"Beirut": B+. Although the Lebanese Civil War did not technically start until 1975, the vibe in the capital city of Beirut three years before was not one of peace and tranquility. The uneasiness stemmed from a combination of a weak central government and several revolutionary factions who were biding their time waiting for the most opportune moment to strike a match. Those factions had their roots in political, religious and ethnic causes. Lurking in the background were the Israelis, who many felt were just looking for an excuse to invade. Even without an invasion, the invisible Mossad was never far away. The scene in 1972 Beirut was described by Mason Skiles (Jon Hamm), the main character in the movie Beirut, as "a boarding house without a landlord."
Yet, to a casual observer or even a tourist, life in the Mediterranean city went on undisturbed. When we are introduced to Skiles, an American diplomat stationed in Beirut, he and his wife, Nadia, are hosting a sophisticated party in their upscale residence. Skiles is dashing, eloquent and at ease making the rounds, graciously catering to his guests. He is helped by a thirteen year old Lebanese orphan, Karim, whom Skiles and Nadia have rescued off the streets.
The first sign of trouble occurs midway through the party when Skiles' best friend and colleague, Cal Riley (Mark Pellegrino), confronts him with the shocking news that one of the terrorists behind the recent Munich Olympics massacre is Karim's brother, Rami (Ben Affan). An incredulous Skiles is slow to react. Moments later the worst fears as planted by Riley come true.
We leap ahead ten years to Act Two. Skiles is back in the States, his life as a rising star in the world of diplomacy long gone. When bad things happen on your watch, that is the end of the line. Instead, he is a depressed alcoholic, working as a labor contract mediator trying in vain to get union reps and management "suits" to meet in the middle. It is as far removed from his previous exciting career as possible. While sitting alone at a bar, his usual haunt, a former acquaintance, Sully, drops an envelope in front of Skiles and tells him his presence is requested in Beirut to deliver a lecture at the American University. Inside the envelope is a passport, $6,500 and a plane ticket. Skiles correctly figures the lecture is just a pretext for getting him back to Lebanon, now in the midst of its civil war, but he takes the bait anyway.
Things move fast when he arrives in Beirut. The city is a shambles, armed military personnel is everywhere, and keeping a low profile is the order of the day. At the U.S. embassy Skiles is greeted by three male State Department officials, Gaines, Muzak and Shalen, plus their apparent subordinate, Agent Sandy Crowder (Rosamund Pike). Skiles wants to dispense with the niceties and cut right to the chase. Why was he needed in Beruit, a place from which he'd been professionally exiled a decade ago? The foursome advises Skiles that he's there to negotiate and facilitate the release of an American hostage from his militant captors. Skiles' background as a labor mediator and his fluency in Arabic will come in handy. It soon becomes apparent to Skiles that the Americans are less interested in the welfare of the hostage than they are about the possibility of him divulging under duress highly classified information. The identities of the captive and the chief captor may surprise you -- but probably not.
Beirut was written and produced by Tony Gilroy, who also wrote the scripts for four Jason Bourne movies plus Michael Clayton, my highest-ranked film from 2007. I had heard that the story line for Beirut was complex, so I brought some insurance with me to the cinema, viz., Momma Cuandito, whom I sometimes rely on for post-viewing explanations. It turns out the story, while a little tangled at times, is not as complicated as I'd feared. An expert writer, Gilroy surely does know how to spin a tale.
John Hamm was a splendid choice to play Skiles. He is mostly known as a television actor, particularly for his work in the hit show Mad Men, which ran for seven seasons, an almost unheard of feat in that medium. Mason Skiles is by far the best movie role in which Hamm has ever been cast, a fearless go-between who is willing to walk into volatile environments without packing a weapon. As AARP Magazine might say, Beirut is a movie for grownups. Put it on your Must See List.
Monday, April 30, 2018
Saturday, April 21, 2018
Movie Review: "The Shape Of Water"
"The Shape Of Water": A-. I had decided not to see The Shape Of Water unless it won the Best Picture Oscar this year. The genre in which the media and advertisers placed it, science fantasy, is not attractive to me, although I am a big fan of the leading female actress, Sally Hawkins. As luck -- good luck it turns out -- would have it, the film did win the top prize, so I dragged Momma Cuandito, who was also somewhat reluctant, to the theater. We both loved it.
Hawkins plays Elisa Esposito, a mute custodian who works in a secret government building along side her co-worker and interpreter, Zelda (Octavia Spencer). The building is a high security facility, where secret experiments are conducted with the aim of giving the United States an edge in the Cold War. One of those experiments involves the incarceration of a man-like aquatic creature who is restrained by chains in an indoor salt water pool. Like Elisa, the creature does not speak, but through gestures, body language and facial expressions, he obviously is keenly aware of her kindness toward him. Secretly, Elisa finds time to visit the creature, while her friend, Zelda, covers for her. Elisa did not have a man in her life, but now she does... sort of.
Meanwhile, unbeknownst to Elisa and Zelda, two chains of action are in the works which will spell trouble for the creature and his new-found friend. Colonel Richard Strickland (Michael Shannon), the army officer who captured the creature out of a South American river, is ordered by his superior to perform a biological experiment which will result in the captive's death. Ordinarily one would think that receiving such an order would give a man, even a military officer, pause, but not Colonel Strickland. He does not put up an argument, partly because of his rank and partly because he is probably psychopathic. An objection to the planned demise of the creature is raised, however, by a scientist, Robert Hoffstetler (Michael Stuhlbarg), which leads us to the second "chain."
Hoffstetler, although he works in the facility's secret lab, is actually a Soviet spy named Dimitri Mosenkov. He is the most conflicted character in the story, having to take orders not only from Strickland but from his Soviet handlers who also want the creature killed for their own competitive militaristic reasons. In quick succession, Elisa learns of the U.S. Army's sinister plans for her amphibious friend, and with the help of Zelda, Mosenkov and her next door neighbor, Giles (Richard Jenkins), she frees the creature with a daring escape and hides him in her apartment.
The stage is now set for the budding romance between Elisa and the amphibious "man" to evolve, but how long can she successfully hide him before he is either recaptured or perishes due to absence from his natural habitat?
At first blush a story of a romance between a woman and a non-human being sounds creepy, if not disgusting (not to mention illegal). But hats off to writer-director Guillermo del Toro for keeping things on the up and up. Doug Jones, the actor who plays the amphibious creature, certainly deserves more than a nod too. If the viewer is willing to accept that the movie is, indeed, a fantasy, the love story will probably not pose a problem. Actually, I had a harder time accepting that a bathroom could completely fill up with water merely by turning on the bathtub faucet, stuffing a washcloth in the drain and plugging the gap between the bottom of the door and the bathroom floor with a towel or two!
Hawkins turns in another first rate performance, as I knew she would. The combination of her entrancing eyes and smooth delivery of sign language enables us to guess with a high degree of confidence what she is feeling and communicating in her own way. On the other end of the spectrum, Shannon makes a terrific villain, one of the most sadistic in recent memory. His use of a taser stick in a couple of scenes is hard to watch. Even the side characters, those portrayed by Spencer and especially Jenkins, add beneficial supplements to the story, although a certain scene with Jenkins sitting at the counter in a pie shop should have landed on the cutting room floor.
Two of the Academy Award Oscars went to del Toro for direction and Alexandre Desalt for his amazing score. The latter wrote twenty of the twenty-eight songs sprinkled throughout the movie. I find it interesting and disappointing to compare the performances of Sally Hawkins, who was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar but did not win, with Frances McDormand, who did for her performance in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (reviewed here on December 23, 2017; B+). Without uttering a single word, Hawkins' Elisa conveyed love, curiosity, kindness, concern and bravery. McDormand's Mildred Hayes was a foul-mouthed, aggrieved, monotone and mostly boring woman. Apparently that is what the Academy voters were looking for.
Hawkins plays Elisa Esposito, a mute custodian who works in a secret government building along side her co-worker and interpreter, Zelda (Octavia Spencer). The building is a high security facility, where secret experiments are conducted with the aim of giving the United States an edge in the Cold War. One of those experiments involves the incarceration of a man-like aquatic creature who is restrained by chains in an indoor salt water pool. Like Elisa, the creature does not speak, but through gestures, body language and facial expressions, he obviously is keenly aware of her kindness toward him. Secretly, Elisa finds time to visit the creature, while her friend, Zelda, covers for her. Elisa did not have a man in her life, but now she does... sort of.
Meanwhile, unbeknownst to Elisa and Zelda, two chains of action are in the works which will spell trouble for the creature and his new-found friend. Colonel Richard Strickland (Michael Shannon), the army officer who captured the creature out of a South American river, is ordered by his superior to perform a biological experiment which will result in the captive's death. Ordinarily one would think that receiving such an order would give a man, even a military officer, pause, but not Colonel Strickland. He does not put up an argument, partly because of his rank and partly because he is probably psychopathic. An objection to the planned demise of the creature is raised, however, by a scientist, Robert Hoffstetler (Michael Stuhlbarg), which leads us to the second "chain."
Hoffstetler, although he works in the facility's secret lab, is actually a Soviet spy named Dimitri Mosenkov. He is the most conflicted character in the story, having to take orders not only from Strickland but from his Soviet handlers who also want the creature killed for their own competitive militaristic reasons. In quick succession, Elisa learns of the U.S. Army's sinister plans for her amphibious friend, and with the help of Zelda, Mosenkov and her next door neighbor, Giles (Richard Jenkins), she frees the creature with a daring escape and hides him in her apartment.
The stage is now set for the budding romance between Elisa and the amphibious "man" to evolve, but how long can she successfully hide him before he is either recaptured or perishes due to absence from his natural habitat?
At first blush a story of a romance between a woman and a non-human being sounds creepy, if not disgusting (not to mention illegal). But hats off to writer-director Guillermo del Toro for keeping things on the up and up. Doug Jones, the actor who plays the amphibious creature, certainly deserves more than a nod too. If the viewer is willing to accept that the movie is, indeed, a fantasy, the love story will probably not pose a problem. Actually, I had a harder time accepting that a bathroom could completely fill up with water merely by turning on the bathtub faucet, stuffing a washcloth in the drain and plugging the gap between the bottom of the door and the bathroom floor with a towel or two!
Hawkins turns in another first rate performance, as I knew she would. The combination of her entrancing eyes and smooth delivery of sign language enables us to guess with a high degree of confidence what she is feeling and communicating in her own way. On the other end of the spectrum, Shannon makes a terrific villain, one of the most sadistic in recent memory. His use of a taser stick in a couple of scenes is hard to watch. Even the side characters, those portrayed by Spencer and especially Jenkins, add beneficial supplements to the story, although a certain scene with Jenkins sitting at the counter in a pie shop should have landed on the cutting room floor.
Two of the Academy Award Oscars went to del Toro for direction and Alexandre Desalt for his amazing score. The latter wrote twenty of the twenty-eight songs sprinkled throughout the movie. I find it interesting and disappointing to compare the performances of Sally Hawkins, who was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar but did not win, with Frances McDormand, who did for her performance in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (reviewed here on December 23, 2017; B+). Without uttering a single word, Hawkins' Elisa conveyed love, curiosity, kindness, concern and bravery. McDormand's Mildred Hayes was a foul-mouthed, aggrieved, monotone and mostly boring woman. Apparently that is what the Academy voters were looking for.
Wednesday, April 18, 2018
Quarterly Cinema Scan - Volume XXXI
In 2016 Ron Howard, a former childhood actor who is now one of Hollywood's most admired directors, made a documentary titled The Beatles: Eight Days A Week -- The Touring Years. Although volumes have been written about the Beatles phenomenon, there have not been many films, especially full length feature films, on the subject. It is hard for many baby boomers to relate to the younger generation just how crazy things got musically and even culturally during the so-called British Invasion, which started in 1964. Thank you, Ron Howard. You have made our task much easier.
Howard's documentary starts in England in late 1963. The Beatles were fast becoming the number one music group in the UK, if not in the entirety of Europe. Yet in the United States, the band was unknown. On December 17, 1963, Washington, DC radio station WWDC became the first outlet in our country to play a Beatles tune, I Want To Hold Your Hand. But it wasn't until the famous Ed Sullivan Show on February 9, 1964 that American teens were introduced to the mop tops.
Howard has assembled an amazing collection of interviews with all of the Beatles, including modern day dialogues with the two surviving members, Paul and Ringo. There are press conferences, concert footage and television broadcasts, as well as perspectives from historians, music critics, and contemporary musicians. Howard also includes reflections of a handful of celebrities like Sigourney Weaver and Whoopi Goldberg on how the Beatles impacted their lives. The concert footage is excellent, considering it was recorded over fifty years ago. The movie's viewers definitely get a true sense of what it was like to be present among the screaming fans.
Being a linear guy, I appreciate the construction of this documentary. Scenes proceed in chronological order, from the Liverpool days to the famous Apple Corps rooftop concert on January 30, 1969, the last time the lads played together in public. But as you'd guess from the film's title, the emphasis is on the period from the Sullivan show to the Candlestick Park concert on August 29, 1966. As most Beatlemaniacs know, that was their final gig on their last-ever tour.
There has been much written on how the Beatles formed as a group and what led to their 1970 breakup. Howard's documentary focuses on a less-examined question: Why did the Beatles, at the pinnacle of their popularity, cease touring after Candlestick? There is no one reason; in fact there are several, some obvious and some more nuanced. The Howard film shows us not merely "the what and when" but "the why" as well. It also examines how the voluntary cessation of touring affected their subsequent artistry as song writers, musicians and arrangers.
***
Here are the movies I watched on the tube during the first quarter of 2018.
1. The Beatles: Eight Days A Week -- The Touring Years (2016 documentary covering roughly the period starting with the early '60's Cavern Club/Hamburg days to the 1969 Apple Records rooftop concert in London.) A
2. The Firm (1993 drama; new Harvard Law School grad Tom Cruise accepts an offer from a Memphis law firm, after which his wife Jeanne Tripplehorn's suspicions about the firm's partners, including Gene Hackman, become reality.) A
3. Paul Blart: Mall Cop (2009 comedy; Kevin James, a hapless mall security guard, risks his life to save his crush, Jayma Mays, when bad guys take over a huge suburban mall.) C
4. A River Runs Through It (1992 biopic; two brothers, Craig Sheffer and Brad Pitt, grow up with a love for fly fishing in Montana, but as adults choose disparate paths.) B+
5. Roman J. Israel, Esq. (2017 drama; Denzel Washington is an idealistic, introverted criminal defense lawyer in LA who, following his senior partner's death, reluctantly accepts an offer from a silk stocking mega-firm headed by Colin Farrell.) B
6. Splendor In The Grass (1961 drama; Natalie Wood and Warren Beatty are small town Kansas teenagers who seem perfectly suited for each other, but things start to fall apart when Beatty's eagerness to take things to the next level sexually do not mesh with Wood's strict upbringing and fragile mental state.) C+
7. The Usual Suspects (1995 drama; US Customs Agent Chazz Palminteri grills con man Kevin Spacey about a ship explosion which occurred after a former dirty cop, Gabriel Byrne, had led a small group of ex-cons on board.) B+
8. The Year of Living Dangerously (1982 drama; during the initial stages of Indonesia's civil war in 1965, Australian reporter Mel Gibson relies heavily on local photographer Linda Hunt, and romances English foreign service insider Sigourney Weaver.) B+
Howard's documentary starts in England in late 1963. The Beatles were fast becoming the number one music group in the UK, if not in the entirety of Europe. Yet in the United States, the band was unknown. On December 17, 1963, Washington, DC radio station WWDC became the first outlet in our country to play a Beatles tune, I Want To Hold Your Hand. But it wasn't until the famous Ed Sullivan Show on February 9, 1964 that American teens were introduced to the mop tops.
Howard has assembled an amazing collection of interviews with all of the Beatles, including modern day dialogues with the two surviving members, Paul and Ringo. There are press conferences, concert footage and television broadcasts, as well as perspectives from historians, music critics, and contemporary musicians. Howard also includes reflections of a handful of celebrities like Sigourney Weaver and Whoopi Goldberg on how the Beatles impacted their lives. The concert footage is excellent, considering it was recorded over fifty years ago. The movie's viewers definitely get a true sense of what it was like to be present among the screaming fans.
Being a linear guy, I appreciate the construction of this documentary. Scenes proceed in chronological order, from the Liverpool days to the famous Apple Corps rooftop concert on January 30, 1969, the last time the lads played together in public. But as you'd guess from the film's title, the emphasis is on the period from the Sullivan show to the Candlestick Park concert on August 29, 1966. As most Beatlemaniacs know, that was their final gig on their last-ever tour.
There has been much written on how the Beatles formed as a group and what led to their 1970 breakup. Howard's documentary focuses on a less-examined question: Why did the Beatles, at the pinnacle of their popularity, cease touring after Candlestick? There is no one reason; in fact there are several, some obvious and some more nuanced. The Howard film shows us not merely "the what and when" but "the why" as well. It also examines how the voluntary cessation of touring affected their subsequent artistry as song writers, musicians and arrangers.
***
Here are the movies I watched on the tube during the first quarter of 2018.
1. The Beatles: Eight Days A Week -- The Touring Years (2016 documentary covering roughly the period starting with the early '60's Cavern Club/Hamburg days to the 1969 Apple Records rooftop concert in London.) A
2. The Firm (1993 drama; new Harvard Law School grad Tom Cruise accepts an offer from a Memphis law firm, after which his wife Jeanne Tripplehorn's suspicions about the firm's partners, including Gene Hackman, become reality.) A
3. Paul Blart: Mall Cop (2009 comedy; Kevin James, a hapless mall security guard, risks his life to save his crush, Jayma Mays, when bad guys take over a huge suburban mall.) C
4. A River Runs Through It (1992 biopic; two brothers, Craig Sheffer and Brad Pitt, grow up with a love for fly fishing in Montana, but as adults choose disparate paths.) B+
5. Roman J. Israel, Esq. (2017 drama; Denzel Washington is an idealistic, introverted criminal defense lawyer in LA who, following his senior partner's death, reluctantly accepts an offer from a silk stocking mega-firm headed by Colin Farrell.) B
6. Splendor In The Grass (1961 drama; Natalie Wood and Warren Beatty are small town Kansas teenagers who seem perfectly suited for each other, but things start to fall apart when Beatty's eagerness to take things to the next level sexually do not mesh with Wood's strict upbringing and fragile mental state.) C+
7. The Usual Suspects (1995 drama; US Customs Agent Chazz Palminteri grills con man Kevin Spacey about a ship explosion which occurred after a former dirty cop, Gabriel Byrne, had led a small group of ex-cons on board.) B+
8. The Year of Living Dangerously (1982 drama; during the initial stages of Indonesia's civil war in 1965, Australian reporter Mel Gibson relies heavily on local photographer Linda Hunt, and romances English foreign service insider Sigourney Weaver.) B+
Friday, March 16, 2018
Fouls To Give
March Madness, The Big Dance, Hoops Hoopla. The NCAA men's tournament has started. Many of us will now watch games between two teams we haven't followed all year. Even if we don't have a rooting interest or a connection to either of the combatants, we can always resort to cheering for the team wearing the darker jerseys; they are the lower seed, and therefore the underdog. The excitement level of most year's tournaments is directly proportional to how many upsets occur. The tournament is comprised of sixty-seven games, and you can bet that a chunk of them will go to the underdog. In fact, since the turn of the century there has been only one year, 2008, when the top seed from each region made it to the Final Four.
One basketball term which the television and radio announcers have been using more over the past several years is "fouls to give." I don't remember that term being used much, if at all, until about two or three years ago. What does it mean, and why is it important?
In men's college basketball, a non-shooting foul (sometimes referred to as a "common foul") does not result in a free throw until the offending team has committed its seventh foul of the half. At that time, the opponent is in the "bonus" and is therefore entitled to a "one-and-one," i.e., a free throw which, if successful, is followed by a second free throw. Once a team commits its tenth foul of the half, the opponent is in the "double bonus" and is therefore entitled to shoot two free throws even if the first attempt is unsuccessful.
When a team has "fouls to give" that means it has not yet reached its sixth team foul of the half, so the commission of its next foul will not put their opponent in the bonus. Thus the next common foul will not result in the opponent getting any free throw. The opponent will merely get to inbound the ball. With that in mind, sometimes teams with a foul to give will intentionally foul a player on the other team toward the end of a close game.
Consider this scenario. Minnesota leads Iowa by three points with ten seconds to go in the game. Iowa inbounds the ball at the opposite end of the court (ninety-four feet away) from its offensive basket, and Minnesota has fouls to give. The Minnesota coaches have a choice to make. Do we simply play tough defense for ten seconds, or do we intentionally foul an Iowa player when the clock has dwindled down to about four or five seconds? Because Minnesota has fouls to give, if Minnesota executes the latter strategy, Iowa will not go to the free throw line. Iowa will have to inbound the ball with only four or five seconds left.
There are two schools of thought on the wisdom of employing the end-game strategy of intentionally fouling an opponent when your team has fouls to give. Here are the most important pros and cons.
The Pros:
1. Generally, fouling the opponent disrupts the opponent's rhythm. It is not unlike a track sprint race with a false start. Now the athletes have to start all over again, only in a basketball game there is now less time available for a team to do what it had originally planned.
2. The strategy works best if the opponent does not have any time out remaining. The opponent's coach probably spent his last time out designing a play to run for the situation which presented itself at the ten second mark. That plan at least partially, if not completely, goes out the window after the intentional foul.
3. Following along the same lines as # 2, it stands to reason that the more time which elapses between the coach's instruction and the moment of execution, the less likely successful execution will be. This is particularly true if the team with the ball is young, inexperienced and on the road with thousands of fans screaming. In our hypothetical, if Iowa is playing several underclassmen in The Barn, their chances of tying the game are decreased by Minnesota's intentional foul.
4. The opponent is forced to inbound the ball, not always an easy task. Minnesota will probably have its tallest player, with a wing span resembling that of a Boeing 747, jumping and waving his arms in front of the inbounds passer. Minnesota will want to force Iowa to inbound the ball to a Hawkeye running away from his basket. That will eat up a few more precious seconds.
5. Even if Iowa completes the inbounds pass, with fewer ticks left on the clock, Iowa will be limited as to how many dribbles and passes it can make before its final shot.
6. If Minnesota still has yet another foul to give, it might even do so again after the inbounds pass has been completed.
The Cons:
If intentionally fouling when you have fouls to give is such a brilliant end-game idea, why don't teams do it all the time? Here are some reasons why, and they are all deal breakers.
1. Minnesota must not be called for an intentional foul, even though they are intentionally fouling! In other words, the Gopher committing the foul has to be somewhat of a good actor. He can't just hack at the Iowa player he wants to foul. If the referee rules that the foul was intentional, Iowa will shoot free throws and then retain possession of the ball. A good rule of thumb for making an intentional foul look unintentional is this: Swipe up at the ball, not down. If you swipe up, you will not be called for a hack.
2. Equally as dangerous as # 1 is the possibility of fouling a player in the act of shooting. If the Gopher player is just a few tenths of a second too late with his intentional foul, the Iowa player could launch a shot in the process. If the referee deems the foul was a "shooting foul" (not a common foul), Iowa will shoot one free throw if the shot goes in, or two free throws if the shot misses. Either way, bad news for the Gophers.
3. The Minnesota coach should be able to trust a bench player to commit the intentional foul. You want to avoid having to use a starter, especially one who already has three or four personal fouls, to be the one who commits the foul, because if by some miracle Iowa sends the game into overtime, you want your starter available for the OT. The problem for Minnesota is that the bench player may not be accustomed to being used in crunch time, and now you are asking him to perform a key role in your strategy.
4. This might be the biggest warning of all, and it is one emphasized by basketball analyst/guru Fran Fraschilla many times. A coach whose team has a foul to give should not ask his players to do so unless his team has repeatedly practiced that end-game scenario throughout the season. The art of intentionally fouling an opposing player in the heat of battle requires (as noted above) perfect timing and a bit of acting. This is not something you whip up on a clip board during a thirty second time out. Using a "foul to give" has to be part of a team's regular arsenal. If it's not, just play tough D and forget about giving the foul.
One basketball term which the television and radio announcers have been using more over the past several years is "fouls to give." I don't remember that term being used much, if at all, until about two or three years ago. What does it mean, and why is it important?
In men's college basketball, a non-shooting foul (sometimes referred to as a "common foul") does not result in a free throw until the offending team has committed its seventh foul of the half. At that time, the opponent is in the "bonus" and is therefore entitled to a "one-and-one," i.e., a free throw which, if successful, is followed by a second free throw. Once a team commits its tenth foul of the half, the opponent is in the "double bonus" and is therefore entitled to shoot two free throws even if the first attempt is unsuccessful.
When a team has "fouls to give" that means it has not yet reached its sixth team foul of the half, so the commission of its next foul will not put their opponent in the bonus. Thus the next common foul will not result in the opponent getting any free throw. The opponent will merely get to inbound the ball. With that in mind, sometimes teams with a foul to give will intentionally foul a player on the other team toward the end of a close game.
Consider this scenario. Minnesota leads Iowa by three points with ten seconds to go in the game. Iowa inbounds the ball at the opposite end of the court (ninety-four feet away) from its offensive basket, and Minnesota has fouls to give. The Minnesota coaches have a choice to make. Do we simply play tough defense for ten seconds, or do we intentionally foul an Iowa player when the clock has dwindled down to about four or five seconds? Because Minnesota has fouls to give, if Minnesota executes the latter strategy, Iowa will not go to the free throw line. Iowa will have to inbound the ball with only four or five seconds left.
There are two schools of thought on the wisdom of employing the end-game strategy of intentionally fouling an opponent when your team has fouls to give. Here are the most important pros and cons.
The Pros:
1. Generally, fouling the opponent disrupts the opponent's rhythm. It is not unlike a track sprint race with a false start. Now the athletes have to start all over again, only in a basketball game there is now less time available for a team to do what it had originally planned.
2. The strategy works best if the opponent does not have any time out remaining. The opponent's coach probably spent his last time out designing a play to run for the situation which presented itself at the ten second mark. That plan at least partially, if not completely, goes out the window after the intentional foul.
3. Following along the same lines as # 2, it stands to reason that the more time which elapses between the coach's instruction and the moment of execution, the less likely successful execution will be. This is particularly true if the team with the ball is young, inexperienced and on the road with thousands of fans screaming. In our hypothetical, if Iowa is playing several underclassmen in The Barn, their chances of tying the game are decreased by Minnesota's intentional foul.
4. The opponent is forced to inbound the ball, not always an easy task. Minnesota will probably have its tallest player, with a wing span resembling that of a Boeing 747, jumping and waving his arms in front of the inbounds passer. Minnesota will want to force Iowa to inbound the ball to a Hawkeye running away from his basket. That will eat up a few more precious seconds.
5. Even if Iowa completes the inbounds pass, with fewer ticks left on the clock, Iowa will be limited as to how many dribbles and passes it can make before its final shot.
6. If Minnesota still has yet another foul to give, it might even do so again after the inbounds pass has been completed.
The Cons:
If intentionally fouling when you have fouls to give is such a brilliant end-game idea, why don't teams do it all the time? Here are some reasons why, and they are all deal breakers.
1. Minnesota must not be called for an intentional foul, even though they are intentionally fouling! In other words, the Gopher committing the foul has to be somewhat of a good actor. He can't just hack at the Iowa player he wants to foul. If the referee rules that the foul was intentional, Iowa will shoot free throws and then retain possession of the ball. A good rule of thumb for making an intentional foul look unintentional is this: Swipe up at the ball, not down. If you swipe up, you will not be called for a hack.
2. Equally as dangerous as # 1 is the possibility of fouling a player in the act of shooting. If the Gopher player is just a few tenths of a second too late with his intentional foul, the Iowa player could launch a shot in the process. If the referee deems the foul was a "shooting foul" (not a common foul), Iowa will shoot one free throw if the shot goes in, or two free throws if the shot misses. Either way, bad news for the Gophers.
3. The Minnesota coach should be able to trust a bench player to commit the intentional foul. You want to avoid having to use a starter, especially one who already has three or four personal fouls, to be the one who commits the foul, because if by some miracle Iowa sends the game into overtime, you want your starter available for the OT. The problem for Minnesota is that the bench player may not be accustomed to being used in crunch time, and now you are asking him to perform a key role in your strategy.
4. This might be the biggest warning of all, and it is one emphasized by basketball analyst/guru Fran Fraschilla many times. A coach whose team has a foul to give should not ask his players to do so unless his team has repeatedly practiced that end-game scenario throughout the season. The art of intentionally fouling an opposing player in the heat of battle requires (as noted above) perfect timing and a bit of acting. This is not something you whip up on a clip board during a thirty second time out. Using a "foul to give" has to be part of a team's regular arsenal. If it's not, just play tough D and forget about giving the foul.
Monday, February 26, 2018
Movie Review: "All The Money In The World"
"All The Money In The World": B. I may not go down in history as the World's Greatest Grandfather, notwithstanding my noble efforts, but dag nabbit, after watching All The Money In The World, I'm positive I won't be called the World's Worst either. Nope. That title indisputably belongs to multi-billionanaire oil baron J. Paul Getty.
The movie takes place in 1973 when Getty's sixteen year old grandson, John Paul III (Charlie Plummer), is kidnapped off the streets of Rome in the wee hours of the morning. The kidnappers are comprised of a small band of criminals who are under the mistaken notion that their captive's mother, Gail (Michelle Williams), can tap into her own personal fortune to pay a $17 million ransom. What they apparently don't realize is that Gail is not a rich woman, having chosen to turn down enormous alimony payments from the billionaire's son (her child's father) in connection with their divorce settlement nine years earlier. In return, the child's father (Andrew Buchan) has relinquished all parental rights.
Although she is contractually cut off from the Getty fortune, Gail nevertheless goes to her former father-in-law to beg for the ransom money. The old coot abruptly turns her down, with an explanation that paying for his grandson's release would only amount to an invitation for other criminals to kidnap his other grandchildren. The grandfather is heartless, unable to mask the real reason for his rejection of Gail's desperate plea, viz., his miserly frugality. What's more, his air of disinterest makes him despicable. His saving grace is his willingness to direct one of his company's top negotiators, Fletcher Chase (Mark Wahlberg), to investigate. Chase is a former CIA veteran who is well-equipped to deal with the criminals.
Williams, who gets top billing, is excellent as the boy's beleaguered mother. As if worrying about her boy isn't enough, she also is besieged by the rude and intrusive media who can't believe that she is not at least a millionaire herself. Although he is working for Getty, Chase develops an arm's length closeness (if that's not an oxymoron) to Gail. As movie viewers, it's hard for us to know which way their relationship is heading. No matter; as strong a woman as she is, Gail needs Chase to save her son.
Many kidnapping stories include a captor who empathizes with the captive, almost to the point of switching sides. That good-hearted criminal is usually a female, but here it's Cinquanta (Romain Duris) who, in many ways, becomes the boy's protector. To what lengths will this (almost) good-hearted kidnapper go to shield the teenager from the cutthroats?
The main off-screen buzz surrounding All The Money In The World pertained to eighty-eight year old actor Christopher Plummer, who plays the senior Getty. Plummer was called upon by producer-director Ridley Scott to take the place of defrocked Kevin Spacey, originally cast to play the billionaire, after the latter became the subject of many sex abuse allegations made after the film's production was completed. Scott, determined to retain the scheduled mid-December release date, required Plummer to learn his part in only nine days during which the scenes which had contained Spacey were reshot with Plummer. Not only did Plummer heroically ace this challenge, he has been nominated for -- and is favored to win -- the Best Supporting Actor Academy Award.
Unfortunately the middle and final thirds of the movie do not fulfill the promise of the beginning. Maybe an endless series of phone conversations is to be expected with this type of story, but they become momentum inhibitors. There are too many times when things don't add up, and the denouement is too formulaic. I will give extra points, however, for the scene in which the grandfather has a change of heart and states his willingness to pay a small portion equal to $1 million of the ransom. That is the amount which he can claim as a tax deduction. The oil man never does figure out that you can't take it with you.
The movie takes place in 1973 when Getty's sixteen year old grandson, John Paul III (Charlie Plummer), is kidnapped off the streets of Rome in the wee hours of the morning. The kidnappers are comprised of a small band of criminals who are under the mistaken notion that their captive's mother, Gail (Michelle Williams), can tap into her own personal fortune to pay a $17 million ransom. What they apparently don't realize is that Gail is not a rich woman, having chosen to turn down enormous alimony payments from the billionaire's son (her child's father) in connection with their divorce settlement nine years earlier. In return, the child's father (Andrew Buchan) has relinquished all parental rights.
Although she is contractually cut off from the Getty fortune, Gail nevertheless goes to her former father-in-law to beg for the ransom money. The old coot abruptly turns her down, with an explanation that paying for his grandson's release would only amount to an invitation for other criminals to kidnap his other grandchildren. The grandfather is heartless, unable to mask the real reason for his rejection of Gail's desperate plea, viz., his miserly frugality. What's more, his air of disinterest makes him despicable. His saving grace is his willingness to direct one of his company's top negotiators, Fletcher Chase (Mark Wahlberg), to investigate. Chase is a former CIA veteran who is well-equipped to deal with the criminals.
Williams, who gets top billing, is excellent as the boy's beleaguered mother. As if worrying about her boy isn't enough, she also is besieged by the rude and intrusive media who can't believe that she is not at least a millionaire herself. Although he is working for Getty, Chase develops an arm's length closeness (if that's not an oxymoron) to Gail. As movie viewers, it's hard for us to know which way their relationship is heading. No matter; as strong a woman as she is, Gail needs Chase to save her son.
Many kidnapping stories include a captor who empathizes with the captive, almost to the point of switching sides. That good-hearted criminal is usually a female, but here it's Cinquanta (Romain Duris) who, in many ways, becomes the boy's protector. To what lengths will this (almost) good-hearted kidnapper go to shield the teenager from the cutthroats?
The main off-screen buzz surrounding All The Money In The World pertained to eighty-eight year old actor Christopher Plummer, who plays the senior Getty. Plummer was called upon by producer-director Ridley Scott to take the place of defrocked Kevin Spacey, originally cast to play the billionaire, after the latter became the subject of many sex abuse allegations made after the film's production was completed. Scott, determined to retain the scheduled mid-December release date, required Plummer to learn his part in only nine days during which the scenes which had contained Spacey were reshot with Plummer. Not only did Plummer heroically ace this challenge, he has been nominated for -- and is favored to win -- the Best Supporting Actor Academy Award.
Unfortunately the middle and final thirds of the movie do not fulfill the promise of the beginning. Maybe an endless series of phone conversations is to be expected with this type of story, but they become momentum inhibitors. There are too many times when things don't add up, and the denouement is too formulaic. I will give extra points, however, for the scene in which the grandfather has a change of heart and states his willingness to pay a small portion equal to $1 million of the ransom. That is the amount which he can claim as a tax deduction. The oil man never does figure out that you can't take it with you.
Monday, February 19, 2018
Tenth Annual Movie Ratings Recap
By now you know all about my Movie Ratings Recaps, this being the seventh time I have posted such an animal on my blog. In the last rendition, posted on February 8, 2017, I bemoaned the fact that I only managed to take in nineteen movies during the previous twelve month period, an all-time low. Unfortunately things did not improve numbers-wise this past year. As you will see below, I only got to the cinema seventeen times.
What accounts for this wrong way trend? When I first started blogging in 2011, I figured movie reviews would always make a good fall back position if I could not think of a more timely topic of interest. New movies come out every week, so there would (should?) always be blog-worthy material. While that may generally still be the case, my recent sporadic attendance can mostly be attributed to two general factors, separate but related. First, I have spent more time doing things like babysitting, traveling, walking, reading and watching sports, either in person or on the tube. Those are all things I enjoy and therefore constitute stiff competition to my movie attendance.
Secondly, I am simply not into the genres of films which seem to be gaining favor with studios, producers and the movie-going public. Those genres include action-adventure/Marvel Comics, science fiction/futuristic war stories, animation, and fraternity/jock comedy. If I see one more add for a movie featuring an armored robo-cop type warrior, I think it will reduce me to tears. I'm also not a big fan of costume period pieces, a la Downton Abbey, nor have I tried any of the Fifty Shades flicks. (I will have to count on my daughter, Gina, to fill me in.) Yet when I see a string of trailers promoting soon-to-arrive films, this is what's being offered. A quick look at the list of top fifty box office hits for 2017, according to the website the-movie-times.com, shows only three I attended: Dunkirk (# 14),Murder On The Orient Express (# 31) and The Post (# 43). (Ironically, those were the three films I rated the lowest of the seventeen I saw.) Also disappointing for me personally is that of the other forty-seven movies in the top fifty, there is only one movie that I had hoped to see but did not: Baby Driver (# 28).
What accounts for this wrong way trend? When I first started blogging in 2011, I figured movie reviews would always make a good fall back position if I could not think of a more timely topic of interest. New movies come out every week, so there would (should?) always be blog-worthy material. While that may generally still be the case, my recent sporadic attendance can mostly be attributed to two general factors, separate but related. First, I have spent more time doing things like babysitting, traveling, walking, reading and watching sports, either in person or on the tube. Those are all things I enjoy and therefore constitute stiff competition to my movie attendance.
Secondly, I am simply not into the genres of films which seem to be gaining favor with studios, producers and the movie-going public. Those genres include action-adventure/Marvel Comics, science fiction/futuristic war stories, animation, and fraternity/jock comedy. If I see one more add for a movie featuring an armored robo-cop type warrior, I think it will reduce me to tears. I'm also not a big fan of costume period pieces, a la Downton Abbey, nor have I tried any of the Fifty Shades flicks. (I will have to count on my daughter, Gina, to fill me in.) Yet when I see a string of trailers promoting soon-to-arrive films, this is what's being offered. A quick look at the list of top fifty box office hits for 2017, according to the website the-movie-times.com, shows only three I attended: Dunkirk (# 14),Murder On The Orient Express (# 31) and The Post (# 43). (Ironically, those were the three films I rated the lowest of the seventeen I saw.) Also disappointing for me personally is that of the other forty-seven movies in the top fifty, there is only one movie that I had hoped to see but did not: Baby Driver (# 28).
I think what I've written in the immediately preceding paragraph simply comes with the territory of being an old codger. Movies are being made mostly for the younger generation, a smart business plan especially considering the multi-million dollar investments required for feature film production. But things tend to go in cycles, so maybe in a few years there will be more movies to which I'm attracted. One can only hope.
As always, the movies within each ranking are listed in my order of preference within that group, and the month of my review is indicated after each title.
A:
American Made (November '17)
A-:
Moonlight (March '17)
Maudie (August '17)
Darkest Hour (December '17)
B+:
Wind River (August '17)
The Salesman (March '17)
American Assassin (September '17)
My Cousin Rachel (June '17)
Lady Bird (January '18)
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (December "17)
B:
Lion (April '17)
The Post (January '18)
Good Time (August '17)
The Lost City Of Z (May '17)
Hacksaw Ridge (February '17)
B-:
None
C+:
Murder On The Orient Express (November '17)
C:
Dunkirk (August '17)
Wednesday, January 31, 2018
Movie Review: "The Post"
"The Post": B. Katharine Graham found herself in a pickle in 1971. As owner-publisher of the Washington Post, she was faced with the choice of allowing her newspaper to publish top secret documents known as the Pentagon Papers, or killing the story against the wishes of her editor-in-chief Ben Bradlee, other Post veteran newsmen who had devoted immeasurable time working on the story, and her own attorneys. At first blush this was a basic First Amendment/freedom of the press legal issue, but there was much more riding on Graham's choice behind the scenes.
Your enjoyment of The Post will be enhanced if you go into the theater knowing at least a little bit of the background of the Pentagon Papers. True, director Steven Spielberg spends a portion of the first act setting the stage, but you nevertheless may want to do your own preliminary research. Alternatively, you might read the remainder of this paragraph. The Pentagon Papers were the creation of military advisor Daniel Ellsberg, who embedded with the US front line infantry in war-ravaged South Viet Nam in 1966. His assessment of the war and the U.S. prospects for victory, as he related directly to President Lyndon Johnson and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara on their return flight to the States, was abominably dismal. The U.S. was, at best, in a stalemate position fighting the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong. In fact, it would not be unfair to opine that America was actually losing the war, with little hope for ultimate victory. But within minutes of the plane's landing, McNamara deceitfully informed the press that the U.S. was winning the war. This falsehood was additionally perpetrated by Presidents Johnson and Nixon, neither of whom wanted to leave as their legacy being the first U.S. president to preside over a lost war. In 1971, when Ellsberg could no longer remain silent as the deceit emanating from the White House continued year after year, he secretly photocopied reams of military analyses and strategies concerning Southeast Asia from the offices of his employer, Rand Company (a government contractor), and bestowed them upon the New York Times.
The Times planned to run a huge, multi-installment expose of the executive branch's lies and deceit concerning the war, based on the classified documents furnished to them by Ellsberg. But after only three installments had been published, U.S. Attorney General John Mitchell successfully persuaded a federal court to grant an injunction prohibiting the Times from doing so. This is where the Post comes in, eventually leading to Decision Time for Graham.
Shortly after the injunction against the Times was issued, the Washington Post, via the connection of assistant editor Ben Bagdikian with Ellsberg, got its hands on the same documents. The film The Post is mostly about how that newspaper, with Graham at the helm, handled that once-in-a-blue-moon treasure trove of information.
The inestimable Meryl Streep, the most decorated actress in the history of the cinema, plays Graham. Although Graham was the titular head of the paper, she had at least two or three hurdles to overcome, not the least of which was her being a woman in an industry historically dominated by men. There are several instances where the male honchos seem to consult and debate with each other as if Graham was not even in the room, notwithstanding her position. Everyone knew Graham ascended to her throne because of her husband's suicide. Before he died, he hand-picked Bradlee (Tom Hanks) to run the company as editor-in-chief. Bradley was the Post's prime minister to Graham's queen.
Your enjoyment of The Post will be enhanced if you go into the theater knowing at least a little bit of the background of the Pentagon Papers. True, director Steven Spielberg spends a portion of the first act setting the stage, but you nevertheless may want to do your own preliminary research. Alternatively, you might read the remainder of this paragraph. The Pentagon Papers were the creation of military advisor Daniel Ellsberg, who embedded with the US front line infantry in war-ravaged South Viet Nam in 1966. His assessment of the war and the U.S. prospects for victory, as he related directly to President Lyndon Johnson and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara on their return flight to the States, was abominably dismal. The U.S. was, at best, in a stalemate position fighting the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong. In fact, it would not be unfair to opine that America was actually losing the war, with little hope for ultimate victory. But within minutes of the plane's landing, McNamara deceitfully informed the press that the U.S. was winning the war. This falsehood was additionally perpetrated by Presidents Johnson and Nixon, neither of whom wanted to leave as their legacy being the first U.S. president to preside over a lost war. In 1971, when Ellsberg could no longer remain silent as the deceit emanating from the White House continued year after year, he secretly photocopied reams of military analyses and strategies concerning Southeast Asia from the offices of his employer, Rand Company (a government contractor), and bestowed them upon the New York Times.
The Times planned to run a huge, multi-installment expose of the executive branch's lies and deceit concerning the war, based on the classified documents furnished to them by Ellsberg. But after only three installments had been published, U.S. Attorney General John Mitchell successfully persuaded a federal court to grant an injunction prohibiting the Times from doing so. This is where the Post comes in, eventually leading to Decision Time for Graham.
Shortly after the injunction against the Times was issued, the Washington Post, via the connection of assistant editor Ben Bagdikian with Ellsberg, got its hands on the same documents. The film The Post is mostly about how that newspaper, with Graham at the helm, handled that once-in-a-blue-moon treasure trove of information.
The inestimable Meryl Streep, the most decorated actress in the history of the cinema, plays Graham. Although Graham was the titular head of the paper, she had at least two or three hurdles to overcome, not the least of which was her being a woman in an industry historically dominated by men. There are several instances where the male honchos seem to consult and debate with each other as if Graham was not even in the room, notwithstanding her position. Everyone knew Graham ascended to her throne because of her husband's suicide. Before he died, he hand-picked Bradlee (Tom Hanks) to run the company as editor-in-chief. Bradley was the Post's prime minister to Graham's queen.
Another hurdle, like the proverbial Sword Of Damocles, was the IPO which the paper was counting on to capitalize its balance sheet. [An IPO, aka initial public offering, is the process by which a private company makes its shares available to the public, including mega-buck institutional investors.] The Post suffered from a kind of inferiority complex. They saw themselves as a regional, albeit very good regional, paper, but playing second fiddle to the Times, a powerhouse national, if not international, news source. Graham and company aspired to close the gap with the Times, and going public would give them financial wherewithal to make that dream a reality. The last thing the Post needed at a time when it was trying to attract millions of investment dollars was to have its senior officers indicted on charges ranging from disobeying a federal injunction to treason.
One of Graham's most interesting dilemmas was how to separate her close friendship with McNamara from her obligation to serve her company and its readers. Other than a string of U.S. presidents dating back to Kennedy (if not Truman), no one was hit harder by the information brought to light in the Pentagon Papers than McNamara. One of the best scenes occurs when Bradlee, who was Graham's direct report, accuses her of fence-sitting out of her concern for McNamara. Graham then accuses Bradlee of going soft on some of his buddies, such as President Kennedy. It does make one wonder how much personal relationships of news source executives get in the way of mission performance.
I found it interesting that Streep has been nominated for a Best Actress Oscar, but the Academy chose not to nominate Hanks for Best Actor. In the latter case, it probably makes little difference other than the personal recognition garnered by a nomination, as that category is considered a two horse race between Gary Oldman (Darkest Hour, reviewed here December 30, 2017; A-) and Daniel Day-Lewis (Phantom Thread). As for Streep, I found her a little guilty of over-acting -- is it sacrilegious for a laymen such as I to say so? Was Katharine Graham really that fidgety and lacking in self-confidence? The women I have known in powerful corporate positions were anything but. Still, if Meryl's research found Graham to be outwardly indecisive, almost to the point of nervous twitchiness, then I guess that's how Streep felt compelled to portray her.
As I wrote in my December 15, 2015 review of Spotlight (B+), I have a weakness for movies which offer us a glimpse of behind-the-scenes action in a newspaper office. While The Post is an entertaining movie, I cannot grant it a grade as high as Spotlight, which I feel is a superior film. The scenes concentrating on the paper's legal issues, especially those scenes with a room full of in-house lawyers and outside counsel, were the most compelling part of the movie, more so than those showing how a newspaper goes about its business. The Post is more on a par with 1976's All The President's Men, a fine film to which I gave a pre-blog B. I sincerely hope my valuation does not send Mr. Spielberg's career southbound.
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