Movie Review: "The Highwaymen"

"The Highwaymen": A-.  The 1967 film Bonnie & Clyde was a huge commercial and critical success.  The team of director Arthur Penn plus script writers David Newman and Robert Benton glamorized the personas of the title characters, who became living 1930's legends for their bank robberies and shoot outs.  Played by Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway, whom singer Carly Simon might have described as making such a pretty pair, Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow drew the admiration and adulation of thousands of rural citizens.  The U.S. was still feeling the effects of The Great Depression.  Folks down on their luck needed a hero or two, and thus became enamored with the exploits of the outlaw couple.  Even we, as movie viewers, pulled for the Barrow Gang until the bitter end.

The Highwaymen, a recently released motion picture starring Kevin Costner and Woody Harrelson, shows us how things looked from the opposite perspective.  Instead of concentrating on the high jinx of the famous robbers or their intimate moments which humanized them in the earlier film, director John Lee Hancock and writer John Fusco show their dark side -- a very dark side.  Rather than tease and toy with police officers as depicted in Penn's film, Bonnie is a cold-blooded, cowardly killer who shows no mercy whatsoever to her victims.  Many cops are shot not in the heat of "battle," such as during a bank heist or a high speed chase, but in the middle of the road where they were unsuspectingly approaching Barrow's car which had appeared to be broken down.

After one particularly sad assassination, Texas governor Ma Ferguson (Kathy Bates) is feeling the political heat.  Fearing her constituents are starting to think she has lost control of the law enforcement she had promised when taking office, she directs one of her top aides, Lee Simmons (John Carroll Lynch), to seek out retired Texas Ranger Frank Hamer (Costner) for help.  Simmons' orders are to persuade Hamer to go after the desperados and, by any means, put an end to the carnage.  The governor's offer, via  Simmons, is on the "q.t."; Ma doesn't want to appear desperate in the eyes of the public.  The pay offered to Hamer, roughly $100 a month plus expenses, is laughably low, but at least he will be deputized, thus putting him one level above a mere bounty hunter.  The only catch is that his jurisdiction is limited to the state of Texas.  As soon as we hear that, we know the Red River boundary separating Texas from Oklahoma won't stop Hamer's hot pursuit of Bonnie and Clyde.

At first Hamer isn't interested, offhandedly turning Simmons away.  Hamer doesn't dislike retirement, although he probably realizes it's not everything it's cracked up to be.  He's content having time alone with his pet wild boar.  But his spendthrift wife, Gladys (Kim Dickens), with her penchant for attending and hosting fancy parties, causes Hamer to rethink the governor's offer.  Once he takes on the job, he is all-in, totally focused on putting an end to the bloody exploits of the fugitives, thus avenging the peace officers' murders.  Soon thereafter Hamer pairs up with his former colleague, Maney Gault (Harrelson).  The two former Texas Rangers become the Lone Star State's version of The Odd Couple, but mostly without the humor.  This relationship, more so than the actual pursuit of Bonnie and Clyde, is the strength and core of the movie.

There's little doubt that Hamer is the duo's leader, yet he reluctantly respects Gault's opinions which are based on years of law enforcement experience.  The well-written dialogue between the two men cleverly balances serious discussion with the kind of good natured ribbing which only old acquaintances could pull off without rancor.  Much of the time is spent with the more loquacious Gault testing the limits of what he can get away with as the stern Hamer's partner.  A prime example is Gault's assertion that he has given up drinking, yet he always has a bottle of booze handy.  Hamer tries to remain as aloof as possible, never willing to admit that he needs Gault's help.  When Gault asks Hamer a question, more often than not Hamer has no reply before walking off.  Nevertheless, the longer they're together the more obvious it becomes that their teamwork must be an essential ingredient if they hope to accomplish their mission.

The hunt for the celebrity criminals takes Hamer and Gault across the highways, dirt roads and even farm fields of several plains and southern states.  The brand new, shiny Ford which Hamer borrowed from Gladys takes a beating.  A weakness of the script is that the former Rangers rarely, if ever, chase a bad lead.  If they hear a rumor that the gunslingers are in a town several hundred miles away, sure enough it turns out to be true.  I was willing to put up with that convenience.  Otherwise, the run time of the film would have necessarily been twice as long.

It was quite entertaining watching the veteran actors, Costner and Harrelson, play off each other.  Costner throughout his career has usually made very good decisions about which roles to play.  The fact that even at age sixty-four he can pass for a much younger man affords him plenty of options.  As for Harrelson, who would have ever guessed back in the eighties and early nineties, when the smash hit television comedy Cheers ran for eleven seasons, that goofy Woody the bartender would emerge from that terrific ensemble cast as one of filmdom's finest actors?

Bottle Washing On The Graveyard Shift

The Jacob Schmidt Brewing Company has received more publicity in the last couple of months than it ever achieved in the nine decades of its existence throughout most of the twentieth century.  Located just southwest of downtown St. Paul on West Seventh Street, Schmidt survived the Prohibition Era to emerge as the seventh largest brewery in the United States.  During Schmidt's heyday, virtually every neighborhood tavern on that side of the city hung a Schmidt Beer sign over its door, with another Schmidt neon sign glowing in the window.  Better not ask for a Grain Belt if you knew what was good for you.  

Since Schmidt ceased brewing operations in 1990, the brewery premises has undergone a handful of transformations, from an unsuccessful run by the Minnesota Brewing Company (makers of short-lived Landmark Beer), to an ethanol production plant, to the 2012 conversion of the bottle and brew houses into the Schmidt Artist Lofts.  

The reason for the latest hubbub surrounding the old brewery grounds has come in three waves, aftereffects of the September 2018 opening of the Keg & Case Market, a food hall which occupies what used to be Schmidt's keg house; hence, the name.

In mid-January USA Today crowned Keg & Case as the country's best food hall, the result of a nationwide poll.  Lest you think there was a dearth of competition, be advised there are approximately 180 food halls across most regions of this country.  What sets K & C apart is the quality of the more than two dozen vendors in business there.  That leads us to the second headline emanating from West Seventh. 

Also in January the Star Tribune selected K & C's anchor tenant, In Bloom, as the 2018 Restaurant of the Year, quite a feat considering the competition resulting from the surge in Twin Cities fine dining establishments over the last several years.  The paper's chief food critic, Rick Nelson, was impressed with In Bloom's emphasis of cooking over burning wood in their eighteen foot long hearth.  Citing the menu's choice of five different preparations of venison as an example, Nelson loved the establishment's strategy of operating on a large scale.  That seems fitting for its food hall backdrop.

Proving that good things come in threes, last week the James Beard Foundation announced their semi-finalists for its coveted awards, referred to by some as the "Oscars of the food world."  One of the Foundation's several categories is the Best Chef Award for each of ten regions across the U.S.  The Midwest Region includes eight Plains and Great Lakes states, stretching from Kansas to Wisconsin.  In Bloom's Executive Chef, Thomas Boemer, is one of the semi-finalists for the honor of Best Chef: Midwest.

In view of the hoopla surrounding those three big stories following the repurposing of Schmidt's former bottle house, brew house and keg house, is it possible the old brewery itself will soon be forgotten?  For logical and personal reasons, I hope the answer is no.  Schmidt was one of St. Paul's major employers, and produced thousands of barrels of the nectar of the gods annually.  Its lager was superior in taste to its Twin Cities rivals, Grain Belt and Hamm's.  Who can forget the long necks and the Big Mouths?  The buildings on Schmidt's campus were a classic and familiar landmark.  But beyond all these reasons, one stands out for its historical significance, cementing the memory of Schmidt until well into the future: it was where I worked during the summer of 1973.

****

One of my teaching colleagues at Most Holy Trinity School was a former Christian Brother named Jack Dienema.  A married father of four, Jack taught language arts in the morning, then headed off to Schmidt later in the day to work the second shift.  Most importantly, Jack held a high ranking position in the labor union at the brewery. A favorite memory of mine was listening to Jack recap some of the strange events filled with colorful characters he encountered at Schmidt.  He made the place sound like it should be the setting for a television comedy.  [Note: This was three years before the beloved show Laverne & Shirley, whose hilarious title characters worked at a fictitious Milwaukee brewery, began its eight season run.]  As he waxed eloquent, Jack would often have a cigarette perched in his hand resting atop his partially amputated middle finger.  Somehow he managed to hold the heater in place by gently pinching its sides with his index and ring fingers.  That little mannerism seemed to make Jack's stories even more delightful. 

In the spring of '73, Jack surprised me with the news that Schmidt's sales were booming to a level that required them to add a third shift.  It obviously wasn't the first time a third shift was needed, but it had been awhile. He thought he could call in a favor or two and land me a summer job if I was willing to work those hours. Are you kidding me?  To appreciate fully my reaction, you have to realize that I was only four years removed from college, where beer drinking was pretty much a way of life. What twenty-five year old would not jump at the chance?

A few months later there I was, operating the bottle washing machine on the Schmidt assembly line. I was no stranger to assembly line work. A couple of summers before I'd held a line job at Lakeside Industries, a Bloomington manufacturing plant.  At Lakeside I was lucky enough not only to work on the creation of a number of different products, including electric signs, games and toys, but to do so on the first shift.  A little variety on a daylight shift is really all an assembly line worker can ask for.  By contrast, at Schmidt my east-of-midnight job remained the same for the entire summer.  I may not have been a cook, but I was the chief bottle washer!

The job of a bottle washer was probably different from what most people would imagine.  Picture a huge metal cylinder, about ten feet wide with a circumference of five or six feet, lying on its side right up against the assembly line.  The inside of the contraption was somewhat like a ferris wheel, only instead of seats revolving around the center there were steel trays.  Empty beer bottles would make their way down the line on rollers, and get pushed on to a tray as they entered the cylinder.  Once a tray inside the cylinder was filled to capacity with the bottles, the tray began to revolve through the machine as the bottles were doused by torrents of fairly hot soapy water, not unlike an automobile passing through a car wash.  After one revolution, a bar would push the rinsed, wet bottles out of the machine and back on to the line's rollers.  My job was to visually examine the bottles when they exited the machine to make sure there was nothing like a cigarette butt in the bottle and that the bottle was not chipped or cracked.  (The guy who trained me claimed that once in awhile there'd be a dead mouse inside the bottle.  I was not gullible enough to believe him, and I'm happy to report that I never discovered any such creature during my tour of duty.)  On the very rare occasion when I did spot a butt, a chip or a crack, I simply deep sixed that bottle before it could make its way down the line to the next station.

Some assembly line jobs, like the one I had at Lakeside, carry a high stress level, because the workers are forced to keep up with the pace of the products coming toward them.  In other words, it's imperative that before the product goes down the line from Station A to Station C, the worker at Station B has to perform his task, almost always in quick fashion.  The job I held at Schmidt was not like that, and I'm almost embarrassed to tell you why.  Inside my machine was what is sometimes referred to as an "electric eye."  The "eye" cast a beam of light through the bottles right before they exited the washer.  If the beam was obstructed, that meant something was imperfect with one or more of the bottles on the tray.  In that case, a buzzer sounded, the machine temporarily stopped, and I had to pluck the defective product from the tray.  This might happen once or twice during an eight hour shift.  Thus I did not have to be fully alert, as the electric eye was helping me out.

If that seems unexciting and boring, it gets worse.  Most of the guys working the third shift were people like me who, notwithstanding the decent wages, were just interested in seasonal work; over half were teachers. The other common thread was inexperience. Production-wise, we were no match for the veteran crews on the first and second shifts, comprised mostly of men who had been there years if not decades.  Accordingly, if the line had to be shut down because there was maintenance to be performed on the line's mechanisms -- practically a nightly occurrence -- or if the beer recipe had to be changed, it made sense that the honchos preferred to get that accomplished during our shift. There'd be less loss of production versus shutting things down during the day. 

So, what to do, other than stand around, while waiting for the engineers and technicians to do their thing?  That leads me to the greatest perk of the summer.

As Jack had correctly informed me, there was only one rule regarding the consumption of beer on the premises.  The workers could drink as much Schmidt Beer as they wanted for free(!), but the liquid refreshment had to stay in the break room.  Given the fact that we were entitled to a half-hour lunch plus two fifteen minute breaks, what this amounted to on a typical shift would be the opportunity to consume four, and at times five or six, twelve ounce bottles every night, depending on how many times the bosses shut down the line.  If the foreman estimated that the line would be down more than ten minutes, we'd bide our time in the break room where more of our favorite malt beverage awaited us, should we be so inclined. This was better than having a 401(k) which, of course, did not exist in those days!

For the first week or two I was pretty excited.  Sure, the job itself was a snoozer but the fringe benefits were outstanding.  The lunch breaks resembled college dormitory bull sessions, only we were being paid for our time and there was no rector to break up the party.  But then, the combination of my body clock wearing down from the overnight hours plus the fatiguing effects of the alcohol caused me to down shift to the point where I drank, at most, only one beer at lunch, usually at 3:00 a.m., and relied on caffein the rest of the time.  Without that change of M.O., I would not have lasted on the third shift much longer.  [Note: One big problem for working the third shift on any job is that it's tough to know when to sleep.  Should you try to get seven or eight hours of solid slumber when you get home at, say, 7:45 a.m., or wait to sleep until the afternoon so that you're fresher when you start your job?  I tried both approaches and was equally unsatisfied with the results from both.  I was coaching a Babe Ruth baseball team that summer, so chose morning sleep more often than not.]

The summer of '73 almost ended tragically for me, but -- Spoiler Alert! -- thankfully it did not. One rainy and foggy morning as I was driving down West Seventh on my way home from work, I was totally exhausted.  It had been a struggle to finish my shift, mostly because I'd been unable to get much sleep the day before.  A smart guy would have looked for a Mac & Don's or any cafe where a cup of coffee might have helped, but I just wanted to get to my own bed and stay there for as long as possible.  Once I'd made it to the Crosstown I felt like there was no turning back.  About a mile west of Cedar Avenue, straining to see through the deteriorating weather conditions, I fell asleep at the wheel.  It is the only time in my life that's ever happened. Luckily I was in the far left lane, and going only about 55 m.p.h., so as my car gradually meandered to the left, it side-swiped the concrete median.  The jolt from the impact startled and awakened me, and I somehow managed to right the ship without crashing into another car or having one from behind crash into me. If not for that median a head-on collision with an eastbound vehicle would have been inevitable.  Such a disaster would have given new meaning to the term "graveyard shift."  Maybe the nuns back in Libertyville were on to something when they taught us that we each had a guardian angel. 

****

I have not paid a visit to Keg & Case yet, but my curiosity can only remain unsatisfied for so long.  I'd definitely like to check out In Bloom to determine if I'm as impressed as Mr. Nelson, the Strib food critic.  Another draw is the brew pub, Clutch Brewing Co., overlooking the market and promoting its product as "craft beer of a slightly different ilk."  I'm curious to find out whether the architects and interior designers of K & C have paid any homage to the old brewery.  Some artifacts like Schmidt barrels, signs, coasters, coolers, pictures or posters would be nice.  I suppose a commemorative plaque reading, "Johnny Rock worked here during the summer of '73" would be too much to ask.

Eleventh Annual Movie Ratings Recap

I have just finished rereading what I wrote here last year on February 19 when I posted my tenth annual MRR.  I am now disappointed and discouraged to report that things have not improved during the twelve month interim.  In fact, things have gotten worse in terms of my attendance record at movie theaters.  Last year I bemoaned the fact that I'd managed to see only seventeen films on the silver screen.  This time the number has dwindled to thirteen.  Rather than rehash all the reasons and excuses for the downturn, I hereby simply and humbly direct your attention to what I wrote in that earlier post.  As Neil Diamond once sang, "Except for the names and a few other changes, the story's the same one."  (A tip of the hat to I Am, I Said.)

Alas, duty calls.  Here is a recap of the films I saw in movie theaters during the twelve month period which ended January 31, 2019.  Within each grade level, I've listed the films in order of my evaluation of merit, plus the month of my review.  My wish for the coming year is that movie makers become more attuned to the fact that the baby boom generation has an unquenched appetite for down-to-earth stories without the necessity of super heroes with supernatural powers, comic book characters, over-the-top special effects, locker room humor, one dimensional characters (many of whom are armed), and story lines which don't come close to passing the Logic Test.

A:

Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again (August '18)

A-:

The Shape Of Water (April '18)
Green Book (January '19)

B+:

Can You Ever Forgive Me? (November '18)
Beirut (April '18)
Hearts Beat Loud (June '18)
A Star Is Born (December '18)

B:

All The Money In The World (February '18)
Sicario: Day Of The Soldado (August '18)
A Wrinkle In Time (May '18)

B-:

Bohemian Rhapsody (January '19)
Eighth Grade (September '18)

C+:

None

C:

The Wife (October '18)

Movie Review: "Vice"

"Vice": B+.  What to make of director Adam McKay's latest film, Vice?  That is the question.  Do we accept that most, if not all, of the main facets of Dick Cheney's life displayed in the film are accurate?  If so, two thoughts immediately come to mind.  First, Washington, D.C. became "The Swamp" long before that term was popularized by the 2016 Trump campaign to describe the players comprising the federal government.  Secondly, it should give Americans pause to realize that for eight years starting in January 2001, a man of Cheney's questionable character was the proverbial one heartbeat away from the presidency.  It's a good thing that the executive branch member with the troublesome heart condition was Cheney and not his boss, President George W. Bush.  Our country likely would have taken a giant step backward if Bush's V.P. had ascended to the Oval Office, either due to an early termination of the Bush presidency or via the presidential election of 2008.

But on the flip side, can we as viewers really be expected to believe all the negative aspects of the title character presented by McKay?  The director's style includes: the use of pop-up cartoons; mixing of actual historic film footage with newly created video (a la director Oliver Stone, known for his films such as 1991's JFK espousing conspiracy theories); humorous explanatory narration delivered by the mysterious Kurt (Jesse Clemens), who seems to come out of nowhere; and, a clear lack of balance -- did Cheney not have even one redeeming feature? This approach to storytelling reminds us of the technique McKay used in 2015's The Big Short (reviewed here February 8, 2016; A-) to explain the financial crisis of 2008.  Both The Big Short and Vice are cleverly produced, information-packed films which at some points feel like comic books.  It's ironic that flippancy for the earlier film does not detract from veracity, whereas in the new film it begs the question of whether the truth is sometimes sacrificed for the sake of humor.

The most clever insertion of the director's whimsy comes about two-thirds of the way through Vice when faux "closing credits" roll over the screen indicating that, before Dick became V.P., the Cheneys retired in solitude to a non-political life on a Virginia estate.  A few moments later, the "real" story continues.

Getting back to my originally posed question, I offer a lawyer's favorite response: It depends.  If you are attending Vice with the goal of obtaining an honest assessment of the forty-sixth vice president, you would be well advised to rely on more than just this one source.  On the other hand, if what you're after is two-plus hours of sheer entertainment, with a modicum of playfulness, you've come to the right place.  My objective leaned more toward the latter; hence my grade is a B+.  Taken as a comic biopic, the high grade is merited.

Leading man Christian Bale has already established himself as one of Hollywood's most skilled actors.  He absolutely nails the Cheney character in terms of body language, complete with old age slumping, facial expressions which almost segue into contortions, demeanor and mannerisms.  Even the way Bale wears those round frame glasses is spot on.  Word from entertainment media is that Bale put on dozens of pounds to replicate Cheney's physique.  One would hope the producers kept a cardiologist on retainer.  A tip of the cap goes to the make up and prosthetics team headed by Kate Briscoe and Greg Cannom.  Making their tasks more difficult is the time span covered by the film, from Cheney's late teenage years in Wyoming to his life as a senior citizen in bad health.

The real Dick Chaney had three women in his family life, wife Lynne (Amy Adams) plus daughters Mary (Alison Pill) and Liz (Lily Rabe).  Adams has that cute, almost cherubic face, but those looks belie Lynne's toughness and grit.  Lynne is arguably responsible for her husband's political career.  In the 1978 campaign for Wyoming's sole U.S. House seat, she fills in much more than adequately for her ailing husband, making stump speeches and other public appearances on his behalf.  Even in D.C. she has his ear on policy issues more than many of his cadre of experts.

Dick's toughest internal dilemma is how to react to daughter Mary's declaration that she is gay.  As a conservative who is driven by a lust for power -- a fault introduced in the opening scene when Cheney gives executive orders during the 9-11 terrorist attacks without bringing President Bush into the loop -- he is torn between supporting his daughter and risking the loss of his political base.  We are left to speculate whether this quandary was the tipping point which led to Senator John McCain, rather than Cheney, being the Republican party's nominee for president in 2008.

Sam Rockwell looks and acts as much like the real "President W" as Bale does Cheney.  The Texas twang, the vacant nodding of the head, the good-naturedness, the tendency to settle for quick, easy answers; these quirks of W are all mastered by Rockwell.  In a 2015 commencement address at Southern Methodist University, ex-President Bush said to the graduates, "As I like to tell the 'C' students, you, too, can be president."  That is the "Dub" we can feel in Rockwell's performance.

The actor who might make the most of his limited on-screen time is Steve Carell, playing Secretary Of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.  History has been unkind to Rumsfeld, who was a Viet Nam War hawk.  Thus it was an interesting choice to cast the comedian, Carell, for that part.  The verdict?  Carell steals most of the scenes in which he appears.

There are not many shortcomings to Vice once you have bought into McKay's preferred M.O. of storytelling.  The film leaves a few gaps getting from one point to the other.  Most notably, Cheney goes from being an Ivy League flunky to an internship in Washington in record time without a satisfactory explanation of how that could come to pass.  Also, due to McKay's emphasis on power-mongering, we're left in the dark on where Cheney stands on specific issues of the day.  Lastly, the good people of Wyoming are depicted as rubes, simpletons and roughnecks.  Isn't it sad that Hollywood has a hard time finding good people in the plains and mountain states?  Well, at least McKay didn't pick on North Dakotans.

During the eight years George W. Bush was in the White House, the press and the late night comics used to opine that it was really Dick Cheney who was running the country.  After he left office, Bush himself even joked about it.  That extreme, scary possibility is not dispelled by Vice.

Quarterly Cinema Scan - Volume XXXIV

During the last calendar quarter of 2018 I only had an opportunity to catch eight movies on television.  Two of them, M*A*S*H and Ten Little Indians, I'd seen before long ago, bringing back the memories related below.

Once in awhile a discussion might turn to funny scenes in movies.  On more than one such occasion I've offered as my favorite a scene from M*A*S*H, a 1970 satire about war directed by the incomparable Robert Altman.  The setting is an army "hospital" on the Korean Peninsula during the early '50's combat.  The hospital is mostly comprised of several tents and makeshift buildings.  Donald Sutherland and Tom Skerritt play two hot shot surgeons, Hawkeye Pierce and Duke Forrest, who make up their own rules as they go along.  They can get away with their devil-may-care approach to life because (i) as surgeons they are indispensable, treating the critically and not-so-critically wounded GIs brought in by ambulance from the front lines, and (ii) the chief commanding officer of the camp is Lieutenant Colonel Henry Blake (the low key, inestimable Roger Bowen), who has almost no control over what his subordinates are up to.

When they're not in the operating room, Hawkeye and Duke are best friends and tent mates.  Their drink of choice is a dry vodka martini, consumed liberally throughout their non-working hours.  One day a third surgeon, Trapper John McIntyre (Elliott Gould), reports for duty.  He fits right in with Hawkeye and Duke, which is to say he's witty, sarcastic, chauvinistic and flamboyant.  They are three of a kind.  When Trapper John first walks into their tent, Hawkeye and Duke offer the new arrival a martini, apologizing for the absence of the requisite olive.  After all, they are thousands of miles from home and nowhere near civilization.  With that, Trapper John pulls a jar of olives from the breast pocket of his jacket and, much to the astonishment of his two new drinking buddies, plops the plump green globe into his cocktail.  Perfecto!

One of my favorite authors is Agatha Christie.  One year, circa 1976, I had my eighth grade English students read her 1939 classic, And Then There Were None.  The plot involves a gathering of ten strangers inside an old mansion on a remote island.  They have been invited by a mysterious Mr. Owen whom none of the guests has met.  Due to the weather and other uncontrollable factors, once the guests have arrived there is no escaping and no telephone availability.  Then one by one, the guests start being murdered, but there are no witnesses.  Soon the survivors realize that the murderer must be one of them.  My students almost unanimously enjoyed the novel which, by the way, is the world's best selling mystery of all time.

In 1965 the book had been made into a movie with the title Ten Little Indians.  As part of a fund raising project, my class and I decided to rent the movie and show it on a Friday night in the school's basement auditorium.  The public was invited for a relatively cheap admission fee.  The 16 millimeter film arrived the day before and I decided to view it by myself that evening.  Oh boy, trouble!  There was a scene in the film which was not in the book.  The guests played by Hugh O'Brian and Shirley Eaton ended up in bed together, a scene which lasted about two minutes.  How was I going to be able to show this to an auditorium filled with grade schoolers and parents?

Here was my solution.  After the auditorium filled up that Friday night but before the movie started, I thanked people for supporting our fund raiser and then advised them that, in recognition of the young kids in attendance, I would turn off the projector's lamp during a certain scene.  (I did not tell them that another factor I considered was my job security.)  That's exactly what I did; no one objected.  In fact, while the light from the projector was off the auditorium was almost rendered pitch black, an unintended effect which added to the spookiness of the story.  The dialogue between O'Brian and Eaton's characters was still audible, but thankfully bland.  The show was a success and we managed to make a few bucks.

****

These are the eight movies I viewed on the small screen in the fourth quarter of 2018.   

1. Friday Night Lights (2004 drama; Billy Bob Thornton is the head football coach of a large high school in a west Texas town, where all they care about is winning the state championship.)  B-

2. Little Women (1994 drama; Susan Sarandon, whose husband is away fighting in the Civil War, oversees her household of four loving and creative daughters, including Winona Ryder and Claire Danes.)  A-

3. M*A*S*H (1970 war comedy; Donald Sutherland and Elliott Gould are hot shot surgeons in a life saving but highly irreverent ad hoc hospital near the Korean battlefields.)  A-

4. The Mission (1986 historical drama; in the 1750's, Jesuit Jeremy Irons founds an Indian mission above Argentina's Iguazu Falls, converts slave trader Robert DiNero to the order, and attempts to persuade Archbishop Ray McAnally to protect the natives from European settlers.)  C

5. On Chesel Beach (2017 drama; Saoirse Ronan and Billy Howle, a young couple from very different backgrounds, get married but are unable to consummate their marriage, causing them to go their separate ways with much regret.)  C+

6. RBG ( 2018 documentary on the life of the second woman ever to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court, Ruth Bader Ginsburg.)  B+

7. Ten Little Indians (1965 drama;  ten guests, including Hugh O'Brian and Shirley Eaton, are trapped on a remote island, and someone among them is out to kill them all.)   B

8. Time For Me To Come Home For Christmas (2018 romance; Josh Henderson, a country music star, and Megan Park, who does not know he's a celebrity, are forced by a midwestern blizzard to head home together to Tulsa.)  B-

Movie Review: "Bohemian Rhapsody"

"Bohemian Rhapsody": B-.  Was it Freddie Mercury's teeth that distracted me from reaching the level of total enjoyment I was hoping for from this film?  No, I couldn't possibly be that shallow.  Could I?  Maybe it was the creepy way, with those Boris Karloff eyes, he stared down men whom he targeted for homosexual encounters.  The orgy parties?  How did those people find each other?  And why did his former girlfriend move into an apartment building right across the path from Freddie's place, and participate with him in phone calls and blinking light signals from their respective windows?  It's hard to know.  The clincher for me was the scene where Queen's attorney is working their sound board.  Really?  I was a lawyer for twenty-six years and was in two rock bands.  How come I never got to work a sound board?

I don't usually open my critiques with the negatives, but in this case it is warranted.  However, that's not to say Bohemian Rhapsody, the story of the English band Queen with a focus on its lead singer, Mercury, was a bust, or even that it was uninteresting.  A general overview would be that the story never gets traction, with that being the most important obstacle preventing it from being very recommendable.  Still, the performance of Rami Malek as the mercurial Mercury is a huge plus.  If the late Freddie was still alive and played himself in a separate version of this film, audiences would be hard pressed to come up with many differences.

There are four things I usually look for in evaluating a film about a band, whether such film be a narrated fiction or a documentary.  Two of them are formation and demise.  In other words, how did the band get its start, and what brought about the end?  According to Bohemian Rhapsody, Freddie met guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor when the latter two were sitting in their vehicle's tailgate bemoaning the bad news that their band's lead singer was quitting to pursue a solo career.  Freddie, who had just listened to the band's gig and was now passing by, struck up a conversation with May and Taylor, a conversation which included snide remarks about Freddie's teeth.  A few seconds later they all broke into a sweet a cappella three part harmony, and a union, which evolved into Queen, was formed.  Freddie later credited his extra set of molars for making his singing voice so melodious.

As for the band's somber finish, well, if you attend this film chances are good you were a fan of Queen, in which case you already know most of the mournful details.

The third box I like to check?  Are the non-star band members given distinguishable personalities, or does the script simply put them in the background?  Here, I've got to give Bohemian Rhapsody good marks.  May (Gwilym Lee) and Taylor (Ben Hardy) have distinct personas in their important roles.  They interact with Mercury in several of the movie's scenes, and are instrumental in sustaining Queen while Mercury's life style becomes a flirtation with death.  Extra bonus points, too, for the uncanny resemblance Lee bears to the real May.  Even bassist John Deacon (Joseph Mazzello), in a relatively minor role, provides bits of humor.

Lastly but most importantly, the music itself.  Does the director, in this case controversial Bryan Singer, furnish the audience with displays of what made the band famous?  Mostly this means a replication of live shows, supplemented with writing collaborations, studio work and behind the scenes inter-personal relationships.  As alluded to above, Mercury was an electrifying singer who could amp up (no pun intended) his band's young audiences as soon as he took the stage.  Malek channels Mercury 100%.  The concert scenes are very good, and I appreciated that Singer usually chooses to show entire songs, not merely a verse or a chorus.

The behind-the scenes chapters fell a little short.  Particularly weak was the attempt to convince the EMI record label executive, Ray Foster, that the non-sensical lyrics to Bohemian Rhapsody, and the song's six minute length, were worthy of studio time and label promotion.  Not helping matters, production-wise, was the miscasting of comedian Mike Myers in the role of Foster.

I'm undecided about the degree of success in the presentation of the romance between Freddie and Mary Austin (Lucy Boynton).  I was going to write that I just didn't sense the chemistry between the two actors.  Then I read that, in real life, Boynton and Malek have started dating.  Good thing I don't work for It's Just Lunch or one of those other on-line match-making sites.  Boynton, at least in this picture, seems better at emoting heartache than happiness.  Given the fact that her boyfriend was Freddie, there was plenty of opportunity for that.

Dillon Hall Diaries: Kooch

I have been told that the most luxurious hotel in the state of Oklahoma is not really a hotel at all.  It's Headington Hall, the lodging facility at Oklahoma University where Sooner scholarship athletes lay their weary heads at night.  To call it a "dorm" would be an insult to the OU athletic department.  Check out these amenities: a study lounge and a laundry room on every floor, open 24/7; a commons area on every floor, where social and educational programs are hosted; a dining hall with many food options, a game room containing pool tables and ping pong tables; a media lounge with HD flat screen televisions and surround sound, plus blu ray machines; a seminar room, a reading room and private study rooms; an academic lounge, a performing arts theater and a technology center.  Most of the sleeping quarters are suites with quality furniture and kitchenettes.   

Many other colleges with huge athletic budgets follow a similar track, although OU is probably the most extreme example of a place where scholarship athletes are afforded accommodations which set them apart from most of the general student population.  We also hear a lot about practice facilities and how they play a major role in the recruitment process.  The one year old Athletes' Village at the University Of Minnesota, with a price tag of $166 million, is an example of how schools which wish to be competitive must keep up with the Joneses.  It's all part of the arms race.   Other perks might include training table meals, first dibs on "Easy A" classes, individualized tutorial help, and even an eased admission policy for prospective student athletes with subpar academic credentials.  Athletes admitted under such eased conditions are sometimes called "exceptions."  Heck, the University Of North Carolina even gave credit for non-existent classes to some of their "student" athletes, a scam that went undetected for years.  We'd better not get into the hiring of strippers to entertain basketball recruits at the University Of Louisville, alleged to have occurred under the watch of former head coach Rick Pitino.

***

You would be hard pressed to find an athletic dorm among the thirty residence halls at the University Of Notre Dame.  That's because no such thing exists.  The ND philosophy is that the student athletes should blend in with the rest of student body.  The athletes are sprinkled around campus and, to the extent their in-season team obligations allow, live much the same life as their "non-jock" classmates.

That is the background in which Bob Kuechenberg became my roommate in Dillon Hall during our senior year.  Well, okay, I'm guilty of a slight exaggeration; Bob was my suite mate, not my roommate.  It sounds a little more civilized to call him my suite mate than to say we, together with our roomies, Wayne and Mike, shared the semi-private bathroom which was between our two rooms.  Kuechenberg, better known as "Kooch," was a three year starter on the Irish football team.  This was the Era of Ara -- named for head coach Ara Parseghian -- when more often than not Notre Dame was in the running for the national championship, the only goal that mattered since we were (and remain) an independent.  (Mission accomplished in my sophomore season, 1966, and also 1973 under Ara.)

Kooch was born on October 14, 1947, making him sixteen days older than I.  He passed away unexpectedly a week ago today in Florida, where he had lived since 1970.  The family announced that he died in his sleep; a heart attack is suspected, although not yet officially confirmed.

Kooch was from Hobart, Indiana, a suburb of the rough and tumble steel city of Gary.  At six foot two and around 255 pounds, he was all muscle, and on the football field, all business.  When Kooch walked into your room it felt like the square footage of the space shrank exponentially.  He started his ND career as an offensive tackle.  In one of the most famous games in ND history, the 10-10 tie at Michigan State in 1966, he lined up across from Spartan All American defensive end Bubba Smith on virtually every snap.  As a junior Kooch moved to defensive end to fill in for an injured teammate, then back to starting guard on offense his senior year.  Kooch told a Miami sportswriter many years later that he thought his having to switch between O-line and D-line in college might have caused him to slip to the fourth round in the 1969 draft, especially since Ara then moved him from his old spot, tackle, to guard.  Admittedly, Ara had a valid reason for doing so.  The guy who'd slipped into Kooch's old spot was George Kunz, probably the best offensive tackle on any of Ara's eleven Irish teams, a consensus All American and the number 2 overall pick in the 1969 NFL draft (going to the Atlanta Falcons).

Kooch was drafted by the Philadelphia Eagles in 1969, and had a cup of coffee with the Falcons later that year.  He married his high school sweetheart the same year, and ended up playing for a semi-pro team in Chicago, the Owls.  After a tryout with the Miami Dolphins he signed as a free agent in 1970, and ended up playing fourteen years for the "Fins," all that time under the legendary Hall Of Fame coach Don Shula.

Kooch's accolades as a pro are too numerous to list in their entirety, but I would not be doing him justice if I didn't mention a few.  Most football fans of my vintage know that Kooch was a key contributor on three championship teams: Notre Dame's 1966 national champion, and the Miami Dolphins' Super Bowl champs of 1972 and 1973.  There is a little known but almost equally important fourth championship involving Kooch; I will describe it momentarily. 

Many NFL players have a career lasting ten or fifteen years and never reach the Super Bowl.  In the Dolphins' franchise history, they have made five Super Bowl appearances; Kooch was the starting right guard in the first four of them.   Kooch only had to wait until his second year with Miami to experience his first such start.  Unfortunately his team lost by three touchdowns to the Dallas Cowboys in Super Bowl VI.  Kooch's mano-a-mano adversary that game was Hall Of Fame defensive tackle Bob Lilly.

The following season begat one of the greatest teams in NFL history, the Dolphins, who ran the table for a perfect season, 14-0.  That team remains the only one which has ever gone undefeated throughout both the regular season and the playoffs, including Super Bowl VII, a seven point victory over the Washington Redskins.  You have probably seen pictures of Kooch and his old teammates lighting up cigars each year when the last remaining undefeated NFL team suffers a loss, thereby preserving the '72 Fins' place in history.

Then there was Super Bowl VIII, an easy 24-7 demolition of the Minnesota Vikings.  The Vikings featured their supposedly unstoppable defensive front four known as the Purple People Eaters: Carl Eller, Alan Page, Gary Larsen and Jim Marshall.  Page, a fellow Notre Dame alum (Class of 1967), lined up across from Kooch and never got a whiff of the Miami QB, Bob Griese.  The Dolphins' offense was so dominant that Griese only had to pass seven times during the entire game.

Finally there was Super Bowl XVII following the 1982 season.  The Dolphins came up short, losing to the Redskins by ten.

Despite his prominent role in helping Miami reach four Super Bowls, plus being a six time selection to the Pro Bowl and an Associated Press All-Pro three seasons, Kooch was never elected into the NFL Hall Of Fame.  It was little solace to him that he was a finalist for Hall induction eight times.  One explanation offered by many so-called experts is the fact that three of his Miami offensive line mates, Larry Little, Jim Langer (a product of Royalton, Minnesota High School) and Dwight Stephenson, were all voted into the Hall, thus diluting his chances.  Here is what Coach Shula had to say: "I've coached a lot of Hall Of Fame Players, including a number of offensive linemen, and Kooch was as good as any of them.  He gave everything he had on every snap."

The highest honor bestowed on Kooch occurred on December 15, 1995 when he was added to the Dolphins' Ring Of Honor.  At the time, he was just the eighth player so anointed, and the only one of them not enshrined in the Hall Of Fame.  He retired after the 1984 season after having played in 196 games, the third most in Dolphins' history.  An amazing Kuechenberg stat:  In his entire career, he was called for holding a mere 15 times.

***

And now for a description of that fourth championship I promised.  In the spring of 1969, a movement was started in Dillon Hall to conduct a beer drinking contest.  In order to appreciate the atmosphere, you have to realize that out of the dorm's 325 residents, aka Dillon Dirt Bags, more than 225 of us no doubt considered ourselves quite proficient in the art of beer drinking.  After all, what else (besides studying) was there to do when the cold March air was cutting across campus from nearby Lake Michigan?  [Note: That's a rhetorical question.  For a real answer check out my post from September 9, 2014, Dillon Hall Diaries: Kiwi Can Contests.]

The Dillon beer drinking contest had just one rule.  You had to drink a shot of beer every 30 seconds.  My friends and I scoffed at the leniency and ease of such a regulation.  Surely we could stick with that program for hours.  We were wrong.  When forced to drink beer at that rate, pretty soon it doesn't go down the hatch before it's time to quaff another.  I felt so humiliated when I had to throw in the towel after nine shots.  I didn't even feel a buzz, but my esophagus was about to rupture.

I was surprised Kooch was talked into participating.  Between football commitments and Vomit Comet trips home to the Gary/Hobart area, we didn't see a lot of him on weekends.  But once he signed up for the contest, it was almost inevitable he'd be crowned the champ.  As I recall, he put down 237 shots, one every 30 seconds.  The number sticks in my mind first of all because he beat the second place finisher by over 100, and secondly because I remember talking about his remarkable feat when I came home shortly thereafter for spring break.

***

Following his death, Kooch's family requested that memorials be forwarded to The Buoniconti Fund To Cure Paralysis, a non-profit organized to assist The Miami Project. The Miami Project is a spinal cord injury research center owned by and located at the University Of Miami.  The Project was co-founded by Nick Buoniconti thirty-four years ago following a spinal cord injury sustained by Nick's son, Marc, in a college football game.  Nick Buoniconti played football for Notre Dame, Class of 1962, and was Kooch's Dolphins teammate for six NFL seasons.

I have sent a check for $67 to the Buoniconti Fund, the significance of that dollar amount matching Kooch's Miami jersey, number 67.  If he and I ever meet at that Big Senior Bar In The Sky, he'll probably ask why I didn't make the dollar amount 69, the year we graduated from Notre Dame.