Heavy scribbling day today so we’ll just do the cinema stuff and save the rest for tomorrow. Questions? Call the Complaint Dept. at 1-800-SUSIE-BE
Five Films: 1993
Groundhog Day: We walked in hoping for another satisfying Bill Murray comedy and walked out realizing we’d just been given a lesson on life and how to live it (hint: We’re all living the same day over and over…only the scenery changes). You could spend a week in a Philosophy 101 course dissecting this film. It’s incredible. Always wondered how they came to choose “I Got You, Babe” as the wake-up tune. 2. Schindler’s List: We watched this last year for the first time since it was first release and came away far more impressed. Liam Neeson and Ben Kingsley are both fantastic, but it’s the performance by then-unknown Ralph Fiennes as the sadistic, sociopathic concentration camp commandant that takes it to another level. 3. In The Line of Fire: Maybe this was the year of epic supporting actor performances. This may be my favorite Clint Eastwood film, but it’s John Malkovich as the creeper wannabe assassin that gives you goose bumps. 4. Dazed And Confused: As a child of the Seventies, I can only look on in awe on how many of the details Richard Linklater got right here. Plus, there’s a bounty of burgeoning young Hollywood talent here besides Matthew McConaughey: Ben Affleck, Anthony Rapp, Adam Goldberg, Joey Lauren Adams, Miller Jovovich, Parker Posey and of course, Tim Lincecum. Strange that the film’s star, Jason London, never made it really big. He had all the tools. 5. A Bronx Tale: Sort of a PG-version of Goodfellas, but Chazz Palmientieri and Robert De Niro do the story justice. The kid’s really terrific, too. What ever became of him?
Almost but not quite: The Fugitive, Jurassic Park.
Though his mind was not for rent/To any god or government/Neil Peart was so joyfully content/banging skins for our entertainment
Rush drummer Neil Peart passed away last Tuesday due to complications from glioblastoma (brain cancer). He was 67.
Read this brief tribute from The New Yorker. Two things for me stand out. First of all, a “Dude, check this out” regarding the band’s breakthrough concept album, “2112”, is exactly how I was introduced to Rush back in 1976. I was too young to “get” the trio, but I did recognize an originality and a fierceness of will. Also, was this band from another planet (or just Canada)? This suite of songs remains seared in my memory:
Second, this closing line from author Amanda Petrusich: “If you can’t have a good time blasting “Tom Sawyer,” then some awesome part of you has withered. I say, raise a joint to Neil Peart tonight, and go get it back.”
Peart was more than the band’s drummer, though that was more than enough as most musicians considered him the greatest living practitioner of the kit. Peart was also the band’s lyricist, and those lyrics spoke to earnest, idealistic and free-thinking contrarian youths for generations. Here’s Peart’s words from “Free Will”:
You can choose a ready guide In some celestial voice If you choose not to decide You still have made a choice You can choose from phantom fears And kindness that can kill I will choose a path that’s clear I will choose free will
And here’s Peart/Rush from our favorite Rush tune, “Spirit of Radio”:
Invisible airwaves Crackle with life Bright antennae bristle With the energy Emotional feedback On a timeless wavelength Bearing a gift beyond price Almost free
All this machinery Making modern music Can still be open-hearted Not so coldly charted It’s really just a question Of your honesty, yeah your honesty
One likes to believe In the freedom of music But glittering prizes And endless compromises Shatter the illusion Of integrity,…
In other words, just play good music that listeners can jam to and forget all the market-share and payola crap. Our guess is that Peart wasn’t a fan of ClearChannel or IHeartRadio.
First, Rush is playing the world’s largest laundromat? Second, stick around for the very end: Rush was opening in Toronto on this summer day in 2003 for AC/DC. Can I go back in time, please?
Here’s Peart, an avowed agnostic, discussing morality and faith and the existence of God, of a god, in a 2015 interview. We couldn’t agree with him more:
And people will say to me “Why are you a faith-basher?” And I say well, I don’t feel like a faith-basher, and it’s not something I’ve thought about all day. It’s something that my life has been full without any of that aspect, I don’t really understand it or understand why it’s needed, and it’s a kind of brainwashing in almost all cases where poor children have been brought up and formed into these molds, that you are suddenly this ‘ism’ that is after your name from the time you’re born. They don’t choose it, and for whatever reasons they never do question it, where I did from the beginning. I went to Sunday school as a little kid and when they’d tell us to sing the song about god watches each sparrow fall and all of that, and I said well no, I don’t really think so. When you look at the world now, I saw the comic and the great writer Stephen Fry the other day talking about that, he said people would say “what if you went to heaven and met God?” And he said oh, that wouldn’t be a pleasant meeting. I’d say why did you create those parasites that grow behind babies’ eyes and destroy their vision on the way out and all of that. That’s not any kind of a god to be worshiping, is it?
And I always say too, if I’m going to go up to heaven and meet St. Peter and Jesus and God and Allah and Buddah, whichever one you wanna pick, I’m gonna be okay, because I have lived a life based on that and I believe in generosity and charity and kindness and courtesy, those are things that just seem good to me anyway, I don’t need a threat to make me behave that way and I don’t need a reward.
Neil has his answer on this one now. Either way, what does it matter? He lived an exemplary life and gave far, far more than any of us can ever repay.
To Shell And Back
This is Diego the tortoise, the last of the red-hot lovers. In the 1970s only a dozen or so Espanola giant tortoises remained on the Galapagos Islands, most of them female. Then Diego was flown in from the San Diego Zoo, a assumedly a disco ball was hung somewhere, and Diego went on to sire hundreds upon hundreds of tortoises. He single-handedly—though no hands were involved—went on to save his species from the brink of extinction, as there are now more than 2,000 of his kind.
Diego, estimated to be more than 100 years old, will be released from his sexual enslavement back into the wild by the Galapagos National Park. Now he’s really going to crush it.
Regarding Henry
On Christmas Day the Tennessee Titans were 8-7 and heading to Houston for a game they absolutely had to win to make the playoffs. The Titans beat the AFC South champs that Sunday in Houston (35-14), then they beat the AFC East champs, New England, in the wild card round (20-13) and this Saturday beat the AFC North champions, Baltimore (28-12). Never mind that Baltimore is south of New England–whatevs.
Now the Titans, behind primary weapon and Heisman Trophy winner Derrick Henry, visit AFC West champion Kansas City. We doubt any team has defeated four consecutive division champs, on the road all, to advance to the Super Bowl.
Henry, the 2015 Heisman Trophy winner with Alabama, has had a HoF-worthy three-game run of runs: 211 yards rushing at Houston, 182 yards at New England and 195 yards at Baltimore. He’s been the MVP of the postseason so far.
Meanwhile in Kansas City, the Chiefs, losers of 7 of their previous 8 home playoff games (preposterous!), fell behind 24-0 in the second quarter at Arrowhead Stadium yesterday. And somehow, led by QB Pat Mahomes and a dubious decisions by Texans coach Bill O’Brien to run a fake punt from his own 31 on 4th-and-7 with a 24-7 lead, the Chiefs were in the lead at halftime . They’d go on to score 51 of the next 58 points after that 24-0 hole to win 51-31.
Solid advice RT @BradyHenderson: Marshawn Lynch answered a couple questions at the podium then launched into an advise session for young players about taking care of their bodies, minds and finances. pic.twitter.com/4jLylStLUz
And up in Green Bay, after his Seahawks bowed out, Marshawn Lynch, who was tailgating before a game in Oakland and passing out tequila shots just one month earlier, offered sage advice: “Take care y’all chicken.”
Joker’s Wild
The Oscar nominations were just announced and Joker leads with 11, including Best Picture and Best Actor (Joaquin Phoenix). Appears that Commodus is finally going to get a thumbs up from the crowd. We’ve seen five of the nine BP nominees and will have to put Joker on our list.
Of the ones we’ve seen, Once Upon A Time in Hollywood and Ford V Ferrari are our two favorites. The latter won’t win because it’s not daring enough, I’m certain, but it’s Matt Damon and Christian Bale doing their thing and for us that’s usually more than enough.
Brad Pitt will win Best Supporting Actor and Laura Dern and her insane gams will win Best Supporting Actress.
By the way, thanks in part to the Marvel Comic Universe (and also to the sniff sniff Academy), the last time a year’s highest-grossing film was even nominated for Best Picture was in 2010, Toy Story 3. The last time such a film won? 2003, with The Lord Of The Rings: The Return of the King, which wasn’t even the best LOTR film but the Academy had to thank Peter Jackson for all of the revenue. The last time a film was a year’s highest-grossing, won Best Picture, and had no influence from sci-fi or comic books? 1988, Rain Man.
Correction: 1997, Titanic. Sorry to the Leo fans out there.
Five Films: 1992 (and then five more)
The year lacked a definitively stand-alone classic such as Goodfellas or The Silence of the Lambs had been the previous two years. And yet 1992 had quite the deep bench, deeper than in most years. Thus we’re adding a full second unit.
Hanks for the memories
A Few Good Men: Rob Reiner, yet again. Get past the cheesy 80s soundtrack and the trapped-by-its-era attempt to fashion sexual tension between Demi Moore and Tom Cruise. Go to the actual story and the script as well as arguably the greatest courtroom scene in film history. You think there’s a better film than this from 1992? You can’t HANDLE the truth. 2. A League Of Their Own: At the time this was marketed as a Madonna film, but what it really was was the beginning of Tom Hanks’ massive career comeback. I’ll stake this as the best performance of his career and in some ways he was Jimmy Duggan at this point in his career. He’d win two Best Actor Oscars in the next two years, primarily, I think, out of respect for what he did here—where he was not even nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar. Incredible. Geena Davis wasn’t too shabby herself. 3. Unforgiven: If this isn’t Clint Eastwood’s best Western, it may be his most professionally done. And Gene Hackman makes a great villain. 4. Wayne’s World: Schwing! The most creatively silly and joyful comedy since Airplane! Mike Meyers and Dana Carvey not only turned their SNL sketch characters into celluloid heroes but also mocked countless tropes of cinematic storytelling. Just a wonderful goof, not to mention the resurrection of Robe Lowe’s career. 5. A River Runs Through It: Brad Pitt at his golden boy zenith with the breathtaking Montana wilderness in a supporting role. A film that in every reel knows what it is and what it’s trying to say.
2nd Five: 1) Reservoir Dogs 2) My Cousin Vinny 3) Scent Of A Woman 4) The Last Of The Mohicans 5) Glengarry GlenRoss
Do you know the man in the No. 3 jersey above? If you do there’s a 50% chance that you’re a college hoops writer for The Athletic. His name is Filip Petrusev and he’s a 6’11” sophomore at Gonzaga University. A Serbian by way of a tony Connecticut prep school (sort of like Rory Gilmore without the Paris baggage), Petrusev is the leading scorer, rebounder and shot blocker for the Zags, who just happen to be the No. 1 ranked team in the nation.
I’m a sportswriter who generally stays on top of most sports (Roger Federer? Still not retired. There, see?) and I had no ide who Petrusev was 10 minutes ago. Truly.
I think this is Ryan Woolridge, but I’m not sure
The Zags, who defeated the University of San Diego 94-50 last night, also have Ryan Woolridge, who is their leader in assists and steals. I wouldn’t be able to pick Woolridge out of a lineup, be it a police lineup or a Zags starting five.
Is that a me problem or a college hoops problem? Maybe a little bit of both, but more the latter.
It’s not a Zags problem. The Spokane school has been around the scene as a college hoops potentate now for two decades. No, the problem, at least to me, is that college hoops’ best talent now stays one year at most or goes off to Australia or somewhere else to play in their gap year before entering the NBA draft. Whereas future NFL starters must play three seasons of college football first, where we get to know them and build a fan relationship with them.
By Season 5, only one original Angel remained (and they didn’t even do their famous pose any more)
Forget the ethics of it. The legality. The trampled rights of nineteen year-olds not being able to maximize their earning potential. College hoops is in trouble because its best programs (Kansas, Duke, Kentucky, North Carolina) ordinarily turn over their entire starting lineup year-to-year nowadays. That’s a formula that killed Charlie’s Angels and it may kill college basekball as well, at least until mid-March.
So here’s my proposal. And before you slam it because it’s against NCAA rules, etc., let it breathe a moment. Forget about telling me why it can’t be done and tell me if college hoops (and the NBA) would be better off it were instituted. The plan:
After a player’s freshman season he becomes eligible for the NBA draft. A franchise may select him, but he still must play three years of college hoops, just like his gridiron counterparts do. The difference is that the NBA franchise must pay him. I’d suggest the following graduated rates…
–If taken in the first half of the first round, $1 million per year. In the second half of the first round, $750,000. First half of the second round, $500K. Second half of the second round, $250K. The player is paid while in school but not by the school, by the NBA team that chose him.
If the player is taken after his freshman season, he’d be paid for two more years under that structure. If after his sophomore season, one year. But the team retains the rights to that player and they’ve used one of their two very valuable draft picks to retain him. Easy peezy, right?
Now, you could end the entire solution there, but if you want to make it a little more sophisticated, you could have the “Cold Feet” addendum. If by the end of that player’s junior season the NBA franchise who selected him no longer believes he fits into their plans, for whatever reason, they can toss him back into the talent pool. The player still keeps the money he was paid for that one or two seasons. What does the team get in return? An extra pick in the first round somewhere. So if the team no longer fancies say, a Zion Williamson, they’d relinquish their rights to him and would get a second pick in the first round at the end of it.
Everyone wins. College fans get to know players better. College players who are at the top level get paid. NBA teams get a developmental system without losing top-tier talent to Australia or Lithuania or wherever. It makes too much sense, right?
Rome, If You Want To
Bookmarking The New York Times‘ “52 Places To Travel in 2020” guide. Some people’s mouths water at NFL Mock Drafts (or Way Too Early Top 25 lists). Us, this is what gets our salivary glands going. Gotta travel jones…
Even if you don’t make it to any of these spots, the guide is so well done. It’s a treat to behold.
Five Films: 1991
The Silence Of The Lambs: There’s simply not a wasted scene in this film, which begins and ends with two nightmare scenarios—a girl trapped in a lair of a dangerous man. Except this girl’s not so helpless. Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (Anthony Hopkins) and Best Actress (Jodie Foster). And every statuette well-deserved. One of the all-time greats…and you’ll never listen to “American Girl” quite the same way ever again. 2. Thelma & Louise: I remember Susan Sarandon coming on to promote this film on Letterman and telling him, like the week it opened, that she believed this movie had “legs.” That is, that it would have staying power beyond the first weekend in the theater and beyond. The very title of the film now conjures the thought of two friends who are willing to make a suicide pact rather than relent to corrupt forces. Also, it’s Harvey Keitel’s first “Mr. Wolf” role of the decade, though none of us yet knew it. These first two films would make a Top 5 in any year. 3. What About Bob? Our two favorite Bill Murray films were released in the early Nineties—this and Groundhog Day. Here Murray taps into the fact that no one can play sweet and naive while also being an oblivious troublemaker quite as well as he can. It took a lot, I mean a lot, to make my old man laugh out loud, but he did watching this. Baby steps. 4. Defending Your Life: Meryl Streep and Albert Brooks in a beguiling little film about purgatory, of sorts, and what would happen if a tribunal had to decide whether or not the life you lived merited advancement to heaven. A line we’ll never forget, as Brooks attempts a stand-up routine here. “You sir, how did you die?” “Onstage, just like you.” 5. Dead Again: Remember when Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson were a big, big deal? This was actually a smart, intricate little murder mystery with some supernatural stuff thrown in as I recall.
Never saw Boyz N The Hood, what can I say? Or Barton Fink. JFK was a letdown. The Prince Of Tides was drech–read the book.
Brad Pitt, taking the supporting-actor plaque at the National Board of Review ceremony: "It's nice to be able to leave this thing carrying something other than George Clooney." pic.twitter.com/XVGdhPr827
*Australia. Iran. Washington. Most of the news is just too depressing so don’t hate us for just wanting to skip it. Particularly Australia. Honestly, how great would Earth be if our species had died out a couple million years ago? Rust Cohle was right. I think about this scene often.
“I think human consciousness is a tragic misstep in evolution. We became too self-aware…we are creatures that should not exist by natural law…I think the honorable thing for our species to do is deny our programming, stop reproducing”
Yes! But let’s wait until after the Clemson-LSU game.
Seriously. If it weren’t for thumbs and that gray matter between our ears, we’d all be dead right now. And the planet would be so much better off.
Harry and Meghan’s Brexit*
*The judges acknowledge they whiffed by not titling this “Megxit”
Okay, now this is funny:
Northwestern graduate moving closer to home after spending time abroad https://t.co/TZ18eIOXdQ
You wonder if Prince Harry and Meghan were home watching Season 3 of The Crown and thought, maybe Edward VIII had the right idea. Harry’s great great-uncle was in line for the throne (or briefly sat upon it?) before abdicating by choosing to marry American divorcee Wallis Simpson. That was more than 80 years ago.
You’ll recall that Edward was a favorite (and confidante) of Harry’s father (or is he???), a young Prince Charles.
So what does Harry and Meghan’s announcement—on Instagram—that they will be “stepping down” as senior members of the royal family mean? Are you even allowed to do that?
Basically, it means that they’re now off the dole and will be able to earn their own outside income professionally. If only Don, Jr., and Eric had the nerve to do this.
Phil Out
Backup Notre Dame quarterback Phil Jurkovec, a sophomore, has entered the transfer portal. A 6’5″ quarterback from western Pennsylvania, Jurkovec was considered the jewel of Notre Dame’s 2018 signing class. But he could never beat out Ian Book and wasn’t about to do so next season.
Judging from the coded wording Notre Dame’s coaches have used, they’re not going to miss him terribly. Although if you watch Jurkovec in his limited time, he obviously has some superior athletic talent. Expect Brandon Clark to be the No. 2 next season and freshman Drew Pyne No. 3, and then when Tyler Buchner arrives in 2021, all bets are off.
You can feel for Jurkovec: he’d likely have been the starter last season and definitely next at 80-90% of the schools in the FBS. Just not in South Bend. What doesn’t make sense, though, is that if he transfers now he must sit out a year and doesn’t get a degree from Notre Dame. The first time he could play in a game would be 2021. Whereas if he remains at Notre Dame next season, he could graduate from there, back up Ian Book (and perhaps even play if Book gets hurt), and then immediately transfer without having to sit out a year after next season. In other words, he’d land the Notre Dame degree and still be able to play for someone else no later, in 2021, than he will if he leaves now.
Perhaps his behind-the-scenes relationship with the coaching staff had simply devolved that badly. Or else these are the kind of scratch-your-head decisions he’s known for that frustrated the staff in the first place. Maybe he’s pissed about not getting his chance and just wants to be away from these people. One can understand. But strategically, taking personal feelings out of it, it’s a dubious move.
Five Films: 1990
Goodfellas: I can only relate as a writer—and, okay, as a waiter—but every day you approach your job hoping to hit a home run and are often lucky to hit a single. Then, occasionally, giving the same effort, you hit a grand slam. And you wonder how to replicate that magic. But there’s no formula. This is Martin Scorcese’s best film, and often his movies since have seemed to self-consciously (too self -consciously) attempted to match that effort. It’s a crime that this did not win Best Picture (but this tells you just how much juice Kevin Costner had generated in Hollywood the previous four years). Joe Pesci DID win Best Supporting Actor, an encomium he deserved. Last week on the Golden Globes Tom Hanks imparted a great piece of wisdom—”A film is built scene by scene.” This film has a number of magical scenes and they all are strung together to tell a brutal, and often very funny, tale. 2. Home Alone: Comic John Mulaney grew up in Chicago and had a chance to audition for this but his parents didn’t allow it. By the way, he and Macaulay Culkin share a birthday. 3.Pretty Woman: A whore falls in love with a soulless venture capitalist and Garry Marshall’s genius is that he made us root for them. And here’s George Costanza as an evil little worm, pre-Seinfeld. 4. The Grifters: John Cusack in his first adult role with a very sexy and seductive Annette Bening, in her first big film. 5. Dances With Wolves: Best Picture winner. Ta-tonkah.
I’ve never in full seen Miller’s Crossing, or else it would likely make this list. Never seen Total Recall, either, though the only Arnold Schwarzenegger film I liked was Pumping Iron (a documentary).
Ghost? Blech.
This is also to serve notice of how many egregiously bad films came out in this year: Godfather III and Rocky V, to name a few. Whenever I’m feeling nauseous in the tummy, I refer to it as my feeling Quigley Down Under.
Even the launches are phallic. No wonder insecure male leaders are so fond of them
Strike One
Iran launched a dozen or so missiles at two U.S. bases in Iraq purportedly with the intention of sending a message while NOT killing anyone. Meanwhile on the Iran domestic front, some 52 people died in a stampede during Qasem Soleimani’s funeral in his hometown and then later 176 perished when a commercial jet crashed shortly after takeoff in Tehran.
It was a Boeing 737, but not a Max. Sixty-three of the victims on the Kiev-bound flight were Canadian.
Anyway, it’s possible that the missile strikes were a face-saving gesture from Iran with the intent of not escalating this stupid schoolyard fracas. But I doubt that’s the last Donald Trump has heard from Iran.
That’s Oliver North proving once again that “Republicans, they’re NEVER wrong.” Even when they’re passionately opposing the very thing they once stood for.
Speaking of Olivers, I was thinking of Oliver Hardy yesterday. Stan Laurel’s partner, whose catchphrase was “That’s another nice mess you’ve gotten me into,” and it occurred to me that in terms of Dems and GOP presidents over the last 30 years, it’s exactly what every Democratic president could say to every Republican president he succeeded. To illustrate:
1989-1993: Republican president George Bush gets us into the first Iraq War (“to liberate Kuwait!” Ha!) and increases the federal deficit.
1993-2001: Democratic president Bill Clinton erases—ERASES—the federal budget deficit and there are no wars. He does, however, receive a blow job in the Oval Office from an intern. So there’s that. Heavens.
2001-2009: Republican president George H.W. Bush, not satisfied with merely equaling his dad’s feats, gets us into TWO wars in the Middle East (one of them completely unwarranted and illegal) AND oversees the biggest financial scandal and meltdown since the Great Depression.
2009-2017: Democratic president Barack Obama hunts down the mastermind of 9/11, oversees the nation’s financial recovery to get the stock market to all-time highs and strikes a deal with Iran to get them to stop their nuclear program.
2017-? : President Donald Trump does take the stock market to new all-time highs, but also takes the federal budget deficit into the trillions and averages more than 5,000 lies per year while in office. Also golfs too much.
Hunh. It’s almost as if there’s one party that keeps making the mess, and another party that keeps cleaning up after them. Ah, but the party that makes the mess is against abortion in any form so I guess all the other crap is worth it?
Coachella Fitzgerald (But It May Not Fit Me)
Here’s the Coachella 2020 lineup poster:
And here, released just yesterday, is the Bonnaroo 2020 lineup:
It’s time for me, in the immortal words of Cheap Trick’s Robin Zander, “to get my KISS records out.”
There’s almost no one on either poster I’m interested in seeing. Which isn’t to say that there aren’t some good bands/acts in there. It’s just that ti-i-i-ime is not on my side. No, it isn’t.
Five Films: 1989
Dead Poets’ Society: O Captain, My Captain! Too earnest? Too idealistic? Maybe. But if you can’t be at that time of your life, when can you be? When I see that red-headed schmuck now who ratted out the DPS, I think of Mick Mulvaney. 2 & 3: Do The Right Thing and When Harry Met Sally: You couldn’t find two more polar opposite films about the New York City experience, and yet they were released on the same date (July 21) in 1989. I’d moved here six days earlier. Spike Lee’s joint was largely overshadowed by WHMS that year, but its brilliance and raw emotion is breathtaking. And that’s Samuel L. Jackson’s first big role. WHMS is the best film about dating and NYC since Annie Hall. And maybe nothing has since topped it. 4. Say Anything: Another early Cameron Crowe gem. My favorite scene is the last: “No one thinks this will work” “You just gave the opening line to every great success story.” Absolutely. 5. Field Of Dreams: Yes, there was more corn in the film’s maudlin themes than there was beyond the outfield, but if you’re too cynical to love this film, that’s too bad. This is the kind of the film Frank Capra would have been proud to have made.
