Ol' Pops Says, Check it out.

If you gentlemen have been catching HBO's Game of Thrones, you've been treated to the very cool and memorable work of Peter Dinklage. He plays one of the princes of one of the royal families, but they don't like to acknowledge him. His father is ashamed of him because of his achondroplasia - he suffers from dwarfism. He's amazingly good, though; his acting on the premium series earned him every inch of his Best Supporting Emmy.

Anyway, The Station Agent (2003) came on Starz the other morning, and Cin tuned it in because she saw Dinklage in it. (Your Uncle Tom and I discussed him is passing last June. He very wittily observed that he has a Dickensian name, where the person's name indicates or suggests a feature of his character: Mr. Skimpole of Bleak House, Ebenezer Scrooge, etc.) This is a story about this guy, played by Dinklage, who inherits an abandoned train station in rural New Jersey when his only friend dies.

He wants nothing more than to lead his solitary life, but cannot escape entanglement from pushy neighbors, particularly a young and garrulous snack truck operator played by Bobby Cannavale. They meet a woman trying to sort out her life in the wake of personal strife (Patricia Clarkson). No special effects, unless you count Dinklage's awesomeness - what an expressive face! He's just superb. The script and direction, both by Thomas McCarthy, are just what the doctor ordered. It's just an exceptional, quiet picture, with no cloying tie-up at the end, no smarmy moments. The scenes shot outside had to have been done on location, and they are so beautiful, especially at the lakeside home of the Patricia Clarkson character.

 This movie opened to raves, and won potfuls of awards when it premiered at film festivals all over the place. Check it out and see some really, really excellent acting, and a script to savor.

Ugh...How Bad Will 2013 be for the Yanks?

Maybe I'm being too pessimistic. Watching that Bernie homer from '96 got me waxing nostalgic for the opening of a dynastic stretch for our team, dad. It came to an end, in one regard, in the first week of November in the aftermath of 9/11, in 2001, when Mo turned out to be (almost) human, and blew game 7's save opportunity. Soriano was homegrown, but whiffing badly, and the team felt different, but that was Paul O'Neil's last run, and Brosius, and Tino...

Perennially in the playoffs (except for 2008), making it back to the top of the heap in 2009 with a fresh crop of big budget free-agents, the Yankees just seemed to be getting older and producing less talent from the inside. Granted, to trade for the big-game players they were forced to plunder their farm system, but that system did produce Robinson Cano, one of the Yankees two current actual superstars (the other is CC Sabathia). Also, though, catcher Jesus Montero (now with Seattle, traded for pitcher Michael Pineda, who should be good if he's recovered from the injury that kept him out of the entire season last year); pitcher Tyler Clippard (closer for the Nationals...eh, he was given up on by the Yanks a few years back); and outfield sensation A-Jax, Austin Jackson (the jewel that Detroit got in the Curtis Granderson trade, a trade that also netted Arizona former Yankee phenom pitcher Ian Kennedy, a guy who couldn't get it done in the Bronx but came in second to Clayton Kershaw in the Cy Young voting in 2011).

(Sigh) I haven't even got to what I wanted to write about. This off-season has been an odd one for me, one where I've sat here and watched the AL East go from the two North-Atlantic teams and their foil in St. Petersburg to one in which everyone but the Yankees improved.

The Red Sox got out from under the Beckett/Gonzales/Crawford mess last season (thanks Dodgers!), still have to rely on John Lackey (that had the stink of a bad Yankees deal on it from the get-go), but did upgrade to Mike Napoli at catcher. If they get back to what they do well, or at least what they did well when Theo was running the show, they'll compete.

There's bound to be some regression with the historic winning percentage in one-run victories for the Orioles, but Manny Machado is maybe 20, and he's a star, and they've got some young arms that can take them places. Maybe the playoffs again, maybe not, but the point is this is an exciting time for Baltimore.

The Rays keep losing star players to free agency, and keep coming back with stars from their farm system. I like to think of them as the Twins of Florida, or, maybe more accurately, the "New Twins", seeing as how they're run on a shoestring and have a knack for drafting and developing players well. Their ten best starting pitchers could start on any team in the majors, and three or four could start this year in the minors.

The Blue Jays! They finally made some shrewd moves and decided to take advantage of a possible BoSox/Yankee transition period and went all-in. How exciting for the cleanest city in North America. In any other division in baseball, the past few Jays teams could have maybe been playoff teams, but with the Yanks/Sox/Rays hogging everything, and the Orioles last year snaking a playoff spot, there have been few happy times in Toronto's baseball world.

And then there're our boys. The spendthrift Bombers of the Bronx? Money conscious? Now I know that the drunken-sailor style of spending is mostly unsuccessful, if you gauge success by World Series victories (welcome to an ugly truth Angels and Dodgers), but when it does work out (ahem, '09 Yankees), it's due mostly to pitching. But this past off-season we had Jeter getting his 38 year old ankle rebuilt and A-RoidRod going under the knife and out until maybe July, maybe August. His hulking body is slowly breaking down, like Canseco and Sosa before him.

No longer in pinstripes this season: Andruw Jones, maybe old and fat but not a bad OF platoon and good for maybe 10-15 homers in 200 PA, which is decent power; Russel Martin, starting catcher; Raul Ibanez, aging outfielder and DH who showed late-career power (hmm?); Nick Swisher, charismatic RF who added a goofy element to their '09 run to the Ring; Eric Chavez, former A's 3B and last year's backup who got plenty of playing time and who still has some ball left in his tank...

Those aren't five players who were lucky to be getting coffee in the show, they played significant time with the Yankees last year. Swish and Russel were starters, as was Chavez for most of the year, and Ibanez got plenty of starts at DH.

Well, they're gone. A-Rod's out until either late July or early August (maybe earlier is his "conditioning" allows it, right?). Curtis Granderson, the slugging starting CF, was hit in the forearm during his first at-bat in Spirng Training and broke something, and he's out until May. Mark Teixeria typically sucks until the end of May or early June, when he finally finds his stroke, but he just came up lame, and will be out until May just like Grandy.

Derek Jeter's back; Big Mo's back; even Brett Gardner is back. Ichiro's still here. And Cano remains an MVP caliber player.

One issue with a team filled with superstars (and their contracts) is that depth is sacrificed--the backups tend to be of less value than great backups because there's too much invested in the star starter playing.

Of course, like always it's about pitching, and CC is still good, and Hiroki isn't washed up yet, and Phil Hughes is serviceable, and Pineda may be healthy yet. Pettitte's not too old, right? These guys may hold the fort until everyone gets well enough to carry the team.

This may well prove to be my most pessimistic off-season. It just seems like it could be a collapse year. Jeter's old and returning from a broken ankle (like ma); A-Rod's body's breaking down, maybe for good, and he's out until after the All-Star break; Grandy's arm is broken; Teixeria's out lame; Swish and Chavez and Ibanez and Martin and Jones are all gone; and I'm supposed to be excited that Brett Gardner's back?

I like Gardner, sure, but while we lived in NY the battle for him was always, "Sure, his speed is great, but can he hit enough to lead off?" So far he's killing the ball this spring, which is great. Maybe I am excited, but he's a .270 hitter with great speed...and Grandy's a .250 hitter who pops 40+ homers...

(Sigh)(#2)

Excuse me for my rambling misgivings on this upcoming baseball season.

One more thing: I'm a fan of the WBC, the World Baseball Classic, but there are two things I would change. The first is the name. The NAME! Holy cow, what a stupid name. At least call it the Baseball World Cup, or something, jeeze. The second is the timing. If they want it to become a thing players want desperately to participate in, if they want it to organically become a quadrennial showcase event, they have to put it in the middle of the playing season, in the middle of the summer. During BWC seasons players would get maybe two weeks off during the All-Star break, except players who participate. Something like that, anyway...

Baseball Opens its Vault!

Major League Baseball has been holding onto its clips like a hoarder on one of those hoarding television shows (I'm guessing, since I couldn't even tell you which channel they're on). But they've finally opened the vault and let a tsunami of clips burst forth.

So I'm posting two clips that have some meaning for me.

The first is from 1996. I was on the phone with Dave Imai, Game 1 of the ALCS went into extra innings, Baltimore in the Bronx, when Bernie stepped to the plate:



I lost track of the conversation at that point and told Dave I'd call him back as I pumped my fist. This was my favorite baseball moment up until that point. Charlie Hayes catching that last out in Game 6 of the World Series that same year passed it, but, for sheer excitement, this one was it.

The next clip is from ten years later. I was at Marc's apartment in the East Village watching Game 7 of the NLCS between the Mets and Cardinals. The game was tied with a runner on first. Ollie Perez sent a pitch to Scott Rolen, who hit the shit out of it:



When it came off the bat, my brain said, "Just gave up that tie..." And then Endy Chavez ran it down and made the best catch I've ever seen live. Ever. Still. He snow-coned that sumbitch and looked as surprised as everyone in the else in the stadium. The runner on first was halfway to third when he realized Endy had caught it, and was easily doubled off to end the inning.

Sad to say that may have been the last time the Mets and their fans had legitimate World Series hopes and aspirations. They went on to lose that game, then choked the 2007 season away at the very end, and have been middling since.

So...CLIPS! Be careful so that you don't waste too much time at the archive site...

Maybe Inappropriate?

Okay, so Dan, I asked you to send me the Grimms' auf Deutsch book, and I may have left a rambling message that didn't really explain what I needed it for besides saying I'll explain later.

That's the book for those who don't know what's going on. This is a German language copy of the Brothers Grimm's Fairy Tales, a copy of a book I salvaged years ago from high school. I was hoping it had survived various moves and, it turns out, it had.

The reason I was asking after it was because of the Art Exchange's Marathon Project. The Art Exchange is a non-profit organization here in Long Beach that does different shows and projects and is involved in our Second Saturday activities. The Second Saturday happens each month and consists of a street fair with arts and crafts and performances. This Marathon Project was a 9 AM to 9 PM reading of the Grimms' Fairy Tales, similar to an activity the husband of the husband and wife directing team of the Art X used to do while he was the head of the English department at Texas Tech in Lubbock.

I heard about it one day walking by, since the Art X in literally down the street from us. I mentioned that I or my brother had a copy of der Bruder Grimm auf Deutsch, and if we could get our hands on it, would they like someone to read a story in the original German? They thought that would be super cool, and asked me to get back to them if we could find the book.

You can kinda see it posted up on the table below:

The day I got it in the mail, I walked it over to the Art X and they put it on display in the window. I thought it was pretty cool.

The way this "marathon" reading worked was local merchants signed up for blocks of time, read their tales, then had the kids present do some kind of activity. The young lady in the red dress above is an illustrator and taught the kids how to make a tiny book out of an 8.5" x 11" sheet of paper. It's actually pretty cool.

Below is a local librarian after reading a pair of frog prince stories:

Outside I was almost surprised to see my own name and icon for Robot Crickets, since I hadn't yet given them the digital image:

So, then it was my turn. I picked probably the shortest piece I could find so as to, as I put it, "not assault their ears with German for too long."

I had translated it with the help of Google translate and my own memories, and it turned out to be one of the craziest tiny stories, and it highlights how sensibilities change, but stay the same, across centuries and oceans. I was going to transcribe the whole thing here in German, and then put the loose translation along with it. Instead, here it is in English:

*

The Stubborn Child

There was once a stubborn child who didn't do what his mother wanted. This angered God, who let him get sick, so sick a doctor couldn't help, and soon they laid him down onto his deathbed. It was so that he was sunk into a grave and dirt thrown over it, but then his arms started to reach out of the dirt, so they threw more dirt on top, but it didn't help, and his arms kept trying to climb out. Then his mother had to come herself to the grave and beat his arms back with a metal rod, but he grabbed the rod and took her down into the grave with him, and finally he was able to find rest underground.

*

Mostly Grimms' Tales, in the original German or not smoothed over, are not really appropriate for little kids. Well, I guess that depends on how you feel about violence in today's America. Grimms' Tales though have violence and death and maiming but also lessons, ultimately, like "The Stubborn Child" here. It has what we consider zombie imagery mixed with the lesson of "do what your mom says or God will punish you" mixed with maybe how some parents of unruly kids may feel (being dragged into the grave). 

I didn't give my audience the translation beyond 'a stubborn kid doesn't do what his mother wants and get's punished', because I felt it may not be appropriate. I guess if any of the kids in the audience watch any television, they've probably been exposed to far more violent images that are in the story, but that realization came to me later.

That's the difference, I suppose, between scaring kids straight and desensitizing them. 

Latest lame-o movie post

Last night Cindy and I sat down to Arthur Christmas, watching it in February, fourteen months after its holiday release in 2011. I recall reviewers greeting it rather favorably at the time, and that's why I snagged it for the Netflix DVD queue. It even has a 7.1 rating on IMDB, which could perhaps be traced to enthusiastic families who have gathered for Christmas and soaked up a bunch of candy, liquor, or both. It isn't that good.

Here's what it does well: it shows the Christmas gift-delivery operation as a modern, hi-tech logistics wonder. Santa Claus relies very heavily on his son, a Bluetooth-connected executive named Steve, to make it all happen. Steve commands an army of tens of millions of elves at the North Pole in a massive underground ice palace, each gazing intently at their computer monitor: the Apollo 13 control room, times ten thousand, meets Polar Express. A major part of the magic is the S-1, a dazzling starship crewed by an elite group of elves, that disguises itself as the night sky. The  techie touches of this sequence are pretty cool. However ...

the reigning Santa Claus, Steve's Dad, and his other son, Arthur, are portrayed as ineffective boobs. Santa is lazy and out of touch, and relies on Steve to literally deliver the goods. And Arthur, while not lazy, is a clumsy, wild-eyed naïf. The movie makes an attempt to sustain some suspense about getting a bike to a little girl in Cornwall, missed originally because of an oversight. Every last person in the audience knows how the thing will turn out, and all the tricks, dead ends, bad navigation, and flea-bitten, has-been reindeer in the world can't change that. There are some cool effects here, but this thing is destined for the scrap heap. I wouldn't give it more than five stars on a 10-star scale. 

Older Brother Characterizations

Corrie and I recently watched two different movies from streaming Netflix that, strangely, had the main character's name as the first word of each film's titles, and each of those characters were the younger siblings of a pair of boys. It seems like in America's contemporary story-telling landscape (for hacks), the "older brother" is at first a villainous bully.

In the first movie I'm talking about, Jeff, Who Lives at Home, Jason Segel plays Jeff, a 30-year-old stoner living in his mom's basement. She's played by Susan Sarandon, while Jeff's older brother is played by Ed Helms, an asshole who repulses his wife, demeans his brother, and bickers with his mom. Guess what his name is...

It's Pat.

The movie follows Jeff and his bong-addled brain interpreting "clues" that lead him to some kind of action. Part of the day's activities consist of Jeff helping Pat interrupt his wife's act of infidelity, and we're led to believe that the journey was about Jeff helping Pat. Of course its bigger than that. Susan Sarandon has her own B-story, and the ending is an odd coincidence in a mostly enjoyable if unbalanced effort from the brotherly writer/director team of Jay and Mark Duplass.

The second movie is Lars and the Real Girl. Ryan Gosling plays Lars, the younger brother to Paul Schneider's Gus. Their mother died during Lars' childbirth, and their father died many years later, having lived a quiet life of disappointment. Gus and his pregnant wife Karin have moved back into the boys' childhood home, causing Lars to voluntarily move out to the garage.

The premise of the movie is that Lars, socially awkward and with a distaste for human contact, orders a highly realistic and anatomically correct doll, and introduces "Bianca" to people as his girlfriend. At first Gus, the older brother, is reluctant to play along, and gets a little hysterical in the privacy of his and Karin's bedroom. But Gus gets introspective and ends up supportive before it ends.

Eventually the whole rural upstate Wisconsin town, out of their feelings for Lars, go along with him and his delusion, and everyone finds themselves affected by their various relationships with Bianca. Never once is the story played for lurid jokes, making it a very gentle study of sadness and responsibility.

Gus is much more nuanced that Pat, but both start out gruff wankers. Pat is an ass, but Gus is only frustrated. Pat's transformation seems a little more forced and unlikely, but that's because he's more of a caricature.

That's the easy characterization I'm talking about: making a character likable by making them an underdog is a natural thing, and making someone an underdog naturally by giving them an older sibling to berate them is a lazy way to staff a movie. That's an opinion, of course.

Jeff and Lars are the star characters of those respective movies, as are Jason Segel and Ryan Gosling. The more touching story all around involves less caricature in general, but that's not specific to the older-brother dynamic.

I thought that it was interesting to have the range in the characterizations of those two older brothers, Pat and Gus, while having them starting out very similar, as the stereotype older brother. That stereotype: asshole.

As the older brother of only two boys, am I keenly aware of what stereotype into which I'm to fall?

Rising Indeed

I always thought Batman was cooler than Superman inasmuch as Bruce Wayne is an Earthling and comes by his powers through intelligence and hard work. Well, that, and loads and loads of money, too. But, he manages to strike fear into the miscreants and malcontents of Gotham City by dint of his high intellect and his dedication.

And The Dark Knight Rises manages to add quite a bit to the mythos of Batman. It reinforces his virtues while managing to kick his ass through a very solid portion of the movie. And lo and behold, there's a plot twist at the end - I don't mean the autopilot scam, I mean the one where we find out that Bane's not the one who "flew" out of that prison in the desert. They handled the origins of Catwoman and Robin superbly, too. And at this point I'm remembering the original Christopher Reeve Superman, where the "Red 'S'" conundrum was handled - maybe a little heavy-handedly, but handled nonetheless. Since the first in the spate of comicbook hero movies, they have spent a lot of thought and resources on the "origin" part of each character's story. Dark Knight raises this to an art form, with its pacing and its seemingly effortless weaving-in of heroic satellite characters. These are nuanced characters, too, as far from cardboard cutouts as you can get.

As with all impressive works, it's hard to tell how they're going to make a better one next time out. I tried to imagine what they would do after the first Pirates of the Caribbean, and it looks like they had as hard a time imagining a successful sequel as I did.  Obviously they have established the foundation where Batman comes back to surprise the next world-class jerk who threatens Gotham, and I look forward to that.

Christian Bale looks like he might be able to avoid the stigma that attached itself to Michael Keaton and Val Kilmer. And Joseph Gordon-Levitt! He's a revelation in this. I may have seen him is something since Third Rock from the Sun, but I don't remember it. What a great choice. And it looks as though Bruce picked him out for a partner. Like I said, the thing is set up very deftly.

Not long ago I saw The Avengers, and I liked it quite a bit. While Knight is a deeper movie, with its gravity coming from the main character's psyche, Avengers is not totally lacking in depth itself. I especially liked their treatment of Bruce Banner and Tony Stark. The revelation that Dr. Banner can turn into the "other guy" whenever he wants was pretty cool. After the Black Widow says, "Hadn't you better get pissed off?" as they're about to face a powerful enemy, he turns to her and says, "Hey, that's my secret. I'm always pissed off!"

I liked The Avengers for the complete mayhem perpetrated by its heroes. It's totally fuckin' loaded with ass-kicking, which is frankly what superhero movies should be about. I'm not faulting Dark Knight with that statement. Both movies are outstanding. Thanks, Dan, for suggesting I push that to the top of my queue.