Home Stretch Not Going Smoothly

Things don't always go well for the end of presidential administrations.  And before you accuse me of being distasteful, no, I am not referring to Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley and Kennedy.  In the modern era alone, LBJ was unable to bring a dignified end to the Viet Nam War, and announced in 1968 that he would refuse to accept his party's nomination to take another run at the presidency.  He added, for effect, "And if elected, I shall not serve."  Tricky Dick was forced to resign under pressure in 1974 when he realized his tenure was on life support following Watergate.  Gerry Ford lost his bid for re-election in '76 mostly due to the voters' refusal to forgive him for pardoning his former boss, Nixon.  Jimmy Carter was humiliated by the Iranians, whose final dagger was releasing American hostages, held captive for well over a year, on the very day the peanut farmer left the White House, January 20, 1981.  George H.W. Bush wanted to serve a second term, but lost by over 200 Electoral College votes to Slick Willie in 1992.  Clinton, the first baby boomer president, brought disgrace to the White House and was impeached by the House Of Representatives in the second half of his second term.  Although acquitted by the Senate, the names "Clinton" and "Lewinsky" shall forever be linked in history.  He is also famous for finger wagging while lying to his constituents.  As for the second Bush, will anyone ever forget his immortal words, "Mission accomplished?"  Only Ronald Reagan, who survived an assassination attempt less than three months into his first of two terms, is an outlier from this group.

So this brings us to the incumbent, President Obama.  How are things going as he heads into the last one hundred or so days in office.?  One does not have to undertake a massive research project to get a feel for the answer.  Yesterday's front page headline in the Star Tribune read, "North Korean [Nuclear] Test A Grave Threat."  Maybe President Dub wasn't too far off when he labeled North Korea and Iran the "axis of evil."  The pajama-clad lunatic running North Korea, Kim Jong Un, is dangerously unpredictable.  And the Iranians enjoy playing war games in the Gulf Of Hormuz, daring our navy to blast them out of the water.  It's hard to imagine our president has many waking hours when the threat posed by those two countries does not weigh heavily on his mind.

Speaking of the Iranians, Obama claims that the $400 million paid by the US to them in January simultaneously with the release of American hostages was merely a coincidence, not ransom.  Hmm.  If so, why cash?  I guess the Swiss banks, which the US usually uses for transactions with countries where we don't have a commercial relationship, were closed that day.

 

Within the last two weeks it has been reported that the US negotiations with the twenty-eight member European Union regarding free trade (the Transatlantic Trade & Investment Partnership, aka TTIP) has gotten nowhere, despite Canada's success at a similar  arrangement with the EU.  Twenty-seven "chapters" of the TTIP have been negotiated between the US and the EU this year.  On how many of those twenty-seven has agreement been reached?  Answer: zero.  A subplot to this news is that the Democrats are the party which is most eager to consummate this deal.  Their stated goal is to put pen to paper by year's end.  Good luck.

 

Also within the last ten days we've learned that Turkey, one of our most important NATO allies, is conducting air strikes on the Kurds in northern Syria.  This is, indeed, strange behavior given the fact that the Kurds' brave battle against ISIS is being militarily backed by US air strikes, intelligence and tactical advisors.  To recap, our supposed ally is killing the people we have chosen to lead the ground fight against ISIS in Syria.  I thought the US was supposed to be the most superior military in the world.  How do we let Turkey get away with this?  Where is our commander-in-chief?  Turkey's leaders, perhaps a bit paranoid, think the US was behind the failed coup which rocked their country last month.  Vice President Biden even paid a visit to Turkish President Recep Erdogan to assure him that we were not behind the coup.  That was the wrong primary topic and the wrong primary message.  It's hard to imagine President Reagan dispatching an underling for that purpose.  Biden's message should have been, "Stop bombing our guys or we won't send you another nickel."

 

It is commonly believed that Obama's legacy will greatly hinge on the continued success of Obamacare.  That national health plan almost terminated out of the shoot when the legality of a key element of the plan, mandatory purchase of insurance by individuals who may not otherwise have desired to buy it, was challenged.  The plan has managed to survive for the time being, notwithstanding a thumbs down vote by the swing voter on the US Supreme Court, Justice Anthony Kennedy.  Usually Kennedy's vote determines the outcome of every case decided by a divided court.  However, Chief Justice John Roberts, perhaps not wanting to go down in history as the man whose court killed Obamacare, surprisingly sided with the liberal wing and voted for the constitutional  permissibility of mandatory insurance.  Still, warning flags are out for the future longevity of the president's health coverage plan, which has generally met with disapproval by small businesses.  Spikes in insurance premiums are prevalent, making it hard for the plan's supporters to assert that it benefits the middle class.  Some families, upon finding out about their skyrocketing premiums, are opting to pay the government-imposed fine rather than re-up for the following year.  Several insurers are bailing after losing millions of dollars.  If Donald Trump becomes the next president, putting an end to Obamacare will be high on his list.  No wonder the prez is making time to campaign for Hillary.

 

Two of President Obama's personal decisions made in August have also been severely criticized by his political opponents.  First, while old folks, the infirm and a variety of household pets were being rescued off of rooftops in severely flooded Baton Rogue, Louisiana and its environs, the president was playing golf near Cape Cod, Massachusetts.  Days later, when he finally showed up to survey the disaster area, he said, "I guarantee ya, when help arrives those flood victims won't care if the provider is a Democrat or a Republican."  Well, yes, that's true; and ice cream has no bones.  But...

 

Secondly, when given the option to have his future presidential library built in either of two Chicago South Side neighborhoods,  the impoverished Washington Park, which desperately could use an infusion of dollars, or Jackson Park, a relatively upscale area along the Lake Michigan shore, the Chicagoan chose the latter.  As the Republicans were quick to point out, there is a difference between talking the talk and walking the walk.

 

While we're on Chicago, the Windy City is on a course to be the scene of over 800 homicides this calendar year.  As of September 1, more murders had been committed in Chicago, the nation's third largest city, than in New York (largest) and Los Angeles (second largest) combined.  Who is running the show in the City Of Big Shoulders?  It's Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who was picked by Obama eight years ago to be his first Chief of Staff.  Is it fair to link the president with the failed mayor?  I would say "no," but then again who claims politics is fair?  Emanuel's time at Obama's right hand were often, shall we say, less than pleasant, and there were not a whole lot of insiders who were sorry to see him leave for his current position.

 

What about the president's secretary of state, Mrs. Clinton?  Even the FBI Director, James Comey, who was appointed by Obama, called Clinton's intentional security lapses "extremely careless."  Yet, in a head-scratching conclusion, after laying out the facts regarding Clinton's disregard for the law which arguably imperiled (among others) our military, he chose not to charge her with a crime.  My take:  Just as was the case with the aforementioned Chief Justice Roberts, Comey did not want to be the guy who would be responsible for such a major impact on the course of history, i.e., the withdrawal of a major party's presidential nominee from the November ballots.  With President Harry Truman, who, by the way, was a Democrat, the buck stopped at his desk.  Does that platitude hold water with the Obama administration?  And since I'm asking that question, how have the veterans, especially those depending on the Veterans' Administration for their medical needs, been faring under the Obama regime?

 

Perhaps trumping -- no pun intended -- all other issues is the question of how President Obama performed as commander-in-chief.  I believe it was in the Washington Post where I read that when Obama took office the United States was at war in nine countries, meaning that's how many countries in which we either had ground troops (including special forces) stationed in the line of fire or we were supplying air support to allies' ground troops.  That number has grown to fourteen during the last eight years, a reflection of how violent and dangerous the world has become.  That growth is also a reflection of how important the role of commander-in-chief of our military has become.

 

As a sports fan, I can't help but notice how a pitcher will usually put his glove to his mouth so that lip readers can't decipher what he's saying to his catcher.  Same thing in football, where the coaches use their play sheet as a shield to obscure what they are saying into their headset microphone.  If that is smart protocol for something as unimportant as baseball or football, why is it not so important when the lives of thousands of American troops are at stake?  Here is what Commander-in-Chief Obama said on October 21, 2011:  "I can report that, as promised, the rest of our troops in Iraq will come home by the end of the year.  After nearly nine years, America's war in Iraq will be over." Unbelievably, two and a-half years later, Obama made the same mistake when, on May 26, 2014, he announced that he would order the withdrawal of all American troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2014.  Nothing like tipping your hand!  Many foreign affairs experts attribute the rise of ISIS in Iraq, if not the emboldened continued presence of the Taliban in Afghanistan, to Obama's disclosures.  The bad guys lied in the weeds until the US presence was drastically diminished, then having only the woefully inept local national armies to deal with.  There is an old saying that the reason we study history is so we don't repeat the mistakes of the past.  Of course, Obama comes from a background of constitutional law and community organizing, not military strategy.  Still, I thought he, too, was a sports fan who twice should have known better.

 

We have seen how the pressure of holding the office of president has aged the men who have served in that capacity, especially those who were in the job for eight years.  Part of it has to do with the natural aging process.  Even butchers, bakers and candlestick makers will look older in the present than they did eight years ago.  But as noted above, going into the home stretch of a presidential term is not a cake walk, and the Obama administration will be no exception.  The president, who already looks weary, might be in for an unpleasant final act.  His record is almost complete for the historians to judge.  Unfortunately for Obama, the Clinton-Trump campaign, particularly the debates, is likely to revisit many of the topics covered in this post.  The tenor of the campaign continues to be one of the nastiest ever.  Many verbal darts will be thrown Obama's way.  The outcome in November will impact Obama's legacy because, as is true with each presidential election, the November vote will be to some extent a public referendum on the Obama presidency.   I'm sure the president is looking forward to the day when he can hand over the reigns to his successor, whoever that may be, and retire to the serene confines of Chicago's South Side.  If Hillary currently commands a fee of $250,000 for private speaking engagements, what do you think a former president will get?

Movie Review: "Indignation"

She was brown and I was pretty green

And I learned quite a lot when I was young.

- "When I Was Young," Eric Burdon & The Animals (1967)

"Indignation": B-.  The latest Philip Roth novel to be brought to the screen is Indignation, the story of a smart but inexperienced Jewish boy from New Jersey who enrolls in Winesburg, a small Ohio college where he meets a complex beauty.  What follows is usually the unexpected.  For a serious, almost humorless, young man like Marcus Messner (Logan Lerman), the only child of a Newark butcher and his wife, a well-planned college career becomes vulnerable to derailment.

That possibility is not to be taken lightly. The time is 1951 and deferments from the military draft are made available to college students.  Those not fortunate enough to continue their education beyond high school are likely to end up on the front lines of the Korean War, a sad reality brought home to roost in the opening scenes.  Marcus and his high school buddies knew the young man killed in action overseas whose funeral they are attending.

Substitute the word "blonde" for "brown" in the above-cited Animals song, and you have the theme of this film.  The blonde is Olivia Hutton (Sarah Gadon) who, by draping her bare leg over the arm of a chair, wrecks Marcus' concentration while he's attempting to study in the library.  The cultured daughter of a Cleveland physician, she is amused by his awkwardness and naivete on their first date when he takes her to a fancy restaurant called L' Escargot without actually knowing what escargot is.  Sensing his nervousness at the table, she tells him to relax.  He responds, "Believe me, I'm trying."  Later the quietly assertive Olivia directs Marcus to pull into a dark cemetery where she proceeds to perform a bold move in the front seat of the parked car. Clearly she has been down a path where Marcus has never gone.

At first blush Marcus has everything going for him.  He is a straight A student, and his high school resume includes varsity baseball and being captain of the debate team.  Yet he is a misfit in many ways: his well-meaning but overbearing family; his choice of college, which requires each student to attend ten chapel services a year, regardless of the student's religious preference (which for atheist Marcus is none); his dormitory roommates, at least one of whom is freakishly odd, maybe even certifiably disturbed; and now his love interest.  Not a typical freshman, Olivia is a transfer student from Mount Holyoke with a troubled past -- evidenced by a healing scar on her wrist she does not bother covering -- which is revealed a layer at a time.

The storytelling here is hit and miss.  My main objection is that I simply did not find the main characters interesting. The best thing going for Gadon is her almost platinum blonde hair.  For a movie romance, she does not appear on the screen nearly as much as her male counterpart.  Most of what we learn about her character, Olivia, happened in the past, and there is a key conversation which she has with another character (not Marcus) which is not shown.

Lerman, who strongly resembles comedy actor Paul Rudd, only younger, ironically plays Marcus as phlegmatic.  While the character is serious and introspective, traits more easily fleshed out in a novel than a movie, neither Lerman nor director James Schamus succeed in developing Marcus beyond a typical college freshman.  This is Schamus' first shot at directing after years of producing and writing.  I will be curious to see if he pursues his new line of work going forward.

It is too bad there could not have been more scenes like the interrogation through which Marcus suffers when he's called on the carpet by Dean H.D. Caudwell (Tracy Letts) to explain why he requested a room transfer.  In all fairness to Schamus, who wrote the screenplay, the dialogue between the student and the dean is perfect, evolving from a "make yourself comfortable" opening to an all-out debate several minutes later.        

The film starts and ends with the observation that sometimes one encounters a series of seemingly random minor events which brings that person to a turning point in his life.  There is a clever tie-in between the movie's opening shots and the fade-out.  It's those pesky intervening random minor events which could have used an infusion of energy.

Movie Review: "Cafe Society"

"Cafe Society": A.  Woody Allen, writer and director, has done it again, coming up with a 1930's "period piece" combining romance, humor, interesting realistic characters, exquisite costumes, groovy jazz, and a perfect ending.  Having a superb cast, led by Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart and Steve Carell, doesn't hurt either.

At the core of Cafe Society is the budding romance of Bobby (Eisenberg) and Veronica (Stewart), who goes by "Vronnie."  They are introduced by Bobby's Uncle Phil (Carell), a big shot agent whose Rolodex contains an A-List of Hollywood stars.  Of course he lives in a Beverly Hills mansion where he and his wife host pool parties frequented by the glitterati. He is incapable of uttering three sentences in a row without name-dropping a handful of celebrities with whom he does business.  When Bobby decides to leave his Bronx home for the west coast, hoping that Uncle Phil will employ him or at least use his connections for landing Bobby a job, Phil keeps him waiting for a week before clearing five minutes of time for the nephew.  Phil's original intent was to give Bobby the brush-off, but he finally relents and offers him menial work as a gopher.  Phil calls in one of his agency's many secretaries, Vronnie, and asks her to show the "kid" around town to familiarize him with LA.

Bobby and Vronnie hit it off immediately, but she doesn't waste much time admitting to Bobby that she already has a beau.  Bobby, no doubt fully cognizant of Vronnie's bare midriff/short skirt attire, is disappointed that this cute girl isn't romantically available, but he's still happy spending time with her platonically.  Bobby is a flirt, not above throwing out a line here and there with unmistakable connotations that if she changes her mind he'll be ready for her.  For example, when Vronnie tells Bobby that her boyfriend travels on business, Bobby responds that if she were his girl he would never leave town without her.

There is a generous helping of the Jewish family Bobby left behind in New York.  It doesn't take long for us to conclude he made the right decision to head west.  His father is an opinionated slug, his mother is a worrywart, his older brother is a gangster, and his sister is an alpha dog who bosses her submissive husband around.  This colorful crew supplies ample opportunity for Allen to intersperse numerous quips, a majority of them with a Jewish bent.  Allen is a master at this technique, which was immensely appreciated by our fellow movie patrons.

There are several surprises throughout, including a major one a third of the way into the story.  About two-thirds of the way in there is a shift in setting and plot, including the introduction of a recently divorced woman (Blake Lively) who is a head-turner also named Veronica.  Her entrance into a night club where Bobby works can only be described as "grand."  It is easy to be distracted by Lively's beauty, so take care not to lose focus on plot development and dialogue when she graces the screen.

Why does Cafe Society deserve a rating of A?  One explanation is that it has no defects.  I'm not sure how one could improve upon the finished product.  The casting is perfect.  A particular strength of Eisenberg is that he has the ability to play a Woody Allen-type character as if he were stepping into his director's body.  He has the body language, the quick wit, the inner suffering, the nervousness and the emotional queasiness that we used to see from Woody in his younger days.  As for Stewart, I was so impressed by her it almost makes me want to check out the Twilight series.  I would, except I don't believe in vampires.  While watching Carell take on the movie mogul character, I did not think of Michael Scott from The Office even once, so a tip of the cap to the multi-dimensional actor. 

I loved hearing the big band music which was popular at the time, particularly the vocals by Kat Edmonson. The settings, the cars, the hair styles, the clothes, even Allen's spoken narrative, all fit perfectly with the '30's era of glamorous film stars.  It was the Golden Age of Hollywood.  As mentioned above, the ending is a definite highlight, ingeniously filmed by Allen with two shots in quick succession which parallel and practically synchronize with each other, almost as if on a split screen.  Such filmmaking design is unique, and could only have been executed by an eminently skilled director.  

In my August 31, 2013 review of Blue Jasmine, to which I also granted a grade of A, I wrote that it was my favorite Woody Allen film of all time. Now I'm not so sure it hasn't been displaced.

Who Is The Winning Pitcher?

A starting pitcher will not be eligible to be credited with a win if he fails to pitch at least five complete innings.

- MLB Rule 9.17(b) [paraphrased]

Last night's Twins-Indians game in Cleveland presented an ideal illustration of the leeway an official scorer sometimes has when determining which lucky pitcher should be credited with a win (aka, a "dub" or a "W") for his team's victory.

The Twins, whose bats have collectively come alive of late, enjoyed an 8-0 lead going into the bottom of the fifth inning.  Kyle Gibson, the Twins' # 2 starter in their five-man rotation, seemingly had an easy path toward gaining his fourth win of the year.  All he needed to do was get three more outs without giving up eight runs, and he would have the requisite five complete innings under his belt.  Then, provided the Twins did not surrender the lead later, he would get the dub even if he didn't throw another pitch after the fifth.

The home half of the fifth started out quietly enough, with the Tribe's rookie Tyler Naquin grounding out to short.  The next batter, Abraham Almonte, stroked a double to right, but that was quickly followed by Roberto Perez' ground out to second for the second out, advancing Almonte to third.  Gibson was only one out away, and the score was still 8-0!  Then the roof caved in.  The next six Cleveland batters all got base hits, including two two-run homers by Carlos Santana (no, not that Carlos Santana) and Mike Napoli.  Napoli's dinger was noteworthy for two reasons.  TV announcer Dick Bremer, who has been broadcasting Twins games since 1983, said it may have been the longest home run he's ever seen.  Also, Napoli's blast came on the third pitch immediately following Twins pitching coach Neil Allen's trip to the mound to counsel the struggling Gibson.  I guess whatever ol' Neil had to say wasn't worth the trip.

Napoli's blast brought Cleveland to within three runs, 8-5.  That was followed by a single and a run-scoring double.  The score was now 8-6, with the tying run, Naquin, coming up to bat.  Were the Twins ever going to get out of this inning?

Manager Paul Molitor usually gives his starting pitchers every opportunity to last five innings, thus qualifying them for the potential W.  However, now Mollie had little choice but to pull Gibson.  Gibson looked like dead man walking as he slowly ambled back to his dugout.  Fifteen minutes ago he was in Fat City with an eight run lead.  Now, according to team policy, he had to sit on the bench and hope that reliever Michael ("Gulf Of") Tonkin could induce the third out.

When Tonkin arrived on the mound there was a man on second.  The Twins bullpen seems to have instituted a new tradition, which is for a relief pitcher to issue a walk to the very first batter he faces.  Tonkin apparently is a proponent thereof, granting a free pass to Naquin, the tenth Indian to bat in the inning.  Finally, to the great relief of Twins Nation, Tonkin struck out Almonte to end the carnage.

After the Twins failed to score in the top of the sixth, Molitor sent The Gulf back out to start the bottom half.  Although the bullpen was well-rested due to only two relievers having been used the night before, I have no doubt Molitor's hope was that The Gulf could burn up one or two more innings.  Tonkin, along with Tommy Milone, are what's called "long relievers," as opposed to set-up men or closers.  Long relievers are called upon to throw a few innings per outing.  

Things did not go as planned.  The first man up, Perez, scorched a liner which first baseman Joe Mauer snagged.  Santana walked and Jason Kipnis singled, putting runners at first and second.  At this point, The Gulf had faced a total of five Indians and had retired only two of them.  Francisco Lindor hit a fly ball out to right field deep enough to allow Santana to tag and go to third.  It was clear that Tonkin was not fooling anybody.

Molitor stode from the dugout and signaled for pitcher Ryan ("Don't Call Me Elvis") Pressly to come in and face the Indians' mighty slugger, Napoli.  This would be the At Bat Of The Game; a fast ball pitcher with upper nineties nastiness versus the guy who, last time up, hit a five hundred foot home run.  On a 1-1 count, Napoli just missed squaring it up, sending a deep fly to right which Rookie Of The Year candidate Max Kepler caught to end the inning.

Pressly pitched an efficient, albeit imperfect, bottom of the seventh, surrendering only a single and getting a strikeout and two easy infield grounders.  The eighth and ninth innings were harmlessly handled by Taylor Rogers and Brandon Kintzler, and the Twins won 10-6, their second road win in a row against the division-leading Indians.

As cited above, a starting pitcher must go at least five complete innings to qualify for a potential W.  Since starter Gibson failed to do so, MLB Rule 9.17(b) gives the official scorer the discretion to award the W to whichever relief pitcher was most effective.  Relievers Rogers and Kintzler pitched well, but were not under consideration due to both having the luxury of not coming into the game with runners on base.  (In Kintzler's case, the Twins had padded their lead to 10-6 thanks to a ninth inning two run homer by Eduardo Escobar.)  The choice for the dub would be between Tonkin and Pressly.  Picking either would be acceptable, given the discretion afforded to the official scorer under the rules.

Tonkin faced a total of six men and retired only three.  Two of those three outs (by Perez and Lindor) were well hit, and Tonkin gave up two walks.  He was pulled by Mollie with two baserunners which were his responsibility for ERA purposes.

By comparison, Pressly retired four of the five men he faced, did not walk anybody and struck out one.  Neither of the baserunners he inherited from Tonkin scored.  He bested Napoli in that At Bat Of The Game in the sixth inning.

It had to be a fairly easy decision for the official scorer.  Kudos to Tonkin for getting the Twins out of trouble in the fifth, but it was Pressly who saved the Twins' bacon in the sixth.  Pressly's line score was clearly better, and his reward was a well-deserved win.

Movie Review: "Free State Of Jones"

"Free State Of Jones": B.  Free Sate Of Jones is a film that bites off a little more than it can chew, but eventually overcomes an odd structure and questionable editing to deliver an entertaining, educational Civil War story.  The movie opens with an 1862 battle scene reminiscent of the D-Day landing depicted in 1998's Saving Private Ryan.  Confederate soldiers, making no attempt to defend themselves, are easy targets for the Union soldiers as the gray-jacketed infantrymen march over the rise.  Director Gary Ross zooms in for the gory bloodletting.  Battlefield nurse Newton Knight (Matthew McConaughey), dressed in a plain white long-sleeve shirt and therefore distinguishable from the combatants, drags the mortally wounded southerners on a makeshift stretcher to nearby hospital tents.  Aware of the fact that the medical personnel's triage protocol is not based on the severity of injury but rather on the military rank of the patient, Newt drapes a perished officer's jacket over the barely breathing body on the stretcher before bringing him into the tent.  The ruse works; the man is immediately tended to.  Newt is a wily one, a fact which will be confirmed, time and again.

Although born and raised in Mississippi, Newt does not see the War Between The States as his war.  Rather, it is a war fought by the poor Dixie uneducated low class for the benefit of the land owners, particularly those who depend on slave labor to run their cotton operations.  He has no sense of defending the South's honor when the people he despises most are not the northerners but the powerful entitled gentry right in his own locale, Jones County.  When a teenage neighbor is conscripted into action by a Rebel officer and within minutes dies in Newt's arms, Newt's decision to desert is confirmed.  He is now a man without a country, a rebel (small "r") with an impossible cause.

 

After a brief visit to his Mississippi farm and family, fugitive Newt makes his way to a hideout near a swamp where most of the other temporary residents are runaway slaves.  Later they're joined by other deserters like himself.  The relationship between Newt and his new friends is mutually beneficial, teaching each other tricks of survival.  The group is mostly self-sufficient, although periodically supplies are brought to the hideout by Rachel (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), a trusted slave who seems to be able to bamboozle whoever her master is into thinking she's doing something other than visiting the swamp.  With every visit, Rachel and Newt get more snuggly, but the blacks in the camp don't seem to mind her taking up with a white man.  As a matter of fact, neither does Newt's white farm wife, Serena (Keri Russell).  This romantic arrangement may or may not have been illegal in the Utah Territory, but most certainly was in Mississippi.  It's an issue which director Ross glosses over.

 

As the number of castaways and fugitives increases, Newt assumes a leadership position, with Moses (Mahershala Ali), a slave, as his right hand man.  In an ironic action, the group declares they have seceded from Mississippi, which of course has already seceded from the US.  This new entity, the Free State Of Jones, takes on the Confederate army, and as a result becomes strange bedfellows with the Yanks.  Guns and ammo never seem to be in short supply for Newt, Moses and the boys.  They have valuable connections with armament dealers.  The Rebs know where Newt's swamp foxes are hiding out, but their officers recognize the folly of initiating battle against the Free State on the latter's home turf, i.e., the swamp.  It is a home field advantage which surely would result in lethal ambush.

 

The Civil War ended in 1865, two years after President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation.  The movie continues through the subsequent post-war Reconstruction.  Carpetbaggers descend from the north, joined by their southern brethren, the Scalawags.  The plight of the newly freed blacks does not improve much, if at all.  They may be free, but they remain poor, uneducated and still at the mercy of the whites in many ways.  The Ku Klux Klan runs unchecked, inflicting lawlessness targeted at blacks and their churches.  Newt is steadfast by his friends' side through the many hard times, as much a mentor and leader as a warrior.

 

About a quarter of the way through the movie, the story suddenly flash-forwards eighty-five years to a 1940's Mississippi courtroom in which a descendant of Newt is being tried for the state crime of interracial marriage to a white woman.  The heritage of the defendant hinges on whether he is part of the family tree that Newt produced with Serena or the family tree from the Newt-Rachel affair.  Every so often director Ross revisits and updates the trial.  I found these interruptions to be extraneous distractions which only tack on more minutes to a film which could stand to clip a few.

 

McConaughey turns in an excellent performance.  I was never a fan until I saw him in the movie Mud (reviewed here on June 20, 2013; B+).  I later (in my Movie Ratings Recap of February 8, 2014) rated it the third best movie I attended in 2013.  His characters in Mud and Free State display many similarities which play to the actor's strengths.  Both those men, Newt and Mud, are outsiders, rough and ragged around the edges, but characters you pull for while they are on the run.  McConaughey has come a long way since his performance in 2009's Ghosts Of Girlfriends Past, to which I gave a pre-blog rating of D-.  In fact, the following is an excerpt from an e-mailed review I sent to my three kids on May 19, 2009:  "Matthew McConaughey may be the only Hollywood film star who would lose to Keanu Reeves in an acting contest."  Yep, MM has come a long way.  I wonder if there's hope for Reeves.                  

Sports Yucks 'n' Nuggs - Volume II

If the Minnesota Twins are your favorite Major League Baseball team, right about now you are probably ready for the NFL season to get going.  The Vikings open mini-camp next week, so you won't have to wait too long.  The Twins, sporting a record of 34-59, are the second worst team in baseball -- thank you, Atlanta -- and the worst in the American League.  The rookies we've been led to believe were going to take us to new heights have under-performed.  Some are clearly not ready to play at the Major League level.  Most of our batters don't know the strike zone, and have something against protecting the plate with a two strike count.  We do not have a single pitcher who would be even the number 2 starter in any other team's rotation.  Our primary closer, Glen Perkins, has been on the shelf all year, and we just waived the guy we were counting on to replace him, Kevin Jepsen.  The coaches have finally given up on our big off-season acquisition, Byung-ho Park, who is now in the minors.  Things came to a head this week with the announced firing of Twins General Manager, Terry Ryan, who held the job for eighteen of the last twenty-three years.

To help get your mind off this predicament, it's time for another Sports Yucks 'n' Nuggs.  Volume I of SYnN was posted here on May 15, 2012.  Then I explained that the entries I chose were "either funny or [were] worthy of at least a nod or a salute because they [were] interesting."  The same formula applies to the present post, Volume II, except these are all baseball related.

*****

Marney Gellner, a fellow Bishop Ryan High School alum, is one of the field reporters for Fox Sports North telecasts of Twins games.  Last May she was in the Target Field bleachers interviewing a couple from Fertile, Minnesota and bestowing on them $100 worth of Minnesota State Lottery scratch-off tickets.  One of them had a "Circle Me Bert" sign.  As television analyst Bert Blyleven was circling them with his telestrator, Marney asked the excited folks what the population of Fertile is.  "Eight hundred thirty-eight," the man and wife proudly proclaimed.

Bert quickly chimed in, "I thought it would be more."

*****

Bartolo Colon is a forty-three year old pitcher for the New York Mets.  The veteran Dominican has been a Major League pitcher for nineteen years, is a Cy Young Award winner and a four-time All Star, including this season.  Before he came to the Mets three years ago, he pitched for seven other teams, only one of which (the Montreal Expos in 2002) was/is a National League franchise, i.e.,the league in which pitchers bat instead of being replaced in the lineup by a designated hitter.  The Mets list Colon as 5' 11" and weighing 285 pounds.  If he weighs less than three bills I would be very surprised.

In May Colon became the oldest pitcher in MLB history to hit his first career home run when he belted a curve ball over the wall at Petco Park against the San Diego Padres.  The pitcher was James Shields, one of the better hurlers in MLB.  The lapse of time for the hefty Colon's home run trot around the bases could have been measured with an hour glass.  His trickster teammates, aware that this was his first career home run, all left the dugout and hid in the runway leading to the clubhouse.  A few moments after Colon returned from his trot to an empty dugout, his teammates reappeared, laughing it up as they heartily congratulated the old guy.

*****

I have witnessed the high school fans at several Champlin Park basketball games.  They sit in a large group right behind one of the baskets, and when the opponents are shooting free throws at that end the fans' antics intended to distract the shooter are hysterical.

Last month I attended the Class 4A State Championship baseball game at Target Field between the CP Rebels and the Wayzata Trojans.  The Rebel baseball fans proved just as free-spirited as the basketball crowd.  (Yes, I realize there's a good chance they are the same kids comprising both groups.)  Whenever a Wayzata player struck out, the CP crowd yelled out in cadence, "Left, right, left, right, left, right..." until the dejected batter returned to his dugout and descended its stairs.  You have probably heard the same type of chant at basketball games when an opposing player fouls out.  Okay, maybe it's poor sportsmanship, but I could not suppress my laugh whenever it happened.

I got another chuckle in the fourth inning when the Wayzata catcher smashed a leadoff triple for the Trojans' first extra base hit of the game.  He slid into third base a second or two before the Rebel's third baseman could apply the tag.  The Wayzata player was so excited that he pumped his fist and yelled words of encouragement to his teammates in the nearby third base dugout.  Only problem was, in his cheerleading gesticulations he jumped in the air above the bag, and that enabled the very alert CP third sacker to tag him out.  From the penthouse to the outhouse, to coin a phrase.

Immediately, the Rebels' fans started repeatedly yelling in unison: "You let the WHOLE TEAM DOWN!"  I'm sure this was audible all over the box seat area, where almost the entire crowd was seated.  Wayzata's catcher got the last laugh, however, as the Trojans took the title, 9-1.

*****

The night before the Major League Baseball All Star Game every year, there is a Home Run Derby Contest featuring four sluggers from each league.  The rules for the Derby change every once in awhile, but the contestants have always been able to select their own pitcher.  Some guys pick their brother, or their former high school coach or a teammate.

Brad Radke was a pitcher for twelve years with the Minnesota Twins.  It is traditional in baseball that the rookies get picked on by the veterans, kind of a rite of initiation.  Brad's rookie season was 1995, and the Twins played an interleague series in LA against the Dodgers about a week before the All Star Game.  Radke gave up a couple of home runs to Dodgers slugger Raul Mondesi.

One of Radke's teammates was friends with a couple of Dodgers who somehow had stolen some official Dodger team stationery.  They gave a sheet or two to Radke's teammate who wrote a fake letter from Mondesi to Radke, complete with Mondesi's forged signature.  In this letter, "Mondesi" asked Radke if he would be willing to be Mondesi's pitcher for the upcoming Home Run Derby.  At first rookie Radke fell for the scam but eventually figured things out.

*****

A funny sight at the St. Paul Saints games...  The infield is dragged in the fifth and seventh innings by a half dozen guys dressed in... wait for it... drag.  Leave it to a Mike Veeck operation to think of that!  There is something goofy going on in between almost every half-inning, e.g., a live pig delivering new baseballs to the home plate umpire, stretcher races, and a human version of bumper cars.

One gimmick at the Saints game I recently attended maybe wasn't such a good idea.  The public address announcer stated several times that before a certain upcoming inning, all the fans would be asked to do a short series of squats by their seats in an attempt to break the Guinness world record.  For those fans who did not feel up to the task, they were invited to retreat to the concourse so that they "wouldn't be counted as a 'no'" and thereby subtracted from the total.  I happened to be sitting in an aisle seat and got a close-up look at the obese and infirm as they very slowly trudged up the stairs to the concourse before the calisthenics began.  They did not look happy.  In a way, it was a Walk Of Shame which put an unintended damper on the otherwise fun activity.

*****

The next little story requires an intro.  When pitchers are about to be activated off the Disabled List, the team usually has them throw what's called a "simulated game" in the bullpen.  Then, if there are no physical setbacks, the pitcher is activated a day or two later.  There is no live hitting in a simulated game, but a batter does stand in the batter's box with a bat on his shoulder.  Thus, the exercise is slightly more real than simply having the pitcher throw to a bullpen catcher without a batter standing in.  The average simulated game has the pitcher throw about three innings of fifteen pitches each.

On the evening of Thursday, May 19, the Twins hosted Star Wars Night at Target Field.  The fans were given Trevor Plouffe Star Wars bobble heads.  The opponent was the Toronto Blue Jays.  An hour before the Twins-Jays game started, Twins pitcher Kyle Gibson, who was on the DL but nearly recovered from his injury, tossed a simulated game in the bullpen.

The Force that evening was not with the Twins.  They managed only four hits -- Plouffe went 0 for 4 -- and lost 3-2, dropping their record to an MLB-worst 10-20.  Afterwards, Twins fan Ryan Glanzer tweeted the quip of the day:  "The Twins also lost Kyle Gibson's simulated game earlier tonight."

*****

More from Bert Blyleven, and his TV partner, Dick Bremer.  Blyleven is a member of the Baseball Hall Of Fame, and ranks fifth on the list of MLB all-time strikeout leaders with 3,701 Ks.  (Note: The four ahead of him are Nolan Ryan, Randy Johnson, Roger Clemens and Steve Carlton.)  During a recent game, Dick asked Bert if he kept the ball from his last career strikeout in 1992.  Bert replied, "No, because at the time I didn't think that would be my last strikeout!"

Dick then recalled a similar conversation he had with former Twin and Hall Of Famer Harmon Killebrew.  The Killer, who died in 2011, ranks twelfth on the list of MLB career home runs with 573 dingers.  Dick asked The Killer if he kept the ball from his last career home run in 1975.  Harmon gave an answer similar to Bert's.  He did not keep, or even seek, that ball because he thought more round trippers were in his future.

*****

Last Saturday, July 16, was the biggest game of the year for both the Chicago Cubs and the Texas Rangers.  The Cubs and Rangers were each comfortably in first place in their divisions, the NL Central and the AL West, respectively.  It was a beautiful sunny day in the Friendly Confines, which was overflowing with more than 42,000 fans.  The Cubbies were clinging to a slim 3-1 lead going into the top of the ninth, three outs away from flying the big "W" over Waveland & Sheffield Avenues.  Despite confidence in Cubs closer Hector Rondon, the fans were quite aware that the Rangers' lineup was a potential powder keg.

Leadoff hitter Rougned Odor lifted a lazy fly to right fielder Jason Heyward, who had just switched to that position from center field.  Heyward was obviously blinded by the sun's light, putting his mitt up more as a shield than anything else.  The Chicago faithful gasped a sigh of relief when the ball found its way into Heyward's glove as he almost tumbled to the ground.  It's always good to get the leadoff guy, especially in the ninth.

The second man up, Ian Desmond, meekly tapped out, pitcher to first.  One more out to go, but the Rangers' most dangerous batter, future Hall Of Famer Adrian Beltre, was up.  On the fourth pitch of the at bat, Beltre hit a towering fly toward right field.  "Here we go again" was undoubtedly the universal thought in the stadium.  Would Heyward struggle again?  No!  Three seconds before the ball found leather. Heyward stuck up the thumb on his throwing hand to assure his teammates, the fans and the millions of TV viewers that he had this one measured.  Plunk!  He was right.  Cubs win!  Cubs win!!

Quarterly Cinema Scan - Volume XXIV

In 1998 the American Film Institute announced a series of celebrations planned to commemorate the one hundred year anniversary of commercial cinema.  The main component of each celebration would be a "greatest list" of different categories to be announced via nationally televised specials.  As you might expect, the first AFI list was that of the one hundred greatest movies released during that one hundred year span, in the opinion of the esteemed AFI panel of experts.  In the following year, AFI released its list of the fifty greatest screen legends, split evenly between actors and actresses.  Katharine Hepburn was selected by AFI as the top actress, while Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart placed and showed in the actor category behind Humphrey Bogart.

Grant and Stewart have always been two of my favorite actors.  It's a shame that The Philadelphia Story from 1940 is the only movie in which the two of them appeared together.  I had never been a big Kate fan, but her performance in The Philadelphia Story won me over.  By the way, it was the last and most acclaimed of the four films in which Cary and the redhead co-starred, although 1938's Bringing Up Baby was critically acclaimed too, notwithstanding lagging ticket sales. 

The Philadelphia Story was the only film in which Kate and Jimmy acted together.  Their only other pairing of sorts was That's Entertainment, Part II from 1976, a documentary containing snippets of older films, mostly musicals, in which they separately starred.

The background for the production of The Philadelphia Story could, itself, be grist for another movie.  In 1938 the Manhattan Independent Theater Owners took out an ad in the Hollywood Reporter which, among other things, disparaged Hepburn and labeled her as "box office poison." This was on the heels of Bringing Up Baby.  Considering that she had, by this point in time, already won a Best Actress Oscar just five years beforehand for Morning Glory, and had also been nominated two years later for Alice Adams, this was strange criticism indeed.  Kate could have let her resume speak for itself, but the spirited actress chose a different course of action.  Shortly after the ad appeared she took to the stage to perform the lead role in The Philadelphia Story, which started with a national tour and eventually ended up on Broadway.  She bought the rights to the script for $30,000, and flipped it by selling the movie rights to MGM for $175,000, with a provision that she would maintain control of the movie production.  She then demanded and received another seventy-five grand from MGM to play the leading lady, Tracy Lord.  (Note the inside joke, i.e., Hepburn's character bearing the first name "Tracy," a reference to Hepburn's long-time lover, Spencer Tracy.)

As Turner Classic Movies host Ben Mankiewicz described her, "Box office poison, perhaps, but front office brains."

*****

Here are the movies I watched at the Quentin Estates during the second quarter of 2016:
        

1.  All The Right Moves (1983 drama; Tom Cruise is a feisty high school football star whose dream of escaping a life in the local Pennsylvania steel mill town coincides with that of his vindictive coach, Craig T. Nelson.)  B+

2.  Because They're Young (1960 drama; Dick Clark is a high school history teacher who, when he isn't hitting on school secretary Victoria Shaw, is getting very involved in the personal problems of his students Michael Callan and Warren Berlinger.)  C

3.  Breaking Away (1979 comedy; Dennis Christopher, a  bicycle racer, and Dennis Quade are two of four "stoners," recent high school grads in Bloomington, Indiana, who have cultural clashes with the more affluent college guys.)  C+

4.  The Cardinal (1963 drama; Tom Tryon is a priest who, on the way to becoming a cardinal, encounters challenges involving a poor rural Massachusetts parish under the direction of Burgess Meredith, a black Georgia parish targeted by the Ku Klux Clan, a sabbatical in Vienna where he meets the fetching student, Romy Schneider, and the Nazis who have just annexed Austria.) C+

5.  The French Connection (1971 detective drama; Gene Hackman and Roy Scheider are NYC detectives who follow leads pertaining to the prospect of a huge illegal narcotics shipment being smuggled into the city.)  B+

6.  The French Line (1954 musical; Texas oil baroness Jane Russell switches identities with model Joyce Mackenzie while on board a trans-Atlantic ocean liner, and suitor Gilbert Roland, a French playboy who appears to be interested in Jane, is kept in the dark.)  C+

7.  The Graduate (1967 comedy; an older family friend, Anne Bancroft, seduces recent college grad Dustin Hoffman, but their affair turns sideways when he meets her daughter, Katherine Ross.)  B+

8.  Jeremiah Johnson (1972 western; Robert Redford decides frontier town life isn't for him, so he lives high up in the Rockies among the elk, the hawks, the rabbits, the wolves, the bears, the Crow, the Flatheads and the Blackfoot.) B+

9.  Kings Row (1942 drama; Robert Cummings studies medicine under the tutelage of girlfriend Betty Field's father, Claude Raines, then goes off to Vienna while his best buddy, Ronald Reagan, gets serious with a girl from the poor side of town, Ann Sheridan.)  C

10.  La Ronde (1950 comedy; narrator Anton Walbrook introduces and observes ten different sexual liaisons in a sequence in which one of the two parties from a given story is also involved in the next.) C+

11.  Life Itself (2014 documentary; a biographical detailed overview of film critic Roger Ebert, including his days as a young aspiring journalist, his affiliation with rival and partner Gene Siskel, his commingling with the rich and famous in places like Cannes, and his terminal illness which he fought with the unflagging support of his wife, Chaz.)  A-

12.  The Philadelphia Story (1940 comedy; Katherine Hepburn, a wealthy high society divorcee, is about to marry John Howard, but she gets sidetracked by her ex, Cary Grant, and by a tabloid writer, Jimmy Stewart.) A

13.  This Is Spinal Tap  (1984 mockumentary;  Rob Reiner is a documentarian who memorializes the final days of a fictional English band comprised of members Michael McKean, Christopher Guest and Harry Schearer.)  A-