Movie Review: "The Invitation"

"The Invitation": B+.  Will (Logan Marshall-Green) and his new girlfriend Kira (Emayatzy Corinealdi) haven't even reached the dinner party to which they've been invited in the Hollywood Hills when we get a couple of hints that things may a little out of whack.  First we see the invitation itself, beautifully designed on a heavy stock card, the type you might receive for a formal wedding. But for a dinner party?  Then in the twilight, Will's car slams into a coyote darting across the winding road.  The animal is mortally injured but still gasping as it lies in front of the vehicle.  Will puts the beast out of its misery with a tire iron.  Kira looks on through the windshield with astonishment.  She has never seen this side of the usually low-key Will before.  The Invitation is filled with little clues and tocsins like these.  The more we watch, the more we guess which ones are significant and which are red herrings.  Are we reading too much into things which may simply be part of the narrative?  Are we overlooking anything?

We soon learn that the hosts of the party are Eden (Tammy Blanchard), Will's ex-wife, and her new husband David (Michael Huisman).  The other guests, with one exception, are all mutual friends who apparently haven't seen either Will or Eden since their divorce two years ago.  There are hugs all around when Will and Kira enter the two story house.  The newcomer is Sadie (Lindsay Burdge), whose appearance is slightly disheveled.  She isn't in the living room with the others.  Will first spots her standing in a bedroom doorway.  She looks like a misfit.

There seem to be no hard feelings between Will and Eden, but they aren't exactly chummy either.  That is to be expected, given their history.  David is a gracious host, serving wine which he can't resist pointing out is a rare expensive vintage.  Kira joins in the friendly chatter and is at ease in the company of these people she's never met, but Will stays at a distance.  He meanders through the house, which used to be his.  It seems odd behavior for a house guest.  Something doesn't feel right. Is everything on the up and up?  If so, is Will imagining things?  Maybe everyone else is perfectly normal and Will is the weird one.

Then things occur in succession which, standing alone, might be unremarkable, but which taken together seem part of a bizarre plan.  But to what end?  Someone mentions there is no cell phone reception. Really?  In a residential neighborhood of Los Angeles?  There are metal bars across the windows, explained by Eden as merely decorative, but they weren't there when Will was her husband.  Another "outsider," Pruitt (John Carroll Lynch), arrives.  He is clearly at least twenty years older than the others.  Another misfit?  And why does David lock the door after Pruitt enters?  When asked about it by Will he claims there have been a lot of break-ins in the neighborhood lately.  Would you really be concerned about that with a dozen people in your house?

More bizarre happenings ensue.  Will spots David lighting a solo red lantern in the back yard, yet all the guests are inside.  Eden slaps one of her guests, Ben (Jay Larson), over a perceived insult when the two of them are in the kitchen with Will, then minutes later kisses Ben in front of everyone during a game of "I Want" in the living room.  David and Eden insist on showing a video of what appears to be a cult leader discussing how to cope with mental anguish.  The newlyweds were part of his group in Mexico, which is where they met the two outsiders, Sadie and Pruitt.  Through a short series of flashbacks we get more background on the demise of Eden and Will's marriage, and the link of that misfortune to the video.  Another guest, Claire (Marieh Delfino), insists on leaving the party, despite verbal attempts by the hosts to convince her to stay.  Pruitt follows Claire out the door, claiming his car is blocking hers.  Will, worried about her safety, watches her from a window, but is interrupted by David before Claire reaches her car.  Did she make it?  And where in the world is Choi?  His girlfriend is in the house, but he is yet to be seen.  Will has reason to believe Eden and David have nefariously harmed him before the other guests arrived.  By the same token, maybe it's simply a case of Will being paranoid. 

The Invitation was one of the films included in the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Film Festival.  Before the festival started last month, the Star Tribune ran mini-reviews of the films which would be shown the first week, and I quickly added this movie to my must-see list .  Unfortunately Momma Cuan and I were not able to attend one of its two originally scheduled showings, but the movie was brought back by festival organizers for an encore as part of its Best Of Festival group, as voted on by screening audiences.  As I've written before, I favor movies which tell a story in such a way that, even though you feel that the movie is reaching its conclusion, you are not sure exactly what the outcome will be.  I did not see the ending coming.  All I know is that the hairs on the back of my neck were invigorated.

Movie Review: "Sing Street"

"Sing Street": B+.  Sing Street is a feel-good musical which invites you to live in its fantasy world for a couple of hours while offering a twist on a frequently used genre plot set-up.  The central cast is young, fun and interesting, while the soundtrack is one of the best you're likely to hear this year.

Conor (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo) is a high school kid growing up in gritty Dublin, 1985.  He, his brother Brendan (Jack Reynor) and sister Ann (Kelly Thornton) groan as they sit through yet another family meeting at which their father informs them that, due to an adverse turn in their financial situation, there will be a tightening of the purse strings.  More particularly for Conor, this will necessitate his transferring from a Jesuit school to an inferior one run by the Christian Brothers and its heartless headmaster, Brother Baxter (Don Wycherley).  This designation of inferiority will be the first of many digs thrown at the Brothers by writer-director John Carney.

Conor gets off to a bumpy start at Synge Street, his rough and tumble school.  As he walks through the schoolyard on his first day, he clearly appears more clean cut, polished and refined than his peers.  He is targeted physically by a bully, Barry (Ian Kenny), and is called on the carpet by Brother Baxter for wearing brown, not the required black, shoes.  The heartless authoritarian cares not that the student's family cannot afford new shoes.  Rather than giving the new kid at least a day's reprieve, the evil Baxter orders Conor to go the rest of the day in stocking feet.

The first mate whom Conor befriends at Synge Street is a diminutive red headed boy named Darren (Ben Carolan).  Darren is one of the sharpest kids in the class, a keen observer of social relationships and playground politics.  When he points out to Conor that the attractive, mysterious girl standing on the steps across the yard has been hanging out there for days, Conor decides to make his move.  Trying his best to act cool in front of this beauty whose aura is initially distant, he tells her a white lie, viz., that his band is putting the finishing touches on a song recording and they need an actress for the accompanying video.  Of course this is untrue because, for starters, Conor is not in a band at all -- hence, the aforementioned twist.  He does not even play or own an instrument.  The girl, who we find out later is Raphina (Lucy Boynton), claims to be a model, so starring in a video might further her career.  In a non-committal way she tells Conor she'll listen to the taped recording and will try to show up for the shoot.  Of course, she does, and a deeper connection between the leads ensues.

Darren foresees his role as that of an agent/manager, which is fine except the nascent band still needs musicians.  Ordinarily this would take some doing, but not according to Carney's script.  First on board is Eamon (Mark McKenna), who not only is an accomplished guitarist but also a talented song writer.  The scenes of collaboration between Conor and Eamon at the latter's home bring back images of Lennon and McCartney doing the same thing two decades before at Mendips in Liverpool.  As a bonus, actor McKenna's visage strongly resembles Lennon's from his teenage years.  If this development seems a stroke of good fortune, consider the band's next acquisition, which is the recruitment of multi-instrumentalist Ngig (Percy Chamburuka).  He excels on at least a half dozen instruments, and owns them too!  His bedroom resembles a music store.  (I would insert "only in Hollywood" at this point, except Carney is an Irishman and the film was shot in Dublin.)  It's all in good fun.  We must have a band because that's what Conor represented to Raphina.  The boys name their band Sing Street, a play on words with reference to their school.

In a movie filled with good ones, my favorite side character is Conor's brother Brendan.  He fancies himself as a music aficionado, and his shelf crammed with vinyl LPs backs that up.  Brendan gives Conor a fair amount of ribbing and sarcasm, as older brothers are wont to do, but also renders useful advice about how to make this new venture, Sing Street, a go.  Brendan steers Conor to a more sophisticated sound, like Duran Duran, the Cure and the Clash.  Conor even changes his look with hair dye and makeup to denote his evolving musical influences.  Brendan realizes over time that though he and Conor had both hoped for a way out of their forlorn situation, which has become exacerbated by the crumbling of their parents' marriage, Conor actually now has within his grasp an opportunity that he should pursue, the type of opportunity that has passed Brendan by.

What would a story about high school be without a dance in the school gymnasium?  We've seen them before (e.g., 1976's Carrie, Pretty In Pink from 1986, etc.).  Sing Street gives us a back-to-back double dose, with the first dance being a dream sequence in which all the subplots, such as the parents' marriage failure and the cruelty of Brother Baxter, reach a happy conclusion.  That scene is quite original, the best four minutes in the film.

The marketing promotions for Sing Street capitalize on the connection of the current movie to 2007's Once, which Carney also directed.  Similarities between the films are evident, most notably the theme of music being the catalyst to draw two young people together.  But don't be fooled into thinking that Sing Street is just a warmed over Once.   While the older movie's music was mostly comprised of acoustic ballads, the new film's tunes are full-band plugged-in pop.  The soundtrack includes a generous helping of seventeen songs, eight of which are top notch Sing Street originals.  One of the best, The Riddle Of The Model, appears early on, and fittingly describes Conor's infatuation with the model he has just met, Raphina.  During their initial conversation, she poignantly tells Conor, "You're not good at pretending to be happy when you are sad."  Thanks to his writing and vocal skills, Conor no longer has to pretend.

South By Southeast

Except for the year 2011 when we vacationed in Arizona, Momma Cuandito and I have been trekking down to Florida every spring for the last eight or nine years to escape what we always hope, usually futilely, will be the last vestiges of arctic air.  This year, for the first time, we decided to drive rather than put up with the indignities and inconveniences foisted upon flyers by the airlines.  Our departure date was Wednesday, February 17, and we did not have to be back home until Sunday, March 13, in time for our annual Selection Sunday basketball party.  Our initial initial plan was to make a beeline down to Florida, and then take our time seeing the sights on the return trip.  That original strategy was soon set aside in favor of a much more practical one: Why kill ourselves to get to Florida?  Let's see some sights on the way down too.  Before our trip was forty-eight hours old we encountered a (major?) disappointment, an embarrassment, a pleasant surprise, a discovery and a personally ignominious moment. 

The Disappointment.  As always, Momma C was packed and ready to go two days ahead of time.  I wish I could be that organized, but alas, I pack better if I wait 'til the last minute, so we didn't head out until 2:00.  I correctly guessed we'd get that late start, so our destination for the first night on the road was Mad City, a mere 275 miles from the Quentin Estates.  We've stayed in Madison many times, and usually find acceptable lodging along Motel Row, the string of chains which rim the Madison exit for Route 151, aka "East Wash" (for Washington Avenue).  This time we reasoned that if we used Orbitz we could probably find a much nicer in-town hotel for about the same price.  It didn't exactly turn out that way, as we ended up in the Americinn Lodge on the far west end of the city, a twelve minute drive from the interstate.

For a small city Madison has many very good restaurants, but we would have had to drive back into the heart of town, fifteen to twenty minutes away, to reach the ones we knew.  We were so tired from driving in the dark and arriving after the so-called "dinner hour" that we decided to settle for a meal at Granite City, located in the West Towne Mall a few blocks away.  That is where we incurred The Disappointment.

We are quite familiar with the Granite City franchise.  You might recall from my January 9, 2016 post that my go-to beer there is Two Pull, their version of a black & tan.  I had been savoring a beer throughout the entire day.  I could barely wait for Momma Cuan and I to toast the beginning of our three week adventure with some tasty suds.  We both ordered food when the server arrived with our drinks.  We clinked our glasses and then, down the hatch!  I almost gagged.  My Two Pull tasted like swill.  My first instinct was a flashback to my college days, when I had the misfortune of drinking what remains, fifty years later, the absolute worst tasting beer I've ever ingested, Drury's, the pride of South Bend, Indiana.  Cool label, with the red-jacketed Canadian mountie, but otherwise dreadful. 

I took a quick look at my calendar.  No, tonight is not April 1, so no April Fools joke.  Maybe I'm on Candid Camera?  Is there a hidden lens inside the lamp on our table?  Nope.  This couldn't possibly be Two Pull.  I took two sips and could not injure myself any further.  The twenty ounce mug of the golden draught sat there undisturbed from then on.  Despite the fact that the place was not busy, the server never showed up at our table until a good ten minutes after the food had arrived via a kitchen helper.  By that time I was no longer in the beer drinking mood, having settled for water.  Was this a sign of bad luck to come on our trip?

When we got back to the motel MC fell promptly asleep but I was wide awake.  I caught up on some reading but could not get the disappointment of the bad Two Pull, the beer I'd recommended to others many times, out of my noggin.  What if Granite City had changed the recipe?  That's what I'm convinced happened with Fat Tire, an amber produced by New Belgium Brewing Company in Fort Collins.   I used to crave that beer when visiting in Colorado during Michael's college years in the mountains, but a few years later the brewmaster certainly had unwisely altered the ingredients.  If Granite City pulled the same shenanigans, that would be enough for me to withdraw from membership in its Mug Club.

The more I thought about it, the more steamed I became.  No way to go to sleep now until I got it off my chest.  I had grabbed the business card of the GC general manager, Mike Lyons, on my way out the door, and decided to send him an e-mail.  This is what I wrote:

My wife and I live in St. Louis Park, MN, and frequent the GC restaurant there on a regular basis. I have been a Mug Club member for a few years, and a customer going back even before that at your Maple Grove, MN location. My beer of choice has always been the GC Two Pull.

Tonight we were in your West Towne Mall restaurant for the first time, and we both ordered the Two Pull. I regret to inform you that it tasted like skunk beer,  i.e., what beer tastes like when the lines need to be cleaned or the beer has not been sold on a frequent enough basis to taste fresh. Our server never asked why I left 95% of the beer in my mug.  I am very disappointed by both the product and the service at your establishment.

I "signed" my name and wrote the ticket number of my bill before pushing "Send."  I did not hear anything the next day or the day after that.  Okay, I thought, as long as the GC back home hasn't tinkered with their Two Pull I can forgive the franchise.  

By the time four days had gone by and I'd consumed several other beers (none from GC) at various establishments along the southeast route, I'd forgotten about my bad Mad City drinking experience.  Then, to my surprise, I received the following reply from Mr. Lyons:

John,

I am very sorry that your two pull was sub par from us here in Madison. I have called out our regional brewer to come and check out this issue and we also discovered that we have the wrong beer faucets on for our beers and it can give off a metallic taste to our beer so we have changed those out too. Thank you for the feed back and I will continue to watch that situation closer. If you are ever in Madison again and you decide to give me another chance I will pay for your two pull.

Thanks

Michael Lyons

General Manager

Granite City Food and Brewery

Madison, WI

My faith in humanity was restored!  The Disappointment was erased.  Kudos to GC and Michael Lyons.  He could have just blown me off as a whining Minnesotan who probably would not come his way again. But not only did he reply with an apology and an explanation, he followed up with corrective action at his restaurant.  That is the sign of a good GM.  Now I'm proud to say I'm still a card carrying member of the GC Mug Club, the only club of any kind to which I belong.

The Embarrassment.  I am not a car guy, a fact clearly in evidence by my driving a 2005 Toyota Corolla which I bought second hand in 2006.  (By the way, outside of oil changes and fuel, plus the occasional purchase of new tires, in the eleven years I have owned the car I have spent less than a few hundred bucks on it.)  Another piece of evidence is revealed by the following anecdote.

Whenever I'm undertaking a road trip of more than about three hundred miles, I usually rent a car.  The advantages are obvious, both from aesthetic and safety points of view, not to mention that driving to Florida in an eleven year old Corolla would be preposterous.  Momma C requested an SUV, so I rented a 2016 Kia Sportage from my buddy, Felix, at the downtown Avis store.  Loading the car with luggage and supplies posed no problem, and the car handled beautifully on the road.  We even got satellite radio -- Sixties On 6! -- an unexpected "free" accoutrement.  But when we arrived at the Madison Americinn, I could not get the tailgate open.  After furiously pushing the various buttons on both Avis remotes which were attached to the key ring, I yanked with both hands but the tailgate did not budge.  I tried facing away from the car with both hands tucked under the tailgate's edge and really lifting with my legs.  Nothing.  Mary gave it a go with the same result.  I combed the interior for a lever or latch without success.  I checked the glove compartment to consult the owner's manual, but of course it was missing.  (Why would anyone steal an owner's manual?)  Mary googled a query and found many people complaining about the very same problem, but none offered a solution.  I could not imagine myself hauling out luggage and supplies by crawling over the back seat every time we needed something at one of our many scheduled stops during the next three weeks.

Then somehow, some way, after many exasperating attempts, I got the tailgate open.  I'm not sure what I did differently, but we did manage to get what we needed for the night.  The next morning I decided to bring the car into a Kia dealership before hitting the road for a long travel day.  Luckily there was a Kia dealer a couple of blocks away.  I pulled into the service area and a young man named Phil asked why I was there.  I wasn't more than fifteen seconds into my story when a knowing smile/half-smirk came over his face.  I handed him the Avis remote, he pushed one button and, with one finger, easily opened and lifted the tailgate. 

Standing there with my mouth agape, I channeled by best Jack Buck.  "I don't believe what I just saw!"  Then, "I am so embarrassed."

Phil replied, "Don't be.  It happens all the time."  He then proceeded to show me the sweet spot, a little raised bump on the rubber pad under a chrome plate in the center of the tailgate.  "All you have to do is push the tailgate button on the remote for two seconds, then push the sweet spot."  

Pointing to another Kia SUV parked immediately in front of mine, Phil continued, "See that car?  It belongs to my boss, the service department manager.  It's been sitting there for ten days.  He bought it for his wife, then three days later brought it back in here claiming neither of them could get the tail gate open.  He handed the keys to one of the guys, said 'Fix it,' and promptly left for a two week vacation."

Well, okay then!  I may not be a car guy, I might have felt like a moron, but at least I was in good company with the service manager of the Kia dealership!

The Surprise.  As soon as you cross the Ohio River on I-24 from Illinois into Kentucky you see the lights of Paducah, our second night's stop 487 miles from Madison.  This is the Blue Grass State, the entry into the South.  It is also SEC territory.  For those of you not into college sports, "SEC" stands for the Southeastenn Conference, comprised of fourteen universities including UK, the University of Kentucky.  Basketball is king here, with the Wildcats' fans having no problem with their scandal-plagued coach, John Calipari, running a program designed to use recruits who have no intension of earning a degree (thus giving new meaning to the term "student athlete").  The state also has six other Division 1 basketball schools, including UK's arch rival, Louisville, from the Atlantic Coast Conference (another Power 5 conference like the SEC), and Murray State, only forty-seven miles from Paducah.

Once again for the second night in a row, we were tired and hungry when we checked into our motel, the Drury Inn on the outskirts of town.  As much as it would have been nice to explore Paducah and find a good restaurant, we couldn't resist the convenience of walking across the parking lot to Buffalo Wild Wings.  BW3, as it's commonly referred to, is obviously known for its wings, which can be dipped into a dozen or more different sauces, its tap beer selection and a plethora of televisions, all tuned to sporting events.  When we walked in the place was noisy and packed, like an indoor tailgate party.  The beloved UK Wildcats men's basketball team was taking on the Tennessee Volunteers in an SEC matchup, and many of the restaurant's patrons came with their game faces on and blue & white apparel.  There must have been twenty TV sets showing the game, visible from all areas in the cavernous space.  A few TVs were set for the Nashville Predators-Boston Bruins NHL game, with a handful of others airing various NBA tilts.  

The only seats we could find were at the very end of the bar, not really a great vantage point to watch the SEC battle.  (Probably a good thing, since I would have had to tamp down my preference for a Vols victory.)  Then, much to our surprise, we looked up at the smallest screen in the house tucked into the top corner behind the bar.  Lo and behold, there it was, our own little rodents, the Golden Gophers, about to do battle with the # 6 nationally ranked Maryland Terrapins on the Big Ten Network.  Momma Cuan and I were both astonished that here in this den of Wildcat hoops crazies, BW3 would even subscribe to the BTN.  Out of the 300 to 400 spectators in the place, we were certainly the only two watching that small screen.

A little background for the second surprise of the night.  Going into the game at The Barn, the Terps were ranked 6th in the country, and were # 2 in the country per the previous week's Associated Press poll.  By comparison, the Gophers were winless in their thirteen Big 10 games to that point, had suffered non-conference home losses to both South Dakota and South Dakota State, and stood almost no chance of coming within a dozen points of the heavily favored visitors from College Park.  Stranger things may have happened in the Dinkytown arena, but not many.  The Gophers held Maryland All-American guard Melo Trimble to a meager ten points on 3 for 11 field goal attempts, and the home town heroes won, 68-63.  It would prove to be not only a huge surprise, but the highlight of the entire season for Coach Little Richard's bedraggled, outmanned warriors.

The Discovery.  In the process of charting a course to Florida, I noticed a dark shaded area appearing on my atlas for western Kentucky, overlapping the state line into western Tennessee.  My curiosity was piqued, as I had never noticed any special designation like that on other maps.  It turned out to be Land Between The Lakes, a huge "recreation area" administered by the US Department Of Forestry.  We had been on an interstate since we left home.  It was time for a diversion.

Measuring 170,000 acres, Land Between The Lakes (LBL) is the largest inland peninsula in the United States.  It sits between two manmade lakes, Lake Barkley and Kentucky Lake, created when the federal government impounded the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers in the early sixties.  LBL was established by President Kennedy in 1963, and opened in 1964.  

As soon as we pulled off the interstate about twenty miles outside of Paducah, I knew we were entering a land of wonderment.  If there really was a Neverland, this must be it. I expected to spot the Lost Boys darting between the pines and balsams at any moment.  There was an immediate sense of isolation, no doubt augmented by the time of year being mid-February, definitely the offseason.  As we drove down the forty mile long Trace, we could see deep into the woods, occasionally catching a glimpse of the lakes.  A handful of apparently abandoned wood shacks lent a backwoods feel to the surroundings.  This may not have been the Ozarks, but Ma and Pa Kettle would have fit right in.  I could picture them mixing a batch of moonshine right there in this forest primeval.

Before leaving LBL we entered the Elk & Bison Prairie, where the object, aside from enjoying the natural surroundings, was to spot the two types of beasts for which the immense landscape was named.  Vehicles are commanded to stay on the paved loop, which traverses about three miles.  There was a postcard view around every bend, and we virtually had the whole place to ourselves.  We were three-quarters of our way around the path, and had not spotted any wildlife.  Still, the experience was worth the $5 admission.

Then, in the distance, we made out a herd of bison, lazily grazing and meandering, some napping, right up against the pavement and the tall grass that surrounded it.  I stopped the car and set the zoom feature of my camera to 16X, the maximum available.  I wanted to snap a shot or two before approaching any closer.  Who knows if they'd get up and run away?  After a few long-range shots we creeped along in the car until we were practically right on top of them.  Still, they did not budge, only gazing up with a short stare as if to say, "What are you humans doing on our turf?"

The temptation to keep shooting was there, but I did not want to be "one of those guys" who was so busy with his camera that he failed to live in the moment.  So we enjoyed keeping the animals company for several more minutes before exiting the prairie and continuing south along the Trace.  True, we never did see any elk, but maybe the bison had told them to scram.       

The Ignominious Moment.  Upon leaving Land Between The Lakes our immediate mission was to get back on Interstate 24, forty-five miles to the east near Clarksville, Tennessee.  Our planned route would take us over a couple of country roads.  One of the first little burgs we came upon was Dover, a typical Mid South rural village with lots of trees, hills, a mixture of American and Confederate flags, small shops, and a disproportionate amount of churches and pickup trucks.  Before we reached the downtown area on the four lane main drag, we drew close behind a very slow moving rusted out red car whose driver was riding her brake down the long curving slope, occasionally allowing her left tires to sneak over the striped lines.  Not wishing to take five minutes to make the descent behind the erratic driver, I pulled out into the left eastbound lane to pass her.  To shorten my time in her blind spot, I gave the accelerator a little oomph.  I was still in that lane when I saw the fuzzy wuzzy at the bottom of the slope, surreptitiously parked on the westbound shoulder.  I knew I was dead meat, and when the red globe lit up atop the squad car, my pessimistic conjecture was confirmed.  It was too late.  The cop wasted little time making a U-turn and, with his high beams flashing irritatingly in my rear view mirror, flagged me down.

I quickly pulled off, dutifully signaling my right turn like a good little boy, and came to a stop on a side street.  Mary offered one piece of advice.  "Now be nice to him, John."  I wasn't sure if she was kidding, but I assured her that I have always made it my policy never to argue with someone armed with a gun.

After what seemed like a long delay, the slender, short, middle age officer came up to my window.  His name plate read "Carl Selph." "How are you today, sir?" he asked.

Nothing annoys me more than a guy who fakes small talk while he's screwing you, but I can pretend too.  "I was doing great until about ninety seconds ago."

The policeman gave a muffled chuckle.  He was done with the niceties as he asked for my driver's license and registration.

"This is a rental car," I said, hoping to diffuse any suspicions that I might have stolen this car with Missouri plates which did not match my Minnesota license.  

"I've got you doing 65 in a 45," Officer Selph proclaimed, probably proud that his radar was capable of irrefutable exactitude."

I knew that reading to be grossly exaggerated, but I recognized the futility of a Yankee making a fuss south of the Mason-Dixon Line.  "You sure about that?" I meekly inquired.

"Yes, sir" was all he said.

The policeman went back to his cruiser, running my license through his on-board computer to see if I was an escaped fugitive.  "I sure hope he doesn't find out about that man I shot in Reno," I thought to myself.  I was going to try that joke on Momma Cuan, but doubted she was familiar with the Johnny Cash lyric, unless someone on American Idol or The Voice had recently covered Folsom Prison Blues.

After what seemed an eternity, Officer Selph came back to my window, handing me a ticket.  Would I have, instead, received a warning if I was from Dixie? I'll never know.

"I reduced the speed from 65 to 64 so your insurance premium hit won't be so bad."  Was I supposed to thank him for that gesture?  I did not have it in me to do so.

"What's this going to cost me?" 

"You have three choices," explained the man in blue (actually white).  "You can pay $125 through the mail, or you can plead not guilty in our county court, or you can enroll in a one week driving class here to erase the fine and remove the violation from your record."

I was going to ask him if I chose Door # 3 if I would be a student or the guest lecturer.  I really wanted to, but Mary was about to burst out laughing at the thought of me enrolling in that class, plus I did not want to get detained on a trumped up charge of resisting arrest.  So, I took the ticket with plans to mail a check to Dover, bid the constable adieu, and resumed our drive toward Clarksville.

In retrospect, I think I handled the situation well.  I took my medicine, I didn't raise a fuss, and I never once asked Officer Selph to say hi to Andy, Barney Fife or Aunt Bee.  Heck, I never even pointed out to the man that he was misspelling his last name.

Movie Review: "Gypsy: Rock & Roll Nomads"

"Gypsy: Rock & Roll Nomads": B.  In the mid-sixties the three most popular rock bands in the Twin Cities were, arguably, the Accents, Gregory Dee & The Avantis, and the Underbeats.  Gypsy: Rock & Roll Nomads is the story of the band which originally called themselves the Underbeats before moving to Los Angeles in 1968.  The documentary received a warm welcome at its initial showing last week as part of the Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival.

The Underbeats played at numerous venues throughout the Cities, including Mr. Lucky's, the Prom Ballroom and Danceland.  They also performed at teen clubs throughout the five state area and invariably drew large enthusiastic crowds.   The band was booked every weekend.  The roster changed over time, but its principal core was the trio of keyboardist James "Owl" Walsh, rhythm guitarist Jim James and lead guitarist Enrico Rosenbaum.   Although he kept a low profile, Enrico was responsible for writing almost all of the Underbeats' original music.

Notwithstanding the group's wild popularity on the five state circuit, the promised land in the music industry was LA.  The guys felt their careers had reached maximum potential as a Minnesota band, and only a move to the West Coast could send them to new heights.  While Johnson, a draftee, was fulfilling his obligations in Viet Nam, the band picked up stakes in 1968 and rented a house in the Los Feliz section of the big city.  Their back yard abutted that of the La Bianca family, murder victims at the hands of the Manson family.  In the City Of Angels there would be access to more radio stations, labels, promoters, booking agents, music halls, print media coverage, and other necessities for their dream to go national.

Among the first orders of business was to change their name to Gypsy, after briefly considering the moniker Spare Change.  Much of documentarian Aaron Goodyear's movie concentrates on those years in the Santa Monica hills.  One of Gypsy's early breaks occurred when they were hired to be the house band at Whiskey A Go Go, the pre-eminent venue for soon-to-be breaking artists in LA..  There they would be following in the footsteps of bands like Buffalo Springfield, the Byrds and the Doors, who also got their starts in that rollicking Sunset Strip club.

Blessed with three members who could sing lead, Gypsy's forte was vocal strength.  That, coupled with excellent production values and arrangements, set them apart from the competition.  Rosenbaum's music was catchy, electric, up tempo and danceable.  Although some members fell victim to the California rock star life style of drugs, booze, parties and groupies, they took their musical mission seriously, playing up to nine shows a week and rehearsing their craft diligently.  They were asked to tour as the warm up band with some of the big names in the business, like the Guess Who and Chicago.  Thanks to St. Louis radio station KSHE, which allowed their DJs to spin records of their own choosing, Gypsy established that city as their primary fan base.  The documentary contains video of a packed Busch Stadium, where the fans cheered the band on with Beatlesque hysteria.

The film briefly explores why Gypsy, in spite of its stellar Rosenbaum-penned repertoire, never made it as a national artist.  The main reason, albeit obvious, is that Gypsy never had that monster hit which could serve as their gateway to stardom.   The band never landed a song in the Top 40, as their most successful single, Gypsy Queen - Part 1, reached its zenith at # 62 on the Billboard charts in early 1971.  A second important cause of their shortcoming, if you want to call it that, was the selection of the label with which they chose to sign a recording contract.  According to Walsh and James, they opted for Metromedia instead of Atlantic Records because they thought the former company would give them more one-on-one support than the larger Atlantic could offer.  As it turned out, Metromedia simply did not have the resources or the experience to promote and underwrite a newcomer like Gypsy in its attempt to get noticed out of the dozens of competitors trying to go beyond the LA scene.

I was impressed with the work that went into the making of Goodyear's documentary.  He wisely inserted interviews with Minneapolis rock historian Rick Shefchik (the author of Everybody's Heard About The Bird: The True Story Of 1960's Rock 'n' Roll In Minnesota), who elaborated on the music landscape of the Twin Cities in the sixties.  Goodyear, whose day job is being a cameraman for WCCO sports, and Walsh were present at the Festival showing for a Q & A.  Although the film does show concert footage from the later years of Gypsy's run - they disbanded in 1975 -- it is sorely lacking in video coverage from the Underbeat days.  The irony of that omission is inescapably noticeable and disappointing , given the local angle marketing of the film by the Festival.  There is also no video from any of the dozens of shows Gypsy played at Whiskey A Go Go.

The death of Prince occurred five days ago, yet the Minneapolis Star Tribune still carries related stories as front page headline news.  One of the reasons Prince was cherished here is because even after he became a megastar, he continued to live and work in the area.  This leads me to wonder about the Underbeats' decision to bid farewell to Minny in 1968 and make its way to the coast.  Other of their Twin Cities contemporaries chose to stay in Cold Country and ended up with Top 40 hits, to wit, the Castaways from Richfield (Liar, Liar hit # 12 in 1965) and The Trashmen from Minneapolis (Surfin' Bird hitting # 4 in 1963, followed by Bird Dance Beat reaching # 30 in 1964).  Was heading to LA the right move for the Underbeats?  

Movie Review: "They Will Have To Kill Us First"

"They Will Have To Kill Us First": B.  Imagine a poor landlocked region of almost a half million square miles on the Dark Continent, somewhat shaped like a figure 8.  Then turn its north/south axis forty-five degrees to the right, put it in the middle of the Sahara Desert, and what you end up with is the country of Mali.  Despite their desolate third world surroundings, the people of Mali, most of whom are Muslim, are a happy, peaceful population who rely on music as an important source of joy. They Will Have To Kill Us First is a documentary which takes us through a recent three year period, commencing 2012, when the northern half of the country was overrun by jihadists who imposed a new, super-conservative set of laws on the citizens, including a prohibition against listening to or playing music.

The film focuses on four artists, the two most prominent of whom are the very likable Khaira Arby and Fadimatah "Disco" Oumar.  Both women are optimistic that one day they will play instrumental roles in bringing their native music back to their homeland.  For much of the story they are exiled from "the north" and must live either in the southern section of Mali, where its capital, Bamako, is located, or in neighboring Burkina Faso.  In spite of their setbacks, they have smiles on their faces as they are interviewed over the course of three years by the filmmakers.  Khaira's dream is to return to her home city of Timbuktu, located in the north, and put on a free concert for those who lived through the turmoil and suffering under the invaders' regime.  While they wait for the French army, and later the UN forces, to eradicate the Islamic extremists, Khaira and Disco carry on singing and playing.  These strong women do so with joy, and a touch of defiance.  Music is like a religion to these spiritual women; they will not be denied.

The other two artists interviewed at various times throughout the film are Moussa Sidi and the band Songhoy Blues.  The former, usually seen in his purple robe and turban, speaks of his wife whom he left behind in the northern city of Gao and who now might be in prison.  Strangely, he does not seem too worried.  Moussa's social skills, at least in front of a camera, are nearly at the opposite end of the spectrum to those of the two featured women.  One reason for his reticence is that he is a Tuareg, i.e., a member of the nomadic race that is indigenous to the Sahara.  This makes him noticeably different from most of the residents of Bamako, whose ethnicity is Bambara, so he keeps a low profile.   He is unintentionally funny.

The fourth artist, Songhoy Blues, is comprised of four musicians from various parts of Mali.  They came together in Bamako.  Unlike Khaira, Disco and Moussa, they choose to make their mark in London rather than wait for the northern section of Mali to be restored to peace.  Thus one questions why they are included in the documentary, other than to show how different artists handled the disruption to their lives in different ways.  The music of Soghoy Blues is the most accessible and, to my ears, most enjoyable of any on the soundtrack.  It's a fusion of reggae and blues, heavy on acoustic guitars and percussion.  So, I don't blame director Johanna Schwartz for including the quartet.

Although the salvation and restoration of music is the impetus for the film, I found the historical details for this remote country even more attention grabbing.  The 2012 turmoil started when the Tuareg people of the north rebelled against the national government in an attempt to form their own independent state.  That uprising made the north vulnerable to the jihadists who poured in, overwhelmed their opposition and established their version of Sharia law.  The documentary includes rare footage of the extremists' exploits, including a gruesome infliction of corporal punishment, albeit distantly shot (thank goodness).

This movie is part of the 35th annual Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival.  Unless one buys a season pass or a discounted six pack, individual tickets are priced at $13.  That is fairly steep, yet the Uptown Theater was almost filled to capacity for the film's first showing last Friday evening.  To take the bite out of the hefty entry fee, Songhoy Blues showed up in person after the screening for a twenty minute Q & A.  French is their native language, although one of the three also spoke English.  The band's manager who stood next to them assisted with translation.  At least three of the young men seemed eager to share their story, and required little prompting by the Festival moderator.  The band, which was booked at Ice House right after the show, is on a short American tour.  The Festival is screening the film one more time, tomorrow at 4:35 at the Uptown.

Quarterly Cinema Scan - Volume XXIII

Did you ever notice that, throughout the years, there exists a handful of movies which have become almost equally famous for a certain spoken line as for the story itself.  For example, most of you have probably heard the famous quote, "I coulda been a contenda" uttered by a distraught Marlon Brando.  But I'd be willing to bet that only a fraction of the people who are vaguely familiar with it can identify the movie, the name of Brando's character or, much less, the plot.  The film is On The Waterfront, winner of the Best Picture Oscar from 1954.  Another prize commensurate with the Oscar garnered by that classic was the grade of A which I bestowed upon it in my Quarterly Cinema Scan on April 2, 2013.

 

Along the same lines is this: "What we have here is a failure to communicate."  Many have heard, or even used, that expression -- I heard a basketball analyst use it this year when a guard errantly passed the ball out of bounds because he mistakenly thought his teammate would be there -- but I dare say they may be stumped in an attempt to identify the movie (1967's Cool Hand Luke), the character or actor (originally spoken by Strother Martin playing the Captain), and the plot.  (I gave the film a B in the same QCS noted above.)

 

The list of quotes which have come close to supplanting, in our collective memories, the stories of the movies in which they were spoken goes on.  Examples include "Make my day" from 1971's Dirty Harry,  "I'll have what she's having" from 1989's When Harry Met Sally, and "The Dude abides" from 1998's The Big Lebowski.  One of the most puzzling instances of a movie line becoming almost an everyday expression was "Love means never having to say you're sorry."  It comes from the 1970's weeper, Love Story, starring Ryan O'Neill as Oliver Barrett IV and Ali McGraw as Jenny Cavalleri.  He is a Harvard senior from a wealthy family which has sent generations of sons to that Ivy League school.  She's a Radcliffe student from a blue collar family, and works in the library where they meet.  As you might guess from the title, they fall in love, but their relationship is star-crossed.

 

The famous line is uttered only twice.  In the first instance, the couple has a quarrel and Jenny storms out of their house.  When she doesn't return, Oliver unsuccessfully  searches for her all over the neighborhood and nearby campus.  He is beside himself when he walks back to the house in the pouring rain, only to find his wife sitting on the front steps, shivering and locked out.  Pneumonia is a possibility.  Oliver begins to apologize profusely, but Jenny stops him mid-sentence and tells him there's no need to apologize.  "Love means never having to say you're sorry."  (The second time the line is spoken is near the end of the movie, but to put it in context more would be a spoiler of sorts.)

 

My reaction to Jenny's proclamation: Huh?  What a bunch of hooey.  It seems to me just the opposite is true.  If more warring couples found the humility to cough up an apology instead of insisting on getting in the last dig, peace could be restored more often and more expeditiously.  I am confident my position on the matter is true, yet the line became a catch phrase in the seventies to the point where it seemed the majority of the public agreed with it.  Maybe it's simply a matter of the words being more catchy than profound.

 

Here are the movies I watched at the QE during the first three months of this year.

 

1. Cooley High (1975 comedy; Glynn Turman and Lawrence-Hilton Jacobs are high school seniors growing up in the projects of the near north side in Chicago, where they play hooky, sweet talk girls, shoot hoops, party and commit petty crimes.) C

2. For Whom The Bell Tolls (1943 war drama; during the Spanish Civil War, American explosives expert Gary Cooper holes up in a cave with Republican rebels led by Katina Paxinou, and while waiting for the signal to blow up a strategic bridge, he falls in love with Ingrid Bergman.) C

3. Lillith (1964 drama; mental asylum beauty Jean Seberg is the object of affection from fellow inmate Peter Fonda and staff assistant Warren Beatty.) C+

4. Love Story (1970 romance drama; Ryan O'Neill is a legacy Harvard senior who falls for Radcliffe student Ali McGraw, the daughter of an Italian bakery chef.)  B

5. Pride And Prejudice (1940 comedy; Greer Garson, the second oldest of five daughters in a commoner's family, is hesitatingly wooed by Laurence Olivier, a wealthy bachelor who initially isn't sure if Greer is good enough for him.) A-

6. Room (2015 drama; after being kidnapped, impregnated and secretly held captive in a back yard shed for seven years, Brie Larson helps her five year old son, Jacob Tremblay, adjust to the outside world, while she herself confronts a range of obstacles and emotions.) B-

7. Scarlet Street (1945 drama; Edward G. Robinson, an unhappily married painter, gets played for a sucker by a much younger Joan Bennett at the urging of her worthless boyfriend, Dan Duryea.) B+

8. Sense And Sensibility (1995 drama; sensible Emma Thompson and her younger sensitive sister, Kate Winslet, are initially unlucky at love, partly due to the English laws which deprive them of inheriting their father's fortune.) B

Movie Review: "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot"

"Whiskey Tango Foxtrot": B.  Whiskey Tango Foxtrot is a coming of age movie, but not of the sort usually given that description.  Kim Baker (Tina Fey) works for a big city news organization, mostly writing copy for the on-air "talent."  It is boring and ungratifying work.  In the age of nascent social media and instant notification of newsworthy events, the trend for the public's reliance on newspapers is dwindling, and local news is mere filler in between more important national and international stories.  As this revelation is occurring to Baker, she sees Tanya Vanderpoel (sexy Margot Robbie), a beautiful Australian war correspondent, giving a battlefront report from Afghanistan on live network television.  Baker envies Vanderpoel's status as a revered journalist, and within a few scenes, Baker has become an embedded reporter with the US Marines in Kandahar Province.  This new career will be the exact opposite of the boring yet safe occupation she left behind.

Baker is naive as she starts this new chapter in her life.  She does not speak the local language and has to be tutored regarding religious proprieties.  Vanderpoel, who is simultaneously Baker's friend and occupational rival, takes the rookie under her wing, telling the new arrival that back in the States she (Baker) might only be "a six or a seven," but in Afghanistan she's a "Kabul Cutie."  In other words, be on your guard around men.

Marine Corps General Hollanek (Billy Bob Thornton) is a difficult man to impress.  If it were up to him there would be no embedded journalists accompanying his troops.  They mostly get in the way of his men, and God forbid a journalist should be killed or wounded on his watch.  But the Corps is willing to put up with the intrusion because of the upside potential of good publicity making the airwaves back home.  Notwithstanding Hollanek's reservations, from the first combat mission on which Baker rides along her bravery in the line of fire impresses the grizzled Marine.  She is there to report on the firefights, not just their aftermath.

Before too long, life in the war torn desert country becomes the new norm for Baker.  She catches herself referring to Kabul as her home, and what started out as a temporary assignment turns into a three year sojourn.  There is little she misses about the life she once knew, including her boyfriend Chris (Josh Charles).  In front of the camera Baker covers life and death.  Behind the scenes out of the public's view are wild parties and one night stands.  She and her friends work hard and play even harder.

The script is guilty of presenting a few too many redundant scenes, but one which stands out positively shows how Baker is able to gain the trust of the women in a small village where General Hollanek's men are repairing, for the third or fourth time, a water well.  Hollanek is puzzled regarding the cause of the well's repeated damage.  Baker advises the general that the women themselves confided to her that they intentionally sabotaged the well so that they would have an excuse to get their water from the nearby river, thus providing an opportunity to socialize out of earshot of the local men.

The unsung hero in Baker's story is her Afghan "fixer," Fahim (Christopher Abbott).  He mentors her as she tries to assimilate the local customs and culture, a challenge even for a man to undertake and exponentially more difficult for a woman.  Fahim also bravely pulls Baker away when she foolishly attempts to photograph covertly a radical Muslim who is preaching to an angry crowd.  Of the male characters in the film, he is the only likable one.  The story lines involving Scottish photographer Iain Mac Kelpie (Martin Freeman) and Afghan attorney Ali Massoud Sadiq (Alfred Molina), both of whom have sexual conquest on the brain, are ridiculously absurd and count as negative check marks on my report card.  At least they provide a laugh or two.

I was impressed with Fey's acting performance in the predominately serious role.  I was a little worried that every time I saw her on screen I would have difficulty erasing Sarah Palin from my thoughts.  (A similar problem occurs in other movies when I see Steve Carell onscreen and flash back to his Michael Scott character from The Office.)  Whiskey Tango Foxtrot is a film which mixes drama and comedy while delivering a message that war is never the answer.  It is not in the same league with the incomparable satire MASH, but few movies, regardless of genre, are.