Movie Review: "Welcome To Leith"

"Welcome To Leith": B-.  Every state has dots on the map which call themselves towns, but North Dakota has more than its share.  Leith, a one-horse, no stoplight village alone on the prairies of southwestern Nodak, is one of them.  The official 2010 census lists the population at sixteen, although at the time Welcome To Leith was filmed three years later, the townsfolk claimed "twenty-four, including children."  It was the twenty-fifth resident, Craig Cobb, who caused all the commotion, leading documentarians Michael Beach Nichols and Christopher Walker to begin their project.

People who live in towns like Leith are a fascinating lot.  They cherish their independence and value their privacy.  They do not rely on the government to support the hardscrabble way of life they have chosen.  They see and fully appreciate the stark beauty of the windswept land, with all the sights and sounds that nature provides.  Those things are trade-offs which they gladly accept at a cost of not being afforded the conveniences and amenities of city life.  Small towns on the plains have inhabitants who typically mind their own business, yet pitch in when a neighbor needs help.  One might say the residents are simultaneously tight-knit yet loose-knit vis-a-vis each other.

When the bespectacled Cobb quietly arrived in August 2013, he was noticed immediately.  Not that many strangers found their way into Leith, and Cobb's wild long gray hair, cane and long sleeve white shirt caused him to stand out.  Most of Leith's denizens took him for a laborer employed by the burgeoning Bakken Oil companies an hour away.  One woman's initial thought was to tip off her mother that she should check out the new guy as a potential romantic interest.  Little did they know that this lanky sixty-one year old man was a white supremacist with a plot to turn their little burg into a neo-Nazi haven.  Ironically, Cobb's plan was to accomplish all this legally.  When he made his first purchase of a ramshackle Leith house, his neighbors were unaware that said acquisition was merely the first step in his quest to move his fellow hate-filled sympathizers into home ownership there.  If he and his clan could get to the point where they'd constitute a majority in Leith, they would be able to pass laws favorable to their warped point of view, thus affording them the ability to operate with impunity.

The film does not explicitly connect the dots as to how the townsfolk uncovered Cobb's Aryan Nation plot.  Perhaps it was the arrival of offbeat characters like Kynan Dutton with Hitleresque mustaches, bald heads and rifles.  Maybe it was their women, who gave the appearance of having just arrived from a Sturgis bike rally.  Most probably, the biggest clue was the assortment of flags, each representing a "formerly all-white nation," displayed on Cobb's property.  The Leith people were smart enough to enlist the help of the Grant County Sheriff's office as soon as Cobb's scheme came to light.

From that point, Welcome To Leith chronicles the strategy employed by the townsfolk to keep Cobb and his cronies at bay.  The cameras take us into the homes of a couple of long-time Leith citizens.  We witness kitchen table interviews, town hall meetings and informal barroom conversations in nearby New Leipzig.  Nichols and Walker attempt to balance the footage by interviewing Cobb and a few skinheads, who are surprisingly willing to grant the filmmakers access. Cobb and company are not really given equal time in the film, but we get where they're coming from without the point being belabored.

The biggest hurdle for the people of the town matches the biggest problem with the film.  When the actions of Cobb and his followers are scrutinized from a legal perspective, it is hard to find any words or actions which are prohibited by law.  There is no law against flying a controversial flag, bearing an unchambered gun or spewing hate (unless it incites a riot).  Generally, the Constitution allows nincompoops to do their thing, as long as their behavior does not directly harm another.  No punches are thrown and no shots are fired.  No threats of physical harm are uttered, although Cobb does make the mistake of challenging a man to a fight.  Nothing is stolen or vandalized.  Cobb's mind is warped, but you have to give the devil his due; arguably he's smart enough to stay within the bounds of the law.  I wrote "arguably" because there is a point where Cobb is incarcerated -- a result of ineffective counsel, I'd guess -- but the film does a poor job of showing us why.  Perhaps the County Sheriff, who is not a lawyer, does not realize the weaknesses in the prosecution's case (he appears uncertain what to do), but the State's Attorney does.    

Welcome To Leith is fascinating, depressing and scary.  Fascinating for what it might be like to live in a tiny place forgotten by all but a handful of people.  Depressing to realize that, as is the case for all documentaries, these are real people, not actors, we are seeing.  The mindset of the neo-Nazis who invade Leith is so misguided that it's hard to believe they are Americans.  Scary, because we wonder what the future will bring for our country, a country which desperately needs unity, when there are radical thinkers living on the edge of society.  A powder keg ready to explode?

Movie Review: "Steve Jobs"

"Steve Jobs": B+.  Title character Steve Jobs, as played by superior actor Michael Fassbender, has to be the worst boss to appear on the silver screen since 2006 when Meryl Streep's Miranda Priestly gnashed her teeth in The Devil Wears Prada.    In a telling dialogue between Jobs, the co-founder of Apple, and a former subordinate, Jobs states that "a musician plays his instrument, whereas a conductor plays the orchestra."  Jobs sees himself as the conductor of various almost inanimate fungible minions who, were it not for his cerebral majesty, would be making widgets in a factory.

In the opening "long take" Jobs derides senior engineer Andy Hertzfeld (Michael Stuhlbarg) forty minutes before the 1984 product launch of the Macintosh computer because the engineer informs Jobs that it will be impossible to enable the Mac to say "Hello" for the demonstration.  The planned showcase will be attended by a few thousand industry insiders and media members.  Pointing out to Hertzfeld that he had three days to iron out the glitches, Jobs screams, "It only took six days to create the entire universe."

 

Hertzfeld's reply: "You'll have to tell us how you did it!"

 

In the same scene, Jobs is visited by a former girlfriend, Crisann Brennan (Katherine Waterston), who alleges -- not for the first time -- that he is the father of Lisa, the darling five year old girl accompanying her.  Up to this point Jobs has vehemently denied his paternity, producing statistical data (the source of which is never explained) to support his claim that 28% of the US male population could possibly be the father.  When Brennan informs him that she is now on welfare without a place to live, Jobs turns a cold shoulder.  He eventually agrees to buy her a house, but he makes sure she cries and demeans herself first.

 

Jobs is heartless and relentless, to go along with his other dubious qualities of being bombastic and narcissistic.  On more than one occasion, including the Mac product launch, he refuses the entreaties of fellow Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak (Seth Rogen) to give brief recognition to the contributions of the team that had helped make the Apple II a success.  Wozniak points out, correctly, that it was the Apple II product which paid the bills of the company over a period of seven years during which Jobs was experimenting with newer state-of-the-art designs, some of which failed.  The ungrateful Jobs offhandedly dismisses such a notion, patronizing Wozniak with the rationale that Apple II is now ancient history and would be out-of-place in a marketing campaign trumpeting Apple's future.

 

Other than Lisa, for whom Jobs slowly develops acceptance, Apple executive Joanna Hoffman (Kate Winslet) is the only person Jobs treats decently more often than not.  She is with him on-screen during most of his rants, fully aware of his typically abhorrent behavior.  Still, she puts up with him, describing herself as his "office wife" for better or worse.  Her thick skin sustains her.  To the extent Jobs remains grounded, thanks go to Hoffman.  If she walked out the door, Jobs would act even more erratically.

 

Winslet is superb as Jobs' confidant, aware of her bounds but unafraid to call out Jobs to his face when he deserves to be (which is often).  Rogen, known mainly as a comedic actor and writer, is solid as the unappreciated Wozniak.  Versatile actor Jeff Daniels, who has taken on roles running the gamut from comedy to high drama, is perfect as John Sculley, the CEO of Apple who over the years seemed to have a love/hate relationship with Jobs.  Fassbender meets the challenge of playing the larger-than-life leading man.  He commands each scene.  We wonder, how could such an unstable volcanic personality like Jobs be a multi-billionaire running an enormously complex business?  If the real Steve Jobs' presence was similar to actor Fassbenders', by virtue of watching the film we get it.  Incidentally, the resemblance between Fassbender and Jobs in his middle-age is striking.

 

A better familiarity with Apple's history and computer gizmos in general would have been beneficial to me as far as supplying context to the unfolding story.  The more you know going in, the better the chances of reaping the most value from watching the movie.  But even without much background, one can still appreciate witnessing the destruction and sporadic rebuilding of the human relationships between Jobs and the people in his life.

Movie Review: "Bridge Of Spies"

"Bridge Of Spies": A-.  As the title indicates, Steven Spielberg's newest heavily promoted film, Bridge Of Spies, is billed as an espionage thriller.  There is also a healthy dose of legal drama, as Tom Hanks plays an insurance attorney in a high brow Brooklyn law firm which is asked by the US Department Of Justice to defend a suspected Soviet spy.  At its core, however, the movie is more a study of negotiating gymnastics between Hanks and two of America's Cold War enemies, the Russians and the East Germans.  A subtitle for the film might read, "Negotiating 101."  The primary lesson: If you are able to assess the strengths and weaknesses of your rival, what's really important to them and what is merely window dressing, and what deadlines are in play, you will be advantageously situated at the bargaining table.

Hanks' character, Tom Donovan, is a named partner in the mid-size firm headed by Alan Alda's character, Thomas Watters.  The client is Rudolph Abel (Mark Rylance), an older man who keeps busy painting in between his spying assignments.  We know from the outset that Abel is guilty because we observe him covertly removing secret messages hidden underneath a New York City park bench.  When the FBI descends on his apartment, he manages to destroy incriminating evidence right under their noses as the feds are tearing apart the furnishings looking for hidden files, wires, micro-cameras, listening devices and other tools of the trade which a spy might possess.

Although Donovan is initially reluctant to take the case, once he does sign on he devotes relentless energy to the task.  The jailhouse scenes in which Donovan and Abel feel each other out and eventually establish a rapport are brilliantly written and acted.  Notwithstanding the fact that he is being charged with what could become a capital crime, Abel seems disinterested.  But, the wheels are ever-turning in his mind.  When Donovan insists on impressing upon him the severity of the government's criminal charges, Abel's reply is, "If I worried would that help?"

Meanwhile, there are two other cases of alleged spying taking place which will impact Donovan's handling of Abel's predicament.  First and most famously, US airman Francis Gary Powers (Austin Stowell) is shot down over Russia while flying a U-2 spy plane.  The Russians gleefully show the world that they are the victims of American aggression, as they parade the captured Powers in front of their news cameras and show his downed plane with a multitude of high-powered lenses attached to its wings.  The U-2 spy plane incident is arguably the most famous propaganda event in the history of the Cold War.  Secondly and much more under the radar, an American college student, Frederic Pryor (Will Rogers), has the bad luck of being caught on the East Berlin side of the city visiting his girl friend just as the final blocks of the Berlin Wall are being set into place.  When he makes a futile attempt to return to his West Berlin quarters, the Stassi arrest him as a spy.

 

Legally, Donovan faces an uphill struggle defending Abel.  The US district court judge is clearly biased against the defendant, and even Watters and the firm's other partners turn against Donovan when he decides to appeal the guilty verdict everyone knew was coming.  Donovan, with his picture splattered all over the New York papers, is given the evil eye by his fellow subway riders on his way to and from work.  How could a patriotic American defend a Russian spy?  The subway scene, with a clever ironic twist, is reprised at the movie's conclusion. 

 

Bridge Of Spies' two best attributes are the exceptional story-telling combination of director Spielberg with co-writers Matt Charman and the Coen brothers (Ethan and Joel), plus the performances by the two leading actors, Hanks and especially Rylance.  Rylance, whom the website IMDb labels as being "widely regarded as the greatest stage actor of his generation," has the uncanny ability to make us, the movie audience, root for his character as he and Donovan encounter a corrupt court system and public scorn.  The dynamic in the relationship between Donovan and Abel, first arm's length attorney-client but eventually one of mutual respect if not friendship, is convincing and key to the plot development.  Also of note are the scenes showing the selection and training of the men, including Powers, who would pilot the American spy planes.  Their instructions in the event of anti-aircraft explosions were twofold: don't let the Ruskies get their hands on the plane, and bite the "poison pill" if you are about to be captured behind enemy lines.

 

The film's weaknesses pertain to its shortcomings as a courtroom drama and a spy thriller; it is neither.  (Granted, it's possible that was not the movie-makers' intention, but then why advertise it as such?)  The trial scenes contain no sharp cross-examination, no strong opening or closing statements, and no surprise witnesses, all staples of the genre.  The ex-parte visit by Donovan to the judge's home is simply laughable, and surely not written by anyone who checked with legal counsel for accuracy.  Likewise, as a spy yarn there is no threat of imminent death for Powers the prisoner, and his captors take it relatively easy on him.  The story is more about Donovan's negotiating ploys.  He is a master at assessing the ever-changing political landscape, and not settling for anything less than the best possible outcome.  If you enjoy the art of deal-making, you will walk out of the theater quite satisfied.             

Friendly Confines?

Being a Cubs fan is like the guy who's been divorced six times and still believes in love.
- Scott Turow, Author and Cubs fan

Although the Milwaukee Braves were my team, I have followed the Chicago Cubs ever since The Marquis took me to my first MLB game, Cubs vs. Braves, at Wrigley Field in 1956.  Shortstop Ernie Banks, "Mr. Cub," was the star player.  Pitcher Bob Rush, who won only thirteen games that year, was their "ace."  As a Braves fan I did not really have a favorite Cubs player, but my mother and sister liked first baseman Dee Fondy, maybe because of his cool name.  That team also featured the worst defensive catcher who ever made it to the Bigs, Harry Chiti.  The Marquis used to say that Chiti couldn't catch a belt-high change up. 

All of the Cubs' home games, and those of their cross-town rivals, the White Sox, were televised on WGN.  Jack Brickhouse handled play-by-play duties.  (He had the same job on the Bears' radio broadcasts, thus making him the one guy in all of Chicagoland whose career everybody wanted.) Jack and his partner, Vince Lloyd, were shameless homers.  They were especially adept at encouraging their viewers to come out to "beautiful Wrigley Field."  I don't recall them ever referring to Wrigley Field without that adjective, "beautiful," preceding it.  All of the Cubs games were in the afternoon, and Ladies Day, which occurred every Thursday, was always heavily promoted.  A perfect way to spend the day was to visit what was universally known as "the friendly confines of Wrigley Field."  Even to this day, if you ask most baseball fans, "What are the 'the Friendly Confines'?" they will know; it's the ancient revered park on Clark and Addison, the pride of the North Side.

The irony of the term "Friendly Confines" was brought into focus on the evening of October 14, 2003.  It was The Bartman Game, Wrigley's darkest moment.  Today is the twelfth anniversary of that infamous event.

To fully understand the incidents that transpired during the Bartman Game, one has to appreciate the dismal team history of the Cubs.  Even their most ardent fans tend to label them as "lovable losers," and for good reason.  Do you remember when the Boston Red Sox won the World Series in 2004?  The Red Sox fans were ecstatic, and rightfully so, as the franchise had gone eighty-six years, from 1918, since their last world championship.  The Cubs fans have waited even longer, since 1908, for theirs.  In 2003, only those Cubs fans older than age ninety-five had experienced a Cubs championship in their lifetimes.  My grandfather used to opine that the Cubs liked to "stay in the cellar where it was nice and cool."  Cubs fans usually figure that, even when their team has a late inning lead, they will find a way to lose.

Following their championship season in 1908, the Cubbies made it to the World Series a total of seven times, the most recent one being 1945 (the final year of World War II).  They managed to lose each and every one of those series to the American League pennant winner.  In the post-war era leading up to 2003, the North Siders had qualified for the National League playoffs only three times. That's three times in a span of fifty-seven years!

In 2003, the Cubs won the NL Central by a game over the Houston Astros, and knocked off the Atlanta Braves in a best-of-five NL Division Series (NLDS).  That set up a NL Championship Series (NLCS) with the Florida Marlins, who had upset the favored San Francisco Giants in the other NLDS.  The winner of the seven game NLCS would advance to the World Series against the American League champ (which turned out to be the New York Yankees).

The Cubs and Marlins split Games 1 and 2 at Wrigley.  Then the series moved to Miami's Pro Player Stadium (now known as Sun Life Stadium) where the Chicagoans surprisingly took two out of three games from the Floridians to go ahead in the series three games to two.  (An aside: The original name of Sun Life Stadium was Joe Robbie Stadium, which opened in 1987.  Financing for the construction of Joe Robbie Stadium was mostly furnished through the sale of bonds.  The Pook was the lead secretary for the chief bond counsel, Jerry Mahoney of Dorsey & Whitney.  Today, Sun Life Stadium is the home of the Miami Dolphins and the Miami Hurricanes, and was the Marlins' home until the 2012 season.)  All the Cubbies had to do was win either Game 6 or Game 7, both of which would be played in the Friendly Confines, to get to the World Series.

The starting pitcher for the Cubs in Game 6 of the NLCS was Mark Prior, who was the Game 2 winning pitcher, giving up only two earned runs in seven full innings of that earlier game.  Prior is well known to Twins fans because the Twins opted to select Joe Mauer with the number one overall pick in the 2001 draft, notwithstanding the fact that Prior, a Southern Cal Trojan, was widely considered the top prospect in that draft.  Everything was coming up roses for the Cubs through the first seven innings in Game 6.  They were ahead 3-0, and Prior looked unhitable.  Not only was he hurling a shutout, he had given up only three singles and had retired the Marlins three up and three down in the sixth and seventh innings.  He also induced the leadoff hitter in the top of the eighth, Mike Mordecai, to fly out to left.  The Cubs were just five defensive outs from going to the World Series!

Even the glass-half-empty pessimists were hopeful.  The Curse Of The Billy Goat would expire.  Wrigley Field's capacity crowd, announced at 39,577 but surely closer to 42,000, was going nuts, and so were the overflow masses crammed together on Waveland and Sheffield Avenues behind the bleachers.  Living and dying with every pitch.  Thankful that not only themselves but their parents and grandparents might finally see a World Series champion before they went up to that big baseball diamond in the sky.

But remember, these are the Cubs we're talking about, and what followed is why it is called The Bartman Game and why the Billy Goat Curse lives on.

With one out, the second batter of the inning, Juan Pierre, lofted an 0-1 pitch high and foul toward the box seats three-quarters of the way down the left field line.  At first it looked like it might land eight or ten rows back, but the strong left-to-right wind which had been gusting all night was blowing the ball toward the nine foot high wall which runs parallel to the left field foul line, just beyond the Cubs on-field bullpen.  As Cubs left fielder Moises Alou sprinted over toward that wall, many of the fans in the first two rows did what baseball fans do; they reached for the descending ball, hoping to catch a souvenir.  With glove extended, Alou leaped high against the wall, and maybe -- maybe -- could have caught the ball were it not for that gaggle of arms, hands and mitts belonging to people attempting to do the same thing.  One young man, sitting in the front row up against the wall, appeared to make the initial contact with the ball, but it clanked off his outstretched fingers and fell to the concrete floor, where it was then pounced upon by four of five other folks, one of whom ended up with the trophy.  Alou was beside himself, slamming his glove against his thigh, screaming toward the seats where he'd been deprived of his important opportunity.  With anguished pain on his face, he resumed his left field position.  Prior and some of his teammates tried to convince left field umpire Mike Everitt to rule fan interference, but the ump correctly decided that since no fan reached over the wall, they were entitled to go for the ball.

From that point forward, things could not have disintegrated more swiftly than they did for the Cubs.  Pierre promptly proceeded to line a double to left (thus enabling the still-steaming Alou to finally touch the baseball).  Prior, also still steaming, threw a wild pitch sending Pierre to third, and then walked Luis Castillo.  Runners at the corners, one out, still 3-zip Cubs.  The fourth batter of the inning, Ivan Rodriguez (who was later selected the MVP of the NLCS), lined a single to left, scoring Pierre with Castillo stopping at second.  Now it's 3-1 Cubs, one out with runners at first and second.

The next at bat should probably go down in history as the most overlooked important play in the saga of the Friendly Confines.  Marlins cleanup hitter Miguel Cabrera, a tremendous player but stocky and slow afoot, hit a tailor-made double play ball to the Cubs' young slick fielding shortstop, Alex Gonzalez.  Gonzalez muffed the routine play (E-6), and everybody was safe.  Now the bases were loaded.  Derrek Lee followed with a line drive left field double to tie the game, and Prior was done for the night.  The air in Wrigley Field had been let out; the whole dynamic had changed.

 

While relief pitcher Kyle Farnsworth made his way in from the pen, attention turned to that young man who initially touched Pierre's foul ball.  He was kind of nerdy looking, wearing headphones underneath, of all things, a Cubs hat.  He had on a dark sweatshirt and a green turtleneck, and wore dark rimmed glasses.  That green turtleneck was easy to spot from afar.  While Fox Network was waiting for Farnsworth to warm up, they showed rerun after rerun of the Pierre foul ball and Alou's angry reaction.  They panned in for a closeup of the "kid" with the green turtleneck.  The focus of their attention, the accidental celebrity, the guy with the Cubs hat, the headphones and that turtleneck, turned out to be Steve Bartman.

 

Wrigley had no jumbotron, but the Fox replays could be viewed by the crowd on Waveland.  Some big dude had a TV on his head.  The fans on the street started chanting an unflattering term meaning "anal orifice," and before a minute was up the bleacher bums picked it up.  Soon the Bronx cheer spread throughout the grandstand and the entire stadium.  People were pointing at Bartman, swearing at him and (as audio proves) threatening to kill him.  Beer, brats and slices of pizza were hurled at him, sometimes by people who had come down from one of the upper sections specifically for that purpose.  Wrigley security was absolutely no help when they finally did arrive.

 

Farnsworth was likewise of little help.  He faced four batters and retired only one, thereby giving a fresh illustration of adding gasoline to the fire.  The big blow off Farnsworth was a bases-clearing double by Mordecai (who had led off the eighth) with the bases loaded.  By the time reliever Mike Remlinger came in to put Farnsworth out of his misery, it was 7-3 Marlins.  Remlinger gave up one more run, the Cubs went three up and three down in the eighth and ninth, and the game finished 8-3.

 

Bartman was taken away by security while the Cubs batted in the eighth.  Even as the guards were leading him down the stadium stairs, fans continued to throw things at him, threaten him and berate him.  The chief of Wrigley security had to sneak him into a cab and even brought him to her apartment for a few hours until the Wrigleyville mob had dispersed.  Even Mother Nature had no pity for Bartman.  Game 7 had to be postponed, thus giving the media time to seek out Bartman and investigate his background.  The poor guy had to hole up at his parents' house in suburban Northfield.  To this day, Bartman remains secluded.  His only sin was doing what 99% of all other fans would do: reaching up for a foul ball.

 

The $64,000 question remains.  Why did the fans turn on Bartman, when the biggest blunder, by far, committed during the top of the eighth was by Cubs shortstop Alex Gonzalez?  If he fields the Cabrera double play ball, no one would have ever heard of Steve Bartman.  One explanation is mob mentality; let's pick on the nerdy guy instead of the pro athlete.

 

By the way, the Cubs, with excellent pitcher Kerry Wood as their starter, lost Game 7 to the Marlins, 8-3.  The Marlins went on the beat the Yankees in a six game World Series.  The Cubbies are still trying to shake off the Curse Of The Billy Goat.

Quarterly Cinema Scan - Volume XXI

My best cinematic discovery during 2015's third quarter was the greatness of The Hanging Tree, a 1959 western starring Gary Cooper. Cooper plays Joseph Frail, M.D., a mysterious doctor who shows up at a rough and tumble Montana mining town during the Gold Rush craze.  We wonder if "Frail" is his real name, a curiosity that is piqued in an early scene when he nearly kills a man who accuses him of cheating during a poker game.  As the prone accuser wipes the blood from his lip resulting from a left hook by Frail, he repeats a rumor about Frail having set fire to an occupied house long ago.  We don't hear any more about this alleged arson for quite awhile, but it's clear this man Frail is no ordinary doctor.

Frail's dark side is apparent, and not just because of that rumor which has spread across the plains to Big Sky Country.  For example, after he removes a bullet from a young man, Rune (Ben Piazza), who was shot while escaping from a failed petty crime, the doctor tells Rune that if he doesn't agree to become the doctor's unpaid servant, he will go to the sheriff with the bloody slug as evidence and turn Rune in.  But Frail is not without a heart.  When he treats a little girl whose parents can't afford to pay him, he asks her to give him a kiss on the cheek in full settlement.

Not long after Frail sets up shop on a bluff overlooking the town, a stagecoach in the nearby desert is held up.  The driver and all the occupants are killed, save for a woman passenger, Elizabeth (Maria Schell), who turns up missing; the "Lost Lady," as she's come to be known.  The townsfolk form two posses, one to track down the killers and one to find the Lost Lady.  Frenchie (Karl Malden), an antagonist who somehow manages to be likable at times even though at the core he is a villain, eventually finds the Lost Lady, sunburned, dazed, dehydrated and temporarily blind.  Her husband was one of the murdered victims, and she is delirious.  It is up to Frail to nurse Elizabeth back to health.  When he puts her up at a cabin he owns next door to his abode, the gossip starts to fly.

Elizabeth looks upon Frail as more than a physician, but he seems to have a heart of stone.  Additional intrigue is created once the Lost Lady, bound and determined not to let her husband's murder ruin her dream of making a new life for herself in the Wild West, enters into a prospecting venture with Frenchie and Rune.  Unbeknownst to her, Frail secretly funds the grubstake.  Malden, who was a pinch hit director for this film when original director Delmer Daves temporarily fell ill, portrays Frenchie as a deliciously conniving rascal with dishonorable intentions. 

 

The Hanging Tree has a little bit of everything: secrets, schemes, romance, lynch mobs (as you might have guessed), extraordinary cinematography, strong acting -- Gary Cooper was only seven years removed from his Oscar-winning performance in High Noon -- and a dramatic finish.  It is also the film debut of George C. Scott, who plays a kooky street preacher, Grubb, threatened by the legitimate medical practice of Doctor Frail.  But that is not all.  Every great western seems to have a memorable song associated with it.  Examples: the title track from The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) sung by the one and only Gene Pitney, and Rain Drops Keep Falling On My Head from Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid (1969), with B.J. Thomas doing the vocals.  The title track from The Hanging Tree, sung by Marty Robbins (who had a # 1 hit with another cowboy tune, El Paso), might be the best of them all.  There are two things which are of particular interest here.  First, similar to Liberty Valance, the lyrics of Hanging Tree directly tell the unfolding of the movie plot.  Secondly, the fourth verse of the song, which describes the climax, is ingeniously swapped with the fifth verse of the song, so that you don't hear the fourth verse until the closing credits.  Thus, no need for a spoiler alert!

 

Ben Mankiewicz, a program host on Turner Classic Movies, called The Hanging Tree "one of the last of the great westerns from the genre's renaissance in the 1950's."  What he neglected to mention is that The Quentin Chronicle rates the movie the fourth best western of all time, behind Liberty Valance, Butch Cassidy and 2010's True Grit.

 

Here are the movies I watched in the third quarter from the love seat in the QE family room.

1. Anatomy Of A Murder (1959 courtroom drama; Jimmy Stewart defends Ben Gazarra, who is charged with the murder of a man who allegedly raped Lee Remick, Gazarra's wife.) A -

2. Elevator Girl (2010 rom-com; Ryan Merriman, a newly made partner in a silk stocking law firm, meets Lacey Chabert, a free spirit who doesn't fit the purported mold of a partner's significant other.) C

3. First Love (1977 drama; William Klatt is a private college student who falls for classmate Susan Dey, even though he knows she's the mistress of an older married man.) C

4. Frankenstein (1931 horror; Boris Karloff is a monster created from dead body parts, including a criminal brain, by mad scientist Colin Clive.) B

5. The Hanging Tree (1959 western; see the above mini-review.) A

6.  Hannah And Her Sisters (1986 dramedy; Mia Farrow , who is married to Michael Caine, has two sisters, Dianne Weiss who used to date Woody Allen, and Barbara Hershey who is lusted after by Caine.) A

7. My Fair Lady (1964 musical; Rex Harrison, a haughty bachelor linguistics professor, is challenged to turn guttersnipe flower peddler Audrey Hepburn into an aristocratic master of the English language.)  A-

8. One Sunday Afternoon (1933 drama; Gary Cooper is a dentist who has an opportunity for revenge when he's called upon to extract a tooth from Neil Hamilton, who years ago won the heart of the girl Cooper desired, Fay Wray.) C-

Red Head Of The Rockies

She came from the barrios

of the city Mile High,

In the foothills of the Rockies

where the snowcaps touch the sky.

 

Her hair was thick and crimson red,

Her pink tongue spotted black,

When the college kid first saw her,

There was no turning back.

 

The shelter dubbed her Sabrina,

A temporary name,

But Michael called her Moosica,

Which means "music" in Spain.

 

Moosie lived the good life

on Federal Boulevard,

She and Sopha even had

a ramp down to the yard.

 

Moose never backed down from a fight, 

She was an alpha queen,

So dog parks really weren't her thing, 

Could've been an ugly scene.

 

She scaled St. Mary's Glacier,

Swam in Lac Courte Oreilles,

Pranced alongside ski tracks

that criss-cross Cedar Lake.

 

Michael and Charlie would double date

with Sopha and The Moose,

They'd take them to a frolf course,

And there they'd cut 'em loose.

 

Without a leash the dogs ran free,

Exploring in the trees,

A half hour later, the girls returned,

The chow and the bernese.

 

Fed Boulevard, the Dupont Arms,

Toledo and QE,

At that last one Moose lived four-plus years

with Momma Cuan and me.

 

Breakfast and dinner, her favorite things,

But first a game we'd play,

We'd hug and smooch, I'd shake her paw,

Then dump the Canidae.

 

She'd gobble it down, two minutes flat,

But still she wanted more,

Her next stop was the kitchen

where she'd sniff along the floor.

 

When Momma Cuan sat down to eat

Moose parked under the table,

She knew her Mame would feed her more,

It happened without fail.

 

On walks she'd drop into a squat,

Her Larry Craig wide stance,

She'd turn her head and look around

to catch a fleeting glance.

 

Moose liked her privacy, I guess,

But still I had to laugh,

I'd then scoop up her "calling card"

and continue on the path.

 

She'd climb the snow banks for a deuce,

The "snow man" rolled on down,

She admired her art work from above,

Then descended to the ground.

 

I'd sometimes walk her 'round the Isles,

Sometimes she'd walk me,

Those little legs kept going strong,

Moose had such energy.

 

She'd camp under our piano,

Sleep on the tile floor,

When I'd shout, "Who's that?"

She'd bark and scamper to the door.

 

The QE Meadow was her turf,

Her kingdom, her domain,

The rabbits ran for cover,

Squirrels and chipmunks did the same.

 

In August Moosie left this world,

A month short of her twelfth,

Kissed her goodbye, went to my car,

And cried all by myself.

 

Will Moose make it past the Pearly Gates

to heaven? I don't know.

But if St. Pete won't let dogs in,

I'd just as soon not go.

 

 

Happy birthday, Moosie.

Love, Grandpa Johnny

 

September 11, 2015

Album Review: "Something More Than Free" - Jason Isbell

"Something More Than Free": A.  I may be guilty of morbid curiosity, but I need to know what happens to guys who get kicked out of their former bands.  If you know the answer to the question, "Name the bass player who got fired from Bon Jovi," that would certify you as a music nerd.  The answer is Alec John Such, who was canned in 1984 before Bon Jovi struck it rich as a big time band.  Instead of becoming a multi-millionaire like his ex-mates, Such owns a motorcycle shop and is out of the performing business.

Brian Jones -- not Mick Jagger or Keith Richards -- was the Englishman who formed the Rolling Stones in 1962.  As the rhythm guitarist who sometimes shared lead with Keith, he was instrumental in guiding the Stones to stardom on both sides of The Pond, including the halcyon era of the British Invasion.  But Jones was asked to leave the group in June of '69, and one month later he drowned under mysterious circumstances in a swimming pool at his country estate.

The most famous involuntary departure of all was that of the Beatles' first drummer, Pete Best.  His major sin was his introspective personality, which did not mix well with the other lads who were quite effervescent.  According to several sources, including John Lennon's biographer, Philip Norman, the other band members gutlessly had their manager, Brian Epstein, deliver the pink slip to Pete.  Best's termination occurred less than two months before the release of the Beatles first UK single, Love Me Do, in October 1962.  Best has had an on-again/ but mostly off-again career in music, never getting a sniff of the big money.

All of this brings us to Jason Isbell, whose new album, Something More Than Free, is the subject of this post.  Just as was the case with Such and Jones, drug and alcohol addiction proved to be Isbell's undoing as a key member of the southern rock band, Drive By Truckers.  His abuse of drugs made him an unsteady player and an unreliable bandmate.  His buddies in the band, including his first wife, bassist Shonna Tucker, begged him to take a break from touring in 2007 so he could address his issues.  When Isbell refused, they cut the cord.  This was quite unfortunate for both sides, partly because even though Isbell was not an original member, he had been a Trucker for six years and his song writing prowess made DBT a formidable presence in the rock genre.  He had contributed many songs to the Truckers' playbook, including the title song of their fourth album, Decoration Day.

Isbell's failures to confront his demons cost him his marriage to Tucker, and he lived in a state of limbo for almost six years.  During that time he made music with an under-the-radar regional band he formed called The 400 Unit, but to his credit his top priority was rescuing himself from an inevitably dire ending.  When he finally cleaned up his act, the writing muse returned, and 2013's Southeastern was the smash result.  Something More Than Free , released this summer, is the follow-up to Southeastern, and as Momma Cuan's friend Norma might say, "It is WONderful!"

Almost every song on the eleven tune menu has a hook that you'll have a hard time ejecting from your mental playlist.  The first two entries are prime examples.  If It Takes A Lifetime is about the singer attempting to redress his wild past by living a more responsible present.  But he finds it's a slow process  The chorus includes the lines: 

 

I thought the highway loved me but 

she beat me like a drum,

My day will come, 

If it takes a lifetime.   

 

Isbell sounds like a young John Prine, but with a better voice.  His delivery has that wisecracking air which the older Prime has mastered. 

 

24 Frames addresses the need to take responsibility for making yourself a better person.  The song is clearly influenced by the failure of his marriage to Tucker, thus bringing back thoughts of the last album I reviewed here, Neil Diamond's Melody Road (December 27, 2014; A).  When he was young, predestination was the singer's rationale for bad behavior.  Everything was out of an individual's control, he figured, because whatever happened was what God wanted to happen.  Wrong! 

 

You thought God was an architect,

Now you know. 

 

The song title refers to an amount of time equal to a single second, as that's how many frames pass by in a second when using a 35 millimeter projector.

 

Everything you've built

that's all for show

goes up in flames,

In twenty-four frames.

 

The jangly guitar might remind some sixties fans of the early Byrds.  Roger McGuinn would be proud.

 

Momma Cuan's favorite track, The Life You Choose, is another selection which makes the listener wonder if Isbell knows he "blew it" as a young man.  Like several other songs on the album, one school of thought is that he is singing to his ex, confessing that he could have handled things better.  Once again, responsibility and control of one's own life are the topics. 

 

Are you living the life you chose?

[or] Are you living the life that chose you? 

 

The bouncy beat with brushes on the snare resembles the Traveling Wilburys, in which Isbell, via time travel, would have been a perfect fit.

 

It has been said that a bridge is the hardest part of a song to write.  It needs to be different from, yet ideally relate to, the verses, while at the same time connecting to a chorus and/or a break.  I love the fluidity with which Isbell inserts his bridges.  The bridge in The Life You Chose is close to perfection.

 

Isbell is as much a poet and storyteller is he is a song writer.  The imagery he incorporates into his songs is almost tangibly visible.  Four examples.  Flagship describes an older couple sitting together at a table in the corner of an old hotel bar. 

 

She's got nothing left to learn about his heart.

They're sitting there a thousand miles apart.

 

In Speed Trap Town, the singer has hung around his home town, waiting for his terminally ill father to pass.  The old man outlives the prognosis. 

 

How long can they keep you in the ICU?

Veins in the skin like a faded tattoo.

 

Hudson Commodore, a song sung and produced in the fashion of Lyle Lovett, tells of a single mother with two kids who worked hard all her life.  She had plenty of proposals from wealthy suitors who would have carried her off to a better life.  But she had simple tastes and wanted to lay low, with one exception. 

 

She just wanted to ride in a Delahaye 135.

She just wanted to ride in a Hudson Commodore. 

 

Here is Isbell's description, in Palmetto Rose, of the interior of a taxi in Charleston, South Carolina:

 

Palmetto rose in the A/C vent,

Cross-stich pillow where the headrest went. 

 

The final track might surprise people who only know of Isbell through the Drive By Truckers.  To A Band That I Loved is not about his ill-fated stint with the Truckers, but is a combination tribute and thank you to Centro-Matic.  Before Isbell became an accomplished writer, that North Texas band, with which Isbell periodically played guitar, wrote lyrics expressing the thoughts that Isbell at the time was unable to pen.  Isbell's new song laments C-M's decision to call it quits at the end of 2014.

 

Isbell's star is rising once again.  He is sober, remarried -- coincidentally to another musician -- and now has two acclaimed albums to his credit in these early stages of his reformed and reshaped life.  I am sorry I missed him at this summer's Basilica Block Party, but if he returns to the Twin Towns I will be there.