Taking Stock

On the morning of June 14, 2007, I sent the following e-mail to my boss, Marci, two time zones away in San Francisco.  The subject line read, "September 14, 2007": 

Good morning, Marci, 

September 14, 2017 is: 

- Three months from today. 

- Exactly twenty-four years and two days from my hire date. 

- The day I'm going to hang it up. 

John  

Up until that moment, the only Wells Fargo colleague ("teammate" in corporate speak) who knew of my retirement plans was my secretary ("administrative assistant," if you will) of fifteen years, Pam, whom I'd told the day before.  To the extent I may have "looked good" in my job performance during those years, Pam was a big factor and I felt she deserved the heads-up.

Things went more or less as planned during those final three months.  I turned down the offer of a fancy schmantzie Windows On The World retirement party in the IDS tower during my final week and instead opted for a beer bash at Glueks.  Good decision!  The party was on the company dime, and was well attended at least in part because it was also on company time.

The reason I wrote "or less" above is that, on my last day, I ended up working until 6:10 p.m.  (The traditional last day exit time is roughly 10:30 a.m.)  I was trying to iron out the last minute details on an ag lending deal for one of my Des Moines banker-clients.  The lawyer who was scheduled to take over my office started moving his stuff in about 4:00 p.m.  We were tripping over each other's boxes.  What a circus!  It wasn't until a gathering at Bunny's later that Friday evening with family and friends that I felt truly relieved and retired.

So, if you've connected the dots to this point you now know that today is the ten year anniversary of my retirement.  If I were more eloquent, poetic or contemplative, I would be able to craft a post which would do justice to the thoughts swimming around in my little noggin.  But, as the saying goes, you've got to play the hand you're dealt, so I am going to keep my epistle limited to two general thoughts which have occupied my consciousness lately.

Believe it or not, the first has to do with a hockey coach, a peculiar notion given the fact that I have never played the sport -- unless you count broom hockey.  I think of retirement as having a lot in common with graduation.  Starting a new chapter, turning the page, and so on.  As a former student, parent and veteran teacher, I have attended many graduation ceremonies.  I could count on a couple of fingers the number of times I have thought about any one commencement speech more than twenty-four hours after its delivery.  The big exception was a speech given at a Benilde-St. Margaret's High School commencement exercise, circa 1996, the year of Gina's graduation.  Varsity boys' hockey coach Ken Pauly was chosen to speak.  A lot of what he said was standard, something like "the world is your oyster," "go forth and do great things," "you can accomplish almost anything if you set your mind to it," etc.

But here is where Ken's talk rose above the usual message.  He said that when a kid graduates from high school, she tends to envision her future in a known world with her then-present family and circle of friends.  He said he felt the same way when he was eighteen.  What opened his eyes is that two of the most important people in his life, his future wife and his best friend, he did not even meet until he was in his twenties or thirties.  His message was something like this: Cherish the people you currently know, but be open to meeting, befriending and possibly caring deeply for new people who just might become key players in your adult life.

His words certainly ring true for me.  As of the date of my retirement I was fifty-nine years old.  Although I had known Luke ever since he and Michael became classmates and buddies in sixth grade, I never would have guessed that he would marry Jill eight years after I left Wells.  Also as of September 2007, I had never met either Gina's future husband, John, or Michael's future bride, Lindsey.  In many ways my three kids are like Mary, but in at least one important category they followed their father's lead by marrying a wonderful person.

The icing on the cake are our four beautiful granddaughters, Rosie, Winnie, Lulu and June.  When June was born two months ago I sent a boastful e-mail to three of my Domer friends.  Referring to the little girls I wrote, "They are always on my mind. It's hard for me NOT to think about them -- a good problem to have."   Ken Pauly's prognostication is proven correct.  I am gaga over those four little peanuts who obviously were not around in 2007.

The second general thought can probably be reduced to one word: luck.  There is an old bromide that one makes his own luck.  I'm not sure I buy into that, at least not totally.  Sure, it starts with Mary.  If it were not for the Viet Nam war I would have never found her; different topic for, maybe, a different future post.  Suffice it to say that we have been married for forty-one years, and I know I am a very lucky man.

Connecting the concept of luck to my retirement goes beyond what I wrote above.  There were five or six Wells Fargo lawyers who were a couple of years older than I and who retired during the two year period immediately preceding my exit.  When they'd return to the office for a visit, their evaluation of retirement was unanimous: "I'm so busy I don't know how I managed to perform a full time job."  They were clearly loving it.

But there was another Wells lawyer, Margaret, who was several years younger and retired in the spring of '07.  (She and I both started working for Norwest in 1983, when there were only six attorneys in the Law Department.)  She was single, the only child of New England college professors who owned a quaint cottage on a small lake in New Hampshire.  Carlton College had drawn her to Minnesota for her undergraduate studies, and she remained here for her career.  Peg kept a picture of that cottage, her next home, on her desk, and was known to say many times to people who entered her office, "If you're looking for me in the future, this is where I'll be."  No one talked about and anticipated life in retirement more than she.  Yet, less than a year into her retirement, she was stricken with cancer and passed away shortly thereafter.

Although Peg was not a close friend of mine, her passing was shocking to me.  Why was she denied that for which she had worked so hard to achieve?  Why have I been lucky enough to still be around a decade later?  Not only that, but Mary and I have enjoyed relatively good health, all of our kids live close by, and to coin a phrase, life is good.  As I wrote above, this is one of the things I have been thinking about lately.  I especially think about it when I go to church.  I don't go for the music -- there is none -- the scripture readings, the homilies or any of the folderol.  I go there to pray.  I have a lot to be thankful for. 

Movie Review: "Good Time"

"Good Time": B.  Robert Pattinson, whom we last saw earlier this summer in The Lost City Of Z (reviewed here on May 15; B), continues to prove that he is not merely a one-trick zombie, as he stars in newly released Good Time.  Pattinson plays Constantine "Connie" Nikas, an unintentionally humorous small time crook who, for unexplained reasons, decides to bring along his mentally challenged brother Nik on an extremely ill-conceived bank heist.  Apparently the thought never entered Connie's mind that Nik would be useless even if things went smoothly, and a hindrance if things went poorly.  And, poorly they did!  Did Connie never see a TV show or movie where the bank teller surreptitiously plants an exploding red dye canister in the robbers' satchel?  

The entire story is replete with one bad decision after another.  Most, but not all of them, are made by Connie.  Nik picks a fight with a muscle-bound prisoner in a cell filled with hardened criminals, and gets pummeled.  A grandmother allows the fugitive brothers into her Queens residence late at night, falling for some flimsy explanation that they lost the keys to their "nearby" apartment.  The woman then retires for the evening, leaving her sixteen year old granddaughter (Taliah Webster) unattended.  Connie's girlfriend, Corey (Jennifer Jason Leigh), fraudulently attempts to use her mother's credit card to charge $10,000 in a bail bond office, and then is astonished when the bank not only declines the transaction but calls her mother with a fraud alert.

Nik is played by Ben Safdie, who also co-directed the movie with his brother, Josh.  The opening scene in which a psychiatrist (Peter Verby) administers a test to the phlegmatic Nik, asking the patient to explain such common sayings as "The squeaky wheel gets the most oil," is done to perfection, offering a combination of tension and comedy.

But, this is Pattinson's movie, and the story itself does not do justice to his stellar acting.  It is at least initially hard to get a read on Connie.  Is he clever or stupid?  Maybe he's just a victim of bad luck, but stupidity certainly rears its head.  For example, while in the grandmother's apartment, he dyes his dark hair blonde in an attempt to avoid recognition on the streets, yet he leaves his copious facial hair untouched.  When he initially evades the cops he dumps his bright red jacket into a trash can.  What does he wear next?  A different red jacket.  Brilliant!

Pattinson's Connie brings back memories of Al Pacino's Sonny Wortzik in Dog Day Afternoon from 1975 (graded B in my Quarterly Cinema Scan on April 1, 2012).  Both are amateur bank robbers who can't get out of their own way.  There's something about both actors and both characters that wins our hearts, even while they are committing felonies.  The funniest line in Good Time is when clueless Connie, a certified loser, yells at another character, "You're nothing but a [expletive] loser!"  He says it with a straight face, and means it!  

A tip of the cap to David Lopatin, who goes by "Oneohtrix Point Never," for the musical score.  Unlike the music in Dunkirk (reviewed here August 4; C) which drowned out a lot of the dialogue, the music in Good Time has the right combination of relatively high volume during non-verbal scenes, thereby adding to the excitement, but smartly toning down while the characters are talking. 

The story goes from fourth gear to second at the point of the movie when Connie enters an amusement park.  It stays in second too long for my liking, thus slipping its grade to B. 

Movie Review: "Wind River"

"Wind River": B+.  At its core, Wind River is much like the police procedurals which have over-populated television lately.  A teenage girl is murdered, the cops talk to her family and attempt to retrace her steps, and the usual suspects, especially current or ex boyfriends, are interviewed.  If there is a car chase or a shoot out, so much the better.  These things usually don't end with a whimper.

What sets Wind River apart from the ordinary is the setting, which comes into play in at least two important ways.  First, the mountains.  Although the film was shot in Utah, the story takes place in the snow-covered, majestic mountains of Fremont County, Wyoming.  Cory Lambert (Jeremy Renner) is an agent of the US Fish & Wildlife Service.  One of his main responsibilities is to assist ranchers in protecting their livestock from four-legged predators such as wolves, coyotes and mountain lions.  When he is asked how well he knows the territory, his response is, "Like I live here."  So true.  Every peak, canyon, plateau, mountain pass, creek, ranch, fence line and trail is embedded in his mind.  Although he usually wears a cowboy hat, Lambert comes prepared for the cold.  He drives a pickup, but this is western Wyoming where the roads are not only few but often impassable.  Hence Lambert's winter mode of travel across this remote terrain is a snow mobile.  He carries with him all the gear and equipment necessary for his line of work.  Such items include a powerful rifle with a telescopic sight, binoculars, crampons, a hunting knife, goggles and blankets.  He might look silly in his camouflaged white 'biler suit, but nobody's gonna call him a sissy.  He is an expert hunter and tracker.  What he is not is a law enforcement officer, which brings us to our second "setting" topic, the rez.

Wind River is a 2.2 million acre Indian reservation.  Poverty, alcoholism and drug abuse run rampant.  It is an extremely sad irony that in a jurisdiction which theoretically should qualify for a beefed up police presence, just the opposite is true.  The criminal justice system on a reservation is unlike any other part of the country.  The Bureau Of Indian Affairs is in charge.  The local sheriff is Ben (Graham Greene) who knows Agent Lambert very well.  Ben has only a half dozen men to keep the peace in an area the size of Rhode Island.  Lambert and Ben hold each other in high regard.  When the situation calls for it, the two cooperate.

The dead teenager's body is discovered by Lambert who has followed a trail of blood up a steep ridge into the wilderness.  He alerts Ben, who calls in the FBI, hoping they will take over the case.  Lambert and Ben are disappointed, but not surprised, when the Feds send in a neophyte FBI agent, Jane Banner (Elizabeth Olsen).  She tells the men that she flew in from Vegas, but she hails from Florida.  In truth she looks like she belongs on a beach, not in the treacherous rez mountains.  When the coroner advises that, notwithstanding evidence of rape, he cannot establish that the girl was a homicide victim -- she may have frozen to death -- Agent Banner realizes that she will have to solve this crime without FBI resources.  "We're used to not getting backup around here," Sheriff Ben laments to her.  What he is intimating is that the Feds put crimes involving Native American victims at the bottom of the triage.

It doesn't take five more minutes for Banner to admit she is in over her head. The first indication is that she does not have clothing which would enable her to survive the high altitude wind chills.  She is smart enough to know she's going to need Lambert's help.

There have been news articles throughout the year about the criminal activity which has run amok on several Indian reservations.  Within the last month, the opioid epidemic, which has been labeled a national health emergency, has taken the lives of hundreds of people throughout the country, including a noticeably disproportionate number on the Red Lake Reservation in northern Minnesota.  A couple of years ago, a multi-page spread in the Star Tribune labeled Cass Lake, on the Leech Lake Reservation, the most dangerous town in Minnesota.  The same dreaded conditions on Wind River exacerbates the challenges faced by Lambert, Ben and Banner.  Couple that with the added crime associated with the nearby oil drilling operation, a magnet for trouble makers who curse the western plains and the Rockies, and the prospects for law-abiding peace are glum.

The script for Wind River was written by forty-seven year old Texan Taylor Sheridan, who also directed.  Sheridan's ability to incorporate the hostile, dangerous environment of the reservation into its ironically beautiful surroundings is praiseworthy.  He keeps the central plot advancing yet spends time developing his main characters.  The first time Agent Banner unloads her service revolver into a loathsome scoundrel, we realize her girlish good looks belie her professional toughness.  Lambert, once married to an Arapahoe, still mourns his daughter who was murdered a couple of years back.  This puts him in a unique position to empathize with and give comfort to the newly deceased girl's father, Chip Hanson, well-played by Native American actor Martin Sensmeier.

Sheridan also wrote the scripts for two other highly acclaimed movies which I intended to see but missed: Sicario, a 2015 crime thriller focusing on murderous Mexican drug lords, and last year's Hell Or High Water, which Sheridan also directed, a modern western nominated in the Best Picture category for an Academy Award.  Sheridan has become one of a small group of filmmakers whose very name alone attached to a movie is probably reason enough to see it.   

Movie Review: "Maudie"

"Maudie": A-.  When the Canadian film Maudie hit town almost two months ago, there was not much buzz about it.  Its stars, Ethan Hawke and Sally Hawkins, are veteran actors, but not the marquee names which guarantee box office success.  The film was invited to play in a handful of well-regarded festivals, including Toronto and Telluride, but took top honors only in Vancouver; maybe not that big a shock given the geography of the pertinent parties.

Be that as it may, Maudie has turned out to be one of the surprises of this summer, at least on the Twin Cities scene.  It has been playing at the Edina Theater since late June, with no short-term end in sight.  Although the film was not heavily promoted here, its popularity may be attributable to word-of-mouth and repeat paying customers.  Minnesota movie goers might also relate to the Nova Scotia setting as well; beautiful for three seasons of the year, and miserably cold and snowy for much of the fourth.

The film, based on the true story of Maud Lewis, is a fascinating tale of how one woman overcame imposing odds and downright cruelty to become a successful artist and appreciated wife.  When the story opens, Maud (Hawkins) learns that her heartless, scheming brother Charles (Zachary Bennett) has sold the house which once belong to their deceased mother.  He coldly tells Maud that he had the right to do so, since their mother bequeathed the house to him alone.  Maud, who seems like a gentle, happy soul in spite of her severely arthritic condition, gets no sympathy from her cold-hearted Aunt Ida (Gabrielle Rose) with whom she lives.  Shortly thereafter, Maudie determines to change her living conditions and get out from under the thumb of Ida.

Hawke, as Everett Lewis, makes one of the great screen entrances I can remember witnessing in the last decade.  Everett is a gruff fish monger who lives like a hermit in a small shack on the outskirts of the seaside village, Marshalltown.  The shack is in total disrepair, and the interior has probably never seen a broom or a mop.  Everett, finally deciding he needs a housekeeper, walks into the general store to post a notice for a cleaning woman.  Since he is illiterate, he prevails upon the shopkeeper to write the notice to be tacked onto the store's bulletin board.  Everett's frustration over being unable to come up with the exact wording for the notice card causes him to go briefly ballistic.  His profane tantrum had me laughing out loud.

At the same time, Maud is in the shop but unseen by Everett.  When he exits she plucks the card off the board and the next day shows up at Everett's shack to apply for the position.  And thus begins the relationship between the sweet but crippled Maud and the stern humorless Everett.  The evolution of that connection is the heart of the movie.

The movie is superb on so many levels, starting with the writing and the acting.  There are not many scripts calling for the subtle change and development of even one character, but Maudie, written by Canadian Sherry White, features two of them.  Most obviously, Everett starts out barely tolerating Maud's presence in his cabin, even though he is the one who hired her.  He doesn't want her to move any of his "stuff," which is next to impossible since it's scattered all over the small space.  He looks upon her as more or less an obscenely underpaid slave, and a maltreated one at that.  He shows her no respect and is embarrassed to be seen with her in public.  In short, he is lewd, crude and rude.

Everett's behavior would drive most women away.  No job is worth putting up with that insolence and lack of dignity.  But thick-skinned Maud sticks it out, working hard and turning to painting as a distraction from Everett's abuse.  The two dynamic leads gradually, very gradually, come to a meeting of the minds, and more.  Every step of the way impressed me as being authentic and realistic, a tribute not only to the acting chops of Hawkins and Hawke, but to the mastery of Irish director Aisling Walsh.

I loved the performance of Hawkins.  Her character is physically weak, which causes other people in her life to equate that mistakenly with dullness.  In fact, she is quite intelligent, with a keen wit and the ability to read others accurately.  The proverbial wheels in her mind are always spinning.  I liked her from the moment she first appeared on screen, through to the end.  I have always thought of Hawke as underrated, perhaps because 1995's Before Sunrise in which he starred with Julie Delpe is one of my favorite romance stories.

The scenes of Marshalltown are gorgeously shot by cinematographer Guy Godfrey.  Walsh cleverly marks the passing years with periodic shots of the snow-covered terrain  The story is straightforward and simple but with interesting main characters.  Additionally, there is a new, almost mysterious arrival in the form of an elegantly dressed woman named Sandra (Kari Matchett, who faintly resembles Lisa Kudrow from Friends) from New York, and the revelation of a heart-wrenching secret.

Two of my granddaughters have shirts with a heart drawn on the front.  Inside the heart is the word "Loved."  I thought of those shirts while watching Maudie.  When Maud was living with her Aunt Ida, she was unloved.  Going to work for, and living with, Everett did not initially fill that void.  We viewers' hearts go out to her.  Maud's hope, basically but in her case seemingly unreachable, is one day to be loved.  The story of her quest to reach that point in her life is one of the best I have seen.

Movie Review: "Dunkirk"

"Dunkirk": C.  Despite the use of hundreds of extras to populate several scenes, Christopher Nolan, writer-director of the war movie Dunkirk, has taken a minimalist approach to telling the story of the 1940 rescue of British troops from the north coast beaches of France.  There is hardly any introduction to the setting, thus leaving it up to the viewer to figure out for herself how the infantrymen managed to find themselves not only stranded but fearful for their lives as they await evacuation before the Germans annihilate them.  Nolan's strategy might have worked better if the audience was limited to history majors and World War II buffs, but for the rest of us it was not user-friendly.

Exacerbating the problem is that the dialogue is, naturally, spoken with a British accent which is often hard to decipher.  Many of the young men facially resemble each other, especially with their helmets pulled low just above their soot-stained cheeks.  On second thought, maybe it's not so important that the audience is able to distinguish the characters because their is no character development to speak of; except for a handful of officers, the men are fungible.  That point is driven home in the closing credits, where many of the soldiers are not even given the honor of having a name.  Instead we see characters listed as "second gunnery mate," "third rifleman" and the like.

Another related topic given short shrift is the rationale for the Germans basically ignoring their cornered enemy, the Allies.  Only a couple of Luftwaffe planes appear sporadically to strafe the human sitting ducks below.  By the same token, only a pair of Spitfires are on hand to help out their British brethren.  I found the midair dogfights to be the most entertaining facet of a film which otherwise drags.   We learn in the second half of the movie that the English brain trust, most notably Prime Minister Winston Churchill, came to the conclusion that only a single destroyer could be spared, from other parts of the war effort, to sail across the Channel to rescue the semi-abandoned troops.  Still, that does not explain why the Germans were practically no-shows.

Because of Churchill's questionable decision regarding use of military assets, it was left up to civilian mariners to tackle the hazardous rescue mission in their own vessels.  Another odd choice by Nolan is to show only one such boat owner, Mr. Dawson (Mark Rylance, who won an Academy Award for his work in 2015's Bridge Of Spies), taking on the perilous challenge.  We wonder, "Is Mr. Dawson the only boat-owning English civilian who was up to the task?"  The answer is not disclosed until near the end.

The story rotates, at times almost in staccato fashion, among the land, the air and the sea.  Some critics might find that approach creative.  I found it to be annoying and artificial, rendering the film choppy and disjointed.

Finally, a couple of notes about two other actors appearing in the movie.  Kenneth Branagh is a heralded and highly decorated Irish actor known mostly for his portrayal of many of Shakespeare's leading men.  He is wasted in Dunkirk as Commander Bolton, the pier master during the evacuation.  Bolton's main (and apparently only) duty is to stare out to sea, as if in a hypnotic trance, searching for any rescue ship that may appear on the horizon.  Sometimes, for variety, he glances up at the sky.  Those vacant, distant glares cause me to nominate Branagh's performance for the Henry Fonda Bad Acting Award.

I knew Harry Styles was cast in this film, and as someone familiar with the pop boy band One Direction, I predicted that I'd easily be able to identify him in Dunkirk.  Wrong!  I had to search the cast list to find out which of the several distraught yet brave young soldiers was he.  Answer: Alex.  Maybe if I were a thirteen year old girl it would not have been a problem.

Instincts

Baseball scouts scour diamonds all over the country hoping to find the pot of gold otherwise known as the "five tool player."  They are as rare as goldilocks planets sought by NASA's astronomers.  In fact, out of the twelve hundred men currently on Major League Baseball rosters, you could make an argument that there are only two such players, center fielder Mike Trout of the California Angels Of Anaheim and right fielder Bryce Harper of the Washington Nationals.  Their current contracts are indicative of the rareness of their combined individual talents.  Trout, at age 25 considered to be the best player in baseball, is in the third year of a six year contract that's worth $144,500,000.  Harper, age 24, is in the first year of a two year $35,250,000 deal.

So, what are the five tools?  They are the ability to hit for average, the ability to hit with power, fielding, arm strength and speed.  That final tool is probably the most misunderstood, because its valuation requires more than simply using a stopwatch to check how fast a runner can get from first to home on an RBI double.  (In a recent game, the Twins' Byron Buxton did it in a jaw-dropping 9.4 seconds.  Unfortunately Byron, at this stage of his nascent career, is only a two tool athlete.)  A player with speed is still limited on the base paths if he does not have great instincts and awareness, which go hand-in-hand.

Last Sunday's game between the Twins and the Houston Astros presented a classic example of excellent speed combined with acute instincts and awareness.  It was the rubber game of the three game series in Minute Maid Park.  A Twins victory would not only be a series win for the underdogs; it would amount to a season highlight and a potential launching point for an unexpected run at the playoffs.

The 'Stros were hanging on to a 3-2 lead going into the bottom of the seventh inning.  Their # 9 hitter, Jake Marisnick, was up first.  Ordinarily having a team's nine-hole hitter lead off an inning bodes well for the opponent, but Marisnick is not your ordinary nine-hole batter.  His very good .826 OPS is evidence of just how strong Houston's lineup is from top to bottom.  Marisnick makes Twins starter Kyle Gibson throw eleven pitches during the at-bat, eventually drawing a walk.  Gibson looks exhausted, having thrown 107 pitches, when manager Paul Molitor comes out with the hook and brings in rookie reliever Trevor Hildenberger, making only the seventh appearance of his big league career.

Next up for Houston is their leadoff man, designated hitter George Springer.  Key Moment # 1:  On the second pitch to Springer, Marisnick easily steals second base, not even drawing a throw from Twins catcher Chris Gimenez.  Marisnick was able to get a huge lead because Hildenberger, a righty, did not pay much attention to Marisnick on the first pitch to Springer.  Thus Marisnick correctly predicted that he wouldn't draw much attention on the second either.  Instincts!  Granted, Hildenberger is a rookie, but he should have known that Marisnick is a center fielder, a great athlete with ample speed.

On a 2-1 pitch Springer bounces a high chopper to Twins third baseman Eduardo Escobar.  Escobar is not the Twins' regular third baseman -- Miguel Sano is -- but Escobar is a veteran who has played many innings at the hot corner.  By the time the ball descends into Esco's glove, Marisnick is a good thirty feet off second base, leaving Esco with a tough decision to make.  Does he fake a throw toward second to entice Marisnick to retreat, or does he make a quick toss to first to throw out the fleet footed (as most leadoff hitters are) Springer?  Escobar opts for Door # 2, not a bad choice since the cardinal baseball rule here is "Get one out for sure."  If Springer was a slower runner, Esco would have had time to look Marisnick back to second before making the throw.  But he doesn't.  Escobar immediately throws to first, lucky to get Springer by a step.

Key Moment # 2: However, Marisnick, who was still only sixty feet from third when Esco started to make the cross-field throw, knows he can get to third before Kennys Vargas, not the Twins' regular first baseman -- Joe Mauer is -- can make an accurate throw back across the diamond in time for Esco to tag out Marisnick.  Instincts!  Marisnick dashes safely to third.

What happens next would have embarrassed even the Bad News Bears.  Key Moment # 3: Vargas, who has no chance whatsoever to get Marisnick out at third, makes the ill-advised throw anyway.  As is typical with those Hail Mary tosses, Vargas' throw is so off target that it eludes not only Escobar, who is standing on third base waiting for the throw, but also shortstop Ehire Adrianza, who is fifteen feet up the left field line, ostensibly to back up the play. Marisnick trots home with the insurance run.  4-2, Houston.

But wait! The fun has just begun!

The third batter of the inning is Astros second sacker, Jose Altuve, currently hitting .345.  He is an All-Star starter whose career batting average of .315 is second among all active MLB players.  (In first place is Miguel "Miggy" Cabrera, the Detroit Tigers' first baseman, with a .319 career average.)  Listed at 5'6" and built like a fire hydrant, Altuve is another Astro who can fly.  Altuve's at-bat closely mirrors Springers', as he hits a chopper which barely stays in fair territory, hopping over the third base bag.  The fair ball is touched by a dim-witted fan, so Altuve is awarded a ground rule double, his twenty-seventh double of the year.  At this point the poor rookie pitcher, Hildenberger, has induced two weakly hit infield grounders, but a run has scored, there is only one out, and the Astros have a runner in scoring position.  Molitor comes out with the hook once again.  In comes yet another reliever, Buddy Boshers, a mediocre pitcher with an opponents' batting average of .264.

Next up for the 'Strohs is their # 3 hitter, veteran right fielder Josh Reddick.  With a .310 batting average, Reddick is dangerous (as are most 3-hole hitters), but he is 0 for 3 in this game.  "He is due," as they say.  Key Moment # 4: Boshers never bothers to check the runner on an 0-1 pitch, so the wily Altuve steals third; this, even though Reddick is a left-handed batter leaving a clear throwing lane for the catcher.  Instincts!  "Altuve is a pest," quips TV analyst Bert Blyleven.

Surprisingly, Boshers gets Reddick to whiff on a 2-2 slider in the dirt for strike three.  But since first base is open (i.e., no runner there) and there are less than two outs, Reddick takes off for first.  Catcher Gimenez briefly glances at Altuve, who looks like he's staying put a few feet off third, then fires a throw to Vargas at first to complete the strikeout of Reddick. Key Moment # 5:  As soon as Gimenez gets off his throw, the heady Altuve correctly senses that the burly 290 pound Vargas will not be able to get a throw back to Gimenez at the plate in time to tag out Altuve.  Instincts!  With blazing speed, Altuve dashes home, sliding around Gimenez' discarded mask, and safely touches home plate.  Another insurance run for Houston; 5-2 Astros.

Nineteen minutes after the disastrous half-inning began, it mercifully ends when cleanup hitter Brian McCann strikes out.  The Twins save a little face by scoring a single run in the top of the ninth, but the damage has been done.  Astros win, 5-3.  Losing the series to the clearly superior team, the Twins once again have taken one step forward but two steps back.

To summarize the bottom of the seventh, the Astros sent only five men to the plate, and two of them struck out.  Only two batters put the ball in play, and those were weakly hit infield choppers.  Given those facts, how did they manage to score the two runs that, for all intents and purposes, put the game away?  Speed, the Fifth Tool, accompanied by instincts and awareness.  There's that word again: Instincts!  It is no surprise the Astros, with a current record thirty-two games above .500, are the best team in the American League.  They are a very fun group to watch, and will be a tough out in the playoffs.

Quarterly Cinema Scan - Volume XXVIII

I was born too late to join in the early hoopla surrounding Elvis Presley.  "The King" first charted on Billboard in March 1956 with Heartbreak Hotel, which soared to # 1 and stayed there for seven weeks.  I was a wee lad of eight years.  For the next two years Elvis reached the Billboard Top 40 an astonishing twenty-one more times, including nine records which peaked at # 1.  Not only was the Tupelo native a music sensation, but also a cinema star, making four hit movies during that two year period.  One of those four films was 1957's Jailhouse Rock, described below.

Then Uncle Sam came calling.  From March 1958 to March 1960 Elvis served as a (more or less) regular Army grunt, turning down chances to put in his time as a Special Services musician.  The media, and some of his fans, wondered whether this two year stint doing his patriotic duty would spell the end of his music and film careers.  Not to worry.  Even though he was stationed in Germany during most of his time in the Army, he used furloughs to record ten chart-busting songs, two of which hit # 1, while in uniform.  His acting career did take a two year hiatus, however.

Following his honorable discharge, Elvis went on to record seventy-two -- that's not a typo, it's 72 -- more Top 40 singles, six of which topped the charts at # 1. He also added to his post-military film catalogue with twenty-seven more starring roles, plus two feature length documentaries.  Numerous appearances on television, particularly the Ed Sullivan Show, played a major part in his meteoric rise.  The FCC's requirement that Sullivan's camera crew only televise Elvis above his swaying hips is legendary.

Just as the peace time Army obligation turned out to be a mere speed bump to his celebrity status, so did the British Invasion.  Not even the Beatles, the Stones or any of their fellow countrymen could derail Presley's path to stardom.  In fact, during 1964 and 1965, the peak years of the British Invasion, Elvis still managed to chart on the Top 40 thirteen times.  One more amazing fact about Elvis the singer:  With only one exception (1973), from 1956 until the year of his death, 1977, at least two Presley singles achieved the Billboard Top 40 singles list each year.

Back to the movie topic.  In truth, most of the Presley films were what Hollywood writer/director Frank Darabont calls "frothy confections."  They were formulaic, with only enough of a plot to kill time in between Elvis songs.  Back then, I wouldn't have known.  The Legion Of Decency, a Catholic Church morality watchdog, published its ratings of movies every week in the archdiocesan paper to which my parents subscribed.  Virtually all of the Presley movies were rated "B," meaning that Catholics should not view them.  No official reason was given, but it's safe to say that by today's standards, the Elvis movies were all very tame.  At least the Legion didn't blacklist them with a "C," for "condemned"!  In any event, I did not see more than a couple of Elvis flicks until many years after they were first released.  According to most of the critics, I wasn't missing much.

However, there was one early Presley movie which went beyond just a bare bones plot.  That movie was Jailhouse Rock, thought by many to be Elvis' best film.  The difference was the extra layer or two of depth to the plot.  Elvis plays a young prisoner, Vince Everett, whose cellmate, Hunk Houghton (Mickey Shaughnessy), is a lifelong jailbird about fifteen years Vince's senior.  When Vince performs as a singer-guitarist on a show televised from prison, hundreds of fan letters pour in.  But because Hunk runs the prison mail room, Vince never sees the letters.  Hunk, realizing Vince will probably become a rich star when he's released, dupes Vince into signing a contract which, among other things, stipulates that Vince will share 50% of his singing revenue with Hunk in return for vague managerial services to be provided by Hunk.

Naturally, Vince does become a star, although it is a slippery slope complete with many setbacks.  A beautiful music promoter, Peggy Van Alden (Judy Tyler), is indispensable getting Vince started and focused.  There is chemistry between the two and a love connection develops, but will business interfere?  Throughout the story we also wonder, what will happen with that contract Vince signed when Hunk gets out of prison?

I did not evaluate Jailhouse Rock as highly as most critics.  In what I believe to be an attempt by director Richard Thorpe to present Presley as a serious actor, Elvis' character has a surliness and rudeness which come off as fake.  Perhaps Thorpe decided such negative attributes were more in keeping with a "prison movie," except this is not really a "prison movie"; it is a musical.   Elvis' best moments on screen are when Vince is being civil, not bratty, to Peggy.    As you will see below, I gave this film a C+.   Of the handful of Elvis films I've seen, I would rank at least two higher: Follow That Dream (1962) and Kissin' Cousins (1964).

There are two very noteworthy items surrounding Jailhouse Rock.  On screen, the three man band backing Elvis are his real-life band, not some session musicians or actors going through the motions.  The trio consists of Scotty Moore (later dubbed by some as the "Father Of The Rock Guitar Solo") on lead guitar, Bill Black on standup bass, and D.J. Fontana on drums.  For many years that group together with Elvis called themselves the Blue Moon Boys.  They are all, individually, inductees of the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame.

The second item is almost too sad to print.  Leading lady Judy Tyler was a twenty-four year old actress.  Prior to being cast for Jailhouse Rock, only her second film, she was nationally known as Princess Summerfall Winterspring on the Howdy Doody Show, a kids' television show I watched religiously.  The final shot in Jailhouse Rock is a close-up of Elvis and Tyler standing close to each other as he sings her a love song.  Less than a week after the movie finished production, Tyler was killed in a terrible automobile accident in southeastern Wyoming.  She and her husband of three months were on their way to a family function in New York.  Elvis was so shaken by the news that he chose not to attend the film's premier, and according to some sources, refused to watch the film at all throughout his life.

***

Here are the movies I watched at the Quentin Estates during the second quarter of 2017.      

1. Above And Beyond (1952 war biopic; Robert Taylor is Army Air Corps Colonel Paul Tibbits, chosen to pilot the plane which will drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, but for security reasons unable to tell his exasperated wife, Eleanor Parker, anything about his assignment.)  B+

2. Baby The Rain Must Fall (1965 drama; Lee Remick travels with her young daughter to an East Texas town with dreams of reuniting with her troubled ex-con husband, Steve McQueen.) B+

3. Blood Simple (1984 crime noir; Saloon keeper Dan Hedaya correctly suspects his wife, Frances McDormand, and his employee, John Getz, are having an affair, so he hires private dick M. Emmet Walsh to surveil them.)  B

4. Chisum (1970 western; New Mexico cattle baron John Wayne gets help from notorious gunman Geoffrey Deuel in an attempt to thwart the cunning and evil Forrest Tucker, who owns most of the town and hopes to control the region's livestock industry.)  B

5. The Founder (2016 biopic; Michael Keaton, as Ray Kroc, doesn't let ethics or honesty stand in the way of building the fast food burger empire, McDonalds.)  B

6. Gone With The Wind (1939 drama; Vivian Leigh is a southern belle, willing to go to any length to preserve her Georgia plantation, Tara, while debonaire millionaire businessman Clark Gable's feelings for her go hot and cold.)  A-

7. The Hunchback Of Notre Dame (1939 drama; Charles Laughton is the hunchback bell ringer who falls in love with gypsy dancer Maureen O'Hara in squalid 1490's Paris.)  A-

8. Jail House Rock  (1957 musical; Elvis Presley is an ex-con who, with the help of agent-manager Judy Tyler, becomes a pop music star.)  C+

9. Light In The Piazza (1962 romance; American tourist Olivia De Havilland has misgivings about her slightly mentally impaired daughter, Yvette Mimieux, falling in love with local Florentine George Hamilton.)  D

10. Love Is A Many-Splendored Thing  (1955 romance; In Hong Kong during the Chinese Civil War, William Holden, a married but separated American foreign correspondent, pursues Eurasian physician Jennifer Jones, a woman who finds herself in the middle of a culture clash.)  B-

11.  The Sugarland Express  (1974 drama; Goldie Hawn and William Atherton, a young married couple each with criminal records, take Texas Highway Patrolman Michael Sacks hostage in his squad car, and force him to accompany them to Sugarland where their son is being put up for adoption by child welfare officials.) B