Movies for Memorial Day

I’ve always liked war movies. There was a slew of them made about World War II in the 50’s and 60’s--some of them classics and some rather forgettable. As a kid I remember watching TNT on Memorial Day. They along with TBS used to play them back to back all day. I've seen a lot of greats that way. Commercial breaks during TV films were always annoying, but more so now that I stream so much. The minute I get it in my head to go to a movie on broadcast TV, one long string of ads is enough to break my habit. The commercial breaks aren’t evenly spaced either, I assume they still do it like that. You get a long beginning punctuated by a few commercials and by the end of the movie, it’s the opposite. Only someone with no other option sticks with a film until the end. Hospital patients come to mind.

I settled in to watch The Great Escape Monday night. I’m amazed by how well it holds up today. Good stories do that, they survive even after the color fades from the reels. The Great Escape is less a war movie than a caper/heist film. It’s a lot closer to Ocean’s Eleven than The Longest Day. What makes Ocean’s Eleven great (at least I think it’s great)? Colorful characters with unique skill sets and a specific plan established at the beginning. We know what the mission is so we aren’t surprised to see them work it out over the course of the movie. The Dirty Dozen has some elements of this too. But The Great Escape uses the war as a set piece. Because the men are cut off, the audience has no idea how the war effort is going. Soldiers complain to each other about their imprisonment but we don’t get long expositions on Hitler or the Nazis or successful battles. 

Since these guys are in a camp, their world is confined to planning, tunneling, and escaping detection. We're aware the inside politics from the German side. The Luftwaffe manages the camp instead of the SS, making it decent as far as prison is concerned. The SS were brutal thugs; having them as overseers would’ve been much worse. Captain Ramsey (James Donald) and Roger Bartlett (Richard Attenborough) discuss this very thing. Steve Mcqueen plays the 'cooler king' based loosely on an American pilot named William Ash. He steals every scene. He's just a great actor. 

Apparently the film takes liberties with the historical details of the escape itself. That’s a nice way of saying, there was a true escape but the details are fiction. But it’s a fun watch and doesn’t feel old in the way that some movies do. I mentioned the The Longest Day already but that one feels dated. It’s too big and too long. It tries to cover a lot of information but ends up looking like a documentary. We see A-list actors for a couple of minutes, John Wayne explaining the click device, Robert Mitchum on the beach, Henry Fonda taking fire, but we miss out on the granular story. The scenes of the men storming the beachhead at Normandy are impressive. The overhead continuous shot, was a first for its day, but it feels like a brilliant work of photography and not an emotional event.

It’s a grand spectacle that nails it historically but stays above the grubbiness of human misery. It’s ironic that The Longest Day covers literally one day and feels like 6 months; The Great Escape covers at least 6 months and feels like a week. I don’t mean to say it doesn’t stand up as a quality movie, it certainly does. As film making goes it’s incredible. But modern audiences want to know a character or group of characters and watch them grow through the ordeal.

I can’t imagine how I used to watch a 3 hour movie like that with all the commercial interruptions. No way would I do that anymore. What I’ll do instead is find as many old war movies as possible and catch up. I don’t think I’ve seen Midway yet and that’s supposed to be a Classic. A lot of these I’ve seen in bits and pieces. They run all day and unfortunately they run together in my memory.  I’ve never watched Tora! Tora! Tora! either and that one is supposedly a must.

I'll have to make this a once per month thing instead of once per year.

The Goldfinch; Review

 Every so often critics rip a movie apart that I really liked. I wasn’t sure exactly what to think. The film received universal scorn. The book won a Pulitzer prize but I never read it. My review is based solely on the movie. Normally it works the other way for me. I read the book and then see the movie. But I’ve been let down too many times; this probably explains the negative reaction from others.

This time I’m only watching the movie.

A terrorist bombing in the Metropolitan Museum of Art changes the directions and destroys the fortunes of a handful of people. Young Theo (Oakes Fegley) gets separated from his mother just before the explosion kills her and most of the patrons. Two things happen right after; first an old man gives Theo a ring with instructions to take it to an antique dealer. Second, Theo grabs the painting (The Goldfinch) and keeps it in his bag. He manages to get out in the rubble and dust without anyone questioning him. It’s the only possession he has connecting him to that day. The museum assumes it was destroyed.

 He is wracked by grief over the death of his mother. His Father (Luke Wilson) doesn’t show up to claim him till a few months later. He is an unstable man with gambling issues and debt, living in Las Vegas with his girlfriend. Theo has been taken in by a wealthy Park Avenue family until his dad could be located. He moves out to Las Vegas with his dad and falls into adolescent drug and alcohol abuse. His companion is a Russian kid whose father is never around, providing both boys ample opportunity for trouble. After a few years in Vegas, Theo runs away to New York where the antiques dealer, Hobie (played by Jeffrey Wright) lets him live and work.

Goldfinch unfolds mystery like, putting some of the end near the beginning and the beginning near the end. It’s about grief and tragedy, but also fate and seeing how events change the trajectory of life. Theo is a mixture of the people in his life who influence him after the event. We see the bombing in a handful of chopped up scenes that reveal a little more each time, until it all makes sense.  

 Critics hated the way the story breezed through the characters and flattened their development. Book comparisons are always unfair; who really wants to see an 18 hour movie? 

The real theme is the way random connections work to make us into the person we become. Tragedy is often the spark that pushes people together. It’s a long movie (2 ½ hours) but it succeeds as showing instead of telling. The painting is the one constant thing in his life, or so we think. He hides his grief in the painting that he keeps in a storage unit along with prescription drugs. Ansel Elgort, who plays the adult Theo, reminds me of Matt Damon from The Talented Mr. Ripley-a well-mannered and sophisticated guy, with dark secrets and a lack of ethics. His charm is mostly a veneer. 

   

The scenes are beautifully shot with lots of detail. That might have influenced my opinion more than I admit. You can't create a film around a piece of art and not obsess over the pictures you show the audience.

 I can see where the story is thin in spots, like the last 30 minutes or so seem to come out of nowhere and conclude all at once. But it’s a grand spectacle I’m a fan of great shots. I found Nicole Kidman, who plays the matriarch of the wealthy New York family, to be a little wooden. The idea was to turn her from a WASP-y snob into a warmer person late in life. She undergoes a tragedy as well that changes the direction of her life. But there just wasn’t enough of her in the movie to pull it off convincingly.

   

Most critics see The Goldfinch as a pretty mess, I loved it.

Do We Have a Deal?

It's looking like baseball is a go. I'm convinced the players and owners will work out their differences on the revenue sharing thing. I might be missing a few key items but I think I have the main ingredients.  The players agreed to prorate their salaries when it became clear the season might be cut short if it happened at all. Since the games are likely to go on without fans, the deal isn't so good for the owners. They want to base salaries on a 50/50 split of revenues. Which I guess means money from the TV networks and whatever merchandise they can sell. Because ticket sales, concessions and parking fees won't exist. Obviously the players won't go for this.

Teams are telling players that the organizations will lose $640,000 per game with the current prorated salary option. It's probably not true but I'm sure they would lose something. If the owners were going to get crushed like that, and they believed the season to be a loss, why would they even consider playing? They would shut it down right away. But this is silly season when it comes to negotiating. Everyone starts with their most ridiculous proposal. Rays pitcher Blake Snell made an equally dumb argument.

“Bro, I’m risking my life,” the lefty said. “What do you mean it should not be a thing? It should 100% be a thing. If I’m gonna play, I should be getting the money I signed to be getting paid. I should not be getting half of what I”m getting paid because the season’s cut in half, on top of a 33% cut of the half that’s already there - so I’m really getting, like, 25%."

It's a good thing he doesn't have to work in a hospital and "risk his life" or even stock shelves at Walmart. He is entitled to reject the plan on whatever basis he wants, but why does it become more risky with a pay cut? He seems to think he would make the same salary without a season at all. Athletes do this on occasion. They remind us all of how rich and out of touch they are. But this is the negotiation phase and both sides would like the public to understand their cause.

I usually side with ownership in these labor disputes. Maybe I'm a hopelessly cruel Republican who longs for the days of indentured servitude and 12 hour working days? Or maybe I just really hate when teams overpay for talent. Baseball isn't a classic business like manufacturing with public financials making critical products for the nation. It's private, we don't know exactly how much it makes and needless, the owners probably fudge the numbers anyway. I'm certain that no one is struggling to keep their house. But they do have employees and taxes and all the usual stuff related to running a business. 

Also, teams are eternal and players are temporary. It makes sense to pay them well, for a time. But when players over the age of 33 get big money and long deals it hurts the club. In other words, it hurts the competitiveness of the team long term. It's ultimately the clubs that agree to pay these crazy salaries though. I can't fault the players for getting the best deal. 

Assuming they get the money worked out, here are a couple of possibilities. Every team could have a DH (designated hitter) and an expanded roster. Playoffs could include more teams and they might try out some new rules like ending the game in a tie if no winner exists after 12 innings. Some want to see how a robot umpire might fare.

 This is all proposal stuff but it's fun to imagine. I've always been against the DH rule for the national league. But what the heck, give it a try. I can't believe they haven't gotten rid of these 13, 14, 15 inning games by now to determine a winner. It's bad for everyone to play late into the night and use up all the pitchers. This 12 inning tie thing needs to happen now.

There is always the obligatory social distancing stuff and the clean dugouts, clean bathrooms. That stuff bores me to no end so I won't dwell on it. Just work it out please and lets get baseball back. 

Feeling Conspiratorial

I find myself praying for the country quite a bit lately.

 I’m getting more conspiratorial with every passing day. After what happened with the totally fabricated Russian collusion hoax I think anything is possible.

 Information spills out about the fraud every day. The lies began with the FISA warrants to surveil the Trump campaign in 2016, the election year. Worst of all, the mainstream media pushed Russia collusion nonsense for all 3 years. Actively campaigning to splash Democrat lies across the TV screens. They were a part of the biggest scam in American political history and every day that passes shows just how deep the rot went.

 If the lies about the Vietnam War weakened the trust Americans had in their government the Russia collusion hoax might completely break it. 

 From Obama to the intelligence apparatus and the Mueller report, they were all a part of the corruption. If the Justice Department does it right than they should all go to jail. Americans who go up against the FBI don’t stand a chance. The same standard should apply when the FBI goes up against the American people. That’s what happened by the way. A cabal of elite DC insiders acted to undermine the election of a sitting president. Why? Because he is a bully? Because he doesn’t come from their class, education? Because he isn’t schooled in the right way to act? Because he fires up Twitter and swings back at every slight?

The FISA abuse will peel back the onion on the false Russia narrative into a plan that takes down a lot of intelligence people and former officials. I’m waiting to see who flips first and starts dishing dirt.

Is there more going on in Ukraine as it concerns American politicians? I assume it’s like Cuba was in the fifties before Castro came in and threw out the mafia. Corruption defined the island country like Cohibas and humidity. It’s a pure guess on my part but I think Ukraine is another place where the political class hides money. I read a story just today that showed the former Ambassador to Ukraine (Marie Yovanovitch) who testified she only had scant knowledge about Burisma (company Hunter Biden worked for). The article shows records of her meeting with top officials on the board, whoops. Ukraine isn’t even part of the Russia collusion stuff but might open up yet another window into deep fraud.

How does it happen that Congressman and Congresswomen become so wealthy when they leave office? We know what their salaries are, it’s public record. But they all seem to have charities and nonprofits that the wealthy can ‘donate’ to. This isn’t new. We know what’s going on but it’s technically legal. Where it is corrupt, it’s hardly worth the effort and time to go after. The best thing that could come of this effort to get Trump is exposure, in all of its ugliness. The Justice Department needs to drip, drip, drip the fraud out in weekly segments the way the Russia story unfolded on cable news every night.

Trump has said this should never happen again. I think in order to do it we need to see jail time. I understand the problem with persecuting the previous administration. It threatens making it a permit feature of our elections. The next guy in puts together a team and goes after Trump and his crew on some dumb process crimes just to even the score. But without the rule of law, what are we doing? Is it really better to let this attack on democracy go unpunished? Doing so would just encourage another level of corruption and further until the only ones left in DC, and any government, would be gangsters in suits and ties. These gangsters would run away with the wealth of the country and protect themselves through the courts. Some think we are already there.

The unknown factor in this sordid Russia thing is how much of an appetite the American people have for this. The drip, drip, drip of crimes could put people off so much that they just tune out. I wouldn’t blame them. The full scandal must be shown or we lose a further connection to our democratic republic and the “deep state” becomes a very real thing and not just a punchline.

Back at It

Vasa opened back up Thursday. That’s my gym, Vasa fitness. It might seem silly to be excited about a gym reopening but I enjoy working out, it just feels right. The older I get the more difficult it is to keep weight off. Not that I’m obese or anything but I've added a few pounds recently. 

 I’m an American after all; extra pounds are right next to freedom on the sliding scale of greatness.

I’ve been walking a lot in the afternoons because my heel is still no good for running. 

I won’t complain here anymore because I’ve done that enough, to friends, to co-workers, to anyone who will listen. No more whinging.

The gym’s preparations had me nervous. Were they going to overreact, limit people, limit time on equipment, limit days? The website suggested wearing masks while working out. It didn’t specifically say we “had” to wear one, just that it was “recommended”. Wearing masks in the gym while getting sweaty and breathing hard are a deal breaker for me. I was prepared to re-freeze the billing on the account if they made it mandatory. I’ll keep walking until sanity returns. Thankfully they didn’t and after a quick survey of the room, I noticed just a handful of gym goers sporting them. A few had brought the masks in with them. They must have read the same website info and showed up ready to be hassled about it.

I heard a few kids mentioning how good it was to be back at it. I couldn’t agree more. It feels like some kind of duty or requirement for proper living. When you can’t do it in the same way, suddenly, it’s frustrating. I don’t want to overstate it. We have multiple ways to get exercise at home or with friends, I’ve started carrying a heavy rucksack on my park walks. YouTube has great stretching and full body workouts. I recommend “Madfit” if anyone’s interested. I’ve used it a few times.

Someone I work with told me Vasa insisted its members arranged for time slots before they came in. The website did mention that but I couldn’t log into my account and select a time. That might have been a deal breaker depending on how strictly they adhered to the timelines set up. The website included a waiver of responsibility or liability for Corona if we manage to catch it. I’m sure that’s not exactly right but it sounded straightforward to me so I signed it. I showed up hoping to be let in, with minimum hassle, and that’s what happened.

I went back Friday morning for my usual quick lift and shower. Heading into the locker room I had a shock as the showers and lockers were taped off. I guess this was one of the limits I missed on the website. So I took my bag back to the car and changed at work instead, sweaty and gross with no shower. Sorry co-workers.

Aside from the extra cleaning bottles the workers wear masks and they’ve taped off certain areas of the place for compliance, like the showers. I don’t love that. I hope in a few weeks they can open up the showers again because I’m not going before work until they do. We are all learning to live with the extra hassles but I hope we don’t get too comfortable with them. I don’t want this to happen again for a long time.

Foundations of Humanities

Humanities used to be the study of art, religion, politics, law and a host of other disciplines through the lens of the human experience. There was a critical thinking component wrapped around each discipline like the snakes on a caduceus. Today the humanities are overrun with identity politics and post modernism is wrapped snake like around the institution.

When I was in college I was told to expose myself to all sorts of ideas I didn’t agree with. I didn’t begrudge that notion. I did the work and never had a professor say that I must interpret the reading in a particular way. They clearly had their own biases but I didn’t feel pressure to follow their prescription. As long as my work made sense and hit the necessary grammar rules I argued my point in papers and in class. 

 My professors weren’t vicious or unfair, I didn’t think. Some were Marxist to the core but I never felt I'd fail out of their class for having different opinions. On one occasion I wrote a review of a bell hooks article and criticized her pretty hard. The professor wrote “Whoaaaa!” in the margins but nothing else. I don’t know how much that is the same for everyone but my experience wasn’t too bad.

I wouldn’t recommend liberal arts at a public university now. After reading Jordan Peterson and watching Dave Rubin I’m convinced that universities need a high pressure washing to clean out the buildup of nonsensical studies or a complete system overhaul. Kids exit college with a degree in Inuit peoples studies or trans identity and culture. Humanities departments are stuffed full of silly courses with fill in the blank identity politics.

A few years ago three professors worried about approval of silly woke topics in the academy put together a hoax to prove it out. They created fake research papers to see if the journals would accept the topics. They managed to get 7 of 20 through before the scam (called Sokal Squared) was discovered, some were still in committee. My favorite paper was on rape culture in Portland dog parks. They must have had a good laugh.

This wasn’t some band of Baptist ministers concerned with the moral health of the colleges either. These are all liberal, free thinking, teachers who are concerned with the direction of higher education. Boghossian is a philosophy professor himself. He is also concerned with academic rigor or lack thereof at the university level. The colleges did not take this well. They got egg on their face and instead of tightening up standards of the journals that publish ‘research’ they attacked the messengers.

I’m not in higher education so my knowledge on the best way forward is limited. I think we have to tear it down in a metaphorical sense. The three hoaxers seem to believe it can be saved. My best guess is higher education sits atop a debris pile of bad philosophy. Jordan Peterson calls it post modernism, or the idea that the systems, institutions, and hierarchies are social constructs. Every system you observe from the family to the church and even corporations are arranged by power players. In this world power is the currency and identity is a wedge to separate. Even gender is a construct, reinforced by the patriarchy to keep people in place. 

When you view every human nature and language as artificial you see competing power structures in everything. Everything is political. NBA stars use basketball to promote their woke agendas. Disney remakes include empowered females (see Lion King, Aladdin). Comic books from Marvel include new “government assigned mentors”, Safespace and Snowflake, How fun? This isn’t parody. How does post modernism bubble up through pop culture? By redefining norms found in human nature.

Post modernism explains the trouble with gender confusion and pronoun requirements. 

These aren’t healthy aspects of a vibrant and free people. Human nature doesn’t change because you change the words. Yes there are always oddities to life but they are rare. People who feel they are in the wrong body need help. If post modernism is the culprit than it is a monstrous philosophy that cares nothing for human life and sound reasoning.

Even from a practical point of view, a philosophy built on shifting sand falls apart quickly.  How does a psychiatrist steeped in post modernism direct a patient with gender dysphoria? I’m using gender dysphoria because it’s a real mental condition people seek treatment for and we seem to have an explosion of it today. But we know on some level they are being told “gender is a construct”. This is just one example but you can image the long term damage to hurting people who get poor advice.

The foundations of our ideas should be concrete, same as a home or tall building. The foundations in higher education will eventually fall apart because they aren’t real. Can we stop it before it collapses on us, or can we restart in some way with a saner approach?   

If the humanities are to be saved at the universities they’ll have to get back to first principles starting with the statement “Human nature is unchanging throughout history” and go from there.