1964, where it resided for one week (behind Bobby Vinton's Mr. Lonely). It turned out to be the Zombies' biggest hit. They quickly followed that up with Tell Her No, which debuted on the charts on January 9, 1965. That song peaked at # 6 on February 27, 1965 and stayed there for two weeks. Tell Her No had a chart life span of eleven weeks.
This was the heyday for the Zombies, as their two top ten hits were getting tons of radio airplay. They appeared on Sullivan and other popular U.S. shows like Hullabaloo. With their dark suits and thick, lustrous, wavy hair, the musicians fit the part of a band that might bear the name "Zombies." A couple of the lads also sported black horn-rimmed glasses, not a customary accessory for bands of the day. As an entity the Zombies were different, and so was their genre-defying music, bordering on baroque. They had all the live gigs they could handle, especially along the East Coast. For a six to nine month period they were receiving as much screaming adulation from teen audiences as any other band outside of the Beatles and Stones. Then, they hit a wall. Why?
Ironically, the Zombies were never as successful in their native Great Britain as they were in the States. For example, She's Not There did not reach the top ten in the U.K., and Tell Her No failed to breach the top forty there. Even in the U.S., their third single, She's Coming Home, was not a lucky charm, managing to top out only at # 58. They seemed to run out of juice, and without a new hit to promote, their label, Decca, dropped them. Four of the five original band members hung in there for a couple more years, but as far as commercial success, the well had run dry. The Zombies signed with another label, CBS, and recorded an album on the cheap called Odessey and Oracle (the first word of the title having been unintentionally misspelled) during the summer of 1967. When singles from Odessey generated little buzz, the band broke up that December.
What makes the Zombies' story unique is what transpired after the break up. Four months after the disintegration, CBS released Odessey and Oracle in the U.K. with uninspiring results. The album would have been buried, never to be heard again, except American musician Al Kooper, fresh from having an instrumental part in forming the jazz-rock hit maker Blood, Sweat & Tears, convinced Columbia records to give Odessey a shot in the States. The twofold result was (i) Time Of The Season, a single from Odessey, became the Zombies' second biggest hit, reaching # 3 on March 29, 1969, reclaiming that position the following week and staying on the Billboard charts for thirteen weeks, and (ii) Odessey is now internationally considered a masterpiece. In 2003 Rolling Stone Magazine ranked Odessey as the one hundredth best album of all time. By the time that late-blooming and originally under-appreciated album had become famous, the band members were off working on other projects or in careers unrelated to music, and therefore declined the chance to re-form. Had the Zombies re-formed, with Odessey having confirmed their legitimacy as true craftsmen, there is no telling how different their legacy might have been.
***
Ever since I first heard She's Not There when I was a senior in high school, I have been a Zombies fan. A few of my random thoughts about the band follow.
One lyric from She's Not There goes like this:
Her voice was soft and cool,
The Fab Four's first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show was on February 9, 1964. The Zombies were in what is sometimes called "the second wave of the British Invasion," not making their Billboard Magazine Hot 100 debut until eight months later on October 17, 1964 with the single She's Not There. That song stayed on the charts for fifteen weeks, peaking at # 2 on December 12, 1964, where it resided for one week (behind Bobby Vinton's Mr. Lonely). It turned out to be the Zombies' biggest hit. They quickly followed that up with Tell Her No, which debuted on the charts on January 9, 1965. That song peaked at # 6 on February 27, 1965 and stayed there for two weeks. Tell Her No had a chart life span of eleven weeks.
This was the heyday for the Zombies, as their two top ten hits were getting tons of radio airplay. They appeared on Sullivan and other popular U.S. shows like Hullabaloo. With their dark suits and thick, lustrous, wavy hair, the musicians fit the part of a band that might bear the name "Zombies." A couple of the lads also sported black horn-rimmed glasses, not a customary accessory for bands of the day. As an entity the Zombies were different, and so was their genre-defying music, bordering on baroque. They had all the live gigs they could handle, especially along the East Coast. For a six to nine month period they were receiving as much screaming adulation from teen audiences as any other band outside of the Beatles and Stones. Then, they hit a wall. Why?
Ironically, the Zombies were never as successful in their native Great Britain as they were in the States. For example, She's Not There did not reach the top ten in the U.K., and Tell Her No failed to breach the top forty there. Even in the U.S., their third single, She's Coming Home, was not a lucky charm, managing to top out only at # 58. They seemed to run out of juice, and without a new hit to promote, their label, Decca, dropped them. Four of the five original band members hung in there for a couple more years, but as far as commercial success, the well had run dry. The Zombies signed with another label, CBS, and recorded an album on the cheap called Odessey and Oracle (the first word of the title having been unintentionally misspelled) during the summer of 1967. When singles from Odessey generated little buzz, the band broke up that December.
What makes the Zombies' story unique is what transpired after the break up. Four months after the disintegration, CBS released Odessey and Oracle in the U.K. with uninspiring results. The album would have been buried, never to be heard again, except American musician Al Kooper, fresh from having an instrumental part in forming the jazz-rock hit maker Blood, Sweat & Tears, convinced Columbia records to give Odessey a shot in the States. The twofold result was (i) Time Of The Season, a single from Odessey, became the Zombies' second biggest hit, reaching # 3 on March 29, 1969, reclaiming that position the following week and staying on the Billboard charts for thirteen weeks, and (ii) Odessey is now internationally considered a masterpiece. In 2003 Rolling Stone Magazine ranked Odessey as the one hundredth best album of all time. By the time that late-blooming and originally under-appreciated album had become famous, the band members were off working on other projects or in careers unrelated to music, and therefore declined the chance to re-form. Had the Zombies re-formed, with Odessey having confirmed their legitimacy as true craftsmen, there is no telling how different their legacy might have been.
***
Ever since I first heard She's Not There when I was a senior in high school, I have been a Zombies fan. A few of my random thoughts about the band follow.
One lyric from She's Not There goes like this:
Her voice was soft and cool,
Her eyes were clear and bright.
The four adjectives contained in those lines describe Colin Blunstone's voice, which was atypical for a rocker. Just like the Dave Clark Five, where one might expect to hear a guitar break the Zombies chose keyboards. And similar to the Beatles' second U.S. hit, She Loves You, the Zombies' second hit, Tell Her No, is about a girl but is directed to a boy who has a relationship with her. (The Beatles returned to that theme in 1965 with You're Going To Lose That Girl.)
Eight or nine years ago I took Momma Cuan to First Ave to hear Rod Argent and Colin Blunstone. They had a backup band but were touring as a duo, not as the Zombies. The show was tremendous and it was interesting to see so many Zombies fans here in Minnesota. Naturally, most of them were of my vintage. In preparation for attending that show I bought a Zombies compilation album titled The Singles Collection, As & Bs, 1964-1969 (on the Big Beat label). With twenty-eight tracks it is one of my favorite records in my collection.
***
So, why am I writing about the Zombies in a Quarterly Cinema Scan post? The connection is the film Eddie And The Cruisers. When I saw the trailer for that 1983 movie, I was immediately reminded of the Zombies' story. The Zombies relished their moment in the sun, but had the misfortune of disbanding before the promise of their seminal record, Odessey And Oracle, was fulfilled. The Cruisers' story has a somewhat similar, but not identical, bent. I simply had to see the movie as soon as it was released.
The tale is told mainly in flashbacks, which take us to early '60's New Jersey. Eddie Wilson (Michael Pare), a dynamic singer with matinee idol looks, fronts a band, the Cruisers, with four musicians and a backup singer, Joann (Helen Schneider), who is Eddie's girl. They play mostly lounges up and down the Jersey Shore. They have one extremely well received album, Tender Years, to their credit, but there is trouble brewing in the making of their sophomore effort. The band is not a democracy; it's Eddie's way or no way. Eddie insists, over his bandmates' reservations, on using dark depressing moods throughout their second album, thus thoroughly contrasting with their first. When the finished product, A Season In Hell, is presented to their label, it is flat out rejected, just as the other Cruisers had feared. Within hours, Eddie has driven his car at a high speed over a bridge railing and into the river below. His body is never found. That was the end of the Cruisers as we knew them. (Bass player Sal (Matthew Laurance) later forms a Cruisers tribute band.)
Flash ahead to present day 1983. It is the twentieth anniversary of Tender Years, and disc jockeys are championing a rebirth of interest in the band. A documentary film producer, Maggie Foley (Ellen Barkin), takes on an investigation of the strange sequence of events from two decades ago. Is Eddie dead? If so, was his deep plunge into the river an accident or suicide? What happened to the master tapes of A Season In Hell, which inexplicably disappeared from the recording studio within twenty-four hours after Eddie's tragedy? The band's sax player, Wendell Newton ("Tunes" Antunes), died in a motel room the same year as Eddie's passing, 1963. Was that coincidence, or are the two fatalities connected in some nefarious way? When Maggie attempts to interview the surviving members of the band, some are less than forthcoming. Have they merely "turned the page" or are they hiding something?
In the interest of fairness and integrity, I am saddened to report that the movie, Eddie And The Cruisers, was not all that it could have and should have been. The story falls apart in the last act, which is most disappointing because, up until then, it had the makings of a superb motion picture. The premise and the potential were there, but it's almost as if the filmmakers changed writers for the finish. I watched the movie again last month on TV. I remembered my reaction to my initial viewing thirty-six years ago, but was hoping for a different personal outcome this time. No such luck.
In a departure from my own grading rationale which I set out in my post dated January 12, 2012, I've decided to give this film a B+ instead of the B- which my system calls for. Rules, especially self-imposed ones, are made to be broken. I'll try not to make a habit of doing so. I'm going to lay the blame this time on the outstanding sound track laid down by John Cafferty And The Beaver Brown Band, a Rhode Island group hired by director Martin Davidson for the project.
***
Here are the movies I watched on the small screen during the first quarter of 2019.
1. Eddie And The Cruisers (1983 drama; Ellen Barkin is a journalist who investigates the death of a hot band's lead singer, Michael Pare, twenty years ago, and the mysterious disappearance of the band's recording tapes from the studio the following day.) B+
2. The High And The Mighty (1954 drama; co-pilot John Wayne, a seasoned flyer with a tragic past, coaches younger pilot Robert Stack when their commercial jet is imperiled on a flight from Honolulu to San Francisco.) D
3. James Stewart, Robert Mitchum: The Two Faces Of America (2017 documentary about two premier actors during Hollywood's Golden Age.) B-
4. Roma (2018 drama; Yalitza Aparicio is an indispensable, much loved but still under-appreciated maid for a middle class Mexico City family which the mother, Marina de Tavira, tries to sustain when her husband deserts them.) B-
5. The Seven Ups (1973 police drama; Roy Scheider is the leader of a small contingent of cops who bend the law and resort to dirty tactics to put the gangster wise guys behind bars.) B-
6. Sleeping With The Enemy (1991 drama; Julia Roberts fakes her own drowning in Cape Cod to escape abusive husband Patrick Bergen, then changes her appearance and her name to make a new life in Cedar Falls, Iowa.) C
7. Snowcoming (2019 romance; Trevor Donovan, a star NFL quarterback, returns to his home town for the retirement party of his former high school coach, Ed Marinaro, who also happens to be the father of Trevor's old crush, Lindy Booth.) C+
8. Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970 war drama; Colonel E.G. Marshall is one of the very few American military brass to take the threat of a December 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor seriously, while Harvard educated So Yamamura, the Japanese fleet commander, is not thoroughly convinced an attack is in his country's best long-term interests.) B-
Sunday, April 14, 2019
Burger And A Beer? No Problem!
THE QUID PRO QUO
Although she has turned into a bona fide college hoops fan, I kind of felt sorry for Momma Cuandito last weekend. What caused this sympathy was my television viewing plan covering Friday night through Monday, as follows:
Friday: NCAA women's Final Four semi-finals from Tampa, including # 1 seed Notre Dame (the "Irish Lassies," as I like to call them) versus the # 2 seed UConn Huskies. This heated rivalry has been labeled by many sports journalists as the best in the women's game over the last decade. The ND-UConn tilt was slated to follow the other semi-final, # 1 seed Baylor vs. # 2 seed Oregon. Naturally I felt an obligation to watch the Lady Bears-Ducks semi in case Irish head coach Muffet McGraw called me later for a scouting report on the winner. I've always been a fan of Muffet ever since she responded with a hand-written note to a congratulatory letter I sent her following Notre Dame's 2001 National Championship. [An aside: Many observers have opined that Muffet and UConn head coach Geno Auriemma don't appear to like each other. At the Women's Final Four Media Day, they were asked about their relationship, and whether they might be friends if not for their teams' rivalry. Muffet answered, "I would respect him, but I wouldn't want to be married to him." Geno replied, "I wouldn't want to be married to me either."]
Saturday: Considered by hoops fanatics to be the greatest sports day of the year, the two NCAA men's Final Four semi-finals, Auburn-Virginia and Michigan State-Texas Tech. The winners get to play for the National Championship. Having the Final Four in Minneapolis was exciting for our metro area, but the truth is I would watch every second of both games regardless of the venue location. By comparison, my annual agenda for watching the NBA playoffs is this: Wait for the final series, and if there is a Game 7 I will watch the last two minutes.
Sunday and Monday: The NCAA women's national championship finals and the men's, respectively, each preceded by an hour long pre-game show.
All together, that's about sixteen or seventeen hours of boob tube watching over a four evening span. To compensate Momma Cuan for the hogging of our TV, I had a brilliant (BRILLIANT!) idea. "Let's go out for lunch Saturday," I suggested. Momma Cuan was all in.
THE GAME PLAN
Since we each have different favorites when it comes to pizza and burgers, we usually take turns picking the establishment if one of those foods is what we jointly have in mind. For example, if we're going for pizza, The Leaning Tower (24th & Lyndale) is my fave, whereas Momma Cuan prefers Black Sheep (26th & Nicollet). Both are very acceptable to each of us, so it makes little difference whose turn it is to pick. The same can not be said for hamburgers. Everyone who knows me well is aware of my periodic craving for the Amsterdam burger at Park Tavern, aka the "PT." For years I have labeled it the best burger in the Twin Cities. MC absolutely loves Lake & Irving's entire menu, but especially their burger. Unlike the pizza situation, I honestly don't relish L & I's burger. I believe I'm a minority of one in my family. (For what it's worth, my second place burger is the Mount Mushmore at JL Beers in Nordeast (First Ave & University). JLB's burgers cost under $7, and as an extra added attraction they boast a fantastic tap beer selection.)
Our late Saturday morning conversation regarding dining destination went something like this. You might notice hints of Minnesota-speak therein.
Me: Where would you like to go for lunch? What do you have a taste for?
Friday: NCAA women's Final Four semi-finals from Tampa, including # 1 seed Notre Dame (the "Irish Lassies," as I like to call them) versus the # 2 seed UConn Huskies. This heated rivalry has been labeled by many sports journalists as the best in the women's game over the last decade. The ND-UConn tilt was slated to follow the other semi-final, # 1 seed Baylor vs. # 2 seed Oregon. Naturally I felt an obligation to watch the Lady Bears-Ducks semi in case Irish head coach Muffet McGraw called me later for a scouting report on the winner. I've always been a fan of Muffet ever since she responded with a hand-written note to a congratulatory letter I sent her following Notre Dame's 2001 National Championship. [An aside: Many observers have opined that Muffet and UConn head coach Geno Auriemma don't appear to like each other. At the Women's Final Four Media Day, they were asked about their relationship, and whether they might be friends if not for their teams' rivalry. Muffet answered, "I would respect him, but I wouldn't want to be married to him." Geno replied, "I wouldn't want to be married to me either."]
Saturday: Considered by hoops fanatics to be the greatest sports day of the year, the two NCAA men's Final Four semi-finals, Auburn-Virginia and Michigan State-Texas Tech. The winners get to play for the National Championship. Having the Final Four in Minneapolis was exciting for our metro area, but the truth is I would watch every second of both games regardless of the venue location. By comparison, my annual agenda for watching the NBA playoffs is this: Wait for the final series, and if there is a Game 7 I will watch the last two minutes.
Sunday and Monday: The NCAA women's national championship finals and the men's, respectively, each preceded by an hour long pre-game show.
All together, that's about sixteen or seventeen hours of boob tube watching over a four evening span. To compensate Momma Cuan for the hogging of our TV, I had a brilliant (BRILLIANT!) idea. "Let's go out for lunch Saturday," I suggested. Momma Cuan was all in.
THE GAME PLAN
Since we each have different favorites when it comes to pizza and burgers, we usually take turns picking the establishment if one of those foods is what we jointly have in mind. For example, if we're going for pizza, The Leaning Tower (24th & Lyndale) is my fave, whereas Momma Cuan prefers Black Sheep (26th & Nicollet). Both are very acceptable to each of us, so it makes little difference whose turn it is to pick. The same can not be said for hamburgers. Everyone who knows me well is aware of my periodic craving for the Amsterdam burger at Park Tavern, aka the "PT." For years I have labeled it the best burger in the Twin Cities. MC absolutely loves Lake & Irving's entire menu, but especially their burger. Unlike the pizza situation, I honestly don't relish L & I's burger. I believe I'm a minority of one in my family. (For what it's worth, my second place burger is the Mount Mushmore at JL Beers in Nordeast (First Ave & University). JLB's burgers cost under $7, and as an extra added attraction they boast a fantastic tap beer selection.)
Our late Saturday morning conversation regarding dining destination went something like this. You might notice hints of Minnesota-speak therein.
Me: Where would you like to go for lunch? What do you have a taste for?
MC: I could really go for a great hamburger; haven't had one in awhile.
Me: Okay, where do you want to go? (At this point I was sure she was going to say "Lake & Irving," but she surprised me.)
MC: Oh, I don't care, you pick. (At this point, I'm sure Mary thought I was going to choose the PT.)
Me, still feeling a little guilty about all the college hoops I'd been watching and still planned to watch that weekend: How 'bout if I name five places, and you can pick from that list?
MC: Okay.
Me: Harriet's Inn, Merlin's Rest, The Lowbrow, Pat's Tap and Red Wagon (actually a pizza joint). (Notice I left out L & I, but neither did I include the PT or JLB.)
MC: I can't decide.
Me: Well, what if I narrow it down to just two of those five?
MC: Okay.
Me: The Lowbrow or Merlin's?
MC: Where is The Lowbrow again? Oh, yeah, 43rd and Nicollet. Let's go there.
THE ADVENTURE
We left the Quentin Estates at 1:00, heading for south Minneapolis. Although we had intentionally omitted downtown lunch spots from our list of of possibilities due to the congestion expected with the Final Four, we still hit a bunch of traffic snags along Lake Street. As we slowly passed by The Lake Formerly Known As Calhoun, I half-expected Momma C to say, "I've changed my mind. Let's do Lake & Irving." You know what they say about a woman's prerogative. But, that did not happen; we arrived at The Lowbrow around 1:30.
Our server was a nice young man whose name I didn't catch, but let's call him Oliver. Oliver informed us that, on Saturdays, The Lowbrow served only brunch until 2:00. "Lunch is not available until 2:00," he said almost apologetically. He left to attend to another table, but promised he'd return quickly. Mary and I had a meeting of the minds simply by making eye contact with each other. We had already eaten breakfast that morning. We had just spent a half-hour in the car getting pumped for hamburgers. We were not in the mood for brunch, but hey, no problem. We will simply order Bloody Marys, nurse those drinks for a half hour, then grub down on burgers. Oliver soon returned and Mary told him our plan.
Our server was a nice young man whose name I didn't catch, but let's call him Oliver. Oliver informed us that, on Saturdays, The Lowbrow served only brunch until 2:00. "Lunch is not available until 2:00," he said almost apologetically. He left to attend to another table, but promised he'd return quickly. Mary and I had a meeting of the minds simply by making eye contact with each other. We had already eaten breakfast that morning. We had just spent a half-hour in the car getting pumped for hamburgers. We were not in the mood for brunch, but hey, no problem. We will simply order Bloody Marys, nurse those drinks for a half hour, then grub down on burgers. Oliver soon returned and Mary told him our plan.
"Great," the eager Oliver exclaimed. "But just so you know, we are unable to serve real Bloody Marys here, due to a neighborhood legal restriction. I can offer you a Bloody Beer [made with Hamms which, as I recall, is barely drinkable suds from the old days] or a Sake Bloody."
Another silent meeting of the minds. Both of those alternatives sounded disgusting, or as our granddaughter Rosie would say, "exgusting." "I'll be right back," claimed the over-extended Oliver.
Mary and I figured by the time we drove to another restaurant or bar, it would be almost 2:00, so we came up with yet another idea. Might as well stay at The Lowbrow, kill the 30 minute wait with a couple of beers, then order burgers at 2:00. When Oliver returned as promised, we told him our new plan.
"Great," Oliver cried joyfully. Then there was a pregnant pause. "But just so you know..." As soon as he uttered those five words we knew what followed would not be good. "... we can't start cooking our lunch items right at 2:00 because it takes the kitchen about twenty-five minutes to clean the grill and convert their operation from brunch to lunch."
Sigh. As we exited The Lowbrow we concluded the travel gods must have taken today off.
***
A short attempt for lunch at Revival proved equally fruitless and nearly fatal. That small restaurant, which rightfully has a reputation as the premier place in Minneapolis for fried chicken, was not on our radar before we'd set out for The Lowbrow, but the two places are right across Nicollet Avenue from each other. We had loved our two previous Revival visits, so using the Bird In The Hand Theory, we decided to give it a shot.
Two problems, getting there and getting seated. Crossing Nicollet at 43rd Street is literally tempting fate. The vehicles come whizzing by from both directions without regard to pedestrians. After our second aborted attempt Mary reminded me that a few months ago a woman was killed right there trying to do what we were struggling to do now, i.e., crossing Nicollet to get to Revival. Our third time was the charm, only to find out that people were lined up inside for what appeared to be at least a forty-five minute wait. Neither one of us was in the waiting mode, especially following our disappointments at Lowbrow. Crossing Nicollet a second time to get back to our car proved more challenging than the first, as a city bus decided to park along the curb on the south side of 43rd, obstructing our view of oncoming traffic. We had to go out almost to the center line to scope out a break.
***
When we reached our car parked two blocks away, it was time to reconsider our options. By now we were not only frustrated, but hungry as well. We weren't that far from Matt's Bar (35th & Cedar), but decided that was too much of a tourist attraction for the out-of-towners here for the Final Four. Friday night's local news telecast confirmed that. Pat's Tap (35th & Nicollet) was even closer, but when their outdoor patio is closed at this time of year, the inside space gets filled up quickly. Once again, I wondered if Momma Cuan was going to bring up Lake & Irving, but I was not about to propose the idea. "Well, Merlin's Rest is still an option," I pointed out to her, "and a Belhaven would taste pretty good right now." We drove off, destination 36th Avenue & East Lake.
***
Merlin's Rest is a Longfellow neighborhood bar which we discovered several years ago. It is the only tavern in Minneapolis which serves Belhaven on tap, so even though it requires a grueling drive up and down Lake Street, we need a Belhaven fix every so often. Belhaven is to Scottish ale what Guinness is to stout. It is even poured the same way, meaning the bartender lets the first stage settle in the glass before topping it off with a perfect head. At Merlin's, the food is almost an afterthought.
This was turning out to be a day in which plan flexibility was not only well-advised but even mandatory. We still tinkered with other dining ideas as we zig zagged across the residential streets of south Minny, bound for Merlin's. First Mary proposed heading to a bar in the Nokomis neighborhood where we had enjoyed good burgers last year. The problem was neither of us could recall the name of the place, although I knew it used to be the Sunrise Inn. I was foggy on the location, but vaguely remembered walking to the Sunrise over ten years ago from the Blue Line's 46th Street station. We headed for 46th, but before I could get there I found myself in a left turn only lane when I needed to go straight. Unable to change lanes, we found ourselves going southwest on Hiawatha. When we couldn't get a cell phone signal to figure out directions, we scrapped those short-lived plans for the Nokomis place. (For the record, the bar we were momentarily trying to get to is called the Bull's Horn on 46th Street and 34th Avenue. We'll have to save that idea for another time.)
When we passed Roosevelt High School we contemplated checking out Northbound, a smoke house so-named because it is spitting distance away from the Blue Line's 38th Street station. Smokehouse is one of those places where the aroma from the kitchen grabs you as soon as you walk inside. It's also another place which, like Merlin's, I associate with a particular beer, in this case their Smokehouse Porter. Yum! Writing about it makes me want to go there soon.
By the time we arrived at Merlin's we truly needed a rest. It had been almost an hour and a half since we'd left the Quentin Estates. Maybe we shouldn't have been so adventurous in our quest for burgers and beers. The restaurant was not busy at mid-day and we easily found two stools at the rail. The bar was being tended by Allie, who sports a tattooed outline of the state of Minnesota above her left breast. I always think it would have been more appropriate for her to have chosen Scotland's Highlands, this being a Scottish pub, but who am I to judge? She has served us a number of times before and, to her credit, pours an excellent pint.
After starting out with delicious Belhavens, we at last ordered our long sought burgers, The Burger (aka plain burger with cheese) for Momma C and an Irish Burger for me. I would have ordered a Scottish burger, but none appeared on the menu. The Irish Burger's "secret ingredient" is Connemara bacon jam. Fifteen minutes later, as she presented our meals, Allie raved about how much she loved her employer's burgers. She told us that she refused to eat a hamburger anywhere other than Merlin's and one other Minneapolis restaurant which had the same meat supplier. Mary obliged Allie by asking which other restaurant. Allie replied, "Lake & Irving. Are you familiar with it?"
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