Quarterly Cinema Scan - Volume XXXIX

The dearly departed movie critic Roger Ebert wrote in the Chicago Sun Times that he wanted to watch The English Patient twice, once to formulate his questions and another to figure out the answers.  I did watch The English Patient for the second time a couple of weeks ago and decided that I need to see it a third time to feel confident in the answers I came up with.  Why, you might ask, would I be willing to submit myself to yet another viewing of a film lasting over two and a half hours just for the sake of tying up a few puzzling loose ends?  You might call it a labor of love.

Having "said" that, I still must admit I grappled with the question of whether the film deserves an A- or an A.  Immediately after my second viewing I made a mental note that this was an A- movie, certainly one of the best I expect to see this year.  But as the following days went by I could not get the movie out of my head, notwithstanding the fact that I watched a couple of other movies in the interim.  Such is a characteristic of an A movie.  So many scenes made a lasting imprint, with credit going to the leading players (identified below) under the direction of Anthony Minghella, who also wrote the screenplay, plus the breathtaking cinematography of John Seale.

The most surprisingly effective element of The English Patient is the use of flashbacks.  I've written before, in fact as recently as January 29, that I am not typically fond of temporal scene shifting or flashbacks, especially if they appear to be a choice used by the director for nothing more than artistic reasons.  The 1992 novel by Michael Ondaatje and the adapted screenplay by Minghella contain such a plethora of flashbacks that the film's editor, the brilliant Walter Murch, admitted he dreaded the project.  That may have been false modesty by Murch, as he was the man called upon to edit The Godfather Trilogy.  Indeed, Murch might be the MVP of The English Patient's production.

Ever since watching my all-time favorite film, 1942's Casablanca, I have become a self-declared sucker for cinema romance, especially those like Casablanca and The Winds Of War (a 1983 television miniseries) against the backdrop of war.  In the sub-genre of wartime romance, The English Patient belongs in the upper tier.

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Here are the movies I watched at The Quentin Estates in this year's first quarter. 

1. Bombshell  (2019 biodrama; Charlize Theron/Megan Kelly, a prime time Fox News anchor, considers whether to step forward in support of Nicole Kidman/Gretchen Carlson’s sexual harassment lawsuit against Fox CEO John Lithgow/Roger Ailes.)  B-

2. Death On The Nile (1978 mystery; Peter Ustinov, as the internationally famous sleuth Hercule Poirot, joins forces with David Niven, a former division head for the British government's spy agency, to solve a murder on a Nile River cruise steamer on which almost every passenger is a suspect.). A-

3. The Doors (1991 biodrama; Val Kilmer/Jim Morrison, a poet turned accidental rock god, destroys his career and life with drugs and booze.)  C+

4. The English Patient (1996 drama; at the end of World War II Ralph Fiennes, a critically injured Hungarian count, is cared for in a bombed out Italian monastery by Canadian nurse Juliette Binoche, to whom he recounts the story of his love affair with Kristin Scott Thomas.)  A

5. Red Sparrow (2018 spy drama; Jennifer Lawrence is a manipulated Russian agent who is assigned to develop a relationship with CIA agent Joel Edgerton for the purpose of identifying the Americans’ mole in the Kremlin.)  C+

6. Richard Jewell  (2019 biodrama; Paul Walter Hauser plays Richard Jewell, a security guard and cop wanna be, who is unethically named as a suspect by Atlanta journalist Olivia Wilde based on an unsubstantiated tip from FBI inspector John Hamm.)  B-

7. Shakespeare In Love (1998 dramedy; Joseph Fiennes as young Will Shakespeare falls in love with beautiful Gwyneth Paltrow, who becomes his muse and co-star in the production of his play, originally titled Romeo & Ethel, The Pirate’s Daughter.)  B+

8. Valentine’s Day (2010 rom-com; Astin Kutcher, Jennifer Garner, Jamie Fox and Jessica Beale are some of the LA residents whose love lives undergo changes on Valentine’s Day.)  B-

First Name Initial

I wear it at the soda shop, wear it at the record hop,

Ridin' to a movie in your jeep,

I wear it when I go to gym, wear it when I take a swim,

I even wear it when I sleep.

- First Name Initial (Annette, 1959)

Two recent occurrences have combined to inspire my offering of this post: the start of a new decade a few months ago, and the recounting of my Iowa newspaper story here on February 3 (A Case Of Mistaken Identity).  This current post describes a phenomenon -- I hesitate  to call it an oddity --  to which I was introduced when my family moved to Iowa at the start of my eighth grade second semester.

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As we approached the final days of the “10’s” last December, many critics and commentators treated us to Top Ten lists for that decade in all kinds of categories such as movies, athletes and athletic achievements, books, inventions, medical discoveries, Supreme Court cases, television shows, music and the like. The offering of lists in similar fashion is traditional at the end of virtually every decade. We also see near the close of each decade summaries of fads and trends which appeared, with varying degrees of shelf life, during those periods.  For example, according to the website bestlifeonline.com, some of the most noteworthy fads and trends during the “10’s” included the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, Pokemon Go, the dance craze Flossing, and Words With Friends.  In preparation for this post, I asked my crack three person research team to google "fads and trends from the 1950's."  They came up with soda fountains, poodle skirts, hula hoops and long sideburns, among others, while a search for the early sixties gave us The Twist, mohair sweaters, penny loafers (with an actual penny inserted on the top notch), surf music and girl groups.

To my surprise, the fad which immediately greeted me when I arrived in Iowa in January of '61 did not show up on our exhaustive (?) searches: to wit, first name initials.  How could there be such a glaring omission of a fad which stands out as a clear memory from my grade school days?  Was the omission of first name initials due to that fashion accessory being strictly "an Iowa thing"?  No, and I'll tell you why momentarily, but first, a little background.

In my August 25, 2012 post (Chrome Dome & The Cub Reporter) I made brief mention of the co-ed condition in the two Catholic schools I attended during eighth grade.  In short, St. Joe's in Libertyville had two co-ed eighth grade rooms, while Our Lady Of Lourdes in Bettendorf also had two rooms of eighth graders, but they were separated by gender.  Ironically, among the eighty or so eighth graders in St. Joe’s co-ed setting, there was only one couple which could legitimately be deemed to have a boyfriend/girlfriend relationship.  True, there were some girls in my class who took it upon themselves to "make matches" theoretically.  (This may have been the precursor to on-line dating.)  But, those were almost pure figments of the girls’ imaginations.  We must not have had many homework assignments in those days, because the girls who concocted these hypothetical pairings seemed to have all kinds of time on their hands.  My so-called match at St. Joe's was Joan Iaconetti.  Joan was a pleasant, intelligent young lady with sparkling eyes, but we rarely had a conversation in person, and most definitely not by phone.  I'm not even sure we were in the same eighth grade classroom.

When I arrived in Iowa the set up at Lourdes was quite different.  Not only were almost half of the guys and girls paired up in a real life amorous or at least quasi-amorous relationship, but many of the girls wore a first name initial pin indicating the object of their affection.  My first reaction, especially coming from St. Joe's apparently less-than-hip background, was that this was among  the craziest things I had ever encountered.  I had heard of high school upperclassmen giving their steady date their class ring, but in 1961 that would be at least a few years down the road for me and my fellow eighth graders.  Back in Libertyville, we guys spent our recess and lunch breaks playing ball in the park across the street, or else shooting marbles or pitching pennies against the church steps.  The concept of talking to a girl would be the farthest thing from our minds, and they probably felt the same way about us.

Lourdes was a whole other scenario.  There, the girls and guys spent a good chunk of their free time pairing up either alone or in small groups to socialize.  There was no guessing which guy "went with" which girl; all you had to do was look at the girl's first name initial pin, proudly worn on her uniform sweater.  Maybe the fact that the boys and girls were in segregated classrooms -- missing each other? -- accounted for some of the pin popularity, or perhaps another reason described in the next few paragraphs provided the answer.

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During the last five years of the fifties, kids across the country grew up on The Mickey Mouse Club television show.  My sister, Michele, and I faithfully watched it when we came home from school.  The nationally syndicated show had a different theme for each day, like Music Day, Western Day, and the ever-mysterious Anything Can Happen Day.  The hour long show was hosted by an adult, Jimmie Dodd, but the real stars of the program were the Mouseketeers.  This group of ten or twelve girls and boys were the entertainers, singing, dancing and performing short skits which went along with that day's theme.  Although they were mostly young teenagers, the youngsters became national celebrities, wearing Mouseketeer caps, complete with rigid round ears, and white turtleneck sweaters with their first names printed across the chest.

Annette Funicello, or simply "Annette," was arguably the fan favorite.  Although each of the Mouseketeers was a very talented child performer, Annette had the most versatile and lengthy career, both as a singer and a (mostly) B-film actress.  Michele, always in tune with pop culture, bought a couple of Annette's '45's, and maybe even an album. During 1959 and 1960, Annette had four Top 20 hits on the Billboard Hot 100, including Tall Paul (peaking at # 7), O Dio Mio (# 10) and Pineapple Princess (# 11); plus, the key song germane to this post, First Name Initial (# 20).  That song, a quintessential statement of puppy love written by Martin Kalmanoff and Aaron Schroeder, expresses a girl's excitement for wearing her boyfriend's first name initial, a symbol for the world to see that the lucky guy belongs to her. 

And now for the mystery.  Could it be that the origin of the Iowa girls' fascination with first name initials was a derivative of the Annette song?  Probably, but if so, two questions.  First, why hadn't the Illinois girls latched on to this trend?  Listening to Top 40 music on WLS radio was a common pastime throughout Chicagoland, including Libertyville.  Surely the St. Joe's girls were familiar with Annette's hit song.  Maybe they were behind the cultural times compared to their Iowa sisters.  Or, more likely, maybe the male pickings at St. Joe's (at least the Class of '61) were so slim that the girls decided an outlaying of the eight or ten smackers for a pin to identify a guy was a waste of money.  

Second, First Name Initial made its debut on the Billboard charts on October 26, 1959.  It remained on the Hot 100 for eighteen weeks (far longer than the average Top 40 hit), taking us all the way to, roughly, the first week of March, 1960, almost an entire year before I arrived in Bettendorf.  Had the Lourdes girls been wearing first name initials all that time?  Most fashion fads ran their course long before that.  Perhaps the girls were just waiting for another popular style to come along to take the place of first name initials.  If one ever did show up in Bettendorf, it did not arrive until some time after mid-summer 1961.

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At first I could not have cared less that a bunch of my female classmates were wearing the first name initial of their purported -- and probably actual -- boyfriend.  I viewed the practice as curious and quirky, but always kept in mind that I was the new kid on the block.  I was not about to ridicule or disparage their choices.  But then things got more personal.  One day either Michele or one of my buddies pointed out to me that a girl in my class, Cynthia Saldivar, was wearing a "J" pin on her sweater, and the word on the street was that the "J" was for me.  How could this be?  Aside from perhaps making eye contact once or twice, we had never spoken to each other.  Then to make matters more uncomfortable, Judy Pfaff, the girlfriend of my best friend Greg McCluskey and one of Cynthia's best friends, started to put the pressure on me to acknowledge the nascent, albeit fictional, relationship.  "Why don't you call her?  Why don't you eat lunch with her?  Why don't you hold her hand?"  Oh boy.  This was new territory for me.  Nothing against Cynthia, who was very pretty -- hopefully not coming off here as being shallow -- but I really didn't want to make the effort to meet her even half way.  That would be a waste of my time and hers.  Besides, I had my eye on a different girl, a seventh grader named Connie Foster who looked like Suzanne Pleshette.  (Cue Paul Simon's Kodachrome?)

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We now have arrived at the end.  Cynthia and I became cordial friends, but nowhere near "an item."  Following eighth grade graduation I don't recall ever seeing her again.  In any event, she went on to Bettendorf High School for ninth grade, while I attended Assumption High in Davenport.

As for Suzanne... I mean Connie, it never got out of first gear.  It probably took me until early spring to work up the courage to talk to her.  We ran into each other a handful of times during the summer, but the vibe I got did not make me optimistic about the prospects.  What little hope there was for me came to a crashing halt right after classes began my freshman year at Assumption.  One early September morning I was on the school bus heading for Davenport when a sophomore came up and started to shove me backwards.  I shoved back, we both traded punches, and then some upperclassmen quickly broke it up.  That sophomore turned out to be Larry Foster, Connie's brother.  I obviously don't know what version of the story Larry told Connie, but I guess he was convincing.  I was unable to connect with her by phone.  Then, I remember mailing her a note on a card.  As the Beatles once sang, no reply.   

[Note: For the next exciting chapter on my Iowa love life, be sure to check out my July 15, 2015 post, Driving Miss Linda.]

Keeping In Touch With The Big Kids

Momma Cuandito and I retuned home last Wednesday from a twenty-four day road trip to Florida, where we've enjoyed a relatively brief respite of winter warmth approximately nine of the last ten years.  Our two favorite spots are Anna Maria Island off the coast of Bradenton, and Fort Myers, the spring training home of the Minnesota Twins.  This most recent trip was by car, the fourth time we've chosen that means of transportation.

We don't kill ourselves to get to or from Florida.  That would defeat the purpose of opting for the highway over the sky way.  Some folks drive through the night, changing drivers and making a beeline from one state to the next.  That's not us.  Although we might have at least one day which involves around six hundred miles of daylight travel, we make up for it by spending two nights in a row once or twice at pre-selected sites.  This year those places going south were Georgetown, Kentucky (a remote suburb of Lexington) and Lake City, Florida.

Not to short change our three kids and their spouses, but as is true with many traveling grandparents, the biggest downside to being away from home is the absence of our grandchildren.  There are few hours in a typical day when I don't think about the four of them, whom I sometimes refer to as the Gorgeous Creatures.  I don't know that MC and I could ever relocate south for the entire winter knowing that the Gorgeous Creatures were an airplane ride, as opposed to a few minutes, away.

When Momma Cuan and I are on the road, I like to imagine that our kids are thinking about us, wondering where we are and what we're up to.  To a large extent that may be fanciful thinking; they have their own families to attend to.  Still, I keep in touch with them from the road by sending (usually) short emails from my phone.  When you’re a ham-handed non-typist using a phone, the brevity of correspondence is dictated. Once in awhile the recipients reply.  The emails, like photographs, also serve as memory joggers if I read what I've sent at a later date.  Full disclosure: I already have, and probably will again.

Today, March 15, was supposed to be the date of our eighth annual Fours & Field Contest party, celebrating the NCAA's Selection Sunday for March Madness.  (For a refresher on what the Fours & Field Contest is all about, check out my February 24, 2013 post.  The FFC has been enlarged and modified since then, but the basic principles described therein remain in place.)  Instead, Momma Cuan and I are sitting around the house, social distancing ourselves from the rest of humanity.  It's a predicament brought on by the coronavirus threat.  There is nothing good on TV, and the book I'm reading is an easy one to put down.  This might be a good time to post on my blog, which I've been known to label my "SR&LRB" (an inside joke).  The topic I've chosen is the path requiring the least amount of thought: the aforementioned emails.  There are eleven of them.

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Feb 17    HELLO FROM CHAMPAIGN

Hello boys & girls,

I know you’re worried sick about us, but we did make it to Champaign, 514 miles from the QE.  Home of the U of Illinois.  Once we got to Tomah it was all snow and rain.  We got here at 5:30. Staying at Drury Inn, where they give you 2 free drinks. I had scotch on the rocks. The amount of booze in a drink is < a thimbleful.  Ate dinner at a brew pub downtown, Destihl.  Maybe the best beef stroganoff I’ve ever had.  Washed it down with a 6.7% hazy IPA and a 9.1% Scotch ale, both made by Destihl. Tomorrow we head to Lexington, only 312 miles from here. Hi to JB, RM, JM, LJ, WJ, LR, UL, R and P.  I love you all.

The Old Illinoisan

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Feb 18    HELLO FROM GEORGETOWN

Hello Boys & girls,

We drove 308 miles from Champaign to Georgetown, which is about 20 miles north of Lexington. On the way we stopped for lunch at Mac & Don’s in Seymour, Indiana, the home town of John Mellencamp.

Georgetown has a historic downtown with buildings even more ancient than your old man.  Went to a brew pub called My Old Kentucky Foam. I had a nitro brown ale and a pale with high IBUs.  The bartender was an authority on just about everything. For dinner we went to a place called Fava’s. I had a traditional KY casserole which the locals call Hot Brown. Meh. Mom had catfish. Meh. I had butterscotch cream pie, my usual favorite but in this case, Meh.

We finished the night with a couple of Bushmills on the rocks at the only Irish pub in town, Slainte Public House.

Tomorrow will present a challenge for Mom and me: Trying not to step in horse kah kah when we tour nearby WinStar Horse Farm. Word to the SOs, the Gorgeous Creatures and the pets. I love you all.

The Old Equestrian

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Feb 19    GEORGETOWN SECOND DAY

Hello boys & girls.

Our second day (Wednesday) in Georgetown, KY was fun. Toured WinStar Farms, which boards and trains racehorses (mostly stallions), and conducts breeding and sales operations too. See the picture below of Mom with the 2017 Kentucky Derby winner, Always Dreaming. We managed to avoid stepping in the horse poop.  Ate one of the best hangabers EVER, the Big Blue Burger, in Midway, KY at a place called Wallace Station. Reminded me of PM Park in Clear Lake. Ancient and atmospheric.

Returned to Georgetown for a self-guided walking tour of historic Georgetown, where many of the buildings are > a century old. Took a break with Irish brews at Slainte Public House. After a short late afternoon nap had a fab dinner at Rodney’s On Broadway. The restaurant is in an old mansion; reminded me of Forepaugh’s in St. Paul. I had short ribs. Mom had a peanut butter sammy.

I love you all.

The Old Horse Breeding Authority

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Feb 20  HELLO FROM STOCKBRIDGE

Greetings boys & girls,

Drove 415 miles through lots of snow and sleet to get from Georgetown to Stockbridge, Georgia. It’s about 15 miles south of Atlanta. I used to think Chicago traffic was the worst, but metro Hotlanta’s congestion gives Chitown a run for the dubious title.

For those of you keeping score at home, we ate lunch at a Chick Fillet in Cleveland, Tennessee. 

Tonight we ate din din at The Bridge Grill & Oyster Bar in Stockton. Mom had oysters while I had a shrimp poor boy.  Their beer selection was fair to partly cloudy.  The waitress called us “honey,” “love,” “lovie” and “darlin,” among others.

Our main objective for the day was to get past Hotlanta. Mission accomplished! Tomorrow: Finally Florida!!

I love you all.

The World’s Greatest Driver

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Feb 21    HELLO FROM LAKE CITY

Hello boys and girls,

No, not Lake City, Minny Hota; Lake City, FLORIDA.

We drove 270 miles from Stockbridge to get here late Friday afternoon.  Lake City is about 45 miles south of the state line.  The drive was easy, all interstate with no bad weather.  The interstates in GA and FL are at least 3 lanes in each directIon. Trucks must stay in the two right lanes. That is a great law; must have been passed by Republicans!

The temp finally hit 50+ degrees for the first time anywhere on our trip when we got near Macon, which is in the middle of Georgia.  It's also home to the Allman Brothers Band.  I know you (especially Michael) are curious as to where we ate lunch, so I will tell you: Tifton, a medium size city in southern Georgia, named after former BSM President Bob Tift.  We tried Steak 'n' Shake, which is real big in the South.  It was surprisingly good.  We both had boigahs and shakes.

Once in Lake City we didn’t waste much time heading to a tap room, Halpatter, which is Seminole for “alligator.”  I had IPAs and MC had an IPA and a cream ale. All four veddy veddy good. From there we went to Marion Street Bistro, the hippest and busiest place in town for dinner. Decent food but horrible service. I had sheemp n’ grits. Mom had a flat bread.

Lake City claims to have a historic downtown. What a joke. Nothing but 3 bars and the fire department. Makes downtown St. Paul look like the Vegas Strip.

Finished the night by going back to Halpatter, where a band from Geogia called Pine Box Dwellers was doing Dylan.

I love you all.

The Old Pitter Patterer

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Feb 22    LAKE CITY SECOND DAY

Hello boys & girls,

For the record I thought I’d tell you about day # 2 (Saturday) in Lake City. Ever heard of Stephen Foster? He is one of the greatest music composers in American history. He wrote Oh Susanna, My Old Kentucky Home, Swanny River, Jeanie With The Light Brown Hair, and 250 other songs in the 19th century. Most songs were about the South even though he was from Pittsburgh. We went to the Foster Museum which is the centerpiece of a beautiful regional park in his honor. Inside the museum are dioramas which show a scene from ten of Foster’s songs. One of the most impressive things I’ve ever seen in a museum.

Ate lunch in Fat Belly’s, a back woods BBQ joint. Both the Foster Museum and Fat Belly’s are in a little nearby town called White Springs.

Then we drove back to LC and went on a hike along Alligator Lake. I will send a picture I took of Mom there.

Finished the day with dinner at Phish Tales. Every “f” on their menu (and website) is spelled “ph.” I had blackened mahi mahi. Mom had prime rib.

I will only bore you with one more report. Thanks for your warmth and compassion. I love you all. 

The Old Stephen Phoster Phan

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Feb 23    HELLO FROM HOLMES BEACH

Hello boys & girls,

This is the final installment of my exciting Road Trip series. Before we left Lake City yesterday we decided to treat ourselves to a Dunkin Donuts greftas. Then we drove 221 miles to Holmes Beach. All interstate until you get to Bradenton. Then about 17 miles of driving under 45 mph.

For you statistics freaks out there, here is the poop:

Distance from SLP to HB via the route we took = 1,728 miles.
Total miles driven, including tooling around seeing the sights, driving to restaurants, etc. = 1,881 miles.  [Note: Fort Myers is another 120 miles south of Holmes Beach.]

Our condo is a block from the beach in a residential neighborhood, very close to a popular burger joint called Skinny’s and right across the street from the rear of Publix. The unit is vey nice, with two bedrooms and two bathrooms. Having my own bathroom is huge; that means I can splash as much as I wah!  Best of all, there are two lanais, one on either side of the unit. The only negative is that our unit is on the third floor, 29 steps up. (Yes, I counted.)  That is a tough climb for a geezer like your old man.

Last night we walked to a bar/pizza joint 2 blocks away, Solo’s. Struck up conversations with the regulars and watched the first period of the Wild-Blues game. Their tap beer selection was horse kah kah, but their bottle inventory was EK. In case you’re curious I had two Goose Island IPAs and one Laguinitas IPA. Mom had wine.  I have a feeling we’ll be back.

Have a Red Letter Week. Always enjoy pix of the Gorgeous Creatures and the Four Legged Creatures, especially those I can view more than once or twice, if you get my drift.

Greetings to all. Peace, love, harmony and tranquility.

The Old Lanai Lover

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Mar 8    HELLO FROM MARIETTA

Hello.  Here is an abbreviated update on our travels. We drove 612 miles today from our Fort Myers condo to Marietta, which is a suburb of Hotlanta on the north end of its metro area. The Florida and Georgia interstates are filled with horrendous drivers. Atlanta has horrible traffic. Glad to be through there tonight so we don’t have to face it tomorrow.

For lunch we had a picnic of leftover egg salad sammiches at a rest area near Ashburn, Georgia. For dinner we ate quesadillas at a Mexican joint called Pappasito's near our hotel. Mom thought it was great. I thought it was okay.

Heading for Paducah tomorrow. Love to all. Miss you all.

The Old Grumpy Guy

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Mar 9    HELLO FROM PADUCAH

Hello boys & girls,

You have been sitting with your phones, awaiting this update. Relax... Here it is.

We drove 369 miles to this city right across the Ohio River from the land of my peeps. I was worried about driving around Nashville, but after getting good navigation tips from a guy in a travel information center on how best to do it, no probzlemzskiez.

Lunch was a fish fillet + shamrock shake, at Mac & Don’s in Cadiz, KY.  Our first stop in Paducah was Dry Ground Brewery where we sucked down some EK hazies and pales. Mom, the U of M grad, chose a trippel for her THIRD brew.

Dinner at Max’s Wood Fire Grill In downtown Paducah. I had jambalaya. Grade = A, but a dubious practice regarding the prices on their menu. Mom had cavatappi.

We were going to stay in Paducah two nights, but The Boss now says one.

We are now back in our motel room. Mom just finished watching The Voice and is now watching Manifest. If I am lucky enough to make it to purgatory, it will not be worse.

Keep it light. Keep it mellow. Wash your hands as if you just handled jalapeño peppers and were now going to put in your contact lenses.  (Got that from Jenna Bush.)  Hello to the spouses, the Gorgeous Creatures and the four legged friends.

The Old Kin Tuck Traveler.

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Mar 10    HELLO FROM SOUTH BELOIT

Hello. We drove 436 miles to get from Paducah to SBI. All but 10 of those miles were in Illinois.

We started the day with greftas at Kirchhoff’s, a deli in downtown Paducah.  We each had a bacon & cheese croissant. Quite suck-you-lant. Right next door through an opening in a shared wall is Etcetera, a funky coffee shop which shares space with a small clothing store. It’s the kind of place SLP needs for its fledgling downtown in the Walker/Lake hood. Then spent 2 hours in the National Quilt Museum. I surprised myself by thinking it was great. I will send a picture or two. The artistry is amazeballs. (Is that Jill’s term?)

I hate to say it, but Illinois is a very long, boring state. Flatter than a mah-hmm. Not much to look at except for the southern quarter which is heavily forested. My favorite town name is Effingham. Lunch was Cheeseboogers at Culver’s in Mount Vernon, a medium size burg in southern Illinois. 

Couldn’t get a room in Rockford for < $200 due to high school basketball and wrestling tournaments in the area — price gouging? — so we drove 15 minutes up the pike to South Beloit. Had spagootz and meatsataballza in a super little Italian restaurant here called Anna Maria’s. Talked to the co-owner cook, a nice Italiano of the female persuasion. Let the women play through!

Should be home tomorrow afternoon. We will have been gone 24 days. Looking forward to seeing all o’ yuz.

The Old Paisano

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Mar 11    HELLO FROM ST. LOUIS PARK

Hello boys & girls,

While it is true that less than three of you inquired as to whether I would be offering a final installment of my round trip road adventures with Momma Cuan, there may be a completist among you whom I would not want to let down. As you probably know, a completist feels compelled to own or experience every single one of a series of things (for lack of a better word within my limited vocabulary), often for no other reason than to come full circle, as it were.  For example, I have no burning desire to visit Connecticut except for the fact that it is one of only three states in which I have never set foot.  (The other two are West Virginia and Hawaii, both of which I would very much enjoy visiting.) Another personal example is the TV show Lost. I thought the first two or three seasons were very good. The fourth and fifth seasons showed signs of mediocrity, so much so that toward the end of the fifth season the lazy writing made it apparent the whole endeavor was falling apart. Nevertheless I decided to endure the sixth and final season in the interest of completeness. Shame on me. The final season was the worst of them all.

I can’t leave you wondering if we ever made it home from South Beloit. Spoiler Alert: We did!

The hardest part about driving through Cheese Land on a Wednesday morning is keeping the mph within a reasonable level above the speed limit. Seven above is about all I’m willing to risk.  The Wisconsin Highway Patrol is notorious for setting speed traps along the interstate. Those guys are sneaky devils, hiding under bridges and on medians at the end of down slopes. I’m happy to report that on this trip I did manage to avoid the long arm of the law.

As we approached Eau Claire we started to get hungry and decided to bypass several McDonald's while patiently hoping there’d be a Culver’s.  We eventually saw a sign indicating Culver’s was off an exit ramp a few miles beyond Eau Claire. It wasn’t until we actually took the exit that we saw a second sign revealing Culver’s was 3.5 miles away. We should have returned immediately to the interstate but by this time we were really craving Culver’s. To make a long story short, we drove ten miles out of our way on a country road and never found the Culver’s. We ended up settling for Mac & Don’s west of Eau Claire after all.

We hit Minneapolis at 2:15, not early enough to avoid westbound rush hour traffic on I-94.  On second thought the traffic snarl is like a permanent condition more than merely rush hour.  I opted to exit at Riverside, then zig zagged our way home through south Minny and around Lake Of The Isles. We pulled into the QE driveway at exactly 3:00.  Our driveway is 320 miles from South Beloit.

The route home was 1737 miles from Fort Myers, compared to the 1848 miles I drove to get there. That is the difference between driving through Paducah in western Kentucky versus driving through Lexington in eastern Kentucky. The former is a hypotenuse route; the latter is more of a right angle.  In total we put 3791 miles on our car during the twenty-four days we were gone. Some people might call us crazy for driving instead of flying, but our theory is that the journey provides opportunities and memories which a flyer would miss.

I love you all.

The Old Completist

Movie Review: "Ford v Ferrari"

"Ford v Ferrari": B+.  I'll admit I had a few reservations about spending good money to see Ford v Ferrari.  First of all, I found the film's title to be rather blah.  But then I remembered you can't judge a book by its cover, so the same precept must apply to movies.  Secondly, I'm not a big auto racing fan.  Watching guys making left turns for two hours is not a big turn on for me, even if they are approaching the speed of sound.  But then I remembered the key race is LeMans where the unique, eight and a-half mile track requires right turns as well; plus, the event is an all-day-and-night proposition.  Thirdly, I was concerned that the automotive jargon would pose a language barrier.  I don't know a piston from a crankshaft or a shock from a strut.  But then I figured this immensely popular movie is probably being viewed, and praised, by other people like me whose mechanical know-how amounts to being able to read a dip stick.  Oh, and regarding that "good money" I was hesitant to part with?  My ticket cost a grand total of $2.50 at the Hopkins Theater.

Ford v Ferrari is a buddy movie of sorts, and the two leading men are nearly perfect.  Matt Damon is Carroll Shelby, known among industry professionals as a world class automobile designer.  Christian Bale is Ken Miles, one of a select group of drivers whose uncanny, intangible instincts give him an accurate assessment of how his car will perform under race conditions when he calls on his machine to rise to the next level. Miles is also an astute strategist, banking on his unmatched big race experience to know when to lie back and when to throttle his adversary.

The story abounds with villains, or at least men who are at odds with the aspirations of our two heroes.  My favorite adversaries, naturally, are the Italians, led by Enzo Ferrari (Remo Girone).  He negotiates with Ford Motor Company's representatives, led by none other than future Ford president and Chrysler Corporation CEO Lee Iaccoca (Jon Bernthal).  Ford is trying to form a merger with Ferrari.  The proposed deal falls apart ostensibly over post-merger control issues relating to future races, but it's possible if not likely that Enzo is simply playing Iacocca to get a better deal from Fiat.  The sly, cunning Enzo not only dismisses the Ford representatives with a waive of his hand, but hurls insults at its CEO, Henry Ford II (Tracy Letts), aka "Deuce," who has remained home in Detroit.  When word of Enzo's personal invective gets back to Deuce, its Game On.

Deuce and Iacocca are counting on Shelby to steer Ford's racing division to international glory.  Shelby is reluctant to take the job mostly because the corporate bureaucracy would interfere with how Shelby prefers to conduct business.  When Deuce assures Shelby that he will only have to answer to one executive, Shelby accepts the challenge.   Shelby naively assumes that the one big shot will be Deuce himself. Wrong. Enter the conniving Leo Beebe (Josh Lucas), an executive vice president of Ford.  The "one guy" Deuce promised to Shelby as his only boss turns out to be Beebe, who throws one roadblock after another into Shelby and Miles' way.

The film is based on the true story of how Shelby and Miles combine to help Ford Motor Company reach the pinnacle of international auto racing, putting it in the same lofty stratum as Ferrari.  Therefore, when director James Mangold chronicles many singular moments and incidences which seem too far fetched, we wonder if those things really happened, or if they're products of Hollywood fiction whose purpose is to add to the intensity of their respective scenes.  For example, when Shelby needs to convince Deuce that not just any ol' race car driver can get the job done, but rather someone with the rare talent and experience of Miles, Shelby takes Deuce on a death-defying high speed chase around an airport tarmac.  Deuce, a proud and cocky "suit," is reduced to tears of fear.  It is no doubt an exciting minute or two on film, and provides Letts an opportunity to show some range versus the impression he had theretofore exhibited playing the part of Deuce, but I doubt the race car romp actually happened. I also seriously doubt that Shelby would go so far as to wager ownership of his own company, Shelby American, on the outcome of the Daytona 500, but in Ford v Ferrari, that's what happens.  Finally, do racers hurtling side-by-side at speeds exceeding two hundred miles an hour really stare each other down making menacing faces?  Miles and Ferrari's driver, Lorenzo Bandini (Francesco Bauco), make a habit of it.  Well, their focus may have been lacking but at least they weren't texting, perhaps only because cell phones were still thirty years into the future.

It turns out I should not have worried about being clueless regarding the use of automotive intricacies.  Director Mangold must have had viewers like me in mind when he chose the kind of racing dilemmas to film.  For example, when Miles can't get the door of his racing car to stay closed, one of the engineers in the pit crew, Phil Remington (Ray McKinnon), bludgeons the door shut with a mallet.  Problem solved.  That I could understand!  When there are problems with Miles' brakes, the crew simply replaces the entire brake system rather than extricating and replacing the faulty part.  If you, the viewer, knew nothing at all about the innards of brake systems, it made no difference here.  There are continual cautious references to 7,000 RPM.  We are alerted that if a driver forces his engine to exceed that threshold, expect bad things to happen.  Foreshadowing?  Again, easily decipherable, especially since the camera shows us the RPM level on the dashboard plenty of times.

There are a smattering of minor negatives which detract from the quality of Ford v Ferrari.  How many times do we need to see the drivers stomping on their accelerators or manipulating their gear shifts? There is an overdose of Miles' family reacting to the race they are watching on their little televisions back home.  And most importantly, the last ten minutes of this 152 minute movie are arguably trite and unnecessary.  Nevertheless, I was very impressed with the performances of Damon and especially Bale.  Whatever deficiencies may be present, I can say without reservation that I was entertained, thanks to a large extent to those two gifted actors.

Twelfth Annual Movie Ratings Recap

Isn't it something that the three most eagerly awaited film events of the year all take place on the same day?  That day is today!  You can place these in any order of importance you feel is justified, but in chronological order they line up as follows:

* The Quentin Chronicle's annual Movie Ratings Recap.

* The Red Carpet entrance into Hollywood's Dolby Theatre, where the Academy Awards ceremony will take place.

* The Academy Awards ceremony itself.

It's kind of like Super Bowl Sunday, Final Four Monday and Game 7 of the World Series all rolled into one.

Last year I lamented the fact that my attendance at movie theaters had sunk to an all time low of thirteen times.  I wrote in my February 28 MRR, "My wish for the coming year is that movie makers become more attuned to the fact that the baby boomer 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."  The bad news is that, generally, Hollywood and its foreign counterparts have failed to heed the call.  Most of the previews and advertisements I've seen for the past year's films are aimed at a demographic of which, sadly, I am not a part.  The good news is that, notwithstanding my continued disappointment with what the studios have offered for consumption, I did manage to take in fifteen movies during the twelve month period which ended January 31, 2020.  According to my Norf Dakoter high school math, that's a 15% uptick over last year's tally.

Following custom, I have listed those fifteen films in descending order of my ratings, including within each grade level.  I've also listed the month of my review.

A:

Linda Ronstadt: The Sound Of My Voice  (September '19)

Knives Out  (December '19)

A-:

The Highwaymen  (March '19)

Love Them First: Lessons From Lucy Laney Elementary  (June '19)

B+:

Vice  (February '19)

1917  (January '20)

The Lighthouse  (November '19)

B:

Hotel Mumbai  (April '19) 

Rocket Man  (August '19)

The Quiet One  (July '19)

B-:

Booksmart  (June '19)

Uncut Gems  (January '20)

Long Shot  (May '19)

C+:

Little Women  (January '20)

C:

After The Wedding  (August '19)

A Case Of Mistaken Identity

I cannot tell a lie, Father.
It was I who chopped down your cherry tree.
- George Washington (1738)

Today we finally reach the long-anticipated Iowa Caucuses.  For many it will come as a welcome diversion to the coverage of President Trump's impeachment and Senate trial.  In the seven-plus years I have been writing this blog, I have seldom posted anything about my three year sojourn in Iowa, but, this being a kind of National Iowa Day, it seems like an appropriate time to do so.  I have checked the Iowa statute of limitations laws, and I believe I'm good to go.

My family moved to Bettendorf, Iowa, one of the Quad Cities, in the winter of 1961.  We lived in a development comprised of roughly ten townhouses on the northwest edge of town.  Each townhouse had four units.  Therefore, with so many families occupying those dwellings, I figured there would be at least a number of kids my age.  Wrong.  Down the street from us lived the only other teenage boys in the neighborhood: Bud, who was my age, and his brother Kevin, one year older.  We did not attend the same school, but we hung out when we were home.

Kevin had a job delivering the Times-Democrat, the major daily newspaper published in Davenport, the largest of the Quad Cities.  About six weeks after my family arrived, Kevin presented me with what he called a "great opportunity."  His family was going out of town on the following Saturday and would not return home until Sunday evening.  How would I like to make some "easy money" by taking care of his route that Sunday morning?  His route was in a residential neighborhood about a half-mile away, and there would be 50 to 60 houses.  The only downside, according to Kevin, was that I was supposed to start the route at 5:30 a.m.  He conveniently avoided mentioning the bitter cold forecast for that day.  He also failed to mention one other salient fact which bore heavily on the matters at hand.

Although I can't remember the exact monetary compensation involved, this would be way more money than I had ever earned in a single day.  At age 13, I had not had a real job at that point.  As for the early pre-dawn start, I wasn't all that concerned, as I had served as an altar boy for dozens of 6:30 masses in Libertyville not that long ago.  The time of day for the paper route gig did not seem that different.  I told Kevin I would accept his offer.

I was instructed to pick up the papers at a particular corner, the "stack corner," very near the start of the route.  After walking the half-mile from home I arrived at the appointed time, 5:30, and sure enough there were the stacks which the newspaper truck had deposited next to the curb.  The wind chill had to be below zero, and the pitch black night was still two hours before sunrise.  It was all I could do to snag the list of addresses out of my pocket.  Even with gloves on, my fingers were so cold that I had little feeling in them when I tried to hold a pencil to check off the houses as I made the deliveries to their front doors.

I didn't realize how much thicker and heavier the Sunday newspaper was compared to the other days' papers until I started to stuff them in my bag.  The combination of weight and space meant I would have to make several trips back and forth to the stack corner in order to complete my route.  As I was returning to the stack corner after the fourth or fifth round of deliveries, the eastern sky was beginning to display a glint of sun.  "Just one more round," I told myself, "and then I can go back to bed and thaw out."

I expected to find on the corner a small stack of the remaining papers, the last ones needed to finish my route.  Instead, there were two surprises awaiting me.  The first surprise was that instead of just the eight or nine Sunday papers I expected to find, there was a whole other supply of newspapers piled high next to them.  This supply was nearly as copious as the stack which I first saw at 5:30.  To say I was dumbfounded would be an understatement.  But yet, that was only the half of it.

The second surprise was that there was another kid, about my age, who was standing at the stack corner.  I had never seen him before and had no idea what he was doing, other than standing there shivering.  "Are you here to deliver Kevin's papers?" he asked.  I replied that I was.  It wasn't until his next statement that the light bulb went off for me.  "I'm supposed to have 42 Registers here, but the truck only left me 8."  I walked up closer to the paper stacks and could not believe my eyes.  Sitting by the curb were two distinct stacks of newspapers: 56 Times-Democrats and 8 Des Moines Registers.  I had mistakenly spent the last 90 minutes delivering the wrong newspapers!

I am embarrassed to confess that I played dumb, claiming ignorance.  That was not one of my proudest moments. Other than to rationalize that my body was practically frozen solid, I can't, even now more than a half-century later, excuse my denial of any knowledge regarding the missing Registers.  The alternative would have been to retrieve the Registers which I had delivered to Kevin's Times-Democrat customers, maybe even help the other kid deliver the Registers to the correct houses, and then deliver the 56 Times-Democrats to their rightful owners.  The only one of those three things I did was the last.  It was well past 9:00 by the time I finished.

I never saw that poor kid again and don't know how, or even if, the issue of the "missing" Registers was resolved. Kevin never brought it up when he paid me.  I wanted to say to him, "Why didn't' you tell me the Des Moines Registers were going to be dumped on the Times-Democrat stack corner?" but I didn't dare bring up the subject.  Besides, the blame was obviously more mine than Kevin's.  If I had only bothered to look at the top of the newspapers before I started my route, I would have realized the Times-Democrat truck was very late; there would have been no ensuing mixup.  I decided to let well enough -- at least for me -- alone.

According to legend, a day of reckoning arrived for George Washington at the age of six.  A day of reckoning arrived for me at the age of thirteen.  We handled it in two vastly different ways.  One of us went on to become a great war general, a Founding Father, and the first President of the United States.  The other went on to become the Functionary of the Quentin Estates.

Quarterly Cinema Scan - Volume XXXVIII

Since my last Quarterly Cinema Scan of October 28, there has been a major development in my little world.  At the Quentin Estates we no longer get Turner Classic Movies ("TCM") as part of our cable package from Comcast.  This unfortunate development is important  because most of the movies I have watched on the Quentin Estates idiot lantern, and subsequently have graded on this blog, have been on TCM.  Now, in order to receive TCM I would have to pay an extra charge on top of an already outrageous cable fee, courtesy of Comcast.  I am not willing to do that.  Of the twenty or so bills I pay each month, the one which brings me to tears is Comcast's.  I am too embarrassed to publish here exactly what the dollar amount is, but it is more than $200.  Whenever I write a check to Comcast I feel like I am being played for a sucker and a rube.  I am convinced if there is cable television in heaven, the provider will not be Comcast.

Now that we can no longer avail ourselves of TCM movies, we have turned to Netflix.  Momma Cuan, who is totally into the British royalty sagas of which there are plenty on Netflix, is certainly getting her money's worth with our Netflix subscription.  I have watched only a few films on Netflix, but am delighted that the current trend is for Netflix to show more new feature length films.  These films are showing up on Netflix because of a change in the way films are adjudged to be eligible for Academy Awards.  In order for a movie to be eligible for Academy Award consideration, it must be shown in theaters for at least a limited time.  Some studios have jumped on the opportunity to show their new movies in a very limited theater release (say, two weeks in a handful of cities), and then make it available via streaming on Netflix.  The theory for the movie moguls is that you get the best of both worlds: Their movies are less expensive to distribute, yet still eligible for the all-important accolades.

Of the movies released to Netflix, I was most impressed with Marriage Story.  Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver play a couple who, despite their continuing affection (if not love) for each other, decide to terminate their marriage.  He is a producer/director in a small New York City playhouse.  His career is close to hitting the big time, namely Broadway.  She is a California girl who never cut her West Coast ties, and still dreams of an acting career of her own.  She moved to NYC to accomsodate her husband, but still thinks of herself as a Californian.  Most importantly, they have a son (Azhy Robertson) who is an innocent victim in the tumult presented by his parents' breakup.

The first thing which stands out in Marriage Story is the excellent script written by director Noah Baumbach.  The dialogue is very real and even-handed.  Never once did I doubt that someone in either spouse's position would say what was said.  Each side's position has merit, and therefore it is impossible for viewers to pick sides.  Other than Kramer vs. Kramer, I do not recall seeing a film regarding the painful subject of divorce which impressed me so much.

The second highlight is the performance by Laura Dern as the wife's attorney.  If Dern does not win this year's Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, I just might file a complaint with my congresswoman.

****

Here are the films I viewed at the Quentin Estates during the final quarter of the last decade.

1. The Bounty Hunter (2010 comedy; Ex-cop Gerard Butler, now a bounty hunter, still has feelings for his ex, Jennifer Anniston, but that doesn’t stop him from tracking her down when she skips bail.)  B

2. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory (2005 fantasy; Johnny Depp resurrects a factory by staging a world wide contest which attracts aspiring youngsters, some nice like Freddie Highmore, and others spoiled brats like Julia Winter.)  B

3. Echoes In The Canyon (2018 documentary; In the late 1960's, the Laurel Canyon neighborhood of Los Angeles became the creative cauldron of music artists including Roger McGuinn of the Byrds, Stephen Stills of Buffalo Springfield, Michelle Phillips of The Mamas And The Papas, and Jackson Browne, all of whom are interviewed by Jakob Dylan.)  B

4. The Irishman (2019 drama; Robert DeNiro gets entangled with criminal activity overseen by mob boss Joe Pesci, and later becomes the body guard of union strong man Al Pacino.) B-

5. Fiddler On The Roof (1971 musical; Israeli milkman Topol has his hands full raising three daughters while his strong-willed wife Norma Crane often ignores the tradition which calls for establishing the “papa” as head of the household.)  B

6. La Bamba (1987 biopic; Lou Diamond Phillips is Ritchie Valens, a California high school kid whose brief music career came to an abrupt and sad end in an Iowa cornfield on the day the music died.)  B-

7. Marriage Story (2019 drama; Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson are married with a son, but their career aspirations are on different coasts, leading to a dissolution.)   A-

8. The Two Popes (2019 biopic; Jonathan Pryce plays Argentinian Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio who arrives in Rome to seek permission from Pope Benedict XVI (Anthony Hopkins) to retire to simple parish work, but the pope has other ideas.)  B