Movie Review: "Calvary"

"Calvary": B-.  Father James (Brendan Gleeson) is the pastor of a Catholic church in a small seaside village in Northern Ireland.  He is a bear of a man, standing tall with his long graying reddish hair and snowy beard. He is a physical presence as he makes his way around the village, following up on a woman who sports a bruise under her eye (an apparent victim of abuse), consoling a young grieving widow, downing a pint at the local pub, visiting an elderly writer who lives on the outskirts, fly fishing in a local stream, and mixing in with his parishioners in various shops around town.  He is there for whoever needs him.  His life has purpose.  He has the demeanor of a college professor, self assured, steady and reliable.

In the opening scene Father James listens in the confessional, where he can't see what sounds like a young male who has entered the adjoining "box," ostensibly to confess his sins to the priest.  Instead, the man calmly advises Father James that he is going to kill him on the beach the following Sunday, one week away. The man's calm and apparently rational conversational tone makes what he says even more chilling.  He holds no personal grudge against this particular priest.  On the contrary, the troubled man's plan is to right a wrong from the days of his youth by killing a good priest.  He figures that would hurt the Church more than dispatching an evil one.

How does Father James respond?  To an outside observer, the priest's reactions belie the turmoil he must feel within.  He does not jump out of the confessional to confront, or even identify, the purported penitent. He continues with his day and with his week as if he'd never heard the threat.  Other than knowing the potential murderer is a man, we, the viewers, do not know who he is.  In many respects the story plays out like an Agatha Christie novel.  Every time we are introduced to one of the townsfolk, we wonder if he is The One.

One of the film's sidebars is Father James' relationship with his daughter, Fiona (Kelly Reilly).  We find out that James was married before he became a priest, and Fiona was an only child.  After James' wife died, James devoted himself to his new-found vocation, enrolling in a seminary and eventually becoming ordained, whereas he should have placed his priorities with his daughter.  Now that she is an adult, she still loves her father and has (for the most part) forgiven him. Yet, that does not stop Fiona from calling her father out for his past decision when she needed a parent.  The irony is obvious.  The priest is in the business of forgiving people for their sins, yet he is the one who cannot fulfill his vocation without being forgiven by his daughter.

The story is a little one-dimensional.  The days of the week are identified like chapters as we progress toward the potentially fateful Sunday.  The fact that we know the murder is planned for that day takes some of the tension away. If I were the script writer, I probably would have had the would-be murderer in the confessional tell the priest "by the end of the week" instead of "next Sunday."  Keeping the audience more on edge would have been an improvement.

For such a small village, it certainly has its share of kooks.  The chief of police, the butcher, the auto mechanic, the doctor, the neighboring millionaire landowner, even the pub owner; there's something about each of them that is oddly off-base.  Nevertheless, director John Michael McDonagh gives us an excellent portrayal of what life would be like in a remote, non-touristy town on the coast of Northern Ireland.  The story is more a character study of how the priest goes about his business in the face of a death threat than it is a whodunit (or who's gonna do it).  The people of his parish need help, and as their priest he is in a position to help them.  But are his efforts paying off?  As he gets closer to the targeted Sunday, what Father James experiences causes him to at least question his effectiveness.  Kudos to actor Gleeson for his ability to educe the many emotions of a complex man. 

Movie Review: "Get On Up"

"Get On Up": B.  In the late 1960's, there were six days of the year when the city of South Bend was the center of craziness in the Hoosier State.  Those were the  five autumn days when Notre Dame hosted football games, and the day of the annual gig James Brown played in The Bend.  When the Godfather Of Soul hit town, the vibe on Michigan Avenue was electric.  It certainly was not business as usual.  Even though Brown was from Georgia, one would have thought the occasion was the homecoming of a native son.  There is little wonder why Brown made South Bend a regular stop; his fan base there was huge, loyal and rabid.

A common saying in sports is that an athlete "left everything he had on the field."  That description fits Brown's concert performances.  He would be soaked with sweat after the first two numbers, perpetual motion with a beat.  He fed off his audience as much as any entertainer ever has and probably ever will.  He held back nothing, leaving it all on the stage.  That's why he was often referred to as "the hardest working man in show business."

In view of all the foregoing, you can understand why I looked forward to seeing Get On Up, the new Brown biopic.

I'm sure that the two biggest challenges facing director Tate Taylor while planning the movie were, first, finding an actor who had the requisite package of physical energy and stamina plus the acting and vocal chops to portray the emotional singer and dancer; and then, just as importantly, finding a way to film the music so that the movie goers would feel like they were seeing Brown in action live.  Taylor successfully meets those challenges.  Other problems curbed my enthusiasm for the picture, but with respect to those two essential elements, Taylor comes through with flying colors.

First for the good stuff.  Chadwick Boseman is superb in his portrayal of the enigmatic Brown.  The singer could turn on the charm, but within seconds become a jerk, even toward his friends and family.  He slugs his wife for wearing a revealing Santa costume at a Christmas party.  He does not allow anyone to get close to him for long, a characteristic illustrated by his insistence that the members of his band address him as "Mr. Brown."  He thinks nothing of betraying his fellow singers in the Gospel Starlighters, the jail house group which gave him his first break, and the Flames when the music label suggests that he be given separate top billing. (Shades of Diana Ross & The Supremes.)  One of those singers, Bobby Byrd (Nelsan Ellis), unfathomably sticks by Brown, but even he is not exempted from the harsh treatment doled out by the star. Brown attracts women, yet he is clearly a misogynist.  If the film accurately portrays Brown's character, the viewer has to wonder if he suffered from bi-polar disorder or even schizophrenia.  Regardless, Boseman is up to the task of displaying all facets of this talented but troubled singer.

Without question, the best and most enjoyable parts of the movie are the "live show" shots.  I can't think of another film (including documentaries) I've seen in which the moviegoer feels like she's sitting front row center while witnessing an unforgettable concert.  Boseman has all the moves, with his moon walks, twists, hand movements, microphone stand twirling and swaying, always in cadence to his world class backup musicians and always letting loose will full-throated singing. 

Get On Up is not the easiest story line to track.  The time frames of the film's many episodes are randomly sequenced.  One moment we are in present time, then we see James' days as a teenage prisoner, then more present time followed by his pre-teen days when we witness the sorry state of affairs between Brown's parents in their back woods Georgia shack, followed by more present time, etc.  The flashback structure struck me as artificial, not really serving any useful purpose.

Another beef is that the story takes too long to get going.  If director Taylor insisted on eschewing chronological order in unveiling the story arc, he should have opened with one or two of the dazzling performances which we eventually get to experience.  Instead, we are kept waiting, wondering when we are finally going to see what all the commotion was about back in the sixties and seventies.

James Brown was his own man.  Sometimes that worked for him, such as when he insisted that his next album be live instead of a studio record (the former being six times more costly to produce, according to the honchos at his record label), or when he convinces Harlem's Apollo Theater promoter not to cancel his gig immediately following the assassination of Martin Luther King.  But that egotistical trait also got him in major trouble, particularly with the IRS for failure to pay his income taxes.  Brown had many sides, most of which have now been revealed on the silver screen. 

Movie Review: "A Most Wanted Man"

"A Most Wanted Man": B. If it were not for the fact that A Most Wanted Man stars Philip Seymour Hoffman in one of his final roles before his accidental death last February, I may not have chanced viewing the movie.  The film is based on a novel by British spy novelist John le Carre, a writer whose stories I've usually found unfathomable and opaque.  The plot for the new story is, indeed, a tough one to follow at times, but Hoffman is a treat as usual and the other actors follow suit.

The story takes place in Hamburg which, as an introductory on-screen script explains, continues to be considered a hot spot for terror group cells and international intrigue ever since the 9-11 plane highjackings were plotted there.  Hoffman plays Gunther Bachmann, the head of a counter-terrorism group which runs independently from the German government's spy agencies.  There is a difference in philosophies and approaches between Bachmann's desire to be patient in hopes of nabbing the kingpins of the terror groups, versus Dieter Mohr's (Rainer Bock's) M.O. of acting quickly to take the bad guys off the streets, even if by doing so the chances of eventually catching the terrorists' leaders are greatly diminished, if not cancelled. Mohr, the local chief of the German intelligence agency, has a few meetings with Bachmann.  American CIA operative Martha Sullivan (Robin Wright) acts as a consultant.

To whom does the title of the movie refer?  There are a couple of possibilities.  The more logical choice, at least initially, is the Chechen, Issa Karpov (Grigoriy Dobrygin), the very first character to appear on the screen.  He arrives covertly in the dark of night, hidden on one of the dozens of boats landing in Hamburg's busy port.  Before long he comes under the wing of human rights attorney Annabel Richter (Rachel McAdams), who connects him with a Chechen family living in the city squalor.  They give Karpov temporary shelter.  Ostensibly, Karpov has made his way to Hamburg to lay claim to a fortune which his deceased father has stowed in a Hamburg bank administrated by Tommy Brue (the enigmatic Willem Dafoe).

The other possibility is Dr. Faisal Abdullah (Homayoun Ershadi), known to the general public as a philanthropist, but suspected by both Bachmann and Mohr of being a money launderer and an expediter for the channeling of funds to terrorist organizations.  Bachmann considers Abdullah the big fish in the terrorists' network, as opposed to small potatoes Karpov.  Mohr, with a hesitant nod from Sullivan, agrees to sit tight for just three days while Bachmann tries to reel in Abdullah with concrete evidence set up by means of a sting.

It's unclear what Bachmann's official title is or who he's working for.  I assumed at first he was connected with a British spy agency, I guess mostly because of the story's connection to le Carre.  But Bachmann's first name is Gunther, he speaks with a Germanic accent, and neither he nor any of his crackerjack team give any hint of affiliation with the Brits.  Upon further review, it appears Bachmann's operations are financed under the table by the Germans, who would probably disavow any connection if Bachmann or his group did anything illegal.  He is merely tolerated, albeit respected, by Mohr.  Bachmann operates in plain view, yet has his secrets just like Abdullah.

There are two parts of the movie, both involving attorney Richter, in which a character's movement is restrained for a long (too long!) period of time.  One of those occurs when Richter stashes Karpov away in an apartment abandoned by one of her relatives (as if the intelligence agencies would never think to look there).  The other occurs when Bachmann's underlings kidnap Richter off the street and confine her to a holding cell, during which time they attempt to convince her to spill the beans on Karpov's whereabouts. "You're more of a terrorists' social worker than a lawyer," yells Bachmann.  If the director or editor could have found a way to trim those scenes by several minutes, the result would have been a better-paced story.

In order to accept and enjoy the climactic ending, you have to buy into what happens in Brue's bank a little before that.  I did not.  If counter-intelligence drama is one of your favorite genres, or if you can't get enough of Philip Seymour Hoffman, this movie will not disappoint.  Otherwise, you might wait for its arrival at the Hopkins Theater or Netflix.        

Widget Wars

I briefly mentioned in my April 30, 2014 post (The Tom Tom Thumper) that I worked at Olsen Tool Company, a Richfield tool and die shop, for two summers during my college years.  (I also worked there during my two-week Christmas break sophomore year.)  Having been either a student or a teacher for many years, I had a plethora of summer jobs, but none was more physically demanding than my esteemed position as a plastic injection molding press operator at Olsen.  It also was the scene of a cautionary tale about cutting corners.

Olsen was located in the 7400 block of Logan Avenue, a few blocks north of what is now the Best Buy corporate campus on Penn & I-494.  I worked the second shift, which meant reporting for duty at 3:00 in the afternoon and clocking out at 11:00 p.m.  Olsen Tool was a manufacturing enterprise whose main business was the production of small plastic parts which were used in a variety of medical devices and other equipment of various sizes and functions.  We employees referred to those parts as "widgets," because one could not tell by simply looking at the finished product what possible purpose it would serve or what kind of apparatus it would someday be incorporated into.  Business was so good that Kenny Olsen, the owner, employed three shifts of workers, and nary a beat was skipped as one shift ended and another began.  It was almost like the passing of the baton between relay race teammates for each machine at shift change time.
 

The usual process was that the engineers would determine the requirements of the job, based on the specifications of the customer.  This included designing the mold which would be inserted into the press and into which the molten plastic would be injected.  The temperatures of the presses would typically be set at somewhere around 740 degrees, enough to make the sweat drop off of the worker bees like me even if we were merely sitting on the adjacent bench.  (As I will elaborate below, we were never merely sitting.)
 

Olsen Tool used two types of injection molding machines.  The larger ones were about the size of a small bus. They appeared extremely dangerous because the huge metal plates inside the press closed against each other automatically when the operator removed his arm (after inserting the mold) from the machine's interior and slid the protective front glass door closed.  What if those plates didn't wait for the glass door to close? The operator's arm would be obliterated by the crashing red hot steel.  Thankfully, that never happened, and equally thankfully, my job was to operate the smaller, manual machines.

The smaller injection molders resembled a heavy metal rectangular box, approximately 30 inches long, six inches wide and four inches high.  The right half of the box slid on a metal track, which in turn was affixed to a table three feet off the ground.  The left half of the box was stationary at the end of the track  The operator sat sideways at a bench next to the table, with his left elbow facing it.  For eight straight hours he went through the routine of attaching a plastic insert (the mold) through the box's top aperture onto the back (left-hand) wall of the box's interior, then closing the aperture by tugging on a long rubber-coated handle which slid the right side of the box backwards (toward the operator) several inches until it collided with the left side.  When the left and right walls came together, an extra stiff yank on the handle clicked the box into a locked position.  This routine was very similar to using both hands to pull the port side oar of a row boat.

There were two devices, besides the press itself, which the press operator manually controlled.  One was a timer, the other a counter.  At the beginning of each shift, the foreman would advise the press operators exactly how long the press needed to stay in the locked position for each widget.  This amount of time varied anywhere from thirty seconds to, say, sixty seconds, depending on the widget being created inside the press.  The necessity of precision timing was drilled into our little noggins, even if we had been making the same product all week.  If you had to leave your machine for any reason, you never left it in the locked position.  Once the designated time elapsed, the operator would pop open the press from its locked position by delivering an open-handed hard punch to the handle.  This unlocking method did not come easily.  Even with a thick work glove, the heal of my right hand would be bruised half-way through most shifts.
 

Once the press was unlocked, we would slide the right half of the box back on the track to its original position, extract the finished product from the interior of the left side, toss the product into a basket near our feet, click the counter once to record completion of the part, and then start all over again.  It is hard to say which was the toughest part of the job, the mental fatigue from the monotony of the work, the physical drain of sitting next to a machine set at an extraordinarily hot temperature in a small non-air-conditioned factory, or the straining to lock and unlock the box time after time throughout the shift.  One benefit, besides the pay which was very good, is that I could eat and drink like a horse all summer long.  I could get away with doing so because I lost anywhere from six to nine pounds almost every day on the job.
 

Before I conclude with the cautionary tale to which I alluded in the first paragraph, I must write a few sentences about our second shift foreman, John Damon.  John was in his late thirties, a big guy with dark curly hair.  I'm sure he was under a lot of pressure from the demands of the job, including order deadlines. He knew how to read the complicated designs issued by the engineers, and how to operate every piece of equipment in the shop.  He had a surprisingly good sense of humor, all things considered, but he was at his funniest when he wasn't intending to be.  John had a favorite saying whenever he was demonstrating to a newbie how to work a particular machine.  He would say, "Do you see what I mean? Do you get what I'm driving at?"  Sometimes he'd replace that with, "Do you follow my drift?"  Of course we all picked up on that, so throughout the day my fellow laborers and I would ask each other, "Do you see what I mean...?"  (I have found those expressions to be useful in parenting.  My kids can attest to that.)  Whatever glimmer of fun we had on the job, almost all of it was either directly or indirectly attributed to Big John.
 

And now to the promised cautionary tale.  Some parts orders were for a small quantity, requiring production during only a shift or two.  But most of the time we dealt with huge orders, which found us cranking out the same pieces on every shift for the better part of a week, or longer.  Since Olsen Tool ran three shifts, there was a lot of competition among the workers of those shifts as to which operator on a given press could produce the most widgets.  Most of the people working the first shift were veteran adults who set the production bar high.  The folks on my second shift were younger, so what we lacked in experience we made up with being (generally) more energetic and in better condition.  The third shifters were kind of a combination of the two groups, although as I recall there was much more turnover there than on the first two shifts.

One of the first things I would do when I arrived at the shop would be to check the production numbers on "my" machine for the guys who ran it on the first and third shifts.  That gave me an idea of how my output stacked up against my colleagues'.  Some factors beyond our control, such as maintenance, repairs and the productivity of our break time replacements, affected our numbers, but if you looked at a large enough sample size, it was clear who was pulling their weight.  Most of the time the numbers for the three shifts were fairly close.  But then, about two-thirds of the way through the summer, a new third-shifter, "Darrell," arrived, and his numbers left me and my first shift counterpart in the dust.  That's when we had Darrellgate.
 

Darrell was about my age (late teens/early 20's) who worked my press on the third shift.  He was a lanky, laid back dude who strongly resembled Peter Fonda.  The only times I'd see him would be at 11:00, when my shift ended and his began.  As mentioned above, we did not miss a beat on the hand-off of the press between shifts.  As soon as Darrell took my place on the bench, I was outta there.
 

One afternoon at the end of a week during which we'd been making the same product throughout, I reported for work shortly before 3:00, and there was a lot of commotion in the front office.  Kenny and the office manager (Sylvia?), along with John Damon, another foreman and an engineer, were huddled around several boxes of widgets.  It was clear from their agitation that there was a problem.  Of course I was not invited to participate in the discussion, but by the middle of my shift that day the scuttlebutt was all over the shop. What allegedly happened was that Darrell, presumably in a misguided effort to beef up his production tally, had intentionally been "cooking" the widgets for less than the instructed time for that particular product.  For example, if our instructions were to keep the press in the locked position for 45 seconds, he was only keeping it locked for, say, 25 seconds.  Obviously by doing this, he was able to produce significantly more finished goods in an eight hour day than the rest of us.  His methods also enabled him to take longer breaks, and when he wasn't on break, he didn't have to work as hard; he'd still end up with an acceptable (if not splendid) number of finished units.  He probably never figured that finished products would be weighed and measured with a caliper to ensure they met the customer's specifications.  The upshot for Olsen Tool was that all the product produced by Darrell that week (and maybe previous weeks) had to be scrapped.  Bye bye, Darrell.   

Arbitrary And Capricious Traditions

The eighty-fifth All-Star Game is now in the books, and Major League Baseball is taking a two-day break until tomorrow.  How to fill the void?  Easy peasy; you write about it.

It strikes me as ironic that the sport which has been statistics-driven for the longest time is baseball, and yet some of the rules which govern how those statistics are compiled and calculated don't always make the most sense.  What follows below are five examples of typical situations where you have to question the logic of the rules makers.  I believe what is often the case is that the only reason for keeping a rule, versus modifying it, is that "we've always done it this way!"  As Tevye from Fiddler On The Roof exclaimed, "Tradition!"

Consider this Scenario # 1.  The Twins are batting in the bottom of the fourth inning in a scoreless game versus Detroit.  Brian Dozier leads off by hitting a gapper and ends up on second base with a double.  The next batter, Joe Mauer, lofts a deep fly to right field, caught by Tigers' right fielder Torii Hunter.  Even though Hunter still (at age 38) has a cannon for an arm, Mauer's fly ball out is deep enough to allow Dozier to tag up at second and move to third after the catch.  The third batter of the inning, Trevor Plouffe, sends a medium deep fly ball to left field.  Dozier tags, and beats the throw home by Tigers' left fielder Rajai Davis for the first run of the game.  The next man to bat, Josh Willingham, gets called out on strikes to end the inning.
 

The Rule: Even though Dozier would not have scored had Mauer not hit the ball deep enough to move him from second to third, and even though Plouffe's fly ball out was not hit as well as Mauer's fly, Mauer is charged with a time at bat whereas Plouffe is credited with a sacrifice fly and accordingly is not charged with a time at bat.  Thus, Mauer's batting average sinks but the Plouffer's stays the same.  What is the reason for this (arguably silly) dichotomy?  Tradition reigns!  It has always been thus.  See Baseball Rule # 10.08(d). The only fly ball which can potentially be scored as a sacrifice fly is one which directly enables a base runner to score.

Another scenario (Scenario # 2) involving sacrifices results in more puzzlement brought on by tradition.  Let's say the Twins' Sam Fuld is on second base with nobody out in the third inning of a scoreless game against the White Sox. Chris Parmelee, a left handed batter, steps up to the plate.  Bert Blyleven, the Twins' TV analyst, announces to the viewing audience that "Parmelee's job is to get Fuld over to third base." (Heaven forbid Parmelee should accidentally drive in Fuld with a single!)  Sure enough, Parmelee manages to pull the ball on the ground to Sox second sacker Gordon Beckham, who throws out Parmelee at first while Fuld glides easily into third.  Parmelee, even though he "did his job" and gets attaboys from his mates upon returning to the dugout, is charged with a time at bat.  However, if Parmelee would have bunted the ball to Beckham with the same outcome (Parmelee out at first, Fuld moves to third), he would not have been charged with a time at bat.  Instead, he would have been credited with a sacrifice and therefore not charged with a time at bat.

The Rule:  See baseball Rule # 10.08(a).  Once again, tradition dictates. 

Scenario # 3.  The Twins are playing the Royals, who have runners at the corners and one out.  Phil Hughes is pitching to the Royals' designated hitter, Billy Butler, a fine ball player but probably the slowest guy in Kansas City's lineup.  The Twins need a double play to get out of the inning.  Butler proceeds to hit a tailor-made double play ball to shortstop Danny Santana.  Santana gives second baseman Dozier a perfect feed for the force out at second.  But Dozier, momentarily forgetting that the batter, Butler, runs like he's carrying an anvil on his back, rushes his throw, pulling first baseman Chris Colabello off the bag.  Butler is safe.  Had Dozier delivered a strike to Colabello, Butler would have been out by three steps.  The Twins' failure to complete the double play does not end the inning, thereby allowing the runner from third to score. Surely the run is unearned, right?  Wrong!
 

The Rule:  See Baseball Rule # 10.12(d)(3).  Successful completion of a double play cannot be assumed. Since the out was recorded at second, Dozier's errant toss at the tail end of the potential double play does not constitute an error.  Therefore, the run scored is earned.  If you were Phil Hughes, what would you think about your earned run average going up following a play like that?  (Note: If Dozier's throw was so wild that it enabled Butler to reach second base on the play, that would be an error.) 
 

Scenario # 4.  The Brewers are playing the Cubs in Miller Park.  Right before the first pitch, Wisconsin weather radar shows a storm front heading south toward Eau Claire, so the Milwaukee honchos decide to close the roof.  (That last sentence was a joke, although based on personal experience.  You're supposed to smile, if not laugh.)  In the second inning, Jonathan Lucroy leads off with a double, and speedy Carlos Gomez beats out an infield single as Lucroy takes third.  The next man up, Mark Reynolds, hits a deep drive to left center field.  The ball bounces over the outfield fence for a ground rule double.  Lucroy easily jaunts in from third, but what about Gomez, the fastest guy on the team?  If Reynolds' ball had merely hit the fence but did not bounce over it, Gomez would have easily scored from first on the double, but because the ball bounced over the fence, he is allowed to advance only to third base.  See Baseball Rule # 6.09(e).
 

I find this rule to be ludicrous, especially when there are two outs and thus the runner at first does not have to wait to see if the outfielder is going to catch the fly ball.  All but the slowest runners should be able to score from first on a two-out double. 
 

Scenario # 5.  As someone who enjoys keeping score and as someone who likes to peruse box scores, I have always been annoyed by the manner in which the "Left On Base" ("LOB") statistic is calculated.  In my humble view, LOB should reflect how many runners were on base immediately before the last batter of the inning came to the plate. Unfortunately, that reflection is rendered incorrect when the inning ends with a double play.  As the rule currently reads, LOB is calculated after the third out of the inning is recorded.  The following example illustrates my point.
 

Let's say the Yankees' Derek Jeter comes up with one out and the bases loaded with Pinstripes.  If Jeter bounces into a 6-4-3 double play, the official scorer will rule that two men were left on base, on the theory that the runner on first got wiped out/forced out at second before the throw to get Jeter at first was made. Therefore the only two runners stranded were the ones who were on second base and third base when Jeter began his at bat.  In my little mind, the official scoring should state that three (not two) men were left on base, because that's how many runners occupied the bags when Jeter stepped to the plate.  I know some of the wonks will point me to the difference between an individual's LOBs and a team's LOBs, but I'm not buying it.  The LOBs you see in a box score are team LOBs.  Team LOBs, as currently constructed, do not accurately reflect the clutch hitting of a team --the main purported purpose of keeping LOB stats in the first place -- as well as would my LOB algorithm.  Maybe Commissioner Bud Selig could get that changed before he retires this year.        

Movie Review: "Words And Pictures"

"Words And Pictures": B.  Unlike many romantic comedies, the lead players in Words And Pictures do not "meet cute."  He, Jack Marcus (Clive Owen), is a too-sure-of-himself honors English teacher at Croyden Prep School, a high falutin' institution where the students wear uniforms and address their teachers as peers. The principal's office would make most Fortune 500 execs proud, and the one board member we meet (Amy Brenneman) looks like she came straight from the Lafayette Club.  Marcus' cockiness is not limited to the classroom.  It carries over into the faculty break room, where not all of his colleagues warm to his loud monopolization of the conversation.  He is sharp enough to sense this, which makes him continue the conduct even longer.

She, renown artist Dina Delsanto (Juliette Binoche), is a veteran honors art teacher who is new to Croyden. As she informs her students on her very first day, she is not there to acquire their friendship or become anyone's confidant.  Her sole role is to instruct.  She demands a lot from her students, and none of the prep schoolers object; they are serious scholars with Ivy League college ambitions.

Delsanto's strictly business persona applies equally to her faculty relationships.  It takes Marcus less than a minute to figure that out when Delsanto enters the faculty lounge for the first time.  He tries to engage her in his pet word game, but she will have none of it.  She tells him point blank that she expects to be able to lounge when she's in the lounge, without being inconvenienced or annoyed by small talk.  He does not back off -- ever -- during the entire story.

We know from the trailers, if not the title and movie posters, that a philosophical debate over the relative merits of language compared to art is a key element to the plot.  Before deciding to see this movie, I had my doubts as to how convincing any script purporting to stage such a contest involving an entire high school's student body could be.  Director Fred Schipisi and writer Gerald Di Pego proved me wrong.  Marcus and Delsanto are so passionate about their fields, so dynamic in their classrooms, and so good coaching and inspiring their charges that when dozens of teenagers are wrapped up in the discussion, it does not come off as phony.  The kids' general enthusiasm struck me as real.  Part of their enthusiasm is provoked by Marcus and Delsanto. He tells his students, "Words are your gods."  She counters with, "Words are traps."

Of course this wouldn't be a rom-com if there were no spark between the "warring" adults.  Owen gets the benefit of having the more dynamic character with the better lines.  His wit, humor and charm are endearing to a point, but all are counterbalanced by his alcoholism (which we witness early on) and by a surprise ethical lapse which turns the story on its ear.  As for Binoche, well, she is simply one of my favorite actresses.  I have seen many movies in which the chemistry between the two lead actors was more palpable, but any viewer of Words And Pictures would surely recognize that he was watching two accomplished masters of the silver screen.

In addition to the battles of the sexes and the subjects, there are a few side stories interspersed throughout the film.  Some are more successfully told than others.  For example, many minutes are devoted to the bullying and harrassment of one of the female students, Emily (Valerie Tian), by a male classmate.  This element's main purpose, I believe, is to furnish an opportunity for the usually bickering Marcus and Delsanto to join forces.  While there is no denying that bullying is one of the hottest (and most offensive) issues confronting youngsters today, the film's depiction of the related episodes, as well as the resolution, are poorly done. On the other hand, the scenes involving Marcus and his college age son, Tony (Christian Scheider), are extremely well written and acted.  Scheider is excellent as a young man who loves his father, notwithstanding the latter's worsening alcoholism, while at the same time being careful to protect his own space from intrusion and embarrassment at the hands of his father.

This movie has been playing in a first-run theater, the Edina, for almost two months.  The matinee I attended over the weekend was fairly well attended.  Apparently there are a lot of folks who enjoy rom-coms featuring two fine actors playing very smart characters with sometimes witty and usually clever dialogue. 

Quarterly Cinema Scan - Volume XVI

Last month it became painfully obvious that writing movie reviews on a blog does not qualify me as a member of filmdom's cognoscenti.  If I were, I undoubtedly would have loved, or at least pretended that I loved, Louis Malle's bold filmmaking experiment, My Dinner With Andre.  The late film critic, Roger Ebert, called it the best movie of 1981, and the only film he could think of which was "completely devoid of cliches."

The one hundred ten minute movie begins and ends using a first person narrative from the perspective of Broadway playwright and actor Wallace Shawn.  He explains to the viewers that he is headed to a New York City restaurant to dine with a former colleague and friend, theater director Andre Gregory.  Wally has heard, via the grapevine, some disturbing news about Andre's allegedly strange recent behavior.  Wally has not seen Andre in years, so he is curious to see for himself if what he's heard is true.

Once Andre shows up, the two men are quickly seated, and for the next ninety minutes we are "treated" to listening in as they discuss things as deep as the meaning of life, as well as the worth of experimental theater and Andre's exploits as a world traveler and philosopher.  Wally seems truly enraptured by Andre's monologues.  (I hesitate to describe the dinner as a "dialogue" since Andre does 80% or more of the talking.) But, I'm sorry to report, I was bored to tears.  I must have checked the TV clock to see how much time was left every five minutes.  It kind of reminded me of the Minnesota Twins post-game show on FSN, when host Anthony LaPanta asks Roy Smalley a simple question, and Roy prattles on without coming up for air.

When he introduced the film on Turner Classic Movies, Anthony Bourdain, famous for hosting CNN's travel and food program Parts Unknown, cautioned that Malle's film "may not be for everyone."  I can't say I wasn't warned.  Consider this post your warning.

1. The Basketball Diaries (1995 drama; Leonardo DiCaprio is a student and basketball player at a Manhattan Catholic boys high school, and rebels against the system by experimenting with, and becoming addicted to, hard drugs.) B

2. Key Largo (1948 drama; Edward G. Robinson leads a pack of gangsters who hold war hero Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall hostage inside a hurricane-battered hotel owned by Lionel Barrymore.) B+

3. A Man For All Seasons (1966 historical drama; Sir Thomas More (Paul Scofield), an English nobleman and Lord Chancellor, refuses to bless or condone the divorce and proposed new marriage of King Henry VIII (Robert Shaw), whereupon Thomas Cromwell (Leo McKern), the king's chief minister, uses his position and influence to have More tried for treason.) B+

4. The Misfits. (1961 drama; newly divorced Marilyn Monroe pals around with Clark Gable and Eli Wallach, both of whom fall for her in the sticks of Nevada, while she befriends rodeo rider Montgomery Clift.) C

5. My Dinner With Andre (1981 dialogue; Wallace Shawn and Andre Gregory have a ninety minute conversation over dinner in a New York City restaurant, weighing in on such topics as the health of the theater and whether one should feel guilty over enjoying simple pleasures such as drinking coffee or reading.) C-

6. Stagecoach (1939 western; John Wayne is an outlaw who gets picked up on the Arizona desert by a stagecoach full of tenderfoots with a sheriff riding shotgun, all of whom are heading for Apache territory.) B+

7. Winchester '73 (1950 western; Jimmy Stewart is a sharpshooter who comes to the aid of the US Cavalry preparing for an Indian shootout, and then goes looking for the varmint who stole the prized rifle Jimmy won back in Dodge City.) B

8. Witness For The Prosecution (1957 courtroom drama; Charles Laughton is a London barrister who, against his cardiologist's directives, defends Tyrone Power in a capital murder case.) A