Movie Review: "A Star Is Born"

"A Star Is Born": B+.  After watching my oldest granddaughter, five year old Rosie, make her ballet debut recently at the beautiful Masonic Heritage Center, the thought occurred to me that I never posted my review of A Star Is Born.  In a way, the film's title serves two purposes.  First, it is a succinct summary of the story's arc.  Secondly, in real life it reflects the revelation of Lady Gaga as a legitimate actress, one who has already gained international fame as a multi-faceted singer.

A Star Is Born is a love story about two singers trending in opposite directions.  Bradley Cooper, who produced, directed, and co-wrote the script, plays Jackson Maine, a country super star.  He fronts his own band, performing before huge adoring crowds.  But Jackson clearly has his demons even though professionally he's at the top of his game. Jackson's M.O. is to cool down after each show by having his limo driver cruise the city streets while he mixes hard drugs and booze in the back seat.

It is during one of these late night binges that he stumbles into a drag bar.  There, he becomes fixated by the featured singer, Ally (Gaga), and uses his celebrity status to insist that the bar's manager introduce him to her.  She is star struck and he is smitten.  As their relationship grows stronger, he coaches her vocal efforts and invites her to join him on stage, thus putting her in a position to display her talents to arena and stadium crowds versus small clubs.  He even writes songs for her. This is the real deal, not just infatuation.

Every successful cinema love story requires the chemistry to work between the leads.  This has proven to be one of Cooper's skills as an actor -- witness 2012's Silver Linings Playbook (reviewed here November 24, 2012; B+) with Jennifer Lawrence.  No doubt his matinee idol good looks is a valuable starting point.  Gaga, an inexperienced actress, might have been a surprise casting decision, but as it turns out, a brilliant choice.  She has just the right charisma to mold into the character of Ally, a rags-to riches ingenue possessing outstanding vocal talent.

Aside from the discovery of Gaga as an exceptional actress, the greatest strength of the film is the wonderful music, one keeper followed by another.  Some of the concert footage was shot at Coachella, a humongous annual outdoor concert.  With several cameras situated behind Jackson and his fellow band members, we get a sense of what they are seeing and feeling as they go through their set list.  It impressed me as being similar to an Imax experience, without the Imax screen.

Ironically, even though the soundtrack is a definite plus for A Star Is Born, the "music side" of the story also is responsible for most of the negatives.  Biggest among them is the change in direction championed by Rez Gavron (Rafi Gavron), who becomes Ally's agent.  He convinces her to change her genre from folk/singer-songwriter tunes to a pop/dance party sound.  I could not buy into this shift, but alas, Ally did.  In the last stages of the movie, Rez also has a private conversation with Jackson which leads to unfortunate consequences.  Why anything said by Rez, a person Jackson has no reason to trust and whose opinion he'd be unlikely to respect, should have any impact on Jackson is a puzzle and defies logic.

The Cooper-Gaga version is the fourth remake of the original 1937 movie of the same title.  The challenge for Cooper as director and script co-writer is to maintain the interest of the thousands of viewers who are probably already familiar with the story's conclusion.  The aforementioned conversation between Jackson and Rez is problematic, but to give credit where it's due, the last ten minutes of the film partially make up for it.

Unlike my daughter Jill who has seen this film twice in rapid succession and may even go again, I predict that I will not feel the urge to rewatch it, but many songs from the soundtrack merit inclusion on one or more of my go-to playlists.

Movie Review: "Can You Ever Forgive Me?"

"Can You Ever Forgive Me?": B+.  As many skilled actors and actresses do, Melissa McCarthy steps out of her usual comedic comfort zone to take on a serious role in her latest film, Can You Ever Forgive Me?  McCarthy plays Lee Israel, a once popular novelist whose works are now ignominiously stashed on the bargain table in a few small independent bookstores.  Before we can muster any sympathy for Israel, we see her summarily dismissed from a menial clerical job for swearing at her co-workers without provocation.  Clearly this is an unsavory, angry woman who devolves into a pathetic criminal.

Even when she was employed, Israel is practically destitute.  The vet won't look at her sick cat until she comes up with the $90 she owes from previous visits.  Her landlord, although sympathetic to a degree, cautions her that she is close to eviction for past due rent.  She resorts to gathering up books scattered throughout her dingy apartment and carting them to a used book store.  There, a snotty clerk humiliates her in front of other customers, telling her in effect that Lee Israel books are so yesterday.

Although Israel is presumably intelligent and educated, she has convinced herself that the only feasible way she can make a living is by writing.  Her alcoholism no doubt clouds her judgment.  Her long-time agent, Marjorie (SNL veteran Jane Curtin), is bluntly honest with her, trying to convince Israel that there will be absolutely no market for her current writing project, a Fanny Brice biography.  Israel is not convinced.

It is during her research on Brice in a New York public library when Israel makes a discovery which sends her down the road to perdition.  Tucked inside a crusty old volume is a letter which is handwritten by Brice.  After looking over her shoulder to make sure no one is watching, Israel slips the letter into her purse and absconds with it.  A shop owner, Anna (Dolly Wells), whose acquaintance Israel has made, offers her a small sum for the letter, apologizing that she'd be willing to offer more if only the contents weren't so bland.  This apology sows the sinister seed in Israel's mind.  Why not forge letters from famous novelists, playwrights and actors of years gone by and then pass them off as authentic treasures?

Israel uses her writing talents for this very purpose.  She has the ability to concoct expressions and phrases which closely approximate the actual writings of the deceased persons she's imitating.  Her specialties include Dorothy Parker, Noel Coward and Edna Ferber.  This introduces us to a fascinating world I knew little about: dealers who buy and sell collections and various artifacts of former celebrities.  Israel's plan works brilliantly, until it doesn't.  And when it doesn't, things spiral south in a hurry. 

As much as I admire McCarthy's risk-taking for delving into a new (for her) type of character, my favorite of the film's several features is the performance of Swazi-British actor Richard E. Grant.  He plays the role of Israel's complex friend, Jack Hock.  Wearing a long scarf and a tweed jacket, Jack initially gives the appearance of a bon vivant, seriously interested in literature and Israel's resume as a once-popular author.  We find out, simultaneously with Lee, that Jack is, in fact, homeless, a street person whose confidence and presence belie his true lifestyle.  When Lee realizes that she may have gone too far in her game of forgery, she enlists Jack as her partner in crime.  This enhanced level of their relationship leads to both humorous highs and unfortunate lows.

There is an old saying that truth is stranger than fiction.  Can You Ever Forgive Me?, which is based on the memoir of Lee Israel, furnishes strong support for that adage.

Movie Review: "The Wife"

"The Wife": C.  When Sony Pictures distributed The Wife it chose a promotional campaign focusing on the acting talents of Glenn Close who plays the title character, Joan Castleman.  Most of the national reviewers, some of whom rarely have a discouraging word about any film whatsoever, followed along a similar vein, emphasizing the work of Close and writing relatively little about the story itself.  After having seen the picture in question, I can see why.  The film is a slogging dud, and the only reason to fork over your admission fee is to ascertain whether the veteran actress deserves the Oscar nomination she is likely to receive.

The plot involves a married couple, Joan and her husband Joe (Jonathan Pryce), who first meet illicitly when she is a student at Smith College and he is her married writing professor.  From their earliest years together she has served first as his editor and eventually as his secret ghost writer.  If not for Joan, it's likely Joe would have never been able to get his first novel, The Walnut, or for that matter any of his subsequent offerings, published.

Joe is a philanderer, a chauvinist, a phony and an unsupportive father, yet Jane, a bright woman, sticks with him.  We learn both from flashbacks and the present narration that he owes every bit of his success to her.  But her help goes beyond what is ethically acceptable; she is the person actually doing the writing for which he is accepting all the credit, even going so far as to tell the press that his wife does not write.  Jane seethes covertly, but when her husband wins the Nobel Prize for literature, things between them come to a boil.

There are several things wrong with this film, the most important being that lack of a surprise element.  I got the feeling that the filmmakers' plan was to stun the viewers with a late revelation that the real writer whose books were universally acclaimed was Jane, not Joe.  The problem with that plan is that anyone who saw the trailer for The Wife already knew going in that Jane was the one penning the stories.  (By the way, the trailer played in theaters and on television for weeks before its Twin Cities release on August 31.)  Even if you never saw the trailer, the cat is let out of the bag with the very first flashback to Jane's days in the sixties as a serious and potentially great writer at Smith.  The part of young Jane is played by Close's real life daughter, Annie Starke.

A second fault with the film is its dearth of realistic, interesting side characters.  Christian Slater plays Nathaniel, a non-fiction writer who practically stalks the Castlemans with the goal of writing an authorized (or, failing that, an unauthorized) biography about Joe.  He knows his preys' secret and tries to get an admission from Jane.  Slater comes across as a weasel.  Max Irons, the real life son of actor Jeremy Irons, plays the Castlemans' son David.  I am going to give Irons the benefit of a doubt and conclude that it was a weak script, not his acting, which made me wish his character had been left on the cutting room floor.

Finally, screenwriter Jane Anderson, adapting an original work by Meg Wolitzer, gets a thumbs down.  Besides the miscalculation on the audience's ability to unravel "the secret" before the half-way point, the script has many sections which deserve criticism.  The low point is a scene in the Castlemans' Stockholm hotel room where Joe, who had minutes earlier failed in his seduction attempt with a beautiful young photographer, Linnea (Karin Franz Korlof), accuses Jane of deserting him, even though it is 4:00 in the afternoon!  The dialogue imposed upon the actors here is anything but sharp, and who could not have correctly predicted that the walnut -- yes, the walnut!-- on which Joe had inscribed a sentiment to Linnea was going to be uncovered by Jane while grappling with Joe?

Seventy-one year old Close is thought of by many in connection with her contemporary Meryl Streep, who is two years younger.  Close's film career began in 1982 with The World According To Garp, and she has had very steady work ever since.  Streep got her first break with 1977's Julia, and is one of the most highly acclaimed film actresses of all time.  Streep has been nominated for twenty-one Academy Awards, winning once for Best Supporting Actress and twice for Best Actress.  Close has been nominated six times, three in each of the two aforementioned categories, but has not caught the brass ring.  It would not come as a shock if Close is not only nominated for her work in The Wife but also, as a sentimental acknowledgement for a solid and long career, is sent home with the gold statuette.

Baseball's Newest Innovation, Openers

The World Series ended last night with the Red Sox out-classing the Dodgers, four games to one.  I did not have a dog in the hunt although I must admit that, in virtually any contest involving a California team versus non-Cali, I pull for the latter.  As for a reason I'll just say it has something to do with my nine post-merger years working at Wells Fargo, and let it go at that.  Now I must wait five cold months for the best sport to resume play.  Before bidding farewell to the season I'm going to write about the game one more time.

***

Depending on your resource, the game of baseball is believed to have originated toward the end of the nineteenth century.  For decades it was commonly labeled "America's favorite pastime" even though today the sport's enthusiasts would have to admit professional football has surpassed baseball for the top spot.  The undeniable popularity of fantasy football accounts for much of the pigskin prevalence.

MLB's executives have tried tweaking baseball's rules to make the game more interesting to viewers, especially young people.  But it's hard to accomplish that goal without incurring the wrath of the purists and traditionalists who think the rules are fine as is.  It is interesting to note that most of baseball's changes during the last ten years have been what you might call "cosmetic" rather than integral to the sport's core.  For example, since 2008 first and third base coaches have been required to wear batting helmets, the catalyst being the death of Mike Coolbaugh, a coach for the Denver Rockies' Class AA affiliate, Tulsa, in July 2007.  He was struck by a line drive while coaching first base.  Concern for safety has also led to the installation of protective netting in front of the infield seats from dugout to dugout (and in some stadia, beyond).  This came about only after several fans were seriously injured by screaming line drive foul balls.

Other more recent rules changes include waiving an intentionally walked batter to first base rather than going through the formality of the pitcher tossing four balls out of the strike zone, and limiting the number of mound visits, excluding pitching changes, to six per nine inning game.  Both of these revisions are intended to speed up the game.  The latter change has noticeably served its intended purpose; the former is more form over substance.

Since the advent of the designated hitter by the American League in 1973 there have been only two changes which clearly affect managerial strategy and the way baseball is played. It is pretty hard for a manager to come up with a unique concept or innovative approach which hasn't already been tried by the hundreds of managers who've come before, including those like Hall Of Famers Whitey Herzog, Sparky Anderson and Earl Weaver.  The first of those two changes was the employment of exaggerated defensive infield shifts.  Although infield shifts have been around since the 1940's, no one paid much attention to them until the last five years or so.  Now shifts are a prominent part of game planning, with several teams even going so far as to change their infield alignment once or twice during the same at bat, depending on the pitch count.  I'm going to save discussion of infield shifts for another day. 

The second major post-1973 change was created this season, specifically on May 19, 2018.  It was in the Tampa Bay Rays game that day against the California Angels that Rays manager, forty year old Kevin Cash (at the time MLB's youngest manager), came up with an idea that has been copied numerous times in the remaining five months of the season:  the "opener."  An opener, not to be confused with a "starter," is a pitcher who begins the game for the express purpose of throwing only one or (at the most) two innings.  His job is to face the top three to six players in the opponent's batting order, after which he is replaced by a teammate who usually functions as a regular starter in his team's five-man rotation.  The regular starter them pitches as long as he is able, which in today's style of play usually means anywhere from five to seven innings.

In that historical spring game, Cash had Sergio Romo open the game.  The thirty-five year old veteran had appeared in 588 games during his long career, but never as a starter!  Romo was unfazed by his new job description, striking out the side in the bottom of the first.  Then, according to plan, Rays regular starter Ryan Yarbrough took over the pitching duties to begin the home half of the second, hurling six and a-third innings of four hit ball, yielding just one earned run to pick up the win.

Why do managers use an opener to pitch the first inning or two instead of simply going with one of their regular starters?  There are a handful of reasons, but the two I'd place at the top both have to do with the opponent's batting order.

Third Time Through Order:  Statistics show that starting pitchers are less effective the third time through the lineup.  This is the result of a combination of arm fatigue and batters' familiarity with the pitcher's "stuff."  By the time a lineup has turned over twice, most starters, if they are still on the mound, have thrown more than seventy pitches.  Their fast ball tends to lose a little velocity, and their breaking ball isn't spinning as much.  When the fast ball is slower than it was in the early innings, not only is it easier to hit, but the difference in speed between fast ball and changeup diminishes, an advantage for the hitter who is sitting on a fastball but can more easily make an adjustment if he gets a changeup.

By using an opener for an inning or two, the starting pitcher's third time through the lineup is more likely to begin with opponents at the bottom of the order (say, those in the 7, 8 and 9 holes) than the top.  A team's weakest hitters usually occupy the bottom third of the order.

Professional Courtesy:  As you know, baseball has many so-called unwritten rules.  For example, it is deemed unsportsmanlike to lay down a late inning bunt in an effort to break up a no hitter.  Another no no is to steal a base in the last inning or two if your team is winning by more than seven runs.

An unwritten rule germane to this post is the practice of each manager announcing at least one day ahead of time who his starting pitcher -- i.e., the one designated to pitch the first inning -- is going to be.  Although managers are not mandated to make such a proclamation, it is nevertheless offered as a professional courtesy.  Most managers will set up their batting order to utilize and emphasize left handed batters facing a right handed starting pitcher, and visa versa.

The use of an opener makes the rendering of such a courtesy almost useless.  When the opponent uses an opener followed soon by a regular starter who pitches with the opposite arm, a manager's best laid plans can be thrown asunder.  For example, let's say a manager stacks his lineup with left-handed batters because the opponent's announced starting pitcher is a righty.  If a different pitcher, this time a southpaw, enters the game in the second or third inning, that manager must choose between two poisons: use pinch hitters early in the game, or be stuck with his original lineup which he drew up thinking that it would work well against the guy who turned out to be merely an opener.

Other Reasons:  A team might choose to use an opener if no one in its regular five man rotation has had the standard four days of rest between starts.  This can result from double headers or previously postponed games which now have to be made up.  On the flip side, a manager might choose to use as an opener a relief pitcher who hasn't pitched in a week, just to give him some work.

The Rays ended up using an opener fifty-four more times this season after May 19.  Seven other teams, including the Twins, experimented with the innovation as well.  The Brewers manager, Craig Counsell, took the concept to an extreme in the final week of the season when he used relief pitcher Dan Jennings as the opener, then replaced him with another pitcher after Jennings had faced only one batter, the Cardinals' Matt Carpenter, whom he retired.  One clever Twitter fan opined that Counsell brought in Freddy Peralta for Jennings to preserve the no hitter.  No wonder baseball games last so long!

Kevin Cash and Craig Counsell, ages 40 and 48, respectively, are both youthful managers.  Young managers are more likely to think outside the box, bucking methodologies which have been around for more than a century.  Last week the Twins hired Rocco Baldelli as their new field general.  At age 37, he supplants Cash as MLB's youngest.  It would not surprise me to see Baldelli use openers for around 20% of the Twins games next season, especially given the fact that the team has only two regular starters, Jose Berrios and Kyle Gibson, whose places in the rotation are etched in stone.

Quarterly Cinema Scan - Volume XXXIII

Look out for Miss Lotte Lenya,
And ol' Lucy Brown- Mack The Knife (Bobby Darin, 1959)


Movie lovers who claim that the best James Bond movies were those in which Scottish actor Sean Connery played Agent 007 (pronounced "double-O seven") typically receive little argument.  There have been twenty-four Bond films going back to 1962, with the chic, debonaire Connery starring in the first seven.  The first four in the series set the bar high: Doctor No (1962), From Russia With Love (1963), Goldfinger (1964) and Thunderball (1965).  Since they were released during each of my high school years, I consider them main elements in the pop culture of my youth.

Bond was a creation of British novelist Ian Fleming, who unfortunately died at the relatively young age of fifty-six in 1964, just as his fictitious hero was becoming internationally famous via the silver screen.  You might say that James Bond was Sean Connery's alter ego.  Connery became so identified as the secret agent that it took years for audiences to accept him in other roles.  The handsome Bond character exuded confidence, calmness, bravery, a sense of derring-do, and most importantly, a keen wit on display especially at the end of certain scenes.  [Bond after the bad guys' helicopter crashes and burns: "I'd say one of their aircraft is missing."]  With those attributes in mind, perhaps Connery was born to play Bond.  And of course, Bond was a lady killer.  Some of the most ravishing actresses of the day were "Bond Girls," including Ursula Andress, Honor Blackman and Jill St. John.

Last month I had the chance to watch From Russia With Love, which I had not seen since my Minot days.  Almost all of the several rankings of Bond films available on the internet have From Russia With Love graded as one of the top three.  Inquiring minds want to know, "Why?"

For starters, all the requisites for a bona fide Bond caper are present in From Russia With Love.  Beautiful leading lady who falls for the Englishman?  Check (Russian Tatiana Romanova played by the gorgeous Italian actress Daniela Bianchi).  A wicked mastermind with a distinctive accent and a memorable name?  Check (Lotte Lenya as Colonel Klebb, aka Number 3).  A cold blooded assassin?  Check (an almost unrecognizably young Robert Shaw as Red Grant, who appears throughout the film but doesn't utter a word 'till half way through).  Then we have other Bond staples such as the slightly older homeland secretary, Miss Moneypenny, who has a tongue-in-cheek office flirtation game going with Bond, all the while realizing that the chicks in whom 007 is romantically interested are at least ten years younger than she.  Lois Maxwell plays that minor yet essential role in the first fourteen films in the series.  And what would a Bond film be without some gadgets?  There are plenty of them here, such as a folding sniper's rifle with infra-red night vision capabilities and a flat throwing knife, the important difference being they are secretly contained in a single attache case which will explode unless opened in an unconventional way.

What sets From Russia apart from many films of its genre is the plot, which is more clever and layered than your typical spy action story.  Colonel Klebb has defected from Mother Russia to Spectre, an evil organization with designs on taking over the world.  She is called upon to execute a plan devised by creepy chess grand master Kronsteen (Vladek Sheybal), whereby not only will Spectre gain possession of a top secret Russian communications device called a Lektor, but Bond will be permanently silenced as well.  Klebb dupes Romanova, a clerk in the Russian consulate office in Istanbul, into agreeing to pull off the Lektor theft, believing it to be an act of loyalty to the mother country and unaware of Klebb's defection.  Under orders from Klebb, Romanova convinces the Brits that she will turn over the Lektor to them, but only if Bond arrives in Istanbul to assist.  When Bond sees her photo, he does not need his arm twisted to accept the assignment.

From there we have Bulgarian killers working for the Russians, a pro-western Turk (Pedro Armendariz) with a secret telescope directly below the Russian consulate, a gypsy camp where Bond hides out and is immersed in a shootout, a ride aboard the Orient Express, a helicopter trying in vain to run down Bond (reminiscent of the famous crop dusting scene in North By Northwest), and gondola excursions on the canals of Venice.  It's all great fun.  There are even two scenes, following what I mistakenly took for the ending, where Bond comes face to face with imminent death.  Against all odds he lives for another day.

****

These are the movies I watched at home during the third quarter.

1. Charley Varrick (1973 drama; Walter Matthau and Andy Robinson rob a rural New Mexico bank only to find that their loot belongs to the mafia and hit man Joe Don Baker has been hired to retrieve it.)  B+

2. The Death Of Stalin  (2017 comedy; Steve Buscemi plays Nikita Khrushchev, the master plotter who out-schemes and out-maneuvers several Communist Party leaders to assume control of the Soviet Union when its dictator, Adrian McLoughlin as Joseph Stalin, dies in 1953.)  B-

3. East Of Eden (1955 drama; disillusioned James Dean tries to come to grips with the favoritism father Raymond Massey bestows upon older brother Richard Davalos, while Richard's girlfriend, Julie Harris, becomes the only person who sees Dean's good side.)  C+

4. Faithless (1932 romance; repercussions from the Great Depression wreak havoc on the relationship between heiress Tallulah Bankhead and marketing man Robert Montgomery.)  B

5. From Russia With Love (1963 James Bond thriller; Sean Connery goes to Istanbul to assist beautiful Russian Daniela Bianchi steal a top secret communications device.)  A-

6. The Girl He Left Behind (1956 comedy; college slacker Tab Hunter's lack of ambition turns off girlfriend Natalie Wood, resulting in Tab's military enlistment where he becomes an army slacker.)  D-

7. The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society (2018 romance; Lily James is an accomplished London author who immerses herself in the secrets of a book club started during the World War II German occupation of an English Channel isle.) A-

8. Hiroshima, Mon Amour (1959 romance; a French actress, Emmanuelle Riva, has an affair with a married Japanese architect, Eiji Okada, while she is in Hiroshima to work on a post-war, peace-themed film.)  C+

9. Love Locks (2017 romance; New Yorker Rebecca Rominj accompanies daughter Jocelyn Hudon to Paris, where they unwittingly check into a hotel now owned by Rebecca's old college flame, Jerry O'Connell.)  B+

10. Tully (2017 drama; Charlize Theron is totally stressed out before and after giving birth to her third child, but things dramatically improve when a nighttime nanny, Mackenzie Davis, arrives.)  B

11. The Way We Were (1973 romance; Barbara Streisand, a left wing activist, and Robert Redford, an apolitical writer averse to stirring the pot, fall in love during their college days and proceed to have joy and heartbreak throughout the next decade.)  A-

Movie Review: "Eighth Grade"

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

- Jillian Rose Kaster (2018)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Three Paragraph Autobiography

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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