Fab Four Fallacies

I've been home from Liverpool for over four months, but still have Beatles on the brain.  A lot of baby boomers do on this day, February 9, remembering that night fifty-three years ago when Ed Sullivan introduced the Fab Four to millions of American TV watchers.

During the three day visit to Liverpool which Momma Cuan and I enjoyed last September, we learned a few tidbits about the Beatles' history which contradicted  some of the "facts" I had in my noggin beforehand from various, and sometimes forgotten, sources.  The four main new sources of information were the two guides who narrated the National Trust Tour of Mendips and 20 Forthlin Road, the guide for the Magical Mystery Tour (affiliated with the Cavern Club) of "Beatle sights" around the city, and the many narrative plaques and captions inside The Beatles Story museum on Albert Dock.  Here are five nuggets which contradict what I'd thought to be true.  In the spirit of keeping with the news of today, you might call them "alternative facts."
 

Song Writing.  What mostly set the Beatles apart from their contemporaries was not their singing ability nor their musicianship. Rather, their charisma and song writing talent thrust them to the top and enabled them to sustain their reign as music's number one act for seven years.  Lennon and McCartney's childhood homes were a short bicycle ride away from each other, and I always pictured them collaborating at both places on a more or less 50/50 basis once they hooked up as bandmates.  The Alternative Fact:  Many more songs were written at Paul's residence, 20 Forthlin Road, than at John's residence, Mendips.  John's Aunt Mimi presented a double-edged barrier.  First, even though she was impressed with Paul's charm, she was not crazy about John having his friends over.  The thought of teenagers invading her prim and proper home did not sit well.  The Quarrymen and the Beatles rarely practiced at her house, even though John was the bands' leader.  Secondly, Mimi looked upon John's guitar as a pointless distraction.  The more time he spent with it, the less regard he gave his studies.  By comparison, Paul's father Jim was a musician who encouraged Paul and his brother, Michael, to pursue their musical interests.  He even had a piano in the living room which all three McCartneys played.  Unlike Mendips there was no female presence, as Paul's mom died when he was fourteen.  The furnishings at Forthlin were a little worn, maybe not much to look at, but a perfect place for teenage musicians to gather.  For every time Paul and John hung out and collaborated at Mendips, they were at 20 Forthlin probably nine or ten times.  Dozens of songs recorded by the Beatles were written in Paul's bedroom and in the living room at 20 Forthlin.  A grand total of only four or five were composed at Mendips.
 

St. Peter's Church Garden Fete.  The date July 6, 1957 is even more famous than February 9, 1964.  That former date is when Lennon's friend and former bandmate, Ivan Vaughn, introduced his school chum Paul to John in between the Quarrymen's sets at the St. Peter's Fete in Woolten.  Paul, who at age fifteen was a year younger than John, impressed Lennon by playing and singing Twenty Flight Rock, a popular rockabilly staple by Eddie Cochran.  He also showed John how to tune a guitar.  Following this first-time-ever meeting between John and Paul, John could not make up his mind whether to invite Paul to join the band.  This indecision was brought about by John's insecurity in the face of an obviously superior musician, and how that might affect John's undisputed role as band leader.  My original understanding was that when John finally decided to offer the invitation, Paul gladly accepted and the rest became history.  The Alternative Fact:  Just as John was torn about extending the offer, Paul was torn whether to accept.  He did not jump at the chance, as I had previously believed.  The Quarrymen were a skiffle band comprised of six guys who were attempting to play a combination of homemade instruments and cheap second hand instruments.  None of them, including Lennon, was any better than a very average player.  Paul, under the tutelage of his father who on occasion played the piano and trumpet professionally, was an accomplished guitarist, and thought he would be taking a step backward musically by joining the Quarrymen.  Within days after John (through Ivan and Quarryman Pete Shotton) popped the question, Paul's family went on a summer holiday.  He had lots of time to mull it over, and kept John waiting until the McCartney family returned to Liverpool.  Finally after more than a month had gone by, McCartney acquiesced.  Within the context of the offer and acceptance, John and Paul were each taking a gamble, John with respect to his leadership status, and Paul with respect to his musical advancement.
 

Brian Epstein.  Just how much in the dark was Brian Epstein before he saw the Beatles perform at the Cavern for the first time on November 9, 1961?  Epstein was part of a huge furniture merchandising family.  As a sidelight, he ran one of the largest record stores in Liverpool called the North End Music Shop (NEMS).  As every Beatles fan knows, Brian became the manager of the Beatles and was intrinsically key to their international fame.  But, how did he ever make the initial connection with the band?  The story I heard countless times from many different sources was that there was a two or three day span during which groups of teenagers would come into NEMS and ask Brian if he had any recordings by the Beatles.  Those kids had heard My Bonnie by Tony Sheridan, a record in which the Beatles functioned as a backup band.  After getting so many in-store inquiries, Brian decided to walk over to the Cavern to see what all the fuss was about, and it was then that he made the decision to offer his managerial services to the band.  The Alternative Fact:  Although the story about the teenagers asking about the Beatles makes for lovely lore, what is much more likely is that Epstein was quite familiar with the Beatles long before the kids walked into NEMS.  Consider that the Beatles distinguished themselves from the hundreds of other local bands by playing the clubs in Hamburg.  Each time they returned home to Liverpool they made sure people knew they had international experience.  Some Liverpudlians actually thought the mop tops were Germans.  The Beatles were also featured in Mersey Beat, the number one music publication in Merseyside and which was sold in NEMS.  It is unreasonable to believe that Brian, the manager of one of the biggest record stores in Liverpool, would not be very much in tune with the Beatles' popularity in Germany.  The inquiries by the teenage customers were a reminder for Brian to check out the lads, but not the revelation it has frequently been labeled.
 

Pete Best.  Has their ever been a more sympathetic music artist than Pete Best, the drummer who was fired by the Beatles less than a year before they hit the big time?  The various accounts of his termination are generally in agreement.  His skills behind the kit were passable, and by all accounts about on the same level as Ringo's.  His mother, Mona, was one of the Quarrymen and Beatles' supporters in the early days, employing them for dozens of gigs at the club she owned, The Casbah.  Pete was fired mostly because he was more laid back than the raucous trio of John, Paul and George, and they didn't feel he fit in.  Pete was a loner.  Ringo, by comparison, was a fun loving chap whose effervescence blended seamlessly with the band's persona.  (The Beatles' main competition in the UK and the States was the Rolling Stones, whose aura was one of sullenness compared to the Beatles' joyousness.  Pete might have fared better as a Stone, although as a drummer he lacked the chops of Charlie Watts.)  The accounts of Best's firing also agree on the most terrible aspect of all.  The Beatles lacked the courage and respect to fire him face-to-face, so they left that dirty work to their manager, Brian Epstein.
 

All four Beatles became millionaires, and their principal song writers, John and Paul, accumulated massive wealth.  Best, left behind in Liverpool, tried to stick in the music business but soon decided he needed a more steady paycheck.  For most of his adulthood he made a modest living as a government office worker.  It's obvious Pete was the victim of unprofessional if not unethical behavior on the part of the Beatles, but because he was an "at will" employee he had no legal recourse.   It was my belief that not only did Pete get hosed, but that he was relegated to living out his life a mere notch or two above the poverty line.  The Alternative Fact:  In 1995 the three surviving members of the Beatles, Paul, George and Ringo, released a new album called Beatles Anthology.  That double disc LP is a compilation of previously unreleased material, outtakes, demos, auditions, radio interviews, in-studio performances, and promotions.  Because some of the material included songs recorded while Pete was the drummer, he received approximately four million pounds (the equivalent of about five and a-half million US dollars) in royalties.  At age fifty-four, Pete was thereupon financially set for the rest of his life life.  Judging by the interviews he has given over the years, he bears no ill will toward the Beatles.  He will turn seventy-six years old later this year.
 

Eleanor Rigby.  One of the Beatles' most haunting songs is Eleanor Rigby.  It is a tale of lonely people -- where do they all belong?  The song appears on the 1966 Revolver album, and was the B-side to the single Yellow Submarine.  In their early years, most of the Beatles' compositions were true collaborations, and the writing credit was accurately designated "Lennon-McCartney."  But once the lads moved from Liverpool to London circa 1963, more and more tunes were either "John songs" or "Paul songs."  (Note: When the Beatles first arrived in America, the reporters asked them how they decided which of the four got to sing lead on any particular song.  Their wisecracking reply was, "Whoever knows most of the words!") Despite this change of regimen, the writing credits continued to list "Lennon-McCartney."
 

Eleanor Rigby is a Paul song.  In a radio interview with Pop Chronicles he explained that the song's working title was Daisy Hawkins, but in the process of redrafting and demo-ing the song for his mates, the title changed to Eleanor Rigby.  Paul also claimed that he never knew, or knew of, anybody with that name or with the surname of the priest, Father McKenzie, referred to in the song. The Alternative Fact.  Behind St. Peter's Church where Lennon and McCartney first met, there is a quaint graveyard, the home of many tombstones decades of years old.  One of those grave markers is for Eleanor Rigby.  The "real" Ms. Rigby passed away in 1939 at the age of forty-four.  When confronted with this intriguing news of the grave, Paul reluctantly admitted that maybe, just maybe, he was subconsciously aware of the decedent when he was searching for a song title.  What makes dubious Paul's insistence that he did not intentionally borrow the name from the tombstone is that just a few feet away from the dearly departed Eleanor is the grave of a man named McKenzie. 

Ninth Annual Movie Ratings Recap

This is the most exciting time of year for the movie industry and its legion of fans, from LA to London, Sundance to Cannes, and Toronto to Tribeca.  There are six huge events within a six week period, and we are right smack dab in the middle of it.   In early January the Golden Globe Awards, sponsored by the Hollywood Foreign Press, kicked off the hoopla, succeeded a few weeks later by the Screen Actors Guild awards ceremony, more commonly known as the SAG Awards.  The SAG Awards were quickly followed by the Directors Guild Of America presentations, which took place last Saturday, and this coming Sunday the British Academy Of Film And Television Arts, aka BAFTA, will honor its winners.  Of course the Big Kahuna, the most anticipated and tradition-soaked ceremonies, are the Academy Awards, as chosen by the Academy Of Motion Picture Arts And Sciences.  The Academy will bestow this year's Oscars on February 26.

The astute readers among you might wonder, "Wait a minute, Old Boy.  We thought you wrote that there are 'six huge events,' but you only mentioned five."  Oh, my, you are right!  How could I have forgotten the eagerly anticipated Ninth Annual Movie Ratings Recap?  How convenient that the Recap, which is the missing sixth piece, comprises the heart of this post!
 

This will be the sixth annual Recap I have posted on this blog.  The first three were sent, pre-blog, to my kids via unsolicited -- and perhaps unread -- e-mails.  As the name "Recap" implies, this post is simply a summary of the rankings for the movies I saw and reviewed here during the twelve month period which ended last week on January 31.  I am sorry to report that I only managed to take in nineteen films at the theater during that time, compared to twenty-five during each of the two immediately preceding years.  Would you be interested in hearing my excuses?  No, I didn't think so.
 

As always, the movies within each ranking are listed in my order of preference within that group (e.g., within the B+ group, my favorite was Sing Street), and the month of my review is indicated after each title.
 

My movie wishes for you this new year are that you are able to escape to the cinema more often, and that all the popcorn chompers, pop slurpers, texters and talkers be sitting far away on the other side of the theater.

A:

Cafe Society (August '16)

La La Land (January '17)

A Man Called Ove (November '16)

A-:

Patriots Day (January '17)

B+:

Sing Street (May '16)

Fences (January '17)

The Invitation (May '16)

Hidden Figures (January '17)

B:

They Will Have To Kill Us First (April '16)

Manchester By The Sea (December '16)

Free State Of Jones (July '16)

Money Monster (June '16)

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot (March '16)

Gypsy: Rock & Roll Nomads (April '16)

B-:

Sully (December '16)

Indignation (August '16)

C+:

Arrival (November '16)

Love & Friendship (June '16)

The Girl On The Train (October '16)

Movie Review: "Patriots Day"

"Patriots Day": A-.  Will producers ever reach the point when they collectively determine that fiction script writers have run out of original ideas which can successfully be transitioned into a full length motion picture?  If that ever happens, people who enjoy attending movies will have nothing to worry about as long as there are real life stories with enough grist to provide the basis for films.  Patriots Day is an example of that possibility.  The bombing which occurred near the finish line of the 2013 Boston Marathon is the tragic centerpiece of the story.

The protagonist hero is sergeant Tommy Saunders of the Boston Police Department.  We meet him on the evening before the fateful day, as he leads a high risk entry team into the apartment of a suspect in a sexual assault case.  The man does not resist arrest, but is almost hysterical with his face smeared with blood.  He claims his female victim attacked him "with a smoothie."  After some prodding by Saunders, we learn that what this guy calls a smoothie is a scalding clothes iron.  The audience chuckles; it's always good to start off a crime story with a bit of humor.

Sergeant Saunders is played by musclebound Mark Wahlberg.  The actor is at his best when taking on his usual tough guy roles, and indeed, he does make an authentic cop.  Saunders is well-liked by his superiors and his peers.  He is genuinely committed to public service, not "just" going after criminals.  His responsibility during the Marathon is to monitor the activity near the finish line on Boylston Street downtown.  When the bombs explode there is chaos everywhere.  Bodies are strewn across the blood-splattered sidewalks, those still conscious are crying for help, glass and shards of metal and masonry fill the air, and smoke creates a wide haze hovering above the entire scene.  This is one of several riveting moments in the movie.  Amid the pandemonium, the police seem as stunned as the citizens.  They pitch in to help the wounded.  Catching the unknown perpetrators before they escape, even if they are still nearby, would be impossible.

The FBI, led by Special Agent Richard DesLauriers (Kevin Bacon), arrives on the scene almost immediately.  He is loath to label this an act of terrorism, fearing that will cause an even higher level of city-wide panic.  But when he discovers nails and other jagged chunks of metal in the street, he realizes they are bomb implements.  Terrorism it is, and therefore the FBI has jurisdiction.  This does not sit well with the sometimes hot headed Saunders, especially when DesLauriers orders that the body of a dead child, albeit covered by a sheet, shall remain in place until the entire crime scene can be combed for evidence.
 

The FBI sets up shop in a huge building on Boston Harbor.  The governor, the mayor and the BPD police commissioner are all present, along with a host of other agents, investigators and technicians.  At this point the story is divided between an educational police procedural and an insightful look into the terrorists' background.  Both facets are very well done.

As for the procedural, the first step for the FBI is to review security camera footage of the crowd near the explosions.  When the bombs go off the agents notice there are two individuals, "Black Hat" and "White Hat," who are the only people not looking in the direction of the blast.  Aha!  The FBI quickly has their initial suspects.  It won't be long before facial recognition technology enables the detectives to match names with the faces.  After spreading out on the floor a scale model of Boston's streets near Boylston, DesLauries asks Saunders to figure out where additional outdoor security cameras would be located within successive one minute walking intervals in the direction the suspects were leaving the scene.  Saunders, a home grown Bostonian who knows his city, meets this challenge rather easily using reverse chronology, resulting in ample film footage of the suspects at various downtown locations.

Director Peter Berg wisely devotes several minutes to establishing at least a rudimentary background for several of the characters who come into play. They include various policeman, victims and, most interestingly, the two suspicious Muslim brothers, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar (Themo Melikidze and Alex Wolff, respectively) Tsarnaev, who are the subject of the massive manhunt.  We viewers are taken into the Tsarnaev apartment both before and immediately following the blasts.  The real life news reports concluded that the younger brother, Dzhokhar, may have been under the influence of his radicalized older brother.  The film's version is that even though it's clear Tamerlan is in charge, his younger brother was a willing participant who, himself, was probably radicalized.  Even Tamerlan's wife, baby in hand, is a sympathizer in the movie.
 

If you asked four or five viewers what scene in Patriots Day is the most compelling, you would likely hear four or five different answers.  (In this regard it is similar to Hitchcock's North By Northwest, which contains so many memorable moments.)  The assassination of a policeman is contemptibly heartrending, the kidnapping of a civilian is nerve wracking, and the final showdown is tension-packed with a dose of humor.  My answer to the question would be the nighttime shootout between the heavily armed Tsarnaevs and a phalanx of overpowered policemen.  At the risk of hyperbole, it might be the best shootout I have ever seen.

In addition to Bacon, who counts as a personal highlight riding an elevator with me in the ABC Store in Manhattan circa 2008, the cast includes three co-stars who inevitably make better every movie in which they appear.  A slimmed-down John Goodman has too few lines as the police commissioner.  J.K. Simmons, as a wise-cracking police sergeant in suburban Watertown, is one of the true heroes whose brains and brawn help restore things to normal.  Michelle Monaghan, who deserves to be an A-list star, plays Saunders' wife, with just the right balance of anguish, resignation and bravery.

Sometimes when I view a crime film I come away thinking that, with an editing trim here, a nip there and the paring of a scene or two, the story would have been better presented as an hour long television episode on a show like NCIS, Elementary or Law & Order.  This is not that kind of story.  Its scope and historic importance command the production values that only a full length motion picture can deliver.  In the capable hands of Director Berg, with the assistance of exquisite cinematography by Tobias Schliessler, the finished product is one you should not miss.

Movie Review: "Hidden Figures"

"Hidden Figures": B+.  1961 was a pivotal year in American history.  I graduated from eighth grade.  John F. Kennedy began his ill-fated term as the first Catholic elected President of the United States.  Seven years after the landmark 1954 Supreme Court decision Brown vs The Board Of Education, which ruled that school districts structured on a "separate but equal" basis did not pass constitutional muster, America was still a racially divided country.   Segregation was evident in pockets throughout the country, most blatantly in the South.  It would be three more years before Congress passed the first Civil Rights Act.  In 1961 the Cold War was exacerbated by the construction of the Berlin Wall.  A subset of the Cold War was the Space Race, which the Soviets appeared to win on April 12, 1961, when they sent cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin into outer space.

That is the setting for Hidden Figures, a film based on the true story of three black friends who worked for NASA.  Katherine (Taraji P. Henson) is a math wizard for whom no abstract equation is too difficult to solve.  Mary (singer Janelle Monae, sporting a fluffy hairdo that must be the envy of the current Minneapolis mayor) is an aspiring engineer.  Dorothy (Octavia Spencer), who is a little older, is the manager of the pool of mathematicians, all black females including Katherine and Mary, on the remote West Campus of the NASA property in Hampton, Virginia.  Even though the NASA operation is a federal entity, the racism within its walls is flagrant.  There are "colored" bathrooms, "colored" computing rooms,and even a "colored" coffee pot which one of Katherine's co-workers labels on the second day of her new assignment.  When she first showed up the day before, someone rudely handed her a full wastepaper basket, mistakenly thinking she was a custodian.  Dorothy's manager, Ms. Mitchell (Kirsten Dunst), refuses to promote her to Supervisor, even though she is clearly doing the work of a Supervisor.  "That's just how it's done around here," Mitchell declares.  Mary faces hurdles too, needing to convince a judge for permission to take courses at an all white school in order to get started on her desired career.
 

The Soviet launching of Gagarin is the proverbial punch in the gut to the American space program.  The Russian cosmonaut not only became mankind's first spaceman, he also orbited the earth.  At that point, the US had not even attempted a sub-orbital mission.  Enter Katherine, the only black and one of the very few women to join Al Harrison's team of mathematicians and engineers.  The research team is charged with, among other things, coming up with the calculations to get the astronauts of America's nascent Mercury Program into space, and back.  After the frustrated Harrison (Kevin Costner) informs his underlings that they have just finished second in a two-country race, he announces that they will double down, working even longer and harder.  The Soviets may have beaten the US into space, but the Yanks can still win the race to the moon.
 

Although Hidden Figures tracks all three friends, it is Katherine's story.  She proves invaluable to the Mercury Program, but it is a struggle, not only because of her skin color but because of her gender.  She doesn't get credit for her work.  She initially is kept out of key planning sessions, ostensibly because she does not have security clearance.   The nearest women's bathroom for blacks is a half-mile away.  She has to work twice as hard as anyone on Harrison's team.  But in a room full of math wizards and wonks, she is the best and the brightest, virtues that do not go unnoticed by astronaut John Glenn or, eventually, the gruff Harrison.
 

We weren't a quarter of the way through the story when it became apparent that Hidden Figures should be compared to Sully (reviewed here December 13, 2016; B-).  Both films are based on true stories involving a hero who, against the odds, averts disaster.  In Sully, the pilot is forced to land his commercial flight in the Hudson River.  His skill as a pilot is the difference between life and death for over 150 people on board.  In Hidden Figures, the mathematical genius of Katherine comes into play several times, particularly when Harrison's group is trying to establish the best maneuvers to enable Glenn to breach orbit earlier than planned and return to Earth.  In what may be Hollywood license, Glenn even asks Harrison to ask Katherine to confirm the calculations of Harrison's group, even though at that moment she had already been reassigned.  There is no margin for error. Miscalculation will likely result in Glenn's capsule, with its iffy heat shield, burning up upon re-entry into the earth's atmosphere.

My main problem with Sully is that the depiction of the NTSB members was way too heavy handed. Each of the people on the panel was made to look extremely foolish, if not stupid, in the manner in which they interrogated Sullivan and conducted their investigation.  It is very hard to believe there wasn't one single NTSB member who went to bat for Sully.  Does Hidden Figures pass the Sully Test?  Not really.  We realize that Virginia was once a Confederate state and that racism remained a huge problem in 1961.  Still, was there not more than one compassionate white person who interacted with any of the three principal black females?  That one person was a Virginia Highway Patrol officer who, at first, appears to be ready to issue citations to the trio on the roadside, but who ends up doing something unexpectedly nice.
 

Why does Hidden Figures deserve a higher rating than Sully?  Here are two reasons.  Tom Hanks was his usual excellent self in the former, but Henson as Katherine is too precious a performance to take for granted.  I love the way she occasionally pushes her glasses up her nose, just as Katherine did as a little girl.  And what about when she has to jog to the remote West Campus restroom, taking baby steps in her high heels while toting several thick files?  An indelible vision.  Secondly, the dialogue between Katherine and her love interest, Marine Officer Jim Johnson (Mahershala Ali) is clever, as is the exchange between Dorothy and the cop referred to above.  I don't recall any cleverness in the more straight-forward Sully script.
 

Unlike Sullivan's river landing, the story of Hidden Figures reveals a background to the successful Mercury Program which heretofore was under wraps.  We knew from history and the media that the flights of the first three American astronauts, Alan Shepard, Gus Grissom and Glenn, were successful, but we did not know about the contributions of the three black women. The US may never have put men on the moon, or even sent astronauts into orbit around the Earth, without Dorothy and especially Katherine.  In fact, even sub-orbital flights may have never been achieved.  Katherine was born to be a hero.  Harrison said he needed the people in his group not only to solve equations but to "look beyond the numbers."  Katherine was the only one who answered the call.  Finally, in case you're wondering, yes, I wrote that gratuitous second sentence merely to see if you are paying attention.

Movie Review: "La La Land"

"La La Land": A.  SHE is stuck in a job her heart isn't in, but being a coffee shop barista on the Warner Brothers studio lot earns her enough dough to pay her bills. HE is pianist stuck playing background music in a restaurant, hoping the patrons will toss a buck or two in his tip jar. SHE wants to be an actress, but every audition generates nothing other than curt rejection and a gradual wounding of her spirit. HE aspires to own a jazz club where real jazz, not Kenny G-style pop jazz, will be performed by acclaimed musicians.  SHE takes a gamble by writing and acting in a one woman play, Goodbye To Boulder City.  It's not exactly what she had in mind in terms of becoming an actress, but it seems to be a step in the right direction and it's better than schlepping coffee.  HE takes a gamble by hooking up with a jazz ensemble called the Messengers, whose leader is Keith (John Legend).  The Messengers' music is a little too pop oriented for his tastes, but it's better than working under the thumb of the restaurant owner (J.K. Simmons) who had no appreciation for or desire to hear real jazz.

Mia and Sebastian (Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling) are the young adults living those parallel southern California lives.  They each have big dreams, little cash and high levels of frustration.  They are impatient with their current life stages in which they're indefinitely stalled.  Their desired careers are on hold.  You might doubt two busy young people like them, traveling in different circles in gigantic LA, would ever meet, but they do -- three times, in fact, during the first twenty minutes of the story.

The phrase "La La Land" is commonly used to mean a make believe, unrealistic environment.  It's the opposite of "real."  The film is a musical, true, but it's a magical fairy tale as well.  Lest there be any doubt, the very first scene is a gridlocked traffic jam on LA's Interstate 105.  A young woman gets out of her vehicle, stands on the pavement, and not only breaks into song but starts dancing as well.  Other drivers follow suit, singing, clapping, dancing, performing somersaults, jumping on cars' hoods and rooftops, and having the best time.  Yes, this is going to be a high-spirited story, and we shouldn't make harsh judgments about what will surely be a dearth of realism.

Once the dancing is over and the traffic starts clearing, Mia is inattentive behind the wheel, and the guy behind her leans on his horn.  She flips him the bird as he pulls his car around to pass her.  That guy turns out to be Sebastian.  It's the future love birds' first "meeting."

 

Later that evening Mia walks into a fancy restaurant and is mesmerized by the music being played by the pianist.  This occurs only seconds before the pianist is fired on the spot for his failure to follow the owner's instructions to play only Christmas music.  The pianist is Sebastian.  Mia attempts to speak to Sebastian but he gruffly brushes by on his way out the door.

 

Weeks go by and the two have probably forgotten about their extremely brief encounters.  But then Mia attends an outdoor party and recognizes that the keyboardist for the hired cover band is none other than that former restaurant pianist.  Mia playfully makes a request for a song (I Ran by A Flock Of Seagulls) that she suspects Sebastian will not want to play.  During a break they actually have a conversation.  When the party ends, she makes the first move by asking him to find her car keys.  By the time they walk to her car, the match has been made.  Given their circumstances, this is not an optimum time to begin a relationship-- especially true in Mia's case, since she already has a beau -- but Cupid won't be denied.

 

It is not always smooth sailing, but Mia and Sebastian do make time for each other.  She shows him the Warner Brothers lot.  He tries to change her avowed dislike for jazz by taking her to a club.  They even sing to each other and slow dance every once in awhile, including a memorable scene at a planetarium where they float above the ground, Tinker Bell style, toward the star spangled ceiling. There's no denying they are likable and cute, a good combination for this kind of story.

 

An important, superbly written moment in the film occurs when Sebastian surprises Mia with a homemade dinner in their apartment.  She thought he was away on tour with the Messengers.  Their candlelight conversation starts out as a romantic dialogue, but their celebration of being together after weeks of being apart abruptly goes south.  They truly want what's best for each other, but Sebastian reveals he's decided to turn his Messengers affiliation from a short term gig into an extended commitment.  That means touring all over the world, hardly ever being home in LA.  When he senses her sadness about this news, he tells her he's only doing what she wanted him to do, viz., holding down a steady well-paying job.  How else would he ever be able to come up with the financing to start the club he's always dreamed about?  Sebastian also says a few things he shouldn't, and Mia takes that as her cue to leave.

 

There is a scene where Mia and Sebastian each tell the other that, even though they're unsure where they are headed as a couple, they will always love the other, words that we viewers have in our consciousness throughout.  We mentally pull for these "kids," and want them to reconcile.  We spend the remainder of the movie with our fingers crossed.

 

There is much to like, even love, about this movie, and it's easy to see why it is considered a favorite for the Best Picture Oscar.  With a nod to Jennifer Lawrence, Emma Stone is arguably one of the two best American actresses in her twenties.  Low key Ryan Gosling is an expert at conveying emotions with mere subtlety.  (By the way, if Gosling really is doing his own piano playing, he is stellar.) 

Their on-screen chemistry cannot be questioned.  The writing brilliantly succeeds in combining dramatic reality with clever illusion. Exhibit A is the story's ending.  What a masterpiece!  I saw this movie six days ago yet I can't stop replaying the last scene in my mind.  Kudos to writer Damien Chazelle, who also directed.  He spent six years perfecting his written word.

 

Finally, a word or two about the music.  The original score was written for this film by Justin Hurwitz, a Wisconsin native who roomed with director Chazelle at Harvard.  There are several scenes in La La Land in which we are treated to entire jazz works.  The theater's sound system enabled the audience to feel the music just as if we were at a live event.  One song, Mia And Sebastian's Theme, is played at significant moments in the story.  It definitely reminded me of how the song As Time Goes By was such a key element of Casablanca.

Movie Review: "Fences"

"Fences": B+.  August Wilson, the late St. Paul playwright, wrote ten plays about the American black experience, each of the plays occurring in a different decade of the twentieth century.  Hollywood superstar Denzel Washington has announced his intention to help produce movie versions of all ten of those plays, and Fences is the first offering in the proposed series.  The story takes place in 1950's Pittsburgh, with the central character, Troy Maxson, played by Washington himself, who also directs.

Maxson is a fifty-three year old sanitation worker who, along with lifelong friend Bono (the superb Stephen McKinley Henderson), rides on the back of the city's garbage trucks, lifting the heavy refuse cans and dumping the contents into the back of the truck.  Troy aspires to one day be promoted to driver, a position which he claims is reserved exclusively for the white guys.  Troy gets paid every Friday, and he routinely brings home his entire wages to wife Rose (Viola Davis), who in turn grants him an allowance.  Most of that allowance is spent at the local saloon.

 

Even though being a garbage man is not the most glorious of vocations, Troy is pretty proud of himself, and isn't bashful about boasting of his accomplishments.  He is what I like to call a "pontificator." He is a self-proclaimed authority on everything, especially life.  Most of his verbal opinions are unsolicited, but Bono and Rose are willing listeners.  Some of the most enjoyable moments of the film are those showing the three of them having animated discussions in the Maxsons' tiny back yard. The same willingness can't be said for Troy's two sons, Lyons (Russell Hornsby) and Cory (Jovan Adepo).

 

Lyons is an accomplished musician who annoys Troy by frequently stopping by on his father's payday.  We first meet Lyons on a Friday, and sure enough he has asked Troy for a twenty dollar loan, with assurances that the loan will be repaid quickly.   Troy at first refuses to lend his son the money, essentially calling him a deadbeat, but thanks to Rose's intervention, the loan is made.  This is the first of many times Rose steps forward as the more level-headed of the married twosome.   Lyons, who is an adult, is able to overlook Troy's abrasiveness.  In contrast, the younger son, Cory, lives under Troy's roof and has a harder time digesting his father's mean, arbitrary and hurtful rules.  Troy's refusal to permit Cory to play high school football because doing so would cut back on his after-school job hours has a direct impact on the youngster's future.

 

One might mull over the question of why Wilson titled his story Fences.  There is a real fence which Troy has promised to build for his wife around their property, but he has placed that project on the back burner.  The title is obviously a metaphor, with one possibility being that Troy has built an imaginary fence separating what he considers to be his role as a parent-enforcer from what should also be his role as a loving parent.  He is unable to execute both roles, even going so far as to ask young Cory if there is any law which requires a parent to like his son.  In Troy's mind, putting a roof over his son's head, clothes on his back and food in his stomach should suffice.  As for Lyons, Troy rejects Bono's suggestion to go to the jazz club to hear Lyons play.  Only top notch musicians are invited to play there, but Troy quickly dismisses Bono's wise counsel. Opportunity lost.

 

The other running metaphor throughout the story is baseball.  Troy was a Negro League star thirty years ago.  He claims he could still, in the present, hit better than the white outfielder who starts for the Yankees.  Troy has a baseball tied to a string hanging from a tree in his yard.  As he swings a bat at that ball, he pontificates that life's problems are like a two-strike fastball on the outside corner.  You just have to learn how to hit it.  When he and Cory get into a physical confrontation, he tells his son he's down to his last strike.

 

There is a revelation half way through the story which turns Troy's world upside down.  Even then he has a hard time finding fault within.  This is a prime example of a man being his own worst enemy.

 

The third act of the movie is weak, cliched and mostly unbelievable.  Maybe Wilson felt that his ending was the only way to tie things up, but compared to the rest of the story it almost seems written by another author.  Notwithstanding those shortcomings, I will be surprised if the film is not a contender for most of the big awards in the next couple of months, and deservedly so.

 

The film's greatest asset is the performance of the two leads.  Ordinarily Troy would be an unlikable person, but in the hands of Washington he almost wins us over.  Even more impressive is Davis as the loyal wife who knows when to put up with her very flawed husband and when to assert herself in the interest of her family.  In every scene in which the two of them appear, Davis is the equal of the great Washington.  In most of his pictures, Washington is a scene stealer; Davis does not let that happen here.  Davis is most effective when Rose is suffering from a broken heart.  Washington is not called upon to do that in this story, as Troy is a man without a heart.

Quarterly Cinema Scan - Volume XXVI

Red River, a 1948 western, is considered a cowboy classic.  The film was directed by Howard Hawks, an elite motion picture director whose most valuable professional asset was versatility.  A look at Hawks' filmography shows that he was not afraid to take on any genre, be it comedy, war stories, gangster films, mysteries, film noir or westerns.  Equally as big a name in 1948 was the Duke, John Wayne.  Although he was only thirty-nine years old when Red River was made -- its release was delayed two years -- Wayne's screen presence in his preceding films had already established him as a star.  His bigger than life aura suited him well for the silver screen.

 

Red River is the story of a cattle drive covering a thousand miles, a lot of it over what became known as the Chisholm Trail.  Wayne plays Tom Dunson, a hard nosed cattle rancher who decides to move his huge herd from Texas to Missouri because the Civil War's aftermath has rendered the southern beef markets almost non-existent.  Duncan's right hand man is his adopted son, Matt, played by Montgomery Clift.  Clift was only twenty-five years old when the movie was shot.  Although he'd appeared in more than a dozen Broadway plays, he was a film novice.

 

So, why is Red River considered a classic?  There are many reasons, but here are four of them:

 

a. Wayne always had played the good guy, the everyman hero whose judgment was beyond reproach.  In Red River, his character has a soft side which is overcome by a dark side.  This opportunity to play a darker character is the main reason Wayne signed on for the project.  Until Red River, Wayne was considered by many producers, including those with whom he'd worked, to be a successful actor but not necessarily a good actor.  With the help of Hawks, Wayne's performance in Red River changed that.

 

b. Red River was Clift's coming out party as a screen actor.  Hawks, who not only directed but also produced the movie, took a gamble by casting the relatively unknown star.  Neither Wayne nor Clift was nominated for an Academy Award for their work in this film, but Clift was nominated four times for subsequent performances in relatively quick order thereafter.  His most famous role was in 1953's From Here To Eternity.

 

c. Unlike most westerns of its day, the scope of the cinematography for Red River, especially the scenes involving hundreds of head of cattle, is breathtaking.  We actually see the gigantic herd fording a river, stampeding, and tumbling over a ridge.  One has to wonder how capturing all this on camera was accomplished.  Even by today's standards, the filming the cattle scenes would be an amazing feat.

 

d. The plot of Red River has sometimes been compared to Mutiny On The Bounty.  Dunson has taken on an unimaginably difficult task with a three-pronged set of potential problems: keeping the herd alive as they drive over rough terrain with no end in sight, dealing with Indians and outlaws who have their eyes on Dunson's precious assets, and keeping the ornery disgruntled cowboys in line with a strict set of rules that Dunson feels are necessary to accomplish their goal.  Does this sound like Captain Bligh's situation on board the Bounty?  Yes.  Is there a Fletcher Christian in Red River?  You will have to see it, then decide.

 

Hawks and Wayne made five films together, spanning four decades. Red River was their first collaboration, and Hawks' first western.  I recommend Red River, especially if you like westerns and don't mind spending almost two and a quarter hours on it.  I'm giving it a B+, dropping it down a notch from where it was heading.  The weakness of the female character played by Joanne Dru, and the less-than-satisfying ending cause me to do so.  The only other Hawks-Wayne joint effort I've seen is Rio Bravo (included in my Quarterly Cinema Scan on January 2, 2014), which I prefer a little more, as evidenced by my grade of A-.

 

***

 

Here are the films I've seen at the Quentin Estates during the fourth quarter of 2016. 

 

1. Blowout (1981 mystery; John Travolta is a sound engineer who, from a distance, records audio of a car crash (in which a presidential candidate drowns), so  he dives in the creek for a rescue attempt and pulls out a hooker, Debbie Allen.) C+

2. Brief Encounter (1945 drama; Trevor Howard is a married doctor who meets housewife Celia Johnson in a train station, and every Thursday they rendezvous again.) A

3. Candles On Bay Street  (2006 romance; Eion Bailey is a married veterinarian who is surprised to learn that his high school crush, Alicia Silverstone, has returned to town, Balmoral Cove, Maine, after thirteen years.) B-

4. Four Days In November  (1964 documentary; footage, including some rarely seen, of President Kennedy's tragic trip to Texas in November 1963.) B+

5. The Long Hot Summer (1958 drama; When drifter Paul Newman arrives in Frenchman's Bend, Mississippi, his questionable reputation precedes him, but Orson Welles, who owns most of the town's businesses, figures he'd make a great husband for his reluctant daughter, Joanne Woodward.) B

6. Murder Ahoy (1964 mystery/comedy; Margaret Rutherford, a trustee of a British ship in the town's harbor, suspects foul play in the murder of her fellow trustee, so she invites herself on board to pursue various clues, much to the displeasure of Captain Lionel Jeffries.)  B

7. Rain Man (1988 drama; Tom Cruise is a financially desperate California wheeler dealer who finds out that Dustin Hoffman, an autistic savant in Ohio, is the brother he never knew he had and is the main beneficiary of their millionaire father's will.)  A

8. Red River (1948 western; John Wayne is a despotic Texas rancher who, with his son Montgomery Clift and a dozen other men, leads a thousand mile cattle drive north, destination Missouri.) B+

9. Yours, Mine and Ours (1968 comedy; Navy officer Henry Fonda and Lucille Ball, both widowed with lots of kids, marry each other and face the challenges of melding their families.) C+