Movie Review: "Eighth Grade"

You know, Dad, teaching is a lot different now than when you taught.

- Jillian Rose Kaster (2018)

"Eighth Grade": B-.  If the latest film by twenty-eight year old comic writer Bo Burnham had been titled Seventh Grade or Ninth Grade, I probably would have skipped it.  But with eight years' experience as a former eighth grade teacher (following three years as a sixth grade teacher), I felt naturally drawn to check Eighth Grade out.  The action takes place in contemporary suburbia.  Although many of the traits of thirteen and fourteen year olds as illustrated by Burnham have held constant over the decades, this movie simply could not have portrayed young teen life in the seventies, when I was experiencing the best job I ever had.  The reason is simple: the omnipresence -- one might call it the curse -- of cell phones.

The star of Eighth Grade is fifteen year old actress Elsie Fisher, who plays insecure eighth grader Kayla Day.  One of the obvious ironies concerning Kayla is displayed in the opening shot, and thereafter interspersed throughout the story, in which Kayla is making a video of herself rendering advice for the handful of subscribers to her Youtube channel.  (It is never revealed if she has any subscribers at all.)  Her topics include "Be Yourself," "Put Yourself Out There" and "How To Be Confident."  She does not break any new ground, and the verbal delivery is mostly ineloquent.  Only those who know her would be in on the secret that in real life she is unable to follow her own recommendations.  She is the opposite of the person she is urging her viewers to be.

Burnham soon manifests the point with a short first act scene.  Kayla dreads being "honored" with The Quietest Student Award, then cringes when that distinction is announced at an assembly.  Why couldn't she have been as lucky as Aiden (Luke Prael), recipient of the Best Eyes Award?

Kayla is beset with many of the problems common for her age.  She has a few friends, but is in need of a best friend who could become her confidant.  Her dad, Mark (Josh Hamilton), is a single parent trying his best to give his daughter what she needs, but it's tough when she brings her phone, complete with ear buds, to the dinner table.  Kayla finds Mark's attempts at humor annoying.  He tries to initiate a conversation, but runs into a dead end.  Mark deserves more respect, but since we're supposed to be enjoying a comedy, we viewers are asked to brush off the daughter's rude, immature behavior, just as poor Mark does.

One cleverly written thread pertains to a pool party to celebrate the birthday of the "coolest girl in school," Kennedy (Catherine Oliviere).  Kennedy's mother, clueless as to the social relationship between her daughter and Kayla (virtually none), invites Kayla to Kennedy's backyard pool party, a birthday celebration.  Good performances by the young actresses perfectly reveal the uneasiness each is feeling:  Kennedy wanting to reprimand her mother and hoping Kayla will decline; Kayla wanting to decline but instead giving an evasive answer so as not to seem ungrateful or uncool.  Kayla decides to attend, but the anguish, anxiety and self-consciousness she feels about appearing in a bathing suit is poignant.  The presence of dreamy Aiden at the co-ed gathering adds to her discomfort.

A different thread executed with less success evolves from the middle school's tradition of having the soon-to-graduate eighth graders shadow a high school student throughout a late spring day.  Kayla is assigned to Olivia (Emily Robinson), whose exuberance over the prospect of showing off her school is off the charts.  When Olivia goes above the call of duty by inviting Kayla to hang out with Olivia's high school friends at the mall, things go south, most notably a back seat game of Truth Or Dare proposed by one of the older boys.

I found it peculiar that, given the title of the film, we never once see Kayla studying.  (Good thing she didn't have me for her teacher!)  And, I only recall one scene where she's actually in a classroom.  We never find out what the subject is, because the students are being put through a "live shooter in the building drill."  Yikes!

Eighth Grade had a couple of laugh-out-loud moments, but not enough to sustain it as a successful comedy.   The first rule for a film that focuses on one character to the point where she appears in every scene is this: the character must be interesting.  Kayla has plenty of attributes to admire, but that does not qualify her as interesting.  Putting down her cell phone once in awhile would be a good first step in changing that.  

A Three Paragraph Autobiography

Exactly three years ago today I was attending my 50th high school class reunion in Minot.  The Ryan High Class of '65 had eighty-nine members.  We have the distinction of being the only class in the school's history not to have received a yearbook.  The two word explanation from the administration at the time was "no money."  It's a sore subject which raises its frowning head every time we get together.

Through the years we have had five reunions.  The same three or four women classmates end up doing 90+% of the work because they still live in the area.  So, by default, the job is theirs to accept or decline.  Thankfully, they have always stepped to the plate.  The reunions have been some of the best weekends of my social life.  We have class members throughout the country, yet many come back for every reunion.  Hardly any classmates have family left in the Magic City.  The attraction is simply the chance to be with folks we only get to see every decade or so and with whom we shared many good times and bad.  As a class we have a pretty high opinion of each other.  I definitely don't have a problem with that; in fact, I think our group's self-assessment is well deserved.

When we were students in the sixties, we were segregated into three tracks.  With rare exceptions, each student attended class only with students in her own track.  Consequently, the opportunities to develop friendships with those outside of our own track were limited, at least during the school day.  For kids like me and the incoming transfers from Minot Air Force Base, that could be problematic.  I believe that's a key reason why our reunions, even though held in a relatively remote part of the country, are well attended.  The reunions have been a vehicle for getting better acquainted with people who, ironically, share a history yet with whom we're not all that acquainted.   A case in point was Ken Korgel.

The most somber part of any reunion is learning who among our classmates has passed away.  As of three years ago, that number was up to fifteen, nine more than was the sad statistic at our 40th reunion. Ken Korgel died as a result of an automobile accident shortly after our 40th.  In the years following his retirement as a water plant operator for the city of Minot, Kenny had taken up ranching on the nearby prairies.  We were not in each other's track at Ryan, and for some reason never connected at a reunion until our 40th in 2005.  (He had transferred out of Ryan before graduation, yet was invited to the reunions.)  After speaking with him for the first time at length, I found him to be a very cordial and humorous guy, attributes common among most in my circle of friends at Ryan.  I regretted that it took forty-some years to get to know him, and was looking forward to seeing him again at the 50th.  Were it not for the reunion we would not have met.

As is common for many schools' reunions, the class members have been asked by the reunion committee to write a little bio each of the few times we've gathered.  For the first reunion in 1975, the classmates were succinct to a fault, writing only a few sentences describing their families and occupations.  But as we got older those bios started to expand.  This ritual was extremely interesting especially with regard to the submissions from classmates who were unable to make the trek to Minot.

For our 40th reunion the committee really went overboard, putting together a booklet with a page set aside for each classmate to submit a longer piece, in some cases accompanied by a picture or two.  The idea was that these would be the yearbooks we never had.  Those self-published nouveau yearbooks proved to be such a hit that the practice was repeated for our 50th reunion.  My submission for the 50th was three paragraphs, much longer than anything I'd sent to the committee before, but generally with a word count similar to what my friends wrote, i.e., those who bothered to write anything.

I've decided to post that 2015 epistle on this blog for two reasons.  First, I tried to insert a little humor, so it's within the realm of possibility, albeit slim, that some of what you read might generate a modest smile.  Who couldn't use a smile?  The second gets back to one of the reasons I've chosen to continue The Quentin Chronicle for now.  One or more of my grandchildren might some day come across the blog and read a post or two.  The subject matter of several of the posts I've written are autobiographical snippets which might fill in some of the blanks if and when they wonder what old Papa Johnny was like.  I wish I had more info on my four grandparents, two of whom died before I was born.  Oral history is hardly comprehensive; it can only take you so far.

Keep in mind that the following was written three years ago.  Some things have changed since then, most notably the arrival of granddaughters Louisa and June.  If I make it to my 60th class reunion, maybe I'll furnish an update.

****

I retired in 2007 after exactly twenty-four years and two days as a commercial attorney at Wells Fargo.  My wife, Mary, and I just celebrated our thirty-ninth anniversary in June. We have three kids, ages 37-31, all of whom are married and live here in the Twin Cities.  Gina is a food manager for a suburban school district, while Michael and Jillian teach high school English and kindergarten, respectively. Our greatest joy is being with our beautiful granddaughters, Rosie (age 2) and Winnie (1).  Mary and I can attest that all the wonderful things our friends told us about grandparenting are true; lots of fun with few of the responsibilities of parenthood.

To avoid being a total couch potato, I enjoy hiking, biking, writing, traveling, attending movies and plays, and checking out the restaurant scene.  For live music entertainment we are groupies of a bluegrass band called Luke Warm & The Cool Hands, mostly because they put on a great show, but also because our son and son-in-law are bandmates.  Mary and I are both big sports fans, especially following the Twins with hopes that they can avoid their fifth consecutive season of ninety-plus losses. We snowshoe once a year so that we can claim to be hardy outdoor enthusiasts.  For a change of scenery in the non-winter months we go to our cabin in the Wisconsin North Woods, where the main activities are boating, reading, canoeing, eating, napping and, naturally, beer drinking (those last two usually occurring in inverse order).  I like to fish, but only for two hours at a time in the middle of a sunny July afternoon. I wonder why I never even get a nibble.

Even though we’ve been in it for almost sixteen years, I am reluctant to join the twenty-first century.  I am not on Facebook, don’t own a Kindle, and still subscribe to the print edition of the daily newspaper.  Snapchat and Instagram are foreign to me. I signed up for Twitter three years ago; my next tweet will be my first.  I do know how to use e-mail, however, so if your time permits, please let me hear from you at periolat47@gmail.com.

Movie Review: "Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again"

"Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again": A.  Does the existence of a few imperfections automatically eliminate a film such as Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again from being deserving of the top rating?  Not in my little world.  Exhibit A is this post.  It would be easy to find fault with a plot twist here or a string of unlikely coincidences there, but the bottom line is that I can't rip a movie I thoroughly enjoyed.  I would gladly pay to see it again.

Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, sometimes publicized as MM2, is billed as the sequel to the 2008 movie, Momma Mia! (aka MM1).  It is surprising that, given the enormous commercial success of MM1, the producers waited ten years for the most recent installment.  Both movies are built around the songbook of Abba, a Swedish quartet which has sold over a half a billion records and placed fourteen tunes on Billboard's Top 40 chart.

As is common with many musicals  -- for example, the play Beehive currently offered at the the Old Log Theater -- the story lines are more or less flimsy vehicles around which songs are introduced.  While it certainly is not necessary to have seen MM1 in order to catch on quickly to the story line of the new movie, a one paragraph synopsis of the former is hereby provided as my first of three public service announcements.

MM1 tells the story of Donna (Meryl Streep) and her daughter Sophie (Amanda Seyfried).  Donna owns a Greek island villa which she has attempted to convert to a hotel, but with mixed results.  It's there Sophie plans to have her wedding.  By secretly combing through Donna's diary, Sophie has learned that any of three men, Brit banker Harry (Colin Firth), Swedish sailor Bill (Stellan Skarsgard) or Yank architect Sam (Pierce Brosnan), might possibly be her biological father.  Without informing her mother, Sophie invites all three men to her nuptials, believing that once she gets to know them she will be able to figure out which one is her dad.  Of course Donna eventually discovers her daughter's ploy, but it is too late.  The trio of her former lovers has already checked into their rooms.  What happens next are the half-baked, and therefore fun, attempts to unravel the mystery.  We are also kept waiting to find out whom Sophie chooses to walk her down the aisle.

Ten years ago I gave MM1 a pre-blog rating of B-.  My main gripes were the hokeyness level (even lower than what I expected) and the sub-standard singing by many of the main players.  How could the sequel, released three weeks ago, be so much better that it deserves an A?  The simple answer is that the new movie keeps most of the positives of the first -- great songs, well-executed, large scale choreography, beautiful scenery and almost all of the original ensemble of cast and characters -- but trims a little of the hokey aspect and for the most part leaves the singing to the actors who can actually sing.  A better answer is that the plot has much more meat on its bones, and we are treated to the appearance of an enchanting, extremely talented new actress, Lily James.

MM2 is not only a sequel to the 2008 film, but a prequel as well.  In the present day somewhere between one and five years have passed since the conclusion of the original story.  Sophie, still played by Amanda Seyfried, is experiencing bittersweet emotions.  The Greek island inn her mother had always dreamed of owning, the Hotel Bella Donna, has experienced a renaissance.  Sophie has gone to great lengths to throw an elaborate "grand reopening," with a guest list including her "three dads" from MM1 and her mother's two besties and former Dynamos bandmates, Tonya (the hilarious Christine Baranski, who will surprise you if you're only familiar with her work in the television series The Good Wife) and Rosie (Julie Walters).  But the namesake of the hotel, Donna, has recently perished.  Adding to Sophie's heartbreak is her troubled relationship with her mate, Sky (Dominic Cooper), who is in New York.  It doesn't appear that Sky will make the party, and the prospects for Harry and Bill's attendance are equally dim due to circumstances beyond Sophie's control.

Interspersed with present day scenes are many flashbacks to 1979; hence, the prequel.  We follow the rapidly moving exploits of young Donna, energetically played by James.  From the film's opening scene we viewers know this is going to be a fun ride when, during her college commencement speech, Donna breaks into the Abba song, When I Kissed The Teacher, and the whole graduating class romps all over the premises to the shock and surprise of the faculty (one of whom is Abba co-leader Benny Andersson in a cameo appearance).  This table setting reminded me very much of the opening scene from La La Land (reviewed here January 23, 2017; A), when motorists on an LA interstate get out of their vehicles to perform a huge song and dance routine.  Young Donna's travels take her to France and Greece where she meets and has one night stands with Harry, Bill and Sam in rapid succession.  It sounds so salacious, but we are neither offended nor hugely disappointed thanks to the talents of Ms. James.  Her on-screen vitality makes the flashbacks the best parts of the show.

There are two moments in the movie which merit a special commendation.  As I alluded to above, Harry and Bill have conflicts which seemingly will prevent them from making their way to the Greek isle for Sophie's party.  Harry is stuck in Tokyo negotiating a lengthly, boring business contract, while Bill, the adventure seeking sailor, is somewhere in Scandinavia where he is being presented a prestigious lifetime achievement award.  Bill solves his logistical conundrum by having his twin brother, who is disheveled and intoxicated, stand in for him without anyone at the ceremony catching on.  It is the best of several funny moments.

The other praiseworthy scene is probably my favorite in any film I've seen in recent memory.  As an armada of ships rapidly sails toward the Bella Donna, dozens of crew members and passengers all break out into Abba's best tune, Dancing Queen.  I could not resist either smiling or toe tapping!  By the way, for those of you keeping score at home, the soundtrack for MM2 contains sixteen songs, all written by one or both Abba men (Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus), and six of which were also heard on MM!.

Finally, I promised you two more PSAs.  First, if you plan to attend the movie but have not closely read the list of cast members, don't.  There are two final act surprise appearances.  I benefitted from my failure to read the entire list of cast members beforehand; lucky me!  And lastly, unless you're on your way to a fire, I recommend sitting through the entire duration of the final credits.  Another surprise awaits.

Movie Review: "Sicario: Day Of The Soldado"

"Sicario: Day Of The Soldado": B.  With the plight of Mexican immigrants being an almost daily news item over the last several months, the setting for Sicario: Day Of The Soldado is timely.  The story overcomes several shortcomings to result in a movie most will find worth seeing if for no other reason than to give viewers an idea of the scope of problems facing both the migrants and the U.S. government, particularly the Drug Enforcement Agency and the Border Patrol.

The opening shot of federal agents in low flying helicopters combing the vast west Texas desert near the Rio Grande is grim and gripping.  The area is pitch black, pierced by the powerful search lights aboard the copters.  The humans below, presumably having illegally crossed the border/river moments before, appear as desperate prey, running away but with nowhere to go.  This is the first of many times Italian director Stefano Sollima successfully employs the unforgiving land as a central element to his film.

The feds' focus abruptly narrows from illegal immigration to terrorism when two explosions occur back-to-back.  The first happens in the desert in the aftermath of the helicopter pursuit. A suspect fleeing from the Border Patrol detonates his suicide vest, leaving prayer rugs -- likely evidence of his Muslim faith -- beneath his body.  The second takes place in a Kansas City supermarket, with scores of customers killed or injured by a band of terrorists who appear to be Middle Eastern.  Here is where the script writing gets a little dubious.  CIA agent Matt Graver (Josh Brolin) and his team deduce that the two incidents were perpetrated by men transported from the coastal waters of Somalia to Mexico, then on to the U.S.  They further conclude that a Mexican drug cartel must have been in cahoots with Somali war lords to pull off such unfettered trans-oceanic transportation.  Graver's solution is to start a war between the two leading cartels, a la gangland battles seen in The Godfather.  By the time that war ends, the cartels will be weakened.  This pretext to what the CIA orchestrates is not only far-fetched but, as we find out less than half way through the movie, erroneous.

One of Graver's first moves is to hire cold-blooded black operative Alejandro Gillick, played by the excellent Benicio del Toro.  [Note: Don't make the same mistake I've occasionally committed by confusing American actor Benicio del Toro with Mexican producer and director Guillermo del Toro.  The latter won two Oscars for his work in last year's The Shape Of Water (reviewed here on April 21, 2018; A-).]  Gillick's connections in Mexico smooth the way for the CIA to execute high profile crimes, an assassination and a kidnapping, staging both to appear as the work of opposing drug overlords, thus achieving the CIA's desired war between that country's two most powerful cartels.

The kidnap victim, Isabela Reyes (Isabela Moner), is the middle school age daughter of one cartel's leader.  The central story line concerns what happens while Isabela is in the custody of the CIA agents.  Their original plan to transport her swiftly by land north across the border does not go as planned; neither does their end game strategy.  Ironically the ruthless killer, Gillick, forms a protective bond with the young girl, while he and the detached Graver separate.

A subplot which eventually intersects with the main story arc is the saga of impoverished teen truant Miguel (Elijah Rodriguez).  He hangs out with an older crowd in the border city of McAllen, Texas.  They convince him that his bilingual skills will serve him well in the clandestine business of smuggling immigrants into the US.  Easy money.  Miguel is forced to grow up fast, getting in way over his head.

I am giving this movie a B, a solid B in fact, because it delivers plenty of tension, lots of gunfire and other high speed action, captivating cinematography, and most of all excellent acting.  Brolin and del Toro each have enough screen presence and machismo to carry this genre alone.  Put them together and you can be confident your money will be well spent.  Seventeen year old Moner is the real deal.  She is on the screen for at least half the movie, superbly handling a wide range of emotions and predicaments.  I hope filmmakers take note.

Unfortunately Sicario has a few problems of time and space which detract from the finished product.  For example, following a shootout in the middle of the Mexican nowhere, Graver jumps into a vehicle, does a U-turn and heads for Texas.  In the blink of an eye he is crossing on to American soil.  Meanwhile Gillick, who was in the same shootout with Graver, sets off on foot and spends days in the desert in an attempt to reach Texas.  Not even CIA spy satellites can detect his whereabouts.  In another scene, a man is shot in the middle of the night under a desert butte.  The men who are responsible are shown quickly leaving the scene in the morning sun.

The reputation of the CIA has taken several blows during the US "occupation" of Iraq.  Waterboarding and other forms of torture, mistreatment of prisoners (e.g., Abu Ghraib) and the killing of innocent civilians are some of the charges leveled against that agency and various defense contractors.  Sicario: Day Of The Soldato will not do anything to ameliorate the criticism.  In an early scene when the U.S. counter-terrorism strategy is being devised, the Secretary Of Defense tells Graver, "Dirty is exactly why you're here."  No kidding.  

Without the depiction of some CIA operatives' abhorrent behavior, the film probably would not have been made.  In real life, is such conduct necessary to win a war?  That is for others to determine.

The Case Of The Flyaway File

A few days ago I came across an envelope which was buried beneath a short stack of papers in our den.  I had used the envelope to stash credit card receipts until I received an actual monthly statement from the card issuer showing those charges.  My practice was to make sure the dollar amounts on the statement matched my receipts.  Then I would shred the receipts.  For some reason, I never shredded a particular receipt which now remained in the envelope.

The receipt in question is in the amount of $37.97 from the 212 Motel in Olivia, Minnesota.  The fading yellow paper bears the date July 28, 2006, exactly twelve years ago today.  I may not be able to remember what I ate for lunch yesterday, but I vividly recall the details of that evening.  It is a story I have never told anyone -- and I mean anyone -- but to mark the occasion of this twelfth anniversary, I am posting it today.

****

July 28, 2006 fell on a Friday.  Momma Cuandito was spending the entire week at our Northwoods cabin, while I stayed home to toil at my job at Wells Fargo, drafting loan agreements, promissory notes, mortgages, subordination agreements, manure easements and other exciting documents.  Momma Cuan had asked me to switch cars before she left, because my Lap Of Luxury, a 2005 Toyota Corolla, had more trunk space than her Mellow Yellow, a 2004 Volkswagon bug convertible.  She needed the extra room to haul some odds and ends, most certainly including several bottles of wine, to the cabin.

I usually use the time Momma Cuan is away to attend movies and sometimes concerts which I know she would not enjoy.  For example, my favorite genre of music is classic rock, which would not be on her top five list.  Such an opportunity presented itself that Friday night at Jackpot Junction, a casino in Morton, Minnesota with a fairly big outdoor arena.  The headliners were REO Speedwagon and Styx, two Illinois bands which gained national fame and are among my favorites in the geezer rock category.  Opening for them was Mickey Thomas who at that time was a solo artist but who had gained fame as the voice of several well known bands such as Jefferson Starship and Elvin Bishop.  (If you listen to oldies radio stations, you have undoubtedly heard Fooled Around And Fell In Love several dozen times.  Although the credited artist is Elvin Bishop, the lead vocals are by Mickey who played in Elvin's band when that # 3 hit was recorded in 1975.)

Buying a single ticket for the concert was no problem, but the asking price for the cheapest room at the casino's hotel was over $125.  In those days I would have opted to drive back to Minneapolis after the show rather than spend that kind of money on a room.  But there was a better alternative.  A mere sixteen miles north of Morton was the little burg of Olivia, home of the 212 Motel with rates less than one-third of the casino's.  Thus, my plan was hatched: attend the show, then make the twenty minute drive to the 212.

I looked forward to the concert experience all week.  I ducked out of work at noon that Friday, which in itself was something to relish.  I figured I'd drive all the way to southwestern Minnesota with the top down on Momma Cuan's bug, but I only made it to Eden Prairie when I eighty-sixed that notion.  It was too windy, and the skies looked threatening.  I settled for driving the remaining route with the top up, listening to Styx and REO CDs with the volume turned up to "11."  (Thank you for the thought, Rob Reiner!)  By the time I got to Jackpot Junction, roughly one hundred miles from home, I was totally pumped for the show.

Mickey Thomas was one of the best concert openers I have ever seen, not just an undercard filler but a bona fide rocker whose voice I'd put up against anybody's.  My faves, besides the aforementioned Elvin Bishop song, were Sara and Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now, two Starship songs with Thomas as lead vocalist, both having hit # 1 on the Billboard chart in the mid-eighties.

Styx and REO alternated top billing on their joint national tour.  For the Jackpot Junction gig it was REO's turn to close.  Both bands have been around since the seventies, and claim repertoires which enable them each to play their own songs over ninety minutes without once having to resort to a cover or a song the fans had never heard before.  For the record, Styx has released sixteen singles which have cracked the Billboard Top 40; for REO, the number is thirteen.  REO's masterpiece album released in 1980, High Infidelity, is one of the most commercially successful LPs in the history of rock, with virtually every song, not just those released as singles, getting substantial radio air play.

Neither of the headliners disappointed that evening.  They gave everything they had for the Minnesota fans, even though they had probably grown tired of playing mostly the same songs at every show from year to year.  The only gripe I have, attributable to both bands, is that they are posers.  Think of every rock concert cliche, and those guys are guilty of all of them.  Windmill guitar strumming, a la Pete Townshend; jumping on top of an amp to get a silhouette in the spotlight; racing across the stage from side to side for no apparent reason; asking the fans to fill in with vocals on a chorus or two.  Still, I forgave them.  It's their music that mattered most, and these guys rocked the house.

What would a concert be without a brew or two to enjoy with the rest of the audience?  I was proud of myself for abstaining during Thomas' set, but made sure I had a pint for each of the following two.  The skies had cleared and the outdoor air was warm, perfect beer drinking weather.  At one point I wished I'd been extravagant enough to stay at the casino hotel; I could have pounded down a couple more cold ones and walked to my room instead of driving to Olivia. 

When the concert ended around 11:00 there was the expected log jam of hundreds of cars all trying to leave via the sole exit driveway.  Either the audience had been comprised of a lot of locals, or else there were plenty of cheapskates like me who were unwilling to pay the casino's exorbitant hotel rates.  I made the executive decision to drive to Olivia with the top down.  The weather wasn't bad, and I wanted to experience the bliss one gets from riding in an open convertible through the countryside on a starlit summer night.  I owed it to myself, especially after aborting my open air westward drive earlier in the day.  What good was it to have a convertible at your disposal and not put the roof down?  It would only be for sixteen miles.  What could possibly go wrong?

I found out the answer to that question within seconds after leaving the casino grounds and turning north onto U.S. Highway 71.  Although I had checked my bag at the 212 on my way down to Morton, I had left a small manilla file filled with papers in the back seat of the bug.  I had purposely put the file there so that I could look over its contents -- a combination of work-related documents and a few newspaper articles -- during an anticipated coffee break on my way home Saturday morning.  But being unaccustomed to driving a convertible, I failed to take into account that the file and its contents would blow around once I gathered speed on the highway.

I wasn't more than fifty yards beyond the Jackpot Junction exit when the file and papers did, in fact, start blowing all over.  I thought for sure they would escape the car, which at that moment was probably traveling only twenty miles an hour.  I foolishly tried to gather the papers by reaching back with my right hand while simultaneously steering with my left.  The first result was a swerve or two.  The second result was a red flashing light in my rear view mirror.  The Renville County Sheriff was lying in the weeds.

When you think about it, it makes sense.  What better place for the cops to set up shop for DWI suspects than at the exit of an outdoor venue which had just hosted a rock concert?  On most nights, it would be easy pickings or, if you prefer, low hanging fruit.

I immediately pulled over, then waited for what seemed forever for the fuzzy wuzzy -- thank you for the term, Detective Kojak -- to approach.  I had my drivers' license and proof of insurance ready to present.  He merely glanced at it, then asked me to step out of the car.  He took me to the space between my car and his, where an extremely bright flood light from the squad was pointing.

Kojak: Have you been drinking?

I had only a second or two to think about how I would answer, if in fact I decided to answer at all.  I had consumed only two pints, and I was confident that even having three would not have put me over the limit.  Nevertheless, I decided to lie.  "I had one beer," I replied.

He ordered me to stand on one foot and count to 30 by threes (three, six, nine, etc.).  Luckily I was wearing tennis shoes which afford much more balance than almost any other style of footwear.  I passed the test, no problem.  But wait... there was another part to the test.

Kojak: Now stand on the other foot and count backwards from 30 by threes (thirty, twenty-seven, twenty-four, etc.).  

I considered informing him that I taught eighth grade math for eight years, so he should really come up with something more challenging, maybe an algebraic equation.  That consideration was quickly abandoned.  No one else thinks my jokes are funny.  Why should he?  I did as told.

Then he gave me a breathalyzer test which involved blowing into some kind of apparatus which he took back into his car while I stood there in the flood light. Meanwhile, dozens of cars were exiting Jackpot Junction and slowly passing me by.  Gawkers!  What if someone recognized me?  What an embarrassment!  What if the whole ordeal was being filmed by a dash cam and would appear later on Spike TV?  What if I registered over the limit?  "No way," I convinced myself.  Still, I thought about the five grand an acquaintance of mine had to pay a well known Minneapolis lawyer to defend him in a DWI case.  I felt guilty even though I was not.

A few minutes later he came out of his squad.  "You are under the limit, although I think you did have more than one beer."  How did he know?  I was pretty impressed with the accuracy of his equipment.  As he returned to his car he called over his shoulder, "Drive safely."

Before I got back behind the wheel I gathered up the wind blown papers, stuck them back in the manilla file and threw it all in the trunk.  Crawling along the highway at 35 mph, it took me at least a half hour to reach Olivia.

Discovering the faded yellow receipt from twelve years ago has brought back memories, both good and bad.  It has also caused me to add something to my To Do List:  I've got to put the Uber app on my phone.  

Quarterly Cinema Scan - Volume XXXII

I distinctly remember when the Civil War story Shenandoah came out in the summer of 1965, friends who witnessed it first held a unanimous opinion: it was one of the saddest movies they'd ever seen.  I eventually saw it a few months after its release, and as much as I wanted to be impervious to the sorrow, reminding myself that it was only a film, it was impossible not to share my friends' evaluation.  Fifty-three years later, a long enough period for me to have forgotten the plot details, I recently had an opportunity to see it for the second time.  I guess old age has not desensitized me because the story's grief factor still registers high.

Jimmy Stewart plays a widowed farmer, Charlie Anderson, who owns hundreds of acres of prime real estate in the Commonwealth of Virginia.  The year is 1863.  Virginia is a key Confederate state and the scene of several important battlegrounds.  The war is of no concern to Anderson for so long as neither side upsets his crop and cattle operation.  Although he opposes slavery he certainly is not going to aid the Union, nor is he willing to direct any of his five adult sons, all of whom live on the farm, to join the Grays.  Some of his fellow Virginians question his loyalty for failing to answer the cry of battle, but that does not faze Charlie in the least.  When a Confederate platoon attempts to commandeer some of the Andersons' horses, Charlie and his sons run them off their land.

The big household includes two women, daughter Jennie (Rosemary Forsyth), the best tracker and sharpshooter of the bunch, and daughter-in-law Ann (Katharine Ross), who becomes a new mother.  Forsyth and Ross make their film debuts here, with Ross going on to fame two years later as Elaine in the blockbuster, The Graduate.  Charlie also has a younger son whom everyone refers to as "the Boy."  He is played by sixteen year old Philip Alford, better known to audiences as Jem, the son of Atticus Finch in 1962's To Kill A Mockingbird.  Finally we have Sam (Doug McClure), the gentlemanly new husband of Jennie.  Unlike Jennie's five adult brothers, Sam is proud to serve his native state as an officer in the Confederate army.

I was very impressed by the cinematography of William Clothier, who convincingly makes western Oregon, the actual shooting locale, appear as Virginia.  On the flip side, the work of director Andrew McLaglen falls short.  There are too many scenes which are simply too hokey, and the last scene was pure Hollywood.  Shenandoah was the first and most commercially successful of four movies directed by McLaglen starring Stewart.  Although I generally like him as an actor, Jimmy's performance in this film employs the same mannerisms and voice inflections that he'd been using for the previous thirty years of his career.  I found it to be a little stale.  For a taste of what I'm writing about, check out a Youtube video of comedian Rich Little's impersonation of the famous leading man.    

Shenandoah addresses some issues which were germane not only to the Civil War but also to the United States' involvement in the Viet Nam War, which involvement was relatively new at the time of the film's release.  Some of those issues are the senseless human cost of war, the disparity in treatment of the wealthy and the poor, and the inexplicable reluctance of one army to surrender or at least bargain for a conditional peace once it becomes obvious there remains no hope of winning.

Viewers who can't resist predicting outcomes of certain stories will probably figure that not all of the huge Anderson clan are going to survive to the bitter end.  They would be right, although most remain unscathed until the final half-hour or so.

***

Here are the movies I watched on the small screen during the second quarter of 2018.  There's only one clunker out of the eight, so not a bad run.

1. The Big Chill (1983 dramedy; When one of their former college friends commits suicide, a group of five forty-somethings reunite to pay their respects, then spend the rest of the weekend hanging out as guests of married classmates Kevin Kline and Glenn Close, getting reacquainted, listening to the soundtrack of their lives, and wondering what went wrong.) A-

2. Breakthrough (1950 war drama; Lieutenant John Agar, with help from Sergeant Frank Lovejoy and under the command of Captain David Brian, leads an infantry platoon across France in World War II.)  B

3. George Harrison: Living In The Material World (2011 documentary which chronicles the life of the Beatles' lead guitarist, with a concentration on how Eastern culture influenced his song writing and musicianship.) B+

4. The Magnificent Ambersons (1942 drama; As a young man Joseph Cotton's marriage proposal is rejected by Dolores Costello, but after a twenty year gap their relationship rekindles over the objections of her son, Tim Holt.) C-

5. Molly's Game (2017 drama; Jessica Chastain is a sexy, shrewd and smart young woman who postpones law school so she can learn the craft of running extremely high stakes poker games, invitation only, for multi-millionaires on both coasts.) A-

6. Platoon (1986 war drama; Charlie Sheen is a private who dropped out of college and volunteered for combat, now assigned to a platoon in Viet Nam with internal conflicting allegiances between two sergeants, Tom Berenger and Willem Dafoe.)  A-

7. Shenandoah (1965 war drama; Jimmy Stewart, a Virginia farmer, wants no part of the Civil War until it directly affects his large family.) B+

8. Two For The Road (1967 comedy; Albert Finney and Audrey Hepburn have a relationship which, over a dozen years, does not have the same pizzaz as when they were crossing France as young lovers on an extended road trip.)  C+  

Kernels In The Cornfields

Would you consider driving over 550 miles round trip to see a minor league baseball game?  I did it a couple of years ago, and I liked it so much I did it again late last month.  The lowest level of minor league ball, other than the rookie leagues, is Class A.  The Minnesota Twins franchise owns two minor league teams which play at the Class A (usually called "single A") level, the Fort Myers Miracle and the Cedar Rapids Kernels.  Cedar Rapids, the second largest city in Iowa, is an easy drive, a shade over four hours from Minneapolis.  The Kernels play in Perfect Game Field at Veterans' Memorial Stadium.

The first thing you'll notice at Veterans' Memorial is that the large parking lot adjacent to the stadium is free.  Of course that would be unheard of at any MLB venue.  The second surprise is the price of tickets.  Thirteen dollars gets you the best seat in the house, but if that's too rich for your blood, nine bucks puts you barely past the dugouts on the lower level.  Even cheaper is the popular lawn seating area along the left field line.  The stadium also features a faux "green monster," Fenway Park-style, with a few dozen seats perched above.  

While we're on the subject of costs, you'd be hard pressed to find a meal over six dollars or a beer over five.  Proud of myself for recognizing a good meal deal when I saw one, I ate two: a juicy hot dog upon arrival, and a tasty burrito in the top of the fifth.  I had to save funnel cakes and barbeque for another time.

I never found Iowans to be a particularly congenial bunch at sporting events involving the Gophers, but here it was a different story.  The staff at Veterans' Memorial was extraordinarily friendly.  Maybe they were Minnesota expats(?).  From the ticket sellers to the vendors to the ushers and other security, every one was either a genuinely welcoming host or else a good thespian.  A tip of the hat to the Kernels' personnel honchos for hiring those folks.

Minnesota prides itself on its craft beer, but you'd hardly know it at Target Field where a thirsty fan has to look high and low to find a decent brew.  The Twins beverage operations managers could (and should) take a lesson from the Cedar Rapidians.  There were at least three separate draught beer stands offering first class options behind the infield seats.  That's pretty good when you consider the stadium only holds 5300 fans.  The vendor closest to the main gate carried Laguinitas IPA, New Belgium Brewing Fat Tire, Odell's 90 Shilling, Dogfish Head's 90 Minute IPA, Fresh Squeezed by Deschutes, and Bell's Oberon.  Another directly behind the plate had many of the same pours, plus Burnout Brown from Firetrucker Brewery in Ankeny.  Down the first base line was Craft Beer Cabin where two of Iowa's favorite micro breweries were represented, Millstone Brewery from Amana, and Big Grove Brewery of Iowa City.  Vets' Memorial was a veritable beer drinkers' paradise.

I almost forgot the main reason to make the journey was to watch some baseball.  The first thing I check when attending a minor league game is the player roster bios, including age, home town, last year's team, and how the player was acquired by the Twins' franchise.  I did the same for the Kernels' opponent, the Beloit Snappers, an affiliate of the Oakland A's.  Since Class A is professional baseball's lowest level, it stands to reason that a Class A roster would be comprised of very young players.  The Kernels' ten man starting lineup included three teenagers and two other players who were twenty years of age.  The old man of the group was first baseman Robby Rinn, a hoary twenty-five year old.

I am pretty excited for these kids who, just like me, dreamed of playing Major League Baseball some day.  (I saw myself as the heir apparent to the Milwaukee Braves' slugging third baseman, Eddie Mathews.)  The difference, besides the obvious disparity in talent, is that these ballers are actually doing something about it.  They are gambling that they will climb the minor league ladder and rise to The Bigs before their prime years (usually ages 27-32) have come and gone.  Meanwhile, they toil in obscurity, take long bus rides, risk debilitating injury which could delay or even end their career, and hope that they don't suffer through a dreaded slump which could result in other young players passing them by with promotions to higher levels.

Most minor league baseball players turn pro immediately out of high school.  Unlike many college players who have their degrees to fall back on if things don't work out on the diamond, the Kernels and other minor leaguers made one of the most important decisions of their professional lives at age seventeen or eighteen.  They have undoubtedly seen the statistics showing that less than 3% of all minor leaguers and college players will ever play for one of the thirty MLB teams.  I wonder if they ever get discouraged when they see players like Bryce Harper of the Washington Nationals or the Cleveland Indians' Francisco Lindor reach the Majors at ages nineteen and twenty-one, respectively.  Those two All Stars are rare exceptions to the rule.

The level of play, even for single A, is way above average.  These guys are definitely not kicking the ball around; for the most part it is a cleanly-played game.  The Kernels' second baseman, Andrew Bechtold, reminded me of Brian Dozier with his slick glove work.  Too bad Andrew is hitting only .214, not nearly enough to be in line for a promotion.  I witnessed power pitching from the Kernels' starter, Edwar Colina.  He is a twenty-one year old Venezuelan who, as an undrafted free agent, played for the Twins' rookie league team in Elizabethton, Tennessee last year.  He threw low to mid-nineties for six frames the night I saw him in person, averaging more than a strikeout per inning.  Sure he was facing Class A batters, but after watching the mediocre Twins' bullpen in action this season, I wonder if Edwar should be given a shot with the big team in the next year or two.

The Kernels player drawing the most fan interest for the first half of this season was shortstop Royce Lewis, the Twins' most recent first round draft choice.  Only nineteen years old, Royce was signed to a $6.7 million contract last year out of high school in San Juan Capistrano, California.  When I saw him in June he was the only Kernel batting above .300, at .303.  The Twins see Royce as a five tool player.  They have him on a fast track as proven by his elevation last week to their higher level Class A farm team, the Fort Myers Miracle.

Lewis is thus following in the footsteps of the Twins' 2016 first round draft selection, outfielder Alex Kiriloff.  Alex, a Plum, Pennsylvania native, was also signed out of high school as the fifteenth overall pick.  His contract was for $2.8 million, not nearly as much as Lewis, but still a little more than I made at the Piggly Wiggly my senior year.  Unfortunately for me, by the time I was able to get down to Cedar Rapids, Alex had already been promoted to the Miracle, where he has hardly missed a beat.  His batting average with the Kernels was .333; so far with the Miracle it's .317. By the year 2021, and maybe 2020, I will not need to travel to Florida to watch Lewis and Kiriloff; they should be six miles away at Target Field.